Can We Take the Risk to Be Fully Innocent? - 9th October 2024

So where does the pressure come from for us to lose our innocence? Right now, even in my sharing, there is so much conditioning of the last twelve years and maybe so many years of spiritual seeking. Is this a full transparent instrument of God? No, I don't feel so. Just moment to moment it may be, but many times this sort of Ananta shows up who knows things, who has frameworks of sharing, who has ideas of what is true and what is not true. So the attempt is just to be empty of that one and to trust the holy presence in the heart to move this life, to move these words. What stops us? Maybe it's a sort of fear, maybe it is just a protection of that self-image. And it can seem to have the best intentions. It can seem to have the best intentions.

It also feels, I mean I'm just saying if you can correct me, it also feels like a kind of feeling unsafe.

Yeah, you know what is that? Yeah, that same fear of just dropping the reliance on our false image because we don't know what that will unfold in our life. At least holding on to this image, we say, 'Okay, there's a roller coaster of ups and downs, sometimes we get attacked, sometimes it feels like we are winning.' But empty of that, we don't know what the next moment is going to bring. We don't even know otherwise, but in that nakedness, we meet the 'I don't know' fully. You see, you don't like—suppose you were to be fully innocent right now. You don't know what you're going to say next moment, what Father will think of you, what the others around will think of you, what people in the broadcast will think of you. Are you willing to take that risk?

Father, I find this very hard. I don't find it so hard when you're not there or this 'me' is not there. So I want to expose this, that here my buttons are here, you know? I feel your buttons are here in this hall, I feel, you know? And it's, yeah, I don't feel I'm okay even if I, like right now, yeah, it's not...

So don't make a conclusion. See if you can drop what stops us from being just fully empty and willing to follow His will. Are we getting the project at least? I'm not saying that we'll all get to the fulfillment of that project right now, but at least if you know, if you can spot the gap, so to speak, then we can look at that. We can bring that into our view. No, but just exactly that condition, just like that. Like, can we just suppose this was the safest space in the world, then how would we be, you see? And there's a trick there that the mind will offer us, how we would be, and many falling for that trick: 'Oh, I'll just live spontaneously, I'd just be laughing and blissful.' That may happen, but that is also a mind trick. So if it is happening from the heart, then it is true. If it is an idea of freedom, then that is also not freedom.

I think I'm carrying...

So we are familiar with that brand of spirituality where we take a projection of what it is like to be free and we try to live up to that projection. But that becomes very fake and becomes very tiring very soon.

You were saying?

I was saying this only. I think I'm very familiar with how it should be in my head, you know? Exactly. So something mixed with some childhood conditioning also, like together it's like a...

Yeah, the only determination of what it should be is that it should be empty and in God's presence. Or if you say 'or', it is also fine, but both are the same actually. So who's willing to risk it? What, two of us? Three? Risk it half-heartedly? What is the risk if you allow yourself to be empty of operating from conditioning, no matter what that does to your life? Every moment I feel like I'm just getting started. If you're feeling that, you're not alone. I don't feel like I'm truly living this life yet. I'm just starting to get started every day, I feel. And when I mean by not truly living, I'm not allowing Him to truly live this life yet.

Today I was, because you said something to me today, I remember it was about how I give importance to silly things or something like that you had told me. And then I...

Useless. Useless.

So then I felt like how I go into this useless, become this useless person, you know? This exactly like what you started sharing today with that, how this, like how I can switch into a 'me', you know? There's such a strong, yeah, such a constricted... what am I exchanging? Like what am I exchanging? The way out that I have found with, you know, it was... but I could really see like, you know, how it, how unnecessary it is to... like what I stop... and they're just so convoluted, they are not...

So shall we take the risk and like say from this moment on we drop it? Yeah, like none of us will follow conditioned patterns. Doesn't mean that you try and make a new pattern. This is the temptation, because the mind will come and say, 'Okay, then I should stand up and start dancing now, just start laughing uncontrollably,' or some idea like that. And if that is truly from the heart, if it is from God, then it is fine. But don't fall into the trap of a new persona being created just because the mind says, 'I can offer you that. You want a spiritual ego?' Yes, don't. That is worse than the non-spiritual ego. So shall we make a deal? That we will only follow God. And how to follow God? Just by being in His presence. You can't follow without being with Him. You can't say, 'I live together, I follow Him,' unless we are with Him. Shall we? Scared? Should be a little scared, otherwise I'm worried.

And even that, this is not allowed to become a thing. That's the thing, that even this cannot be like a new... like my new personality is that I don't have a personality. Even that can't be. It has to be just because a child is not being a child, a child is just a child, right?

