Insight, Servitude & Love - Three Elements of True Spirituality - 13th September 2023

First of all, most of us don't like the idea of servitude to God. We don't want a God-dictated life; we wanted a God-assisted one. We wanted God as an assistant, which to me is a great, great silliness and a blasphemy, actually. But instead, what we're being offered is to become a servant of God, which we may not like because we wanted God for 'me.' I wanted the spiritual insights, and the meditation practice, and the Advaita, and the inquiry, and the invitation so that I could become Brahman. Now you're telling me I have to become a servant? That's so far from the truth, no? If my reality is that I am Brahman, then who is the servant? Isn't it? The intellect becomes really spiritual at that point as an avoidance of truly following God's will.

So, obedience is very important. Then another child said, 'Humility.' What is humility? The simple way to look at it is the opposite of pride. What is pride? That I take myself to be something, and inherently in that taking myself to be something, I am concluding that I am separate. This kind of separation, which is not in service of God, that becomes—in our case, in the spiritual seeker's case—becomes a spiritual ego. 'I swing to my own beat, I know what to do with this, I will take a bit of this, I'll take a bit of that, I will follow this, I'll follow that, I'll do a bit of Jnana, I'll do a bit of Bhakti, I'll do a bit of Raja Yoga, I'll do a bit of Hatha Yoga, I'll do a bit of everything that I can think of, and I will put the recipe together for myself which is perfect for me.' So, this is the opposite of servitude because this is full of a self-serving kind of mindset, and not the true Self, of course.

So, humility and obedience are very close to each other because we cannot be obedient until we are humble. We cannot be obedient until we realize that we need to be guided, we need God's help in every step of the way, every breath we need his help. Until we have this attitude that, 'No, no, I'm winning, I got this,' good, then we live in the separation of hell. There's no other hell but the notion of separation from God. We also need faith. What is the difference between faith and belief? You can believe you heard a notion, you like it, you say, 'Ah, this is it, I'm going to believe this or follow this.' And what happens to belief? Another notion comes along, a more powerful statement comes along, maybe in your head, maybe outside, you say, 'No, no, this is better.' See, our beliefs are very airy; they come and go. But our life seems to become a roller coaster because of that. There is no stability in living a life full of belief but absent of faith.

And most people have never met faith. Most people have never met faith. That's why I quoted Richard Dawkins the other day, which is strange to quote Richard Dawkins in satsang, but his idea of faith is when you believe something irrationally, that is faith. You just believe something irrational, that is faith. So, there's a part of that which is true because your intuition, which is telling you the reality of God's presence, the Atma's presence in your heart within yourself, is only an insight you can only have intuitively. The rest of it is just language. And to rely on that faith to be true, that God's presence is within myself—I have full faith in this fact because I know it intuitively, not just because I've heard it conceptually.

Then you encounter this light of Atma within intuitively. That is the time where the mind will attack it the most, will attack you the most, give you the most absurd, nonsensical things to be upset about or resolve, or bring your energies to while your life is passing. You're going closer to death every moment, solving non-existent problems with a non-existent one. What is the antidote to that? Faith. Is God present? Is your presence not God's presence? Whose presence is that within yourselves? And if God is in you, or even to say God's light is in you, then what are you worrying about and solving and wasting time on? Buckets of flesh and blood solving things about other buckets of flesh and blood—that's how we lead our life. It is the opposite of faith. And if truly God is in your heart, then why would you not follow him every moment of your life?

So, most who come to satsang, like as we call it Advaita—I don't even know really what Advaita is—but come to satsang like this, but we don't learn how to be in service to God truly, how to follow his guidance moment to moment, how to live in his presence. This is the first step towards doing that. The moment we start relying on the mind and not on the light of God within ourselves, we are in denial of the Atma within, of the Satguru presence within, and we want to live on our own made-up terms. Insight is very important, servitude is as important, and the third aspect which I'm going to talk about is actually the oxygen of our spiritual life. It is the fuel, it is the oxygen, and that is love.

This love—and I have said often that our love for God is God's love for us. The more you deepen in your love for God, the rest of it will seem easier. Servitude, which seems very self-sacrificing to the mind—it is our ability to elevate ourselves to be at God's feet—but it seems very self-sacrificing. But nothing seems like a sacrifice when you're in love. What would you not do for your beloved if it is true love? So, we must love God to the point of madness. And here, don't involve your intellect saying, 'Can I love?' I'm telling you that you can. 'How do I do it?' You just do it. Love God to the point of losing self-concern, self-interest, self-will. All these contaminations we value so much, let them drown in God's love. And when you love God like this, then you love everything like this. So, to love God and your brothers and sisters is not two separate things.

So, this love—if your life becomes anchored in the love for the holy presence within yourself, then your spirituality, your life, becomes unshakable, becomes true. Then that gives you the strength to follow God's will. Then we're not afraid of listening to our heart. Why can't most of us hear God's voice? Is it that he doesn't want to talk to us? Why do most of us say, 'If I'm living open and empty, is that not enough?' It's fine, no? Because you are scared about what he's going to say. You built up a life, and if he says, 'Leave it all, go settle in Timbuktu,' we don't want to hear it. And the guilt of hearing it and not following would be much worse than pretending that we can't hear it, you see? So, you rather not hear it than hear it and not follow.

