Contemplations from Baba Fareed - Day Two - 5th August 2024

So he says, 'The Lord abides in the heart. Why are you looking for him in the jungle?' And he's telling us how to find God: humility, be like grass, be forgiving, humble, unconditionally loving. He's laying the spiritual road map for us to come to this discovery of God and to remember that life is ephemeral. It is here now. And he says a very beautiful line, that if I knew that I had so few, such a small amount of sesame seeds in my hand, I would not have wasted them like I did. And each sesame seed is a moment of our lives which can be spent in the true purpose of life, which is to come to God, or into the false realm of Maya and to improve or try to increase our ego, make our ego seem more comfortable, better, whatever the endeavor may be.

So the Lord is available in our heart, in our heart temples. And if this is the truth, contemplate whether you want to leave this life without this possibility becoming true for you, this reality becoming apparent to you. Reconfirm this, that what you want or no. What is the difference between the sage—the sage who says that God lives in your heart—and ourselves, where we may say that sounds good but my heart is just a physical organ or it's where I feel emotions from? Where is the presence of God? How are they able to conclude this and we are not?

So there are levels at which we can meet the statement that the Lord lives in our heart. So how many of us don't allow this notion to enter us, enter us at all? Like it's there, but it goes in from one ear and goes out from the other: 'The Lord lives in your heart.' How many of us? Nobody will admit, so it's okay. Concept—that is the second level. So the first level is we don't let it, we don't entertain this idea at all. Nobody, nobody. Second level is where we entertain the idea, but we are happy to just know it conceptually, that we know this, He lives in our heart, I know it, you see? But it's just at the level of conceptual knowledge.

So we have a notion of it in our heads, but we've never really met it. Like we know that—what's a good metaphor for this?—that the capital of Zimbabwe is Harare. So I hope. But we've not been there, we don't know it as a fact, we just know it as conceptual knowledge. So that is the second level. How many of us are there? Okay, I admire your courage if you admit that that's how many of us feel we are there. We like the idea, we even know it to be true in our head. Is it? The third level of meeting the statement is that we can testify to it as our own insight, as an experience that we had but in the past. That I know it for a fact because I've been there; there have been times in my prayer or meditation or inquiry that this is so apparent, there is a holy presence in my heart and that is my discovery. I've had this Atma Darshan, I have this Atma Gyan from my experience, from my memory of the past, and therefore I can testify to it. Most of you will say this one.

And what is the fourth level of meeting the statement? That it is true, and it is true for me from my direct insight, Atma Gyan, right now. From the Darshan of the Atma within right at this moment. So I don't even need to refer to the past and I'm not imagining, I'm not visualizing, I'm not seeing any perceivable light—and if I am, it is at best a byproduct, at best it is a byproduct. I'm talking about a Darshan of that unperceivable light of God's presence within my heart, and it is true for me right now. How many can say that online? Okay, thank you, thank you.

So that in a way also is the entire spiritual journey. At first we just hear these ideas and they don't really settle within ourselves because we think we know everything already, that life is about Maya, it is about this world, and the search for God is relegated to when we can't do anything else. That is the first level usually. The second level is when we allow it to enter us and say yes, this is true that God does live in my heart, but I can't confirm this for myself. Then we come to a point of saying that yes, I've had deeply spiritual experiences where this unperceivable presence has been recognized in my heart, has been in the past and it comes intermittently. And then we can say that right now it is true, and from whatever we can tell, most of the time it is true.

Presumably there's another final level also where you may say that it never is any different. I cannot testify to that; it is not true for me because Maya still catches me very often. But our endeavor must be to constantly live within our hearts. Therefore that we can call a Union, coming to a oneness with God, or we can call it a living within His heart. Because within my heart He lives, and to see that within His heart I live is a recognition of the holy Union.

So I hope you're getting the idea that spirituality is not a self-help program, it is not to make your life better in Maya. And many times it may seem like it actually becomes more difficult in Maya because Maya fights back, tries to pull you in very deeply. And that is to be expected because this journey, nobody has truly reported that it's easy. No matter who said, 'Yeah, actually it's so easy for me,' the sages say that I'm just a beginner. No sage truly says that I have accomplished, I have got a measure of God now. We can at best—all the sages at best can say they are just beginners.

So if this holy Union with God is not your purpose in life, is it? Then just contemplate for yourself: what is a more worthy purpose that you're spending your life on? Each moment is this precious sesame seed. And if a great sage like Baba Fareed is saying that he has wasted so much of this, of these moments, then what are we doing? Are we not doing the same thing? Isn't that what he's trying to tell us? So what is the primary purpose of your life? Is it time-bound or is it eternal? Can everyone take a moment and write this down for yourself: what is the primary purpose of your life? Who's at the center of it? Is it me or is it God? And why? If some of you are new to Satsang by me, I'm talking about the ego, the identity 'me'. And you don't have to read it out, so you can just be honest completely with yourself. Done?

So after this, in bold letters write 'BUT'. And you have space for five main points. You can write one or two or three, but hopefully not more than five. So: 'The primary purpose of my life is this, BUT...'

So he said, 'Why do you wander from jungle to jungle, crashing through the thorny trees? The Lord abides in the heart. Why are you looking for him in the jungle?' So the 'but' part is the thorny jungle. What's he talking about? He's basically reminding us of the great pointing that the lane is very narrow. We have to walk this narrow lane. Why is it narrow? Because there's room only for one. If there is God, then there cannot be a 'me' there. And if there is a 'me', then there cannot be a God there.

So this thorny jungle, which is full of suffering—although it promises a lot but delivers only suffering—is this realm of Maya. And Maya is 'Ma-Ya', what's happening to... worried about you. So this realm of Maya tugs us in, pulls us in, and we forget about God. But Maya is not the mere appearance of this world. Like, just by the world appearing, just the waking state coming, is not the thorny jungle. It is when we take the 'me' to be a reality, myself to be the focus and not God. So the minute we get involved in this, we are in the hellish jungle of Maya. And the minute we let go and bring Him back to the center, that is the way to lead a true life. So are you getting a sense of what is being said?

