The Antidote to Every Situation Is God’s Presence - 12th February 2025

Yes, please. I can relate to what you are saying. I feel like I always thought with inquiry, this is how I feel myself in this worldly life, I guess kind of a practical approach. But as soon as the truth touches my heart, I'm just always surprised how this heartful part takes over. It just—all I want is to give everything to this. Okay, another layer or something. Yeah, a more beautiful one.

Yes, it's a beautiful, beautiful report. Thank you. Thank you. And we are not yet making a position even about that. We are just allowing the love to guide us. And you may find that tomorrow or next year, you may be from that loving, holy place, you may be asking yourself the question again: 'Who am I?' You see? So it's very beautiful because both are together. Both bring us to His holy chamber in our heart. The true intuition flowers where He is teaching us both the highest insight and the highest love.

It's not really a question, but is it—can you hear me? This morning when you asked us to make a promise to God not to think or not to worry about the topic for the day, and I feel like I broke that promise and now I feel guilty about that.

No, no. But while it lasted, how was it? Good. That's important because you taste how it is. You taste how it is. The promise is just to strengthen our intention. And we can all promise never to be tempted by Maya again, but can we live up to that promise? We can't. I decide never going with the mind again, never going with Maya, never to be tempted by any of that. But I feel often, you see, that just to give power to the intention. See, never—because if you already say, 'I'm going to fail, I know,' then there's no real power in that. So the idea is not guilt, but to reinforce the intention again.

I tried to do that. There's too much. I tried to renew the intention, but wasn't really working. I don't know.

