Live in the Temple of Your Heart - 11th September 2023

Beautiful, because that is my service to you and that is your service to me. My service to you is to bring you to this and enable you to stay in that light, to stay with God. I have no other expectations from you. My expectation of you is very high, so I don't have minor expectations of you. By God's grace, the environment that we're in doesn't need any of the minor ways to serve. This is very good because the mind cannot latch on to anything and say, 'Oh, I'm doing this for the Sangha' or 'I am doing this for Father.' No, because there's hardly anything on the worldly level to be done. Therefore, the only question that remains in front of you is: am I following his guidance? Am I following his instructions? And if you are, then you're fully in service to me.

Another intent of that question was... by the presence of God, what I understood is the vibration in the heart region. You say that the cusp of nominality, that is the presence of God. Then I would say for most of the time I am not in that state of vibration. Is that the goal, to be in that at the maximum all the time? I'm not. But for whatever time I get, I listen to you or listen to some Guruji's satsangs or try the articulations. I'm very much patient; if it works or doesn't work, it doesn't matter. My Guru has told me to do this, so I will do, however long it may take.

Yes, all that we can do is to remain empty for God. Whether the light becomes palpable or it remains hidden, that we cannot control. But our job is to remain empty. That is the only cost of discipleship here. I was looking up this book called 'The Cost of Discipleship' today; it's on the way from Amazon. But really, the cost of discipleship here is the highest. It may look on the surface that there is no donation, there are no charges for anything, it's comfortable—you know, you just come whenever you want, it's not really rule-based, you don't have to maintain silence, nothing. It seems like there's no cost of discipleship, but it's the highest. Highest in the sense that you cannot be empty until you have died to yourself. You have to be empty of yourself, and that may seem like the most difficult Guru Dakshina.

The rest of it is easy. 'Oh, there's a retreat in this place, I'll just pay for the retreat and then I feel like I'm entitled to something because I've paid my cost of admission.' You'll do nothing. But everything has to be done; everything has to be paid. Relentless letting go of the limited self. It can seem like a lot of work, but if you're not so full of yourself, then it can seem very easy. So don't let the disguise of regularness and low maintenance fool you. Actually, it is full fuss if you are still taking yourself to be you, if you are still being full of yourself.

And that is the metal detector at the doorway to God's presence. That is the metal detector. You can't penetrate that. I mean, even if you do by God's grace, you cannot stay in that. So even if you pass through the metal detector and somehow smuggle the sense of 'me' or the limited identity into the doorway to God's presence, you can't stay because you are just so temptable by the mind. If you carry something about you—'Oh, I'm such a nice person, oh, I'm so honest, I'm so spiritual,' or even 'I have met God'—when the mind tempts you with thoughts about that, you are just out, you see? Whatever identity you carry with you becomes like the magnet for belief in our thoughts.

If you carry an identity of something, then when thoughts about that come, those seem much more attractive, you see? And you hear your brothers and sisters and they will be saying, 'I was getting thoughts about this,' and you're just looking at them and saying, 'What a loser, thoughts about this still affect you?' But because their conditioning is different, they may look at your question and say, 'This bothers you? How long you've been in satsang?' like that. But it's not a question of what the theme is. Whatever the theme may be, there is no higher road or lower level in that. Emptiness demands emptiness. Our spiritual conditioning is as much causing the metal detector to beep as any other type of conditioning. It has to be extremely helpful.

It appears, maybe that's my mind, but... saying that you can go more deep into the journey by checking out of the world for a while in some form. That thought keeps coming very strong. I don't know whether in...

It's good to dive into that a little more. We've talked about checking out of yourself, actually. And that checking out may include checking out from the world, you see, but at the level of the mind, not at the level of the physicality necessarily. And if at the level of physicality it happens as a natural byproduct of that, then that is fine. But it cannot be a force. We cannot force it at the layer of physicality unless it is coming clearly from our heart that that needs to be done for you to be empty. It is important to live as if you don't exist. Live as if you don't exist. And whether that living means that you're living in the corner of the house not moving, or whether that means you have a fully active life, that is not for us to predetermine. There has to be moment-to-moment guidance from the heart.

So that's why it's important to investigate the checking out from the world first. It is important to check out from yourself. And once you've checked out from yourself, whether that means that you're passive in the world or very active, that is up to God. It's much easier to check out from the world than to check out from your mind. Simple question: do you spend most of your time in human concerns or Godly concerns? Thinking about human relationships or your relationship with God?