So God lives in our heart. The purpose of our life is to discover Him. And in the stages of our discovery, it could be just conceptual, it could be insight from the past, it could be true insight right now, and then ultimately a Union with Him where it remains unchanging like that. To do that, we have to make sure we have a way.

We are in the hellish jungle of Maya, and the minute we let go and bring Him back to the center, that is the way to lead a true life. So, are you getting a sense of what is being said? God lives in our heart. The purpose of our life is to discover Him. And in the stages of our discovery, it could be just conceptual, it could be insight from the past, it could be true insight right now, and then ultimately a union with Him where it remains unchanging like that. To do that, we have to make sure we have a way in which we keep God at the center of our life always and don't get involved in the "but." So, the spiritual project is clear then. What are the spiritual tools? What are the spiritual devices that can help us to remain like this? Because the sages, God Himself, realized that Maya is so strong that we will need help. So, what is available as help so that we can remain like this? What is that which is available to us?

All spiritual practices are for this. They are not to become more productive, more efficient, not to become stress-free, not to become even more loving—none of that. Joy, peaceful—not any of that. And this may seem harsh; it is not for any of that, although those may be byproducts which we can enjoy. They are Prasad for us, but we must never take the Prasad to be the Darshan. We must not replace God for His gifts. His gifts are there only because He is there and we are devoted to Him. If we get devoted only to His gifts, then will God's presence last? Or if we are in this only for His gifts, can any relationship last like that? I find that in being with you, I'm just in it because you do this for me or you don't do this for me—those relationships can't last. So, our focus has to become to meet God in our heart and to stay with Him unconditionally, at the cost of our desire, at the cost of what we want, which is the "but" part of what you want.

So, hopefully all of you are also getting a deeper sense as to how to contemplate the words of the sages. We can just rush otherwise and just say, "Yes, Fareed, why do you wander from jungle to jungle, crashing through the thorny trees? The Lord abides in the heart. Why are you looking for Him in the jungle?" So beautiful, very nice, nice, yeah. Like so, just a very superficial meeting. But we often don't get to the depth of what the sages pointed us to.

It's scary.

Which part? Take the mic.

It's scary. I think when you said that we are getting—I hope you're getting a deeper sense how to contemplate the words of the sages—and I think what's just coming out here is that the mind is going to go for a superficial spin because the deeper we get into the meaning or the pointings of the sages, it gets scary. Something gets wobbly and it's okay. It's okay to get wobbly. You're forewarning us. And yeah, so it's okay.

So, I feel that you know the essence of his pointing where, from the beginning, his intention has been to shake us up, telling us how short life is, that we don't know what we are up to, that we have to live for Him and not for us. All of this can seem very scary. And that's why I'm saying spirituality is not easy and it's not self-help. It's very difficult to transcend your mind. It is very difficult to transcend your ego and it needs a lifetime of effort, maybe lifetimes of effort.

And you know, it's the fact that you are saying it, and you are deeply, deeply compassionate and your love for your children is well known to us. So when you say and you take us deeper into the words of the sages like Baba Fareed, then it seems scary because you are saying it.

Yes. So at the center of this fear is a fear of dissolution, isn't it? It's a fear of dissolution. But that's the whole purpose of the sages telling us that on this narrow lane, there can only be God or me, you see? So they're inviting the dissolution. But nobody's ever said that that dissolution is easy because we built it up with great care. We built up our persona. We picked and chosen between so many ideas and built up a conceptual framework for our identity, so deeply ingrained. "I think I'm like this. This is what I believe. I like this, I don't like this. I want to be like this. I think the world should be like this."

So we've spent our whole life collecting these ideas and creating a persona as their product, as their base. And when that is getting attacked at the root, that is bound to feel scary. It is bound to feel scary. But nobody has undertaken this journey, come to its culmination, and said, "I wish I didn't undertake it because it was so scary." And you're right that as a spiritual parent, it is my job to prepare you for it. If I just say it's going to be beautiful, beautiful all the time, it's going to be beautiful, you see, every moment is just going to be joy and bliss is going to come spilling out of you, then when you face the difficulty—that "I want this and I'm not willing for God's will to guide me, I want this for myself, I'm grasping onto life as if I own it"—you see that it is very temporary. And then that fear comes, then you will say, "Father never warned us. He didn't tell us how difficult this is."

So that to me is very inauthentic and hypocritical, and it's very like a New Agey spirituality which I don't feel is fair to anyone. It's not fair to any disciple for them to feel like it's a bed of roses and then you have to deal with so much. It humbles us to the core. That is the very job of the spiritual journey: to strip us of our pride. Notice that only that which we can defend can be attacked, or what we are defending can be attacked. If you are defenseless, what can be attacked? If you're empty, what can be attacked? You see? So this has to be broken down, which we don't recognize is our ego, is our resistance, is our pride. And as we mature, we recognize it more and more and more. So you're starting to see it more and more, and then it becomes like the bitter medicine which you don't want to take but you know it is good for you.

So every Satsang should feel a bit like that. And if it doesn't, there's something wrong with what I'm sharing. Is it that some part of it must seem tough? If not, all of it will just feel like, "Yeah, that's so nice. I feel so good." And just, "I can live in this bliss." Not like that. Those are the byproducts. I was taking this example: suppose somebody went to the Gurdwara and they just took the Karah Prasad and went away. Every time they would go, they just take the Prasad and they go away. Is it a good use of their life or their visit to the Gurdwara? So if you go to the temple and just go to visit Hanuman every Tuesday and Saturday or whatever, and then you're just waiting outside for the Prasad, when the Prasad is being distributed you go in and you just have that and you come back—even that is better than nothing, by the way. But I'm saying that can't be our spirituality. It can't just be for the sweetness of the taste.