Let's see now. Let's renew it now. It can feel a bit strange, but then the mind calls us with conclusions and interpretations. We just have to get used to letting them go. It's a bit like—I feel if I try to intend not to do something, like that would be even more attractive for my mind to go that way. Who's saying that? It's again coming from here. So know that you notice that there are two forces at play: one is attention and the second is belief. So if I tell you, 'Don't bring your attention to an orange,' it comes. 'Don't bring your attention to the pink elephant,' you see, so it comes. But if I say, 'Don't believe you are an orange' or 'Don't believe you are a pink elephant,' it's easier, isn't it? So what I'm asking for is not a withdrawal of attention; it's a withdrawal of belief, which is much easier than attention. And if it is still difficult, use your prayer or use your inquiry. Maybe it is higher to use the prayer, maybe it is higher to use the inquiry. Whatever tool, maybe just use your love for God and remain anchored in that. And very simple is just keep your forehead relaxed. If your only intention is to keep your forehead relaxed, everything else happens on its own. Try just keep your forehead—this part, you know, usually we are squeezing some juice out of our mind there. So you just keep it relaxed. And you don't have to understand anything. We don't have to fix anything, don't have to resolve anything. And our faith helps us. If you remember that even Maya is God's Maya, then God is controlling it. What do you have to do about anything? And be patient with yourself. Be patient with yourself. Be forgiving with yourself. There's a difference between making excuses for ourselves and being forgiving with ourselves. So don't allow the mind to make excuses to run away from God, but once we fall, remember that all of us fall. There's nobody in this room who doesn't fall. At least I feel I fall a hundred times every day, but I try to get up. That's all. And then it becomes more and more natural because it's a completely new way of life. We spent all our lives since we were probably two years old to where we are now living in this way where the mind seems like ourselves, the voice of 'me' and guiding us, telling us what to do, telling us right from wrong. Now suddenly—so we used crutches all our lives and suddenly this strange man comes to you and says, 'No, you don't need them. Leave it.' You see? So it takes some time to get that confidence. So the most valuable thought that you feel it offers you, inquire into its nature and see that it's not true. And if it is true, then only God's will makes it true. So if God's will is making it true, then we don't have to contribute to His will in the sense that if your mind is being very spiritual, for example, and saying, 'Oh, but even using words of Satsang...' So let's take this for example: I said promise that you will not worry about the topic for the day, which your mind is giving you now. The mind can use that itself to oppress you by saying, 'See, you promised, you're not doing well, you're doing badly.' So that is the checker guy, the spiritual advisor sitting in your head who takes the words of Satsang and pretends to help you but actually oppresses you again in a new spiritual way. So just whatever it is, just let it go. See, unless it is God, it is the remembrance of God who leads you to the holy place within. So if it is God's name, if it is Ram Ram Ram or Ma Ma, whatever it may be, if it brings you to that inner temple, then it is fine. And it's a lifetime project. So although you hear that it has to be done instantly—because instantly it has to be done for us to say that we led a spiritual life—it needs a lifetime to pass before it can be said. Sometimes, every time actually, every day life gives us particular situations. But remember that the antidote to every situation is God's presence. Otherwise, it is situation after situation after situation after situation, topic after topic after topic after topic. There is no end to it. So leave everything to God and allow God to move you. Whatever you take yourself to be, some may take God's body to be the entire universe. So allow Him to move the universe, which He is. Is this body not contained in that universe? It is contained. Do you feel that this whole play is moving? But the non-existent ego can decide that 'I will move in a different way'? No, not really. And yet, because love is not forced—God doesn't force us to love Him—He gives us the seeming choice, which is an important seeming choice to make, which is to love Him. What to do with the ones that we love in the world? If you can't hand over, if that love doesn't emanate from God's love and God's will moving you in that way, if it is not a subset, a smaller part of the greater love, the universal love for God, then it is the worldly attachment. Love is not love unless it is about God. Yeah. So in the two force fields of Maya and Atma, what are the representations? The representations are 'me' or God. Maya is the 'me' coming. Atma is when we focus on God. So now then, which constructs are valuable for us? Which notions, which piece of language, which message is valuable for us? It's that which reminds you to go towards God. And what is not valuable for us? That which becomes about 'me'. So the words of Satsang can be used either way. It can be used as spiritual pride, conceptual understanding. So don't get into any intellectual spirituality. Keep your spirituality really simple. The simpler it is, the less you will become proud about it and the more effective it will be to keep you innocent for God. Becoming innocent for God is very close to being empty for God. And spiritually, to conceptually become a pandit is very far from God. To know a lot is not really close to God. Why do you need God if you already know everything? To remain innocent, remain simple. Maharaj is such a simple man in education, in lifestyle, and work, everything. You can't imagine. In the line of holy sages like Ananta, there's a simple bidi seller who has not completed his education, maybe fourth standard, fifth standard something, if at all. And here what he's sharing from his heart, from that holy place, is guiding people every day on the path of Advaita Vedanta, which is so amazing, isn't it? Because once you see it, once you see it in the heart, not as perception, but once you see the truth, you recognize the truth in your heart, then to speak about it doesn't need any reference to what we've understood in the past. It is fresh and alive. Easier than counting the people sitting in front of you is to narrate the truth about what is happening truly inside. So remain simple. And if your aspiration is to share God, then He will provide the words. He will provide the insight. All the words will also be given to you. So remember that the intention of the pointer is to not make you into somebody special but lead you towards innocence and towards God. Like Saskia said, the more time you spend eating—and we'll talk about eating again, some of you may not know what I'm saying—the more time you spend eating, all the right qualities will also show up for you. All the virtues, patience, faith, everything will come. So most of us in the world, when we are thinking about spirituality, we are thinking about the active doing part of spirituality: to take God's name, to do the inquiry, to do our reading, whatever the practice may be. But that is the cooking part. It's very important to cook because if you don't cook, then what will you eat? You see? But because this world is full of doership and activity and progress and ambition and things like that, we don't actually—we think the cooking part is it, you see? If you never eat the food... we were talking about it the other day, that this food must be eaten fresh. God must be eaten fresh. God must be tasted fresh. So you just kept doing 'Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?' but you never actually waited and checked. You didn't let the question propel you deep within into insight. Or you kept doing prayer, you kept doing that, but you never actually meet Spirit. Then we are tending towards spirituality, but we are not actually becoming spiritual. There's no spirituality without Atma. And also it is a sign of pride. We may not realize it, but if you just do, do, do, do, do, and you feel like, 'What can God do now? I have done,' you see? So why don't we take out at least a little bit of time and say, 'Okay, now God, You show me what is Your will'?