Thinking about... visualization is a big thing to be part of the mind. Spending time with God, of God, playing with God, whatever. Competing with God—a lot of that. Does that count as well?

You have to follow your heart, your heart's ability to smell. Because what can happen is that many times this is very beautiful—the stories of the sages and the avatars, the incarnations, they're so beautiful, they bring us straight to God's presence. But at other times, we just join the story for the excitement of the story and there's an enjoyment, but there's no real presence, there's no real meeting. We can check whether our being involved in these things is like an antidote to us being alone by ourselves. When we are alone by ourselves, is it because it seems unbearable that we spend our time in the visualization and the storification? It's a double-edged sword.

To start with, what you could do is spend as much time with the visual and the story as much as you do in the pure resonance. Make it half and half approximately. You don't have to time it, but in your heart, you'll know whether you're just avoiding being by yourself. Because if there's a fear of being by yourself, then all the rest is big talk for now. So many in spirituality also just don't like to be alone, whether they call it boredom or they call it anxiety. They are just unable to sit by themselves. So just sit by yourself for some time. And then the question may be, 'So what should I do?' No, that's it. 'Should I breathe?' Breathing will happen. You just sit. 'Should I be praying?' For now, don't even do that. Just sit.

Most of the sages reported that as the false identity dropped, they just found themselves sitting. Just sitting. 'Are you meditating?' No, just sitting. 'Do you pray?' No, just sitting. 'Are you thinking about something?' Just sitting. So you have to check for yourself what it's about there. See, whether it's a temple or church or meditation, it helps to understand what this is. Just quiet. What happens if you sit by yourself? Just sitting. If it's preceded by a prayer or a visualization, that has a use. Quiet on its own, yes, until it's not.

Tell me the concern again, the initial question. I was just trying to define that for me. Where can you count the time spent with God? Between living in just God's presence without needing a story or any visualization, versus the story and the visualization part, how would you break that up? Is it a precursor like you said, or is it the main meal?

It starts with a precursor, which is either a prayer or dialogue, and it could lead itself into a main meal, but it did not naturally and organically just stay there. But I would rather be there than in the midst of thinking about human relationships because it's the natural convenience. Yes, it's definitely a step up from wasting time on all these buckets of flesh and blood. But it itself should not become like a mental distraction, and you're the best judge of that. It does bring its own joy, but at the mental level. If I'm reading about the same thing and I'm reading about it, or if there's a resonance, it's fine.

To templatize a little bit, I would say that don't waste time on worldly stuff. A better alternative is to read about the life of the sages or read a scripture, whatever you're reading which has the hand of God. Then notice that it itself will naturally bring you to the presence where not so many words are needed. As you are naturally longing to live in that innocence, then the mind can itself try and distract you with the very same thing which got you there. Which means that a story of God or a sage is helpful to bring you to that, but can then later become a distraction from that as well. So you have to keep checking that. If you already had the salad and now you're in the main course, there's no need to go back to the salad.

In your heart, you know whether it's just something nice. The mind will tell you the story of 'there's nothing happening.' When you're just in the presence, nothing happens. 'I'm not learning anything, I'm not reading, I'm not spending my time productively.' But that is the most productive. When you are empty for God and God's light is shining, one instant of that is better than reading a thousand books. But the thousand books may still be useful to bring you to that. But you have to keep smelling, you see? Is it helping me to come to the heart and stay in the heart, or is it just now become mental understanding and excitement about learning new stuff and taking me away?

I have some of that conditioning because I love collecting knowledge. This was a lot of time before I met Guruji that I spent in collecting knowledge, either in my mental bookshelf or in my physical bookshelf outside. But really, the assimilating of it was probably very low before I met Guruji. Yes, but was I living in God's light? No. And I learned greatly about a science called Pranic Healing, which the books explain a lot of. I think I will be getting stuck under that.

Yeah, just pick it all up and throw it away. You're also learning the kung fu moves of healing. I'm not saying that it may not work; I'm just saying that whatever healing modalities there may be, where do they come from? What gives them power? If God withdrew His power from whatever movement it may be, would it still be? So if you have the possibility of living in the source of all of this, where all of this comes from, and literally—in this example—literally with the wave of the hand the modality could be something completely different based on God's will, so why not just stay with the source? Especially if you find that in learning about a particular thing, the mind may be using that to distract you away from living in this light.