Father, last night, you know, I was with a lot of family members and there was so much drama happening. And then, you know, I got so irritated and pissed off, but I could control it to myself and I was by myself. What I kind of felt is you should let that feeling happen. Like, you know, if it's happening, then if you're trying to chase it away, then it's the problem. Yeah, like if it's anger, feel it. Like, you know, just be with it. Like don't react, but be with it. Like even happiness, whatever. Like the more you are in that mode, you're naturally getting to that state. Of course, you can't avoid conflicts or you can't avoid those irritations and things coming your way. Like, you know, that again comes down to your way.

Irritants come your way. Yeah, when again it says like, 'You know, it has to go my way,' that's when that irritation is. So irritants come your way. Yeah, somebody says this, somebody says like that, or somebody doesn't say something we want to hear, or somebody doesn't do something we want to see, you see? Then those are irritants. But to make irritation, we have to do a lot more work. Exactly. Yeah, it is not coming from outside then, you know? That just comes and goes. Exactly, exactly.

Can we put this fan... is it cold? A little bit. Tell me when you want to switch off the AC. Yeah.

There are so many, so many... like if I pick up something, like supposing orthodoxy. Now in that, I have to do prostrations, I have to pray so much, I have to do this, that. And then now I want to do Ram Ji bhakti, you know? So that has changed. And so I don't have that much time to do that, you know? So then my mind will beat me up, you know, that it's like, 'You have to do, you have to complete,' you know, what you had decided before. And then I find myself like, you know, feeling bashed by... and also I feel like, you know, am I not doing enough or am I not putting my 100% or, you know, like a guilty feeling like that, you know? Then today, Father, I just felt like I just want to leave all this, you know? Just before coming to satsang, I felt like I just want to be done with, you know, making any plans because I don't know... I don't... I mean, and it sounds so much like this conditioning thing that you're saying. It feels... I don't know how you would, you know, what you would say about this. But I just feel I want to be done with, you know, 'I have to do this, that.' But again I felt like maybe it's like an escape, you know, to not do what I have to do. So how, what should I do?

Just we have to stay with God. And if certain things don't move... like if you said, 'Do wake up and do,' which you haven't said, but supposing, you know, you did, and then it's not moving like that, then... yeah. Because everything that is worth saying is just a pointer to stay with God. Yeah. So in that 'stay with God', you don't have to worry about what else is being done or not. So you pray to stay with God, your idea is to pray to stay with God, your other practices are to stay with God.

So how, what should I do? Just we have to stay with God? And if certain things don't move—like if you said, 'Do wake up and do,' which you haven't said, but supposing, you know, you did, and then it's not moving like that—then yeah, because everything that is worth saying is just a pointer to stay with God. Yeah, so in that 'stay with God,' you don't have to worry about what else is being done or not. So you pray to stay with God, your ideas is to pray stay with God, your other practices are to stay with God, everything is to stay with God. Yeah, so if you're just staying with God, which means inward facing, yeah, then the do or not do is unimportant.

But if you're not staying with God, yeah, you see, then to say, 'But it'll happen when God...' Not that you're doing that, but I'm saying that can become a common this thing to keep us away from God, which is that, 'Okay, but it's God's will; if it is going to happen, then it will happen.' So that is where it becomes sticky, yeah. So just whatever your feeling in the moment brings you to God is your practice. If you feel like you can't be with God, then follow what your teacher said.

So supposing, okay, I really want to follow this what you're saying now, you know? I really want to hear it deeply and not go into this again because today I felt I just want to stay in love, you know, with God. Like I just want to remain in love because all this doesn't let me live in love. It lets me live only in... I mean, I am in love, and then to be in love, then I worry, and that's not to be in love at all, I felt, you know. So supposing now I read somewhere that every day I must do so many prostrations, and I've been like really eating these books, you know. And so what, what do they say it for? To be with God. But they also say that do it all your life. So that's when to be with God, not at the cost of being with God.

So suppose that your body is in pain. Suppose, yeah, that your body is in pain and every time you do a prostration, you're just thinking of going to the hospital instead of staying with God. Then you would not do that particular practice because it takes you away from God. But what is the writing is for is because in the usual human condition, we are not able to stay with God, so we need that dose of humility. We need that dose of focusing on God to remain inwards. But nothing, no pathway to God is set in stone. Everybody is going to have a unique pathway to go.

And I want to hear you, you know. Sometimes I get confused reading so many different things. Everything seems to be like a very... you know, I feel like, 'Okay, I'm going to do this now,' and you know, I...

So if you make God at the center, then even that can become a reason to go to God, saying, 'I'm reading all these spiritual books that I feel guided to read, but I get confused, God. What should I do?' Yeah, okay, we stay with God that way.

And in the meantime, no, I'm just asking because this is where I trip up every day.