The question is: Does it propel you deep within, or you kept doing prayer, you kept doing that, but you never actually meet Spirit? Then we are tending towards spirituality, but we are not actually becoming spiritual. There's no spirituality without Atma. And also, it is a sign of pride. We may not realize it, but if you just do, do, do, do, do, and you feel like, 'What can God do now? I have done,' you see? So why don't we take out at least a little bit of time and say, 'Okay, now God, you show me what is Your will.' If in a relationship you're the only one talking, then where will that relationship go? So what is God trying to teach you? What is He trying to show you? So, how to do the eating? By being empty of ourselves. The whole cooking is so that we can become empty of 'me' and to remain, to abide empty of 'me' with the eating. And where He takes us is His will. But can we be empty for Him? Can we trust Him without being demanding—'You have to do this for me, you have to show me who I am'?

Maybe all that is part of the cooking; it's fine. But once you come to the eating, no intention left. Innocent like an infant, simple. The more time you spend like this, the more you make yourself available to God. Saint Teresa of Avila has made a promise to us. She said when you leave yourself, then He works in your heart. Can there be a greater promise? He works in your heart. What does He do? He cleans you up. He bathes you from inside, like the mother bathing a child. He bathes you from inside, cleans you up. All your pride and lust and all of these things which make it about 'me, me, me' get cleaned up. Clean up. Patience grows, faith grows, and then inside flowers Atma Gyan, self-knowledge. Love flowers—true love, unconditional—where we are able to say that, 'God, I belong to You and I know that You belong to me.'

So do your practices. It's very good to cook, and also leave yourself empty. If it becomes difficult, if you get distracted while being empty, then do remind yourself of God's name again, or ask yourself 'Who am I?' again. See, return to that quiet place. Don't let your pride come into the picture that, 'I will just... I'm able to eat without cooking. I don't need any practice now,' you see? It's not true. At least I have not seen that to be true for anyone, especially not for this one, at least. Sometimes by God's grace you get moments where you could be caught up in some worldly thing and suddenly He pulls you into the Heart. That's a gift; that's not something we can do.

The other thing to be careful about is expectation during emptiness. Because, 'Oh, Ananta says this will happen, this will happen. I'm just sitting here getting bored, nothing is happening,' is it? And that is very good for humility. God knows how much to show us, to give us. He knows if He gives us too much, suddenly we'll get very proud immediately. So He knows best. He also knows when to make us proud and get slapped. So it's not that He won't make us proud. So all that learning process is important for us, but we can trust Him. There is no guarantee, and that is why spirituality is the most crushing for the ego, because no matter what you do, ultimately it is a question of Grace. What He provides to you is His Grace, His Mercy. We are never entitled to anything from Him, just like a grain of sand is never entitled to anything from the sun. And our relationship with God is smaller than that. We are smaller than that, whatever we take ourselves to be.

And that is why examples of Ma Shabri, Hanuman Ji, who waited for decades patiently. So we are not to get disheartened in a few minutes. Ma Shabri waited for decades and decades, and people came and laughed at her. Sadhus came and laughed at her, said, 'Your master told you... enlightened you... come with us, we are going to some other great loka,' said some other great realm. Her master told her, 'Come, come, you have Mukti, you come with me.' She said, 'No, I know in my heart that Lord Ram will come.' And then alone, all the rest of her sangha went; she stayed back alone waiting for her Ram. Everybody laughed at her. Sadhus laughed at her and said, 'How do you really know?' So these stories, these historical facts—we can't really call them stories—are meant to inspire us. And thankfully God in His mercy is not asking anyone to wait 60 years like Ma Shabri. We can give it at least two, three years.

So many of you may be studying or may have studied. Did you say within six months that, 'Give me my engineering degree' or 'Give me my doctorate' or 'Give me my accounting degree'? No, you said, 'Yeah, it takes time.' But we feel like attainment of God, the highest Ishwar-prapti, should be that? The field has to be worked before the seeds can sprout and you can harvest. You're busy building other types of wealth: material wealth, wealth of worldly relationships, wealth of bodily strength, wealth of conceptual understanding. But what is the wealth that will last you beyond death? All this is going. Suppose you read the entire set of Upanishads and you memorized every Sanskrit verse, then when you die, what will happen to you? God knows. So what is that eternal wealth which is promised to us by God Himself in all His incarnations, whether it is Ram, Krishna, Jesus, all the great sages, gurus? What is that eternal wealth which they have promised? That is the spiritual wealth.