The mind wants to do something. Since it's hard to just sit empty, the mind pushes you towards these things. What can happen is that we know we are to be empty, we know that we have to live with God, then the mind says, 'Okay, now it's too difficult for you, so let me find something for you that you can do also and not feel guilty because it is about God only.' You see? So it finds these so-called spiritualities which then help you avoid God while not having the guilt of avoiding God. If you can smell that, then throw that away. But it's hard to be empty and open the whole day. That is what you have to gain mastery at.

Just because it's hard, you want to throw it away? I said it's hard. It is hard. Being creative helps—the painting or writing poetry.

Yes, but in the temple, you have to live in the temple and let it come from there. Like I was saying that day, you have to be there and meet the world like that, rather than be there and visit the temple once in a while. Live in the temple of your heart. Live in the light of the heart altar. And from there, the painting comes, singing comes, whatever comes. That's all fine. But if it becomes like, 'Okay, now I'm really...' and it's good to be honest with yourself like that. If you start to notice that 'I can't just sit, so at least I'm doing this with helping people,' no, it's not good enough. Meet that resistance, meet the mind. Something, you know, we get to meet and transcend that stuff. It is only good if it is coming from God. And how do you know if it's coming from God? God will tell you moment to moment. If you can't hear it, then find God first. Don't waste time on anything else.

So rather than presuming you're good, thinking, 'Okay, but I am helping the world,' how do you know how the world has to be helped? Maybe the suffering of one because of their pain was bringing them to God; the next moment they were going to be the next Buddha, but you healed them. We don't know. So we can't automatically presume that because the action sounds like it is good, so we'll just do it. Otherwise, ethics could have been solved. Why is ethics not solved? Because we don't really know. And only in true spirituality can we know, because we know that it is the will of God. If you're healing and your help is coming by the will of God, then it is good. If it is not coming by the will of God, then it's a distraction. I know this is tough to hear. And you were saying, 'But it's silent.' So trust the silence of the heart more than the highest intention of the mind.

Good. How many years? That's how we make this complaint after it's been like a decade or something like that. Doing it for a decade and I'm sad, you know, He just doesn't speak.

But how much time have we given it? As much as Domino's Pizza? We cannot expect God to operate on our timeline. But a simple solution to that is: learn to accept His silence as the answer in those times. God's silence is also God's answer at that moment. Trust the silence. What does silence mean to you? Yes, but what if you were asking God, 'So what should I do? Should I go left or should I go right? Please give me an answer, I am entitled. I deserve an answer because I did this and I did that, so now I'm entitled to an answer. Please tell me left or right.' And all God is saying is silence. What is it? You don't have to act. You don't have to act. And then if, in spite of that, action has to happen, it will happen by itself. It is happening by itself. The heart is moving this mouth moment to moment. It's not the type of guidance we're seeking, you see? Surrender to the heart. The heart is moving this, animating this hand, it's moving this mouth. I have no idea what is being said; I'm hearing it like you're hearing it. But I trust it. It's not let me down. And then our life becomes like that.

The ego getting crunched by us not knowing is very auspicious. It's very auspicious because the ego rests on 'Well, I know this.' And we don't want that ego to get activated by saying, 'Oh, I know this because God has told me.' It's okay at a particular point, but you can see how exciting that would be for the spiritual ego, just to go around saying, 'I know this because God told me.' So He's the one of the... God is not playing those games with us. He gives silence because we are learning much more in that silence than if He were to just give you an answer. It is said in the Bible, the devil was trying to tempt Jesus. One of the temptations was, 'Jump off this cliff, Jesus.' He took Jesus to a cliff and told him, 'Jump off this cliff, and if you're truly who you say you are, then the angels are waiting to catch you; they will save you.' And what did Jesus say? 'You should not tempt God.' That's a bit difficult to understand in language. Basically, he's saying that our faith is not dependent on God giving us a sign or an answer.

Basically, then we put: 'You are God because you have given me an answer' or 'You are God, I trust you or have faith in you because you've done this miracle or you've shown me the sign.' Is our faith dependent on these? It's a very interesting contemplation, actually. I was contemplating today: would I love God the same if He was not all-powerful? If God was not all-powerful, but He was just God, the most loving being, but not all-powerful? Okay, then God is sitting helplessly in a corner while the mind is ruling and He's not all-powerful. It's just that He's God, you know? The source of our being, the light of our being, the most loving presence, but He's not powerful. Would I still love Him the same? Or is my love because I know that ultimately He's watching all this and He will take care of me, ultimately I will be the victor in the end? Is it still spiritual ego? You see? 'Ah, but final victory is mine because I am with God.' But suppose God was just helpless against the mind? It's not true from whatever I found in my heart, but is my love conditional upon His power and not His love? Suppose He didn't have the ability to tell us what's next, would we still love God?

