Find Out Who You Are - 22nd May 2024

And for most of our brothers and sisters in the world, they will say that they are creating their thoughts, you see, like consciously creating thoughts, and that the thoughts are their voice itself. They are the ones that are speaking this, they are the ones who are thinking this, believing this, saying this, whichever way we want to put that. So these thoughts actually, just like the appearance of the world and just like the appearance of body sensations and breaths, are aspects of Maya itself. So all realms of perceptions are aspects of Maya itself. But this particular aspect of thoughts, you see, has an aftereffect, which is the creation of the identity once believed in. If you just notice them, nothing happens. So if you just give them your attention, nothing happens. But you also have the power of belief, which makes you identify with the content of the thought.

So the thought may come to you, 'I don't like what he's saying.' What's the big deal in that, you see? So the thought comes to you. If the thought is just allowed to come and go, it's okay. But once you buy into it, then it becomes your position, your truth, you see, your condition. So that which is called conditioning is the identity that we build with our thoughts through our belief. So we meet these thoughts. We also meet variants like imagination, memory. So all this imagery comes; all this is happening within ourselves. What should be there? It should be a bundle of flesh and blood; it should be like an X-ray machine. But instead, you're meeting all of this. So you're meeting thoughts, memories, imagination, and there seems to be somebody sitting in judgment over there within the mind itself, an aspect of the mind itself which is sitting in judgment, saying correct, wrong, good, bad, all of that. So that is called the intellect. So it is judging.

Now after all this is done, then you come across a layer where you have these sensations called feelings, emotions, all this anger, lust, all of these feelings, joy, frustration, anguish, or whatever you may call all these emotions. You experience them as perceptions again, isn't it? So these are also in the realm of Maya. Okay, now all these are done, then what? Sages have said, 'Go inside.' Sages say those who go inside are always content, always free from suffering, always happy, you see. So so far, anything that you found which can make you always happy, you see? So then what? What after this, you see? And do we actually, how many of us actually go beyond this? In the world, we feel this is the extent of our life, isn't it? Is it? But we are missing the main thing, the main substance, the main important revelation, the important discovery.

So what is beyond this is the question. What is beyond this is the beginning of spirituality. And I'll talk to you also about, if you remind me, then about what to do with all of this if our interest is only to go beyond this. But what is beyond this experientially? Not something you've learned, not ideas that you have, because that's in the realm of the mind. What is your direct experience of what is there beyond this? There are two things to go on, isn't it? One is that the sages have told us that if we turn inwards, only then can we be happy, only then can we be content, only then can we find peace, you see. That is one thing. And then the great one, Shiv, told us the other day that what is it, how is it that I'm turning away from material things? I'm turning away from material things and I'm finding a fulfillment of satisfaction. How can it be, you see?

So very, very beautiful insight. How is it that if we are material things, how is it then in the turning away, in the not grasping, in the non-attaching to material things, then I am happier than when I'm attaching to material things? So what must I be then, you see? Or what is there that we are turning towards, you see, that is transforming our life in this way? So what is there experiencing all these? The one that is experiencing all of this. And when you say experiencing, should we start with perceiving? What would be experiencing? To experience, how am I experiencing the world? How am I experiencing my thoughts? How am I experiencing my feelings? Perceiving. So the first way to look at experience, phenomenal experience at least, is perception. Then what we consider to be like a mode of knowing or interpretation is what we call thinking or conceptualization.

So we live in this world where we are perceiving objects and the mind then is making the narrative about them, and we call the experience of the object a mixture of the perception of it and our narrative about it. 'I liked it, I didn't like it, I had a good experience, I didn't have a good experience.' All of those conclusions can come from the narrative that we pick up from the mind, intellect within us. So this one that is perceiving, who is that? So this is the sense of I-amness, the being, the presence, you see. Now we have to be very careful at this point because the mind will make an individual ownership out of this sense of presence. Say, 'I go inside and I find this presence, it is my presence.' Correct, it is, you see, but not the 'me' who is roaming in the world, isn't it? It doesn't belong to that one. That is just a fictional character in the narrative.

So then this presence belongs to whom? Who is beyond the one who has name and form in the world? In the realm of Maya, we have name and form. But this presence is also called the Atma, is also called the spirit, the Holy Spirit. So Atma is whose presence? It is God's presence. It is the presence of the one Consciousness, the one being, the only Consciousness, the only being, this Atma. Now the thing with this, the revelation of this Atma, is that it is a bit different from how you found the other aspects of your being. You open your eyes, you saw the world. All of you saw the world. This sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, all of you saw it. Then you looked within, you saw thoughts, memory, imagination. All of you saw it. You also, if something irritates you, then you will also, all of you can experience anger, you can experience irritation. All of you can experience it, you see.

But when it comes to the revelation of the presence of the Atma, there's another force at work which is called Grace. It is said that without Grace, this revelation cannot happen for us. So whose Grace? So behind this curtain, thin curtain, is the revelation of His light, of His love, of His presence within ourselves. And as long as we take ourselves to be this body-mind in the world, it seems like there is a curtain which separates us from His presence and what we perceive the world to be, isn't it? Otherwise, anybody could look like that. Okay, beyond the mind, beyond emotion, there is my being, you see. There, the presence is that, that is the Atma. Then you don't need to start Atma Kendra, you didn't need to start satsang hall. Everybody could just very naturally find it like the mind is found. But this one, nobody can really fathom or figure out what is the exact requirement for us to come to this revelation.

The jnanis cannot say that if you inquire sincerely a hundred times, you will come to the revelation of God's presence within. The bhaktas cannot say that you will sit in prayer and chant sincerely a hundred times and you will come to the revelation of God's presence within. Nobody can really say because it is up to God Himself. It is up to God Himself. Now does that mean that we must not then, whatever capacity we believe that we have, then we must not exert that towards self-realization, God-realization, to the recognition of the Atma within? No, on the contrary, we must apply everything that we have at our disposal, everything. Because otherwise, we will be occupied with self-serving things or egoic-serving things. And nobody can say this will definitely get you there, but one thing most can almost say fully is that if you're egoic about everything or about anything actually, then there's a chance, there's a high chance that this will not happen.

