God Lives in Our Heart - 12th December 2025

It sounds stupid. I just wish I was more... the story is so strong, especially when it's like so much pain because of your physiology. So definitely, like, yeah.

Thank you. People have been so open and honest about it. Maybe Radha wants to... we spoke about something similar. You want to say something? Because I don't want to shy away from the topic.

I was just talking to him yesterday, actually. So for me, it is... I'm close to the menopausal age. So it's a lot of, um, like hormonal fluctuations like you were saying. And I was just like telling him, I feel it's harder. Like he says don't get angry or irritated, and especially during those times I find it very difficult to not be angry or irritated. But I found after talking to him, I felt before also that nothing can actually stop me from being in God, you know? And it can seem harder, and I said like, maybe God's just made it harder for women to be in God. It was all an excuse I felt for myself. I feel like I can stay in God no matter what's coming in this. It's hard for sure. I've gone through a lot of physical illness, a lot, and it's definitely very hard when the body is vulnerable.

I have found that the mind is really waiting to pounce when the body is vulnerable. I've heard that from most of the Satsang members, like it's very difficult. But also that I can still be with God and feel everything completely. Like for you it's pain; I might not experience pain, but I don't have to shy away from that experience. And I can be with God and experience it more fully, actually, than when I'm here. It's more of a struggle somehow, like when I'm here I'm trying to run away from it basically. But when you are in God, then you're with it. Pain might not reduce, but I don't know what else to say. The main thing is we can still be with God. But how? is the question. Just don't go with the narratives, that's all.

So that will not reduce the experiencing of the body sensations. But the narratives make it actually much worse than it is. Father asked me, 'Is anything too much for this moment?' And it's never too much. It's only the narrative that makes it like, 'Why?' So I've gone through a chronic illness. 'Why has it been going on for so long? I don't want to live with this anymore.' Actually, when I'm fatigued, that experience is not unbearable. It's the narrative that makes it like, you know, 'Why so long?' or the continuity of it. But in that moment, it's not unbearable actually. But if I buy the narrative that 'Why me?' and other psychological effects of it, that makes it all like a whole burdensome package.

Oh, so you said that your path is mainly self-inquiry. The practice is mainly self-inquiry. So when the mind offers you these compelling-seeming ideas, are you ever able to ask that, 'Who is this? Who is suffering, having to suffer through this?'

Or just for the sake of asking who's experiencing this pain, I'll just be like, 'There's nobody here.' It's trying to get to the solution, trying to feel better quickly. We feel like we want to use the conclusion to feel better as the 'me' rather than really explore the nature of the 'me' at that moment.

But keep at it, and then I'm happy to hear. Thank you. No, the mind doesn't want to experience. It doesn't want us to just be with it. And in that wanting to be with it, suffer. She's saying she doesn't want almost like the inquiry... like you want a solution for the seeming problem. Or I wanted a solution for my fatigue. Like, 'I don't want to experience, I can listen to a Bhajan, I can...' but I don't want to just feel it, you know? Like the Bhajan can still make you feel like you're with God and not experiencing the sensations, but to be with it raw, in itself, the mind really avoids that pain or that bodily discomfort.

So that is why it's ironical, no? That many people talk about it like it's a spiritual bypassing. And it can sound like what we are saying in Satsang is a bypassing of what is being felt, but actually it is a pure acceptance, a radical openness towards whatever is arising in the moment, but without needing to frame it into a narrative of an individual whose existence we can't really find in the first place. So we may find that the body is felt through sensations and felt through the experience of pain. But where is the 'me' whose body this is? They say, 'My body is not doing so well' or 'My body is in pain.' But who is this one who says 'My body is in pain'? The locus of identification is the body itself.

So when the question is sincerely asked, 'Who observes the sensations of pain in this body?' it is not to come to a denial of the pain, but it is to come to an acceptance of the pain. And you notice that in the acceptance—moment-to-moment acceptance, empty of past and empty of worry about the future—in the moment, mostly I found that it's quite manageable. I won't say it's always sweet and pleasurable, but it's always manageable.

So I just on the same line, I was just saying that men and women both have their own set of obstacles. If I say for men, it is even when they see something is there to surrender, you know, their mindset is like that—arrogance and pride do not allow them to do that. For the feminine, it's much more easier to do.

We have a bit of a debate! Many boys have made the same complaint in Satsang, that 'Your daughters, they come and tell you everything; we just keep quiet.' Thank you.

On the theme of this body changes and other things, it's actually there for everyone, with more or less bad days and good days with the body in different ways. And I feel like when I've gone through quite bad days recently, I thanked myself that I gave time when I was okay. Because that time gave me the wherewithal to go through when I was not okay. And if I had started when I'm not okay saying 'Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram,' I don't think it has any... And similarly also, I feel like all those young people sitting here are blessed because the youth is extremely a good time for the body. And so when people start when they're very old, it's so much harder because you need the best time. It's like you have to give it prime time.

That's a very good point. It's a very good point because everyone feels that we can come to Satsang, collect knowledge, and then apply it in bad times. It doesn't happen like that. The point of bringing ourselves into focus—prayer, focus inquiry every day—is so that we get the practice so that we can apply it in times when they are bad. But if we hope that I'll be able to remain empty when there's turmoil everywhere outside me, inside me, then that's mostly a losing proposition. Not that we must not try in those times. Even in those times, any time is a good time to start. So we must try in those times. But if we have practiced when times are good, you see, then to apply it when times are bad is easier.