So what is the chance that each and every one of these great sages was lying, and also the incarnations also lied? A big conspiracy? There's no chance, because this is from all parts of the world where there was not even communication; they could not even conspire together, you see? So sages like Kabir Ji must be telling us the truth. It should be a wake-up call for all of us. The opportunity does not come again and again. It should take us out of our complacence. So how to build our spiritual wealth? Cook, cook, cook, and then eat. And don't forget to eat, because cooking can be very prideful. It can be. It's very sweet mostly, but it can become prideful. But that naked innocence of leaving yourself empty for God, that is important.

And again, I'm not saying it's so cut and dry that, 'Okay, now this was the cooking phase, now this is the eating phase.' It's just a way to explain. Like every time you take the Holy Name, whatever resonates with you in your heart, if you say 'Ram,' can anyone say that they said 'Ram' and they only cooked and didn't eat? It is bound to have that heart-opening effect. So it does happen. But after a few malas of saying 'Ram,' it's best to be with Him and say, 'Okay, Ram Ji, what would You have me do? What is Your will for me?' Would Hanuman be Hanuman if he just said 'Ram, Ram'? Ram Ji is saying, 'Go get that Sanjeevani booti from the mountain.' So obedience to God, following His will, is important, you see?

Also, sometimes what may happen is that cooking becomes very enjoyable for us, which is good that it becomes enjoyable, you see? Then we lose interest in following God's will because He may take us in another direction. A bhakta may be so enjoying the rasa of bhakti, the nectar of bhakti, that if God says, 'Find out who you are,' they may say, 'No, no, just let me enjoy the nectar.' A jnani may be so caught up in their inquiry that they get a reminder that, 'Do you really love God? Have you surrendered yourself to God?' and say, 'What kind of low spirituality is that? I'm talking about Brahman, you're talking about Shabri.' So you must not get into any of these shapes. So if you look at the lives of Sita Ma, Hanuman Ji, all the bhaktas of Ram, they made themselves available to Him and to follow His will with a great, deep love for Him.

And what is the only determinant? Like we were saying last time, how much time are you intending to only be with God? It's only about God every day. And my feeling is, at least I have to say in my case, if it is not two hours to four hours every day, then my spirituality is just lip service, just big talk about loving God with no actual intention to be with the Beloved. And I say intention because outcome is up to Grace. But did we say that, 'This time only belongs to You'? We may feel, we often feel when we decide that this time is only for You, that is when the mind comes with the most important-seeming thing. But every time we get distracted and return to God saying, 'Yes, this is the way,' the mind plays; it tries to pull us away, but I return to You in my heart. I offer myself to You. In that time, you don't belong to any other relationship, you don't belong to any other commitment, you only belong to God. At least in that time, say, 'I only belong to You.' And when I only belong to You, then I can say that You are mine, maybe. But what do we do? We want Him to be ours all the time. I said, in how many minutes in a day are you okay for God not to help you, be with you? Not even a single minute. If He leaves us, we are in big trouble. So we want Him to be ours while we are busy belonging to the world, belonging to everything in Maya. So let's start with at least two to four hours. You belong only to God. No family, no work, no body. We literally nobody, have to be nobody.

Any other question? Yeah. What does it mean to live in God's will?

To live in God's will, yes. Now suppose that you hired a new employee. You hired a new employee and the employee is doing some work, they're doing some, and they've been with you six months, but they've never actually asked you for time and they've actually never met you and said, 'Okay, Amrind, what do you want me to do?' Huh? But they presumed what they think you want and they're going on doing their stuff. In your kindness, in your mercy, you may give them some points for that. But would you tell them, if they asked you, 'Was I not doing your will?' You would say, 'But you never met me. When did you meet me to know what my will is?'

