More than 37 million people pour into Las Vegas every year to test their luck at casinos or lose themselves in the razzle-dazzle of elaborately staged floor shows. Maharaji reminded the 750 people who gathered there to hear him one blazing hot Saturday at the end of summer that the most amazing luck is to be alive.

Las Vegas was one of several stops on a cross-country tour organized for Maharaji by groups of volunteers eager to invite him to the areas where they live. In this case, Las Vegans coordinated with people from three other cities—Albuquerque, Denver and Phoenix—in hopes of bringing Maharaji to the Southwest, said Kristin Carlander, who serves as the local contact for people in the Las Vegas community interested in Maharaji's message. When this regional group heard that Maharaji was particularly interested in visiting places he hadn’t been to before, Las Vegas and Albuquerque moved to center stage.

"We are a small community," Carlander said, "but working together with other communities on planning strengthened us and gave us the reassurance that we could do this."

Las Vegas is a typical resort town in that many of its jobs tend to be short-term. As a result, its residential base is transient. But consistently, since Maharaji first came to the U.S. over 35 years ago, it's been a place where his message has been available.

Muriel Adler, a former pianist who, at 78, still teaches piano, recalled that she first learned of Maharaji in 1972 from friends who had heard his message of peace while traveling in Europe. Maharaji was then in Denver; Adler went there to meet him, and soon began opening her Las Vegas home to anyone who wanted to hear his message.

"People came from all over the Southwest," she said.

Nearly 40 years later, many of the people who once spent a lot of time and energy making Maharaji's message available in Las Vegas are no longer able to participate as actively as they used to. However, Carlander said that about six or seven local volunteers were available to help with putting this event together.

As Maharaji explained during the event, coordinating a series of back-to-back programs several hundred miles apart on short notice is logistically demanding.

"The most challenging thing for the Las Vegas team was learning how to respond quickly to a last-minute change in scheduling," said Steve McPeters, a volunteer on the national event management team. "The team here responded beautifully to the challenge and showed a lot of flexibility. From my perspective, this program was very, very smooth."

Due to a scheduling change, Carlander said, the local team found themselves going into the long Labor Day weekend without a contract for a venue for the event, which was to be held a week later. They started calling around town, and eventually someone found a catering manager for a large hotel who was working on the weekend setting up a wedding. She confirmed that the desired date was open, and local team members dashed over to the hotel to seal the deal.

The level of enthusiasm was high. "This is a tough town to take time off work on short notice," Carlander said, "so there are people here who haven't been able to travel to other places for events. We also have some older people who aren't physically able to travel anymore. So there has long been a strong desire to host an event for Maharaji in our community, but the reality of knowing we could accomplish it is so empowering."

People like Sheila Saint, who stepped up as Front-of-House Manager, bravely took on roles where they had a lot of responsibility. "The term Front-of-House, which comes from the theater, covers anything to do with individual attendees," Saint explained. That meant everything from filling management positions for such areas as seating and ushering with volunteers from around the region to making sure everything ran smoothly on event day.

"I was very impressed with the way people who had never done anything like this before stepped into management roles," she said. A special education teacher just starting a new school year, Saint said she wondered at first whether she was equal to the task.

"As it turned out, it was the most awesome experience ever for me, like pulling together a really big party," she said. "What an incredible team these people became! Every single person showed such consideration and respect. It was almost like I wasn’t in Las Vegas, but in a completely different world."

To keep expenses down, McPeters said, the event team opted for a same-day set-up plan. By 9 am, the ballroom where the event would be held was humming. Volunteers laid cable, adjusted the lighting, performed sound checks; cameramen scoped out various camera angles, and the seating team counted and recounted chairs. "One of the challenges we faced," McPeters said, "was that the venue staff had not set up the chairs according to the floor plan we were using, throwing the seating team into a quick-response mode."

Helping out in Las Vegas was also a valuable experience for volunteers from other Southwestern communities. "It helped lay a foundation for those of us in Arizona to be ready for an event here next time the opportunity comes about," said Phoenix community volunteer Deborah Slater. "Several of us participated in this event, and I'm hoping that as a result, we can do some preliminary work so that we can invite him to this area more often.

By 5 pm, everything was ready, and a hush fell over the crowded hall. After talking for about an hour, Maharaji opened the floor to questions and comments. In response to an invitation to visit Chile, he took the time to share his perspective on event planning and his vision of what regional programs could accomplish with such innovations as worldwide, real-time broadcasts.

"He has an incredible vision for where he wants to go in the world and how he wants his message to be spread," Slater said. "The feeling I came away with is that I want to help him. He is just one person, and he has so much he wants to do. To be attentive and open to being helpful in that process is so exciting."

For Adler, the event was a dream come true. Now unable to get around without a wheelchair, she is unable to travel to see him.

"I was thrilled to learn that he was coming to Las Vegas," she said. "For 37 years I have hoped that he would come here. I could never have anything so precious as what he gave me—the chance to be able to see him again."

Carlander said Las Vegas is already thinking about inviting Maharaji back for a public event. "There are two million people who live in this area," she said, "and I feel there is a great need."

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