I do notice fear in hearing his voice. I notice the tightness, and I know when I hear it, I have to follow it. I cannot deny it once I'm sure it is his voice. But I do notice fear. I do notice every time, mostly a fear, because it's almost like he pushes you out of your comfort zone, or he's pushing your ego or whatever, like what you don't want to do or what you feel. Whatever, like, I don't know. But I'm just exposing that there is fear in listening to his voice. But once it comes, I know I have to follow it. I just know it. I can't be without doing that. So, I just pray that, you know, you give me the strength each time it has come to just follow your will. I feel like these are very small things he asks, compared to what like Jesus had to do, but still it feels like a push, a hard thing to do. The fear is definitely... I wouldn't say I'm like, 'Oh God, just tell me what to do and I'm so happy to.' I am happy, but I am fearful also. Yeah, thank you. But I would want to hear his voice. I would not say that I would rather not hear it. Then the discomfort is okay.

Yeah. And you notice that all three aspects are very closely interrelated. You cannot separate one from the other. Without insight, servitude and love would be impossible, actually. Without love, servitude would seem alien. Without servitude, love and insight would not happen. And insight without servitude is the worst; that's what makes the Ravan out of us. 'I'm so cool because I had awakening. I know that I'm nobody and nothing.' But the smell is so much of the 'I, I, I' because these insights have not been taken as gifts from God, gifts from the Master, gifts from the Guru. They've been taken to be something...

Without insight, servitude and love would be impossible, actually. Without love, servitude would seem alien. Without servitude, love and insight do not happen. And insight without servitude is the worst; that's what makes the Ravan out of us. 'I'm so cool because I had awakening. I know that I'm nobody and nothing.' But the smell is so much of the 'I, I, I' because these insights have not been taken as gifts from God, gifts from the Master, gifts from the Guru. They've been taken to be something that I have achieved.

So which of these gives an ability to hear Him? Or is the ability to hear Him a prerequisite for all these three?

All of them. All of them. All of them will give the ability to hear. Yes. The deeper you fall in love with God, the deeper you will make your life in service to Him. The deeper you go into your Atma Darshan, samadhi, into your inquiry—all of these things—the more apparent His guidance will become, the more clear His guidance will become, and the lesser confusion you will have because His fragrance will become so palpable that you will not confuse it with the mind. See, one of the struggles that all of you will have is to say, 'Isn't this just my mind fooling me? How do I know?' And I've given you the tools for that: to check if there is a presence of unconditional love, if your own being, Atma, is palpable to you. And the most foolproof is when your truest nature is apparent to you, because that can only happen intuitively, and intuition is so far removed from the mind.

You don't have the ability to use both the instruments at the same time. Sitting in your heart, when you're being intuitive, you're deeply immersed in your heart, you see? Then it seems yucky to go to your head. Have you noticed this? That you're sitting so deeply in your heart and the mind comes and it feels so blah, no? So you can smell it so strongly. So you know when the mind comes to distract you when you're living in God's light. But there's also guidance that can come from that light itself. Then your whole life becomes a satsang. This is the guidance that you come to hear in satsang. You're not coming to hear spiritual intellect speak; you're coming to hear the voice of your own heart in satsang. So as you deepen in insight, love, and servitude, then God's guidance will not seem like it's a novelty or something that rarely happens or like an Akashvani that has to come. Heart guidance exclusivity—only this exclusive. It is only God love, only God serve, only God.

You can love your brothers and sisters, you can serve your brothers and sisters. Love and serve is not exclusive. Because many of the times the fear that comes in staying with God, choosing—there's a choice between staying with the presence or fulfilling commitments, you know, like you've promised. Or what are we talking about? Love and servitude or commitment? Like say if I have commitment towards somebody else.

What do you mean by commitment? Is it commitment of love or is it a commitment like Salman Khan?

No, no. Like, should I take an example? Okay, so I'm now working in my friend's law firm and I want to—I don't want him to come into any trouble because of me and I want to help him. And he's a lawyer, I'm sure he'll be right, but just this example. Others you committed you'll do something by...

Yeah, yeah. And you feel that God's guidance will not let you finish that work?

Like, I don't feel it's all that, I'm just for the sake of example I'm saying. This is the most usual situation for all of us, which is to say that how much can we rely on God's guidance? Yeah. And if God doesn't say finish the legal draft which I meant to do, then I need to obviously rely on some other force because God is just going to get him in trouble and me in trouble. This might just be my idea, but I feel that I think that God might not tell me to do what is good for him. He might choose something—He might tell me to do something or want me to do something else. Yeah. Is that true or false? I don't know.

