A seeker from Goa (India) once said that he did not feel love for His Holiness (H.H.) Dr. Jayant Athavale. At the psychological level, one will develop closeness and love for H.H. Dr. Athavale if one meets Him regularly. At a practical level, this is not possible for everyone. However, at a spiritual level, when a seeker has ‘spiritual emotion’, he can still feel love for H.H. Dr. Athavale in spite of not meeting Him. For example, our child-seeker, Miss Karuna Pande, aged 13 years from Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh (India) once said that her home is like H.H. Dr. Athavale’s feet and she is living in it (at His feet). Thus far, she has not yet met H.H. Dr. Athavale.

   While doing ‘satseva’ for publishing of the ‘Gudhi padva’ special issue, seekers at Miraj Ashram (India) faced a lot of distressing energy problems. A news item was prepared on this, but it was sent to Goa for three weeks by a certain seeker. Due to this serious mistake, the news could not be published. When this news was sent to H.H. Dr. Athavale for checking, He made the following note:

    "It took three weeks for sending the information about the distressing energy trouble faced by seekers, to Goa. Hence, I will not be reading them, nor will they be published. The news items regarding Dainik (daily) are expected to reach by the day immediately following the incident."

– H.H. Dr. Athavale

    The quality of doing timely satseva has to be present in the seekers doing satseva, especially that which is related to collective spiritual practice.

   During the two assigned time slots of chanting, between (per Indian Standard Time) 7.30 - 8.00 a.m. and 4.00 - 5.00 p.m., keep your feet in salt water for 15 minutes. If water fills half a bucket, mix two teaspoons of salt in it. To avoid wasting time, keep the bucket with salt-water and a towel to dry your feet ready, before you sit for chanting. Do not get up after 15 minutes chanting is over, if the bucket is not required for any other purpose. Throw away the salt water after completing the chanting session. As rock salt has the ability to attract distressing energies, keeping feet in salt-water while chanting gives more benefit.

    While going for any religious ceremony, seekers should pray and chant as much as they can, rather than giving importance to things like their clothes, ornaments, etc. This will help to increase the ‘sattvikta’ in them, even before attending such a ceremony, and thus the seekers can get more benefit from the ceremony.

    Seekers should also pray and chant for successful completion of that ceremony, for example pray for completion of a wedding ceremony without any obstacles.

   Seekers should clean temples, ashrams and mutths in their area. This will result in increase of the sattvikta (purity) of these places, and devotees visiting these places will therefore get more benefit.

   An article titled ‘Sanatan’s Family of Seekers’ is published in the WSP. Information is needed from our seekers for publishing in this article. While sending such information, give details like name of each seeker from that family, when he started doing ‘satseva’ and nature of ‘satseva’, etc. Seekers may send the information to Shri Mukul Gadgil, at e-mail: dspgoa@sancharnet.in.

*If one is not currently doing any spiritual practice, or to complement one's current spiritual practice, one can begin with the simple, but powerful spiritual practice of chanting or constantly remembering God's Name according to one's religion. Chanting also acts as a useful complement to any spiritual path one may be already following. It is a practice recommended for the current times by Holy texts and Saints of all religions.

• Seekers in the initial stages of spiritual practice (less than one year) can repeat The Name of the Lord as per their religion (refer to Issue 3 Clarification of Doubts section for details).

• Seekers who have been doing regular spiritual practice for over a year or so can determine the appropriate chant for them from the experiment given in Issue 124, Message to Seekers section.