Yeah, God doesn't exist.

But that existence you cannot question because that you have found more clearly than that you're sitting on the ground. It's like you have found that in your heart. And of course, you found the other things also in your heart—that He is everywhere, He is all-powerful, all that is apparent. But is the love for God bound by His being a certain way? Because even powerless, He is the most loving presence. It's true, just let's see what our boundaries are. Where will we say, 'Okay, bye-bye, enough'? I cannot bring myself at all to say that it is... suppose He's not your best friend, suppose He's not loyal, then what is our boundary?

I first used to feel that God's unconditional love was enough, and then I dwelt so much on the power part. That was the benchmark in a way, and that was going to be enough. But as a song when I was a child, I used to feel that love can overpay anything. Because it's true, I can love anyone even however bad they are. But I found that not true from the ego. But now after going to Vedanta, I see that just Truth is enough because I don't know what God could or could not be. It's not fathomable for me as yet to our mind because you said don't judge. By what question shall I judge His love even? Because what my mind looks at as bad is actually good in that sense. So how would I know that? For example, you said 'Eternal,' right? I don't know whether it's eternal still. And then you said whether it's 'Truth,' I still don't know whether it's the Truth. And then you say whether it's your 'Friend,' I think the only part which is connecting is about love. Otherwise, nothing is known. Just everything is a mind game. Eternal, I don't know. Timeless, I don't know. Real truth, I don't know.

Let me serve your Truth. It is okay. There is nothing, nobody, nothing can say it is not. It is. But somewhere we know it is. That's one thing. It is. It cannot not be. And nobody can convince us it is not. So it is whatever it is. It's scary that it is what it is, but it is. And that cannot be taken away. It is whatever it is. It is. Okay? So if everybody is telling me it isn't, I'm not buying that. And I cannot give you a rational reason of why I'm not buying that. It is. That's all. God is. Yes. What is God? I don't know. Is He? Yes. How do you know? I don't know. Is He? Yes.

Maybe just my mind, I don't know what it is. I would rather not be. To meet God, the only way we can live in His will and to live in God's light is to follow God's will. And sometimes when you live in His light, you will hear His voice also guiding you. Then life becomes simple, but not necessarily easy. Simple in the sense of all the questions about what I should do and should not do are resolved. Because the only one thing that you have to do is to live in His light. Or if you feel that you can't feel His light, then just remain empty. Get away from yourself. While that seems difficult, we must strive with all our might and every way that the Master has told us to follow his instructions so that we can be empty. Then there is no room for interpretation or judgment. You can't be anxious about the future; it's not possible unless you're still not empty of yourself. Like, nobody is being anxious for God. Have you ever felt anxious saying, 'I don't know what's going to happen to God tomorrow, please'? It's the 'me' that we have to get over. So we have to smell clearly what is helping us get over ourselves and what is doing more of that construction work.

There are two ways in which we think we can get to God. One is the mind's way and the other is the heart's way. The mind's way is constructed: 'Okay, I think this, if I did this, if I learned this, if I did this enough, then one day the construction will be so big it will reach God.' The way of the heart is to become empty of ourselves, to live as if I don't exist individually. Many in spirituality are also trying to do the first way. 'If I just knew this scripture, if I just knew this technique...'

Again, I know it's all a mind game, but let me expose it in front of you. One of my family members is having some financial troubles. If I don't judge or if I don't analyze, it's going to impact not only them but also us. In these last few days, I tried to just leave it. Then the mind comes and says, 'You are just kicking the can and not solving the problem, just trying to avoid.' At the same time, somebody is in financial trouble, and if you don't do something about it, it may impact your family. So God is not guiding you? What will God do? I think the thing is like, if you don't decide what's next, in one week you will be in more trouble. The urgency factor is coming in. Let's use your mind and solve it.

Yes, but what about trying to use your heart?

Trying to use my heart, nothing comes. I don't even want to act, not even to judge. I just want to ask... this is presuming what your heart would want. I did that. So you went to the heart and it said don't evaluate, don't judge? No, I like being in the presence and just seeing if something comes. Should I even act further or not?

I'm not getting from your report the fragrance that... like if you had said that somebody in my family is in financial trouble, I didn't know what to do whether to help them or not help them, no idea, but I've just been living in God's light and it has been silent, then that would have sounded different. But from your report, you kind of said that there are two aspects of the mind. One is saying that the heart will not judge and evaluate, so I'll just not judge. The other is the evaluating part of it which is worrying me, saying if you don't do something fast... I missed the part where you really went to God sincerely and prayed for help or just remained quietly in His presence.

