All Unconditional Love Is Love for God - 5th November 2023

So are you referring to sensations or perceptions as 'person'?

Ah, yes sir.

Ah, okay. No, no, it's not that. In pure perception, as you empty, the world can be perceived, and perceived very beautifully. In fact, when we are empty conceptually, that is the only way in which we truly experience the world. Otherwise, we are just caught up half in our head and half in perception, so we miss the beauty even of this world, you see. So you don't have to worry. And as part of the perception of this world, you perceive the sensations of this meat basket, which is fine. It doesn't get in the way. There is no person involved in that process of perception.

So the idea is not to be empty of sensation or perception. The phenomena will still... as the waking state is there, you will always experience some phenomena, except that when you're in Nirguna Samadhi or Nirvikalpa Samadhi. So besides that, it will seem like the world is there, but the world does not give rise to 'me'. This belief or identity with the thought, it gives rise to 'me'. And the magic of this is that when you identify, when you believe a thought, then presence seems to vanish. You see, in that way it's mutually exclusive. You cannot be identified as 'me, me, me' and have God's light, you see. That's why the sages said, no, the lane is too narrow. When there is God, there is no me, and when there is me, there is no God.

Now, what we didn't realize is they meant it very literally. They meant it very literally. That when we are caught up in 'God is this concept' and when we talk about 'God is a concept, I found God, when I met God, this is what happened when I...' you see, but actually they're not talking from a live experience of His presence. They're just talking about some memory, some idea of experience, you see. So the minute you grasp 'me', then it seems like you lost the presence. Does the presence go away? No, you see. Now, in Avidya, it doesn't go away; the 'me' part is added to it. So the ignorance is added on top of the truth, the Self. And that's why Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi said the Self will never be an attainment or something new that you will get; it'll just be a removal of the false. It'll be a removal of ignorance. When Avidya goes away, then Vidya is apparent, Jnana is apparent, you see.

So how to come to God's presence is to be empty of the 'me'. And how to be empty of the 'me' is to, moment to moment, don't identify with the content of your thoughts. So that is emptying the lane for God, and after that there's nothing else we can do. So all our spiritual sadhana, all our spiritual practice, can bring us to this point of being empty. The rest has to happen by God's grace alone. So if you look at whether it's Nam japa or whether it's pranayama or it's any devotional singing, any practice, it is meant to just make us empty. Where? Empty here, conceptually empty. We are not buying into any idea. And as we are conceptually empty, then that is the end of suffering as well. That's why everyone has related the finding of God with the end of suffering as well, you see.

But to end suffering, we just have to be empty in the top story. How does that work? How to empty thought by thought, moment by moment? You cannot do it... you cannot say 'I will do it forever now', you see. You can do it now. A single thought can only come... can the mind produce three thoughts at a time? Two thoughts? Huh? In three seconds? Yes, try. Try to produce three thoughts in three seconds. It scares us like this. It's not as intimidating a nemesis as we believe it to be. It's actually very limited. It's just a simple voice, you see. It only speaks one word at a time, one thought at a time.

So to be with God is much simpler because God's presence is palpable. It does not come and go. But our thoughts are very limited and very limiting. There is space between thoughts. Sometimes the mind doesn't know how to react to things. It's a very limited tool. What can we do with the thought? There are two things we can do with a thought. What can we do with a thought?

Entertain it.

Entertain it. In what way? We entertain it... not 'please come'. You're right, we can entertain a thought or we cannot entertain it. But there are two ways to entertain or not entertain a thought, you see. So if you look at the realm of spiritual sadhana, it is to try and control the first way, which is to try and prevent attention from going to thought. So you try to prevent attention from going by chanting 'Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram'. So if we are chanting and that Ram mantra is there with us, then our attention doesn't go to anything else. It doesn't go to anything else. You've seen how fickle it is? Like even now, it doesn't want you to hear what I'm saying, so it'll just distract you, like what's happening in the room, you see. Attention is a very fickle monkey; it wants to jump around.

So a lot of the sadhanas are focused on trying to make our attention stable. But that's a very, very difficult path. And even after 30 years of meditating in a cave, there's no guarantee that you'll get mastery over your attention, you see. Now, that is why the Zen master said something very beautiful: 'These thoughts are visitors. Let them come and let them go. Don't serve them tea.' You see, which is like what you're saying. So to perceive their coming and going, attention must have gone on them, isn't it? So you perceive that it came and it went. So what is this tea part? What is the tea part? So the thought comes and says that you're in the forest and you have to hunt your food. What do you do with that thought? It's still perceived, isn't it? Attention can go on it, but what do you do with it?

Let it be.

Let it be. So what don't you give to it? What is the tea that you've deprived it of?

Time.

Time. And don't feed it further. Don't feed it. What? Feed with more, like 'what next?' So we look at it more. Suppose that all you wanted with all your heart was freedom, you see. And the thought came to you and it said, 'You cannot win an Olympic gold medal in hockey.' No value, you see. But if the thought came and said, 'Because you are like this, you will never be free,' that gets us. So what is that? What is the distinction? Because there is the energy construct called thought is there, attention has also gone on it, you see. And that he or she who spent their whole life trying to get an Olympic gold medal in hockey, when that thought crosses their mind, then that will affect them very badly, you see.

So if it was in the content of the thought itself, then it would affect everyone the same way, you see. If it's a germ, it's a bacteria, it affects a body, you see. Some bodies may have more immunity, some less—let's forget that. Let's say that it has the same impact on everybody. But this thought is different because our identity has been built around a spiritual color now, a spiritual shape now. So when a spiritual thought comes and says, 'You will never be free,' that can attack that identity. But if the thought comes and says, 'You will never win Olympic gold,' whatever, then it doesn't attack. So the identity is made up of our belief in the thought. So there's first is attention, the second is belief. If you don't believe, you see, you don't identify. The only way to not identify is to not believe, you see. So let it come, let it go. You remain untouched. With me so far? If these fundamental building blocks are clear, then our spiritual life can really flow, you see.

So we are talking about the inside part of spirituality, the Jnana Yoga part of spirituality so far. So now what happens? Can we take a big leap? When you're empty of belief in a thought, you see, are you aware of just the perceptions of the world, or is there something else also that you are aware of? And to call it a 'thing' would be to push it too far. Let's try now. Don't identify with the thought. Is there only the world? Is there only the world? It's very subtle. Is the witness of the world not apparent to us? And is the witness contained in the world? Apparent just that simply. It's apparent, but it doesn't have a color, shape, or size. Because if you say, 'Who is witnessing the world?' you can admit that it is I. I am witnessing the world, see. You can't deny it. You are aware of this perception in front of you. It's undeniable. But what does that 'I' look like? Can that 'I' be perceived? The one that is witnessing the hand, the perception of the hand—can that be perceived? Let's try and see for ourselves. If it could be perceived, then it would have some color or shape or size. Is it? What is the color, shape, or size of that? Come, come, you a small bun. So let's make it interactive.