So let's say when this question comes, yeah, what is my job? If you were to do a slow motion, yeah, into this conversation, my job is to bring it to God. This child is saying this; what is the prasad that has to be given to her? You see, that is the attempt. Am I good at it? No, I'm terrible at it. There's a lot of work to be done, you see. But that is the process. So everything that comes in our life, nothing becomes for me to deal with. It becomes God's will. Means what is God's will? What is your will right now? So this child is asking me this question right now; your response has to be shared from this mouth. May it not be from Ananta.

So now you should do the same thing. That I'm hearing this now, this is appearing in your light, God, Father. This is what is appearing in your life. If some response has to come, let it come only from you. Let it not come from a conditioned response or my attempt at solving it for myself. And it says that, always says, 'Just solve this one, then you're sorted.' And then when you think you've solved that one, then next this comes: 'Oh, just solve this one, then you're sorted.' Then solve this one, then you're sorted. So it keeps us in the trap and it stops us from living empty of 'me,' you see. So we have to start now. So you're hearing this—are you giving it to God? Are you allowing Him to hear it and respond from there? He's hearing it; it's not that we can stop Him, but you know what I mean by saying allowing Him by not interfering in the process, you see. So that is how to live. That is what to do. Both are included in that. That every moment, just be too simple, too innocent. That innocent that you don't get in the way of God.

Father, I don't have to follow anything? No? Like, I don't have to make up my mind?

Try. Try now. Yeah, there's some fear too, yeah. So like that resolution, yeah, is still there where we say, 'Okay, now if I know this, then I understood it, then I can just follow it like that.' But it's still taking on too much baggage onto ourselves. Yeah, so how to do? Does it come? Of course it comes. So a question comes and there are patterns of answers which have been given in the past. So the intellect, the mind, offers those. So just, can you ask me something on this? Yeah, like on this what you just said.

Yeah, so how should one live? What should one do?

One should try to be with God's presence in whatever way they know it all the time, yeah, and live in that innocence and simplicity that we don't get in His way. Yeah, we don't get in His way. Okay? Is it by our own attempts at understanding how to do this? Our own attempts at how to live? Our own attempts at figuring out the best way for us to move from this point onwards? That is what the mind is constantly offering. It is saying, 'Ah, this is where you are, this is what the world is, this is what I'm going to do.' So don't be empty of that.

I want to ask, I don't know, some feelings so unresolved about this.

That's good, yeah. So because every time you have a problem, it is very good because it gives you more reason to go to God. Yeah, so don't shy away from problems. Don't rush to intellectual resolution because those are very temporarily relief-providing, but they don't want to actually offer us anything.

Can I just ask one? I'm sorry that you are not telling us to follow any practice like regularly, and you're not doing that? No? Some, like wake up and don't... yeah, apart like my issues, I'm saying these prostration issues and this and that, you're not? No, I just want to hear this.

But you do now. Sometimes I myself don't do, so who am I to offer? I'm not speaking today. Yeah, okay. Okay, so the key is not the method itself, like we've been saying, but what is the intent? And they can keep changing, no? Like it's naturally just changing in...

Then it can keep changing, no?

Carefully, in the sense that changing according to the mind or changing from the heart? It feels like such a flow, like one thing just gets left behind and the other feels so fulfilling, so nourishing and so alive.

Yes, so feeling is on the cusp. So to get a sense of whether it is... like excitement is a feeling and also like enthusiasm is a feeling. But excitement is more like mind energized in a way, and enthusiasm can be from a joy in the heart—can be, not always. So we have to just, if you are unsure, then we just have to be empty and leave it to God to make it clear to us.

So this is what I'm asking, Father. This is where I am. Like when I see I'm doing some, supposing I'm going one way and now I want to switch another way, and I have switched, and maybe I have not waited or it has happened, I don't know what has happened in that switch time. And then when you're saying wait for God, so God might not like move me instantly, no?

Most likely will not. Will not.

And I might have to wait long time also. In those days, what am I supposed to do?

Wait. How? No, tell me how did Maa Shabri be? So Maa Shabri was putting flowers and going getting her berries. Why was she doing those things? No, but she was doing what she was doing, no? She was doing based on... here's a lady who basically enlightened, was told by her teacher that you are enlightened. So how would she be doing it? My feeling is we can't predict for such a great sage, but my feeling is that all these were divinely inspired movements—to lay the flowers, to pick the berries, to do all of that was not mental decision-making. Even the waiting so long, the mind would never have the patience to wait that long. I see what you're saying now, yeah.

All right, so it needs that same what we were talking about: innocence. Can we take that risk to be fully innocent without allowing that innocence to get jaded by what we think even of spirituality or how we should be spiritual? Can you tell more about waiting? Yeah, I can show this what it looks like. And waiting doesn't mean that we are waiting like the body is waiting, yeah. The body could be in action, it could be in movement, or could be not moving.