That is why the sages have told us in simpler language that the lane is very narrow. The lane is very narrow. If there is me, then there cannot be God. If there is God, there cannot be me. To this much we can say almost guaranteed. That is what I'm trying to communicate. If you go, it is said, Maya is me. Me is here, me comes, is Maya. So to be empty of this me, hoping for the grace of revelation of the Holy Light within ourselves, is the beginning of true spirituality, to come to the discovery of God's presence within ourselves. So what is one to do when they don't have such a revelation and they only can perceive the world and the inside world and the outside world? What is one to do? That should be the question. So there are so many rivers pointing.

To communicate, if you go—said Maya is 'me'. 'A' is the 'me' is here. 'Me' comes is Maya. So to be empty of this 'me', hoping for the grace of revelation of the Holy Light within ourselves, is the beginning of true spirituality: to come to the discovery of God's presence within ourselves. So what is one to do when they don't have such a revelation and they only can perceive the world and the inside world and the outside world? What is one to do? That should be the question.

So there are so many, many rivers pointing to this, leading to this ocean. So many rivers. One of those streams, one of those rivers tells us that one way to come to this revelation is to find out who you really are. Find out who you really are. Find out not by understanding, not by phenomenal experience, but dive into the one that is watching, the one that is witnessing all of this, who is aware even of perception. So in this process of self-discovery, so many make this report that 'I went looking for myself but I found God. When I went looking for God, I found myself.' So that is one of the paths: find out who you are. Negate that which is phenomenal, that is, negate that which is in the realm of changing and find that which is unchanging. Because it is also said that Maya is that which comes and goes, is the changeful. You, your absolute reality, is the unchanging reality.

So this path of inquiry, this path of negating that which is false, is an attempt to remove avidya, ignorance, so that—to use the classical example—the rope is seen as the rope and not the snake. The rope is seen as a snake because of ignorance. So ignorance is removed and we remain empty of false belief, false understanding of the world. And when ignorance is removed, then the chance of revelation, the self-realization by His grace, is possible. So ignorance stops us from finding the truth, from getting rid of our false suffering. So we remove this ignorance.

Another way that is offered is that this Maya in its nature is distracting us, you see. It's compelling us with all its problems every day, all its offerings, everything it offers with so much pride and says, 'If you get this, then you'll forever be happy. If only this relationship worked out for me, I will forever be happy. If only I had this money, this much money, I will forever be happy.' You see, all these offers are available to us constantly in the realm of Maya. So then sages have told us that instead of focusing on all of this, getting distracted by all of this, you make everything in your life about God. Every layer of your existence, make it about God.

How? Surround yourself with that which reminds you of God. Come to satsangs. Then bow down to God with the body. How can you use it to be in service to God? Help your brothers and sisters, serve them. Then in your mind, continue reminding yourself of the name of God. Keep chanting His name, full of emotion in God's remembrance. In your intellect, only ask yourself one question: 'Is this God's will? Is this what His will is, or is this something that my selfishness is... am I doing this for myself or is this really for God or for my brothers and sisters?' And emotionally, with your remembrance, with your sadhana, invoke active love for God. Love Him with all your heart.

See, and so many other things of course, spiritual reading being one of them. So you can read the holy scriptures. You can read the Bible, you can read the Quran, you can read whichever tradition, whichever culture, whichever religion appeals to you. You can study the pathway to God in the form of reading, contemplation, meditation. All these paths are there. So whichever path we take, whether it is the path of Gana or the path of Bhakti, the revelation appears to you in an astounding way.

What is astounding about the revelation of the Atma within is it was right here all along. That is one revelation which shocks us: that this has always been here and yet I have looked and looked, looked and looked, and it wasn't here, and yet it has always been here. So that we will never be able to solve. That is one aspect of it. The other aspect of faith is that you cannot make a conclusion about it in the sense that it is graspable and ungraspable. So like I can pick up this object, so I know that this is phenomenal, it's objective. I know that the feelings that appear within myself are objective. So sometimes anger comes, sometimes joy comes, sometimes laughter comes, you see. All these different sort of emotions come. So I can say that these are perceivable and I can label them and say this is this and this is that.

But with the spirit, with the Atma within, it is a light which is unperceivable and yet it is a light. It is a primordial vibration, yet it is beyond all appearances, all that we can call objective. It is the source of all love, peace, contentment, auspiciousness, joy, bliss, intelligence, and yet it itself is beyond its own gifts. So we may follow this love back to its source, but it is so beyond any sort of comprehension when we come to His presence, to His light. And just like these pure byproducts of the holiness within yourself—the Atma within yourself—like love cannot be explained to one who is not in love, like peace cannot be explained to those who are not experiencing peace, so this Atma, this light, this spirit cannot be explained, just pointed to.

But one thing is for certain: that unless we come to this, our life is not life. Or unless at least we have attempted to focus our life inward in this way, our life is not life. It is merely death in the guise of life because we have missed life itself. And that is the job of Maya: to make sure that we miss His life, His light, His love within ourself. But I promise you one thing: that if you put Him at the center of your life, then He will show you the way. Like a little child, hold your hand and guide you every step of the way. If all that you want is to meet Him, to love Him, to serve Him, then nothing in the world can be an obstacle for you.

But if you are being self-serving even in your spirituality—it means that you want the label of freedom, the label of enlightenment, the label of being a teacher—then that will just get in your way. And more and more it'll get cleaned up as you go deeper and deeper within yourself. It'll get cleaned up, all these things. Both these paths of Gana and Bhakti require courage, require patience, require immense faith. Because you remember those times where you're just sitting and asking yourself 'Who am I?' and the mind is saying it is completely pointless, you're wasting your life. You're sitting and praying to God and things seem to be all helter-skelter around you, and your family and your mind both are saying, 'Be responsible, there is time for all this.'