I think you're right. It's both the mind.

This is what I mean by the presumed working of a spiritual person. It's a trap. It's very important for you to see the trap because all of us just presume from the mind that this is what God will want. 'Don't judge.' Here it sounds spiritual. It's even a commandment, maybe. Do we go with the innocence of a child to God and say, 'Please help,' or do we live in the spiritual identity which presumes 'this is how I should be because I am now evolved or spiritual'? This is the thing to be most careful of because it seems very humble and sweet. 'Because this situation came, I'm not saying anything to that person, I'm really nice, I feel like I'm being very spiritual.' But you're only spiritual if you're going to Spirit. But I didn't hear that we went to Spirit.

In these decisions in life when you are wondering... this preconceived notion that when you act on God's will that it will be this loving kindness, sweetness, it is a bit dangerous. What I feel is that when you go down that path and you get so many thoughts, if you go down that then you keep on thinking about that problem. And then I think that made me sit up and say: how can it be right if every morning I'm waking up and thinking about that person? Why didn't I just axe his head off in the first place because I would have been free of the thoughts? In a way, that's what I'm saying—that we don't have to presume either way.

So we can have a report saying, 'The older me would have just gone and done this. Okay, now the new me is very Shanti Shanti and just laughed at the situation. But the newer me is now saying that this newer me is too much of an avoider, so there should be a newer, newer me which should be able to take a bit of that and a bit of this.' And we may even call that newer, newer me the 'being natural' one. And then that newer, newer will get slapped and you want a newer, newer, newer me based on something that we heard in satsang or some life philosophy. Because none of that... whatever we are meant to do, let the presence lead you moment to moment instead of you deciding otherwise. You illuminate the new me; it seems like that one has some new set of skills, and then that one will get attacked. Hopefully, if you're lucky. Because to invent a persona and for it not to be attacked means your Guru is doing a very bad job. Firstly, then life will not leave you even if your Guru is doing a bad job. So if you're feeling attacked, this doesn't feel like fun, but it's very important because our personas are getting in the way of our life in God.

How many of us would just presume that this is how it is to live in God's light rather than actually live in God's light? It's just like: wake up in the morning, do the inquiry, do this, breathe like that, chant like this. And that is why 'empty' is such an important word. We've all been hearing 'empty for God, open and empty.' But we make a new home; we become full of ourselves in the new empty. The mind could be screaming at you right now saying, 'But then what am I supposed to do?' as if you're not hearing the answer. Because I've given the answer at least 20 times, which is: Live in God's presence, let the presence lead you. But the mind doesn't accept that as an answer. For me, it is a very clear answer, but the mind will keep throwing the tantrum. But my hope is that one day you will hear it and say, 'Ah, this is what he means—that the presence can lead me moment to moment.' The heat and the ear reports like this: 'This is what you mean, the presence can lead me moment to moment?' Yes! This is what we have been saying for 20 years. It's like that because the haze of the mind doesn't let us actually meet the answer literally. It just meets it in its confusions.

So I say this: let the presence lead you and run your life. 'Okay, what he's saying is that if I pray to God at night and after chanting 108 Rams, then God will give me his answer.' It could be true, but it has nothing to do with what I just said. The ability of the mind to distort what is being given to you very directly is very, very strong. How many are trying to live through a spiritual persona now? Because today all the questions have been about that in some way or the other.

I judge myself when I'm reacting with the children and I can realize, okay, this is also step one, step back. It is going in and out more and more.

You can see: Live in God's presence moment to moment. What did you all hear? I'm going to start doing this actually, because I know the mind's ability. I'll say ABC and it will make it XYZ by the time it gets to you. And sometimes when you give me the question, I hear that. 'Father, you said yesterday that I must do like that.' Did I really? And because my memory is so bad, you can get away with it! I do not remember what I said. No, no, no. So I want to tell you that you are not to hear it any other way, just precisely like you're being guided. Precisely. Now, you said 'let the presence guide you' and that's it. Just now, this is what you said. No, you say, 'Oh, okay, that was two minutes ago.' So live in God's light, it will show you. Now I'm making it up. I didn't hear that I said 'living,' that's all. But that's what I just said! Oh gosh, what did I say? So how should you lead your life? What is the question I'm answering? How should you lead your life? Live in God's presence moment to moment, come what may. Heard it? Don't make it into anything else. Because that everything else, I'll also tell you, don't worry. You don't have to guide yourself; I'm there for that.