See, because sometimes my will is for you to wait like Shabri in the most innocent way, and another time my will is for you to fight like Arjun. But if you just determine for yourself that, 'This is my path, it is the Arjun path or the Shabri path,' then whose will are you actually following? See? So the most important part about following God's will is to live in His presence, to be in His presence. And to be in His presence, that's why I'm saying at least two to four hours every day to live empty of 'me,' empty of ourselves, empty of all other relationships, connections, topics, resolving things, all of that, and to just make yourself available to God. Do you feel that to make yourself available to God, you made yourself available but He would not understand that you did that? Suppose you could... you couldn't do it wrong, because He is the Supreme Intelligence. He always knows every intention that we have. So in whatever way we make that moment of time for God, for Him, 'Lord, what would You have me do? What is Your will for me? What is Your hukum?' is it? Then He knows your intention is to follow His hukum.

So I would say that for a while it's good to treat it like almost like a human relationship. To treat it: how much time have we spent with Him? How much we understood Him? How much have we emptied ourselves of ourselves to make ourselves an instrument of His will? So to be with Him, to ask Him for direction, to say, 'I won't move; either You move me or You tell me what to do.' Can we even make that much seeming sacrifice? The world will say don't. The world will say there's so much things to do. Your own mind will say you're becoming a loser, see? So the most innocent expressions of offering ourselves to God are all... is all that is needed. So designate, maybe to help, designate a certain time every day. Tell the world, 'I'm not yours, I'm God's. I don't have any relationship with you, I have no connection with you.' Don't have to tell them that; that's your inner... don't want to make it more difficult for yourself. So, but basically that is your inner intention: that in my truth I belong to God. Whatever I am in my Ultimate Reality, I am that, but as long as it seems like there is a separate 'me' floating around, then that 'me' must belong to God. So in your most innocent expression, just sit down and say, 'I'm Yours.' Then He will move you, you see? Usually starts with Him moving you and then you start hearing His voice. You start hearing the Atma within guiding you. That is how sages like Nisargadatta Maharaj, uneducated man, bidi seller, has...

Basically, that is your inner intention: that in my truth, I belong to God. Whatever I am in my Ultimate Reality, I am that. But as long as it seems like there is a separate me floating around, then that me must belong to God. So, in your most innocent expression, just sit down and say, 'I'm yours.' Then He will move you. You see, usually it starts with Him moving you, and then you start hearing His voice. You start hearing the Atma within guiding you. That is how sages like Nisargadatta Maharaj, an uneducated man, a bidi seller, has written the literal Bible for Advaita called 'I Am That'—because the words are not his; they are the Atma's words. That's how all the scriptures have been written. The compilation of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji are all words of the Atma itself from the mouths of these great sages. Same for the Bible. So, empty, empty of 'me,' we wait in love and patience for God to move us and God to guide us.

Start with one hour, make it two hours; the more you can make it, the better it is. And to remember that if you're facing—the word was right there, this is called brain fog—so if you're facing problems in your spirituality, distractions in your spirituality, remember that to encounter that maybe the best use of the two hours. Don't put yourself down if you had two hours of very distracted practice or one hour of very distracted practice. Know that the mind distracted you. Maya came with all its might, you see. Maya came and danced in front of you. Maybe you went for a moment, you got enamored by the beauty, but then you remembered and you returned. Isn't it? Then you remembered again, something came up, you went, and then you remembered and you returned.

So, in those two hours, St. John of the Cross said that in that time where you had a very distracted time, you actually did a hundred acts of love towards God. If you were undistracted, then you would just do one act of love towards God. But every time you return to God, it is an act of love that you did. So beautiful, so beautiful. So then, we are not to get disheartened because some days are very difficult. There's so much happening in the world, there's so much. But that is our faith in God. Would we rather that God runs our life or that our mind runs our life? So, to live in God's will is to empty ourselves of our will and to wait patiently for Him to guide us.