So Father, if I'm doing something and then I notice...

Slow down, yeah. Slow down a little bit because as we are getting used to the process of staying with God and becoming priests in His temple, a rushing usually comes from a mind space. It takes us away from that process. So notice yourself rushing if you are, just because rushing comes from a place of self-concern, self-image, interest, you know, interest in what is happening to me, those kind of things. So if you belong to God, then you don't have to be worried about any of that. Yeah, I get it.

So try it now. Like you heard this, yeah? Don't respond from you, yeah? Respond from what God is saying. See, there can be like a mental disheartening on hearing that because it can feel like, 'But that is too far-fetched for me,' or 'That takes time.' Then I want you... so now try this. This is in front of you, this situation. Just don't get involved with it. Just leave it to God to respond. And every moment spent in that is a moment in prayer. That vulnerability, that openness, that innocence, that simplicity takes us away from all our spiritual ideas. Our spiritual construct of who we are then gets demolished.

Because to be in spirituality like this one for a quarter century and still not know anything, this can be quite a strange admittance. If someone comes and says, 'You say you've been spiritual or seeking since 23, you're almost 50 now. Can you give me the essence of what you learned?' And if I say, 'Just be innocent and stay with God,' most people... 'What? That you knew right from the beginning!' No, people will say that. That is how the pride, the ego, is kept immersed in God's presence and in a constant process of dissolution. Like the drop that Guruji talks about, every time you immerse, part of your conditioning gets dissolved. That is the meaning of Maharaj talking about the God working in your heart. That is one staggering line if you were to just take it to heart. Then just what you need to do? If you just have to be empty and He works on you, is it? But we don't allow us to be empty. It becomes like a punishment.

What is the ego's way? It says, 'I will do, whether right or wrong. I will mess up, it's okay, but I will do it.' Rather face the repercussions of stupidity than to drop the stupidity, see? Because that whole doership seems so strong. But just to remain innocent and simple and not know can seem more risky than doing silly things. Does seem like a prison sentence if you are to be empty of yourself for that moment. When you told me, then I felt like... like you know inside, but after that I saw what you were saying, yeah. So because the mind takes on the spiritual persona and says, 'Ah, now this is you.' But then and for a while it can be like, 'Good, I need an answer, I need a resolution.' It's all tactics to keep itself alive. It's a wrong problem to... like it's not a problem to solve exactly. So it just goes from one to next to next to next, and every day it seems like we lead a spiritual life. But if you are caught up in these things, then it is the Maya's trick to keep us away from God. Not that you're doing that, I'm just saying that that is what the attempt is on the mind. I really am, Father, I feel I...

For while it can be like, 'Good, I need an answer, I need a resolution,' it doesn't—it's all tactics to keep itself alive. It's a wrong problem to—it's not a problem to solve exactly. So it just goes from one to next to next to next, and every day it seems like we lead a spiritual life. But if you are caught up in these things, then it is the Maya's trick to keep us away from God. Not that you're doing that; I'm just saying that that is what the attempt is on the mind.

I really am, Father. I feel I am doing well in the sense that—

Not that you're doing that anymore than the rest of us. All of us are doing that, and that's where, from experience, these words are spoken from here.

So, Father, yeah, sorry, I was waiting for—I didn't want to interrupt, though. I woke up feeling I needed to talk to you today. And it feels like if I come up to you, then the mind's less likely to win whatever's happening. And I am—the conversation you just had was very helpful, so thank you for that. I don't know, I just feel I've just been feeling like I really am a beginner. Like, I don't feel like—like I don't even feel like I'm even a beginner sometimes. See that I have no idea, see? And I feel like I was more sorted maybe years ago; I had an idea. And now I feel I don't know. And I see the biggest problem is just being closed to love, to loving life and God and people and humans and everything. Yes. So the tip is that who do we rely on to even see sight? Or I mean, like you said, I see that it's all about this—what do we rely on to see, to even know that?

Well, presence, of course.

Yes, yeah, yeah. So the presence, as it's really all about love, then we can trust that fully. I trust that, but I'm not doing much to stay open to love. Yeah, yeah. So what makes that switch over happen from being in that place where you can hear His presence guide you to love, and then what pulls us out of that place where we are in His presence? Because there's no greater way to love or be in love or meet love than to meet Him, be with Him, the source of all love.

Yeah. So did the conclusion that 'I am not doing enough' also come from the same place that the insight came that it's all about love?

No.

So which one can be dropped?

The second one. Exactly. So the second one can be dropped. And what should we do? Just remain simple and innocent, like you said, and let love move however that looks. And like what you were saying, to not have an idea what that looks like and needs to be like. Yeah. What the 'but' is—should I talk about the 'but' or just drop the 'but'? Is that what the 'but' is?