Now, anything in this—how do I live my life moment to moment in God's presence? To be in God's presence, the only thing we can truly do to be in God's presence is to remain open and empty. So remain open and empty. The only thing that we can really do is to remain open and empty. And if empty seems too difficult, then all these practices are for that. You see clouds, or you see the leaves of a tree, or you see the trunk of a tree, and it craves that those moments come. It's pure grace. So you step out into the terrace and you see a beautiful view or some beautiful trees with flowers, anything you see, and that is like a gift from God because it snaps you out of your pattern of thinking. But the idea is to live like that. Those moments are beautiful, but we must snap out and stay out. It must not be just like a snap out and then quickly back in and then waiting for the next snap out. Snap out and stay out.

Oh no, Father, it may be for the whole day, maybe the next day it's just not there. So that's why the reminder that you can be open and empty—you don't have to wait for something to come as a trigger. Then you live like a free one, like a sage, because the sage is not waiting for a trigger to snap him into it. It's there. The leaves are just there. So if you hadn't perceived it—suppose your eyes were closed or for that moment you were looking somewhere else—then you don't snap out, isn't it? Therefore, that perception acted in that moment as a trigger. Because maybe God said, 'Okay, now in the realm of perception also I better show up somewhere because these kids will not turn to me if I don't.' Then He shows up in beauty, He shows up in nature, He shows up in everything around us. At that point in time, He can show up in a wall.

But what I'm saying is that we get so used to being in God's light that it doesn't seem like those are rare moments. Snapping into it just becomes a natural way of being. And those who live like that, that's why we call them sages, we call them the free ones, because they naturally live like that. In fact, they may report that, 'Ah yes, you know what happened? I got a call from school and they said my daughter's daughter did this or something like that, so I snapped out of the naturalness of just being in God's light and got identified for a moment, but it lasted a few seconds and then I'm back in God's light.' We don't have to make report cards on that stuff.

Maybe it's even said about Shirdi Sai Baba. Guruji shares the story. Someone came to him and said, 'This one is in serious trouble, they have a serious illness, they're on their deathbed,' one close disciple. And even Baba for a few moments was like panicked, you know, 'Let's go, let's go!' Then in a few moments, he remembered, 'No, God is taking care, it will all be fine.' So even with the highest sages, these things can happen. But the story is diametrically opposite, isn't it? One is staying constantly in God's light and can be snapped into the identification of limitation. Most of us will say that we are living in that until something comes in front of us and we snap out of it. So the idea of satsang is to reverse the thing so that you live in God's light, you're living constantly in pure perception, the universal vision.

I had such a beautiful connected day. You don't even register. I do try, and they may come by meditating, they may come anytime. And mostly there, what I said in the morning, what I'm going to say the next morning, what happened this morning... it's not that it is not true, it happened.

Well, interesting questions for us. But what is true? What is happening? More importantly, the Master is basically selling a different, rare way of life. It's not an insertion into an existing way of life; it's a brand new way of life. It seems brand new because it's rare. It's like changing the engine from traditional to EV. All the systems will have to change. Change the power source from internal combustion to EV. No hybrid, because moderation is more difficult than abstinence. Switching from the way of the head to the way of the heart is like that.

As one goes along, one of the pointers that one has... in that state of pure perception, one of the pointers is anxiety. Then anxiety would always be linked to that, you think? Are you saying that it is possible to have anxiety and be in pure perception?

No, I don't know. She's just like, 'But I'm purely perceiving my anxiety!' What is pure perception? If you're not interpreting, you're not judging, so there's no question of past or future. Just moment to moment, what is being met is met label-lessly. And in that meeting label-lessly, what happens is that although this worldview seems so much more alive and vibrant, the natural apparency of the Nirguna Brahman self is known to us. That is the elephant in the room. Although it may seem like pure perception is about perception—that I can see the light clearly, I'm not getting distracted, my attention is not diffused by thought—the taste of the world is so much more vibrant and universal. But actually, in pure perception, that I am the pure witnessing which is empty of all attributes is also apparent to me in that moment. It comes into knowledge, true self-knowledge, in pure perception.

