Pride Is the Biggest Blind Spot in Our Life - 3rd June 2024
Saar (Essence)
Ananta emphasizes that spiritual realization depends entirely on God’s grace rather than individual effort. He guides seekers to build a 'temple in the heart' through constant prayer, inquiry, and the surrender of egoic pride.
The cost of Grace is a full surrender; you cannot do this by yourself.
Every moment of prayer and sincere inquiry constructs the temple in your heart.
To take the world to be real is bad company; to take God as true is satsang.
devotional
Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.
For him, anything we can do is always going to be a mere trying. I don't feel God will look at any of us and say, "Ah, you're not going to say too good, too good." So we have to—that's why we have to depend on his grace. And without his grace, otherwise, if we were to be able to do that, then we could go to him and be entitled, isn't it? We could say, "But I did this, now I'm entitled to something." But because everything depends on his grace, at best, whatever feels true in our heart, whatever our teacher has told us, we just have to follow full-heartedly, as full-heartedly as possible, and leave the rest to Grace. So that "as full-heartedly as possible" is important, and equally important is "leave the rest to Grace." You cannot be half-hearted about it because you leave it to Grace, and you cannot just not be full-hearted. You can't be just in a mental sort of surrender. You must be willing to pay the cost of Grace. The cost of Grace is a full surrender. But be assured that every intention, every sense that we carry in our heart to bring ourselves to his light, is apparent to him.
That's why I've been talking about the attempt to do spirituality without the aid of the spirit, without the help of the Atma within. So how would it happen? So you would ask yourself, "Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?" At which point are you entitled to self-realization? At which count of the sincere question "Who am I?"—let's even discard all the insincere asking—at which count of the sincere question "Who am I?" are we entitled to self-realization? You getting the point of what I'm saying? So then it would be very unfair that Bhagavan just had a spontaneous awakening. He felt like he's dying and he lied down on the bed and said, "If death is going to come, then I want to observe even that. I want to watch my death." And in that, he recognized that he is the Self and not the body, you see. So what would we call that? What power was at work, and for whose benefit was it at work, so that a child of fourteen or sixteen came to the realization of the Self?
So never feel that we can do this by ourselves, you see. And also never feel that we don't have to do anything. Both are equally mental traps, equally dangerous sort of positions to take. So you give it your all, like Shabri. Every day, give it your all, hoping that he will come. Every day. Was there ever a day where she would have said, "No, I don't feel today he will come, so today I won't lay the path for him, I won't gather the fruit for him"? That needs faith, isn't it? Because in our life, we can be disappointed over and over, and then we can feel that, "Oh, now I'm not going to do this anymore because it just doesn't work." So she set the standard: fifty years, sixty years. What is our point of giving up? So we can all learn from that to remain with our prayer, to remain with our inquiry, till the truth of God's presence within ourselves and the truth of who we really are reveals itself in full force.
Because your intellect, your reasoning, will say, "Enough, enough. It's all irrational. There's no God. It is wasting time." So your intellect will try to create a wall between you and your true discovery. It will set the boundary for how much of yourself you can surrender. It will tell you that these things you still need to control, you still need to own, you cannot surrender that; these outcomes have to go only this way. And what power do we have to actually own any outcome? No power. This body can fall this minute. Just before coming to satsang, I saw someone sent me a photograph of a local cricketer who hit a six and then died. You saw that? He just hit a six and the umpire declared six, and then he just fell and died. So there is no timetable. We can't predict. He may have had the intention that "I will do this, I will do that," but when death had to come, it came.
So what do we really control? Many of us feel every day, "I will do this, I will pray, I will achieve this," whatever, either spiritual or worldly. But the day many times goes completely in a different way just because of one phone call or one message. The whole so-called plan can go in a different direction. So we can never take ownership about the outcome, how things are going to play out. So then what is one to do? This moment, what can you do? This moment, you can pray, you can inquire, you can really truly ask, "How can I serve God? How can I love God?" So like this, moment to moment, you will construct the temple in your heart. And that project you must do. If no other project you do in your life, that project you must do. And I hope you get it, get the fact that it is quite literal. You must, every moment of prayer, every moment of true sincere inquiry, every moment of love and every moment of servitude—that is how you build the inner climate for the temple in your heart.
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And with every moment of pride, with every moment of one-upmanship, every moment where you think that you know better or you know something by yourself, you actually demolish a part of that temple. I'm trying to draw a metaphor that comes as close to the true project at hand. And those for whom they can say that they know this temple now in their heart, they feel his light at the altar, your job is not done. Your job now is to become a servant priest in that temple. You may keep it clean by not falling for false identification, and keep it clean with love and humility and service to God. But does your mind want to keep it clean? It wants to satiate with worry, anxiety, future selfishness, grabbing, grasping, winning. Winning has become such a natural thing, like a natural idea that all of us must want to win in the world. It's so common that we want to win, you see. Because "loser" is probably the worst thing, especially in some countries in the West. If you're a loser, you're nothing, you're nobody. Only winners get respect.
