The Game Is to Offer Yourself Up Fully, it Is a Full-Time Job - 24 June 2024

Like for most of our brothers and sisters in the world, they want to live as objects in the world in Maya. They don't want to be Maya-mukt, free from Maya. Now where are you in that? Do you want to be in Maya, take yourself to be an object within Maya, and then look at God for assistance? Which is all right, which is not fully, fully out of it because at least you're looking at God for assistance. Or are you looking at living in His house, which is the place, the dwelling place of the Atma within yourself, with whatever little outer connection? What's your intention? And I'm talking about not right now when I'm asking this question in satsang—everybody will say that, you see—but in day-to-day life, in that which you call usual life, what do you want to do?

Okay, now I want to tell you all that it seems scary to take that call because it'll seem like, 'Oh, I have responsibilities, I have things to do, I have money to make, I have relationships. What will happen?' And what if I told you that everything that is auspicious that happens, happens when you are there anyway, in the right place? And all the trouble that we create for ourselves, all the suffering, all the pain in this human condition, is when we are involved or grasping at the wrong things then. And I'm still not talking about those of you who are thinking that 'I don't know how to live there,' is it? I'm still asking about what is your intention? What is the project of your life? What do you really want?

So just quite recently, just a few months ago, I really truly felt that I could surrender. Because till now, I in my heart, I was asked many times but I just couldn't. I didn't want to give off that control. I wanted to have my own way. And then I would forget, you know, that I don't know what I'm saying. But just recently, like it's like really, really want to surrender. I mean, I don't want that control but...

And okay, surrender is a good way to put it, but let's put it another way: that you are living in God's light independent of what is showing up in Maya. Not even the surrenderer or the process of surrender.

So now after doing, starting to do the ads releases, I want... like my intention is to live in God's presence as much as it... I mean, whatever effort it's taking, it's taking. And then I find that sometimes the more I hear about God, like when reading, there's a big resistance. I mean, it's like, 'Have you gone?' you know, whatever it says. But now I'm trying not to believe it. I'm trying really just not believe it at all. That voice is just the wrong one. And it's really now in my heart to just come home now. It's like, you know, I'm just praying. Really had enough. Don't want any more of this merry-go-round or whatever, or control or will. I don't want any will anymore.

Okay, very good. So let's put this in two ways. The first way is that have we found God in our heart? Have we come to Atma, Atma? That's the first question. And this is not a test because there's no passing or failing in this, no? So that is the first. And the second is that those who have, or they at least believe or think that they have, then they definitely don't have an excuse. They have to live with Him, you see? It's like you looked for Ram all your life or looked for Krishna all your life and then you found Him, but you are not being with Him. You're not spending your life with Him. So do we want our life to be completely committed to the discovery of the Atma, the Holy Spirit, the Satguru presence within our heart, or we have a Plan B? And if you have a Plan B, I want to know what that Plan B is. What is Plan B?

It's all right if you hadn't come to satsang where you did not hear about Plan A, that you could come to God's presence and light and live your whole life in that presence, you see? So if you hadn't heard it, then you hadn't heard it, you see? But Grace has made sure that you hear it now. What's your move? Are you going to keep postponing or keep taking baby steps, is it? Where what it needs is a full commitment, a full-hearted resolve to let go of the 'me,' let go of the lawyer of 'my,' which is the mind, and to just devote yourself inwardly to Bhagavat-prapti, to finding God in the form of His presence called the Atma within, or the Holy Spirit within.

Suppose that you really wanted to go to Bombay and become a film star, huh? But you got to Bombay and you didn't get out of your house. Then are you working on what you really wanted? So now you've got to Bombay in the sense you've come to satsang, you see? And now the project is the opposite. So from trying to be a star or something special, you have to become a nobody so that God can be given space in your life. And only God can be given space in your life. And that remaining empty of the 'me,' that allowing these thoughts full of Maya to come and go, that inquiry, that prayer, that surrendering to God, that loving God with all our heart, that living in servitude to God is going to seem like effort most of the time. But it doesn't seem like effort most of the time because most of the time we forget about what the project is.

So then when we forget about what the project is, then we are just trying to make this living hell of living in Maya's operation... we are just trying to make that seem palatable or manageable. But the true transformation of your life will come from your full commitment, full intention. Does that mean that you have to become a sadhu, leave your work, leave your family? No. I'm not a sadhu. I maybe look like one, but I have family, I have work. So all those things can go on, but your heart must belong to God. Who does your heart belong to right now? It mostly belongs to the 'me,' to the ego. Who does your life belong to right now? It belongs to the 'me,' to the ego. Even your spirituality you want for 'me.' So the game is to offer yourself up fully, if that is what you mean by surrender. But it is a full-time job. It's a full-time job. And this job you can do while your other jobs are going on. Then we have a chance to find God, to find the Atma within.

