Finding God as a Living Presence: Make That Your ONLY Priority (with captions)

Okay, there's one who says, 'I don't feel I have found God as a living presence.' Thank you. Very good, very good that you're sharing that. So then, have you made it the top priority, if not the only priority of your life? That is the first question. You and the rest of it sort of has to wait till you do. Then, suppose that you have—you feel that you have made it the only priority or top priority of your life—then inquire into the nature of who you are. Who are you? Sincerely, don't just do it as lip service. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I really? As if you're looking for the next... you're walking on the road and you don't know which way to turn, left or right, so you would say 'left or right?' sincerely, isn't it? Ask yourself 'Who am I?' sincerely because you don't know who you are. Find out.

Or, if that doesn't appeal to you, then say the name of God. Call Him, invoke Him with all your might, outwardly, inwardly, with any instrument. Surrender to Him with all your mind. Say that 'My life is Yours, truly. All I want is You. My life is only for You.' If as a result of your inquiry or your prayer or whatever meditation practice that you have, you come to a point where you just open and empty, then remain like that. And if you're starting to remain open and empty, then many times the mind fools you that 'I'm open and empty.' So what to do? Every few minutes say your prayer or do the inquiry so the mind doesn't make the open and empty into a position. As you empty in that way, His presence will be apparent to you. You're living in that light. Hold on to that.

Some of you may feel that your temperament doesn't allow you to inquire right now; it doesn't want to pray in this way also right now. Then just see if you can love Him in whichever way that you resonate. If you love Him formless as presence, then presence. If you love Him formless as pure formlessness, then pure formlessness. If you love Him as Ram, Krishna, Jesus, Allah, then in those ways. Or if you love Him even in the form of your Guru, but find that unconditional love in your heart and stay in that. And the question is not how many minutes a day; it is our entire life unceasingly. And for this you need faith, courage, humility, gratitude, prayerfulness, and all of these come once you really truly commit to God in your heart. And what you really want is to be in His presence, then all these will also come. So you need these to stay in the presence, and as you stay in the presence, then this comes, you see? It's a virtuous circle.

The more you stay in your mind, the less faith you have, the less humility you have, the less gratitude you have, the less you want to pray. The more you stay in the heart, the more of all of these your life is blessed with. So really truly, I appreciate the integrity of this one, this brother who said, 'I don't feel that I met God's presence in my life.' And if you feel that somewhere when you are by yourself, not under the pressure of the Satsang, then just follow. Because for a while you will not have the anchor of being just in His presence alone because you may feel initially that you've not even found it. But if you can say that, 'Yes, I have found it, it is here, every time I look the presence is here,' then just be anchored in that and use everything that I have said along with being anchored in that. Then it should be, at least conceptually, it should be much easier. Once you say 'I spot the sun,' then to remain in its light seems easier because you can turn to it and you spot it, you see?

So for a while it can seem like we are lost. 'I don't even know what he's talking about. Where is His presence? Where is this living being?' And I'm very familiar with that phase of seeking because it was here for a long, long time. Full irritation! Because Maharaj and all these teachers kept talking about 'be with His presence, be with this, be with this I Am.' I said, 'Which? I can't even find it!' So it can feel anchorless, but I've given you all these anchors, all these tools that you can use. Just one more thing I want to add is that one of the tools is to ask yourself, like, 'Who am I?' Why does a question like 'Who am I?' work? Because it can only be answered intuitively. In the same way that all the questions of the invitation work, because they can only be answered intuitively. And many of us try to answer them conceptually, but the true answer is found only intuitively. Why does a Zen koan work? Because they can only be answered intuitively. So if you feel like inquiry is your temperament and that is your main practice, then use the question which makes your mind stop, makes it defenseless.