But do we recognize what we mean by winning? That means that we don't love our brothers and sisters like ourselves. Christ had told us we must love God with all our might and with everything, and we must love our neighbor like ourselves. So why do we see this body-mind doing better? Why do we call that winning? If you fool another one or you outmaneuver, negotiate another one out of something, and you ended up with more material success, have you really won? And what is it that you won? And if you change your context, the whole meaning of your life, to this temple of God in your heart, then you will not want to fill it up with bricks made up of egoic success. Who will be at the center of such a temple full of pride and arrogance? So the bricks that we use will be the invocation to the one at the altar of our temple. The fragrance that we spray within our hearts is going to be the invocation of who sits in the sanctum sanctorum.
The process of meeting God's presence in our heart is also the process of letting go of Maya. As much as you like, you cannot hold Maya with one hand and try to hold God with the other. So if you look at that, then you see that all that the "me" wants is something for itself in the realm of Maya. It is not necessarily money or worldly things or relationships; also many times it wants freedom also for that, so that "I can win, I can be special, I can get respect, I can be seen, the world can recognize me finally." Isn't that the plot of so many movies? A very talented one goes unrecognized for a long time, and then they feel that they won because they get to the recognition that they deserve. Doesn't the "me" within us have the same tendency? The hero, which is the protagonist, which is finally recognized for what they really worth.
So this we have to learn to keep aside, because with this so important for us in our heart, we will not make the space for God. Even God will become about me. But if you keep your temple clean, then recognition is not for self-recognition, not worldly recognition. Self-recognition is not far, and the fruits of God's love and grace are yours for the taking, but not yours for yourself, but for yours to share with the world, with your brothers and sisters. So the fully skeptical will say, "There is no such God, all this is just made up, all this is just made up." But how is it that sages across various cultures and traditions of the world all report on the same thing? How is it that Tulsidas Ji and Ashtavakra Ji can be saying exactly the same things as St. Teresa of Avila and St. John? How is it that people in different continents like North America, the native people there, pray to the Great Spirit? How is it that those who truly came to this spiritual recognition say that within ourselves is the presence of a Holy Spirit, presence of a holy Atma, in the light of which the truth is recognized and we learn how to live our life in love and servitude to God?
Well, is there a special brand of hallucinating which all of them seem to have? And how can we check on that? People from across the world, different cultures, different times, thousands of years ago and right now today, all testifying to the same experience. So is it a sign of something wrong with you, or is it the sign of something beautiful arising in you? And we must take this question head-on and say, "I'm going to discover this for myself," you see. Now, either if you're fully skeptical but you say, "I'm going to prove everyone wrong, all these ones are probably suffering from some mental disease," or if you're fully accepting, then you must devote your life to come to this point, to this recognition. Either way, you will come to the same point.
I was reading the other day from the part that I've reached in the reading of the Ramacharitmanas, that he talks about those who are going to read the Ramacharitmanas. He himself is talking about what is going to happen. He is a beautiful sage. So he says that many will—firstly, there will be so many who will not be interested, they will never want to read it, you see. Then there will be many, many who will have the intention but will never make it to a reading of the scripture. The force of what he would call pap or sin will prevent them from reading it. Then he says there are those—abhyas or something, he uses the word—where they will come, but when they come, they will fall asleep. They will just fall asleep, nothing will be heard. And the very, very little ones who remain after that will be able to really assimilate what is being shared. So you're lucky, you're blessed that you come to satsang and you've been coming for so long, and God has blessed you with the openness to assimilate what is being shared.
This is true of Swami Chinmayananda. So his Guruji told him that you cannot be sharing these Upanishads and all these things which are meant to be kept in secret. Upanishad literally means to sit close and share, right? So an intimate note, an intimate note to a sincere seeker, it is called. So these are meant to be just kept in secret, so his Guru is saying to him. So he said to his Guruji that, "You don't have to worry. Those who are not meant to listen just come to my satsang and they go to sleep," you see. So it doesn't reach the ears of those who are not ready. So what is this that makes us fall asleep? And I've really contemplated this because I've been sharing for so long, so I've seen almost all of you sleeping at some point. But I really contemplated this.