No, the 'but' is that I do get caught in the idea of what should be in my life and how I'm not succeeding. That's it. And that's all what all of us do. And that's where, as I started sharing satsang today, I was saying that this road to transparency and innocence and simplicity is something that I'm just a beginner on. Because many times as I start to share, I notice that it is not in full reliance to what God wants to put in this mouth, because maybe it seems like I have to give an answer or there's a rush to answer. And it all ties back into how we want to be seen in the world, what is the image that we want to carry or the world to carry of us.

So as a teacher in satsang, how foolish am I willing to look if someone says, 'What comes after ABC?' and am I willing to wait for God to tell me the answer to that instead of rushing to the conditioned response of 'D'? Yeah. And if no answer comes, then are you willing to look foolish? That somebody comes to satsang for the first time and somebody asks a question saying, 'How should I pray to God?' and if no response comes from here, then am I willing to take that risk of that one feeling like they shouldn't come to satsang, this is not the pathway to God, this teacher is foolish, they don't know what they are talking about? Is there enough trust that even if silence comes and the simplest answer is not responded to, then is there trust that God knows it is God's Will and therefore has to be the highest?

Yeah, it's like we don't have to know.

Exactly. And even as a tool—like we don't, as a tool of God, we don't—it's not even then we don't have to know what God's up to really, because we actually can never know. But even in His love, He gives us some insight sometimes, some flavor of how things are moving or are to move. But to not even—to allow that also to be fully alive and moment to moment.

Yes. Faith, it's everything. It's everything. It's patience, it's faith, it's courage, it's humility, it's everything.

It actually would be foolish for this one to take credit for that which is just a function of Grace. Like to presume, for example, if I was to have a conversation with you and in the conversation you were to just—the 'me' was to just spontaneously combust and just vanish forever, and you would have what is usually called an awakening experience and it became such that you became a great sage and everybody saw your light and was falling at your feet, then it would be foolish of this one to presume that that which is so much a functioning of His Grace, that this one caused that to happen or was even a catalyst in that to happen. Because it is not—the only help we can be is to be empty of ourselves. Yeah. And that's got to hurt the ego somewhere. The only way we can be helpful is when I am not, you see? And there's no real ego-crushing statement more than that if you really hear it. We, of course, we hear it all the time and the ego also enjoys it, you know? But once it really hears it, that no, it's very literal that the only time I am helpful in any way in this world is when I'm empty of myself. But it hurts the ego, but in the heart it's a relief too, you know?

Yes, in our heart it rings so true. It just—relief. But it literally is that, that not only do we need to get out of the way, but that we also don't really get to know either.

Yes, yes. Because how it will be used—why should we, or why would we, or why should we?

Yeah, yeah. Yes, you know what I mean. Yes. Even in that, that the play of instrument-hood should lead to some recognition within the instrument of what transpired in that instrument-hood is also somewhere a ploy, isn't it?

Just pride. It's pride. The mind's ploy to make us in some way feel responsible for that unfolding which is pure Grace. Yes, yes, yes. There are no perks of instrument-hood. That also is very painful for the ego to—

And a relief. And relief, with mostly pain. Yay, such a—that's an incentive to keep going. I have so much to look forward to.

Yeah, exactly. And that is why what happens is that because when we are seekers of God, then being a teacher of God seems the culmination of that initiative. It is like climbing the Everest and then having the certificate of conquering Mount Everest. So being a teacher seems like that on paper, but actually is nothing. It's just a very, very natural, simple way to be with no necessary worldly benefits at all. But is the only way actually in reality to be.

Well, I don't know if I'll ever get there, but I do see more and more that it's that I don't need to know how or why and where more and more.

How would our life be if we took everything to God? Took everything to God and moved only from Him, being moved only by Him. Many years ago in satsang, someone asked a question and the response from here came in this way, from His light, that: 'Do you want a God-assisted life or a God-dictated life?' Some of you may have been there, but it really hit home even here as those words came. That a God-dictated life strangely sounds oppressive to us. So strange. And we don't realize that the only oppression is a mind-dictated life, and a God-dictated life is the only freedom. Because there's no third option. You can't say mind-dictated or God-dictated—why can't I just have my dictated life? That is the mind. So what is that God-dictated life? It has to be moment to moment, isn't it?

Of course.

Our determinations, our intentions to only follow God give that momentum. Just like conditioning has its own momentum, our divine inspirations or divine intentions from the heart also carry their momentum. And in a way, life is just a push-pull between these two momentums, you see? What has more momentum for us in the moment? You notice this, that when we are in a worldly momentum—and I just came straight from work, so I can testify to that firsthand—that when we are in a worldly momentum, then that momentum wants to continue, isn't it? And when we are in a Godly momentum, then that momentum wants to continue. But of course, what happens is that the mind uses like changes of environment, either leaving from satsang or going to some other place, as opportunities to say, 'Okay, this is a good time to take a break and, you know, just come back to normal' or something like that. So it has these speed breakers, momentum breakers as well. And many times God also sends signs which can be momentum breakers of the momentum of Maya, you see? When we have fully forgotten God, then something, just the right video appears which really touches the heart, or we get a message or something happens. But the more we remain in His presence, the more stronger that—we don't have to fight as much with the mind if you continue to remain in God's momentum.