So we must apply it every day independent of what the situation is. If we are on this spiritual journey—and many people in the world call themselves spiritual without realizing that it's about the spirit. The spirit being the Atma, you see. So it's like going to a restaurant but forgetting to eat when we are in spirituality more in terms of the world instead of the emphasis being on God and God's presence being the Atma, the spirit. To remain in the light of spirit when times are very difficult, to just jump into the light of spirit seems very, very, very challenging. That is why the sages have called it practice.

So we have to practice doing it. And we are okay to accept that about most things in the world. I keep taking this weight training example. So if somebody said to you, 'Deadlift 150 kgs,' you'd say, 'I can't do it.' So why can't you do it? Because I haven't practiced, no? So in the same way, especially in Advaita, what happens is most people feel like when times are bad, we'll be willing to or open to accepting the fact that 'It's not happening to me. There is no such individual me and I am that.' But when times are good, I can be the enjoyer of my activities and the fruits of my actions. I can be the doer. I can be the experiencer. But when times are bad, then I'll quickly be able to switch to 'Tu Karta, Tu Bhokta'—You are the doer, You are the experiencer. Doesn't happen that way.

So we have to apply it every day. We have to be empty of the 3D ego of duality, desire, and doership every day. And when we practice for at least some focused period every day, then that builds a lot of that spiritual muscle to be able to do it when times are bad. So when are times bad? One is the phenomenal experience of bad time: body's in pain, something happening to a family member, something happened to job situation, something happening to our meaning of life getting shaken up. These are the four main things. But do the appearance of those events in themselves make them bad times? Suppose that something is really shaking up in the outer experience of this world. Can that inherently in itself make us suffer? This is worth looking at because that's what we presume—that I am suffering because this happened outside.

Now tell me, what anything here can make a scratch on that which is witnessing all of this play? Then to make us believe that we are the object which is going through the suffering, what do we have to do? Buy into the story of the non-existent 'me.' The narrative of the mind which takes us away from just being in this moment. And 'just being' sounds like a self-help thing, but it's not, because being is the presence of God. I-amness is the presence of God. Yes.

I'll just say something that Anandmayi Ma pointed out: that Maya is only, you see, actually very, very helpful. So even in the experience of the outer world, we are not caught up in Maya till the 'me' comes. Now if you were to explore how this 'me' seems to come—like right now, right now, where is the 'me'? Who are you right now? Right now in this moment, you don't even know your name. You have to think for a second. 'Give me a second, stop clicking like that so that I can tell you who I am,' you see. So therefore then that name must not be original to you. If it goes away like that just in the freshness of the moment, if it vanishes, then it cannot be original to you.

Okay, now in this very moment, do the sensations of the body define your boundary? No. They are just experienced, just like every other sensation is experienced, you see? So it doesn't define your boundary. So then how does the 'me' come? You see, if you can see that you have to work hard to suffer, it changes things. What is the hard work you have to do? Right now you're empty of any identification. That's God's gift to us, that every moment you are empty. You see, so in Satsang you hear 'open and empty.' The Buddhists said 'be empty.' The Vedantins say 'remain as the witness.' All that happens naturally. Don't have to do any of that.

Maya has told us, 'Maya is Maya.' You see, that means it's not here. It comes when the 'me' comes. Now how does the 'me' come? Thought comes. So in the coming of thought, has the 'me' come? When we say thought has come, we are saying that attention has gone to a thought, otherwise we could not report on the coming, right? So we're getting into the mechanics of it. How can we report that the thought came? That means that my attention was on the thought. Now in the attention going to the thought, is there already identification as a separate individual, as a separate entity? It's not yet there because besides our attention, we also have the power of belief, which is to give it truth value. If we remain just empty of that, then does the 'me' come? Cannot come. So does that mean that Maya has not come? Yes. And that is freedom. That is the freedom.

That is the freedom because to be in the waking state in the apparent midst of this world and yet to be free from Maya is to be with God. Till the 'me' has not come, Maya has not come, although in the waking state the world is here. You see, that's why the sages live in the appearance of Maya and yet are free from Maya. So how to come to that emptiness? That is what we discuss in Satsang. How to remain empty either through inquiry or through chanting or through any method from any tradition. So that in remaining free from Maya, then our heart belongs to the Beloved, to God.

When they are in remembrance and praise of God, then yes. Because otherwise we feel like there has to be some boundary, and we feel like we'll be able to discriminate between our practical thoughts which seem to be helpful in the world and our psychological thoughts which create this identity and get us into that trap. But if you experiment with this, you will see that all the intelligence that you need to operate in this world, including the sharing of words in Satsang, you are able to notice that they are not being thought about and spoken. It is just that the mouth has been handed over to the intelligence of the heart and the heart is using this communication tool to get the words out.

We only feel that there must be a helpful aspect of the mind because we don't know the ability of the heart yet. Because we feel that Atma Gyan, which comes from the heart, is only about the reality of what we are, not about how to navigate in the world. You see, but actually to be in the heart gets us in touch with the true mode of knowledge which helps us, which guides us about every step in the world as well as who we really are. You see, so it's like replacing—you may not, you're too young, but when I was young there was an operating system on computers called DOS, Disk Operating System. So there was no user interface over there. You would just have to type the command, you see. So then when these user interfaces came, the graphical user interfaces, we felt a bit like, 'How do we do this? We just want to type and get our work done.'

But basically, moving from head to heart is an upgrading of our operating system. You see, like you have these iOS upgrades that come, right? So you go to a higher level of intelligence, hopefully. In the same way, we move away from a very limited, very primitive 'me here, me want, me don't want'—type very caveman type thinking, which is all that our ego and mind is made up of—into a much more nuanced, loving, kind, compassionate, faithful, patient, grateful mode of living through living in the heart. So we don't lose anything of value.

