Carry the Intention to Make Every Moment About God - 18th March 2024

What is the experience of those who became fearless and full of love in this way? They found that their life is so much richer. They were not hankering for the things of this world; their life was full of a different richness. So when I say that to come to spirituality is to transform our entire way of existence, this is what I mean. Our older life will become unrecognizable because you look at the things that you were concerned about and say, 'That really doesn't matter,' because everything that matters to me is: What does it have to do with God? We make our life about Him, then everything becomes okay. 'Does this help me in remaining in His light? Does this help me love Him more deeply?' It all becomes about Him. That is a very beautiful way to live.

Is that the best way to honor His very existence?

The more you honor His existence, yes. Because this love has a different flavor compared to the love of the world. In the world, we are used to a love which is give and take, you see? 'I love you, so you should love me. See, I do this for you out of love, you should also do this for me out of love.' But the love that we feel for God is full of reverence; it's full of awe, you see? That's what makes it devotion, because it is full of so much reverence that we are happy to be in servitude to Him. We are happy to follow His will, you see? Not out of force, but because we encounter such a deep love for such an unfathomable one that rather than being in service to our selfish nature, we would rather be in service to Him. So honoring Him, being in reverence of Him, being in awe of Him, being available to Him, serving Him as He allows—as we allow Him to move us and we allow Him to guide us—this love then becomes Bhakti. That love is the source of all Bhakti because it is not just like 'I love you, you love me.' In worldly love, there's hardly any servitude.

Are you trying to remember to directly... exactly? For the patriot, we learn that we can love our country although it is truly ineffable. We are not loving it like a piece of property; we are loving it like a notion, a country, a collective. We learn in that way. But here, when you encounter a true presence within yourself, what are you going to do with that? As opposed to, say, loving your community or your country or your neighborhood or any other thing like that, you're being confronted in a way with something that is so unexplainable. There is the presence of a living light, a living being within yourself.

To come firstly even to come in contact with that, it usually is accompanied with so much love and peace and joy. As the contact deepens, of course, the mind tries to play its tricks and say, 'It's become so dry, I'm not finding any joy in it. Where is the love? Where is the joy?' All these lamentations come, tantrums come in Satsang. But as you go along, as you go deeper and deeper, you realize that all love, all peace, all joy comes from here. You see that there's nothing to worry about left in my life because most of us worry about the decisions we have to make, the choices that we have to make. But now we allow ourselves to surrender to this light within, the Atma within, and that one does everything if you allow it to.

In this Leela, there will always be an apparent choice. Whether you look at it Advaitically or you look at it in the Marg of Bhakti, it doesn't matter. That choice you will have to make is whether you go with your egoic notions of yourself or you go with God. Some of us of a more intellectual variety may not even like the word 'God,' yet we may say, 'I want the truth,' you see? And that is fine. But want the truth fully with your heart, and you cannot escape this presence within yourself. It won't last very long where you'll say, 'Okay, but I want to call this the presence of the truth.' Soon you will succumb to such a beautiful name of God, which is God. It doesn't matter whether you say Ram, Krishna, Jesus, Allah—it doesn't matter. The labels don't matter, you see? But you will not be able to avoid looking at this holy meeting as if you're meeting a beloved one. The Satguru within is called the mother, father, the beloved, and the friend.

We may try to make it very scientific and objective and say it's all about the truth, but as you come in contact with this holy presence, love is bound to get you. It's bound to get you. So many start off as dry intellectuals and then fall so deeply in love with His presence because it is unavoidable. You cannot meet Him and He does not gift you with the gift of love. So then you meet this love, then you see that you can love even more, and then you are gifted with even more love. So it becomes like an endless flow of love within your heart. This love is so infectious. This is the infection that I'm hoping to spread to at least some of you.

It is not true that you have to be this way or that way, that you can only do the inquiry or you can only pray. Whatever your heart will guide you, your heart will guide you. Sometimes you may want to explore: 'What is the true nature of myself? Who am I in reality?' And sometimes you just want to bow down and pray to Him. Sometimes you just want to love Him. Sometimes you just want to serve Him, just want to share about Him. You don't have to make a timetable. We don't need to make a timetable because your heart will guide us.

Most of our brothers and sisters in the world lead a life of alienation, you see? Alienated, separated from this holy light, the presence within. If you talk to them about it, it's just like, 'Oh, it all sounds conceptual, I don't feel like it's real.' But something makes everyone turn, whether it is suffering or whether it is to encounter something which we can't explain. I feel that everybody's given an opportunity to turn within themselves to the Atma within. I don't feel like there's any life in which the Atma does not call us from inside. It is hearing that call that you come to Satsang. Many of them are also given that call from within and they find different Satsangs. In a way, Satsang is to come to the company of this holy truth, the holy presence.

Why does God call? Because of love. What is the Leela? What is the Maya? It's like God created this playground for Himself, Himself playing as His children. Within that playground, there are all these supposedly fun rides, but after a while, He's like, 'Tired children, we stop having fun.' Have you seen children in the best amusement parks in the world? After they've been there for six or seven hours, they're tired. They just want to go home. 'Do you want to do this ride?' 'No, no, no, I'm done.' Or maybe the mind is calling them saying, 'I always wanted to do that ride,' but the body is tired, everything is tired, so they're miserable. The parent says, 'Okay, come home.' The child says, 'What can be a better place for me than this amusement park? I don't want to leave this amusement park.' This seems, in concept at least, like the best place. And the parent almost has to force us, force them in the way that God is almost forcing us: 'You had your fun, now it's time to come home.' Why? Because of love.

It is said that to be in His presence is to live in His kingdom. Whether we look at the kingdom as Heaven or Vaikuntha or whatever name we give to it, it's not because He wants to expand His kingdom. He's not calling us so that He can win the popularity contest; He's calling us because that is our true home, our true place. Initially, all these things may seem a bit absurd. 'Is it true like that? Am I really being called?' But if you just notice, instead of becoming too conclusive, you'll find that all this is true. Over and over, God nudges you, God prods you to change our way of life away from selfishness, away from grasping, into a letting go, into a surrender, into a love, into the insight of our reality, into a deeper recognition—deeper than taking yourself to be this bundle of flesh. More important things than chasing money and materialistic possessions.

As you turn towards Him more and more, then you will notice the nudges, the prods more clearly. I feel like most of you, even if you spend a few hours just being selfish in your mind, you will start to feel heavy and disconnected, contracted. That sensitivity will get more and more and more. That few hours will become a few minutes, will become a few seconds. You don't want to live if it is to live without Him. It feels so oppressive to live like that. To live without the light of Atma even for one moment is actually oppressive.

So we go from thinking that the Atma is fiction to knowing that the world is fiction. That switch over time is the time where the oscillations make us giddy. Sometimes the world seems real, sometimes God seems real, because both don't seem real at the same time—unless we've made God worldly in our heads, which means that we only look at God like fancy emotions that we carry in our head instead of looking at Him as a living presence whose Atma is living within ourselves. It is not possible to live in the light and to give a lot of substance to the appearance of this world. So we are all going through that period of switching back and forth. Sometimes everything in the world seems so real—all these relationships, troubles, suffering, illness, injustice—all this seems so true. The world seems so real. Where is God then for you in your experience? Where is He then in your experience? Not then; He's hidden. The meeting of this light is hidden. That is the disconnection. Like in the Bible, it says that you're like a leaf which has been disconnected from its branch. You feel that sense of disconnection. And how is it when you are connected to Him in your heart? So pristine, so sublime.

I want to ask for your help, but it's all a hodgepodge. I don't know where to... what is the theme of the hodgepodge? So many themes in this past week.

So good, then let's start with leaving all those things. Tell me about right now. What is your direct experience right now?

Perception. This perception, that perception.

There. Who is perceiving them?

I.