Someone said in recovery—there's 12 steps, you know, in recovery—and that someone's sponsor had told him that if you stay in the beginning steps and you're always a beginner, then you can't fall so hard or fail as much. Very—that's very true. The higher the perch we make for ourselves, the harder we will fall. And the same things which will not be troublesome at all as a beginner, the same thing if you made a perch for yourself will seem very hurtful. So if I have made a mental image of myself as some great teacher or something like that, and somebody came and said, 'But you're a fool, you don't know anything,' then that would have hurt because, 'Oh, you know, this one is insulting me now.' Hopefully what should happen—and let's see if it plays out that way—but it should just be, 'Well spotted, well spotted.' That should be the reaction. But you can't do it as a tactic; it has to come from authenticity. But it's a good reminder, like the prayer of the beggar servant or the Litany of Humility. All these are beautiful reminders.

Yes, Father. The 'but' is also in like what you said, you know, that it's humility, you know, that is not there. And feeling like I'm last in every place in life and career and satsang, and there's a fight against that sometimes—pride. But when I really let go and just say, 'So what? So what?' and there's a rest in that, you know, like, 'Okay, this is where God has me.'

Yes, that's why the beautiful narration from St. Therese, where she says that she was always a bit upset with God saying, 'How come some of these ones had such spiritual lives and they became great saints, and I want to be a saint but I'm so weak, I don't have one millionth of the power they do?' And then she was reminded of a garden where every flower—the big flower, the small little ones, the small blades of grass—everything have a role to play. And she says that the tiny daisies are there to play the role where God looks down at His feet and He sees a daisy and smiles. Is that not more than enough of a purpose for us to have in our life?

Okay, I'm getting there, I guess. Maybe, I don't know, maybe not. But I'm not where I was, but I have a long way to go.

Yeah, same, same. So know at the end of all of everything, all of this is so that we get more time to be with God. If you notice, behind all these spiritual pointers, it is just to take away our obsession from ourselves so that we can create that this moment and let it be for God. So it's not really humility for itself, or faith for itself, or patience for itself, or courage for itself, or gratitude for itself. All of it is so that we can be in God's presence.

I'm not where I was, but I have a long way to go. Yeah, same, same. So know at the end of all of everything, all of this is so that we get more time to be with God. If you notice, behind all these spiritual pointers, it is just to take away our obsession from ourselves so that we can create that this moment and let it be for God. So it's not really humility for itself, or faith for itself, or patience for itself, or courage for itself, or gratitude for itself. All of it is so that we can be in God's presence. And the beauty is, the more we are in God's presence, then the more patient and humble and simple we become. So what are you resolving for yourself, and why haven't you given it to God yet? So to try and resolve for yourself and not give to God, is it a movement towards love or separation? The movement to try and resolve by ourselves and not give it to God, is it a movement towards love or towards separation?

Separation. Separation.

So it took me a long time to realize that this movement to separation is what is referred to as sin. That's all. It's not complicated. So when we say that there is sin, it is because we just keep moving towards separation and pride rather than towards God, you see? But if 'sin' is troublesome as a word, say 'mistake.' It's okay, as long as the commitment is to reduce the mistake. It doesn't matter which word we use. Returning to God a hundred times—when you say a return, we would choose God a hundred times. When we keep choosing to return to Him, we're not failing, but we're choosing Him.

Exactly, exactly. Just, Father, I have to go soon, but just pray that, you know, that the simplicity and innocence remains—and that, or doesn't remain, that it comes at all to begin with would be nice. And that to be with God doesn't have to be so fancy and full of fireworks and insight and spiritual excitement, and that just the simplicity of God's presence is honored and seen for what it is. That it's enough without understanding. It's okay. Thank you, Father.

So, is despair spiritual? So we can ask the same question: Is it a movement towards God or a movement towards separation? It's very tricky because in our despair, it can pose as if it is longingness, and we can see that the despair is about God, so therefore it must be a movement towards God, you see? But it is not possible, as we've been seeing this closely, that despair is a serious lack of faith in God. So to be upset about something, how will you be? First, you'll have to forget that God is aware of you, He loves you, He can do everything, and He's got an unlimited amount of time for you. You have to forget those things. But if you feel that God knows everything of your life, He is fully, deeply in love with you, He is all-powerful, all-pervasive, everything is His will, and He is beyond time, so there's no shortage of time for you or attention for you—so all these, in a way, are symptoms of faith.