So what is the color, shape, or size of that which witnesses all of this?

Doesn't have.

No, doesn't have. Are you just guessing?

Not guessing.

But you're not perceiving it also, because it doesn't have a color, shape, or size to perceive. If it's confusing, I'll repeat this a hundred times. It's very important, you see. So you're clear that this 'I' is witnessing the world? Yes, you are witnessing the world. Now I say, what does this 'I' look like? See, I can't find any shape, color, size. And yet it is clear to you that it is there, that you are there. This is what Brahmayan is. It's got a very fancy title, but basically this is what it is: to come to the recognition of the unperceivable, isn't it? To come to the recognition of the unperceivable Self is Brahman, the Jnana of Brahman itself. The pure witnessing, the pure awareness, Nirguna Brahman. Does it have any gunas? Now we may say it like... we refer to it as 'it' or 'that'. I am That, you see. But who is it? Who is it really? Huh? It is you. It is I.

So this 'I' that you are doesn't have any qualities, shape, size, color, birth, death, past, future. Doesn't have any of this. Anyone confused about this? Anyone doing something else? Only you can come back here. Because sometimes you can say, 'This is so nice, just being in his presence. I'm meditating so beautifully,' you see. But sometimes even our meditation may get in the way, you see. You just have to follow. So anyone confused about what I'm saying? When you are empty of belief, when you're not identifying with your thought, this knowledge—Brahman, self-knowledge, Atma Darshan—is apparent to you very, very simply. It needs the innocence of a child, not grasping in the mind. The trouble that we do create for ourselves is we quickly try to make sense of this. So we go back to the mind and say, 'You see, what was it? Is this the final thing? Does this mean I'm free? I should stay like this.' So we try to build a box around this very simple insight, and that box messes it up again, see.

So you have to remain here. Build your house here. You don't identify with any of that. You just stay there. And the mind will throw fear at you. You say, 'What will happen to my practice? What will happen to my patience? What will happen to my family?' Nothing will happen. Everything that will happen will happen by God's grace. And the only good in the world to happen is God's grace, so we can trust that.

Like this, so we try to build a box around this very simple insight, and that box masks it up again, you see? So you have to remain here, build your house here. You don't identify with any of that; you just stay there. And the mind will throw fear at you. You say, 'What will happen to my practice? What will happen to my patience? What will happen to my family?' Nothing will happen. Everything that will happen will happen by God's grace, and the only good in the world to happen is God's grace. So we can trust that.

So anyone who is not coming to this... are you saying that we are in a room full of Brahma Gyanis? Huh? So you're saying build the house here. I think that part is not... yeah.

So what does it mean to build a house here? To simply remain. Remain by not grasping at thoughts, isn't it? But I think the success of that is not 100% for nobody.

It is not 100% for anybody. Not this one, and not for anyone whose photos we have on the walls also. So don't worry about 100%; just worry about now. Because the mind oppresses you like this. It says, 'But you're not fully there.' It's not about fully; it's right now that is important, you see? Because to buy into time, we have to buy into thought, isn't it? What is time for you now without thought? Nothing. Nothing. There is no time.

I heard Krishnamurti say that when I was just starting the spiritual journey. I was like, 'What is he talking about?' The end of knowledge is the end of time. So only through intuitive insight you see that, isn't it? You see that for what you are, the unchanging, there is no notion of time. Time implies change. Can there be time without change? We infer time because of change, and for that we need memory; we need a lot of notional work to be done. But to the reality of who you are, there is no time.

The mind sells you the story based on spirituality itself because Father said, 'You remain like that.' 'I'm not remaining like that all the time,' you see? So I'm telling you: remain like that every now. Every now that you can, and don't judge yourself on past and future. Just now, now. So I don't know when you came initially—I mean, you've just been clicking half the time in Satsang like... no, no, no.

So insight about the Self is like this: if you're innocent, if you're not selfish, if you're not full of pride, then it's very straightforward. Or if you want to achieve, if you want to become something, if you want to become special, then all of this will be momentary, but then you'll be back in the realm of your thoughts again. You'll keep buying these stories from the mind. So, anyone confused about yourself, your true self, being this pure awareness? Okay. Now, is there another you? You are this. Are there two of you that we know? It's Advaita; there can't be two. But besides the inference, in our checking, what do we find? Is there another of you who wants to be free, who wants enlightenment?

That one just starts coming. I mean, where is it? It's not there. I see it's not there, but then when you say it comes in, in what thought? And then you're like, I have the ability to go with it, but somehow it's really... the minute you check again, then you can see that it's not there. It's not there, but in the arising of the perceptions, we don't take to be me, but thought we just take to be me, just like that.

Yeah. Does your thoughts say 'I' or 'you'? That's a useful contemplation. Usually it's like, 'I should do like that, I should not do like that,' you see? But when it's really taunting you, then you are like this: 'You will never be free.' You see? So the mind can't decide what is the relationship exactly. Sometimes it becomes an oppressor, pushing us, you know? Or even prideful: 'Oh, you are so good, you did so well.' Like that, it can be 'you.' And sometimes, 'Oh, I shouldn't have done that, I should be more like this.' You see? So it's all a fair; there's no stability in the mind.

Yesterday I had a really amazing thing. So we were contemplating about that 'Who am I?' with, and at that moment it felt... there was an entity, but it didn't buy it. It just looked, kept... you felt there's an entity. So you know, like you say 'Who am I?' so the answer in the mind was 'I'm the person.' I'm saying, so the answer came was like just keeping looking and not going with it or anything, and it just dissolved away. I mean, it was just like, you know, without... I mean, effortless. That's the whole... like the looking is so effortless. It's like the non-existent cat just went away. It's... I'm saying I was like...

So that's what this whole game is actually, for the non-existent person to go away. Yeah, as well. The most absurd human endeavor, and yet it's the most important. So what's ego then? Is ego just thought? Yes. So what happens is that in this 'I' which is pure awareness, you see? So what happens? What is the distinction between deep sleep state and waking state? I'm going to answer your question based on that. So what happens? What is the primary, fundamental, seeming shift? Yeah, exactly. Om is born. I-am-ness is born. What is this Om? What is this Om? The sense that 'I am,' 'I exist,' you see? In deep sleep, it is just 'I,' the pure witnessing. It notices... you notice that you are. Before the world comes, you come. Before the world appears to you, you have to be. Have you ever experienced a world without you being there? You see? And not just you in the pure witnessing, but you as am-ness, as beingness.