But the question then is, because we are so used to the mind, is there anything that is safe for us to keep in the mind? So let's not worry about even 'helpful' for a moment. What is safe to keep in the mind? God's name. Praising God, loving God, anything to do centered on God is safe to keep in the mind. But don't worry, you won't be lost. We feel that moving from head to heart, we'll be lost because how will I run my practical life? Firstly, there is no such distinction between practical life and spiritual life. But that spirit itself is the light of this whole universe. So we must never feel that that spirit can't guide us. That Atma can't guide us into what to do with the world. So all that we lose is our burden.

The previous question was not... so when I asked the previous question, I fully believe and have experienced that you can be a person in the day-to-day matrix and function from intuition without thought. And so that's why I was thinking like, oh, so then maybe we can just like shun all thoughts because then, you know, if I can just live without thought, then they're bad. But then when you said that only thoughts of God are safe to keep, it makes sense because it's like when Neo's in the Matrix, Trinity and the people who are outside of it had to enter the Matrix to take him out. And so those God thoughts are probably like those guys coming in and taking you out of the Matrix.

Just to add to what she said, I think the thoughts of God actually arise from the heart center and therefore they become useful, and every other thought comes from the external world, right? Like I know that I don't have to believe the thought, but when I actually try to do it, it feels very hard because if I dodge—if I don't believe one thought—the mind gives back another thought, like for example a prideful thought that I was able to do it, or I was not able to not believe the thought, or some other stuff like 'Am I doing it right?' So I feel that it goes in a loop, like recursion.

Recursion. It's like a recursion, it's a recursive loop. Okay, try now. Let everything come and go. Feel like I'm losing something or...

Let that... is that a thought? Yes. Okay. I'm feeling nervous. It says now I'm doing it, later I will not be able to.

Correct. So later we'll see later. Let go. I don't know what's happening. Is that a thought? Yes. Okay. Keep telling me the thoughts that are coming or, if you like, keep telling me the thoughts which are compelling.

I don't know. It's a thought, but I don't know if I'm believing it or not. My practice is ADS prayer. During that time, not when I start in the morning, for the first Mala then it slows down a bit, but not every day is that way. Like sometimes it's very shant (peaceful), but sometimes it's fully active. And the rest of the day is mostly I struggle, like something I know I have to do it but not able to do it. So I keep falling, coming back, falling, coming back. Then I keep remembering Satsang words and what you said, that I have to be present to the Presence, and what Ma says, that focus only on words of the prayer. These three-four guidances help me throughout the day, but I don't know if I'm able to do it.

Don't worry about being able to do it. We are not going to become immediately the powerlifters who can lift a lot of weight. You see, so but to go through the difficulty... first time you lift weights—I don't know why I'm talking about it, I haven't lifted weights for some time—but it's not easy and we don't expect it to be. And that's what I'm saying, that in spirituality the Buddha has told us that we can transcend an army of thousand people but the same one can't transcend their mind. So it's the most difficult endeavor, you see. So don't expect it to be easy, firstly, and value the fact that you're trying every day to work on it.

Let me ask you, what did you study? CA? So when you started your first year B.Com or BS Finance or whatever the degree was, then did you say first day, 'I'll write the CA exam'? No. Slowly, slowly we get to that point. So unfortunately in the modern marketing of spirituality, we've come into this belief that we can just instantly get this. So that is very rare, you see, that is very, very rare. And here, even to this point, if I was not to pray or inquire, then I feel like I would be trapped by Maya in a single day. You see, so it's very important for us to keep at it and as much as possible deepen in your faith and deepen in your love for God.

You see, now what you have to do... I may give the instruction, but you may say, 'So how do I deepen my faith and deepen in my love for God?' It is just like: keep the intention to love Him more, and that intention will grow into a flowering of that love in your heart. But if your intention is to only do the practice better or make your life better because of the practice, you see, then that seems to be more of a struggle. You see, so it's almost an unfollowable instruction. But something may get seeded in your heart by remembering this: that it is about loving God more. It is not about a godless spirituality which is very popular in today's world.

Let's make God into some electromagnetic sort of construct, force field. You see, but if you start to love God as your Beloved, or as Father, or as Mother, or as sister, or as Master, or as best friend, then that adds a lot of strength to our spirituality. Because you will see that as you take one step in that relationship of love towards Him, God's response comes with a hundred times that strength. You see, and it's only in the modern world that we have made God into like nature or some field or some unified field, and not someone who we can love and receive love back from. So it's so ironic that in the world today all of us are searching for love basically, and trying to find every mechanism to experience this love, but the very source of love we have created a distance from.

Just like I'm so happy you remembered this pointer: that how to be in the Presence is to make yourself present to His Presence. You see? But why are we doing it? It's all right to want a better day, it's not a bad thing. To want a peaceful life is not a bad thing. You see, but when you make it more and more about because you want to know Him more and love Him more, then these things will just come as the side byproducts of it and you will not have that much even concern about it. You will just enjoy just being with Him and you will marvel and wonder at the fact that how is He here with you? How is He here with all of us in such an intimate way, in such a beautiful way?

So there is this worry always about this mental spirituality. Suppose I'm trying to love God, that I love Radha Krishna, I love Krishna, I love Jesus, but something in my mind says that, 'Oh, you're just doing it mentally, you're not actually...' The mind says you're being mental.

Yes. You can safely think as much as you want about God. Okay? You'll be fine. Very welcome.