Yes. So what determines whether it is good for us to do something or not? That is the root of the question. So we've determined for ourselves that 'I have to, because I have for whatever commitment or whatever responsibility, I have to do this job and that is inherently good.' Now, because we've determined it to be, you see? Now if God can live up to my idea of the goodness of this and guide me in that way, then I can follow wholeheartedly, you see? But if He doesn't agree with my idea of what is good, you see, or what is needed, then how can I trust Him? See, but do we have the ability to determine what is good? Like He'll tell me, no, what He wants.

Yes. So I'm saying that is the only determinant of what is good. So it is exclusive in that sense. No, because—no, no. So okay, we are confusing two different things. So I'm saying the determinant of what is good is only whether it is coming from God or taking you to God as an end in itself. So it comes from God or leads to God, it is good. Rest of it, forget. Then you said that, 'But then it will become exclusive because I may not be able to help my friend.' But has God told you not to do the work? Right? So you're just presuming that God will not guide me in that way. Yeah. But if you had an alternative ability to determine—see, what are we doing? We are determining what is right and then we are saying, 'Can God be as right as us in that determination?'

You see that if He tells me that I should be responsible and finish my work for my friend because I committed it, then He's a right God, He's a—He knows what He's doing. Otherwise, I have to rely on my own means. But you see, this reliance on my own means is the only trouble in the human condition.

So you're saying God will never tell me to not do something that might—that might—that is also right and wrong again.

No, you're sort of presuming that we have an access to right and wrong, good or bad, yeah? And then you can use that filter to determine God's guidance, your mind's guidance, and you can evaluate and say. But there's no way for us in this human condition to evaluate the goodness or badness of it unless we can say: if it comes from God or it leads to God, it is good. If it doesn't come from God and doesn't lead to God, it is not good. That is the only way to determine the good, bad, better that I have found. Otherwise, we can keep determining. People can write books on what is justice, what is ethics, what is right, what is wrong, but humanity has not solved this problem for thousands of years. Only the sages seem to lead a carefree life in that way. So a life of servitude is a life of freedom.

So the mind—that is a contradiction. How can a servant be free? It is the exact opposite of free. But it is not. Father, I'll clarify this thing one more time. So he's saying that the God's instructions will be very clear and my body-mind or the small 'me' will also get instruction. How to—the instructions are for the small 'me' or the instructions are for again...

Yeah, good question. So that is why we started by saying that the two ends of the spectrum, which is that I am the source, I am the Absolute reality in which even Consciousness, God, takes birth. This is our insight when we inquire. This is the insight when we come to the recognition of our reality, self-realization. This is the insight. I have not found, neither is it for sure the case here, or I've never heard of someone who came to such a self-realization that there was nothing left of 'me.' Nothing, nothing left of 'me.' So there is a—it may be the most transparent layer of me-ness, Tanmatra of ego, which remains for everyone. And that is why everyone has in their—even most devotional—there is an instant or two where they get identified and caught up in something.

Now this remnant of the 'me' can either be made sterile or it can be the most dangerous infection in the world. See, this remnant of the 'me,' if it becomes the spiritual ego, then it becomes Ravan. 'I am that. Why should I bow down to Ram? I am only that. He can bow down to me. He is my servant.' And what is the end of that pride? Your head will be cut off ten times. A normal head has to be cut off once. That is what the story also implies. So what is the best way? What is the best thing to do with that remnant of the 'me'? Keep it in servitude.

Father, at this stage the 'me' is strong, not—not the trace, right? For me at least.

So the more reasons to keep it in servitude. Because its strength comes from its specialness in wanting its own will, not being—doesn't want to be a servant.

So my question would be again to elaborate it: like even the small instruction that how much I should eat or that's enough for me—that's—that's all are the instruction for the small 'me,' body-mind. You're saying even that comes from God?

And whatever instructions you feel are needed, let the source of them be God. In this 'you' is small 'you.' We are saying specifically in this instruction, whatever instructions you feel are needed—and instructions would be needed for the remnant of the 'me' only. Okay? So let that come from your heart. Let that come from the Satguru rather than the mind. If you were sitting in a room, you had no decision-making ability of your own, you had in front of you like Gopal and Vyasa sitting—one is your Guru sitting, the other is a selfish little child, tantrum little child, you see? And you have to rely on one of them. Which one will you pick? Pick the Guru. What—which one are you picking right now? The problem. So this is what we're switching. When we create some distance from it and make it like a metaphor like that and analogy like that, then it seems clear.

What are we saying? If the Guru is available to guide us, or the petulant little child who wants 'me, me, me, more, more, more' all the time, who should we go to? The Satguru with him, see? But what do we actually do? We presume He won't have time for this. 'This is too worldly.' This is because we're scared of His answer, actually. We're just scared of His answer. Because the mind, we can predict it'll want something selfish for me. I mean, what can I lose? That seems like friendly advice. 'Here, using in my email, should I say best regards or warm regards?' And God is saying, 'Leave your job.' You don't want to hear that kind of stuff that interferes. And it's a complete possibility. It's a complete possibility right there. That's—then that's what scares us. The sheer unpredictability of what God wants from our lives. As if we think that we have some control over our life anyway is what is scary. This is what makes a God-dictated life scary.

