How to Deepen in Humility

So what am I saying? If we are going to take ourselves to be something, what is the safest 'something' that we can take ourselves to be besides the truth of who you are? You see, everyone takes themselves to be something other than the truth, especially when life pushes our buttons. So, 'I Am' is the truth of what you are. That which is 'I', which is 'Am-ing', is the absolute reality of what you are, you see. But because nobody in the human condition remains empty 100%, suppose that you are the greatest sage and you take yourself to be only your reality, therefore you don't pick up any falseness, any avidya. Suppose 99.9% you are open and empty, you remain in the Unborn. That 0.1%, if you take yourself to be something super special—a mahani Maharaj—then that can actually undo the other 99.9% because with that 0.1% you can cause enough trouble in the world and to your brothers and sisters that they actually may turn away from God rather than towards God, you see.

So if it can happen in the lives of the greatest sages, in our life it is much more; it is not 99.9 versus 0.1. So what is the safest refuge of an identity that we can take for that point-whatever percentage of time that we still identify? Yes, the beggar-servant. With integrity. Not just as an antidote to pride, but with integrity to see, to do an audit and see: okay, there is God's presence, there is God's light. What in our life is a gift of that, and what is the 'me' really bringing? And if you truly were to see, you will find that this 'me' only brings trouble, only brings suffering, only brings trouble to ourselves and to everyone around us, you see.

So if this one is such a troublemaker, such a problematic one, then to take itself to be a foolish beggar-servant is the only acceptable position where it can cause the least amount of trouble. Now, would we wish that this part would 100% go away? Of course. Of course you would. There is nobody like that. In the moments of true insight, we notice there is no such 'me', you see. And yet, in some of you who have been in more than a decade of Satsang, have we been able to lose this 'me' completely? All it takes is a little bit of a button-push from a special relationship or somewhere. It doesn't even have to be a special relationship; it could be somebody shouts at you on the road, is it? Then that 'me' comes.

So for this identity, for this conditioning of 'somebody special', 'somebody important', 'somebody who achieved something', to be replaced with a truer seeing—that that which I've taken myself to be is just so foolish and not insightful and not loving and not heartfelt—because all of that comes from God's grace, from the Atma.