Then you may say that, 'Yes, this is what I really want, but I don't know how.' But the 'how' has been given to you in the form of the prayer, in the form of the inquiry, in the form of all the tools that you have in satsang. What will you exchange for God? And what are you exchanging for God? Not exchanging... I exchange so much of God for 'my' every day. I exchange every day. Maya offers me something in my mind to play with and I forget about God. That's why we are all in this together. But it seems like—and maybe it is pride which is speaking—but it seems like the main intention of this life is to try and spend every moment with God. And intention not in the biblical sense of 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions,' but intention in the form of an active intention, yes, an active intention to be in His light. What better gift can there be?

But do we not exchange it because Maya is compelling? But even when we notice that we did, did we not have the power to not fall for the trap? We did, you see? So it happens only with our consent. Because you can keep saying that, 'I keep falling for it because Maya is compelling and I keep falling for it because Maya is compelling.' But every time I fall for it, it is with my consent because I want something for myself. I want to own something, I want to become proud about something, I want to be right about something, I want to know something. It no longer remains then about love for God, an inquiry for truth, the quest for God, or the quest for self-knowledge, which is the same.

So every moment we have this push-pull, is it? Now if you're not going through the push-pull at all, then you have to start the spiritual quest. If you say that, 'I'm not going through the push-pull at all because I am always with Atma,' then most likely you're speaking conceptually or you are the one who should be sitting on this chair and speaking, see? But if you have surrendered to Maya with once-a-month remembrance of God, then it'll seem like no, there's no push, see? If you're not encountering the force fields of Maya's attraction and your heart also lovingly pulling you in, and your life seems to be on the razor's edge... if it is not like that, then most likely—and we can talk more about this—then most likely you are deluding yourself. If the job to remain empty of 'me' doesn't seem like a struggle from time to time, then your project is different from mine. Now for many of you that will sound like bad news because you said, 'To escape the suffering of Maya I came into satsang,' and now you're saying that satsang will be a struggle.

If your life seems to be on the razor's edge, it is not like that. Then most likely—and we can talk more about this—then most likely you are deluding yourself. If the job to remain empty of 'me' doesn't seem like a struggle from time to time, then project this foolish man, or your project may be different from mine. Now, for many of you, that will sound like bad news because you said, 'To escape the suffering of Maya, I came into satsang, and now you're saying that satsang will be a struggle? Then I might as well suffer in the world.' No, but it's really very different because the minute you enter the holy temple of your heart, your intention is to live there; your life is fully transformed anyway. See, you have left the whole realm of egotistical stickiness. Your life is already transformed. But as you turn inwards, you see the possibility of a life in His love, in His life, with Him as the Father, with Him as the Beloved. See, it is no longer about freedom from worldly suffering; it is to transform our heart fully in love with His presence, in discipleship of the Atma.

And as long as we want to do things my way, are we in the gurukul of the Atma? We can say that I'm very spiritual, but if you don't follow how Atma is guiding you, if your life is your own project, then where is the discipleship? Suppose twenty years later someone talks to you and you say to them, 'I was a disciple of this some Guruji.' Suppose you went to some Guruji. So then, let me color the boxes a little more. Suppose you leave satsang; you get irritated with what I'm saying, so you left satsang today. Then you came across some great Guruji, some great Master, some great teacher. You started going to them and you went to them for twenty years. Now twenty years are over; you've been a disciple for twenty years. Somebody comes and asks you, 'So what did you learn from them?' You say, 'I learned that the Atma is like this, that Saguna Brahman is like this, that Nirguna Brahman is like this, that pure awareness is my true nature, and Consciousness is the being that is eternal and yet seems fleeting to awareness.' All of these things you learn. Then they say, 'What did you follow from what you learned from their life or what they were telling you to do?' 'No, no, I always like to do things my way.' Then they could ask you this question of whether you are truly a disciple. Would that be a fair question to ask?

We cannot be a disciple, isn't it, if we still hold on to our will? If God is a far-off concept and actually we don't want to meet it, then can we really become a disciple of the Atma or the Holy Spirit within? Only God's discipleship can bring us to God. And how to engage in God's discipleship? To sacrifice moment to moment what you think you want. What is it that you want? That is your will. What do you want? So can we be empty of that? If we can't be empty of that, then can we replace all that we want with one word: God? Whichever word you want. So are we on this bus together or no? Are we riding this train or no? That's all that I'm interested in sharing: how to come to the Atma within, and in the light of the Atma within, come to the true realization of the Self and fall deeply in love with God and lead our outer life completely in servitude to God. Do we really want this? And if you don't, it's all right—and it's not all right from my perspective—but it's all right meaning that I won't force you.