So I also feel like it's not always just the lethargic sleep or the mental hypnosis that makes us sleep. Sometimes it's like a holy sleep as well, where we just—like a Samadhi, you know—we just don't know that the world exists anymore. So I've noticed that in some of you as well, that the world may not seem real to you. You may be like in a state that may be called a sleep, but it is not always an initial sleep. But many times it's an actual sleep, an actual, you see, an actual where even if your body is quite fresh, something doesn't want you to hear what is being said in satsang. So that power is the same power that resists the truth.
Well, where we are just like a samadhi, you know, we just don't know that the world exists anymore. So I've noticed that in some of you as well, that the world may not seem real to you. You may be like in a state that may be called a sleep, but it is not always an initial sleep, but many times it's an actual sleep. An actual, you see, an actual where even if your body is quite fresh, something doesn't want you to hear what is being said in satsang. So that power is the same power that resists the words of scripture, the words of satsang, the words of any sage. It doesn't want you to build that temple in your heart. It doesn't want you to spend your life in servitude to God and the love for God. That power is called Maya. This Maya.
So in India, we call it Maya; in the West, we call it the devil. There's a beautiful book I've been talking about called The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. He's basically describing like the functioning of Maya, how she uses every trick in the book for us not to really contemplate our deeper reality, not to fall in love with God. Then what is, if there are these two force fields, one is that of God's presence and the other is that of Maya, then how do we make sure that we are not falling for the—we use the Star Wars reference—falling for the dark side? How do you make sure? Use the force! You use the force. We keep ourselves in satsang, which is the right company, the company of the truth. And the company of the truth is not just people; it's not just the people that we hang out with, although that part is very important as well. But moment to moment, what is the company that we are keeping?
And I was sharing this also, and then something beautiful we heard from Swami Ramashray, who said that to take the world to be real is kusang. Kusang is the wrong company, bad company. To take God to be true is satsang, the right company. So whatever, in whatever situation the world seems real and God seems unreal, the world seems real and the Self seems unreal, that is kusang, bad company. And can the world do it by itself? The reality or the unreality of it is given by you. That is always up to us. So what is the company that we keep? Do we keep the company of the false or the company of the truth?
A satsang which is called like a physical satsang in the world is only, only as if it brings you to the company of the truth. If it makes you proud, if it makes you egoic, if it makes you think that you're winning and you're somebody great, then it is not satsang. It is also not satsang if after you leave from the satsang you are just talking about Ananta. That's a wasted satsang. If you say, 'Oh, he's so good, he's so, he's so,' because it has to be about how God is, how you are finding Him, and maybe if Ananta gets a mention, then as an instrument or a servant of that process, you see? So satsang must be about the truth, and this body-mind is just like any other body-mind. So it's not about the instrument of God ever; it must be about God Himself. So if you keep yourself immersed in satsang and not kusang, then that will really help you to keep your heart temple clean of trouble.
And now you can recognize that your prayer or your inquiry, or both, are such a helpful tool to keep you in satsang. You see, this is why I made the point earlier that it doesn't matter—it is not about the number of times you say 'Who am I?' or the number of times you say 'Ram Ram.' The point is that through the use of these holy practices given to us by the sages, we can keep ourselves open, empty, available for God's light to shine through, which is the same as saying that we keep the temple clean. We remain in the right company.
Suppose life forces you in a way—and nothing really forces us—but it forces you in a way to be involved in things which are not outwardly about God, but you continue with your inquiry and you continue with your japa and you are still with God independent of what is happening in the world. Or you're in satsang, which is hopefully, presumably, all about God, but you are just thinking about some relationship, some money, something, something, something, then it is not satsang. So any situation in the world can be made into a satsang, and any satsang can be made into a kusang.
Of course, there's no denying the fact that those who are on the same path as us, on the spiritual path, the company of those really helps. It energizes the field in some way so that it seems easier to remain empty, remain open to God's love, to His grace, His light, because the fruits of whatever path you may be on are always only from Him. As I was sharing with one child also, that because the fruits of every path, no matter which one it is, are always only from Him, therefore all paths are worthy of reverence because He has given His consent to bless those on that path. If it was not pleasing to Him, then He would not do that.
But remember that the fruits of this path are always only His grace. Otherwise, it would be like an education certification program, isn't it? Write a 5,000-word essay or paper actually on Advaita Vedanta, and based on how good that is, you get the enlightenment certificate, the realization, the recognition. But somehow it doesn't seem to work like that. Sometimes those who just start the inquiry like that, they just start praying and they fall deeply in love with God. You and all of us old ones with gray hair wonder what's happening. How can it be that so unfair? So this idea of fairness and unfairness comes from the idea of individual progress, individual doing, and ultimately a pride of entitlement, which is the opposite of faith. To trust that only He knows what is best, only He can ever know what is best. This kind of faith then helps our spiritual journey and spiritual search doesn't seem as arduous as it otherwise would.