Now, how to be anxious along with that? You cannot be, because the mind will offer some thoughts about the future saying, 'What's going to happen?' So the 'who' on top of which something could happen itself is not there. There's no place for that thought to land, actually. Who would it belong to? So we have to taste this pure perception, live in that. Then you notice that these thoughts are talking about one that I can't find. And because they can't land, you can't become anxious in that way. Unless we're really stretching the definition and we're saying: can we say the natural arising of some fear, can we call that also as anxiousness? Usually we don't. But suppose that you're just in pure perception and suddenly a car comes and hits your car hard, and some fear comes like that in the heart region. That can come, of course. This can also be tasted as pure perception. A tiger comes on the road or something. This is the famous Shankara example. Reaction is the witness; that will be pure perception. Yes, without placing yourself as a witness. I would just say sakshi, but sakshi implying to remain as the witnessing. Is it more like a verb than a noun? Because otherwise we can invent an entity.

And open necessarily makes you into witnessing. Yes. And that means... I'm used to doing my mala. Is it okay if I continue with that?

You can continue. In my heart, it's meaningful. But remember that my higher pointing is that your heart, God's light, God's presence is guiding you moment to moment into what is God's will. With this, I know that your mind will trouble you because you've been continuing a particular practice for a long time. So you have my full blessing and love to do that beautiful thing. But more and more, start relying on moment-to-moment guidance from your heart. How are you being guided by the presence? Let the presence lead you. And if the presence is not leading you, then stay here, don't move. As you get used to being led by the presence, then you'll also start hearing the Satguru's voice within telling you. Sometimes you can feel too naked to be without moves, but you have to return to that innocence of the child where we don't know anything in our head moment to moment. You don't realize that what seem like cockroaches are actually the bars of our prison, which are our mental strategies and tactics.

Yes, but me too, you have to meet that fear.

The boxes that I had put myself in now are being shed by His light. And if Ram wants His japa to happen, then He will do it within. That's how it continues. He's talking about the same emptiness: 'I don't know, but He is there.' I don't know, but He is there. And if He is there, I have nothing to fear. So the 'He is there' part has to move from like a belief or a conceptual bomb which you use to save ourselves from worry, to a faith. And I'm saying a faith, not a belief or a conviction. The very famous atheist called Richard Dawkins, he says faith is a belief, it is irrational. Faith is our ability to give truth value to that which we know intuitively, not just conceptually. So nobody is asking you to have faith irrationally. It may be contra-rationality, but it has a basis, and the basis is higher than intellect. It is intuition.

Do you have more faith in that than even perceptions and the highest concepts? That is freedom. When we take that faith and mix it with love—faith in our intuitive insight and mix it with love—that mixing is what is called devotion. And devotion can be such a shield against the fearful nature of the mind, you see? Because you've taken your intuitive insight to be true, but you've anchored that in unconditional love for God and Guru. Now what can shake you? I would like to sit at your feet if you live like that. So beautiful it is.

Right now, I've been teasing some of you like you're my paper tigers. What am I saying? I'm saying that I have faith you have intuitive insight, you have a lot of love also, but when life shakes us, something comes like that, it gets all chicken and we start looking for escape routes in the mind and things like that. So when will my paper tigers become true tigers? When this solidifies. The mind could scare you, the world could scare you. But could the physical body react differently to the stillness within the heart? I mean, no, it can't actually. But all the layers of your being are connected. For instance, if something unhappy has happened and I get this feeling of lead in my stomach, when the lead in my stomach stays, no matter how much faith and devotion I am steering myself into... that is the nature of the body-mind, especially at these layers of body and feeling, that their tendency is to linger. So they linger longer, these things, whereas the thought is very ephemeral. It comes, goes. It may be repetitive, but it doesn't linger in the same way. A thought doesn't just come and stay. It goes, then it comes back. And you say, 'How do I solve it?' or thoughts about that thought may come. But a feeling or a sensation in the body usually lingers a little bit more. That is the nature of things, and we don't have to be in opposition to that. Just okay, so some fear came or some whatever—there are so many emotions that there are not enough names for them—but something came and it lingers for a bit. It's okay. What to do with these? Meet them like you are the space in which they are arising, instead of like you are the body to which something is happening. And that is natural in pure perception—that you look at all these sensations and feelings and all of these perceptions as the space. In pure perception, you meet everything as space, as if you were the space in which they are rising, which is a more accurate representation of you than you being a body. Who is the perceiver of this pure perception? Is it a body? From direct experience, understand it is being perceived in the pure spaciousness of my being, which is subtler than even this space. Then you meet everything as you are at one. Otherwise, Krishna's words—that in reality you cannot be cut, you cannot be burnt, you cannot be harmed in any way—they only remain conceptual.