I'm badly going to paraphrase it, I think, but the essence is: those who do not love suffering cannot love Christ. That is the essence of it. If we run away from difficulty on the spiritual path, then it's very difficult to expect it. And the stronger we are holding on... so to come to God, to come to the truth is an opening up. But the stronger we have tightened our fist, the more painful it will seem when God is opening it. If you let go as much as we can, then it is easy. If you didn't have a single attachment, could you be scared? And I'm not saying from a place of saying I don't have a single attachment; I'm just looking with all of you. So I'm happy to hear you say that it is scary. And for those who feel like, "But what's the difficulty in this?" I'm wondering whether only one of two things is possible, isn't it? One is that you've really transcended your ego, so you find no difficulty in complete surrender, or you've not really met the project here.

So let's contemplate: what would we not give up even if God asks us to? And this question seems very easy initially. Some of you kids said, "God asked me to do anything." And then as you met it the second day and the third day and the fourth day, then it didn't seem as straightforward because earlier you just met it as a theoretical possibility, just a mere thought experiment. Later you started meeting it in a Shabri. So if it was Lord Ram who gave Darshan to Shabri in a dream and said to her, "Wait for me, I will come," and she then waited every day for 60 years, could we do that? So don't jump to the answer, "Yes, if God asked me to, I would do anything." So the contemplation is: what is the boundary of my surrender? At which point do I go?

Father, every time I've contemplated this question, it's honestly impossible to imagine. If it was really God, there was no doubt that it was God, who—forget me, I'm just—who would not do what God tells them or asks them to do? I'm just not able to comprehend what that even means. The only possibility is I don't believe it's God. And if I do, then it's just like a paradox. I can't...

But let it keep sinking like this. Let it keep doing the work. So contemplation just after this, maybe, is: is there such a thing as a doubtless meeting with God? A doubtless meeting with God. A meeting that the mind cannot at all doubt, or is it always an exercise in faith? In faith. I'm sure you can't hear. So I'm saying, is the meeting with God always an exercise in faith? It means that he said that if it is doubtless that it is God who is guiding me, then who will not follow? But when is it ever doubtless? The mind always produces "yes, but." If it's to follow His will, you see, then His will apparently in the moment, the will is to be empty. If it's a specific guidance or instruction, the mind will always come with doubt. That is why I'm saying the meeting with God is always an exercise in faith, or to follow God's will is always an exercise in faith.

And at this point, we must separate between belief and faith. If God comes in your dream and tells you that, you know, "I meet you in my mind," I felt like that I would doubt even that. Like, I would just doubt that I even saw that. All of us would. And the level of the doubting would be proportional to the difficulty of the task. Yeah. So, you see, if it was He came in my dream and He said, "Take a flower out from your garden and place it at my feet," you'll do it. I'll do it. But I'll still doubt whether, you know, I heard. I feel every meeting with God is an exercise in faith, isn't it? And that is where it becomes very tricky. So when are we fooling ourselves and when is it faith?

So if it's just conceptual belief, it is not faith. To follow the heart is faith. To remain empty in the head and to be guided by the heart, to trust that which is your true insight more than the reality of your hand. Is it that God's presence is here through my insight? It is more palpable to me, it is more clear to me, it is more true for me than the apparent reality of this realm of Maya. That is always an exercise in faith. It's a very delicate point. It can be easily misunderstood, but just contemplate all this. I feel like I've given so many contemplations, so let's take a few minutes. Just read through your notes and take the next 20 minutes maybe to just contemplate. You can go one by one also if you want.

Okay. So one child says, "I feel like I may hate you more if I keep listening to you." I can understand that. I understand. But see if that is the voice of your Atma. In my experience, the Atma just knows how to bless. If it comes across the most foolish one pretending to be a teacher or whatever, even then, from my experience, the Atma would bless. Be careful of a hate which you can't identify at the soul level, because is it possible to hate another without hating yourself? If you have the capacity to hate, then that...

I can understand that. But see, if that is the voice of your Atma, in my experience, the Atma just knows how to bless. If it comes across the most foolish one pretending to be a teacher or whatever, even then, from my experience, the Atma would bless. Be careful of a hate which you can't identify at souls, because is it possible to hate another without hating yourself? There is—if you have the capacity to hate, then that capacity always picks on ourself first, whatever we take that self to be, and then projects it outwards. Maybe the projection outwards is just a sense of relief from that inward. And J can correct me, I'm not any sort of psychotherapist, but from my experience, this is what I see: that if the most beautiful one comes in front of me, my Atma just knows how to bless, and if the most foolish one comes in front of me, my Atma knows how to bless. To hate—and I do hate at times—I have to go to the other place. And that other place is the jungle where I may feel like I'm winning through my conclusions and my answers, but actually I'm just like that thousand-handed monster in the Yoga Vasistha. I don't know if you all know of it. He's hitting himself because he's got weapons in each of his hands. He's hitting himself and then saying, 'Save me, help me.' That is what the jungle is like in Maya. The suffering doesn't come from outside; it comes from our own mind.

So this monster, he meets a sage. And because Yoga Vasistha is very multiversal, there are two scenarios given to us. In one scenario, this one meets a sage and the sage says, 'But who are you?' In hearing the question 'Who are you?' the monster says, 'Why are you attacking me more? I'm already suffering so much. You had to come here instead of helping me, loving me; you are troubling me even more with this question.' And he runs away. The second is the same monster in an alternative timeline meets the sage who says, 'Who are you?' And in contemplating that question 'Who am I?' all these hands, which are basically the conditioning, start to fall apart. They fall apart and he comes to peace because he's no longer hurting himself in this way. So, is it possible to hate without hurting oneself? I don't feel it is. So don't go to that playground only. But I'm well aware that they come because—and that's a continuation of what Chanda said—that maybe you all don't expose it often enough, but there are bound to be times where your mind is bound to hate me. It's bound to attack me, get angry with me. It's very natural for that to happen because it's difficult. The journey is difficult and nobody likes difficulty, no. Their minds don't like difficulty, yeah.

