Innocence, Openness, Acceptance - 12th October 2016

Aard said this very nice story yesterday. He said once there was a shepherd, and this shepherd, he would pray to God by saying, 'God, if you appear to me, I will polish your shoes, I'll clean your clothes.' And he used to have these normal, innocent prayers. So one day Moses came to him and he heard him say these kind of prayers, and Moses said, 'What are you doing?' You correct me when I'm wrong, but so Moses said, 'What are you doing? God doesn't have shoes, He doesn't have clothes. What kind of silly prayer is this? Stop all this, it's rubbish.'

And this shepherd then seemed to get so disillusioned, he started walking to the desert, lost. It seemed like he lost his connection to God, started walking towards the desert. So after some time, to Moses then God appeared and said, 'What have you done? You have taken that one away from me. Whatever be their means to connect with me, I am always there. All rivers flow into this one ocean. All that is needed is this little bit of openness. If you turn for help to God in whichever way, this urge, this openness will answer itself. There are no unanswered prayers.'

So then Moses realized his mistake and he went into the desert, followed the footsteps of the shepherd, and went to the desert and said, 'I'm really sorry, my brother. I should not have... I was ignorant, please forgive me.' And the shepherd said, 'What are you saying? It was very beautiful that you were strict with me in this way because it made me turn even deeper to find the reality of God.' And that is how Grace helped both of them.

Much too often we are too quick to judge another, to say, 'I have the right way, the other does not have the right way. What is he doing? What is she doing?' You see? But how do we really know what is going on? I for one know nothing at all actually. Yes, this one here is a servant to this voice that speaks, and even in this voice many contradictions can be found. One day we were joking and saying that if Satsang just became like this: 'You must do the inquiry,' 'You are not the doer at all.' There's so many contradictions that you will find even in the voice of Satsang because the road is to neutrality, to not knowing anything at all.

If it was just a coherent set of concepts, then you would be quick to create a conceptual framework about it, which will again just be a mental knowing. You must come to this point where you feel like, 'I don't know anything at all. What is the right way? What is the wrong way?' All I have are some of these thorns which the Master has said to use and to throw away. So can we become empty like this? No presumptions, no concepts, no right or wrong, just the simple allowing of the Satguru to work through this body.