So the sages have told us that we must do this right now. They also—the two-punch of that is that they also told us the opportunity does not come again and again, you see. So are the sages right when they say that this is very urgent and the most important, or is the world right when it says, 'Oh, there's time for this'? Because they think they understood one verse in the Gita nobody's actually understood. And the irony of all of it is that the security that we want, the love that we want to experience, the peace that we want, the contentment that we want, has never come out of the gathering of things. The fulfillment of desire—desire first creates a knot within your system and then the fulfillment of that desire just opens up that knot and gives you a sense of momentary relief which you think is happiness. But true happiness is only meant when you come to God's life.

Then your life becomes stable. Then naturally you start to get attracted towards Godly things. Godly things being those which remind you of God's presence. And you lose your attraction, afflictions, addictions to things which are just deepening your attachment to the world. Naturally it happens in that way. Just like if a magnet is brought next to a bed of nails, then all the nails get pulled towards the magnet. Once you come to God's presence, then all your conditions, all the false, all ignorance is eaten up, is swallowed up by God's presence. So this inner cleaning up process happens in all the layers of your existence. And that is why if somebody meets you after a few years they will say, 'Oh, you've completely changed.' Still look the same maybe, if you haven't done all this, but otherwise you've completely changed. 'What has changed? You were so interested in this and you were so interested in that, now you just want to speak of God and truths. What has happened to you?'

Balance. Because there's time for all of this. There is no bigger fraudulent statement in the world than 'there is time for all of this' because really there is no time. Because if God was only just and not merciful, then if we started right in the moment where we were born into this world and we spent our whole life in service and sadhana to Him, maybe that also would not have been enough. But because He is merciful, He is Dayalu, Kripalu, not merely just, that is why this is a good time to start. Ideally speaking, our entire life was meant to be only in service to Him. So we've already all lost the chance, you see. But because He is merciful, because He is kind, if we start now it is not too late. But if you say 'I have more important things to do,' then you're fooling yourself, so deeply hypnotized in Maya that you're going to waste this opportunity.

Now many of you, when I say this, we start thinking about your friends and relatives and say, 'What's happening with them? They're wasting their opportunity.' See? But what to do for them is you fully deepen more and more, see? Then it'll start to shine through you. And when it shines through you, then something within them will, hopefully if it is God's grace, they will recognize a bigger possibility in life. So for any outer problem, including this one, the solution is always to go deeper within into His presence. Then all actions, all movement can flow from there, you see.

So then what happens is when you start living in the presence of this Holy Light within, the light of the Atma within, then it can take on all the roles. Everything that you need in life, it becomes your father, your mother, your best friend, your beloved, and very importantly, your teacher as well. And that is why the Atma is also called the Satguru presence. So all expressions of the Guru in the world are mere instruments of that Holy Light in our heart. And the way it teaches you is beyond anything we can fathom. All it needs is for us to be open, open to be guided by the Atma within. Then the curriculum and the lessons, everything is full of so much love and beauty that you find yourself growing in ways that are unimaginable in the world.

So there are so many things we can keep talking about the Atma. I can do the gungan of the Atma all day, of God's presence all day. Whether we say Ram, Krishna, Jesus, Allah, or Atma, it doesn't make any difference. It's the same one's presence that we are praising. So Tulsidas Ji said, 'Mangal Bhavan Amangal Hari.' What does that mean? That in the light of Ram, in the light of the Atma—so the light of the Atma literally is what the word Ram means—in that, all auspiciousness comes to our life and all inauspiciousness is sucked away, amangal is taken away. And such is the beauty of faith in the sage's words.

So he said at one point—his humility is something that is truly astounding—he said that 'I'm the most foolish' and he calls this his... he himself said like, you know, that his writing, his poem—he calls it a poem—is really nonsense, you see. But he says that if it is true that my mother and father, which is Shankar Ji and Parvati Ji—some of you know the story—so Shankar Ji and Parvati Ji truly love me, and if I'm truly a bhakta of Ram Ji, then even the words, the foolish words of this foolish one, will have great power for anyone who reads them with devotion and their life will transform and become full of auspiciousness. Isn't that beautiful? To have so much faith in God. And I completely trust His blessing that if you read the holy words—and it can be any scripture, all of them are written by the hand of God...

As Shankar Ji and Parvati Ji—some of you know the story—so Shankar Ji and Parvati Ji truly love me, and if I'm truly a bhakta of Ram Ji, then even the words, the foolish words of this foolish one, will have great power for anyone who reads them with devotion, and their life will transform and become full of auspiciousness. Isn't that beautiful, to have so much faith in God? And I completely trust His blessing that if you read the holy words—and it can be any scripture, all of them are written by the hand of God—then we will be blessed by it and our love for God will deepen, our understanding of God will deepen.

So, the transformative power of God's presence in our life is beyond explaining. The amount of love you will experience in your heart, nothing, nothing in the world can match that to the slightest. Inside you will have the feeling of being rested, the feeling of not being rushed, the feeling of everything being taken care of. All of these are the gifts of God's presence, and the bigger gifts are beyond words. And if you are to categorize, then even the gift of revelation of the absolute reality, Nirguna Brahman, only happens by the light, in the light of His presence. That is why the Guru is called the bringer of light, because it's a unique light which can shine a light onto that which is Nirguna. It's a unique light, isn't it? You can have a stadium light, but you cannot see the Nirguna in that.

How is it that you can come to that recognition, to that revelation? Impossible in the world. How is it that so much love, so much peace, so much auspiciousness, contentment, joy in sharing, joy of just being, can be given to us in our life, in this life, just by virtue of being with Him, coming to Him? So this is called in the Western culture, some of the Western culture, this is called being in heaven, and in India we call it Swarga or we call it Ram Raj. Now, all of this is not on the outside, and people often get confused about that. It is who are we with. It is who are we with. If you're with ego, then it is hell. If you are with Atma, if you're with Spirit, if you're with God's presence, then it is called heaven.