Blessed beloved Father, I'm hearing you. Is that so? What I'm hearing you say, Father, you're saying, 'My child, fall now. Just fall now. Fall now, you will suffer less.' Is what I hear you say. I cannot say how grateful I am for telling this to us and making it go deep, deep, so we can save ourselves a lot of suffering on this path if we fall wholly and completely now as you are pointing. And I'm just so incredibly grateful to you that you can tell us this with so much love and so much confidence in us, in your children. However unresponsive we appear to be, it is sinking, it is going deep, and the gratitude is inexpressible. Thank you, thank you so much. Surrender now, submit to God's will now, is the message. You're saying fall. You're saying fall, just fall.

Yeah, like in your prayer when you say, 'Humble me, Father.' Yes, it's coming home now. Yeah. Can we ever be in God's presence unless we are on our knees? It's not possible for me at least, that I'm like that, standing up straight with pride and God is blessing me. In my heart, to be on my knees mostly, mostly with my nose on the ground actually. Yeah.

I felt hatred today for someone, and the hurting myself is the anger I felt. Is that the hurting?

Anger, it's the whole everything. Every moment that we are in the wrong playground, it's a self-hurt. It's impossible to localize it actually and say, 'Ah, like that,' you see, the mechanics of it. Although we can try, but really, the moment we are away from God's presence, we are hurting ourselves. The minute we are taking 'me' to be the focus, we are hurting ourselves. And you may ask this question saying, 'Why is he making us contemplate these things when it is so clear that all I need to do is just pray all the time or inquire all the time or just remain open and empty organically?' For many of you who are new at least, this question may come: 'Why are we wasting time in these contemplations? Why are we going through—aren't we more advanced than that? Isn't this spirituality 101?' Many of us, we may feel that. I'm not saying for you at all, it just came to me that these kind of contemplations are not usual in the kind of satsangs we have.

So I feel it's really, really important because these are the things which, if we don't look into ourselves in the time of inquiry, in the time of prayer, they will come to our head: the fear of losing something, the fear of dying, the fear of being disrespected, the fear of being a beggar without money. All of this will play and interfere in our remaining empty for God in one way or the other. It's very good sometimes to just catch it by the neck and say, 'Okay, what is this about? What is this really about?' and to contemplate it from our heart, to be guided by it, so that we can come to rest about all of these topics, all of these things, so that we can spend our life in God's presence and His light. When the time is auspicious for us to let go, to surrender, all of this the mind offers denial and says, 'There's nothing, I have nothing to be surrendered, the self.' But when we have to follow the instruction of living in God's heart, to live in God's presence, or even to live open and empty, or the easiest instruction which is to just pray all the time—which I'm saying is the easiest instruction, but it's not easy for me. There are days where it seems easier and there are days where it seems more difficult. So it is very important to meet all of these things head-on so that we can transcend them and spend whatever few moments we have left to use them appropriately by living in God's presence. So it's very, very good that we are noticing all this about ourselves and not living in some sort of denial. Thank you, thank you.

I'd just like to just come and to just share what's happening. You know, you asked the question last time, 'What is it that gets caught up in Maya?' and it has been in my heart for a very long time because I've always been watching, you know, with the prayer and the introspection. Because the prayer, it helps in turning the face towards emptiness or something like this. And I really try with words to convey, and I hope it will be true when I use words, but it's like sometimes it's clear that there's only just the witnessing. It's only like the witnessing, like Consciousness is just here. But you know, like sometimes when there is peace and sweetness—and it was very, very sweet—then the question came in here somewhere: 'Who is the one who is enjoying this, like this bliss and this expansiveness and this thing where you feel like you're one with everything? Who is the one who is experiencing this?'

And it's very subtle because there's still like a sense of—although sometimes in the first time when the recognition happened that there's no entity here as like a person that is living this life, something there was just that, I don't know how I can explain it, it was just like that. But there's still something that is able to go out and come in, yes, that is able to hear your guidance and follow it. And to deny that, I'll be lying to myself. I do that. And when it's so subtle, because even sometimes when the sense of distraction is happening or something is pulled out, when you retreat back, it's as though it wasn't really real. I don't know how to say it, but it's not really true that it's not real, but you cannot say who is the one who is going to say that it's not real. You know what I mean? Like it will not be true in my heart to say that there is no entity here that you will not be feeling to be like. And there's also something that has like a relationship with God and with you in my heart and in this emptiness, although it's not like some form, and it's also very real as well, but it's not like imagery.

Something in this life so far has been, in terms of my relationship with God, when the strong belief of being this somebody of the spirit—I don't know how to say, or the soul—was still very strong, there was still like a sense of imagery and visions and this kind of thing, and it felt also very real. But through the grace of God bringing me to you and to Papaji, something by the grace of God moves from that. But this thing is there, yes. And because there's something here also that can feel like judgment towards another person, but maybe the previous day you feel like so much love and oneness. So what is this thing that has the ability to feel judgment, although it's noticed in just—it's just witnessed automatically? And something through the prayer can just say prayer, or inside my heart I can just say 'Ram, Ram, Ram' and like that, and it comes, and it's even like a joy and it bleeds about it as well. But this thing, this thing is there.

And there's also this somehow that is always, each time when I look and even when I'm speaking to you, this that is here, that there's just this witnessing, like the sense of existence is here. But it's still something out of that has the ability to be like the somebody of Consciousness, to be like somebody. And because of the force of conditioning as well, and habit and how you've been brought up and this kind of thing, it still is here. It has something through thoughts. And I was reading Saint Teresa of Avila and she said that she quoted from the scriptures of David where he said that every man is a liar. And it was very powerful because I realized that yes, even this 'me' is sometimes experiencing joy and being fully absorbed in the spirit of God, but it still has the ability—it's not really true, meaning that it's still false. And this is why you always say to always turn the face towards God and not give so much importance to the gifts of God.

