(Told by Steve Navisky)
I was part of the Ananda choir tour to Italy in May of 2000. Night after night we performed the Oratorio Swamiji had written about the life of Christ to full houses of enthusiastic music fans. In each city, the audiences gave us standing ovations, then crowded around to talk to the choir members.
The problem was, we were mostly Americans who only spoke English, and they were Italians who mostly spoke their own language.
“I so want to share with them,” I said to Swamiji after a few nights of this. “What can I say?”
We were in a restaurant, and very carefully Swamiji guided me as I wrote out on a napkin: “È tutto per Dio.” Then he taught me how to pronounce the words, which mean, “All is for God.” He then suggested I teach it to the other American choir members who might be having the same problem.
After that, I still didn’t have a lot of words, but my one little phrase came straight from the heart and communicated everything I wanted to say.