Complicated. What happens when you wake up first? What happened? The first thing, what happened?

Yeah, for you to witness something, first you should exist. Yes. Well, that is about the witnessing. What is the distinction between the deep sleep state and the waking state? Fundamental difference. What happens when you wake up, or what has to happen so you can say 'I woke up'?

In deep sleep, I don't know I exist. Yes. Moment there is waking of the body, my existence becomes apparent.

Have you had the experience where you woke up but you did not even feel the sensation of the body yet? Yeah, you have the experience. So it's possible for you to be awake and for nothing to be reported in your senses for a few moments, you see? Like Pankaj Sah once, one night he woke up and it was so dark and it was so quiet, he was just like, 'Eyes closed? Eyes open?' It can be a bit strange like that. But you cannot be confused that 'I'm awake.' Even if you don't perceive anything, you know that you are awake.

So the wakefulness of this being, you see, this is called the 'I am.' So when 'am' emerges from that, being emerges from that, which is the same as Om or Atma or we call it the presence, beingness. So from the Paramatma, the Atma emerges, see? And the distinction is not real; it is only qualitative. This is like water and ice. Are they truly distinct? No, they only feel different, you see? That's why you feel a difference in the sleep state and the waking state. In actuality, nothing has changed. In reality, nothing has changed. And nothing that can happen here in this realm of perception can hurt that which is there even in deep sleep state, the true Self, this pure awareness.

So this is not the ego yet, but this is the birth of being itself. This is God's presence. God's presence wakes up within yourself. That's why you may hear the Sages say that 'I am the Absolute from which even God takes birth.' Maharaj would have said that a few times. So 'I am the Absolute, even God wakes up inside me.' This is what he means. Some have called even, of course, the Absolute also as God, but that's a matter of terminology. As long as you can spot the taste of being, you see? Primordial vibration, the Om. Can you notice it? If you can't notice it, try to not be. There's a sense of existence that you're tasting on the basis of which you say, 'I cannot not exist. I must be.' So this is the presence of being. This is the Atma. This is the Holy Spirit. This is God's presence. This is the Satguru presence. Whatever glory we can give, we can give to this holy presence.

So when it's said 'Purnam,' this is what they're talking about. From the whole, which is the infinite, boundless, in fact spaceless awareness, is born this infinite being in the light of which all of this world and worlds are projected. So you notice that all of this you observe with your attention, but your attention can never leave your being, you see? You cannot send your attention out of your being. It's only navigating your own being and perceiving a world. So this is the birth of beingness, Consciousness, God's presence. So this is the way to come to it from this side, from awareness inwards. And if you remind me, I'll also talk to you about coming to it from that side, but for now this is good.

Now then what happens? 'I am' is just 'I am,' you see? 'I' is witnessing the presence of this am-ness, and within this being all this realm of perception is floating. Maharaj said, 'It's like a firefly in front of me.' In front of awareness, all of this plays. Nothing, just a shining light. Then what happens? If you were just to perceive this world, no trouble. Now Bhagavan has told us that till there is 'I am,' there is no trouble. 'I am' is there, no trouble. When that 'I am' starts to take itself to be 'I am something,' that is when all the trouble starts.

So how to take... how does 'I am' take itself to be 'I am something'? That is the process we defined right in the beginning. Even with the attention, you cannot see that. Something has to be notional, you see? You see that if I take you... if I tell you, 'Take yourself to be this,' just by looking at it you can't. Like, you may stare at it and stare at it, but you can't take yourself to be this, you see? You have to have a name for it. You have to say like 'coaster' or something like that and say 'I am coaster' or 'this coaster is mine,' and then you've made yourself into something. That is the ego. That is the identity.

So when you remain open and empty... that's why one of the main pointings that express themselves from here is to remain open and empty. Let these thoughts come and go; you remain open, not resistive to anything coming, and empty, which is not grasping at any of the thoughts. So no ego, see? So you don't have to kill the ego; you just don't allow it to take birth. How do you allow it to take birth? By taking yourself to be something, somebody. 'I am good, I am bad, I am a spiritual seeker, I am man, I am woman.' So many options available to us, and all these ideas that we buy become the pool of conditioning, the pool of vasanas as the Sages have told us about, you see?

But you don't have to deal with the pool, thankfully, see? You don't have to dive into the pool and chop it up. Nothing you have to do because when you are empty, the pool has no effect. But if you tug at one thing, if you tug at one thought, you believe one thought, the entire pool is there. The tree of conditioning is fully available, not as an advantage, but it's there to oppress us. So you don't have to chop your vasanas by diving into them and killing them, you see? 'Oh, I've killed my greed, I've killed my lust, I've killed my this, I've killed...' you see? And one day hoping that the ego will die like that. It doesn't. Because by the time, like Guruji says, you chopped off one branch, one branch, one branch, by the time you come to the tenth branch, the first branch already started growing it again, you see?

So that process of cleaning up doesn't work. It is the whole thing at one shot, right now. Empty. The mind's work is very difficult. Try to convince God's presence that it is a limited entity. It has been given the impossible project that 'I am' is 'I am something,' you see? So it keeps trying. 'How about this? How would you like to be this?' you see? 'Would you like to be this? Would you like to be this?' you see? It keeps offering these things hoping that you will buy it, you see? So that is the bait. It is the bait, and often it does the bait and switch. So if you buy the bait, then it's like, 'Oh, you're so proud, you should never have believed that. How could you have thought that?' you see? It itself told the story to you, and then it itself makes you guilty.

As you start noticing the workings of this mind, you start to notice these things. So clear insight into your true nature is apparent. How to be empty of ego and suffering is apparent. One of the biggest resistances that I find in Satsang is that...

It is the bait, and often it does the bait and switch. So if you buy the bait, then it's like, 'Oh, you're so proud, you should never have believed that. How could you have thought that?' You see, it itself told the story to you, and then it itself makes you guilty. As you start noticing the workings of this mind, you start to notice these things so clearly. Insight into your true nature is apparent. How to be empty of ego and suffering is apparent. One of the biggest resistances that I find in satsang is that your mind will tell you, 'How can it be that simple? The people who are trying to study spirituality and the people who find this insight, they've been called sages like Ribhu and Ashtavakra. How can I find it so simply?' See, notice that it's just mental resistance. You're not trying to become Ashtavakra or Ribhu; you're just trying to come to the truth, and the truth is always there. God's presence is always there as well. Clear?