And when I heard the audio of the unperceivable light of God, it was very, very powerful for me because it changed something, and I'm really grateful for that. And there's been this sense of the word truth. And because this sense of truth, it's not like you know, when if let's say maybe I'm exaggerating what I'm saying now and I'm lying, it's not this kind of—it doesn't have this sort of opposite in the same way. It's more like the being and seeing of it is the same. But there is still something that I'm really trying to say, but it's still something there. Something that can align with truth and also not align with truth somehow. But when looked for in the introspection, it's clear it's not really there, but it is still there somehow. Or sometimes it's like a sense of forgetting, or maybe I almost go wash the plates or something, I'll be like, 'Why?' It's there. And although something realizes, 'What was this?' and it's like a force of something. I just felt I should pour this out to you and to just get your guidance and your blessings.

Very, very good. Yes, we have to admit. And if you...

I looked for it in the introspection, or you're just... it's clear it's not really there, but this is still there somehow. Or sometimes it's like a sense of forgetting, or maybe like, um, maybe I almost go watch the plates or something and I'll be like, 'Why?' It's there. And although something realizes, like, 'What was this?' and it's like a force of something, I just felt I should pour this out to you and to just get your guidance and your blessings.

Very, very good. Yes, we have to admit—and if you don't admit, we get into some sort of trap—but we have to admit that even upon the insight of the nothingness that we are, there is the play of the somethingness that still continues within us that we take ourselves to be still, in spite of a very deep insight. So this push-pull between the nothingness and the somethingness of ourselves is the whole spiritual project. And the sages had very clear insights about these things. They noticed for themselves that in reality all is God, all is the Self—the unmanifest Nirguna reality of the Self as well as the manifest aspect of the Self. But the 'me' is a construct, like an imagination, but not really an imagination; it's like an identity construct which has no existence or tangible validity, and yet can seem to be so potent.

We must never just get into a mode where we wish it away and say, 'No, actually I know I'm just the Self.' If that is conceptual... if it is coming from the heart in that moment, it is beautiful. But sometimes to avoid the suffering of that somethingness, or being that somethingness, we can pick up the absolute positions conceptually, and we must not do that. So, what is the antidote to that somethingness? What is the safety net which we can wrap around this somethingness? The safety blanket, almost, that we can wrap around this somethingness of the primal egoic nature of our existence, which, even upon recognition of the true, pure Nirguna nature of our reality, still plays out.

If you see the lives of the sages, you will find that they lived lives not as if they are Nirguna Brahman—which I don't know what that would look like—but they did not live a life like they were the king of the universe, which is what Nirguna Brahman is. In the outer expression of the life, it was sheer humility and a bowing down in a deep reverence for God. A deep, prayerful, grateful life is the safety for this somethingness: to live in servitude to God, in God's will, to not move unless it is His will. That is what keeps this somethingness in check. That is why this kind of Advaita is Advaita in the form of Achintya Bheda Abheda, which means unfathomable distinction-non-distinction. In the absolute reality, there is non-distinction, and yet in the absolute reality, we cannot deny the play of the distinction. So, between our pure insight and our true love, unconditional love, both these aspects of our existence here get settled. Just keep deepening as you are. You're going well. And it's very good when we are not in any sort of denial. So that's very, very good.

Thank you, Master. Thank you. And where does the joy in the spiritual search come from when we are able to dunk the head of the somethingness in the holy water of God, isn't it? It is not when the Nirguna is the Nirguna; the Nirguna is always the Nirguna. But the true joy of this spiritual journey, which is so difficult otherwise, the true love, joy, and peace comes when we are able to take a dip in the holy Ganga of God's presence. When we are able to immerse the construct of our being, all the constructs of our layers of our existence, back into the Atma and lay it down in front of the Atma, that is where we receive the peace, isn't it?

So, I'm so blessed to have you, you know. I'm just so... bless you, bless you. Okay, let's go to K. Thank you.

Hello, Father.

Hello. Thank you so much.

Very welcome. Um, I raised my hand to expose something inspired by the sister or brother who exposed that hate towards you. They said they may even hate me more as they keep listening to me. Sorry, can you say that again?

They said that they may even hate me more than they do if they kept listening. It's not in this form, but what happens, what I see that comes up in Satsang with you and Guruji, is this pride or ego. It comes in like when someone speaks from the mind, it says, 'Oh, it speaks from the mind,' with this tendency of feeling superior. And then even when the Guru, you or Guruji, speak, it's like, 'Oh, why do you allow them to speak from the mind?' as if I know better. I see it comes as a reaction in Satsang, obviously, and I wanted to expose it.

Very good, very good. And I started sharing in Satsang, I used to joke a lot about this. I remember a bit of it where I just used to say, I feel that everyone appreciates their own question the most. You see? It's like, mostly, very rarely are there times where we do have those, but once in a while where someone says, 'I want to thank this one for their question, it is really beautiful.' Mostly it is just like, 'Why can't they just shut up? Can't they see it's their mind? And he just told us not to follow the mind and they're just going with their mind,' you see? And we are doing all this for ourselves, to ourselves, from our mind while that is happening. So, as... yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very primal thing that we have as humanity where we create this sort of bundle where that which comes out of this bundle seems most valuable to us, and that which seems to come out of other bundles that we see doesn't seem as valuable.

The way I looked at it, I also think it's some form of mind finding mind, because in a way the mind is despising itself when I do that towards my brothers and sisters. It's a form of maybe reinforcing itself.

Yes, like we can pick up grievances for the silliest reason. So to that, 'Love holds no grievances' is very... so imagine that the same teacher that we say many times, 'My life is surrendered to you,' then we end up doubting on the silliest of things. Then you definitely surrendered to the wrong place because if you can doubt even whether he can see whether somebody's coming from the mind or not, then that one is not worth surrendering your life to. But of course, I know in the moment it is the mind which gets a grip on us, and it's very important to notice these things because many times we just say, 'Okay, this is just a small thing. I'm not really hating my brother or sister or resenting them or holding grievance, but they should be able to see by now they're coming from their mind,' you see? This kind of thing. But it starts there and the mind uses that, the pride uses that, to build on itself.