And once you hear it, you can't unhear it for yourself. Like you can't go back in time and you pretend you'll say, but you can't do it. You can't unhear it. So many of us will try to deny it. 'No, I must have imagined it. It was just my mind.' But you know in your—you know it, you see? And that will keep eating at you till you learn to follow. Like a parent who's calling us back home when it's getting late at night when we are children. Because we—you're scared to hear it because I'm telling you, you're scared to hear it. You—you're scared to hear it because you're scared of what He might say. You're scared. So God says, 'Go settle in Sweden,' but you built your life here, your Guru here. 'How can I go live in Sweden?' Because we don't know what He's going to say.

So even if we say that, 'I really want to hear—I want to hear God,' I say, and even then I'm actually scared to hear it. Like even if I have that outer—yeah, it's very possible that we created inner dichotomy within ourselves, you see? Where like we know the right things to do is ask for His guidance, to listen to Him, but we don't actually go and sit in His temple, sit in the temple of our heart, in the altar of our heart to hear His guidance because we could be scared. How to hear Him? First we have to be with Him to hear Him, no? So how to hear somebody? How to hear your friend? How to hear you? If you're not going to come close to them, then there's no question of hearing them. First you have to be with God. And the most natural way to follow His will initially will seem like just as you're being with God and...

To him, but we don't actually go and sit in his temple—sit in the temple of our heart, in the altar of our heart—to hear his guidance because we could be scared. How to hear him? First, we have to be with him to hear him, no? So how to hear somebody? How to hear your friend? How to hear you? If you're not going to come close to them, then there's no question of hearing them. First, you have to be with God. And the most natural way to follow his will initially will seem like just as you're being with God and not living in your mind, then you notice that his will is naturally unfolding. And I could stop there. I know many of you would want me to stop there, and maybe that's why I have to keep saying that he will also speak with you at one point. You're all fine to do that, no? It is like, 'Oh, the feet will move themselves, the hands will move themselves.' We are all fine. But then you'll never become Abraham. A life will never become truly in service like that.

That one that felt it was open and empty, it felt very easy. Like, open and empty, it's okay. Like, the feet will go where they have to go, I'll say what I have to say. But after you have taught us how to hear him, it feels like you can't rest in that way, no? You can't, in the sense of you have to be ready. It's a different... our spirituality is so much deeper and so much riskier. Yeah, that risky word, fiery, rather than a timid sort of, 'Oh yeah, everything, everything is okay.' Like today, there was a command, and just like that, I can see that ego just feeling so fearful of what's going to come next. You know what I'm saying, Father? It's almost like it was like, 'Enough, no, enough of this.' But saying that, I feel like it doesn't have a hold. It's clear here that I want to follow God's will.

So, your guidance is very beautiful. There's also another guidance, I mean another very beautiful and powerful guidance, which is: don't give truth value as you are abiding in the silence, in the presence. Don't give truth value to anything from the person. And also, in fact, I think Bhagavan was so direct; he says just regard the waking state as no different than a long dream. And he says you have to take away truth value from anything coming from the person to be able to realize the Self. Because of the snake and the rope metaphor, you cannot see the rope if you're still believing even slightly that it could be a little bit of a snake, which is being the person. So I'm a little confused because I guess it's very beautiful if God were to speak to the person and guide him. But Bhagavan's guidance that 'don't take the rope to be the snake' is for whom? It's for us, as Consciousness, not to take the body and the person's desires to be anything other than an ephemeral dream in the waking state, not to get caught up in that. So then, if I am asking God for guidance—like, should I go to this country, should I do this, should I eat this—is that not giving a lot of truth value to all the stuff that's occurring?

So if you're going to worry about it, be concerned about it in any way, then we must give it to God. If you're living open and empty and it's going to not be a question at all for you, then you don't need that guidance. So like I said, I would rather you pray over it than worry over it. But many times we can get into a sort of denial saying, 'No, no, I don't want to pray for something specific,' but actually I'm going to just sit and think about it for the whole night and not sleep. So then that creates a dichotomy within us, you see? Where we are taking ourselves to, that is the spiritual pride. He says that, 'No, no, I can't ask God for anything specific because I'm beyond these things. I am not worried about this stuff.' But actually, within ourselves, we are sitting and worrying, you see? So rather than that, we have to return to the innocence of the child. Rather than wasting time sitting and worrying and trying to resolve things, find solutions to non-existent problems, give it to God. Wait for God to guide you.

What is spiritual ego? It is the use of spiritual knowledge to become too clever by half. And all of us have done that. I did that for many years. I was talking to friends, I would just speak about these things, repeat like a parrot what I heard from the gurus and felt like I knew, but I only knew conceptually. Very few are actually able to become naked because the pride will make you hold up at least one fig leaf, retain something of a defense. And if spirituality itself can provide that defense, then that seems like the most convenient because I'm not lying—it's spiritual, it's said in the scriptures.