Father, you answered the question. Um, it was about you were talking about can any bad situation which looks outside can really trouble you. So I thought then should I be neutral, but you guided it in a more than that. And what I saw is that you said that there is no identity at that moment. I'm very grateful to you, Father, about this thought thing because that's the guidance I'm trying to follow. I just feel that I'm getting stuck in my mind and I wonder... then you say, 'But no, you're believing your thought,' and I just feel that that part gets skipped automatically. I'm just in my mind, but when I slow down then I try to check.

Very good. That's very good. Remember that one of the most oppressive forms of the mind is the spiritual mind. Yeah. So what do we call that? The checker guy. The checker guy has heard the words of Satsang. You see? 'Okay, don't go to the mind. Your heart will give you the answer. God's light will give you the answer.' So the mind itself wants to become the policeman of that, and that is very oppressive, you see. So it finds now as if... because when you hear the mind saying 'don't believe your thought,' this is what we hear in Satsang also. So we end up believing that thought about not believing the thought, you see.

The idea is not so much what we are doing in our head and what we are believing in our head, whether spiritual or not, but where are we actually living inwardly? Where are we living? So it takes effort to live in the head, takes effort to come out. But if you just leave it, you'll fall into the heart. That's why I told you that the first thing is to relax. You see, because if you don't first relax, then all of this will become more oppressive. Like 'I have to do this. I have to make sure I'm not thinking.' It's not like that at all. It's about changing your home, actually. You see? So changing your home by getting you to drop into the right place naturally, not to get into any spiritual right or wrong in the head.

So I used to call this checker guy the arch-nemesis. Arch-nemesis like the main enemy, because it'll use everything it hears in Satsang. Even 'don't fall for the checker guy'—it will check, 'Am I falling for the checker guy? I feel like I'm falling.' You see? So there's no end in words. There's no escaping it. We just have to drop out of it. You see, I'm not interested in its conclusion about whether I'm spiritually right or wrong. You see, and I'm not interested in its conclusion about whether I'm interested or not. You see, so there's no end to that if we keep it there. So we just have to let it go. Just breathe it out. That itself is the end of suffering. We have never met anyone suffering without the mind. We've met them in pain, of course, but suffering is when we amplify the experience of pain.

The framing of that question had the answer. So like there are two playgrounds. In one playground you cannot be friends even with those in the spiritual group, and the other playground is safe. You can just do whatever you want. You see? So the two playgrounds are the head and the heart. So if you're in the wrong place, then it doesn't matter how high-sounding the words are. But if you're in the right place, then even the simplest words can bring the fragrance of God. That's why some of the greatest sages have been those who were illiterate, like Nisargadatta Maharaj was illiterate. He was a bidi seller in Bombay and yet his words are literally now the Bible of Advaita Vedanta. You see, it's not about how much conceptual understanding we have now. It's about whether we're living in the temple of the heart or we're living in the war zone of the head.

And never devalue... not that I've gone to everyone, okay? So don't feel like I'm telling you that you're doing this. I'm saying to all of you, don't devalue the fact that God's presence is here. Maya is fundamentally a forgetting of God. But how are we not astounded every moment that God is with us? Why is our life not spent in that awe and wonder? Is God here? Ram Ji is here or no? You see, is it just blind belief? When you initially come to Satsang, you may have to just blindly believe what I'm saying—'Oh, Ram is here, okay, now he's saying so I better believe it.' But have we not all got at least one sliver, one slightest taste of this fact that there's a higher power which is met unperceivably when we are empty of the meaning?

How can we, knowing this fact, get into a sort of weak lamentation? 'Why myself?' Like you are saying God is here, and why is there no like... that kind of an excitement that's always there? It comes and goes, but it's like that... I'm hearing you but that is not there, you know? Why is it not there? Like it's not like I'm lost in my mind also, I'm looking at you yet I'm just... I don't know, it's like a lull or what is it?

There's a few things at work. One is the... okay, so let's take a simple example. If somebody read my book for a few years, didn't know about Zoom Satsang, anything like that, and suddenly found that they are right here in Bangalore and they can meet me and they can come to live Satsang—and this happened a few times—so then when they come, there's that initial excitement that 'I can't believe I'm here, my life is so happy, this is the biggest gift God could have given me.' First day. Then unfortunately after a few weeks, it's normal. Just normal. So one is the same thing happens: we've sort of normalized the fact of God's hearness.

The second thing is that at this point at least, we've not been able to normalize that if He was here in the apparent perceptual way... that's why I always use this experiment: if Ram Ji appeared in front of your eyes in your sensory field, then immediately we'll all be astounded and full of awe and full of love and gratitude and all of these things. Right? Now our life journey is about making what we know in the heart, which is beyond perception, more real for us than that which is known through our senses. You see, so faith is not blind belief. Faith is to rely more on what our heart is telling us or our Atma is telling us about what is real than what our head and our senses are telling us about what is real. You see, so more and more as we grow in that faith, we will live every moment in that sense of awe that God is here. How blessed am I that the Lord of this universe and a trillion universes like this is right here in my heart.

Remember that Maya's whole design—and it is the Lord's design—He has made it like this so that our love for Him is not cheap. You see, I keep taking that example of if my son calls me when he's really busy, then that feels like that is love. But if he calls me because I forced him or because this ritual has to be done every day at this time... most of our lives become ritualistic like that with God, that it has to be done. 'I have to call Pa at 9:00.' Then does that really indicate love? No. It just indicates there's a rule that we are following. You see, so in this moment, can you all lose your self-consciousness and just meet God and let your reaction be based on that? Let's try again. Feel that He's appearing in front of you. Whatever form of God you resonate with, you see. But I just want to take this experiment further: why are we unable to do that? Is it because I'm scared of what people will think if I look so happy, or what is it?