Just listening to Ram Ji's satsang, and the title was Sharanagati, surrender. And he said bhaktas don't have any concern about Bhagavan, like 'I have not found God yet' or 'I have not found the love of God.' They have no concerns of these. And it doesn't matter what's happening in their mind-body. Once they surrender, nothing is bothering them, whether God has come or they feel the love of God or what's happening with them. It doesn't matter. It's quite a deep—yeah, like it does, because then we feel like, 'I'm surrendering, I'm surrendering.' I don't know, it's a deep faith, you know? Once you surrender, then it doesn't matter what is happening in your spiritual life also. It doesn't matter.
So the sages always paint a picture for us. Like Plato had this theory of forms, right? Plato said you cannot find beauty, love—you cannot find the true representative of any of these things; that is beyond this realm, it is somewhere else. So saints will always paint a picture for us of that which we can emulate and that which we must follow, so that when our mind comes with these tricks to frustrate us, to make us feel unworthy, or to make it feel like 'I'm not able to do this project, I'm not cut out for it,' all of these things, then we can refer back to that emulation and say that that is what a true bhakta is, that is what a true jnani is. And we can correct ourselves from making those mistakes.
And that is why the book, a book like The Imitation of Christ, is so beautiful. But if in India first we read the title, 'imitation' sounds a bit strange. But actually, you have to read it in the sense of the emulation. What can we learn from the life of Jesus? So what can we learn from the lives of these sages? And these sages in great humility will say, 'No, no, I am not like that. I am just sharing with you from what I've heard about the great sages, and this is how they are.' All of them have this thing that, 'Don't you make this mistake, I'm not one of them, I'm just sharing with you.' No, no, seriously, I'm telling you. I was shocked to read that line from Ramacharitmanas. Tulsidas Ji is talking about all the bad things that bad people do, and then he says, 'I'm the worst of them.' At the end he says, 'But I'm the worst of them.' You know, it's insane.
And all these sages from across cultures that we are reading all seem to have the same report. So what is going on? How come they are calling themselves much worse than any of us are? Are they the sages or are we the sages? And who's the one that's lying, actually? You see, how can they be sages and then lie? So this needs—it is a very deep topic. Because when you start to live in His presence, you see, you start to compare the holiness that lives in your heart with the outer expression of your life, and you start to see that this outer one is just not up to the mark, is it? And this humility is very joyful. This humility is very joyful, completely contrary to what it sounds, because these ones carry the fragrance of love, peace, joy wherever they go, because they can't hide that what is emanating from their heart, you see?
So all that is there, and yet they notice the actions of the body and what unfolds from them, and they see that none of this actually matches up to the perfection which I experience in my heart, and therefore I am the most foolish. That is what one of the sages said about Tulsidas Ji also, saying that he used to call himself the most tuchh, the worst of the lot, the worst of the lot. And you read any line from him, you can see that he is definitely not that, is he? And yet, because in his heart shines His light, His presence, compared to Him, all of us are like frogs, or at least our outer expression. So this is the contrast, and this gives us so much humility and faith that we can never become arrogant.
Who is the greatest sage, Tulsidas Ji or Ravana? If you had a spiritual exam, I feel Ravana would have won in terms of the shastras that he knew. In fact, he created also such beautiful work. The sadhana he did for thousands of years—great, great spiritual knowledge. But the poison of pride made him from a great sage to that evil which God Himself had to eradicate from the world. And every generation you have that process. Somewhere it came to me to say that the devil is nothing but a proud angel, you see? Like that. Even in the story of his story, it was like that. But I'm saying that the same thing which is good in us, once that puts on a proud garb, a garb of specialness, then becomes diseased within us.
Because I—the 46 hours of meditation by our friend in Kanyakumari—I was just, I don't know, intuitively just felt like something is messed up here. This much advertisement and 'God has sent me' and all of that. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but just felt like that. Yeah, what to do in these situations?
What to do in these situations when you see things? You must—we can lament, of course we can, and many things are worth lamenting. But can we bring ourselves to a point where we can even pray for them? Pray for that, to say that, 'I don't know if my judgments are wrong or right, but it seems like this to me in my heart, so I pray for this brother or sister. I pray for this brother or sister.' And if you remember that for God to move a twig or to eat up the whole universe is the same thing—there's no levels of what He can do—so to just pray to Him in that faith that He can change the past, present, future. In this case, actually, it would be so much better if we were wrong, you see? For everyone, it would be so much better if we were wrong. So may God—pray that we are wrong for the sake of our brothers and sisters of the nation. May that, may we be wrong, and may that misunderstanding be cleared from our minds. So may God change everything, change the past, and may we forget that and maybe see a different light.