First, we have to make a call. Are we like the Kauravas or the Pandavas? One to one, Krishna said one of you can have my entire army, all my resources; the other one, He said that the other side will have Me, but I will not even fight, I will just be a charioteer. So, can we leave all of the things of the world and say, 'I only want God'? Then God becomes your charioteer. We become Arjuna. But if we want His things also and we want Him also, then it's not a true spirituality. If you're living in God's presence, tell me your problem. His light is in your heart, the unperceivable light which is recognized only through the teaching of the Atma within. If He is right here in this way, what problem can you have? And we are collecting things in the world only so that one day we won't have a problem. It's only basically that I should have enough, I should have enough. But in 'my' eye, it is never enough.

So there comes a moment, and may this be the moment, where you say, 'Nothing. I want nothing except You.' Even if you feel like it's partly lip service right now, just make that commitment. See, because these things pick up momentum of their own. Just like our distracting thoughts can pick up more and more momentum of distraction, our thoughts which bring—that's why I said the pointer is valuable if it takes you towards God. So just like kusang leads to more kusang, satsang leads to more satsang. And it is your inward bad company or good company that is important. If you keep the company of Godly things inside, then godliness will grow. If you keep the company of worldly things inside, then worldly things will grow, Maya things will grow.

What is your temple full of? What is the heart temple for? How many photos of you and how many photos of God? You know what I mean by photos. How much are you filling yourself with 'me, me, me' and how much are you filling yourself with 'God, God, God'? And if you want God to live there—suppose you wanted, it's strange that sometimes it does happen in this world—suppose you had a satsang hall where there was nothing about God, just photos of you everywhere. That is stupidity. So your heart, your inner temple, what is it obsessed with? Me, me, me, me. Clean up, clean up, clean up, clean up before it's too late, because this world play is going to go soon. It seems like there's a lot of time, but there isn't.

Yes, it's related to that what you said. Can there be a problem in God's presence? Is there, can there be a problem when God's presence is there? Presence, I'm not sure, but like the other day I noticed, so I felt I was trying to follow God's will and in that process I was getting late to satsang, getting late to satsang. And I was feeling like agitated.

And God was making you late for satsang?

I felt that, yeah. I could be deluded, but it's possible. Yeah, but I also try to look at it there, like the whole point of you feeling that you just want to say you don't want to move, like you don't want to—no, it was how late I left. I was in my room, then something happened and not yet, not leave.

What is the God's will part?

God's part is like I could have booked an Uber, I could have taken some auto, paid something and reached, but somehow I didn't feel while you were in God's presence.

Presence? I don't know. While your intention was to be with God, all these things happen? Is that what you mean?

Like I felt I was connected to God and I was just trusting.

You felt you were connected and I just—but that wasn't enough? Like I felt like—are you what I'm saying? I'm saying there was a problem.

Yeah, I don't know if it's the presence, but something related to it.

If you were connected to God, you were already in satsang.

This is what I told myself, but I still felt something. It didn't really feel that way because you were doubting your connection or I don't—I don't know.

What is satsang for? There's nothing so great in this body, especially these days, for anyone to see now. So satsang is so that we can gather together and come into the company of God's presence, to the Atma's presence. So if you feel like you are living in that way, of course. Especially on this topic, we have to be very careful because many times what does the mind want more than anything? To cut us out from our teacher's view and the teacher's view from us. It wants that more than anything else. And okay, now once the support of Ananta is gone, then I will deal with him, I will sort him out, you see. But once we are together—not saying from any place of arrogance—but if we are together, then it's much more difficult for Maya to play that game.

So on this topic, you have to be really careful. But if you're clear in your heart that you're spending that time in God's presence and you're getting half an hour late for satsang, it's fine.

It feels more intense in satsang, that connection.

Then come, then come. Because this is the topic in which you have to be really careful of Maya's decree. When Maya played like that woman for Narada Ji, distracting him, that woman was not saying, 'I'm going to make you forget about Krishna.' She was not saying, 'I'm going to attack your spirituality and make you forget about it.' See, like a hypnotic forgetfulness comes in which it feeds you messaging. So you have to be really careful where it is coming from. It's okay, that is gone. So leave that. You can't do a post-mortem, like there's no way you can go back into that moment: 'Was I really in God's presence?' You just have to be in this moment in God's presence.

Very importantly, St. Teresa of Avila said, 'Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing disturb you.'