So deepening in spirituality is how real do we take His presence to be? How literal do we take this fact of His reality to be? Otherwise we still, no matter how spiritual we think we are, we're still going to think that we are a separate entity living in this vast universe and we have big trouble in our life. But do you care? No. But I'm allowed to ask him that. He's not applying peer pressure. I'm just saying that... is there an aspect, a form of God that is really dear to your heart? Who is that? So if He was to appear right here in front of you right now, how would you be? You won't think of 'me.' Very good point. But would there be like an expansion? A sense of letting go of the 'me' is like we feel that expansive sort of love in our heart.

You see, so in a way that because we have so much spirituality in the world today, we've normalized 'God is here.' Yeah, but what about my problem? And it's so strange that all of us want to be Advaitins but we are still stuck in the phenomenal. Including myself, where if the door opened and Ram walked in, all of us will... and not that we must not have that reaction. And you're saying, but then is it not the same Ram who's in our heart right here with us, in fact waiting for us to turn to Him? Is it not the same? In fact, that one will just be a projection of this one. This is the reason why when the sages told us 'Mukti Sada Sukhi'—the inward one, the one who has turned inwards, is always happy. Not just because it's an avoidance of the phenomenal world and therefore you can just be happy, run away from the world and you can be happy, no. Because it is His presence which is right there. Okay. So, He walked into the door. Where will you feel Him? You won't feel Him at the door. No, you still feel Him in your heart. So, He's right there in your heart. See?

Yeah, correct. So that is called the hypnosis of Maya. Kabir Ji said Maya is the Mohini. She doesn't come to you and say, 'Give me a million dollars' to con you. She cons you by taking away the biggest treasure you have in your life in just that what you call the lull or the hypnosis. 'Oh, what about me?' You see? 'Oh, but my life. No money in the bank, no health in the body, no stability in relationship, no understanding of anything at all.' Yeah, all these things can trouble us. But mainly they trouble us so we get involved in this stuff and forget about who is here. And yet in our lips we all know, we all can say 'I am that I am.' God said 'I am that I am.' I-amness is God itself. I am aware even of that. I am the pure awareness itself. You see, but once we come to a conceptual... we just normalize this.

Deepening in spirituality, deepening in faith is when the reverse happens. You see, when we are caught in the 'me' there's a restlessness to return to the true place. Initially it may be that I come to insight and then I'm pulled back in the false. So that gets reversed more and more. So if I ask all of you, is God here right now? What will your lips say? Yes. You see? So now, do you want this to just remain lip service or are you lying with your lips? Not lying with your lips. Although the yes was pretty meek, but still. So not lying with your lips but living as if that fact is only lip service.

The hypnosis can only last when I'm not looking at it in every moment. Like if I don't take it moment to moment, then the hypnosis feels like a hypnosis. But even the hypnosis has to do a lot of work, which is offering more additions to the narrative. But if I take it in every moment, then it loses its power in a sense.

Of course. If you like... Bhai said that in His remembrance itself the spell of Maya is broken. Just by remembering Him, not even tasting His presence yet. You see, so it is actually Maya which has the more difficult job. But because our habit, our conditioning is so deeply involved in it, it seems that I have to do all the work every moment. And while it feels like that, we must do the work. And the work is simple right now. What is your source of truth? Say again.

Inside. Where are you going to determine what is true? Inside. Yeah. So Father, my question is that the hypnosis feels like a drunk kind of hypnosis more when I don't take it moment to moment, when the mind kind of tries to string up everything. Does that make sense?

Yeah, the hypnosis is very step-by-step. Especially for those in Satsang, they'll say, 'Oh, I'm not really liking Father today.' It's not about me. 'I don't feel like praying today' or 'I don't feel like inquiring today because this is happening.' Then later in the day, some other construct; then later by tomorrow some other construct. In a week you want nothing to do with spirituality. So it's a very slippery road. This kind of spirituality which offers nothing to you... you see, other types of spirituality are not easy to leave because there's so much on offer for 'me.' 'I will look better. I will feel better. My emotions will be better. My mind will be more productive. I will do better at work.' Here none of that is offered to you. Like, do you love God? You will love God more and more and more and more. How will that help you? It won't. In the outer life, it won't. It may even make it seem worse.

So then the mind is waiting to pounce at opportunities where it can make Maya feel like the only field of operation and the Atma's light feel like a conceptual, distant thing. You see, and when you're living in the Atma's light, then the appearance of the phenomenal world appears distant and lifeless. No, maybe not lifeless—it can feel very sweet actually, but not compelling to draw me in and get me to just focus on that constantly. And what is the locus of this? It is the notion of the 'me' as 'I.'

The hypnosis can work in a way that you don't really realize that you're hypnotized.

That is hypnosis. No one who's hypnotized realizes they are hypnotized. That is a hypnosis. So once you are hypnotized, the one who hypnotized you says, 'Jump up and down.' You don't say, 'No, I'm hypnotized.' You feel like, 'That is my reality. I have to jump up and down.' So it's only Grace that rescues us. And for a while, once that rescue hand has been given, it will feel like it is effort to hold that fingernail of God. You see, it will feel like that part I have to do and it seems difficult, until it feels like that we have to do it. Rescue, yeah.

What you taste in Satsang, if your heart is meeting Satsang, is a miniature replica of what your relationship with the Atma within is. You see, so that is why we get to taste that love, that fragrance within ourselves, and then we have a true north on our compass. Because without that, it can seem very difficult to find the true north. Because as the unperceivable light of the Atma is transforming our Antahkarana, that process of transformation is not visible. 99% of it is not visible. Only 1% of the outpouring in the form of love, peace, and joy will be tasted in a felt way. But the rest of it happens in a quiet, silent transmission. And that silent transmission is the rescue from the hypnosis of the Maya.