I am. You are. What does this 'I am' look like or feel like? Did you all catch the beginning of the conversation? So he says, 'I'm not able to even clarify to you what my question is because there's a big hodgepodge in my head.' So I said, 'Okay, let's instead of trying to deconstruct that hodgepodge and find the strings, which may be useful, let's leave it for a moment. Tell me what is your direct experience right now.' So he said that this realm of perceptions is apparent to me. Then the question was: To whom is it apparent? Who is perceiving it? So he says, 'I am.' So tell me more about this 'I am,' because therein lies the secret.

The mind doesn't want to stay there. It doesn't want to do this exploration. It doesn't want you to come to Atma. It wants you to be stuck in trying to understand what this world is like, what these perceptions are made up of. But what are you made up of? It doesn't want you to look. I'm perceiving, you are perceiving, so leave the perceiving aside. Tell me about this 'I.' We know so much about perception—you know, this is why this controls the air conditioning—we know so many things. But do we know that much about ourselves? And how to find out? How do we meet this Atma firstly?

So often we've spoken about this: that if I tell you, 'What is the weight of the space in this room?' it doesn't compute. What is the weight of the space in this room? So to try and understand yourself or to meet yourself through empirical means—which is the means of perception or the means of thought—is not possible. But most of us believe that that's all we've got. So if I say, 'Don't think, don't think about it, and don't worry about anything you're perceiving,' you say, 'But then I don't have anything left.' Do you? What do you have left without thinking or perceiving? What do you know?

Atma. I still didn't get... oh, I am perceiving. Where's the Atma?

Atma. This 'I am' is the Atma. The presence of this 'I am' is the Atma. It literally translates into 'I am at me.' It's like it gives you the sense that 'I exist, me, I am.' What gives you the sense that you exist? Does it come from the world? Does it come from the body? Really look at that without having to think and without having to perceive. And you may believe that, 'But there I don't know anything like that, I don't know anything like that.' But you do, because everyone at some point or the other in their life has felt an unconditional love, has met an unconditional love, which is the love of God, the love for God, and the love from God. That you don't know through perception.

Because so often I've taken this example—I probably need to find a new one—which is that even parents who are very upset with their children at the moment, are angry with their children, if you really ask them, 'So don't you love your child?' they say, 'Of course I love my child.' They say, 'Are you just making it up? Are you being notional about it?' They say, 'No, no, I know I love my child,' even though the present emotion may be anger, the present emotion may be frustration. So this love is deeper than the perception of an emotion, deeper than perception and deeper than thinking.

So often I've said that all the best things in life we know like this. How do you enjoy music? A Bhajan comes, maybe it's in Sanskrit, we don't understand a word, but we still find so much joy in it, so much love in it. From where? For what? So all these best things are known where? Unconditional love, music, truths, the insight about what life is, the insight about what our purpose in this life is. Our mind cannot answer these questions.

That unconditional love and music I'm able to appreciate, but I can't find this 'how'.

How are you able to appreciate? You don't know. I mean, this is what you must find out. How? Like this. And it's frustrating because the answers are not here, is it? But you say, 'Yes, I do love music.' You don't know how. So find that out, because in finding that out, you will find out the 'how to'—how to meet yourself, to meet God's presence.

Sometimes I just start listening to music. I spent a lot of time listening to music and then I did enjoy it, yes. And lyrics also, I was sort of relating to all of that. But this Atma...

Listen to music which is not in your language, even instrumental. Listen to a Bach composition like 'Air on the G String' or something like that. What is there to like? But it's stunning. Something reminds you of a different place. If you hear a tune like that, what happens? Where is that coming from? So I'm just pointing you to a different mode of knowledge which has been neglected in the human condition, where we become so mental and even feeling-oriented about things, perceptual about things. But there's a deeper knowing which knows truths, which knows God, which knows life, which knows love. So you have to take the risk of just being stupid, because to be empty initially feels like we are being stupid. 'I came to Satsang to know more and more, and he's telling me to be empty of all conceptual knowledge.' We wanted to learn, we wanted to understand. I'm saying: empty yourself for God. Or for a while, don't even know why you're emptying yourself, just empty.

These days I'm not able to do that. Like, it's just that it's in that loop again and again: head, heart, head, heart. And we have these conversations often; it comes back to the same thing. I want to try something different.

I don't feel like there's anyone in this room, including this one, who can say, 'I'm 100% intuitive.' So all of us are in that loop: head, heart, head, heart. Not just you. Being able to identify head and heart in that... this is head, or this isn't this like this lamentation that we seem to be in this loop. Is it head or heart?

Memory.

Memory. So let's say the instant you say memory, it's head. Let's keep that as the mind, yeah. Now what else is there? Perception. What is here which is independent of perception? Independent of perception. So in the way of insight, the teacher's job is to provide you a question which your head can't really answer, isn't it? And yet you find an answer somewhere. Then the teacher tells you: stay there. So what is independent of perception? Can you be perceived?

I don't know what we're doing, Father. We keep doing this.

No idea what you're doing? That's the risk you have to take. That's a risk we have to take because we've been rational for so long, but now we've come to the limits of our rationality, isn't it? Because your rationality is not able to tell you how you can exist and yet be unperceivable. Because how can something really truly exist and not be an object in this world? Because every object in this world has to have some attribute, some Guna, some quality. But you're recognizing that that which is aware of all of these perceptions itself cannot be perceived. Recognizing that? That which is aware of all of these perceptions itself cannot be perceived. So then what instrument of recognition are we using to recognize that? How do we know that? Is it just a notional thing? No, you say, 'I know it. I am aware of every perception, but this I itself I cannot perceive.' What mode of knowledge are we using? That is the heart. That is the intuition. That is the Satguru presence within.

But even that is not perceivable, huh? That tool is also not perceivable.

So first, what is your conclusion about this? 'I am perceiving you.' Yeah? You are aware of all of these perceptions? Yeah. And this 'you' is perceivable? No. So how absurd have we become that we are taking something that we can't even perceive and we are saying that is 'I,' is it? We are calling this the world, everything perceivable, we are calling Jagat, the world. And that which is aware of all of these perceptions, it itself you cannot find shape, color, size, any Guna, any 'ness.' And we decide to call that only 'I.' Why do we make this decision? Is it a decision? It's not even a decision. It is so naturally and organically known to us that although when you hear it like this it sounds absurd, you realize that that is the most natural place to put my reality. I am aware. I am the sheer witnessing. I am the Sakshi principle. And you did not have to use your mind at all. And you already said that you cannot perceive this 'I.' So this is called Aparokshanubhuti. No mechanics needed, no time needed. If you have the innocence of a child, it is apparent to you that you are this Nirguna reality, like it was apparent to you before we probably started thinking about it.

So in that moment it was apparent, isn't it? So where did you know this, that this unperceivable one is I?

I don't know. Where do I know it? I don't know.

What do you know?

I know. Who knows? You do. Either you do or somebody else's third-party information.

I.

So it is you. Which you? That is what you don't know. Because when you say 'I don't know,' you're using like a glass, but what you're finding about yourself is like the ocean. So the glass cannot contain the ocean. What you're finding about yourself, this 'I,' is locationless, timeless, spaceless, and yet it is everything and everywhere. And the place where we're trying to understand it, our mind, is like a tiny glass. We're trying to squeeze all this ocean, make an understanding of it in that glass. But you can't do that. That's why you say, 'I don't know who it is.' But you just said it is 'I.' So either you don't know who it is or it is you. How can you say 'I don't know who it is' but 'it is I'?

I'm not trying to confuse you in words, and we can go back to the Bhakti conversation soon. But this is also a joyful notice: how our logic, our intellect is too limited. Because it is true what you say: you don't know who you are, but you know that you are that which is witnessing all of these perceptions. Undeniable. You're hearing the sound of this voice, so you're hearing sound, but you are not sound. You are aware of the perception of sight, but you are not sight. There is an awareness which is independent of the modes of perception, which is your reality. And you have said that you are that, but now you're trying to understand it, which we just can't do. So when you're not trying to understand it, what happens?

Perception.