Again, when you said, like, 'move to Sweden,' that fear you're talking about—'God will tell me to move to Sweden'—isn't it scary? Because I love other things. Like, I love Bangalore, my parents, my friends, you, Satsang. So it is exclusive? I have to love God only and not love these things? Love God the most. Love God the most. So also distinguish between love and attachment. Love is patience, love is not grasping. But attachment is. Can there be attachment to God? Would the source of love go against the true love that you have? So the question is, but suppose I love all my brothers. Now let's take my example. So I love all of you like my children, and if God says move to Timbuktu, would that be against the love that I have for all of you? No, it cannot be. Because the only way I know how to live in the love, how to convey and express that love, is by following his will. And his will can never be contrary to his love because his love and his will are not two.

And then let me put it in different words. So the love that we have for each other and for our brothers and sisters of the world is just a reflection of our love for him. An organic reflection, not a forced love. That's why the masters... they said about Nisargadatta Maharaj that his manner was very tough and he would just throw people out of the room and things like that. But if you talk to his disciples, they always say, 'But we felt so much love around him in spite of all of that.' I feel like he's smiling more and more in that photo every time I look at it. When it started, it was quite tough. So much love and compassion. I mean, it's unmissable, you know? It's like one of those things to know that God is really... you know, I want to say one thing, not for you, but sometimes our questions are in avoidance. Like we just want to remain in our comfort zone of understanding rather than just falling deeply in love with God or agreeing to serve his light, his love, his presence. So much rather just like, 'Okay, what about this? But what about that? And then what about this?'

See what it is for and notice if it is just a defense. Something is feeling attacked, something is feeling uncomfortable because change always feels uncomfortable. We came to get peaceful, happy lives so we could continue with our jobs and, you know, make our families happy and not trouble ourselves. And now he's saying you must become a servant to God. If God says go to war for him, you'll go. Love God so deeply that you lose yourself. Yeah, it seems like a bit too much. Seems like a bit too much. So then one of our defenses can become our spirituality itself. For years I've asked who you are. What do you know when you know nothing? 'That I'm the Absolute reality, I'm not the person, nobody tell me.' And I say you must serve God, you must love God. Then you say, 'Who are you asking? There is no person here.' So our defenses are just defenses against our fear of losing control. Losing control over our life.

Just when I was settling into being Nirguna Brahman, he's saying become a servant. When I settle in to become a servant, he'll say, 'Who are you being a servant to?' That's my prerogative. I can only report from here, and I can tell you that both are true. And that pure awareness—no time, no space, no quality—touches me. All of these universes don't mean anything to me. That is my reality. But it is as much my reality that I am nothing but a beggar servant who is privileged to even utter the word God, to even remember God for a moment or speak of him. It is an honor that I don't deserve because of the sheer foolishness that is here. It is just his grace and his mercy that allows me to speak of him because his magnificence is so much beyond what I could ever imagine.

And if you want a framing for all of this, you can call it Achintya. Achintya means beyond our ability to fathom, or put simply: don't worry about it. Abheda, we all love, is that there is no distinction between the Absolute Self and me. And Bheda is that there will always be a distinction between myself and God; the best I can hope for is to find a place at his feet. How can Abheda and Bheda both be true? Achintya—you can't fathom it. But if you pick just one or the other, then it is like the bird flying with one wing. As Bhagavan said, the bird has two wings: Jnana and Bhakti. So in a way, that describes that simple metaphor, sort of describes everything that I've shared today. What happens to a bird which is just flapping with one end of the wing? It's going to be lopsided; it may not even take off.

Sometimes the most joyful news can seem like a punishment. That is what I'm finding in this classroom today. It seems too intimidating to live a life which is in service of God. But didn't we all say that, 'I'm fully surrendered to you, Father,' and all that? So when we are full of insight, service, and love, that is when we can say that ground is fertile for God to grace us with his presence. The table has been set for God to come. And then that is when our spirituality will go from an armchair spirituality to a true spirituality. We don't need any more armchair spiritualist philosophers. We need those who can shine so brightly in his light that everyone who comes to your presence should turn towards God. One is enough. This should be... we don't need more authors of books sharing their conceptual understanding. You need examples of those who are burning in God's light within their heart so brightly that everything around them becomes luminous.

You don't need a frivolous spirituality which is absent of love and light and devotion, that shakes out of us the minute life slaps us. All our big words go flying out the window. This is how our life can become a beacon for God's love to spread. You need to set fire to people's hearts. You need to teach them how to love, how to live for God authentically. Many of us are still deciding what kind of spirituality is best for me. Our whole life will go. Death is not far. When will we do God's work? When will we spread his light? You know what is what? Yeah, okay. What is the test for whether our spirituality is armchair spirituality or a true spirituality? Just ask yourself: what is at risk? What are you risking? What is that risk? Let's not talk about surrendering our life unless our life is offered up to God truly for him to use as he sees fit. Take that risk. Then let's talk about surrender.