Now, this should actually be the end, and for many years in my satsang, that would be the end also, mostly. But there's a strange play in this Leela, which is that in spite of this insight, which should not leave anything remaining, there is nobody that I have known or ever heard of who has been able to be fully empty in this way—empty fully of all identity. Even Ram is said to have got into grief when Sita was taken away, or when he felt that Lakshman is dying, or at least in the Leela he played that. What is the point of the play? To show us that even God himself, when interacting with this Maya, can have moments or times in which they can get into an identification, a belief in the separation. And that is the case for everybody's life. He must be open and empty, but without the anchor of Bhakti, you see, nobody is purely a Gyana Yogi and nobody is purely a Bhakta. You may be a Bhakta, but if you're not coming to the insight, then your Bhakti will seem very surface level, will seem very conceptual. That's why Bhagavan said that there are two wings of this bird: one is Gyana and one is Bhakti. And the bird example is very good because it's very difficult for a bird to just fly with one wing. Very difficult for a bird to fly.

So although there is no duality in our life experience, some duality remains. Some identification, something will always be there where you will get caught up in something. Now, the most dangerous thing to get caught up in is what? Pride. Correct. The first part, what happened to Ravan? Who knows the story of Ravan? Everyone knows the story of Ram, but who knows the story of Ravan? Was he just one like stupid, idiotic demon? He was a great devotee of Shiva. And then he was so talented in every single way, a scholar. He has written the Shiva Tandava Stotram. Deep inside, if you just meditate on it, you can come to true insight about who you are, and Ravan has written that. So what happened? He had all this insight, he had done tapa for thousands of years, got so many blessings from the Lord—all that had happened. But he started to take the insight, which is that 'I am That,' and he started to apply it personally. That is called spiritual ego. See? So pride, but the absolute pride because it's about the Absolute, you see.

So if you take what you discovered as the pure witnessing and you start applying it on this body-mind organism, this bundle of mud, then a convoluted sort of play happens, which is the play of the spiritual ego. And like I said, one of my first teachers said some tanmatra of the ego will always remain. So if that tanmatra gets attached to the conceptual insights like 'So-ham,' in the inquiry when we are sitting together, you may simply come to the recognition. How will you make that into pride? 'I had that experience.' But the 'I' that you're talking about now, which one is that? This one, you see. So have you seen in satsangs, in spiritual groups, how much of that can happen? Because this 'I' didn't have any experience like that, you see. But this 'I' makes a claim about that based on some memory, based on something, and it says, 'I am That.' Pride comes. 'I am That. I am That in which God takes birth.' It is true for the reality of you, but nothing is further from the truth than for this bunch of food to say, 'I am That in which God takes birth.' See? So this is the trouble that happens for people who even have had awakening experiences, who've had deep spiritual insight.

So how do we avoid these things? Bhakti is the way to avoid these things also. You can come this way also, which is from Bhakti to Gyana, but today it is flowing like this. How is Bhakti different from love? When you say Bhakti and not prem or love? Not love maybe having expectation? Love maybe having an expectation? Okay, very good. But let's say it's even unconditional love. What's the difference between Bhakti and unconditional love? Faith? Trust? Okay, so let's take an example of human relationships. There are some married couples here. You may say that 'I deeply love my beloved, I deeply love my partner,' but can you say, 'I'm a bhakta of her or him'? No. Why not? Because the ego comes which says what? That 'I love you deeply, but I will not follow your will. I have my own will.' You see? 'I'm not going to follow, I'm not going to give up my independence for you. I'm going to follow my will.' So there may be deep love.

On the other side, I remember my father came from a very small village and he worked really hard, got into IIT, did all that stuff, and then through one of the professors, the heads of department in IIT, he was one of the first few employees of a company called TCS. So he had a boss called Mr. Kohli. Now my dad would follow Mr. Kohli's words like it is Hanuman and Ram. Okay? Just like Bhakti, just like that. That much of a follower. But does that mean that he really loved him so much? No, he just realized that he is the man who's worthy of respect and following, and he can make my career into something good. So you just follow, follow, follow. And in terms of his career, that worked out for him, you see. So what is there in this? There's like a servitude, following of somebody's will, but not necessarily such a deep love. So Bhakti is a combination of the deep love and absolute servitude. So the term Bhakti is not that easily defined. Devotion in a way comes close to that, but that's why when I've been sharing this almost like a framework, I'm saying: unperceivable insight, love, and servitude. I've broken Bhakti into love and servitude just so that in the modern world we can fathom it more clearly.

Is not that love for that presence your gift to us? How to develop such love?

It is my gift to you, it is your gift to me. It is unfathomable in the sense that's why we talked about the direction of insight, love, and servitude. You see, insight comes from God to us. I said in the last session, I explained all this. Servitude must flow from us to God. Of course, we've made both upside down. But love is indeterminable. God has given us a capacity to love Him, and that is also His love for us, is it? And this you have to just experiment with. This is unexplainable. I say love God deeply in your heart. You may say, 'I don't know how.' I'll tell you, I know you don't know how, but do it. We don't know how. You say, 'I don't know, create 500 grams of love for God. What is the recipe? What do I have to put together?' I don't know, but you have the capacity to do it. Try. Try to love God. What happened?

The other trick is that all unconditional love is love for God. So if you feel that 'I can't love God,' but you love somebody else, remove all conditions from that love. So you love your parents, you love your children, you love your beloved, you love your friends. So find that which you love very deeply and see what conditions you have in that love. 'Oh, I love her because she's like this.' So remove that condition. 'I don't love her because she is like that.' So remove that condition. Make your love unconditional. So that unconditional love is love for God. All unconditional love is love for God because human love, like he was saying, is dependent on conditions. 'If you do this for me...' You have an expectation. 'If you do this for me, then I will love you.' But we have to love without expectation, without condition. So then as love becomes like that, empty of any conceptual oppression, you see, empty of any business deal-making, it just becomes love for love's sake. Then it is love for God.