Okay, so when we are open and empty and it is fresh, you're not trying to understand anything, is there just perception? Only perception is there? The world is there, Jagat is there, but there is no observer of it? Is it like that? That question comes up: 'Who is observing it then?'

Yes, me.

Okay, so don't let that question come up, okay? Just like right now, only the world is there? No nothing is witnessing the world unless the question comes up? Is that what we are saying? Or that which is witnessing the world is also in the world? What are we saying? It's all true, it's Advaita Vedanta which you're sharing anyway, but the way it came in response to that question, it almost sounded like a mental bomb, like a mental escape. 'I'm not liking these questions, let's just say it's all one.' So I'm not going to let you escape that easily.

So where are we? I'll help you a little bit. So where are we? We are saying that there are perceptions. This realm of perceptions, we call them the world, isn't it? So this is the Jagat, the world. Then you say that when the question is asked, 'Who is aware of all of these perceptions that we call the world?' you say, 'I am aware.' So when I say, 'Tell me about this I,' hardly anyone tells me anything. If I say, 'Tell me anything about the world,' we are happy, we have all our theories. I say, 'Okay, now tell me about yourself, this I that is aware of all perceptions.' The mind doesn't like that question. Or some of you have spiritual encyclopedias in your head, you may report from there. But if I tell you to tell me fresh right now about that 'I,' you may say, 'I don't know. I don't know who that is.' But you just said it is you. Why do you say that 'I don't know who that is' after confirming it is you? You say it is 'I,' but 'I don't know who that is' because it does not conform to any idea you have of yourself. If it looked a certain way, if it had certain qualities, if it had certain attributes, you would say, 'Yes, I recognize that one, that is me.' But this one is empty of all attributes, all qualities, you see? It is 'I,' but 'I don't know.'

Then the mind comes and says, 'But this we recognize only in the depth of inquiry. You really take us through it: Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Then I come to an insight about this.' And I'm countering that notion. I'm saying right now, nothing—no inquiry, nothing is there—only the perception of the world and no witnessing principle, no awareness? And it is you, or what?

Yes.

Who's aware of that silence?

I am.

Yes. This 'you' is which one? The 'you' that is aware of even silence, which in a way that you're saying silence, you're probably meaning the absence of all perception, you see? Not just words. So it's just like an absence, a sheer absence, you see? A sheer nothingness. But you are aware even of that. So you must exist even in that sheer no-thingness, is it? So if you are in the nothingness, you must be as the nothingness itself. Don't try to understand what I'm saying. If you are in the nothingness, what can you be there as? You cannot be there as something. So this nothingness you are. But if you make it into just a notional idea, then even you will make the no-thing into the something which is like the no-thing. So you can't even hold on to that. The empty which is absent of the notion of empty, the nothing which is absent of the notion of nothing—then you learn to rely on the ineffable insight. There words don't do justice. Words just can't reach it because words are designed for this stuff, not designed for that stuff. And where is this available? Here, right now. Because nobody is experiencing merely just the world, merely just perception—and I'm using the word 'experiencing' loosely. You're well aware in this moment of you as awareness.

Must be fully absurd, Father. Can I ask... so this is a useless one, a useless question. So Father, when you... the presence I feel is a presence of God. And so when you mention the love for God, to love the Saguna part of God is very easy and natural—love for Ram, Krishna, or any. And when you mention love for God, what do you exactly mean? Is it a love for Saguna or Nirguna?

So let's say, okay, we saw a beautiful painting, a picture of baby Ram or baby Krishna or baby Jesus. We saw a beautiful painting, the deep love rose, or some love rose, whether deep or not. We know that that painting, that picture was a trigger, isn't it? Or do we feel like we are really loving that work of the artist? We recognize that this just led to the Smaran, in a way the Simran of God, and that led to a love which was not just for that painting. You look at baby pictures of your child, you see? You're not really loving the picture; you're loving what you know of your child. So then the picture becomes the reminder, the trigger, the catalyst. When we put the photos of the sages on the walls, we remember our reverence, our love for them. We remember their pointings, what they showed us, you see? And that brings us deeper in our love and our insight.

So when we say that love is easy for the Saguna, then let's use that, because it's actually not just for that. Use tricks at whatever layer of existence to go deeper within. Can I make a confession? So most of yesterday went in watching Shrimad Ramayan. So I ran through like 40-something episodes, and I saw all the scenes where He was there at least, and I saw some other scenes. So most of the day went in crying, crying, crying, crying. Now, I'm almost 50 years old. I'm well aware that these are actors, that it's a set, nobody's... none of them is really Ram or Dasharatha or Sita or any of that, isn't it? And yet what happens? Why does it invoke this love, this devotion, this wonder about how He was like this—so loving, so truthful, so devoted, so kind, so everything? You remember Him somewhere in your heart and it makes you like that, isn't it? Now, is it love for that actor? Maybe full blessings to him for playing this role or whatever, but we are really remembering the love that we have for God, isn't it? So whether we watch 'The Chosen,' whether we watch this, we recognize that obviously this is all acting and it's a show, it's a TV program, but what it brings us to can be authentic. So don't be in a rush to categorize and say, 'You know, but I want to fall in love with the Nirguna only,' or 'I like the Saguna only.' The world is full of these categories. You use the categories to find an excuse to love Him more. If you enjoy the Nirguna and the love emerges from remaining in the Nirguna, then do that. Whatever works, do. Because the mind will use whatever works to try and get you out of it, so you use whatever works to deepen into it.

And the latest one you saw, Father... I also have a confession on that Ramayan. Whenever I see Sita, it reminds me of Mira. Oh, nice, isn't it fun? And the show reminds you... kind of. It's good. So I'm at some episode 48 or something. How many are there totally?

But how many have they released? Oh, on TV... last week I was at Sabarimala.

Oh yes, you went. So Father, another question: there are millions of people there—or not millions, thousands—and all, but everybody is so desperate for God. But it doesn't feel like the same God which you are pointing to. Just an observation. But that gave me time to stay with the other God also. I was saying to you that I really enjoyed this movie about Sabarimala, but it's the same thing you watch over there. You know it's all dramatized, you know it's a script, you know all of that, but something reminds you of God within you.

Sometimes when we are so deeply caught up in the world, like most of our brothers and sisters are, then to take those 40 days to fast, to wear black, you see? It's like a constant reminder in those days of God. And then you visit the temple, and there can be moments where in that one moment of that Darshan, you're just so open and empty that what you're seeing in front of you is already activated by so much Prana of millions of people, you see? Because they bowed down to that with so much devotion over hundreds of years. So there's so much energetic support there in such a place that to go there in that moment may lead to a deepening, may lead to an insight. Every mechanism has the potential of working. You must not feel that 'No, no, only this works and this doesn't work.' Everything done in God's name has the potential of bringing us to Him.

Father, I just want to expose that there's a lot of resistance coming. What is the message of the resistance? I want to sleep. Chatting late last night...

No, Father, I slept in the afternoon also, so I've got all my sleep. Go to sleep. Are you sure it's not like Tamas calling? How will you find out? One way to find out is whether the hearing stops. In the sense that many times we feel like we are falling asleep in Satsang, but if you play... and most of you do, but I'm not saying that... but I'm saying that many times you'll also notice that something just empties out so much that all you hear is the voice, and it seems like you're in a sleep state, but the voice continues to be. You see? So that's fine, that's really beautiful. But the thing is, the trick is: how will we find out? Because you say, 'Okay, let it come,' and then we just fall asleep. What's going to happen? You can take the risk. There are some thousands of such... because the way for the resistance to perpetuate is also to add more resistance to the resistance. 'Sleep is coming, don't fall asleep.' Sleep then becomes even more, and Satsang seems like it's happening in another realm, although it's happening in the same room, but there's this inner battle going on with sleep. Besides sleep, any other resistance which is saying there is some... because sleep I've surrendered to long back.

Never happens over here, Father. So it's feeling very... it's okay. So in the seven, eight, ten years that you've been coming, if you fall asleep, fall asleep. Is there some fear also?