Armchair surrender is very easy, no? Because we know that open and empty, all things are perfectly resolved in the Unborn, so what do I have to worry? I'm surrendered. But surrender means when God nudges you from within, you don't ignore it. Surrender means that we would not wait for that nudge to become a torpedo before we start to pay attention, because you're so much waiting with folded hands for him to command us. There's no tsunami that needs to come. And if it comes, we accept it as his will. From what I have seen—and I can never predict, I can never presume about God—but from what I've seen, God's way is to nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, then slap. But our way is to wait for the slap before we can feel the nudge. But in humility, we notice every nudge. We notice the subtle nudge.

Nudge to become a torpedo before we start to pay attention because you're so much waiting with folded hands for him to command us. There's no tsunami that needs to come, and if it comes, we accept it as his will. From what I have seen—and I can never predict, I can never presume about God—but from what I've seen, God's ways are to nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, then slap. But our way is to wait for the slap before we can feel the nudge. But in humility, we notice every nudge. We notice the subtle movement of our heart and we learn to trust that.

So Kabir Ji said when in suffering, everybody remembers God. When we are all happy and joyful, peaceful, nobody remembers God. But if you were to remember or be in God when things seem happy and peaceful, then there would be no need for suffering. Simple way of saying what I just said about the nudges. If you stay in God's light and we are open to his direction, then we don't need to suffer to change our ways. We don't need to suffer to stop living on our own terms, to stop living in our head. We don't need to suffer then. If you remembered God at all times, if you stayed in his light at all times, what could shake you? So let's snap out of this tepid, timid spirituality that we find ourselves in.

Do you love any? Do I love?

I love all of you as a reflection of God's love. Hopefully that much is at least yes, you can say like that if that helps in this way. Start with that fully and then tell me whether you can really make that distinction. And actually, if I look at myself, I feel like I'm just starting in my love for God. Scratch the surface, just scratching, beginning to scratch the surface. Where do I love him enough? I listen to the words of all these beautiful sages—Tulsidas Ji, Kabir Ji, Rahim Ji, Mira—all of these sages, and I look at their love and I see that I'm not even beginning the journey properly. Where have I lost 100% of self-concern? So many times I still want my own way. Where is the love for God? This is a beginner, just the beginning. Just astounded at his grace that he allows this one to share his light.

Somehow they must have said that the most foolish ones are picked. I am a living example of that, picked to share his light. Somehow I feel that is the worst, like most inconsistent, never done a single practice properly. Just an example of his grace, his mercy, his kindness to allow me to share about him for so many years. Because if he did a test of worthiness, no chance. This one would have no chance. So he makes the most unworthy worthy of him. Even the most unworthy is what I mean to say. He shouldn't try to become worthy. If there's any time any of you feel that there must have been something special about this man that God blessed him with his light in his heart, it is just not true. There's nothing special at all. It is sheer grace.

So when the mind tries to tell you the story of your lack of credentials to live in God's light, don't buy into them because in his grace all things are possible. That is why if you start with the love God part, you don't need any skills for that. You don't need any mastery over your mind for that. You don't need any background, nothing. It doesn't matter. Just love God. All of you can do it. Just drown in that love. Love grows when you love. You don't have to grow it. Just love it, it just grows. Just try not to mix that love with self-concern, with worry about yourself. That's like pouring cold water on it. 'I love God so much, but what about me?' So then it's not a good mix. Just love. It is the most natural thing to love your own presence, your own being. Most natural. Who can you love if you can't even love your own being? And that love will deepen the presence of the light so much for all of you. You will shine so brightly. His presence will seem unshakeable. So this is how we live. This becomes the foundation of our life.

I just want to... I feel like I was coming to satsang for myself, you know? I realized like I've been coming for myself. I didn't ever want that. Yes, I always wanted to be mad for God, you know, completely mad. But I fitted in, conformed into the system of spirituality, I felt, and I lost that fire somehow. And it's so nice to be reminded how stupid that I'm going wrong.

Aspect of faith is that we don't need things to make sense. How much space you'll have in your life to love God and serve God if you don't have to make sense of things? So I said that Richard Dawkins pretty foolishly said that belief which is irrational is faith. So I said one part of it is true. So although faith is reliance on that which is intuitively apparent to you, but it may not be logical. But you're no longer needing things to make sense. You can solve 100 Zen koans in a day. All the geese can escape the bottle without any trouble. Paradox is not a contradiction. Opposites are not two ends of the spectrum. Then you live in faith.

When you live oppressed by logic, by linearity, and you're forcing everything to make sense to you, you're just wasting a lot of time. Because the fact that God's presence lives inside you is never going to be sensible. That there's Atma within yourself which belongs to God is never going to make sense. Where would it live inside a flesh bucket? It cannot live there. Where is it? So some things have to be merely by faith, singularly by faith. And faith is not blind belief. Faith is what your heart is telling you, to take that to be true, what your heart is showing you.