If you're with ego, you could be in the most beautiful place in the world and you will be unhappy. You will still be wanting more, or something will come and bother you. But in His presence, anything may happen to your body, anything may happen around you, but you take everything as His grace because the extent of love, stillness, peace, gratitude you feel inside you is unshakable. And then you look at the world as if it is just a set of toys. What will these toys give you? People come and offer you money, you laugh on the inside saying, 'What is this paper and plastic to me?' And you know in your heart that you're so content that nothing on the outside seems so attractive, so important to you anymore.

So remember that as you are turning towards Him and you make this intention of turning towards Him, that's when Maya is also going to up its game. It's going to say, 'Oh, this one is going to the other team. We can't let this one go to the other team.' So then all the either bigger problems or bigger offers or bigger temptations, these will start to come. And Maya knows very well, the mind knows very well, that it's only a matter of time. If you can distract this one from their intention to turn towards God for the next fifteen, twenty minutes, then after that some match will start or something will happen. So it's only a little bit, so don't fall for these tricks.

Great story, no? I mentioned the—and I only read till that much of the book—but in The Screwtape Letters, where this man spent the whole day, paraphrasing a bit, and he spent the first half of the day in a library completely contemplating God, the nature of reality. He was just reading, reading, reading, and then he was really making headway, he was really making progress, and he was going to really deepen in his insight. Then the mind got a message, you see, from the Maya team saying, 'You've done very well. Now I feel like it's time for a bit of lunch.' You see? 'Spend like, have lunch for half an hour, then you come back and continue your contemplation.' And that half an hour, the mind knew that if you distract this one for half an hour, then... Have you not seen many of you, when you're here, you don't want to leave? When you're not here, you don't want to come. It happens because we get attracted to that.

So this in a way is like the power of satsang, the company that we keep. It doesn't have to be other people; whatever we surround ourselves with then starts to work on us. So may God bless you, of course, with the strength that may you be the power of change in the company that you keep. So rather than becoming worldly and egoic in worldly and egoic company, may your presence lead them to becoming more open, turning towards God, or at least questioning a way of life which seems to be so prevalent. But this is very important, so don't surround yourself with things that pull you out from God.

Whatever path you pick, whether it is inquiry, whether it is to just remain empty, open and empty, whether it is Bhakti, whether it is... all of them, it all leads to the same point. Nobody comes to the Absolute without the Guru, and the Guru is the Atma within. So whichever path it may be, never become proud of that path. Never say that 'Mine is the best, mine is the highest, they are too foolish to know these things.' I've been sharing satsang now twelve years; I have no idea which is the best path. If you were to really ask me which is the best path, I would say tell me more about yourself, then we can maybe see what may be the best path for you. Anything that turns towards God is the highest.

What did Mirabai do? She looked at the murti of Krishna and said, 'This is my God, this is it.' Now, a Jani may look at that and say, 'What foolishness, this is just Maya, this is all... you're in delusion.' But it's not, because any aspect of your being you dedicate to God, then the rest of it just follows, isn't it? And it touches your heart. Of course, the point is to meet God in your heart, and then your heart permeates everything, every aspect of your life.

St. Teresa of Avila said that you have an interior castle, and the innermost mansions of this castle is where God lives. Then you enter the first mansions, then you're half in, half out. Worldly distractions are very small, very strong, you see? There are too many gatekeepers, too many dwars blocking your way. Then you get deeper, and then you can feel like you can say that 'My life is for God,' but often you are pulled outwards. Then you get deeper and you're able to pray most of the time, almost unceasingly. And when I mean prayer, it means focus is on God, whether with words, whether with inquiry, whether with whatever method we have.

Then you get deeper and there are no words needed. Now it becomes the prayer of quiet. Unceasing prayer becomes easy because you're just praying, but you cannot explain the method of your prayer to anyone. Some call this the mind falling into the heart, some call it noetic prayer, some call it the prayer of the heart. You come to a bhava samadhi where you know that you're loving God, God is loving you, but that's all that's important. The rest of it may even fade away from your vision, from your view. It may feel like there's only God in you now. And at this point, to explain in worldly terms, you may say that He is my beloved.

Then you go deeper and you can no longer say which is you and which is Him. There are no two left. And yet in the worldly play, you may use expressions of 'I did this, He did that,' but they carry no power for you. So your insights keep deepening more and more. Self-realization, God-realization, all these things are no longer important to you as badges of honor; they are actually occurring for you. Worldly desires falling away, that which seemed so compelling and attractive is lifeless. You're just happy being by yourself in this way, being in His presence. Whatever way you call it, it's the same.

And most importantly, possibly most importantly, you are not interested in making anything about you anymore. So you've gone from making everything about you to seeing that this 'me' is nothing at all. It is to come to a true humility. Why would you want people to remember you when they can remember God instead? What are you, what am I? At best, if you remember me, remember me as a door to God, a pathway to God, a reminder of God, an alarm clock. And my wish is that when you have the capability to remember God, then you must forget about me, because the Father that you love is the one sitting in your heart. This one is just an instrument. So when you come to Him, then know that this one's job is done. Just keep all your focus on Him.

Don't rush into this. I can guide you a bit on that, but just don't let your mind take you for a ride. But really the intention is to leave you at God's feet, well taken care of. So this is just to give you a sense of why we gather in satsang and what all of this is about. And I'm just to serve this project. So if you're getting stuck somewhere, if you're finding some difficulty, then I can try and guide you a little bit in this process. But the true guidance comes from the Atma, and in service to that Atma, I can offer some words to you to help in this way.

The question is on desire that typically leads us away from the home. But empirically what's happening is with more and more time in satsang and doing everything, trying to do everything that you're guiding us to do, a lot of desires are weathering away naturally. Some are becoming weaker but not, let's say, not going away. Is there a role to become the doer to accelerate that, or just trust the presence that as long as the only effort I'm doing is living in presence, it will take care of everything?

Yeah, completely. So whatever effort is needed must be to go to God's light within, to go to His presence. So either we can take the effort in that direction and then the rest of it becomes effortless for us, or we can try to put effort in that direction, but that is endless. It just keeps going, but it goes nowhere because without His grace nothing works anyway. It's all effort. Whatever seeming effort is needed must be to be with Him, because to be with Him, remember, is to be in heaven, and in heaven you have no problem. And to not be with Him then is going to be a hellish existence, whatever effort, whatever else you do.