Oh no, Father, can you be serious? Everyone else you answer so seriously, and when it comes to me, you're making all the jokes, you're telling me to go to sleep. You know, I heard something recently: convert your FOMO into JOMO. You know what this is? Joy of missing out.

No, Father, now it's become PHOBE—fear of being included. Fear of being included. PHOBE. So when you get invited to a party and you're just wanting to read a book at home... I'm very familiar with PHOBE. Joy of missing out. It's like PHOBE. What should I take seriously? I'm getting prepared to be serious about... I'm not saying anything.

Little mic for who else doesn't want to be taken seriously, huh? Take it to... sometimes we take it too seriously. Chill, chill. Yeah, that is that right? Yes, yes. Because the point of meditation is to rest in the Satguru presence within, in our intuitive light within, and there there is really no trying, there's really no nothing you can do with that. So the trying must be when the mind is giving us resistance, you see? Then to follow what the teacher has told you to do, to let go of the thoughts. Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi had a beautiful way to explain this. He said there will be a point where to keep the heavy bags down may seem like effort, you see? But we must make the effort because it's like you're traveling, you boarded the train already, but you're carrying the bag on your head. So as long as to let go, to come to effortlessness feels like effort, we can make the effort. But once we come to the Atma within, then you can't try or not try, you see? Over there, there's no instrument left. You just have to be guided, be moved by His light.

As with everything else, it's not always cut and dry. Sometimes you notice, you see, something just doesn't want you to meditate. You say, 'Okay, now I'm going to just get into Padmasana, then whether it happens or not we'll see.' So to take the first step is helpful, you see? So I have said to all of you that don't start the day without coming to the presence of God. The mind will fight that with all its might. So with something like that, where you've heard from your teacher, you must try. The mind will say, 'No, no, but you have important work to do, you have a meeting starting in half an hour, you can't today, you just don't have time for it,' you see? And what's going to happen in that day? You're going to suffer with your ego, and everyone else around you is going to suffer with your ego. It's better you miss the meeting.

And not that God is unkind. God is well aware of our life situation. He's not going to say, 'Come, come, you come here, I'm going to make you miss the most important meeting of your life,' unless there's some great grace in that. So sometimes we have to fight against this worldly pull, and sometimes we have to just let go and be empty. And when to do either is we can be only guided by our heart. And if the heart is not apparent to us in the moment, then we must be guided by what the teacher has told us. So if you commit that 'Every day I will start only if I am apparently, clearly connected to God's presence, to the Atma within,' then just hold on to that commitment, come what may.

But once you want to come into His life, then you can't, after a point of letting go of thoughts, for example, there's nothing left to try with. There are no instruments there that you can use, because you cannot use your attention to do it, you cannot use your belief to do it. So you're empty, you're naked of instruments. There you just have to trust, you just have to let go. It's a beautiful play which unfortunately—or fortunately, maybe fortunately—we cannot template and say it has to be like this, like this, like this. It has to be sometimes like this, sometimes like that. As long as our intention is God, then either this or that will lead you to Him. That's why I keep saying: intention trumps method. If your intention is to love Him, if your intention is to be in His light, if your intention is to find Him, then there cannot be that He doesn't send you the method. I've never met anyone who said to me, 'I really wanted to find God, I really wanted to find the truth of myself, but I never came to the right method.' Just not possible. Many times what happens is that the method keeps knocking at our door and we keep saying, 'Go away, impostor.' It is not possible that we want God in our heart and God doesn't send the help. We, in our human play, are not that unkind that somebody's been calling us for so long and we don't even talk to them once. God is much more.

I just wanted to ask: Is this like a two-way process? You do open and empty to make place for God, and then you invite God? Or does it happen simultaneously?

When it's empty, God comes in. To remain empty for God is the extent of what we can do for Him. Whether He comes or not is His grace, is His will. There's no guarantee. And sometimes even the process of remaining or trying to be empty, and we feel that, 'But I'm not getting His Darshan.' I had said that if you are empty, then His light will be apparent. But what happens is that if this expectation is there, then that blocks our emptiness. So it's like, 'I'm empty so that He comes' is not empty. We must be empty even of that. So we can trust that He knows best when there may be some pride, maybe some expectation, something blocking. So He knows best. That's why I keep saying that our job is to set the dinner table for the guest, but we cannot compel the guest to come. Otherwise, it would all have become mechanical. 'Do this without grace.' The whole process would be almost like a factory system: just do some Sadhana, learn how to keep your mind empty, and then—tada!—God will come. We can't have that. It's a deeper play where we are learning how to let go of our self-serving tendencies, is it? We are learning how to let go of our self-serving tendencies, our egoic tendencies. And who can gauge that? Only He can gauge that.

Throughout the spiritual search, I felt like either I'm so good, I'm so empty, or I'm just so unworthy, so useless, is it? But He is the one who knew, who knows. We cannot determine where we are on the spiritual scale at any point of time. Even our emptiness we can't really determine. I feel it's easier to pray to God in the heart without being empty, thinking it'll get empty later.

No, it's fine, it's fine. Because it's not... ah, thank you for reminding me. Thank you for reminding me. In this beautiful Satsang which I shared with some of you also, which was a Satsang more than 50-something years ago—because the one who shared the Satsang, Sri Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji, left his body in 1971—he said something very, very beautiful. He said that, talking about the same tendency, we try to use negation, the 'Neti Neti,' to come to the sheer ineffable recognition of reality. But many times the notions of the 'Neti' remain; the 'not this, not this' remains with us. So those also have to be let go of. But what happens is that for most in the world, that's really difficult.

So he took a very beautiful example to explain this. He said ordinarily most of us don't look at the moon. So if I ask all of you, 'How many times did you see the moon in the last week?' some of you maybe moon lovers, but besides those very few, maybe once or twice or maybe not at all. So ordinarily you don't look at the moon. But suppose now someone came and told you that for you to be free, to attain Mukti, what you have to do is not look at the moon. Now, a few rare ones will be able to follow and say, 'Done,' like that. But what will happen to most of the others? They had no notion about this, they were not troubled by this thing, but now they've created new trouble for themselves because now they're worrying about not looking at the moon. 'I hope I don't look at the moon. I hope this is not reflecting the moon. If I look outside my window, I hope there's no moon,' you see? So I can understand the example was beautiful.

And this explains why teachings which I shared for so many years really never worked, which was like 'Don't believe your next thought,' you see? Just thought by thought, let it go. Because then so many of the kids started thinking about not believing the next thought, believing thoughts about not believing thoughts. So he said something very beautiful. He said that, okay, for those who are not able to let go of their mind—some are, and some are fighting valiantly and may they overcome the mind—but those who clearly get the sense that they cannot fight this battle in this way, then what they should do is fill their mind with God. Just fill your mind with God. Make everything about God.

Some of you may remember that one Swami Ji was here a few years back and he was just not getting the pulse of what was happening in Satsang here. So then one day he said, 'I'm going to go because I'm not really happy' or whatever. So I said to him, 'Okay, I told you to drop the narrative, you're not able to drop the narrative, but at least what you could do is change the central character, the central protagonist of the narrative, and make it God.' So that is the path of Bhakti: that if you cannot let go of the narrative, the story, the mind, then make everything about God. So then self-concern is replaced by God, by His light, by His story. And that's how it works.

That's why we hear or see the Krishna Leela or the Ram Leela, or watch 'The Chosen,' or do any of that work, because we replace—with as much openness as we have—we replace our petty worldly concerns by looking at the lives of these great ones. Even the lives of sages are worth contemplating because they teach us so much, they show us so much. So if you cannot drop the narrative fully, if it doesn't resonate to be empty, then just make everything about God. And this way of the heart has been shared from here by His grace; it is both, isn't it? So when you can be empty for Him, be empty. When you can't be empty for Him, love Him, serve Him, make it both about Him. Whatever remains, make it about Him in servitude to Him, and the rest of it, remain empty for His light to shine.