And I also resonated with what Kisha said, and I want to ask for forgiveness for judging any of my masters in a psychological way, you know? And I look... I'm very grateful to both of you for all the work that you do.

Am I free from all judgment? I'm not free from all judgment, so I don't have the authority to judge your judgment. Because when I am one day, if it is that way by God's grace, then I'll tell you that you can't do that. But now I'm still working on it for myself as well. Let's work on it.

Yeah. And I also want to say that I'm very grateful for putting my hand up so many times in Satsang with you and Guruji without knowing what to ask or how to ask, but I think it's been tremendously helpful to just come and expose, and even seeing afterwards how stupid I was and how stupid I am. Thank you, thank you.

Okay. And I also want to say that both the pups in the house are gone. Just on time, just when the mute button was coming, you made it in time. The pups in the house are gone, are they?

They've gone, okay. Yes, it teaches me not to make prayers for the manifestation or manifest world. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

There's a story about a great sage. Somebody who was a doubter came to this great sage and said to the sage, 'If you're really that powerful, can you create a monkey right now in this room?' So then the sage said, 'Okay, if I create this monkey'—and I have no such ability, okay, far from it, I couldn't create a feather if I tried, but I'm saying—so this sage said, 'Okay, I'll create the monkey, but you then have to promise to take care of it for the rest of your life.' So this man was so full of doubt, he said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' because he felt like it can never happen anyway. So then obviously it happened; the sage just, whatever, he had some siddhi like that, so he created the monkey. And then it came on the man, saying that, 'Now I have to take care of this monkey for the rest of my life.' He fell at the sage's feet saying, 'Please, please forgive me. I doubted you and things like that. Please take care of this monkey, take him away from me, I can't live with him.' So the sage then, what he did, something, and the monkey went away. So we have to be careful of our manifest prayers, especially when they come in the form of tempting God. Let's go to Sam.

Hello, Father.

Hello. Can you hear me well?

Yes, very well. Okay. Um, other times they couldn't hear you, so if they have again the same thing, please if they can let us know, that's good. Just a second, Father, for Mr. Sell. Thank you, thank you. Um, so there was a line in what we read and I was contemplating about it and, yeah, I just wanted to bring it to you. I don't know, should I read from here or maybe just speaking freshly? Let me start to read the line, Father. 'The Lord abides in the heart; why are you looking for Him in the jungle?' Yes, so the heart's way is just so clear. You made it so clear to us and in our experience in our lives, actually. And we know that in the outside world there is nothing but just Him, and whatever we are experiencing is only Him, even though it seems like... yeah, it's just Him, all the love, everything, everything.

But what it triggers here, and it's always somehow at the background, so kind of exposing, I just wanted to bring it to you recently. Actually, it's just a mind voice, Father, but I actually allowed it to speak a lot, so maybe just exposing is good. 'Oh my goodness, how could I believe that? Now I realize.' But it always speaks, Father, like it's the universal voice. It takes like, 'The Lord abides in the heart,' oh, then I need to be seated, I always need to sit in meditation. It's just reading that way. And in my life, in my experience, I know that it's not true at all, but I somehow keep giving space for that voice at the background. Maybe just a pressure it creates in my heart.

Yes, and I feel it is scary for most in some way because it can seem like a big sacrifice. But actually, to stay with God in the heart, to remain inward-facing, is to not give any focus to the 'me.' It is not about the state or the world. Just in the appearance of the waking state, in what we are perceiving, by itself we are not caught in Maya. It is only after the 'me' comes. After 'Ma,' the 'me' comes, then it is Maya, isn't it? So how does the 'me' come? The 'me' comes when we identify, when we take ourselves to be just the body-mind. That is the belief, the origin of Maya is like this. So that is what it means to wander in the thorny jungle, because the jungle promises a lot of beautiful things but leaves only suffering in our hand, actually.

So allow yourself to unfold in your outer expression as you want. There is no restriction there, but just don't do it under the lens or under the oppression of the 'me.' And I feel like it's already like this, Father. Like, I'm actually kind of an active being, and just the more I'm with God, the more activity I can... I don't want to say bear, but I can handle. It's just a load without any effort. But yes, still the trick there... the trick there is that, see, now we have a new baby in the house, so sometimes I walk with him on the terrace. So now we are walking together, but many times he...

I feel like it's already like this, Father. Like I'm actually kind of an active being, and just the more I'm with God, the more activity I can—I don't want to say bear, but I can handle. Or just, it's just a load without any effort. But yes, still a trick there.

The trick there is that, see, now we have a new baby in the house. So sometimes I walk with him on the terrace. So now we are walking together, but many times he wants to lead. And when he wants to lead, he gets into a lot of like bushes and shrubs and hurts his eyes, you know, all these kind of things. If you just let me lead, especially while he's a baby, then things will be easier for both of us. So we can be with God's presence, but we can sort of separate our will from His will. It's a very subtle thing, and we must notice that, you see? Like we can enjoy being with Him, but we can separate that aspect of doership and will away from Him and say, 'This is what I want to do' or 'I don't want to do.' So just notice for yourself if that is happening slyly somewhere. To just merge that also with His presence. Allow Him to unfold the activity, the action that is needed to be done in that moment. Then you will not hurt yourself and you will remain truly in servitude to God.

I could not understand so much like here, but I just want to join in what you said as a prayer, Father. It just gives too much joy to my heart what you said, even though I cannot even repeat that.

Yes. Simply put, I'm praying for you that your will completely merges in God's will, as well as you are in His presence.

Thank you, Father.

Welcome. You're welcome. Thank you. Let's go to Georgie. Father, hello. Good, good, good you came up. Good you came up because I wanted to hear from you.

Okay. It's not alive right now, so it's hard to talk about it. Yeah, it's not live, but I can talk about that. I actually—I don't know what I was going to say, but since you said that, I can talk. Hold on, I can turn off the volume. Yeah, can you do something with the volume, or either on the computer? It's a good idea. Yes, better. I just said that I didn't know what I was going to say when I raised my hand because there seem to be a lot of things to bring up lately in the past weeks, but also nothing at the same time. So reports keep changing and I feel I haven't talked to you in a while, but mostly I felt to really talk to you. I don't know about what.