Father, when you were explaining about the different layers of existence, so starting from the body, the gross level, then mind, then viveka, so where is the position we can say, or the ego comes into play? Is it the constituent of all these, gross to subtle, and then comes the Self?

So yeah, ego is the great seeming. It's the great seeming, you see, in the sense that it feels like there's an ego here, you see, but the ego is a construct of a belief. See, just like if you believed yourself—if you close your eyes for five minutes, you only focused on believing that you are a frog for five minutes, you're just doing that—then where is the frog? So if I was to tell you that if you really took yourself to be a frog and a lot of like frog food—I don't know what that is, whether that's caterpillars or something flying around, you see—then something will start to get tempted. But is there like a frog actually sitting there? The frog actually never got created, but the power of our belief makes it seem as if something is, something is. It feels as if I am this body, it feels as if I am a person that is interested in money or in my relationships or something like that, but that person never actually comes into existence.

Okay, I know it's very prevalent to say that, and I also learned this in the beginning of my spirituality, which is body, breath, mind, intellect, memory, ego, Self. All of us learned it. But then when you go from your experience, you realize that you never cross this ego. It's not a substantive thing. It's just an idea of belief in a separate 'I'. The 'I' thought, the 'I am something' thought getting believed in, you see, seems to create this person, persona, personality, personhood.

So, I know it's very prevalent to say that, and I also learned this in the beginning of my spirituality, which is: body, breath, mind, intellect, memory, ego, Self. All of us learned it. But then when you go from your experience, you realize that you never cross this ego. It's not a substantive thing. It's just an idea, a belief in a separate 'I'. The 'I' thought, the 'I am something' thought getting believed in, you see, seems to create this persona, personality, person, but it is never actually born. It's a seeming. That's why they take the rope and snake example. It's actually only rope, but it seems like a snake under the ignorance, under Maya, you see.

Now, Jnana Yoga definitely could not work if there was an actual ego, see, because you're clearing up just your head from false concepts. In clearing up your head from false concepts, the actuality of the ego would not go. So you notice that it is actually just a set of ideas believed in which makes the ego. So you stop identifying with those ideas and the ego starts to crumble. If it were an actual thing like emotions—or when I say actual, I'm talking about in the world, like if it was like the body or like emotions or thoughts or intellect—then just by being empty of ideas, you could not get rid of it. So it's just a figment of our ideas.

When you stop buying into the frog ideas, the frog goes away. Suppose you went to a psychologist and your problem was that you believe you're a frog. Then if you stop believing that, at that time your problem is gone. The frog ego went. You stop believing in the 'me' thoughts, then the 'me' ideas go. So nothing has to change in the substance of this appearance. And before that also, if there is one, then show me or show yourself. In the world, you can see the body, you can perceive it, and also the senses. You see breath, you can experience it. Mind, we talked about. Memory, we talked about. Intellect, we talked about. Ego is not there.

When also this stage comes that, 'Now this is the ego, I'm not the ego,' that never existed. If I am not there, there is no ego. Only when I'm believing I am something is the ego. If I'm not buying into that, there is no ego. If I'm not identifying, there is no ego, see. So the 'I' thought is not some special thought which is the ego thought sitting there. Many fall into that trap of misunderstanding this, that 'I'm done with all other thoughts, now only the I thought is left.' Some people have asked me like this in Satsang. It's a misunderstanding because what Bhagavan was pointing to has been misunderstood.

Any reference to the 'I' is an 'I' thought. Any reference. So all references to the 'I' must be let go of, and then there's no 'I' thought. But if you buy into any thought—'I am like this,' 'I am not like that,' even very harmless-seeming notions—then you bought into the 'I' thought. So the 'I' thought is the primary belief on top of which we put all the other beliefs about this 'I'. Now if it is left without any reference... you do programming, or what's your job? Okay, you may be programmers. So we don't have to worry about cleaning up that data as long as nothing is pointing to it. You're fine. It doesn't interfere with your program. In the same way, if there's no reference to that, there's no pointer to that, you see.

So then any thought believed in is based on the 'I' thought?

Yeah, yeah. Because we talked about this, that it could be a very harmless-seeming thought that, 'Oh, the coconut is green.' The coconut is green, so how can there be ego in that? The coconut is green, you see. Firstly, it's not green, but we'll come to that Yoga Vasistha type explanation later. But what happens very quickly is that 'coconut is green' then quickly your preference is believed: 'I like green coconuts' or 'When I had the green coconut, I saw it was so sweet water.' You know, all this. So at the tail of any belief is identification.

And the fact is that for those thoughts like 'the coconut is green,' you don't need to believe the thought because your perception contains that intelligence that you need to operate. So the labeling of it as green has not helped you unless you want to identify or bring some other past learned knowledge into it, which brings the 'me' into the picture.

You asked us to remind you if you could address what to do with the external world or something.

So I talked about it some, which is that to try and then fill that up also with reminders of God. Surround yourself in the right company. Keep your body also in service to your brothers and sisters—selfless service in God's name to the world. So all of that. It should be good news that there is no ego actually, substantively. I'm waiting one day for somebody to celebrate when I give them good news. The whole Satsang today has been such good news that we can be in God's presence. Amol, I'm pulling his leg. No, I'm saying that because he was getting a bit overwhelmed with the idea of God's presence being a living presence, like a living being. So I said, but that is some really good news. Why are you getting so upset about such good news? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Very good.

So when you say that this presence, I-amness... this I-amness, you associate that with something? Is that what you mean? That I associate that as, 'I am Sanjukta' or 'I am the body' or 'I am like that'? Or how it belongs to me?

Just turn it around in the sense that instead of saying the presence belongs to me, say that all I am belongs to this presence. My heart belongs to You, my life belongs to You, my words belong to You, everything in my life belongs to You. And then you can deepen your relationship in that presence, see. When you meet the presence, you see, and to meet it as a living being is very beautiful because then you can start to deepen in our relationship. We can start to deepen in our relationship with God.