When a question is asked, 'Are you aware now?', that awareness is not met by perceptual things in perceptual ways. Then it's not met in empirical ways. It's not a computed answer. It is beyond mind and perception. It is purely intuitive insight. That your pure awareness is purely intuitive insight. Does it make sense that you could be pure awareness? It doesn't make any sense because the sensible option is that you were born, you're a body, then you will eat, have nutrition, live a life, and then you'll die. That is the sensible way to look at things. An eternal life of the presence within you, and that which is aware even of presence, is not sensible. But because it is not sensible, does it make it untrue?

So where is the non-sensible true? It doesn't mean that every nonsense is true, but the non-sensible which is true to us is true in our heart, in our intuition. And if you receive the words of satsang in that light, because that is where they are coming from, then they will immediately hit home. But if you struggle first to make sense of them, to make a conceptual framework out of it, to make an understanding out of it, then our whole life will go making sense of things and we'll become a Maha Pandit, but we'll never become free. So rely on your faith, rely on your intuitive insight.

I could literally, for all of this that I've shared, I could say the rest is not possible without this. So this should come first. And I could literally do that for all of you. So I could say humility first, then faith will come. Love first, then humility will come. Insight first, then love will come. But it's all interconnected. We cannot say this more than the other. And the beauty of that is that you pull at one end of this, the rest will become easier, if not automatic or inherent.

It's so funny that for most of my spiritual life, I would rather read the book, understand what Shankara said and what the Zen masters said and what the Western philosophers said—rather read that than sit and talk about love or sit in love with God. Now I feel like if I could sing better, I would become a kirtan singer, just go from place to place singing his praises, sharing his love. It came, it came on the same day.

Does that come like a phase? I mean, sometimes you feel more over a period of time, then it goes off, then it comes?

Yeah, yeah. But you love God. Once I was thinking, if I could sing better I could be a kirtan singer, but now I don't feel like that. You also said, 'I was feeling like that,' oh nice, 'but now I don't feel like that.' True, do you mean... and I mean, I want to... my next book, that we don't have to make sense of this. Sometimes it feels like we're using this wing to fly more, sometimes we feel like you're using that wing to fly more, to use Bhagavan's metaphor of the bird with Gyan and Bhakti as the two wings.

So is servitude... absence of servitude is Bhakti possible without servitude? Servitude more of an attitude of service, literally like servitude is what? It's more...

We have to start with the attitude of being in service and then that translates into action. You can be the trust in the brilliance of the Lord because he sees everything, and so then we can follow his instructions joyfully. And to think anything that's... it's all inside. So we have the insight, then that deepens our love, that love then deepens our faith. You see, all interconnected. Yeah. What comes from can sometimes be a little dangerous to say in the sense that of course it comes from there, but we must not presume that it will just come from. We must actively be in service to him, actively love, actively be. Because like, his instructions are infallible. So that's what I meant. And it's very natural once you see his all-pervasiveness, all-lovingness, all-mightiness, right?

What is the main complaint? What is the main complaint? I'm presuming after this he betrays him and tells... too far, like too far balance. Too much heaven on their mind, the followers are blind. The talk of God is true. So it was okay when it was just words, now your followers are taking the talk of God to be true and there's too much heaven on their mind. So do it in balance because I want us to live, he says, and I'm your best friend, I'm your right-hand man, I've looked out for you all the story. So this is the ego's voice, the mind's voice which says we're going too far, too far. Give up our life for God? Too far. It sounds very much like the resistances you get from the mind. Don't overdo it.

And what was Jesus's main message he was pointing to? He was saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. What is that? The spirit. The presence of the spirit is the Kingdom of Heaven and it's within me. There's a historical context to that because all the Jewish people, they were expecting a Messiah to come who will lead them to a promised land, the kingdom, from the Romans. But they were not expecting a Messiah which is pointing to the true kingdom of God which is already within themselves. So they were expecting an armed revolutionary, like superpowered, who will come and create an army and beat the oppressive Romans and corrupt officials who... they hated the tax collectors and people like that because they were being oppressed.

So they were expecting a Messiah to come to create their kingdom for them, like a kingdom of God. They were supposed to be God's chosen people. But when Jesus came, he said, 'Yes, I'm showing you the kingdom of God and I am the Messiah, but it is within you. You have to turn to God's light within you and live there, and that is the kingdom.' And this was too radical for even the traditional Jews. So that's why he faced so much opposition, especially from the learned people, you know, the pandits of that generation really hated him because they were more ritualistic, more traditional, and using their knowledge of what was called the law, the Torah, to oppress everyone and to get power over them. It's a very revolutionary way of showing a different way of finding God's kingdom.

So for a long time they kept asking, 'So when are we going to start the battle? You know, when are we going to fight? When are we going to free John from prison and undertake the fight?' But he is really very directly pointing to the truth within ourselves, God's presence within ourselves, the Holy Spirit within ourselves. It is the same as the Atma. So moving... no, because the mind can't understand that he made the way. And Jesus gave a sermon saying that... what did he say about when they asked him that... so John said, because he was in prison by Herod—I don't know how to pronounce it—so he was in prison by him and for a long time he was in prison. So even John who was meant...