If the love, peace, and joy is not being felt, does that mean the transformation is not happening?

Ulta (opposite), just the opposite. So what I'm saying is that because 99% of the time we won't even realize what is happening. You see, it is just that 1% where we feel like, 'Oh, there's so much love I'm feeling, there's bliss, there's peace,' all of that. So the indication of the transformation is also to be met with faith. Yeah. Speak this for a few Satsangs.

But like you said, that there is no way for us to know of what is happening, say in prayer, in a way like what's majority of what's happening is silent and God only knows what He's doing. So there is no way for us to know. I don't disagree about how the prayer went, that it's very clear that there is no marker for that, but I know in my heart, I know that there is a deepening happening. I know. But this is not based on any food given by God for me to taste. It's not based on any phenomenal evidence. But I know. But this knowing is also not because I don't know what silent transmission is happening. I don't know that it can come out time to time, but there is a way for me to know that there is a deepening happening in God. I don't know why I'm saying it, because when you say that there is no way for you to know, then what are you saying?

So you're absolutely right that only our heart knows how our heart is growing in God's love, God's light. Now, 90% of what I'm saying is about our traditional modes of knowledge. 'I prayed for 2 hours and this happened. I prayed for 2 hours and my business deal that I wanted to make for so many months came through. I prayed for 2 hours and my whole day went peacefully. My boss didn't shout at me. I prayed for 2 hours and my wife was very happy with me today. I prayed for 2 hours and I felt so much love. I prayed for 2 hours and then I felt so much peace.' Most of the time that kind of evidence will not be available for us to be able to tell that our prayer was good.

In fact, if that expectation is there, many times it'll feel like, 'But I prayed 2 hours, why is this still happening?' To the mind, Maya will use that to trap us again. So does that mean that there is no transformation really happening? Does that mean that it is just all made-up stuff? No. So that's why I'm saying that in Satsang what happens is most of you experience that it's only 1% in the words, and you will say, 'Something happens to me when I come to Satsang but I don't know what that is.' You see, so in the traditional construct of knowing things, there's no way that we can really know what happened.

Like many times after coming to many Satsangs, I sometimes ask someone, they say, 'What have you heard in the last 10 Satsangs that you've been here?' and they will say something which is completely the opposite of what I've said, and yet they feel like, 'I just want to be here.' So there must be something besides the conceptual understanding, and that is exactly what happens in the heart transmission. Now, how much do we rely on that heart transmission as the source of our truth? And the more we rely on that, the more we will be completely reassured that such auspiciousness is unfolding in our lives. So you're right about that, but you will not be able to pinpoint and say, 'Today because of my two hours of prayer I was able to forgive this one who I held a grievance with for so long.'

You're not able to say that, yet a week later you feel like, 'I don't hate that one. I don't have any problem with that one.' And your friend may say, 'But 10 days ago we spoke and you were just like, I want to kill that one.' So how did it change? Where did all that anger go? Where did all the grievance go? Where did all the resentment? So at that level, we can never know that this prayer session made me lose that. This Mala made me drop my anger, drop my grievances, drop my irritation about this. In that way, we had more.

Father, when you said about praying fearlessly, without fear, it's like you're saying that to pray with my whole being in God's presence, right? Because prayer is not just merely making a petition, 'God, please solve this for me or help me with this.' No, that's what I'm saying, that true prayer is when we take all our faculties and we offer them to Him. You see, so that is prayer.

Father, sometimes what happens is when there's a lot of struggle and I'm praying, I console myself saying, 'But I'm putting my best foot forward because in this capacity this is all that I can do.' But somewhere then that is...

Yes, but what is the source of truth of that? Is your heart saying that? Is your Atma saying this is it? You see, so those of us who've been in Satsang can have a very direct conversation about this. No, those who are new may say, 'But how do I know it's my Atma or my head?' But those who've been here know that the way God's presence guides us, the Holy Spirit guides us, the Atma guides us—we are able to tell the texture of that guidance, isn't it? So when it is saying that 'No, I have put my best foot forward,' in the tonality of the expression itself I can tell it does not have the fragrance of God's light. Then if we rely on the report of the con artist itself to be free from the con, then how is it? Because otherwise the mind can use this only to say that, 'But you're not...' I have to rely on my heart to say whether I put my... The thief picks up the stone and throws it over there. You see? And our job is to catch the thief. And you say, 'But the sound is coming from there. I'm going to go there.' But what is the source of that sound? It's the thief only.

Yeah. Because the lane is too narrow. The gully is saki (narrow). If you just... sorry, if you just remember this simple construct Rahim told us, Kabir Ji told us, all of them told us the same thing: that in this lane of love, there is no room for two. Then Father, no matter what is appearing, it is willingly and lovingly embraced in His will. Right?

Yes. Yes. Or in the embracing of Him, all of this was willingly accepted. Both ways. Run to the Beloved, the rest will happen. Instead of trying to say like that and then run to the basic... run to the Beloved and the rest will happen. That's the best thing we can do. Mostly, well, they can. I was talking about some children who came to Satsang right when we started sharing. Yeah. When we run to God, the story cannot survive. It'll lose all legs to stand on. Then take any story. 'Why was he so rude to me today?' And you feel that you're getting the Antar Dhwani (inner sound) of that unperceivable light in your heart. What are you going to do with that? You won't have any desire to hang on to who was rude, what is happening in the world. All that is lost in the wonder of His presence. And His presence doesn't mean that we have to be Atma Gyanis or Atma Darshanis to be able to say now I can lose the world. No, just waiting at His door we lose interest in our grievances, our resentments, our pride.