Um, you know what you said about the Self? Can I just say something is coming just to complete that? If a brother or sister feels that to use God's name in this way so that something can be benefited in their life in the world, they must definitely feel like the world is more real than God Himself. Whoever may feel that way, that we can use the name of God to increase our position, power, our being popular, whatever that may be, you see, they are playing to the world.
You know what you said about the self, can I just say something is coming just to complete that? If a brother or sister feels that to use God's name in this way so that something can be benefit in their life in the world, they must definitely feel like the world is more real than God himself. Whoever may feel that way—that we can use the name of God to increase our position, power, or being popular, whatever that may be—you see, they are playing to the audience of the many and not to the audience of one. Because those who really remember that the audience that really counts, and is the only real audience anyway, is the one who is watching from within, they can never come to doing any of that.
So what is the lesson in this in our life that's most important? How many times do we play to the gallery? I have been talking about the pretense that comes here also when I'm sharing with all of you: conditioning of sharing, conditioning of teacher identity that plays out, which gets in the way of me just transmitting transparently what's in my heart. So this pretense, this sort of identity—and I hope it is not so much that it makes this from a satsang to a katsang—but I notice it. So there may be, I may be saying that the only what is important is the audience of one, but I may be still checking how it's being received by the audience of the many sitting in front of me, you see. So that is what I mean by the pretense.
So this is the work in progress. This is this life's work that has to be done. So maybe learn from all these examples that God chose us and see how that plays out in our life. What do we do for shosha? What do we do just to be liked or popular? So maybe learn from these and maybe pray for everyone. The beauty of this journey never ends and the work on this journey never ends; at least from my experience, I have to say that. And thank God for putting us on this path so that same germ which infects another brother or sister also infects this one, and to keep it in view and to keep offering it, surrendering it to God, is very important.
I'm very touched by Kabir Ji. I went looking for one who is bad, who is a sinner; I didn't find any. Then I looked at myself and there is not one that is worse than I am. How is it that all these sages are saying these things and all the ones who are not spiritual say that I am the best? What is the voice of the mind? It puts us in this self-righteousness where it's sitting for everyone, which is that when I went looking for the one that is bad, I saw everyone is bad and I'm the only good, I'm the only right one.
So we see a contrast and we must not rush to judgment. You see, young, I would feel like, okay, now that is a more traditional type of spirituality, I'm more radical, I'm more whatever. But when you see it in sage after sage after sage, then somewhere you have to drop your pride and say: What are they seeing which I'm not yet seeing about myself? Because it won't do you any service to yourselves if you say that you are right and all of them are wrong. But just to be open and say: What could it be that sage after sage after sage says similar things and yet I am seeing it differently? Let's investigate. And if you truly investigate, you might go deeper in our spirituality. It doesn't matter what came out right or wrong at the end; that exploration is important.
Because the thing about pride is that it is the biggest blind spot in our life. Even Ravana did not think that he's proud; he thought it's only self-respect. Who doesn't want to have self-respect? He wanted respect for all that he had done. He had done so much sadhana, he had conquered the world, he had done everything. So for his mind, he was just asking for what is due to him. Don't we do that? We also do the same thing. So we must not feel that these afflictions are not ours. Of course, sometimes we may come across situations which may seem like extreme situations, and it's good to speak up about them from a perspective of also working on ourselves where that is concerned.
That's why I hope that all of us will take this metaphor of temple construction and keeping the temple clean to heart. That gives you a good compass. A good compass to check. And what has happened to these people is that that compass is gone in many cases. Sometime I wish like there was one sage who had written just letters to everybody, all the great people with power, and had just written letters to them saying that this is what I see. And he knew that nothing is going to really change anything, but he felt like: I did my bit, I did my part in a spiritual brotherhood to help a brother. So he just writes these letters and these letters got published. I try to remember who it was. He didn't share with anyone during the time he was alive, but after he left the body, then people found copies of the letters he had sent. I'm trying to look.
I was just going to say that what I said earlier, that it's not only sometimes that one is thinking—it's not all, or maybe it's not always that we fall when we think we are great or we are special. But we can also fall out of grace or whatever when we think we need to just be someone. But also this thing of being seen and being recognized, what you mentioned, it's so subtly there in our beings, you know? To actually see it, that I have this need to be seen or recognized, or that I am being seen even. Because you are no one actually, if you really feel that, who is seeing you? I mean, and then why are you worried? Like you said, you didn't do that, or why beat yourself up why you did this or that? We can also go on the other side.
So in this, I was just feeling like it's very beautiful when a person like a sage has felt this presence, has felt—I mean, more maybe than the presence, whatever—but that such a person would then speak with such humility. Probably not just speak, I'm sure, why would they just speak? But feel this extent of humility about their actions. That must be then that they are then seeing that they are not that body-mind, they're not that body-mind mechanism, but they do see that that is there and part of the phenomenal world perhaps. But they all then—I've noticed this—that they do say with a lot of humility that I'm not like anything or... it's quite amazing. The whole thing is so complex.