You're very welcome to come up without an agenda anytime you want to share a little bit about what you... there was a message you sent me. You want to start with that?

Yeah, I can. Yeah, I guess at that time there was an intensity of mind which has been happening a bit lately. And there's no immediate message; it's just that mind comes with full force and it seems to take over and everything seems overwhelming. The smallest thing seems overwhelming, like is there war in the last few days. So it happened Saturday and happened Friday. It happened a few other days, I think last week or the week before. It's been happening sometimes. And actually, even right now, you're not seeming fully like yourself. So is there something today as well?

Yeah, I feel a little nervous talking to you. I don't know why, but it doesn't feel—it feels superficial right now, even though I'm sure it's showing, but I'm not feeling it in the heart. It feels more superficial. But yeah, no, it's... yeah, I guess... what the mind is offering in those times makes the world and your existence as a body in the world seem very true.

Yes, yes. What happened when I texted you was that I was trying to find God but I couldn't find Him. And I was praying, and the prayer became part of the intensity. So it was not helping. It felt like I was just, like I told you, I was throwing logs into the fire, like I was making it worse. And yesterday, for instance, I was with the local satsang and a similar thing happened, but in the field I just asked 'Who am I?' and that was enough. But in that other time when I was alone and in those other times, it seems that it seems like I don't know where God is, right? Like I can't find Him.

Yeah, yeah. So usually when you have that experience that you try to pray or you try to inquire and you don't find His presence, if you try to recall, how much of a break did you take from God for that to happen before?

Yes, exactly. I don't know. I feel like I'm taking breaks all the time.

Yeah. But are you able to get a sense of approximately? Is that like a day, or is it an hour, is it a few minutes?

I feel like it happens in days where mostly I have been taken by the mind, maybe not to such intensity level, but where I have been taken by the mind because of circumstances in life.

Not because of the circumstances, but I'm letting them be meaningful.

Yes, yes.

So what happens is the longer we stay away from the presence, the stronger the mind seems like. And then when we try to pray and return, then the mind attacks that really strongly because it is enjoying the dominance that it has in our lives. And it says, 'Actually, the prayer or our spirituality is making it worse. So now you're stuck with me. You have to live with the mind only, and what can you do?' So that is the trick that it is playing. So what you have to do is that—can we sort of make a very broad deal, which is that the amount of time that we've stayed away from God, you have to give half that amount of time to try and return to Him. And if that doesn't happen, then we say, 'Okay, it is not working.' I'll just repeat for everyone. Suppose for a full day you forgot about God... this one, okay, you can turn it on. So what I'm saying is that suppose you spent a whole day and you forgot about God. It was just me, me, me. It happens to all of us, no? It happens. So at what point then after that, when we remember, 'Okay, I have to be with God's presence,' after how much time can we say that it is not working? So I'm saying let's make a deal where half the time that you stayed away from Him, that much time you have to give it to return to Him before you can say that my prayer or inquiry is not working. Is that a fair deal or no? So if for ten minutes you were just caught up in some pride or some personal endeavor or whatever, just following your own way, then try at least five minutes to return to be with Him. Yeah? Okay. And don't let your mind say that your prayer is not working, it is just making it worse. No.

I don't think that at all. I was just—in those moments it seems impossible to come back to God because they are so intense. So it's like I was begging for a formula or something, like I didn't know what to do because nothing seemed to work. But I guess what's more important is what I do around those moments and not in those moments. Is that what you're saying?

In a way, but also I'm saying that maybe the best gift for us on this path is to gift ourselves patience. Just have as much patience as you can, you see? And just patience is full of love, humility, faith, all these beautiful things. So don't let your mind bully you, because we can't be patient if the mind is being allowed to bully us. They say, 'No, no, now see what's happening. It's just not working, this, this, this.' Just patience. In fact, Pankaj Ji said he went to Shirdi Sai Baba temple in Maharashtra and there he was getting a bit agitated with the lack of proper management of the queue and all of that. So then God sent him a message which was—what is it? Shraddha and Saburi. The Saburi part, which means patience. Sabar, Sabr is a Hindi/Urdu word where we are reminded to be patient. On this path, we have to be really patient. And then have you noticed how the mind's main strategy is to rush? So if you decide to just be patient, most of the mind tricks you won't fall for. The contemplation that we did, I think it was Monday or Wednesday last week, where you asked us to feel the difference between how the mind feels and how your voice feels, and that was very powerful.

Yeah, yeah.

Once you get used to the textures, you see, then you know the scent, the stink of the mind and the perfume of love in your heart. Then that keeps us on the right track.

Father, since now that I'm talking, I've been praying every day but I haven't been praying every morning. I was feeling that maybe that has an effect on what's happening in the rest of the day. Yes, I know that you want us to pray every morning, but I'm not praying every morning.

So just start. That's all you can do. We have to restart. Just have to start. Because it can seem like just a broad suggestion, but it's not. It's not just a broad suggestion. You have to do that for our own safety, because if you don't start your day that way, it's very possible to just hand it over to mind.

Yes. What I noticed that happens here with any new practice, anything that happens here that is good, that is good for this one, that I take it on and I do it for a while and it's good, and then I give up. Yes. And then I come back and then it's good and then I give up. And I do that with everything that is good that God asks of me.

Yes, in some way or the other we feel that about ourselves. So we just have to keep returning. Just have to keep returning. Because it is maturity even to notice this, that we start our sadhana, we start our prayer, we start our inquiry, we always start with great intention. But along the way, it just—we fall into some trap. Like usually it happens that there'll be some emergency or something that is unavoidable, so then it just breaks that whole flow. So when we miss it for a day, we must make sure that we don't repeat it the next day. Because as we keep repeating that, then it becomes—the auspicious pattern gets broken and we get into the trap of the mind's way. So when you notice it, just at that time return. Don't feel guilty about it. Don't beat yourself up over it. That is how we are; all of us are like this. The best thing we can do at that point is to return. So you notice that you're not praying in the morning, just no post-mortem, no analysis, except just to notice it and not deny it for yourself. And then make sure that next morning you do, no matter what.