So to be despairing would mean what? Huh? To be impatient? Is it to be impatient and therefore taking on knowing a higher knowing than God knows, you see? So when you say He is all-knowing, we are saying that, yes, He knows, but I know better about my life. Only then we can be impatient, isn't it? Is it that my timeline is better because I know better? Or we are impatient because we feel like He doesn't care about us enough to help us. Why should He bother? He's got seven and a half billion of us too, you see, only on this measly planet. So He mustn't be loving us so much. Or the same thing being a lack of time. And perhaps the most foolish idea is that: What can He do? It is my life. Which is very popular in India, strangely, it's very popular. God has told us, now we have to do it. He's not going to come every day and look after me; it's our job. Like, this idea is a serious misunderstanding of the Bhagavad Gita.

Repentance. Repentance.

Ah, yes. So is repentance a despairing movement? So for example, I see that every day when I go—let's take a good example—so every day when I'm attending a meeting at work, I get into like a manager or a leader or a boss-type conditioning. So to recognize that and then to say, 'But that's so foolish. I don't wait for God to move me. I take my own will, my own conditions to be true and required in that moment because I feel like God can't run this meeting.' So to recognize that is to be repentant. And to recognize our foolishness is to be repentant about it, and to say that this is so foolish that this conditioning is still relied on so much. So that is how I see repentance.

Like many times when I pray, I see so many of these foolish things. Like God shows me where I'm foolish, where are my blind spots, where I need to work on. But then to say, 'Oh, then there's no point. I don't know whether I'm really cut out for spirituality. This path is too difficult. I don't know. God is not helping me, my teacher is not helping me, nothing is working.' You see, it's not 'I'm just going to give up, it's okay, I can't do this anymore.' It's completely disproportionate. And yet the mind loves that when we get into a noticing of where we need to look, you see? Mind quickly offers this position for us saying, 'You've been at this twenty-five years and you're still so foolish. There's no point, just leave all of this. It's not for you.' That despairing sort of is the mind winning.

The repentance is, in great humility, to see our foolishness and, like Hanuman Ji said, to pray for His mercy because He is all-merciful. To be unrepentant is like the idea of entitlement, like 'I'm entitled to His grace. I'm just so cool here, just, you know, open and empty all the time. Just, I live in the Unborn, so He has to take care of me.' That kind of is foolishness; it is an absence of repentance. And that is why it's a beautiful prayer to 'open to me the gates of repentance.' It is a beautiful prayer because it can seem a very strange prayer. Why would you pray to God to make you repentant? Because when you're repentant, it means you have undertaken the road to humility. You're not caught up in your pride. And there is no life which is without foolishness, without errors, without mistakes.

So to be able to spot them, which our pride doesn't allow us to see—that is the great blindness of pride. It doesn't allow us to see where we are stuck, and it doesn't allow us to see that we are proud. So it's like that blindfold which makes you feel like you're seeing everything, and you see nothing foolish about yourself, and you can't see that you are blindfolded. It's a very scary thing, this pride, because you can't see that you're blindfolded. So when we pray, 'Make me repentant, open to me the gates of repentance,' we are starting to see there is no human expression which is without its errors. Even in the greatest ages, the highest ages, if you look at their lives, they made some very funny errors actually. So foolish ones like us must never get into this kind of a mental denial, conceptual—what is called Advaita denial. It is not actually an Advaita denial; it's a conceptual denial to use Advaitic concepts to deny. Somebody tells you, 'You're being unloving right now, you're not being kind,' and you say, 'But I am the Self.' This conceptually. So that is the conceptual denial. In Advaita, you're just truly an instrument of God and your response just comes from there, and you're truly seeing the pure insight of oneness with God and your response comes from there. It is not about the content of the response but the source of it.

Without emotion? Without emotion can there be anything? But what is that? What is that line over which it goes from repentance to despair? You know what I mean? So in the sense that—so let's see how it would be without, like Spock or a robot, in a robotic way. So it's just, 'Oh, I just, I'm so foolish.' But does that look like humility?

So humility is born in some emotion, you see? Maybe it's humility itself. 'But I've been so foolish, please have mercy on me, mercy on me.' So that it seems more heartfelt. But the emotion of despair is like, 'I have no hope.' When we say, 'I have no hope, there is no hope for me,' are we making a judgment about ourselves or about God?

God.

Exactly. That 'I am beyond even God fixing.' It's like that—my son's one of his favorite cartoons growing up was Bob the Builder. So now there's this meme, it says that even Bob the Builder can't fix this. Because Bob the Builder was, 'What is this thing? Can we fix it? Exactly, yes we can.' So he would fix anything. So now there's this on the phone, it says, 'Even Bob the Builder can't fix it.' So when we say, 'I am hopeless, there is no hope for me,' we are basically saying that even God can't help me, even God can't fix this. Forgetting that for God, everything is easy. It is not a thing.