So actively love God in your heart, just in innocence, because Father has told you. You don't know how to do it, but he said so, so there must be something, or he's become really stupid these days. So follow like that. If even that seems too far-fetched and you'd rather sit and inquire, then find that which you love—and all of us in the human condition love something or someone—make that love unconditional. Turn all your love into unconditional. It'll never... again, don't oppress yourself with 100%. This game is not about 100%. This is to deepen more and more. Deepen more. Nobody can ever say, 'We've come to 100% love,' and we can never really do an audit and say, 'My love is fully unconditional.' You don't know. Tomorrow something will show up, you say, 'That's too much for me. That's too much for me.' So many children have come to me and said, 'Father, my life is yours fully. Do what you want with me. I'm fully, fully surrendered to you.' And then few months later, the sangha became a little bigger, so then they developed a condition: 'Oh, it's too big now, we don't get the kind of attention we used to, so I can't come to him now.' So what happens to all that 'my life is yours forever' stuff? We can never predict what is the condition which will come tomorrow.

Father, this morning something triggered this looking that the way I love my father, I love my sisters in the same way, Father. And I was looking at this and I could not find a difference in the way that I love you versus I love them. And some incident triggered this and the mind said, I could hear it very softly, that 'That's not how... that's not right' or something like, 'How can you love Father like that?' But Father, in my heart there was the same love that I feel for you, for my sisters, and only some or all, for all. So Father, I was looking at this, it was just love. I cannot say some... I may be attached to some more because of the interaction or some, but I feel like the seeing was that it was just love, Father. And you can't really, when it's unconditional, you can't say who it is for ultimately.

And Father, it was not quantifiable in the sense... you see what I mean? We can't say who it is for because it is for God. And we can't say what is the direction of it, whether it's coming from God to us, whether it is coming from them to us, it is coming from us to them, because all duality in the space of unconditional love, all duality goes away, you see. So this is what I was saying: how to come from the Bhakti path to insight. So when you are in unconditional love with God or just unconditional love, then your presence is apparent because the source of that love, the space of that love, is His presence.

It was just love, Father. There was nothing before or after.

But look at it, where is it coming from? Like without your presence, can there be love? Is presence dependent on love or is love dependent on presence? Even this highest unconditional love needs there to be a waking state.

Yes. In sleep, still is there love? No, there is nothing at all, not even love. Father, can I answer? So it's a different type of love which is non-separate. Go ahead.

So I've been looking a lot at like these trees and plants and yesterday... so Father, you said about duality and I... so can we see that duality comes because of this ability to think? And so Father, animals don't feel duality? I'm asking.

I don't know what kind of inner space they have. Like I've seen that some pet owners have been able to succeed in making their dogs like them—making their dogs resemble them, not physically but same habits, same kind of way of functioning. So are there very some subtle thought patterns happening? I don't know. Maybe they hear language, they hear language also, they have their language.

I was thinking, Father, animals don't feel duality? I'm asking, I don't know what kind of inner space they have. Like, I've seen that some pet owners have been able to succeed in making their dogs like them—not like them, but resemble them. Not physically, but same habits, same kind of way of functioning. So are there some very subtle thought patterns happening? I don't know. Maybe they hear language; they hear language also. They have their language with which they communicate. So is there anything that happens there? That's why it's safer to take plants. I don't know, maybe plants also... can I say, Father? So I've been seeing that with plants and animals, can we say that the difference between me and a plant is that I have the ability to think? So I've been seeing, Father, that all my life I have considered myself superior to them because I have been inflicted with pride. And that superiority, who had proposed it? Just a thought. The ability to think itself. But I was thinking I'm so much better than the plant and animal, and this kind of blocked any kind of love to flow. It's big to say, but...

Exactly, yes. In fact, Jesus said don't be anxious because the birds are not anxious. They wake up—I'm paraphrasing now—they wake up in the morning and God provides them the food they need, you see. But then, Father, trees are better off than us? Of course they are. I've said this for years: please don't talk to your plants; let them talk to you. I've said no for so long, just me, because we have this arrogance: 'I am talking to my plants and they're growing well.' No, you're oppressing them. Please don't talk to them. You listen to them. How do they operate so beautifully? How naturally, organically, without thinking, every plant grows so beautiful. It is not planning, 'My branch thirty-three, I will make it longer than thirty-two.' And you know, it doesn't have a five-year plan. Every tree grows so beautiful organically. And birds are so beautiful; they don't know where their next meal will come from. And Ananta Ji said this about fishes also: a fish is not worrying about tomorrow, saying 'Where will my food come from?' Just swim.

Father, yesterday I was reading Shri Ramakrishna said that human beings can—something like this, paraphrasing—can taste the highest form of God. So then, Father, that again... the mind felt so like pride in that, that I can taste.

Let's look at it this way. What is the advantage of the human condition? Mostly I'm beating up on it, okay? Today let's see what is the advantage, because everybody says this is the highest birth. Who is wiser: when you go through delusion and break out from it, or you never face delusion at all? I will say that the wiser one is the one who went through the delusion and has the ability to delude and to come out of delusion, you see. They have the capacity to be wise; they're not necessarily wise. Those sages, I would say now, Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi, Guruji, Papaji, all these beautiful ones, Maharaj—are they wiser than a plant? I would say so, because they went through the delusion and they broke out of it. Ramakrishna... but would I say that the normal, regular human being is wiser than the plant? No way. A plant is not troubling themselves with the kind of nonsense that we do: anxiety about future, regret about past, pride about nonsense. If you are living in God's light, you are at par at least with a plant, if not better. If you're not, then you're worse. Let's look at it that way.

Can you say more about that love? So that, I mean, that love doesn't really have a label. Meaning, when you're present, it doesn't have a label that 'I love this one but not that.' It just seems like a natural condition or state to be in. And then you said something else, but that I think... I mean, I feel what you said, but you said that when we are deeply in love...

You see, I don't know if this is the answer to your question, but this is how it's flowing. So when we experience the deep love—and I'm proposing to all of you that you can actively do it, and I know that it is seeming strange to some of you, that's fine—so when you are in this deep love for God, then how strong does the mind seem? Nothing at all. That same identification, the same trouble which may seem so difficult to drop belief—because many of you have this tantrum: 'No, Father just said don't believe your next thought, but tell him try and live like this with these kind of people and conditions and things like that.' But it's really not about that. And yet deep love is such a beautiful anchor. It's a beautiful antidote to the temptations of the mind. When you're so deeply in love, do the mind's pings and temptations saying 'Do this,' 'You'll get this,' 'You won't get this,' 'This is how your life will become better,' seem valuable? No. You just don't want to be disturbed. Keep your lottery tickets and offers to yourself. So as you empty, then this love emerges. As you love, then the emptiness is easier. So both ways.

Yeah, Father, you said that it's also been seen that unconditional love is for God. But Father, I feel like unconditional love is the taste of God. Father, can we say that?