It's very beautiful. You're right that we either imagine or hope that we want to be more seen, but many times we just deluding ourselves in the amount that we think we are seen and how much people are thinking about us or concerned about our thing. It's not... both can be this made up. You're right that the greatest sages with the greatest recognition also talk about how they are foolish beggars. So that's why that distinction, non-distinction—you may try to be in a conceptual denial of it, but at least I have not met anyone who did not also take this remnant of 'for me' to be real from time to time. At least it's not true for this one.
So like one of the first teachers I went to said that this will always be, this tanmatra of ego will always remain. And that's why I shared with you about Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's satsang the other day. He said that this one is very, very smart, this remnant of the ego, and that's why it must always be kept in servitude. I felt very happy when I came across that because I felt like all of you listen at least to him, you know? Because with me you can use the things that you heard in satsang with me only to police me, but at least like Ramakrishna, he will say, okay, he was talking about something to the point of these subtle forms of subtle or gross forms of the ego arising.
Right now what's happening is there's a noticing per minute or per hour, however you want to... the way I think about it is like, I notice this arising of the ego and before it would be like, 'Oh, I still got so much work to do.' Now it's changed, and I'm seeking your guidance here. Now it's changed to, 'Oh, I can only spot the flashlight on the ego,' but then I surrender even there saying, 'Look, you have to help me in reducing it or eliminating it.' I feel I can only spot it, recognize it, and turn to God. I'm not trying to judge myself or fight with it or think, 'Oh, you have work to do.' It's just like almost like a half comedy.
I can relate to that. Yeah, yeah, half comedy. You see this play of the temptress of Maya, you see, and you see that whatever remains of this 'me' engaging with that, and somewhere you see, you notice the foolishness. But it's also a comedy. You're right that you just laugh at it and say, 'Look at this, you're still here like this, what to do?' So sometimes it seems very tragic and sometimes it seems very comic, it's true. But also this is kind of what I was trying to convey when I was saying that this humility is actually very joyful. That the humble playing out of this remnant of the 'me' is much more playful, joyful, than if you become stiff about how you are. You know, that's just too constricted. 'Don't spoil my image, don't say this on camera, let's talk one-on-one offline.' These are symptoms of that kind of thing and that makes us very stiff and unnatural because it becomes about the things of the world, the image in the world, and really we keep forgetting about the only audience that matters.
There is another aspect to the sakshi principle, the principle of the pure witnessing or awareness. See, we forget that the self is ever aware. The self which is 'I' is aware. And if it is not aware, then that never was, in the sense of this what we may take to be true, that never was. And that applies to every breath, every heartbeat. So that Supreme intelligence which is the reality of the self itself, its most primal function is awareness. I'm not able to convey what I want to say so well, but words will come as we go along. Awareness really... where have we come? We come along, whether good or bad, I don't know.
I don't see the Ramacharitmanas. Did we all get them now? Did we get them here? We said, you know, that some of you may not know actually that from 5:00 to 7:00 we'll have satsang and 7:00 to 7:30 we'll have the singing of the Ramacharitmanas and 7:30 to... I wanted to do the Psalms and maybe we can start soon. But it'll be nice to learn how to sing them. Maybe you can just start by saying that, but I'm finding a great beauty in reading it every morning. It's very, very beautiful. It feels very auspicious in the heart.
The Bible, it's a book of the Bible. So the Bible is actually a set of books, not just one book. It's many books, like each of them they call 'The Book of...' so it's like a mini library. And those who are Christian or follow the teachings of the Bible, then for them that library is more than enough. So one of the books is the Book of Psalms, which is the book of prayer written by David, Solomon, and some other people, prophets, but guided by the Holy Spirit itself. It's got a unique texture, it's quite unique. Initially you can be taken aback because some of the prayers are that of like a deep lamentation and you feel like... but you've not seen much of that. But they remind me a lot of Sheikh Farid's poetry. I don't know if you've read or heard Baba Farid, Sheikh Farid.
It's really... it has the effect of the Yoga Vashistha if you read Baba Farid, for example, just in a very different way. Many of his words are like lamentations about the transitory nature of this body and how it is going and, you know, all very, very strong things he says. But you really start to question the nature of reality. You start to question what is permanent, what is impermanent, just in very simple words. And that is the beauty of these sages like Kabir Ji and all these beautiful sages, that they can express so simply that which hits home so deeply and it can be met at so many different levels. So many of the Psalms in the Book of Psalms are like that; they are just lamentations.