Father, before you used to tell us that there's no past. You used to say that a lot. I'm just remembering in that hypnosis, in that moment when we're going with the mind, it strings up everything from the past and it pulls it into just this moment.

Yes. Because what will it say about now? The mind narrative depends on the past and future. Tell me something about now. Right now, this moment. In the moment there's no trouble. It's strung all the things from the past. Yes, there's no such thing as trouble or no trouble in this moment. Tell me now what is happening. Don't say 'I know this.' Tell me right now what's happening. It's good practice.

What's happening where? Right now what is happening? I can't say everything that...

Can't say. Because if you use a label like 'Satsang is happening, Ananta is sharing,' have we captured reality in that construct? So we can never see what's happening. Exactly. Not like we used to keep saying: not one ray of light have we captured, not one color, not one shade. So even the perceptual world we've not captured in the notion, and yet we live our life as if our stories have captured our lives. So everything that we perceive is just false or...

No, I'm saying for the moment even if you take it to be true. So suppose for a moment that all this perception is true. Which part of that did your construct capture? Not even the tiniest bit of it. And we feel like we can string our whole life into a story. You see, 'For 5 years this has been happening.' Really, what is happening in this moment? And why is it so unstable to be able to answer what is happening in this moment is because we leave the elephant out of the room. Because somewhere you know that all this in front of me is not all there is in this moment. This question confuses your mind a lot but you know in your heart there is not just this. So when I ask you, is it only perception here right now? You say, 'Yeah, that's all I perceive.' I say, I know that's all you perceive, but is that all that is here? I know we are straddling many levels at the same time but it's good. Is the realm of perception all that is here right now?

No. All of reality is actually here.

What is that? God's presence is left out. That which is aware of God's presence, which is the Nirguna Brahman, is left out. No story includes the fact that Nirguna and Saguna Brahman were here and then he was rude to me. You see? So when we give only that reality, then that reality is lost. It's a fact. When we give that so much reality, the true reality is lost. And when we go to the true reality, that doesn't matter. That's what you're saying—that Ram Ji is here and we are not even... exactly. Because this is seeming more real right now and what our faith is telling us is seeming more distant, is seeming more obscure, it's seeming conceptual. So our growth in our spirituality is when we learn to live in that presence with His presence, loving Him, and then in His light we see that our reality is that sheer oneness with Him, whether you call that a union or a recognition that 'I am that.' Those words don't matter.

Can I just expose something? When you're saying this, what's happening over here is that it's actually quite humbling. Because somewhere I felt like I was living there and then this huge kind of hypnosis clouded everything and I feel like I had such a big fall. And it's humbling, but it's also quite scary.

Yeah, that is why all the sages live in such humility. Let me say, all the traditional sages used to live in such humility. You see, because they never felt like they are on top of a perch where they cannot fall from. It is God's Grace. One moment of recognition happens only by God's Grace. We may have a conceptual idea that 'I am that.' But when trouble comes, then that conceptual idea doesn't help anything. It only makes it worse even, unless it's a pointer to look. You see, but many of us after spiritual insight start making knowledge out of it in our heads. Not that you're doing that. I'm saying that that is the propensity which I'm trying to avoid in all of you. That if your insight is true right now, then what is this story of the 'me' which seems too important? Both can't be true at the same time.

I mean, it means like Rahim is saying like now it's the difficult point I have arrived somewhere. Because if I be truthful, I will not get the world, I'll fail in the world. But if I have the hypocrisy or stay in the falsehood, then I will not get the Rama. So now I need to make the decision where I want, what I want.

Beautiful. Yeah. There comes a point where you have to be God or 'me.' Every moment is there. Every moment. That's why remember that the battlefield is... what's at stake in the battlefield is time. You see, so that's why Kabir's Doha was not about homework. It's a very, very important point which I'm realizing the value of more and more as I'm getting older: that the point is that day after day after day after day, Maya offers us some things, and we feel like it is justified, it is rational to not live in God's presence today because today this happened, today that happened. This happened and soon, like the last 51 years have gone like a blink of an eye. The remaining 10, 20, 30, 40 years will go in the blink of an eye and then Kabir Ji's Doha... Why he said like that? Because that's what he saw all around him. Everyone running on a treadmill going nowhere where the compass of the heart is not set at all. What is this life really for? What is our very design? Who are we in reality?

Today, now, I really clearly just took your offer like a child when you said just love Him, you know. It was an impossibility today. My head was hurting, everything is feeling all buzzy. I saw how kind God is, that He is so kind. Like He's just so kind, you know, calls you and He allows you to approach Him in whatever construct like you've been saying. I was seeing it so, and how even if Maya is strong, if I go to Him, He is going to pull me up if I just went to Him. And there's no place for despair, there's no place for... everything is so literal.

Absolutely. These Sages were able to put such complicated things in such simple language. But that's got pros and cons. The pro is that you can just meet it so easily. The con is that when it's too simple, our modern mind thinks that it is worthless. You see, so what is anybody can say? It means if you've fallen down, get up. You see, so Bhai said if you've fallen down, then get up. It's a very powerful point. Don't waste time on thinking about why I fell, why did this happen, 'God doesn't love me,' all this stuff. Just get up.

Even Ramakrishna to the Mother, that 'pick me up.' Say to the Mother. But it's not a dramatic... it doesn't have to be in that crying.

It is not in tears only, you know. It's a cry of the heart. That God is our Beloved. It just has been stuck with me. And Father, now when I return home like this, I feel like the Beloved is upon me. You know, like how trouble is upon me—like that, when it switches, it feels like the Beloved Himself is upon us.