But if we just keep it to the presence or just like big words like 'Consciousness is there,' then you will not go to it and say, 'Help me, Father,' see? If it is just made into a scientific phenomena, then we can't bow down to it. We cannot say, 'My Father is taking care of me, God's light is taking care of me, He is blessing me.' So the beauty of recognizing the living nature of this presence is so that you can communicate, you can commune with that, and you can surrender yourselves to this. Otherwise, to surrender also is difficult. How do we surrender? We say we must surrender to God, you see, but it's very difficult to surrender to a sheer Nirguna Brahman.

So that is why to meet this in such a holy way, and in His presence He gives us all the reassurance we need. We are so rested, we are so content, we are so full of love. That's why I've been calling this the heart temple. That when you visit your heart temple, your life, the atmosphere there is completely different from the way the world works. Such a safe, loving place, you see. So instead of claiming ownership over it—which we cannot do because the 'me', whatever 'me' that remains must be surrendered in servitude to that light—instead of claiming ownership of that light, only truly from the heart when these utterings come as if they are the utterings of the Absolute itself, you see.

So when your heart moves this body in that way and you say, 'I am That, I am That in which even this presence takes birth, even this Consciousness is born,' so that must be... it must not be like personally grasping. It must be like utterances of the heart which you hear, and that is how the greatest scriptures were; they came to us, you see. So it must be taken from that, with that reverence as that place. But no person, no one can ever take ownership of this presence. That is why it's that whole 'Aham Brahmasmi' where I am That, I am That Nirguna in which God's presence takes birth, but not the 'me' that runs around in this world that has the name Ananta and has all his foolish, foolish actions to its credit. Not that one.

So this play of both of these ends of the spectrum is always going to be there, like the yin and yang, you see. It's always going to be there. And I've been taking refuge in Sri Ramakrishna's statement because you will follow him, which is that he said that the mind is very shrewd, the 'me' is very shrewd, and we must always keep it in servitude to God, you see. So I read that and I said, 'Okay, I'm going to tell all these children that because maybe they'll listen.' As long as effort is needed, especially this kind of thing, you have to be very careful because once you... because who does that sound like? That is Ravana. Ravana says, 'Everything is God, God is also within me,' you see, which is true. But when it gets attached to the wrong 'me', then the fragrance is gone, the love is gone, the presence is actually gone. Then it becomes notional, conceptual understanding. It's very tricky.

That whole thing about Maya being the Mahathagi, the great deceiver. In the devotion of the devotee, it is hiding. Such a beautiful statement because even in our devotion we could become prideful, we could become 'me', we could become very attached to our idea of Bhakti, our openness, our goals. So we have to be very vigilant about this. But how to be vigilant? There, if you can sense the light truly, you can sense the light in your heart, then you are safe. The minute you're going in the wrong direction—at least that's what I notice about this one—the minute I get into some foolishness and I stop paying attention to the compass, the inner presence of this light, it's gone. It is not your partner in foolishness.

So all foolishness comes from 'me', all grace comes from Him. So if you are just holding His hand and sitting all day, nothing wrong will happen. If you ever leave His hand and say, 'I'm just going to...' whatever that 'I'm just going to' is going to be, it is only going to be foolishness. You can sense it like this. I'm saying it in very simple terms but it's very, very important. The mind will use tricks to pull us out of His presence and say, 'Go on your own, go on your own.' So that's the whole... every culture has this. The main story of the Bible is this: how the snake comes and says, 'Why are you living in God's will? You can decide for yourself, no? What is good and what is bad.' So you take a bite of the apple of the tree of knowledge so you can decide for yourself instead of waiting for Him to move you, waiting for Him to guide you. Then you have left His hand.

So try it out this way. Not that I'm some expert at it or something, but I'm also learning to just move in His will. Don't leave Him. If nothing is happening, nothing is happening. It's okay. Trust this for some time and see what happens. Amol actually tried once and was standing at the road for how long was it? Two hours or one hour? How was the presence then? You know the biggest trick of Maya? It'll make even your spirituality about you instead of about God. So just this is very tricky because it's important to notice where you get stuck. That noticing is important so you can push it aside. But if you become too caught up in self-concern, you see, then it's no longer spirituality. It's about you and not Spirit.

If you get very attached to your understanding, if you are just constantly checking for how what you think about it, what you feel about it... this trickster. Just God is there. If the mother is there, the infant doesn't need to think about itself. Is the Ram Rasi... was that the one? The Ram Rasi one? I watch her every day. She was asked by the interviewer like, 'So just for everybody, there's this woman who lives in a cave in the jungles all by herself and for the last 10-15 years and doing Sadhana by herself. And she doesn't go asking for food or anything; whatever she needs just comes because she's just fully relying on God.' And the interviewer asks her, 'You are a woman, you know, and it's easier for men to do this. So aren't you worried about your safety? Are you worried about anything?' And she lives in a jungle, so there are wild animals and poisonous snakes and everything. She's just by herself. And she says—I'll just say it in Hindi—she says if you just keep thinking about yourself or self-concern, you'll never move ahead.

Because she's just fully relying on God, and the interviewer asks her, 'You are a woman, you know, and it's easier for men to do this. Aren't you worried about your safety? Are you worried about anything?' And she lives in a jungle, so there are wild animals and poisonous snakes and everything. She's just by herself. And she says—I'll just say it so that she says—if you just keep thinking about yourself or self-concern, you'll never move ahead. I don't know, I find her so inspirational somehow. That's the only thing I can remember; it's very powerful when she says this. If you keep thinking—and coming from somebody who's just so reliant on God, like there's nothing, no worldly anything she has. If the food has to come, it will come. If the firewood has to come, it'll come. Like, literally it'll come. And she is so confident watching the presence, so confident. She just says, 'I'm here for Him, He'll take care. Why should I?' He makes her fearless. Too much, like what Radha was saying. She said, 'I'm relying on Him, He will take care,' with so much authority or like a love in a very enduring way. She is very good and without any pretense, very simple. It's like we just felt like in half an hour she covered everything in a few statements she's made. But everything, like without fear, that is the thing. There's no fear. I just contemplate so much worldly comfort I have, I know where my everything is, yet there's so much fear in just surrendering to God. And then listening to her, I don't know what to say. I just feel I keep listening to her. Someone who is so reliant on God, and she keeps saying, 'We can't come live in the jungles unless He gives me that. It's not my own effort. I can't do it.' And it doesn't come from a life—it's not like I decided. It just comes from lifetimes of whatever, you know. I can't just decide to go to the jungle and live. It gives a lot of power, Father.

