So what do I mean by "Passionate Admiration?"

It's not exactly an oxymoron. But the two words don't seem to be a natural pair either. How can passionate describe admiration? Doesn't passionate usually describes a different set of feelings?

How deep can admiration go? How intense can the feeling be?

When I see Maharaji, I feel an admiration that is deeper than I ever thought it could be, and so intense that it stretches and expands my very ability to feel.

It's like walking from the shallow end of a swimming pool toward the deep end. Little by little, deeper and deeper, and then, suddenly, the bottom drops away, and it's only the water that is supporting you, not your legs. Surprisingly deep. Deeper than you. Admiration you can let go to. Not the carefully reasoned and measured kind. Unqualified. We have built up a lot of defenses against feeling something like that. But then, what a relief to find something worthy of such a feeling.

Maharaji has his own way of summarizing the story of the Bhagavad Gita. What he emphasizes is a moment of recognition in which Arjuna sees Krishna as he has never seen him before. He paraphrases the nearly dumbstruck Arjuna's expression to Krishna: "I - had - no - idea."

I love it when he says that, because that's how I feel every time I see Maharaji. I literally had no idea.

My plan for this blog is to write a series of postings that each express one of the qualities I have seen in Maharaji that I find passionately admirable. I don't expect to run out of ideas.