Yes, it is the taste of God in the sense that it's so clearly sprouting from His presence, so clearly like the Amrit from His being. So yes, it is the taste of God. In fact, for those who are not attracted to Jnana at all and they look at my question like 'Who is aware of the perception of this hand?' and they start getting irritated, for them it is better to say: 'Okay, do you love someone? Is there love for your parents, children, partner, anyone?' 'Yes.' 'Come to that love, stay in that love, and find out where is it coming from? What is its source?' Then they can come to God that way. They can come to God that way as well. We can come this way from awareness to being to the play of the world, or we can come this way from unconditional love to God's presence to the Absolute. That is the Bhakti Marga. That is the Marga: love God deeply, sing His bhajans, chant His name, praise His glory. Love Him deeply is the Bhakti Marga. Love Him so much, so much, so much.

In this taste of this unconditional, there's no boundary to it or limit. It's just...

Huh, no boundary.

Just to clarify on this unconditional love, I'm going to take a couple of other teachings heard around it. Where in terms of unconditional love, Bhakti, I get all of that. But when we interact with the world and let's say there is an imbalance or toxicity or something like that, I remember Master Rupert had said at one point how there may be personal likes and dislikes, or Ramana says that the spiritual heart may hold compassion and love, but the human heart may cry seeing the suffering and all of that. So if there is—I do not know if it is a personal like and dislike at that point—so when there is toxicity or an imbalance, there is this need or pull towards ensuring that no one suffers or no being suffers in wherever we are put, right? So is that then a personal preference? Because let's say there is an oppressor and one who's oppressed. Of course we can hold space and compassion and be unconditionally loving because we understand the humanities, but the one, let's say, the one who's being oppressed also requires a little bit more maybe love or courage or whatever. So when we are around such circumstances, how do we share our love? What do we do? Of course, even here Master Rupert had said you either accept, you change, or you leave, right? And by default, I am not someone who can accept toxicity or imbalance. So I always work towards changing and reforming and I try my best. If it doesn't happen, then I have a tendency to leave. So where does this stand?

Thank you. Thank you for asking this question because it brings me to a beautiful pointer that I should have shared with all of you anyway. Everything that I've said so far is about our inner space. The inner space which is really—we're drawing a provisional distinction between inner and outer—but it is not about what action has to unfold, not yet about that. And we'll talk about what is the action that should unfold. So what I'm talking about is innerly, inwardly empty conceptually and heartful of love. How that translates into the outer world... so if I love you deeply, but if I see that you're getting involved in some stupidity, some bad habit, so it may not look outwardly like an unconditional love, you see. So the question really is then: how do we pick between the option to be strong or to be loving or to be, you see? And that is a centuries-old problem in terms of how does one live this life. So if you look at epistemology, ontology, and ethics, you see, once you've solved what is and what really exists and is there true knowledge and can it be found or not, then you come to a point of: 'Now that I know all of this, how am I supposed to live? What am I supposed to do with this stuff?' I will come to the way to live in a moment, just to keep the flow, the sort of framework. And if I don't answer this question, then remind me and say, 'What happened to my question?'

So now we've come to love and servitude being the elements of Bhakti. So love, love deeply, fully in your heart. That becomes an anchor to your intuitive insight. So too has many elements to it. So suppose you're one who doesn't like to inquire, is like a pure Bhakta at heart, doesn't want to hear anything much about inquiry and the nature of awareness and consciousness and none of that. So if you just love, then that love itself will lead you to the insight in the sense that we come to the... like there's a bliss. Somebody likes jam, somebody likes peanut butter, whatever, cookie butter. So you get a certain enjoyment from the taste, isn't it? So this is Ananda. There's another Ananda of just being in the presence itself. It doesn't have like a sweetness or a slight saltiness or whatever you may be enjoying. It doesn't have... it's very primordial.

I had this experience, yes. I was into that, just with the presence was for a long time. And that unconditional love and that Ananda at the same time.

Yeah, exactly. So the byproducts of just being in the presence: this love, this peace, this joy. Very good. So never leave Narayana for his Prasad, though. So just keep focusing on the presence. It's very beautiful in that. To love anything or anyone without conditions is that. So that's the benefit of having a Guru. Many times we don't know what we can love so deeply and unconditionally. But if you find a Guru and you've done all your—in today's world it has to be said—that you've done all your due diligence and you've seen all the... you spend some time seeing that there's no exploitation, it seems to be coming from the heart, then you find a provisional like focus that you can love fully. Because in the world we don't usually find people who are living in God's presence and God's light, so then they're bound to get hurt often in that kind of love. So to come to a Guru and to be able to love him fully or her fully is very good, because that unconditional full love will take you to love for God and God Himself. This is the... which also takes people to realize their presence.

Yes, it works that... of course it does, yes. Beautiful, beautiful.

Many times people say that this is like so much more Jnana Marga than Bhakti. I'm not sure, actually. Sometimes I feel like that, can I really say? No, I feel like so deeply infected with God's love sometimes. I know my expression can be academic, the conditions that play out in this expression, but more than anything else, I feel like so much, so much love for God. So I'm not able to categorize my expression in those boxes. That simply... when I was asking, Father, that when I said that this unconditional love is a taste of God, what I want to check is this conversation we had some time back that...

Sometimes I feel like that. Can I really say no? I feel like so deeply infected with God's love sometimes. I know my expression can be academic, the conditions that play out in this expression, but more than anything else, I feel like so much, so much love for God. So I'm not able to categorize my expression in those boxes.

Simply when I was asking, Father, that when I said that this unconditional love is a taste of God, what I want to check is this conversation we had some time back that love is God, but God is not limited to love. This is in the same—can I say that God makes love love, but love does not make Him Him? So when I said, Father, so God is like—is the finger the body, a part of the body? It's a part. Or say, the nail. The nail... it emerges from and it's deeply connected with, see? But and it can lead to—if you hold the nail of God, it can lead you to God. So it can lead to, but God is not constricted to the box of love, you see? God is much beyond love, unfathomable. We can't label what He is. So He's worthy of love and He's the most loving. That's why you say that it's the anchor, because it kind of—

Yes, it's the anchor because you can taste it. You can taste it and it's like, because we are so used to manifested, we are so used to name and form, that initially we may need to cling on to something. So love is a very beautiful anchor.