Yeah, I do pray during the day and throughout the day, and the prayer keeps coming and it comes on its own. It plays on its own. If I don't remember to pray, it's just whenever I just start walking or when I go to bed or when I'm doing something in the house, the prayer just starts. That's good. But yeah, I'm not praying in the morning. And sometimes I'm avoiding prayer and instead of praying, maybe just watching something, you know, useless or something like that, or spending too much time with digital media, stuff like that. I feel like I waste a lot of time like that.

As long as your prayer is happening, then you can allow the outer to unfold. But the outer cannot unfold at the cost of your being with God. There's always the risk of being hard on myself because, you know, that's something I do. So that is why we need to be guided by heart so much moment to moment, because it's very difficult to figure out when we are being too hard on ourself and when we are being too soft on ourself, you see? So that has to be moment to moment. Like in Matthew somewhere it is written that the Kingdom of Heaven has to be forced. Has to be forced. What do you mean? What does it mean? In the sense that when we don't feel like praying, then we have to force ourselves. And then another sage also said, Hanuman Prasad Poddar said that we have to pray 'zabardasti,' means when you especially don't feel like it, then we have to force ourselves, you see? But sometimes you will receive guidance saying that that can become too much doership, too much pride in that. So sometimes, because the...

That the Kingdom of Heaven has to be forced, has to be forced. For what do you mean? What does it mean? In the sense that when we don't feel like praying, then we have to force ourselves. And then another sage also said, Hanuman Prasad Poddar said, that we have to pray jabardasti, means when we especially when you don't feel like it, then we have to force ourselves, you see. But sometimes you will receive guidance in saying that that can become too much doership, too much pride in that. So sometimes, because the sage is possibly answering the questioner at that particular time, you see, and maybe suitable for that particular time. So sometimes, you see, the way it has to flow has to come from the heart. But after having said that, when it comes to prayer and if we don't know the guidance from our heart, I would also pick that we force ourselves to do it. And maybe that is the intention of what the sages are telling us, that when we have blocked ourselves out from it and many times we feel like, 'I don't feel like doing this, I just want to watch this movie instead, I'll start tomorrow.' That is probably my favorite thing as well. So, 'I'll start in full earnest tomorrow.' So then instead of that, we just say, 'Now, now, now.' And all the sages are imploring us like that for some reason. They're telling us we have very few sesame seeds left, so we must use them well.

Can I expose something else? Since I think it's a bit of a theme of the day, about the arrogance and opinions that we have about you or about Satsang. I want to expose something.

Yes, it's very good for my ego. Bring it. We're chopping you more than you're chopping us lately.

Grace needs to be chopped. Ever since I began Satsang, even before Guru Ji, I feel that my opinions are the biggest part of this ego personality that stood out right away. So I have very strong opinions. It's the first thing that stuck out when I started listening to a sage at that time, yeah. And I feel that today it's the same. It's even though they have softened a lot over the years, they still are a big part.

I see. Is this or you have a strong this, a strong opinion you have or about your opinion?

Oh, about this opinion. I'm holding on to these ideas of Satsang. That's what I want, because I feel that there's, I'm sure that there's a lot of arrogance there. That's why I wanted to say these things. Because ever since last week when we started contemplating, especially the first few times, I felt I was so happy because I missed it. I feel that Satsang has taken a different form lately. And even though my heart and God guides me very clearly to you and there is no doubt that I'm in the right place and it's okay, it's okay, yeah. It's just that I've just been feeling that lately in the past year or so that I miss contemplating with you, when you guide us through contemplation into our own nature, yeah, and not just about the things that we are not doing to be with God and stuff like that. And the arrogance is the arrogance that comes, and it's great because you answered that question today and I wrote it down because you just talked about it. You said that because we don't contemplate like this, these things will catch us at the time of inquiry. But yeah, often I feel like not, it's kind of like a not an advanced mind but a beginner mind where I feel that I still need to contemplate with you because when I contemplate on my own, it's not the same.

Yes, and it's very, very powerful. That's very valid. What I feel, it's very valid because you can just come and say, 'Can we have like a guided contemplation or something like that?' We can do that, yeah.

And yeah, I was very happy Monday and Wednesday especially, because Wednesday I wasn't translating so I could fully be here and I felt that you were guiding us into that contemplation and giving us those silences which I don't think you had done before.

Yes, and yeah, I just, I was very happy about that here, that we can alternate between the kind of scriptures that we are contemplating. So after Baba Fareed Ji, we can do Ashtavakra, so you know, so something so we can go from Bhakti so that we don't settle either way and we so we can do we can do some of that. I'm always happy to hear. It's not a criticism, it's a very valid point you make.

Yeah, I don't know, there's something about the field or your field, your presence, or the way that you put the contemplations that it's like a sword, it's like an arrow straight to it. And I feel it, but then I cannot say that.

So who is asking this question right now? Did I ask a question? Who is who is expressing this opinion right now?

Oh yeah, I feel like the heart is speaking.

Yeah, who who feels who? Okay, I see what you're doing. So yeah, who is this? We don't have to wait for the contemplation, could just be instant like this also. At one point actually everyone used to feel like, 'Let me not ask Ananta a question because he's just going to say who is asking or who.' Yeah, remember those times? So now we've probably swung the other way, the pendulum too much. We'll come back to the center somewhere.

But I really feel to to say thank you now for for that and for the prayer which is extremely powerful and that you don't, even though you keep the the shape of the Satsang keeps changing, that we are still with the prayer and that and that we continue with it and and with our faith in it and in you. I am infinitely grateful for that and also that since we have been contemplating on on our on our turning away from God, aspects of of this ego have come to light which were invisible before. So yeah, so I'm very grateful. Good, very happy.