It is really very directly pointing to the truth within ourselves, God's presence within ourselves, the Holy Spirit within ourselves. It is the same as the Atma. So, moving—no, because the mind can't understand that. He made the way, and Jesus gave a sermon saying that—what did he say about when they asked him? So, John said, because he was in prison by Herod—I don't know how to pronounce it—so he was in prison for a long time. Even John, who was meant to be his messenger to make way for him to come, sent messengers to Jesus saying, 'Are you really the one, or should we keep waiting?' because like nothing is happening, no army is being built and like that. So, then just pointing to how it is possible for even the closest ones to doubt, and also that we can't understand why Jesus would not save him in a physical way when he made the way for him. You know, there again, it's like—and he was beheaded, exactly. After that, according to the mind, the saving—like he said, God saves us in other ways, not in a physical way. And that was, yeah, so all the ones that were close to Jesus were crucified, and all the apostles were killed. John the Baptist was killed. There was too much heaven on their mind according to Judas, who was also killed. He wasn't able to save himself.

This is a question I just answered: what is needed for us to follow the instructions? Just a willingness, just an openness. There is a part of us that hates to follow, wants to be the leader, wants to be right, wants to know things. That one has to become a servant of God. If you put up the thing somewhere, Guru's words, can we get Guru Nanak? So why did Nanak say you can try being quiet, you can try fasting, you can try using all your smart intellect, you can try to do everything possible, but nothing will work? The only thing that will work is 'Hukam Rajai Chalna,' which means follow God's command. And that is what Nanak has written. Why is that the main instruction? Shouldn't that just be a given because everything is God's will? So, like, he should have written that we are all following God's will anyway. So why did he say that the main thing I want to tell you is that you must follow God's will? Because that guy—the second guy I talked about—that one has to come into servitude. Because otherwise, that one will just be the dust in your eyes.

As much as that one wants to grasp at the absoluteness the most to save itself, it's a survival tactic. Whenever it's put under threat, it will turn towards spiritual knowledge what it has learned. So that one—this is the antidote for that one. Without the interference of that spiritual ego, to love God is very easy. To stay in God's light, to meet God, is very easy. So that one has to become a servant of God's will. That one wants to gain mastery by using spirituality or by using whatever it wants to make life its kingdom. And it's a rare one that doesn't fall for this one. This one is an expert at making itself special, making itself in the limelight. It is the winner within us that wants to win and wants to be the only one to win.

So, more difficult than to come to an insight about God is to keep this one in check. Love, service, and the insight itself is an antidote to this, but insight alone, this one grabs with everything, you see. It tries to grab it. How much? All of it's happened with all of you, no? It's happened with all of you where you had a spiritual insight and the grabber grabbed it and said, 'That means something for me. That means something for me, and now my life should be different because of that,' you see. So that one just gets in your way, and that one must be let go of in this way.

It has happened here that the sweetest, softest ones have come, but after they've had a spiritual experience or two, they've become full of arrogance and pride and left eventually because they want that meaning to come from there. They want me to be something because of that. So as I'm deepening in this love for God, I'm realizing that as much as we need insight, it must be supported by the spirit of being in service to God, literally like a servant of God, and deeply immersed in the love for God. Otherwise, we are creating spiritual Frankensteins, and the poor one who is playing out the Frankenstein is not even realizing they are continuing to lead a zombie life, but now just the narrative has become spiritual. That is not what I want to do to you kids—bring you to some experiences and then make you think you're special, and then your life has nothing to do with God, just with your own specialness.

Anytime you spot the one who says, 'I have seen the truth, I have seen the truth,' that one, make its head bow down and surrender that one to God. This is the one, God; this is the one, take him, take her. You get the sense of what I'm saying? This is very important because if that one is allowed to fester—so when you spot the claimer, the winner, the spiritual achiever, you see, you can taste it. You can taste her, him. Just take that taste and say, 'This one I want to give you, God. This one, please take.' Because that is where, when Kabir Ji said that Maya is the great con artist, she goes and sits in the Bhakti of the Bhakta. This is what he's implying: that in my 'I'm such a Bhakta now, God came and gave me the Darshan,' that false Bhakti, that's where Maya goes and hides. Mahagi Maya, she's the greatest con artist. In the places where you least expect her to be, she comes and grabs your throat. In your ideas of progress, she may be hiding. In your idea of knowing the truth, she may be hiding. In your semblance of sanity, so like 'I know,' isn't it better to stay centered in God?

And that's why just everything that I shared, I talked about love and service to God. That is the antidote. I shared the antidote before emphasizing the disease, but sometimes we feel like, 'Why is the antidote needed?' So sometimes we have to share about the disease. So the one who is the 'spiritual me' is in service. The same one is also in love. Because when you said love to God, then who is left to love? It's the same subtle one. Just love God. Thank you.