So servitude, what is that literally? What does it mean to be a servant? Servant to Him, to God? So how to be a servant of God? How do we know that our Bhakti is correct? Bhakti, we love Him deeply, but how do we know that the way we are leading our life—coming to our question—how do we know that the way we are leading our life is in resonance with what God wants our life to be? Therefore, to follow His will or to be a servant of His will, so what to do?

Who has to emerge from... and that's why sages emphasized this aspect so much, that we must follow God's will, we must become servants of God. That's why I got that put up also, as the final statement. See, he said this won't work, your mental smartness won't work, your spiritual experiences won't work, nothing will work. Your chasing desire won't work. All of this, nothing will work. Then they said—so I'm presuming the second last line is the frustrated disciple saying—'Then Master, what will work?' So then he says, which means follow the will of God. Not just the will, he used the word command, actually.

So one way, if you're not in Satsang, is to presume the will of God through scripture, through the pointings that are available in the holy stories of Ram, Mahabharat, Bible—all these things can give us a sense of what, at least the sense of the guardrails, right? So if you're within these guardrails, pretty much we can feel safe that we are following God's will to some extent. But what I want to point to you is more direct, you see? It is more direct. It doesn't mean that those don't hold value; they still hold a beautiful value, and I'll tell you how. But more direct is that if God is here, then why can't His will be made apparent to us? If our job is to follow God's will, so God is here, so why must I then refer to something else to follow His will?

So then what is the way to follow God's will for those who can say that God's presence is apparent here? What is the way? So first is to follow Master Bankei, and he said, 'In the Unborn, all things are perfectly resolved.' In the Unborn, all things are perfectly resolved. What is the Unborn? The same conceptually open and empty, not serving the visitors tea. The same thing. The Unborn is the unborn mind. The mind is not born and therefore there is no time, there is no space. So we remain in the Unborn.

So what happens when you're empty? What is your experience? Does it always seem like—does it seem like you're lost? In fact, you may notice the mind may scare you and say, 'You'll quit your job, your responsibilities will be all a mess,' you see? It may scare you this way, but it doesn't turn out like that. It doesn't necessarily turn out like that. It may, if that is His will, you see? And that's the risk we need to take. But it doesn't usually turn out like that.

So what happens? We find that without mental prodding also, life continues and actions continue. Like in the sharing of Satsang, it is not coming from a mental prodding. These words are not coming from concepts that are here; these words are coming from the heart. And all of us already live our life in a very big way like this, although we may not notice that. We breathe like that. Many of our functioning, most of our functioning in fact, happens like this intuitively. But we don't trust the emptiness enough yet to allow the words to flow from there, to allow the actions to flow from there.

That is the first way to follow God's will: be empty of your individual will. Be empty of your preferences, your likes and dislikes, and your definitions and conceptual boundaries. Because no matter how true something may seem and how well we may seem to have defined it, you see, our conceptual intelligence is very kindergarten compared to how God views this life. So we don't need to rely on our conceptual frameworks to become the basis for our action. Because many times we feel like we have the very clear conceptual framework, but our actions fall very short. It's very difficult to live up to the standards of those conceptual ideas that we may even have, and then we end up feeling guilty and more confused. All of this, all of the suffering happens.

So I want to propose to you a different way of looking at what is better and worse and what is good and bad. So right now we've relied on what we think, what we believe, and that causes all this confusion and conflict in the world because no two beings, no two apparent beings in this world, have the same belief systems. That's why in every relationship there's some friction. And even if you came to that beautiful overlap 100%, you see, because the belief systems are constantly changing, it doesn't stay, you see? Then you're like, 'But when I met you, you were like this, and now you are like this,' you see? But that change, change of the belief system, is inherent in the human condition. So there is no stability that can be expected over there. And that would be so inert and dead anyway if you were to just live like that, you see? Like if I was to live like I was when I was 23 and carry those same belief systems—some people try to do that, hold on to their youth and this kind of nonsense.

So leave all of that. Why do we do it? Because we want a sense of good and bad. Now the biblical story of the original sin will start making sense, because we want a sense of what is good and bad so that that can determine what our action should be. If I don't know right from wrong, then how will I determine what is the right action? So I have a radical solution for that, which all the sages have actually told us, which is that we must lose this conceptual framework and we must be guided by God's will moment to moment. And the only thing we can determine to be good is whether it is coming from God or not, you see? So the good is that which comes from God. Plato sort of equalized good and God in the same way, right? So when he talked about the good, he was talking about the Absolute.

So but let me say that if you were to determine the goodness or the rightness of something, we have to look at whether it is coming from our intuitive inside, the Satguru presence within, or it is coming just from the stale conceptual framework which may have been valid yesterday, but maybe the world has changed completely today. We can't really say. Or maybe we are completely wrong because we've been so wrong so often in our mind. There is no way to determine that. We can do a self-check and say, 'I'm definitely right.' It does feel definitely right. We want to be definitely right, but there's no determination of that. If you look at yourself from 10 years back, there were many things which you felt were definitely right, you see? And now you look at them today and say, 'What a naive, stupid idea,' you see? It's not like that. So how can we check for today's ideas? We can't, you see?

So is there a higher way to live? And why did the sages all tell us to live like Hanuman, or to be a true Muslim, or to follow God's Hukam? To be a true Sikh is to follow God's Hukam. And Jesus said, 'You must follow my Father's will here on earth as it is followed in heaven.' So every path emphasizes this. But we are going away from a presumed will of God, which the scriptures may offer us, to a live will of God which prompts us, which nudges us, which moves us moment to moment.

So an example is I woke up in New Brunswick with the plan to spend the day in New York, and then I realized that I'm trying to live this day on my terms. So I just sat down and said, 'God, You move me. You move me. I'm going to be empty of individual will.' And He moved me, and I had such a beautiful day just walking around New Brunswick, and I discovered some very nice parks and churches, and it's a beautiful day. But the fact is the outcome doesn't matter. Whether it was beautiful or not is not the point. The point is the letting go of self-will, individual will, and to be moved by God. So, 'You move me, You guide me'—that must be authentically the way that we live.

And what is the distinction between that? So when we are empty, He just moves us. Many of you have said, no, that 'I didn't want to come to Satsang today, but my bike drove me here.' Resisting, something was resisting, but the heart wanted to really come. So we followed our heart is what we are trying to say. That is the way in which God can move us. And He may move us away from Satsang also; I'm not saying that it necessarily will bring you to Satsang. And there are times when we get used to living like this, just being moved by God, then you will start noticing that you can also be guided by God.