Somehow, that's a symptom of a very deep relationship with God. Yeah, very, very. That kind of faith can come when our relationship with His presence, with His life, is so deep that we learn to touch that more and more.

Yeah, she says, 'Satsang, I'm living with it.' And so she, I think she left her family, you know. Like she was saying she's married and she looks like she has children. And she said, 'I was doing a lot of Bhakti before, and then my Guru found me, and I'm living in the truth. And the society can say whatever they want to say, it doesn't touch the truth.' Oh God, it's just like, you know, especially for a woman leaving her family, and I know what all people say, of course. But she's so grounded and the best part is there's zero shanka. There's no shanka at all. I'm not sure what the question is, but we were listening to Guruji's Satsang and he was saying faith cannot come from the person. Just go to God and He will give you the faith. Yet somewhere we have to take the plunge, right? Go to God?

Yeah, okay. But to go to God also is to take the plunge in faith. Same, same. That's why it's so beautiful that we must pray, but even that happens with His Grace. And yet we must. We cannot... so that's why 'The Cost of Discipleship' is a beautiful book, because Grace is very often misunderstood and can become the best excuse in spirituality. That if everything has to happen by Grace, so I just wait for Grace. What is there? It's all Grace, He is only taking care of it. But to say that without paying the cost of discipleship is very different than to say that after paying the cost of discipleship. And what is the cost of discipleship? To make everything available for God. To give up on everything inwardly and make our entire being available for God. You see, that is the cost of discipleship. That is surrender, you see. Now, the intent may be that, but the power may not come. And that is where Grace will take care of it. The power may not come. Is it like the seeker was saying, that 'I was not strong enough to do it'? You see, so the strength may not come. So it's a... that's why for a long time it seems like a symbiotic play until this 'me' keeps getting more and more dissolved in the holy light of presence. So we must be very careful of time-wasting because of Advaita excuses. Just like, 'Oh, but He has to do it.' I say to someone, 'Why don't you come to Satsang?' 'Oh, because You don't call,' you see. So it's a loop, no?

She said because both are true, but you have to try. And she said that also, no? Like, so she's saying do the sadhana, yet she's in every sentence she's saying, 'I couldn't do it without Him.' So amazing.

Just do without doership. It sounds very strange. Full effort and yet complete reliance on God for the outcomes, for the progress, for everything. Story of two birds, right? Trying to dry up the ocean.

Exactly that. Two birds trying to dry up the ocean. The story, I think Guruji has told it many times also. You know it? I think Mahadev tells it all the time. That there were two birds and their nest was by the sea, very close to the sea. And they were living happily and in course of time they laid eggs. So every day they would go out in search of food and bring it to the children. The eggs hatched and they were children. So one—sorry, they were still eggs. They would go for feeding and then they would sit on the eggs. So one day it happened that the waves were very high and the eggs were swept off in the ocean. So after they came back, they saw that they became very distressed. All their children are not there. And so then they decided—they went into deep depression, but ultimately after going to the depth of the helplessness, the thought came that, 'Okay, our eggs are still there, but they're in the ocean. But at least we will try. What we will do, we will dry up the ocean.' So the two small birds, they picked up small, small water with their beaks and put it on the other side. They were trying it and trying it with such determination. They tried it and tried it, and all people started—the passersby—they started laughing at them. 'What is this nonsense? You are going to die. Nothing is going to happen to the ocean.' But they said, 'Go away. We don't want your suggestion. We want our eggs. We know they are there and we will bring them back.' So they did that, did that, did that. And after—so one day a Mahatma came, was passing by that place. So he said, 'What are you doing?' So they explained that this happened and 'We are trying to dry up the ocean.' They were very much hopeful also that a Mahatma has come, then he will give us blessings and all. But the Mahatma said, 'What is this foolishness? How can you dry up the ocean?' So then they said, 'Okay, we don't want your blessings. You don't want to bless us, it's fine. But we will continue doing our sadhana, whatever.' So then the Mahatma, he did that. He put his hand in the ocean and he brought the eggs. It is in the Upanishads. It is our effort that does it. We can't dry up the ocean, but we have to do it.

And it's also such a beautiful story about faith. In your lives, you'll also meet a lot of skeptics. If you start talking about the light of God, they may say to you, 'But it doesn't happen like that. It can't just be like that. People do tapasya for so many years and in caves and all, they don't find God that easily. What are you saying?' You see, so a lot of skepticism will come, a lot of these things will come. You just have faith that He's there with you. Don't pick up any arrogance, of course, about it, but He's available to everyone. It's just we don't turn. We don't turn to Him. We rely more on ourselves.

In the library earlier today, reading the Yoga Vashishta, I just started from the beginning and I finished the part until where Lord Rama has expressed his frustration at the situation he's in. But there was like at least, I don't know, ten pages of him talking about all the stuff, and he seems to know everything. And even the gods and goddesses have descended and they're getting goosebumps, and like this sixteen-year-old is just saying everything. So what is the context in which the Yoga Vashishta is written? I mean, it's very similar to like Arjuna's despondency, but here it is different from Arjuna in the sense that he seems to know everything. He has no desires. He's seeing the pointlessness of everything, from time to desire to family and everything. And so, yeah, can you elaborate a little bit?