So we've been talking about the 'me' that is let go of in the path of insight and the 'me' that remains being dipped in the Bhakti, in the love of God, in the devotion and servitude to God. So I have for the past so many months really felt that it's not two distinct paths, and more and more it's becoming clear how Bhagavan said that these are two wings of the same bird: Jnana and Bhakti.

Okay, let's look at this question: 'I beg God not to leave, Father. It has become feverish, and any offense or fall from grace hurts even for a moment. I do use making these images of Christ as prayers and an anchor. I really don't want God to leave me, Father. Please hear my prayer. Loving Father, may Christ remove all offenses and sins from this existence.' So grateful even for this prayer. Is this kind of feverishness okay as opposed to the other kind? How to look at this question?

It's very beautiful. So if we say, 'God help me,' and we say, 'God help me,' maybe you get the distinction between the two statements. 'God, help me.' The other was, 'God, help me.' And that is the answer. Where is the emphasis? So if the emphasis is on God, it's all good. And that is the sheer helplessness, the sheer innocence of a child with which we call for the Father, not out of an individual personal expectation. It becomes almost like oxygen. But if the emphasis is on self-concern, then even that can be used by the mind. Can we say for one it is always like that or like that? No, we can't say. We have to just keep checking for ourselves moment to moment. It's just: 'I am suffering so much, this is happening to me, my life is not good, my relationships are all like this, I have no money in the bank'—all me, me, me, me, me. 'Only God, you can help me.' That is full of self-concern and God for my sake. And the other is: 'God, bless me with Your light. You are the only truth, You are the only love, You are the only holy, You are the only presence, You are the light of this universe. Bless me with this light.' You can see the difference. So one is deeply besotted by God, the other is deeply besotted by 'me,' and God becomes like the crutch.

I feel like self-concern can be not just like so apparent also.

Of course, of course. I'm just illustrating, saying like this to give you the tools to notice. It's not going to be so obvious like, 'I'm just like that.' But you can notice: where is it? What is this for? If you really ask yourself this question, 'What is this for?' and if that answer is dominated by the 'me'—so something happens for me or to me—then that is self-concern. If it is for God and for truth, then it is higher than that. So what are we praying for? What are we inquiring for? When we say that, 'You know, I love You so much God, don't leave me,' you see? Do it, it's okay. I'm saying no, call Him, it's okay. Be as feverish as you want and call Him. Don't... yeah, we'll get too caught up in 'Am I being self-concerned? Am I being...' Then you bring it to God rather than you go... don't stay with it in this realm at all.

So I've fallen in love with using the metaphor of Krishna sitting in front of us because it makes everything so clear. So Krishna is sitting in front of you. All of us are sitting and Krishna is sitting in a beautiful throne on that side of the room. We are all looking at Him. But there's one boy, one girl, who is just not looking at Krishna, not loving Him, not wanting to sit at His feet. So you go ask that boy, 'Brother, what is happening? Krishna is right here.' 'No, no, you know what is happening is that I may lose my job tomorrow, so I can't focus on the fact that Krishna is there.' So what would you tell them? I would say, 'Okay, if this is bothering you so much, Krishna is right here. Why don't you take it to Him? He will tell you what to do.' So rather than distracting yourself from Him, allowing the mind to distract you from Him... because we have a notion that 'I can't bring anything specific to God.' You're not meeting God because you're sitting and worrying about that specific thing. In this way, the mind can also be a play. Of course, it's a very humble, very beautiful motion not to ask God for anything because He knows better than we could ever. But the true humility in that is that you don't worry about it. If you're then going to say, 'I won't ask God, but I'm going to try and do this for myself,' then that is pride.

Father, what is this intuition like? I come to an open and empty state and I feel the presence, and then where is intuition in that play?

What we recognize when we are empty, without use of perception, without use of having to think, that is called an intuitive insight. But I can't do it. No, you can come to empty, but you can't then... you have no levers to press and say 'intuition.' It's not a tool I can use. No. So let's look at it this way. So Jnana Yoga—we talked about this some time back—where we're saying: what is the method of Advaita to come to the truth? First, you hear the words of a teacher, of a sage. Now those words will be designed in such a way that you cannot truly come to the answer from the older modes of perception, the empirical modes of knowledge like perception and thinking. So if the question is, 'Are you aware now?' you have to go to a different place by being empty where this recognition happens. Now that is the presence of the Atma. And as the Jnana of the Atma is received, then Jnana about everything that has ever happened is received. But it is also grace as to what is brought to the surface, what can we really bring into words.

So when we are there in the presence of the Atma within, the Satguru within, over there you may realize a lot of things, whether worldly or spiritual. But you only recognize them through this, in this way, and not through inferring, intellectualizing, thinking, perceiving. So that modality of coming to this recognition is called intuition. We access the intelligence of the supreme power by His grace; He grants us access to it, and from there we realize things which we would not ordinarily do. But it's not something we are doing, no.

Like I can't... but we are doing the 'empty,' and then I come to the presence, and then I have an intuitive insight. It's not like I can use intuition.

So suppose the question was: 'What is the purpose of my life?' or 'What is the nature of reality?' or 'What is love? What is the Atma? What is truth? What is justice?' any of these questions. So when we ask the question, what happens? The sense of the question lingers. So we just have to allow the sense of the question to linger and not try to understand the answer or think about the answer, you see? So we ask, 'Who am I?' That 'Who am I?' remains as a question that we brought to the higher authority within ourselves, within our hearts, and that is called contemplation. So when I say contemplate these questions, this is what I'm asking you to do. I'm not asking you to think about them because you'll confuse yourself more, you'll cause more trouble for yourself. I'm just saying that keep this question in your heart: 'Who am I?' or whatever the question was. And after that, we have no moves.

It may seem like we lose focus and our mind has distracted us. So there you can ask the question again. You ask the question again. So you started with 'Who am I?' You sat for a minute or two empty, waiting for the answer to be revealed, and quickly the mind said, 'Okay, what's for dinner?' you see? All of that. So you're contemplating what you're going to eat for dinner. You spot that. If you don't spot it, it's a write-off anyway. When you spot that, how to return? Just... you could ask yourself the question again. Many times just in the spotting it, you'll drop it. You spotted it. But sometimes you need to revitalize, reactivate the question by asking it again. That's the extent of what we can do. But we can't, unlike the mind where we find the connections—you think about this, it leads to that—there in intuition you don't have any such mechanism. That's why it requires a leap of faith.

Every time you're being intuitive, it requires a leap of faith because there is no mechanism as to do it better or worse. Can't process.

Yeah, so you go to God and say, 'What should I do next? I don't know.' Two options are available to you, both are seeming equally good or equally bad. So then you remember, okay, you heard that you must let God move you, God guide you. So you're basically saying, 'What can I do, Father? I don't know. Bless me.' After that, there are no mechanics, no levers that you can pull. In the mind, you may say, 'I can think harder. Where did I go last time? What happened at this one?' you see? All that we can do. But in our heart, we can't do any of this. We are out of moves. We are completely naked.

So Father, waiting for that answer, yes, like you said, is a leap of faith. Because your mind is rushing you and pushing you at that time saying, 'Decide, decide! You're so foolish, you don't know anything. This is all a waste of time. These are practical things, you can't bring them to God.' Is that waiting for God?

Yes, that is waiting for the intuition to reveal the answer to you. Yeah, it requires patience and courage because in the way of the world, you have to decide fast, you see? Those who decide fast are valued. 'This one is so quick in the decision making.' The mind loves to speak first. So let it go, let it go, let it go. Don't rush.

Can I ask one more thing? This... in this a-ha, that you say instinct, insight, and intuition. So intuition is... how is... like intuition is instant, but the wait for it is not like that.