The nature of this body and how it is going, and you know, all very, very strong things he says, but you really start to question the nature of reality. You start to question what is permanent, what is impermanent, just in very simple words. And that is the beauty of these sages like Kabir Ji and all these beautiful sages, that they can express so simply that which hits home so deeply. And it can be met at so many different levels. So many of the Psalms in the Book of Psalms are like that; they are just lamentations, and you wonder how could a prophet be so sad? How could he be writing such poetry of lamenting? And then you notice that there's a whole form of spiritual writing that's like that.
Sheikh Farid is one of the spiritual geniuses that I've had the pleasure to come across because he was something else, Sheikh Farid. And the beauty of this is that Sheikh Farid's writings would not have reached us, most likely, if they were not captured by the Sikh Gurus in the Guru Granth Sahib. That is beautiful. Here are the writings of a Muslim Sufi sage whose writings are available to us only because they were captured by the Gurus in the Gurudwaras. They are sung probably much more than where he came from in his country. Which part of the country was he from? Very... there, Kashmir probably? It seems like the frontier parts, could be those parts of the world.
And it is also beautiful, huh? Kisha is going to help, yes, she's going to help with that a little bit. And I was just going to say that between Tulsidas Ji and Rahim Ji, there was a great friendship, a great friendship. And there's a lot of correspondence between both of them. Rahim Ji was blessed with a lot of wealth and things like that, and he would do a lot of charity. Tulsidas Ji was living a very frugal life, so many times when he noticed people in need, he would send them to Rahim Ji with a letter, you know, like a letter of recommendation. So those letters have been stored in archives from the early 1600s, and some of that is available. There's also correspondence between Mirabai and Tulsidas Ji. How open and beautiful they were. It's so beautiful. Yeah, we can search, but I've seen YouTube videos of them being read and what was written and they are captured in the text.
And I was just going to say, how beautiful is it that at the same time when this was happening in India, there was Saint Teresa in Europe and sages like that who were sharing basically very, very similar things about finding God's light in their heart? See, her Interior Castle is basically pointing to the same thing, you see? Continents apart, similar times. And Kabir Ji was one, one and a half generations before them, so a lot of his influence would have come onto all of them as well.
So we said 7:00 we'll read that. 7:00 to 7:30 we said we'll do the Ramacharitmanas. And what we can do is we can read the... we'll see how it flows. And there's no rush. We are not taking a sankalpa to finish it in 30 days or one year, nothing. Just allow it to bloom organically as it has been doing. If later we do japa, we'll see. But the whole main point is to be in God's presence as we read. So the point is not to be great singers, you know, have a great rendition. The point is also not to have our voice be heard. In fact, it will be the most beautiful rendition if the entire Satsang, all of us, can sound as if we have one voice where nothing is standing out. Because initially, we'll also make so many mistakes, you see? That as we sing as one voice, then all of that will be not noticeable.
So sing as one, and just to have God's light shine in our heart in the singing of this prayer. It is a prayer, so to look at it as a prayer, not some sort of other activity. So to pray using the words of a great, great sage, you see, and one of the most humble sages. To pray using his words, and then the words of the great prophets of the Bible also. So just to keep that spirit in our heart, that this is for God, and just to remember that His presence is with us and to sing with that feeling that we are singing to Him. And not to forget that as we sing, and bring ourselves back to that recollection. So we're not singing to impress, we're not singing to do anything else; we are just singing His praises. Well, badly, whatever way Grace makes us function, but to pray to Him and to bow down to Him.
And to learn from this great sage, Tulsidas Ji, who spent his whole life making this beautiful scripture for us to bathe us in the light of Ram Ji, so that we may all experience this life and our life may be transformed in that. So in all reverence, and asking for full forgiveness from those great sages today who know how to pray this scripture much more, much better than us, and who can sing much better than us, who can understand much better than us. Please forgive our attempt and our mistakes as we start this process of learning. And may God bless us all with so much auspiciousness inside, love, devotion, and may He pave the way for us to start today, but also to bless us every time to bring this beautiful scripture into our lives and our hearts.
And we will make a lot of mistakes. We don't know how best to chant, we don't know how to sing the shlokas, we don't know how to do it well, but we'll just start and try and pray to His Grace to bless us and show us the way. So sing with full devotion, remembering His presence, and we are singing only for Him. And don't worry about the mistakes. Everybody has to sing, and nobody has to sing like to be seen. Even if we can't sing, we sing a little bit just to make our voice part of the collective whole. And nobody is singing to stand out or to be seen or to be special in any way, just pure humility.