Like when the Atma Samadhi came, I didn't know what these words also are. What is Samadhi? What is Vyadhi? I'd heard, of course, but I didn't know. But I just trusted, let it flow. When this Heart Temple movement started unfolding, it was just like being prompted and continues to be prompted from God's guidance. What you must not do is oppress God's guidance onto some mental benchmark of outcomes. 'Oh, it came from God, it must be like this and it must be beautiful,' or it must be something that is... to make this the master and the heart the servant again by trying to oppress it by getting the checker guy involved from the head. No, just trust. We don't know what anything means and how it'll unfold.

So how to deal with situations of oppression, situations that are unpalatable, situations even of beauty? 'Move me, God' or 'Guide me, God.' Many times you may get surprised at the movement because what your mind would have wanted may have been very different from that, but you will start to see the grace in all of this. So when we allow ourselves to move like that in obedience to God—and that is one of the elements of servitude—then you've sort of deconstructed the entire philosophy, or at least tried to put our own pegs in each of the boxes.

One important pointer here, and I've got it as the wallpaper of my phone, is: 'How am I serving God now?' So these are very beautiful things. And what can often happen is when we just look at it as intuition and not God, then we may start thinking of it as an Alexa or a Siri or something. You just go to it and say, 'What do I do now?' you see? Or ChatGPT, 'What do I do now?' So then it's like reverse servitude, no? Then we've got this device which is serving us, you see, in my will. And then you may go back and say, 'That was really bad advice, it didn't help me at all.' But really to recognize... so should I go through all the elements of faith?

So faith is to recognize that the presence of God, the presence of the one that we are experiencing intuitively, is God. And who should we serve? Our mind or God? We are going to serve one or the other. So just to use her example, we are either going to be in service to our conceptual frameworks, which we may have created with a lot of effort, you see...

Then you may go back and say that was really bad advice, it didn't help me at all. But really to recognize—so should I go through all the elements of faith? So faith is to recognize that the presence of God, the presence of the one that we are experiencing intuitively, is God. And who should we serve: our mind or God? We are going to serve one or the other. So just to use her example, we either going to be in service to our conceptual frameworks, which we may have created with a lot of effort, you see, or we going to live alive in that moment-to-moment movement, in the moment-to-moment guidance that we receive. And as it starts to become clearer and clearer that this is God's presence—it truly is the Atma, it truly is the Holy Spirit, it truly is the Satguru presence—then the question doesn't seem very difficult. You must obviously follow God's will over our mental frameworks.

But to trust your intuitive insight more than what the world is showing you or your mind is telling you, that is faith. And almost all in Advaita are saying God is here, you see. But are they living like that? Do you live like God is here? Don't live like that, because if God was here, then you would rely on him for everything. You would rejoice, firstly, in his presence. How can God be here and you be—can I make that face proper? Very difficult to frown. How is it possible? But we spend a lot of time not rejoicing. And rejoicing doesn't necessarily have to be all outwardly dancing and all that; it could be inwardly rejoicing his presence, and outwardly you may seem just normal or not. But if truly God is here, then how can you ever worry? How can you ever be proud? How can you ever have a problem? Because you can just ask him; you can just rely on him.

So faith is where lip-service spirituality, armchair spirituality, becomes true spirituality. And the world is full of armchair spirituality, full of spiritual encyclopedias in the head, but no risk in life. In fact, our spirituality has become the mechanism to de-risk our life. So when Nietzsche said you have to live a bit dangerously, we don't, because we always planning security and things like that. But following God can seem very risky, because next moment if God says you must move to Thimphu or Timbuktu, you just be like, 'I never heard that.' Denial is the best way to look away from God's will. Like, who? God never told me. Who's going to know? You are going to know, and he knows.

So faith means to recognize that it's not a form of a force of nature, like a physical force like magnetism or electricity or something like that. Like Consciousness—when we call it Consciousness, then many times we make it very depersonalized. So for a long time after coming into Advaita, I used to feel like, 'Oh, the Christians are so stupid, they say it's a personal God. Don't they know there's no person? How stupid they are.' You see? But what they're trying to tell you is that it's not just like a force of nature or electricity or gravity. God is a living being. So when they say person, they don't mean ego-personal; they saying he is like a Ram or Krishna or Jesus sitting in front of you. He is—there is a being there who is alive, who understands, who can guide, who's intelligent.

So these are—this is one of the things that the bhaktas have got better than the Advaitins in this. Like, there's Consciousness and then, 'But I am the Absolute, I am awareness,' you see, as if you leaped over—like you leaped over the moon and went to the sun, you know? It becomes then the basis of our spiritual pride, and we don't know what we are talking about because we talking about the living presence of God. It is very literal that way; there is a living being there.

So doctors must be getting a lot of patients saying, 'Oh, I have this, I feel this pain in my kidney, I feel this and this thing.' But no doctor ever gets a patient who says, 'God is living inside me. What can I do? What do I do? The presence inside me.' Some people may go to tantriks and say, 'I feel I'm possessed, I feel I'm possessed by some ghost or something like that.' But no, nobody complains about God's presence. There's a presence here which I don't fully understand; tell me what it is. Because actually, for most of us, the presence seems dead. No, the presence is not there because we are caught up in the mind. But to take this presence as an alive reality and not a conceptual Consciousness needs faith, needs us to trust our intuition.

And if you start taking it to be an alive being who can guide you, then spirituality starts to become very risky because you don't know what he's going to say in the next moment. Are you ready for that danger? Sometimes it feels like I was better off before coming to satsang like this, because at least I was defining—like the post-apple Adam seems more comfortable somewhere because I can define what I want in my life. Should I go like this? How much spirituality to have? How much worldliness to have? All of that.

Now we're truly getting the meaning of surrender. All of us have said surrender, surrender, sharanagati so often. But now there's a living being who can guide you, who's moving you. You may want to go left, you may want to make a million dollars; he says, 'Start begging on the streets.' These can seem scary because what will the world say? What will our family say? But what is happening in that? What is happening in that? We are starting to presume that we have an ability to determine good more than God can guide us. Is that not the original sin? Is that not the basis? And is that not the reason why all the sages told us to follow God's will?

And the Advaitin will say, 'But everything is God's will. What do you mean follow God's will?' Is it so? Did Nanak Ji not know that? Did Nanak Ji not know that? Why you put it at the bottom line? Or we presume that he was writing for the stupid ones, you see? Writing for those regular people who are selling vegetables and all; we are more accomplished, now we know everything is God, we are special, you see. No, it's for everyone. So our mind cannot understand that although everything is God's will, therefore, but also it is most important for us to follow God's will. It sounds like a Zen koan, but it is true. Both are true.