Intuition is instant. You go to the presence, everything that can ever be known is known, you see? But it is the grace of this Holy Spirit, of this Atma, which determines the timing of when it should come to the surface. That we cannot force. That is why we instantly feel from lost to found, is it? Like the beautiful song goes, that 'I was lost, but when I came to You, I found.' So when we come to this presence, instantly we have this feeling of not being confused, not being lost. Everything is clarified, you see? Because you actually come to the place where everything is known—all past, all future, every timeline, every universe, every breath, every heartbeat—everything is known. But that doesn't give you a cheat code in the Leela unless God wants it to flow that way. And sometimes you notice that you know things which are going to happen. You have a sense of things, how they are going to unfold, because God's grace has blessed us to come... for that intuitive insight to come to the surface, you see? So we can't force it to the surface because only He knows best what should be revealed to us in this worldly place or not.

To come to His light, to His presence, is already fully reassuring. Although we may be very conflicted by questions before we went there, we are fully reassured because we know everything. But we know everything intuitively; it's ineffable, not wordy yet, you see? But when grace decides, okay, like a bubble from the ocean, something can come to the surface. And it comes to the surface, and it comes out through our mouth, you see? Or comes out as a thought, or comes out just in our heart as words guiding us, you see? Like God speaking to us. This is how it comes to the surface.

Father, like if you have some... if you see something and you come to some new insight or something, then you say then it should just be like whatever, you know? Because you already know it. But it's not like that, no? It's very... so it's kind of known and not known. Is it like that? The joy of it hitting the surface, yeah, is there.

Yeah, you say, 'Ah!' That you had words to say it, or you... or what is it? In a way that I'm able to put words to it, to express it. So many times over the years in Satsang, you've heard this one say that something is coming to say, but I don't have the words for it yet, you see? And you've seen it getting ripened as it goes along. And I said, 'This was the theme that was coming, I don't know what it's about,' but the words will come. There's no guarantee that they will come, but you get a sense that something is ripening, something is getting ready to come to the surface. And when it is expressed like that, it is joyful. But all of it was known, but it was completely known from... and how do you know that? Only intuitively. So only intuitively do you know that everything is fully known in our intuition already. I cannot fathom my Atma within being disconnected from the intelligence of its source, is it? From the intelligence of the Creator, Preserver, Destroyer, is it? The Atma is that. But I have no idea why all this came to the surface, yeah. No idea. I kept asking because this can be tricky. Like, if my intuition knows everything, then why don't I know everything? Because that is not the will of God. You know everything in your heart, but whether it comes into the play of your life, that only God can determine.

Like we were discussing about the prayer and when the switch over happens from 'me' to God-centered, the focus shifts. So even that is known only intuitively, right?

Yes. So often when I start praying, it's me-centered. I start with... though the words may sound God-centered, but I clearly... I mean, most of the times we clearly have a sense it's just the words and it's not God-centered. And when it is fully from the heart, like fully helpless from the heart, then the switch over happens. But as you said, there is no guarantee when that switch over happens. Sometimes the desperation today if I prayed, the desperation might be much more than yesterday, but yesterday the switch over might have happened easily and quickly, but today it's more and more and it takes time. Is it like that?

Yes, it is like that. In a way, it's just like we have to keep sending the application into the higher authority. For Him, it's for His grace to even make us Godly is His grace. To make us rely on His grace is His grace. All this is His grace. But we must remember to keep sending the application in. And when it becomes Godly, then we know it, right? Yes, you know it. We know it in our heart. We clearly know it also. And we must be careful not to convert that heart-knowing into mind-knowing. But that sense comes from the heart, right? It's not from the mind, right? Yes, it comes from the heart. It's very apparent in the heart what this is about, what this is for, whether it is personal or it is for a love for God or a love for truth. We know it in our heart. And if the good things we know in our heart, then we take them, we make them personal in our head—that's how we have to be careful of not making it spiritual pride, these kind of things.

So I'm just going to repeat because I don't know that... I can't use intuition. No, I can't do it. I just have to be empty, and intuition is what God does. In the sense that if you say, 'I'm going to be intuitive about this,' for example, 'I'm going to use my intuition,' the extent... what are you actually saying? That 'I'm not going to be mental about it.' There's no other way to be intuitive, isn't it? Saying that 'I'm going to be intuitive about something,' you're basically negating our mental capacity. You're saying, 'We are not going to be mental about it, we are going to leave it to intuition.' That's the extent of what I can do. Yeah, intuition can be done.

So it's auspicious that you hear a question which can only be answered truly intuitively. It's auspicious that the question takes hold, is it? For many, everybody may have heard the question 'Who am I? Find out who I am.' Everybody says this, and everybody—like even people who are not intuitive say, or not spiritual say—that they want to be authentic, they want to come from their true self, all of these things. But the mind converts even the question into something else. It's not really met truly that 'Really, I want to find out who I am.' Because it gives us some presumptions to rest on, saying, 'Okay, now you are this body, now you have to figure out what your persona is, I can be authentic to that person.' It's already trapped you in the pretext. So we've not truly met the question. It is auspicious to come across a question like this. It is auspicious for that question to truly take hold in us. It's auspicious to feel stuck without having the answer to that question, like the bug has caught you. Like the bug caught me here and I was just like, 'But who am I? But who am I?' So the bug is very auspicious in that way because that gives you the fire to not be mental about it, the fire to go deeper and deeper. Deeper and deeper meaning that we allow ourselves to just let the question marinate within our heart, and it is auspicious to have that faith saying that 'This is my only recourse, this is my only refuge, and my answers will only come from there.'

So much grace has to happen for us to become intuitive. Rather, even prayer is intuitive, no? Like I can't do the... I mean, even if I can only do the words of the prayer, but true prayer is also sounding exactly like... I've only encountered it without me doing. I could be praying the whole day, but I can't do it.

We may feel many times that our heart is fully silent. We may believe that our heart is fully silent. But as you learn to live more and more in your heart, you will find that your heart loves to sing praises of God, huh? It loves to pray to God. So that is how the Ajapa Japa can happen. Initially, it may sound like you are saying it just mechanically, verbally. Then it may seem like it's become mechanical, but only your lips are going. Sometimes just the moving of the lips keeps you focused on the prayer, that you don't have to necessarily say the words, so you can just keep moving your lips. Then it's just like a mental process; you bring your attention to these thoughts that you can palpably bring into your attention. That is true Chintan. Then the prayer drops into your heart. It's full of fragrance, full of life. Prayer drops into our heart.

Can it also go back into our head? Like, is it like a switch?

Switch... not a thing. It's like when the newer modes come into play, it doesn't mean that the older modes have to go away. In the sense that the Ajapa Japa started happening, so we should not feel that, 'Oh, now it's Ajapa Japa, now I don't need to chant, I don't need to use the Mala, I don't need to say the words, I don't need to do mental chanting.' No, all that can also happen, you see? Because we can never predict. It's not a one-time thing. It may completely happen here also that praying so deeply from within my heart... this is praying so deeply from within my heart one night, and next morning I wake up and it's all dry. It's all dry. So what? You just have to start again. So you start praying, you go to God in full humility and full devotion. Because you can never become... otherwise what would happen? We become proud. 'Oh, look at these people using Mala, look at these people saying the prayer. Why? It has to happen from the heart.' So God knows how to keep us in check. He knows very well.

And these ideas of finality... we must never... this is a beautiful process, but we can never say, 'Oh, this one is not a worthwhile disciple because he's using a Mala,' or 'She's using a Mala. This one is not an advanced disciple because they are praying using their mouth,' is it? We can never say that. Anything that anyone is doing for God is the highest already. So we must never benchmark ourselves also like this. All this that I'm saying is not meant to make you believe that, 'Oh, Father is at that level because his prayer comes from the heart.' I'm the most foolish. Sometimes I feel so disconnected that I feel out of oxygen, so I try to swim to His dwelling within my heart. So no means are bad, no means are lower or higher. I'm just introducing the beauty of how it can unfold deeper and deeper.

Can I say one more thing? You said you swim back... I don't know why I'm going to talk... it's okay. You said you swim back to your heart. So you become empty of whatever is keeping you—inquiry, love, devotion, chanting, whatever comes. Hear you. The one who is running out of oxygen doesn't think, 'Should I breathe with my left nostril, right nostril?' Give me the... give me the... give me His love. Okay, it's about this, yeah. Okay, first go to the top. In a sense that resistance is also disconnection, no, Father?

