It’s a typical Irish summer’s afternoon: clouds scudding across a blue sky and mild sunshine, interrupted by brief showers, which send the trickle of guests heading for the Royal Dublin Society Library scurrying for cover.

By 6:30 pm, with the evening’s talk due to start in an hour, knots of people are idly clustering outside the 300-year-old Society’s stone-clad façade. There’s a little traffic in and out of the revolving doors, but no great sense of rush. This is Ireland after all, where, as the locals say, “There’s no word that adequately conveys the urgency of mañana”.

Time ticks past, a couple of warning bells ring, people manning the registration tables get ready to go in. Eventually, the forecourt empties, and everybody ambles into the book-lined hall. The atmosphere is warm and intimate; old friends greet each other. As latecomers squeeze into seats in front of the low podium, the excited buzz of chatter lowers to a hum and then hushes.

Lights go up, illuminating the Irish-green Words of Peace backdrop; and Jackie Gilbourne, the MC, comes out to invite everyone “to join me in giving Maharaji a big, warm Dublin welcome”. Wild applause ricochets through the hall. A short video and then, to more applause, Maharaji enters wearing a grey suit and Irish green tie, which compliments the backdrop.

He looks well and relaxed, despite rising early to go through the airplane checks, reinstall the software and fly himself to Dublin, and he speaks informally. Beginning with the most basic premise, he asks the audience to imagine a caveman looking at the stars and asking the fundamental question: Who am I?

“There are only two kinds of people in the world”, he says. “Those who have asked the question, and those who haven’t asked the question yet. There are more books today than ever, more interpretations of religion than ever, more religions than ever, more answers to more questions than ever and, of course, we have more questions than ever. And we still want to know: Who am I?”

Then, continuing a theme begun in earlier talks in Europe, he takes his audience beyond the earth’s atmosphere and invites them to marvel at the beauty of the planet on which we live and appreciate our good fortune. Observing that, so far, space exploration has found no other apparent life, he asks: “You know what that means? We’d better learn to get along with each other”.

Finally, returning to the individual and from there to humanity as a whole, he points out that change “does not begin on a platform. It does not begin on a podium—that is another myth. It begins with every individual. Don’t live in a dream. Wake up”, he continues. “Next time you look in a mirror, understand that lighting up the world begins with this candle. You. Each one of you is a candle. One lit candle can light another candle, and that candle can light another candle, and another and another. That is how you bring light”.

It’s a huge theme, and it goes down well with the audience, who give him such a long standing ovation that he returns again to wave goodbye.

Some 750 people have come from all over Ireland and Europe, despite the last-minute event announcement, and almost half are guests: about 100 have been drawn either by the Words of Peace channel on Sky television or by a series of ads on national and Dublin radio.

“A lot of guests came considering the short notice”, says one of the organisers. “It’s so relaxed—really Irish”.

“I’ve been coming to see him since 1973”, says a businessman from outside Dublin. “I love seeing him; he makes me relaxed”. Has he thought of following it up? He blushes: “I don’t know. I just like him”.

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