Why? Yes, exactly. Seems kind of stuck. Yeah, to see that you've fallen is repentance, not to be in denial. Yeah, exactly. That is, no matter what you see, I—

So the antidote to that is to ask yourself if the world is feeling more real or is God feeling more real. And you see that everything that is mental is meant to make the world seem real, Maya seem real, rather than God. So if you're able to check on that at that time—even that we don't want to do then, we are in the momentum of Maya. So that's why we have to have some reminders. That's why it's a good practice to put up photos of sages; just look up and you get reminded. But when we are in that momentum, just hazy, like we don't see the walls—we see them, but we don't notice what's on them. Yeah.

So then, what is the wise one to do? We have to find one to ask him. But suppose we were to be wise for a moment, then we were to say that right now it seems to me that I'm not in the momentum of Maya, it seems to me that I'm not in the grip of Maya. So I don't know what the next moment is going to bring, you see? I don't know what the next moment is going to bring. So let me deepen in my love for God and living in His life. Because if I don't do that, then Maya, the greatest con artist, may pull me back again soon, you see? But because 'God can't fix it'—God can't, or He doesn't want to, or He doesn't exist? Which one is it? Yeah, which one? 'God can't fix it.' When you look at that starkly and truly objectively, you will see the absurdity of such an idea. He can't fix this in my life? Too much for Him to handle?

I used to share right from the beginning that He can run this whole universe, He can run every planet, every organism. All this light, sound, electricity, gravity, biology, physics, chemistry—all this seems to be playing out in so many, so many creatures, trillions of creatures and trillions of planets and worlds. But my life is too much, too difficult? What you wanted to say, how does that shame or guilt help you? Like, what is the difference between repentance and shame? Yeah, exactly. It is another mind trap to keep us over. Now we've eaten the full chocolate cake, now let us feel guilty about it and eat some more. That's—you won't stop.

We've been so guilty of leaving God, so let's leave Him some more by just moping about ourselves. Isn't that what shame is and guilt is usually? Repentance is more, 'I see it. I was walking to the left where I should have been going right.' You turn around and go to the right. You repent for that mistake. You say, 'Forgive me, Father, for not going with Your will,' and you turn around, you see? And shame is more like, or guilt is more like, 'Yeah, I'm not following Your will. I'm just too weak. I'm just not following. So let me not keep following, but I'm just not following. I'm so sad I'm not following.' I just want—and I'm not trying to demean it or to make it seem lighter than it is, but I know how strong it can be. So that is why I'm saying that while we have the opportunity in this moment that we're not so deeply stuck in any of that, to just resolve to be with God. Because we could get trapped in something for a long, long time. But don't look for relief from guilt. Many times we just feel like, 'I just want relief from this feeling so that I can go my own merry way again.' So keep the repentance part of the guilt and leave the rest of the heavy stuff. It happens.

I know how strong it can be, so that is why I'm saying that while we have the opportunity in this moment, that we are not so deeply stuck in any of that, to just resolve to be with God. Because we could get trapped in something for a long, long time. But don't look for relief from guilt. Many times we just feel like, 'I just want relief from this feeling so that I can go my own merry way again.' So keep the repentance part of the guilt and leave the rest of the heavy stuff. It happens so often. The child comes in Satsang, they say, 'I'm feeling so guilty about this and this, I shouldn't have done this.' And I say, 'It's all right, it's God's will, you're fine, just all right.' And then what happens is they feel like, 'Ah, that feels good.' So then they feel like they have the space to do the same thing again. So that's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, classical statement. So keep the baby, which is to recognize our mistakes and to resolve not to repeat them.

So it's like the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal Son, everyone knows the story, came back home and the father met him with much love and value and gave him the best clothes and best everything. So suppose the son then said, 'Oh, this is cool actually, you know, I can keep doing this stuff and keep coming back and my father just adores me, so he's just going to keep accepting me in that way.' That would be a misunderstanding about God, that He will stop teaching us in whichever way He feels is best for us to learn. The Prodigal Son story must end with him returning back home and staying there. It can't be that he keeps going back and forth.

Guilt is what kept him away because he said, 'My father will never accept me, this is too difficult, I have too much shame, I can't go with this, with what face can I go back?' But you have to return to realize that that is our true place. But then to be unrepentant means we keep doing that stuff over and over again.

Ego, exactly.

Yeah, correct. Okay, let's sing the Hanuman Chalisa and I have to go. We were going to cancel Satsang today because it's my son's birthday and we have to take him out for dinner, but just quickly sing the Chalisa.