I thought it was just the presence itself that doesn't let you get disturbed.

I'm saying that right now, if this topic is disturbing you, leave it. 'Let nothing disturb you' is the same as 'don't believe your next thought,' but it sounds more palatable. So let's go with that. 'Don't believe your next thought' can sound like a very difficult thing to do.

I met a butcher today in the guise of a—or a physiotherapist. They wrongly advertised; I should put a Google review for him. I'm just kidding. He told me that unless he does it at this much intensity, no benefit will come to the body. So it's—I told him, 'You have patients who have this condition and all?' Like, 'No, not really.' Something. Now, I was saying that—sorry, slight digression—there was something called a nerve conduction study which I came back and reported is the most painful thing a human can endure. And then some of you said that it's not that much. And I didn't realize at that time it's what the body is going through makes the pain levels feel so much more. But today's was five times more than that.

Yeah, fibromyalgia is the label. I don't know. I know it's a big black box of a label. Most people don't believe there's such a thing. Most doctors don't believe there's such a thing. But I know that, like, I was going through some needle thing and I've done that in the past and seemed absolutely fine. But in that, the needle felt like it's so painful that I lost consciousness and went to Manali. Now, all doctors between Bangalore and Pune have tested every organ of the body and they've not, by God's grace, found anything big wrong with any of the organs. And yet there is so much pain, stiffness, fatigue, all of that, that we don't have to use a label 'fibromyalgia,' but if it's a quick way to explain what is happening, then that's what it is.

I had that feeling. I felt very happy about this one fact: that when I read her autobiography—and you know, I feel very, very close to her in my heart, I feel somewhere that if she would just adopt me, you know, then that is enough. So when I read her autobiography and I read even 'Interior Castle,' the kind of references she makes to pain in the body seem very similar. So that at least gives me some hope. St. Joseph, that's true. Thank you, thank you, thank you. In fact, it's a beautiful story. And in India also, we say that we can pray to Nanda or Yashoda. Yes, we can pray to all of them because God is very stable in His nature. And when He came as a child as Krishna—and she talked about St. Joseph—so as Krishna, He will always listen to His parents. And I don't know how much He listened to Yashoda, but so it's a beautiful way to pray that, 'Your son was such an obedient child, and I pray to you to seek your intercession.'

It is this innocence, no? To the educated spiritual mind, it sounds like, 'What are you saying?' But if you dive into it, it's very beautiful. Like, where is—we can be pretty certain, let's take for example, say Tulsidas Ji merged into Lord Ram. That is, if there's a guarantee about anything, we can guarantee that this happened. But do you feel like in this merging that they would lose the awareness of the time that they spent here, or lose awareness of who is remembering them right now? It's not a merging into dissolution. It's like finding your true home and becoming a part of that, becoming a part of the body. So I have full faith that all the sages of the past, if you remember them, they listen to you. They hear you, because time and space is not a thing for them anymore. They are with God.

So when we invoke sages, when we invoke Tulsidas Ji, Mirabai, she's with us, she's hearing us, and she's with God. St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, all of them, they are available to us to teach us. I mean, if this sounds too much for today, I think don't worry about it too much. But if you really contemplate this, you will see that a dissolution cannot be that now you are in time and space and all the past you have forgotten. It's not true. Things that in the world we call clairvoyance and all of these things are naturally with them because they are with God. So whichever sage resonates with you in your heart, you can ask them for help at any time. All of this needs simple innocence. And we're not getting into Catholics versus Protestants and all of those debates, whatever.

Don't think about it too much, but if you really contemplate this, you will see that a dissolution cannot be. That now you are in time and space and all the past you have forgotten is not true. Things that in the world we call clones and all of these things are naturally with them because they are with God. So whichever Sage resonates with you in your heart, you can ask them for help at any time. All of this needs simple innocence, and we're not getting into Catholics versus Protestants and all of those debates. Whatever is your faith, you follow that. I'm just telling you that for me, it is impossible that Tulsidas Ji does not see who is remembering him right now. Then how is Hanuman Ji aware of it? Both are with God, no? It's like you keep praying to him and he's like, 'I'm merged into God, why are you calling me?' It can't be that way, yeah.