Noticing the tricks of the mind... like last week when we were talking about how the mind is constantly giving you tests: 'If you were in that situation, if you're in this situation,' always projecting. And now today we saw how it says, 'But you're spiritual now, you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't open these spreadsheets and put numbers into your spiritual life.' Is it coming from Spirit? Just my Papaji said you cannot think and laugh at the same time. Obviously, the mind won't like it. We see this: what is the nature of reality? The Guru can guide you on that in the sense that sometimes it can just all be fun and games but missing the point. Sometimes you could be getting too serious in our heads and missing the point. So either way, the Guru will tell you as long as you're not missing the point.

There was one child, she used to come and she loved wordplay. Anything I would say, she would be like, 'This is just like this, so beautiful, that's so funny!' Then second satsang, same thing. By the time I got to the fourth satsang, I said, 'Okay, now no more jokes, no more wordplay. Hear what I'm saying, don't make variants of it.' Because the wordplay can also become a defense. Many, many thousands of tricks of the mind. Even when one has a true insight, sometimes the mind can create a lot of excitement and thrill around it just to take us back to the mind, just to distract. Mostly what we do is we have an insight and then we quickly offer it to the mind saying, 'Hey buddy, what do you think?' And the mind says, 'This is very good, but you know, Bhagavan said like that, so it's like this, let's add that.' We don't let the pure insight just flower in our heart; we give it to the mind and contaminate it. And of course, the mind doesn't say it's contaminating it; it says it's just adding value, making it beautiful. Because we're always trying to determine mentally what is the right way for us to be. Should I be serious or funny? Should I be this way or that way? Should I come here or go there? You will be making these determinations, but our determinations, because they are of the mind, then one way or the other lead to suffering. If they were of God, if they were of the heart, then they'd be fine.

So that switchover is all that we are talking about. I visited someone the other day, a few months back, and while I was there a builder came. The builder came to the house and they said they want to do a redevelopment. What is the redevelopment? They demolish all the houses, all the flats, and then build a much better housing society and you'll get double your space. Of course, I don't know how credible that builder was, but the fact is this is what we're doing in satsang: redevelopment. They're tearing everything down and changing the main core of where we operate from. If your house is being demolished, you cannot say, 'No, no, but don't touch my kitchen, don't touch my library, don't touch my books.' Everything has to go.

The relationship with others or relationship with God... I'm finding that a lot of my being right now is taken up by the relationship with my mind. Every thought... it's more like a bright light, an awareness. The more and more aware I am of it, the thoughts are not bothering me strangely enough. If they're coming, I'm able to see and drop them, laugh at them sometimes. I'm finding that I'm dissociated just by making an object out of myself with such a deliberate effort that it's not me. That's a big thing, to have this relationship with one's own mind.

Yes, yes. What I was saying is that one of the most tempting themes that the mind will offer to us is about our relationships with others and other people. It rarely contemplates a question like how to build a true relationship with God. So that's what I was saying. But in a way, sometimes it's all right to bring our attention to the opposite thought to neutralize it. But I won't suggest that we constantly do a 'not me' type assertion in response to a thought because we can create a new sort of identity even around the 'not me.' It sounds strange, but because the mind says, 'But you'll lose all your friends,' and you say, 'That's not me anyway.' It's okay for the moment because it helps you let go of bad thoughts, but if you end up buying a lot of thoughts around the 'not me' identity, then you've built a very subtle 'not me' persona still hanging around. When we say empty, it's empty of 'me' and its opposite. We're not making a position of me or not me. Thoughts come and go; I'm not making a judgment on their authenticity or lack thereof.

Can we make a deal that we will not fill ourselves with thinking about human relationships until we've found God? Because he said the other day that it came like this: we are so busy with our personal issues, it's like we don't have one grain to eat but we're sitting waiting to buy elephants. Moment by moment, all this is going to come to an end if we don't do our main work and we spend all the time on auxiliary projects. Soon it'll be too late. So sort out your relationship with God first. The number one question in satsang I have had is relationship. Especially when I started sharing, everybody says, 'I want the fruits, but first the relationship thing is getting in my way.' It is the most popular theme of Maya. But have we resolved our relationship with God's presence in our heart? I promise you that your relationship with me, with God, is much simpler than a human relationship. Definitely. Once you find that, then this human thing just doesn't work the same way. The constructs—the instant we make personal constructs of ourselves and the other—it is asking for trouble. Once you put yourself in that pretext to try and resolve things, it is very complicated. How to fix a fight between two ghosts? You go there to fix it, they've vanished. The person is a non-existent entity, not even ghostly in nature, just purely non-existent even in perception. Is it easier to keep God happy or your partner happy? Definitely God. Yes. Thank you, everyone.