Of course, yeah. When you say, 'Don't get out of bed until the presence is there,' I've been doing it like till some sensation becomes evident. But this 'knowing everything that can be known,' what mark... don't make that the benchmark, because the mind will never confirm that 'Oh, now you know everything that can be known,' because the mind is not capable of that. Just: do you have a sense that God is there? A deeper sense than a mental conclusion? Something unusual that I can't explain that much, and that holiness kind of... the holiness, something, something... yeah, feels pristine, huh? That's good, that's good. Keep diving deeper and deeper like that. Sometimes it's just like a perfume of His love, of His presence. Just like a perfume. So just like I've said this before, just like a dog who's caught the scent, you must doggedly follow that perfume till it leads us to its source.

How to follow it doggedly?

Just don't leave it. Don't leave it. And you say that this way of living is so different from how we used to live, and a moment of coming back into that way of life can feel like such a deep disconnection that you want to rush back home. That's why it's said: whatever gives you the refuge. What is the refuge? This is the refuge. The true Buddha within is the refuge. Just put the button. In a sense, I feel like it was the disconnection which was when I said that there was feeling resistance and it was feeling very like fish out of water, in the sense rather that what's happening and that was pulling... it was like something trying to pull down. You see what I'm saying, Father?

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Sometimes it's as you are immersing more and more in His love, in His life, then Maya also adds up everything. Thank you. It was feeling so like I was struggling for the oxygen and something was just pulling down, Father. Thank you for saying that disconnection; it just resonated with what was happening. Thank you.

So my advice to all of you is that you've heard enough, you've learned enough in Satsang. Now you must make your life about this. Make God central in your life. Make the truth central in your life. All the tools are with you. You know how to inquire, you know how to pray, you know how to love God, you know how to deepen in your faith, in your humility, in your servitude. Everything is there. Now just carry the intention to make every moment about Him.

It's almost like Maya's fighting back. It's fighting back with equal force, Father.

It will never be equal. It may try, it may seem huge, but it can never be equal. Your fire to be with God, your intention to be with God, will blow all this away. Don't fall for any scare tactics from the mind. Some days I've been... if I'm believing the mind, like say many times like fear, you know? And if I'm believing that I'm feeling fear, and then if I swap it with, you know, 'Is Krishna feeling this?' it just becomes laughable. Like the contrast is unedifying, actually. It's so laughable, no? Like it becomes like a... exactly. So I hear that and that says, 'You just make it up.' So you can't... it's like every moment there's a different tool that comes to hand. But this really, just this... the arsenal is full now. Your spiritual arsenal is full. You just have to turn to it. The right weapon will pop out just when you need it.

Father, but even I noticed that the mind itself can use this now. It can become like a spiritual armory in my head.

Yeah, it becomes a spiritual encyclopedia in your head and it'll keep popping different, different... and then it becomes pride and all the Ravana tendencies. Here it is more like fear, not pride. Like you just use this, use this. And you have to trust. Sometimes you just have no... you don't want to use anything. It's very tricky, Father. The mind even said that 'Too much God now.' Of course, no, it'll say, 'Now God... how much God? How much God is enough or too much?' And what is that voice which tells you, 'Now this is too much God'? Can that be God's voice? But Father, in that moment, can that be your voice? That's what is posing as the voice of the trickster who's to regulate how much is too much. I thought we all said our life is fully only for God now.

Yes, but in the mind it says like that. Like after a long Satsang, it may happen for many of us. Just, 'Okay, now...' Like this child used to say after Satsang, 'I just want to take a break. Take a break from all of this.' The mind says, 'No, no, now that was His time, I let you go. Now it's my time. Of course, you honor me.' The... bless you. What does 'me' mean? I'm showing you, I'm showing you how to do it.

In the sense, the more you dedicate your life to Him, the more you surrender to Him. We were talking about this today where I was getting some questions about, 'Should I always do the long prayer? Should I do the short prayer? What is the Ajapa Japa? If you're going to constantly chant, what can I use?' So I say that do that which is the most difficult but not impossible. Our usual tendency is to just take the simplest, you see? But take that which squeezes you a bit. I was making a silly comparison with bicep curls, you see? So for that short period of time, like six months when I was working out, this is one of the things I learned: that if you're just using momentum, then it's not really helping. Like bicep curls, you do like this, like this, with momentum, it just keeps your... but if you do it in proper form like that, that's more beneficial, right? You get the... but what has happened is that your last rep or the last two reps, you can use momentum because at least that benefit will come.

There are times in our life where we may be deeply engaged in some work, some accounting may be happening or some work meeting may be happening, and to do the full prayer with full heart may seem difficult because the attention is not available to us. So at that point of time, we maybe just can go on inside, yeah. And if your coworkers are fine, then maybe a little outside also is okay, but inside is fine. But if you have full space available, nothing so important is happening in your life in that moment, then why would you not honor Him fully and treat Him with full reverence and make the full prayer with a deep love and devotion?

I was taking this metaphor because I was feeling it's a bit difficult to understand. I said, suppose you have a child or you are a parent and you walk into your child's room and you're saying, 'Beta, what about this? What about this? Have you prepared for this? Have you looked at this? Where do you want to go for dinner?' and he's just going 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' saying... you see? Then you feel like the child is not honoring the parent, you see? As if the parent comes to the room—which never happened—but the parent enters the room and the child is like fully available. 'Yes, Papa,' you know? You're just like deeply conversing and engaging and he's speaking to you. It's my utopian dream. So like that, you would feel like the child really loves you, he's valuing you, he's honoring you.

And what stops us from doing it? I'm not even saying that you have to do this in the midst of your tense work or something like that. But we don't have to find the easiest way to make our conscience happy that 'I'm being with God.' So in the midst of great activity, great things happening, you're juggling a lot of things, and at that time you're just 'Ram, Ram, Ram,' full momentum bicep curls—it's fine. That is very beautiful, that's the best, because at least in the middle of all of that activity, all of that stress, helter-skelter, you still remember the name of God. That is the most beautiful thing, you see? But when you have nothing to do, nothing is happening, and you're just ticking the box—there's no Ram, there's no meeting, there's no love, there's no depth—then that is just ticking the box, as we say in the corporate world. It's just this thing.

So the same thing is the most auspicious based on the space life is making for you, and the same thing is just for namesake. It is still better than nothing, don't get me wrong, you see? Still better than nothing. But what stops us from being heartfelt and saying, 'Lord Ram, incarnation of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Bless my heart with the light of Atma. Ram, Ram, Ram.' What stops this? So I felt the best way to put this across is to say: the most difficult but not impossible. But we should not make it that difficult for ourselves that we don't do it at all. So if the 'Ram, Ram, Ram'... okay, you're running meeting to meeting, things are happening, fire is burning, people resigning, you're doing all of that and you're just 'Ram,' then that's fine. It's beautiful. You're getting the sense of what I'm saying? Because remember, He knows everything. It's not a mechanical process. 'I said a million Rams and that's good.' He knows everything. He knows your intention. He is looking at your intention more than anything at all.

Sometimes your children come and they tell you, 'I really love you a lot,' and you're like, 'Okay, what do you want?' And sometimes they come and tell you, 'I really love you a lot,' and you start melting in your heart. What is the difference? Because the first you sensed something, and the second you know it's coming from their heart. So if we can tell as stupid human people, can God not tell when somebody is doing it just for namesake and somebody is doing it deep, full-heartedly? God can tell. So in the spirit of parental love, I'm saying, not like an oppressive thing. God is not being oppressive in that way: 'Oh, you didn't love Me enough, you didn't honor Me enough.' Sometimes the statements you read like that can seem a bit strange, but the more full-heartedly you're being about it, the more you will feel connected to Him, to His life. And same for the path of insight as well. You can keep saying 'Who am I? Who am I?' and nothing will happen. But one 'Who am I?' with full sincerity is explosive.