The simplest way to look at it is that God encourages our faith, so this helps our faith. He makes it so. If you get too much of our intellect into it, then it seems far-fetched. If it is rational, we don't need faith. So what is the difference between blind faith and true faith? True faith is that which you get from inner insight, heart insight. Blind faith is that which is mostly because of fear and mental oppression, so that is superstition. So you have to be true to your heart. If you say, 'Any of you there, but my heart says it's different,' then you have to go with that. But God is making sure of one thing: that everything I scoffed at when I was younger, now I have faith in almost everything. More and more will also be shown. I'm sure that everything that I found absurd and ludicrous and illogical and stupid, that I scoffed at, now I feel the value in that. And what do you think about our God? That we are in our faith, we are praying to Tulsidas Ji and he says, 'No, no, he's no longer there, I'm not going to listen to you'? He is not that unkind.

So it is said, and Jesus also said that, but Hanuman Ji has said that anytime anybody, especially in a gathering of a few, three or more, gathers and remembers him or Lord Ram, then he also joins us. What do you feel about that? There's something in Hindi, you know, I don't know the exact... as is your faith, such is your experience, huh? In the Ramacharitmanas, what other source can we want?

Through the Ramacharitmanas, I was just wondering about the rasa of the Bhakta and the Atma, that when I'm feeling the sweet goodness in my heart, that is also rasa. Like in the sense I'm praying, but also at the same time there's a receiving of... so I could tell the difference. So it's subtle, it's quite subtle.

So sometimes we may enjoy a Bhajan like a piece of music, so we just enjoy the piece of music, so the Ananda is coming or rasa is coming. Sometimes when we hear a Bhajan, the music may not be that great, the singing may be very raw, but you feel like it's pulling at your devotion, it's tugging at your heartstrings. Do you feel that Bhajan? Sometimes the words of the Bhajan lead you into that inside, that holy place we've been talking about, where you're in that unnameable, unspeakable place and where there is no taste which we can testify to, but it is the highest taste. So that can also be like Brahmananda. So that's why with Ananda, it's very confusing sometimes. We have to be careful of the objectives of Ananda and any attachment to that.

But the joy of God's presence, the bliss of God's presence, or the bliss of the Nirguna bliss, which is like comparable to the bliss of sleep... you may be hearing the most pleasant music or watching the most pleasant things in the world, but when sleep comes, like Papaji said, when sleep comes you want to sleep, you want to leave that. Papaji said you could be in the arms of your beloved on your wedding night, you see, but when sleep comes you just want to sleep even then. But the true determinant of what we must do is what is God's will for us. We cannot be the headmaster of our spirituality. The Atma has to be the headmaster of our spirituality. We are in the gurukul of the Satguru Atma. Okay, we'll call it a day.

Thank you. I just want to say something about my this apparent condition of the body, so you don't feel bad for me, because there's actually nothing to feel bad for. Because really the intention and the feeling here is of more and more gratitude, because I feel like my prayer life has deepened so, so much in this process. My surrender to God has deepened so much in this process, and I'm so grateful that God sent this body this, because it's really, really good. It's not pleasant, not fun, but I feel like this is really drawing me more and more in love with him and building on my real life, my kindness, my compassion—all of those things are being helped in the process. So know that I'm grateful and I'm not lamenting.

You remind me when I was telling you about the Bhajans which don't necessarily sound good. So my favorite Bhajan right now is from Swami Ram. I'll just play it for all of you.

So we can end with this, Father, also shared with... so this is when Bharat is with all the Ayodhya people and all the queens going to see Ram and find Ram, trying to find Ram and bring him back. That's where he crosses Prayagraj and he met Rishi Bharadwaj there. And all the time he is full of guilt that his Lord Ram and Sita Ji and Lakshman have to face all the difficulty just because of him, because of him. And then there are various ways that he's praying to everyone, and one of the prayers says—Father, I will talk directly in Hindi—he says even if himself, Shri Ram, thinks that I am a crook, but I still want to increase my love at his feet, Father. So I don't know what level of prayer is this, Father.