To say 'Jagat Mithya, Brahma Satyam' as opposed to... Brahman, the one Brahman is the true reality, and this world play, this world appearance, is an illusion, is Maya, is what the sages have told us. But there was a brand of people who used to say that the world is true and all this talk of Brahman is Maya, or God is Maya. So those here are being labeled as the scoffers. And all of us know scoffers in our life who laugh at our faith, who laugh at the idea of God. Those are not just, you see, like a sinner. Like we may create a sense of separation by believing into our thought, so we may sin, we may act in that way, but we haven't lost faith in God. A scoffer is faithless, is saying it's all rubbish.
People, what do you do there? I had one man who told me when I was getting started in spirituality that those who catch a spiritual bug, their life is fully wasted. He was someone that I respected, was much older, but those words stayed with me because he was trying to tell me about not going in too deep, saying that their lives are fully wasted, those who get into spirituality. So those ones who are so deluded and don't really question the nature of reality, those are scoffers. So you don't sit with them. Sit with them, you become one of them, you become a part of that.
And then what happens is that those who are blessed, what happens to their life? Their lives are like they have stability, they have contentment, and within them is what is giving them life, is the Living Water. The true Water of Life is what the spirit... as Jesus told the woman at the well, saying that if you knew who was asking you for water, and if you listened to him, he would give you the Living Water which never ends within your heart. So what is that that Jesus is talking about? The same thing we talk about in Satsang: the living presence of God, the Holy Spirit in our heart. So those ones who are blessed in this way then are blessed with this; they become like trees who are fed by this Living Water and they are not shaken by the vicissitudes of life.
But what do they do to become blessed? They come to an unceasing meditation, it is said, on the law. And unceasing remaining... what is the law? The way that God has told us to follow. The way is also like, if you remember, the way is also of the Tao, the way which cannot be expressed, cannot be spoken. So this law is the way, but it's also pointing to the unceasing prayer which the sages have told us about, the nirantar japa, the nirantar prayer. So then it is said that they meditate on the law day and night. Meditate on the law day and night, which means that they remain in this unceasing prayer. And another way of looking at the law is that to do that which is pleasing to God. Meditating, remaining in that which is pleasing to God day and night. And how do we know what is pleasing? Our inner heart compass tells us, our heart tells us.
So that, and then what happens to those who are ungodly? They are blown away like chaff. Their lives are wasted. So in a way, what we call the zombie life. So they lead a life which is not watered by the Living Water, and their hearts and their life is fully blown away, wasted, like just dust, specks of dust being blown away. That happens to those who are ungodly. And also it is said that they will not be blessed and accepted by Jesus, by God. That when the day of judgment comes, it is said that they will not be... what is that famous one where I quoted a few times where Jesus says, 'You may say to me Lord, Lord, but I will not recognize you. I will not recognize you unless you have followed the will of my Father.' This is in context to that as well.
How what we make God recognize us... like another sage was saying that maybe Hanuman Chalisa or saying, but you never meet the god of death. We live like that. But actually, most of us never live at all because we live this life of being a speck of dust or being a zombie life. Anyway, my intention is not to comment on the Psalms, and just these words just flowed from whatever little I read, but I am not any authority on these beautiful prayers to God. So let's see how it unfolds organically. But it's elusively simple, isn't it? If you just... that's the point I wanted to make actually, which is that if you just read it like that, and if you don't deeply contemplate what is being shared, then it can just seem like, 'Ah, that's nice.' But actually, the depth of the Psalms is they put into very simple words, but the deep meaning of that is more and more we contemplate, the deeper we will find the insights into that. So Psalm 1 is a complete way of the spiritual life inside in just these few words. It's really beautiful.
At church yesterday, the priest, his name is Father Trace, and whenever they read from the book, they carry it above their head and walk down to the altar. And he doesn't touch it while he reads; he just prays. Someone else holds it for him, and he's in prayer position while he reads. And every time before he reads, he says, 'The word of the Lord,' or he'll announce it with, 'This is the word of God,' before reading it, just in reverence to it. And then walks back to the altar with the Bible above his head. So beautiful. Yeah. And it's so... because we were talking about this whole surrounding ourselves in Satsang in the sense of being with that which reminds us of God, immerses us in God, versus keeping ourselves in the bad company of our selfish thoughts, of our grasping nature. So this one Psalm covers all of that: the way of the spiritual life as well as the fruits of a spiritual life. Yeah, such simple, simple, but elusively simple words. If we don't contemplate, it can just seem like, 'Okay, that was not so great,' you know? It can sound too simplistic. Actually, it has a lot of depth.
Yes. Yeah, some of you shared some resistance, and it's natural, it'll happen. But not so much compared to the ideas. The ideas came a lot more; I could literally sense it in the room. But today is... so you trusted me with the ideas, now just a little more trust with this and we see where we go with all of this.