Yes, I can. It's a—he's in that state, then 'I don't know what I'm going to do.' Very, very important chapter, and I feel like everyone should read it. It's called 'The Dispassion of Ram,' where this young boy, young prince, who's had the best teachers, the best education, so he knows everything about spirituality. He also has access to everything the world can offer. His father, in fact, tells him that, 'You don't get into all this right now. Enjoy yourself, you're still young. Do the princely stuff which other princes enjoy.' So he says that this whole thing is a sham, basically. You know, he says childhood is valued so much, people say, 'Oh, I was so happy in childhood' and all of that. 'Here I just remember like a small kid who is just running around from place to place, laughing foolishly or crying for no reason.' So he just—and then he says, 'In my youth, all I remember is being full of all this lust and all these conditions, all these demons taking hold of you.' You see? 'Then I've seen people in middle age, they try to chase all these worldly material things.' So he blasts the entire human condition. And I feel like it's a very important wake-up call for all of us. What are we really doing? What are we really going after? So all these worldly, egoic, Maya-filled purposes we create for our lives—anybody who reads that chapter, at least for a few minutes, then is shaken out of that mode. And that dispassion is very, very auspicious for what's going to come next, which is the sharing of the true nature of reality, the nature of the Self, the meaning of life, all of that. Unless we become open, you see, to let go of the false. If we are holding on too strongly to it, then we are not open to a fresh perspective or fresh learning. So whether it's Arjuna's despondency or Ram's dispassion, it's put in the beginning. And it happened that way, but it's also put in the beginning of these great texts so that the reader of them can relate with that and become open and really start questioning. So what am I doing? What am I doing here? What is my purpose of existence? Then you become a little open. Once you realize you don't know anything, then we become open. And there's nothing we can say which is wrong in what is there. All is really described, the human condition, quite well. As a young prince also, you have access to everything you could ever want. So it's like so many of these people who left the first year of IIT to get into spirituality full-time. You see, in all movements there are these IITians because their whole life became about getting into IIT, getting into IIT, getting into IIT. They studied for so many years, that became the life purpose. And once you land up over there, that's it. This can't be it. It must be something more. Then it's like, okay, then now you have to do this and do that. So then they feel like they really start questioning, 'What am I doing? What is my purpose?'

All tried, but he didn't listen to anyone. But Vashishta is the Guru of the court, he's the Guru of the family, so he's in the court only. Your parents are going, how you—the basics of perception to sakshi, and there we still are maintaining some sense of duality. Sakshi and perception, whatever is happening. I mean, between perception and awareness. Awareness beyond which we can't go till that point. I mean, so there is this duality and it's still a—for me it's a beautiful duality because and maybe it's even sufficient to not suffer or stay in presence of God and well... okay, let's see whether...

The basics of perception to Sakshi and there we still are maintaining some sense of duality—Sakshi and perception, whatever is happening. I mean, between perception and awareness. Awareness, beyond which we can't go till that point. So there is this duality, and it's still for me a beautiful duality because maybe it's even sufficient to not suffer or stay in the presence of God and well...

Okay, let's see whether actually duality... in the sense that there's no actual thing called perception. It's basically a word that we use to signify sight, smell, taste, touch, because it would be too inconvenient to say every mode of perception. So we say perception is happening within being. The being is the perceiver; the being is perceiving all of this. So we say like that. Now, perception as the functioning of attention itself, you see? So maybe we can say that there's duality between there being attention that arises within the being, which is distinct from awareness. So it's very similar to awareness in its quality-lessness, but it's different from awareness in its limited way, that attention is limited whereas awareness is not.

But actually, awareness is not, you see? Awareness is aware of perceiving but is not... it's not perceiving in the sense that it is everything. But if you look at awareness—so if this is sight, taste, touch, smell, all this—it comes from the hand, you see, which is awareness. But it itself, you see, is independent of any of these modes of perception. So I don't really know whether this injects duality into it, in the sense of anything more duality than that beingness appears within awareness itself. You see, that injection of duality is unavoidable because without this, we could not be having this conversation right now. Within beingness, all the functioning of perception, of belief, identification, all that is happening.

So where I was going with that is the practice or the daily living these days is to stay in the presence of God. But on certain days or moments, if there is pure perception and, like you said, the narrator is absent, there's no filter in between, there's no dialogue, there's no filter, there's no effort also. In those moments, it's almost like I get a kind of dizziness, and I don't mean by like a vertigo dizziness. It's like a dizziness in the awareness or psychology where there is no more separation between the chair and... you know what I'm saying? It doesn't stay because it just becomes disorienting, and not in a bad way. It's actually in a way it's a fun thing. It's just I don't know what to do with it. And it doesn't stay anyway. And that's what I meant was there I feel that what I just call duality is also gone. It's like the chair is in this... I don't know how else to say.

Actually, duality, non-duality, both are gone. Without our labeling, you see, what our insight is, is that there is no separation at all. But we are not even thinking about separation or there being any separation. Our insight is not of any sort of distance, separation, anything. So that is how we remain in God's presence also, isn't it? So what may happen actually, now that you mention it, is that although it's very natural to remain open and empty in that way—like we did the fresh exercise—and God's presence being naturally palpable in your heart, but if it becomes like disorienting in some way, then you can use the presence as an anchor. Anchor yourself to that.

Yeah, actually I don't want it to go away, but it just goes. But how does it go? Because I think what ends up happening is it is such a unique situation that it's like the mind almost gets excited and then says, 'Hey, what is this?' And then it's gone, you know? So that 'Hey, what is this?' kind of bursts the bubble, or ego, or whatever, right?

So make the ramblings of the mind also like what you're observing in the world, and it'll settle more and more as you go along. The mind actually gets very scared of this because if you just get used to living like that, then it's game over for the mind. It has no chance. So it'll come and make this... like I told you all that one day just like this, the mind came and said, 'You stop all this, I'll give you a good life.'

Actually for me, Father, it's opposite. When I say it's saying, 'Hey, what's this?' it's like this excitement. It's still an ego wanting to cling on, but it's like an excitement and then it goes.

It may pose in many ways. Actually, it just wants to get you out of just that emptiness. It is very scared of that emptiness. Just we will settle more and more in that, and God's presence will help you be more and more like that.