You can chat with Him also all day now, of course. And life is pulling you all over the place; keep one finger connected to God and there's nothing pulling at you. Be fully immersed in Him, but don't leave Him. Tulsidas Ji said something else very beautiful. He said: 'He knows only how to hold us, He doesn't know how to leave.' God doesn't know how to leave. And that's why I've also been asking: when you say that He's not there, did He leave or did you leave? It has never been my experience that He left; always I that left because I had some stupid mental endeavor to fulfill. And I'm talking about moment-to-moment things. His presence never leaves you. We decide to say 'enough' in one way or the other. And it's beautiful the way he said it: He knows only how to hold us, He doesn't know how to leave us. Simply they put it, no? These sages are so beautiful.

So I don't want anyone of you to ever make a report to me saying, 'I was fully there, His presence was there, and then it left. He left.' Tell me if this has ever happened to anybody. It's never happened to anyone, right? How about the ideas like... sometimes it feels much more true to say just 'God,' to say just the short version, just 'God,' only 'Holy Spirit' or 'Christ.' Not because it is easier, but it is more true. It gets more than repeating the same word.

That's good, that's good. That's an important point, thank you for bringing that up. So what I spoke about earlier was just letting go of a lazy spirituality. But there will be times where aspects of the prayer, like the arrow mantra at the end, may seem just coming from your heart, seeming so alive. In those times, that is completely fine. But we have to be true to ourselves in that way. The way you said it, I can tell it's coming from a true place, that an aspect of it, a particular line in the prayer, seems to be so alive and just from your heart, it's repeating itself in that way. That is beautiful. Because the question comes like: how important is it to repeat the same, to keep the same, same, same? Unless you can tell that from your heart it is being repeated—one aspect of it is being repeated, the 'Ram, Ram, Ram' is being repeated or 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus' is being repeated—unless that is clear, then you just have to see from time to time.

Like if you're engaged in a conversation with friends or with work or something like that, then you may feel that it becomes very difficult to focus on the full prayer. But it's possible to say 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus' like that inwardly. You can go on. So you can keep... and as you experiment with it more and more, you'll keep getting a sense of how much attention is available, how much can we dive in deeply into the full prayer. And if very little attention and focus is available, then at least... sometimes it may happen that we are involved in the sharing of the Satsang. I'm fully involved, so I'm fully with your question, I'm fully with you, and my heart is speaking. Then even the words of the prayer may not happen. I don't want to say this because it may become an excuse for some of you, but hear it from your heart: that sometimes even the words are not needed to be in prayer to God. Just the love and the light is so palpable that it is as good as praying. But you have to be true to yourself about this, because remember, you will fool only yourselves. As long as you are true to yourself, it's okay to experiment.

Yes, I must experiment, yeah. Must. Because it's going to teach you; the prayer itself will teach you how to pray it, you see? I have only provided the initial momentum, but you will find nuances in it. You will find the ways in which it moves, you see? The ways it shows you... the prayer itself has to show you, you see? Which means that the Atma within and the Holy Spirit within has to guide you as to how to do it more and more. But I want to at least provide the broad guardrails, because sometimes the mind itself pretends to be the inner guide, so it may take us completely off track. That's why I'm providing just the broad guardrails, but you have to experiment with it, you have to dive in deeply, see what happens. All of this will become your own individual way, and the way that you express this way may one day become very different from the way Ananta's expression is expressing this way, but it will still be true because it's coming from your authentic experience. And you have to trust that.

So one is: I'm not able to do the prayer with activity, and it's almost like the mind is suggesting, 'Just take it slow, you know, do it.' So I can hear that and I want to fall for it because it's so uncomfortable in my system. So but when I'm not doing an activity, it's fine. But I just want to say that like sometimes the breath stops and there is a sense of, 'Okay, just try to chant,' because I don't want it to be some tricky stuff, I don't know. So I try, but I'm not able to breathe; the breath is not coming. And I trust just deepen in there, and then the breath is not rhythmic after that. I don't know, or it just changed its rhythm. I feel like sometimes it just stops for what period I can't say. Even when I was coming in the car, all this will happen as you go toward Samadhi, and Samadhi is of various types.

It's very commonly noted that your breath will start to become very subtle first, yeah. And there'll be times where it just completely stops and you may feel that you cannot use it to synchronize. This is what I want to say: after that, I can't synchronize it. I don't know when the breath is coming, I can't notice. And I feel like, Father, during the activity sometimes this is happening and I go into some very rare... I don't know if I can ever attest or I can say that the experience was had here that activity was going on but breath stopped. Mostly here it happened in states of deep meditation where the breath stopped. But I'm not at all saying that it's only true if it happened here, so I can't attest for during activity for sure. Sometimes when I'm not doing anything, very quickly also the breath will stop, and then after some time when the breath becomes regular, I remember... I don't know when I remember, but I remember and the chant starts.

So what you're saying is the breath stops and it becomes all quiet. It becomes quiet, there is a lot of attention on the sensations because there's something... but then when the breath is also there, I don't feel like it stopped for very long, but then the breath becomes very subtle. I'm not... it's not rhythmic in a way that I can chant. All this is very good. What this is reminding you of is the classical bug and feature thing. Like what you're saying as a bug, I'm hearing as a feature. I'm not saying this is a bug, but I'm not sure what happens during it. It just becomes... I'm not able to... like my whole system, I'm not able to function. Like if I'm cooking, I can't focus on neither the chant nor the cooking. I feel so hodgepodgey, irritated. So then that's why I said I can probably just do 'Krishna, Krishna.' If your activity is happening from a full emptiness, it's usually like that. But then somewhere the mind says, 'But you need to chant,' you know? Then that becomes like that. You being fully empty and truly not being interrupted by the mind, you're truly open and not so much... well, so much becomes okay.

So either we are just so empty that of course there's no practice, no Sadhana... so once in a while I buy a thought, I'm being true about it, it's not 100%. Then what you do is just once in a while, like if you notice that the duration... every few minutes you're buying some ideas about something, then start with just every few minutes, every two or three minutes say 'Krishna, Krishna.' I do that, Father. I mean, I feel like most of the day there is something that I'm in God, but it's just the chanting became a thing, you know? And there's too much like fear around chanting during activity because nothing is happening, neither the chant nor the activity, and I just feel so... I just want to sit down. If you're cooking or you're doing something with the kids and everybody is just... the kids, it's too much, I'm not able to do right now, Father. Yeah, but you can just remain in your heart. That's it, mostly yes. That's why I made a sort of funny term, which is that if there's no attention at all available, then we can't force it because there's no attention available. But in that, we can stay in that Bhava, we can stay in His love, in His life, in His presence. I mean, the love is not always palpable, it's not okay, but presence... it's empty, Father. Sometimes the presence is palpable, sometimes... but I feel like, okay, let's keep experimenting with this because you can be anchored in His presence in spite of all the worldly things. But if you're truly saying that beyond even beyond presence you're just so naturally empty, that's good too, that's very good. I still will be vigilant about this, you see? And it's important to keep reporting because sometimes the mind offers us things. It's important to keep checking within them.

But I also see that during activity, even if say the kids are not around, just me, but I'm doing things, I don't want to pray with chant like the whole thing. There's something around focus on the breath and focus on the work. Something just is not sitting here, Father.

It's okay, you've come a long way from where you were. Yes, all good. It's almost like the mind says, 'I can't breathe, I can't breathe,' like some crazy state. That's actually auspicious. It feels very suffocating. Of course, it's like the evolver... I fall for it, I'm just like, 'Stop it now!' I stop it like you'll die, literally you feel. And that's doing work, you know? When you're with the... it feels very uncomfortable, Father. But when I'm not doing anything and I don't breathe, and if it says 'You can't breathe,' I'm able to just... okay, it's fine, you know? As long as we are moving forward, it's good from where I started. Yes, for...