And you know something even more astounding is that the Lord is the Shabri in our story. He is the Shabri in my story. He is waiting for me 51 years. You see, so there's something to learn. Even on the other side, the Atma is never saying, 'Oh, you didn't turn to me for 51 years, now go away.' He is most forgiving, most gracious, most merciful. So in our 'force-field-ification' of God, we've forgotten His mercy, His love, His patience, His kindness. I do feel all it needs is to turn and make you leave the world. It's quite... our Holy Father is with us in our heart. It really feels like that.

He of whom Ramakrishna, Jesus, all the prophets were expressions—He lives in our heart. Yes. You see, although that pride may not look like fancy... you see, the pride, that 'home' that 'I am something, I am somebody.' Even though I may have in the construct the notion that I am the most useless, it is still pride. Yes. That's why humility is called the main foundational virtue. Only in humility, kindness, love, compassion, love for our brothers and sisters—all that can come. The minute we start saying, 'No, I am this, I am that, I am either very right or very wrong,' all of these things is a separation from God. Where is the joy that God is here?

Humility. Wouldn't it just... but where is the joy that God is... that I abandon myself? No, that's it. It's the first thing, that I get rid of 'me.'

And yet it's the first thing and it's a lifelong project. Both are there. Yeah, I have some bad news for all of you, which is that once you come to even the slightest recognition of the nature of reality, Maya is going to fight. You see, Maya is not going to just be right, you know. So God Himself had designed Maya to be the most compelling. And God Himself in His incarnations, every time God came, has fallen into the trap of His own design. Then He had to remind Himself or somebody had to remind Him.

There's a beautiful scene of Ram Ji. Then Sita Ji finally says, 'I had enough of this nonsense.' So she says, 'I'm going to leave, you know, I'm going to go back to the Dharti (earth), my mother.' So Ram Ji just loses all recognition of who He really is, what all this is about. And He says, 'Now I'm going to destroy this whole world in my anger. I've had enough. I've done enough. I've taken enough for all of you people. Done with this.' So, He's really angry. So, He's going to take out His arrow and He's going to just destroy all of creation. And Shiv Ji and Brahma Ji had to come and talk to Him and say, 'What's happening? What's going on?' And He's not listening. He's like, 'No, I've done enough. I have taken so much for these people. They are so ungrateful. See what they did to my Sita finally after all that I've done for them and she's done for them.'

So then Shiv Ji has to make Him, make Ram Ji meditate and remember who He is. I'll send that scene to all of you if you want. So then Ram Ji meditates and sees that He is Narayan Himself. You see, so He did self-inquiry—'Who am I?'—and He sees that He is Narayan Himself and He saw that Sita Ma is safe as Lakshmi and she's waiting for Him in Vaikuntha. And then He sort of calmed down, you see. But is this just the story of the incarnation? It's our story. We have to come back to the recognition of who we are, what is this, and who we are, what are we doing. Yeah. Thank you.

Only God is Maya-free, no matter what. But not apparently Maya-free all the time when they have to taste the oil. Like we can look at the story of Jesus in that moment of feeling forsaken. There are many lenses in which we can look at that, but it's also similar: that in the injustice, in His best friend—one of the 12 disciples forsaking Him, selling Him for some pieces of silver—basically to be betrayed in that way and to be tortured in that way. If you look at it from this lens of what was that moment, 'Father, have you forsaken me?' really about? I don't mind looking at it through that lens: that for that moment, even the Son of God, the incarnation of God, took Maya to be real.

Hearing you speak of so many who definitely move from the head to the heart—and we may call them all maybe at different levels, from sage to holy, I don't know—but they're at least, let's say, their default position is very firmly there and they have a new address. And they may, as you've been describing, they may from time to time leave that and go into the other and then... but they know their home, so they come back. That takes sometimes, and perhaps it takes less and less time as you move. But if this is the truth for everyone on the journey, everyone who is in the human body, then there is no kind of tick mark that 'I've now reached this.' And then there's so many terms like enlightened and free and a sage. But if it is all a journey, then surely the joy is in the journey.

And because when you speak of time running out and things like... I mean, you know, it concerns my age definitely. I start thinking. What is this 'time running out'? Like what is it that we are trying to complete? Because when I hear like everyone is on this path, they're getting closer, they're feeling that transformation... of course, it just happens. But is it... I'm just puzzled because sometimes it's like 'this is the way it is' and then sometimes it's 'no, no, but we must like sit more hours and we must endeavor.' Why are we not... so I just don't know if you can speak to me for that.

Yeah, it's a tough one. It's a very good point also, actually. I feel like—I'm nobody to determine what the sages were talking about—but I feel that ultimately it just boils down to: who does our heart belong to? So just like we know when we are in love, then we know we are in love. There's no fear of what is going to happen when we are in love in that way. So all these warnings from the sages... we come to a point of such a deep love for God that you feel like what He's going to do is going to be good for me. But the idea of time is very important. We can be nuanced about it and say that I feel the light in my heart, I recognize that I am aware even of the Presence, I have a love for God, I'm deepening in my time spent with Him, in my living in His light.

But if you look at the human population as a whole, you see how many of our brothers and sisters have even turned towards Him or even realize that the point of life is to turn towards Him? Nuja and I met when our hair was all black. Now her hair and my beard looks the same. Time goes like that. Where did it go? Who was that boy who just had moved to Bangalore, had started a company, maybe 23, 24 years old, 25 years old? So what is that 25 years? Where did it go? And just to put it because we're looking for practical tips mostly: don't put off God for tomorrow, because life is going to go that quickly. And don't underestimate the power of Maya. Because the minute you start to feel like you have some mastery over her, she gives you one slap. Okay, now that...