Our Life Has To Become an Unceasing Prayer to God

What is the difference in texture between Maya and Atma?

The seekers answer right away. Pushy. Rocky. Exciting. Urgent.

You see, it is not always just oppressive. It does not always come in the garb of oppressiveness. Many times it comes in the garb of enjoyment, excitement. And then we leave that holy presence, the holy one in our heart.

And it poses as if it is just for now, just for today because today is special. Every day is special. So every day it provides us something which helps us look away from God, something to distract us away from reality. Sometimes it can pull at your attention like this. And sometimes it can tempt your attention with excitement, with a promise of happiness.

And if you are not able to notice the texture of it, then we will find it difficult to snap out of it. So what are the antidotes? Because Maya is difficult to spot. The antidote is to remain in God’s presence, in the Atma’s presence.

And if you find yourself with a rationalization for why that is not possible or that is not happening, if you find yourself agreeing with some rationalization about why that should not happen now or why it is all right that it should not happen now, then you know that you are in the hold of Maya.

Because God’s presence can never make anything worse. It can never make anything go bad. God’s presence is that which brings the love, the light, the joy. All that is true comes only from there.

So if we cannot remain in God’s presence, then we must remain in God’s name, which is the same as the self-inquiry. The dissolution of the “me” takes us to the reality. Whichever way we are not buying into the false notion of “me,” that is prayer.

So to remain in prayer which brings us to God’s presence is what we must do as an antidote to the constant time thievery of Maya. The thieving nature of Maya is to steal time from us.

Maya’s replacement for true joy is pleasure. Excitement. Restlessness. It has a rajasic nature, the opposite of stillness. It is important to talk about these things especially on days when Maya is strong and everything seems to conspire to take us away from the real project at hand.

Why does Maya want to steal a moment from you? It wants to test if you are really up for God. But it could be that moment that makes all the difference. Do we really know? We do not really know.

So it could be that one moment that makes all the difference. That one moment could change the trajectory of our life. That one moment of going to Maya could take us in a different direction. And that moment of staying in God’s presence could change the very dimension of our life.

The other thing we must remember is that the perfect is the enemy of the good. You may say, “Oh I do not have time to pray today because I have only five minutes and then I have to go.” But that five minutes of prayer is very helpful. Use whatever time is available. Even if you have two seconds to say Ram. You said Ram once. You added a brick to the temple in your heart. You made the foundation of your heart stronger in that one moment.

So how should we live? We should live: life jacket on, then engage in Maya. Not engage in Maya, then remember about the life jacket and then go looking for it. You will never find it. So the life jacket being His remembrance, His name, His presence. Let us keep that on.

And this is not spoken from a pedestal. This is my current practice: that the most intense of activity, the most intense decision-making, the most intense things that call out to our attention, can we remain in God’s presence through it? Can I remain in God’s remembrance through it all?

And what it needs is just to slow down.

Our life has to become an unceasing prayer to God. Why does it not become that? Because it could be any nonsensical thing: “Oh no, this interpersonal situation is important,” and we snap out of our true relationship. We forget about our true relationship.

The definition of the Upanishads, the word Upanishad, is “to sit close and hear.” And what does that remind you of? At least it reminds me of the Mary and Martha story. So it is very important, when things seem urgent, full-on critical, that we remain as Mary, sitting close to God’s presence.

If you say “Shamik,” then Shamik is not just a word anymore. That reminder of the name brings to you all that which it holds, every connotation, every texture. So if you hear Guru, or you hear God, or you hear Ram, or you hear Allah, or you hear Krishna, those words are not just words anymore. But the more we deepen our relationship with God, the more charged they become with His life.

That is such a beautiful, simple way to be with God. It is just to take His name. Costs nothing. You can take it with your mouth, tongue, in your mind, in your heart, and then ultimately wordlessly.

We used to use these absurd examples in satsang. It is like we are trying to enter the doorway of heaven carrying this backpack with the “me” in it, but there is a “me detector” right there. It does not allow you to pass through.

So unless you breathe the “me” out, it cannot happen. If you keep inhaling the “me,” then you will not find yourself in God’s presence. You just breathe it out.

What makes it seem difficult? What makes it seem difficult is when we try to become humble as somebody. What is needed is the humility in this moment. What is needed is moment-to-moment emptying, but we want to insert the humility into our narrative. And because that narrative itself is pride, it seems like an impossible task.

Now. Be empty now. Do not be anybody right now. Just now. Do not become somebody who is now humble, because that one is not.

This one moment. Can you give your heart to God? This one moment. Can you give your heart to God? This one moment. Can you give your heart to God? If it does not come from your heart, then all of satsang will just remain mental.

You cannot carry any pride into the moment of revelation. That moment of Atma darshan must be invited in a sheer humility, in a sheer nobody-ness. But the mind can use the moment of revelation to make us proud. So we have to be vigilant towards that.

If you do not take the moment of revelation to be a finality, if instead you take it to be a doorway to lead a life in, then you will find that if you find yourself getting proud, that moment is lost. If you remain in that humility, it continues. It is your new home. It is not something that you visit and then show everybody the photo.

The great Indian sage Surdas said, “Lord, please do not take my bad virtues or absence of virtue into account.” How is such a pure sage saying this? It is not showing off. It is just that the deeper you go in prayer, you will find yourself in such a contrast. As St. Teresa of Ávila said, the more you dive into His magnificence, the more we see how far removed this little object in Maya still takes itself to be.

Another great sage, Baba Farid ji, said, “I wasted all my life and now all my hair has turned white. I do not have enough time to make amends. But you please have mercy on me.” How are great sages like this saying, “I wasted my life”? And how is it that when we are so stuck in the world, we do not say this? This is the strangeness of the hypnosis.

Spending time in the light of the Spirit then shows us more and more what we need to be free from and how much space we need to create for God’s love. How much garbage is still festering within ourselves.