Looking everywhere, but I didn't look within myself. The trouble was within myself. So if your intention is truly to be free from Maya, free from the false, and live in the truth, then either you must have become free from it or you must be struggling with it. And if you're neither, then you probably dropped the intention in some conceptual pride. The only two 'Ms': knowledge of pride or pride of knowledge. Knowledge of pride makes you godly; pride of knowledge makes you egotistical. And the strangest ability that we have is to have pride over self-knowledge. How can we be proud about self-knowledge? 'I know who I am, you don't know who you are'—debates. Or 'I have had this experience, I have had this insight.' Where does it come from? Have you created it? It's like saying, 'I'm so proud of the rain in Bangalore.' I'm so proud of it—what did you do to make it so? The gifts of God, when we make that into our individual pride as if we did something, we are worthy, we are deserving—that is called spiritual ego, spiritual pride. And you know how it stops us? And I'm saying all of this about myself. The instant we become proud about it, that's where our growth stops.

That's why you find so many people in satsang who say, 'Oh, ten years back I had this experience, five years back I had this experience,' and they are obsessing about that because no growth has happened since then. If fresh God is with you right now, if you are awareness right here and now, then what difference does it make what happened a decade ago? So don't get into all of these mind traps because you won't notice it, but you will stop growing. Something beautiful I read yesterday which said that there was a topic about how to tell whether something came from God or it was Maya which was fooling you. How to tell? So they said you must look at it as if you are a child living away from home, and if you get a letter from your parents, then what does it make you feel like? Does it make you feel like, 'Oh, I'm so great, I got this letter, you see, oh see, see I'm so good my parents wrote to me'? No, you feel the pangs to go deeper inside you, to go back home. You remember your home so much, you see. So it is meant to encourage you on the path to go deeper, and we must treat it like that.

So don't settle for any one-off enlightenment projects. That seems to be the theme of today's satsang. This is not the realm of 'Amar Chitra Katha' where once God will appear to you and say 'Tathastu' and you're done. It must pull you deeper and deeper home. In a moment you notice yourself to be pure awareness; all that was false fell off. Now what is the construction that you're doing? Are you reconstructing your ego or are you falling deeper and deeper within yourself? See, so what am I saying? Let me wrap it up a bit. So our project must become to lead this life for God. Otherwise, let's not talk about spirituality and being spiritual. Being spiritual—most people in the world talk about it like a hobby. Like I went to a meeting with some other work friend and they were talking about spirituality like it's like how you collect stamps. 'Yeah, he's also a collector of stamps.' It's not like that. It's not an interest, you see.

Sometimes we go through CVs—come, we can make some space—so we are going through these biodata sometimes at work, you know. So in the end you'll have hobbies and interests. So some people will write 'spirituality.' It can't be something that you are interested in, see. Are you interested in food? Is your hobby food or air breathing? Like somebody wrote that 'my hobby is to breathe' or 'my interest is to breathe.' So our spirituality, our quest for God, and our remaining in His light must become the breath of this life, and every breath that we waste without Him must be considered to be wasted. And it's not really—I know your pride may not like that, but it doesn't matter what you think, you see, because you'll hear all this and you'll say, 'But I think what's better for me, but I think what I want.' This one, no, this is the ego. What you think you want is only what you think you want. Are you going to spend your whole life on what you think you want?

Some deeper calling brought you to satsang, some deeper calling brought you to spiritual seeking. Please, what is that? Where did that come from? Find the source of that. Otherwise, till your last breath you'll be thinking what you want and this life will be over. And if you are going to think what you want, then think only God. Remember only His name. Remember what He has taught us through the holy scriptures, through the mouths of the sages. But don't be willing to give up on this life without attaining His love, without meeting His presence, without living in His life. All the mighty kings who thought they ruled the world have come and gone. Don't build yourself up for those kind of projects. Find that which is truly valuable. What is valuable? Things here? So if this was a big diamond instead of a glass, it would be valuable. What value does it have? This, because the world says it's valuable. What is the value? Don't waste your life chasing paper and plastic and things made of glass. The true wealth is in your heart. Build your spiritual wealth.

So many new ones today. So can I just say that every time you remember God, you're building your spiritual wealth, and every time you become selfish about the 'me,' then you're losing your spiritual wealth. Every time you go look for the truth about who you are, that helps you turn inwards, and every time you make a judgment about a brother and sister outside, you lose your wealth. So in the life of a spiritual seeker, those who are looking for God, there is no room for anger, pride, grasping. So can all of us promise today that once we leave satsang we will try our very best never to get angry? Huh? Ananta said you must never get angry, but then people said, 'But great sages have got angry.' Rishi Durvasa with his anger turned somebody into ashes, and then when compassion came back to his heart, he turned them back to life. They told Ma like this. So Ma said, 'Okay, when you have the power to do that, then you can get angry, but unless you have the power to do that, you must not get angry.' Deal? Pukka? The intention is to fully commit to it, and not for a week or a month, just there's a before and after. Before you heard this and after you heard.

So it is for ourselves. For ourselves we have to commit fully. Deal or no? Yes. Difficult. It's like I'm telling you, it will really help you, okay? And I'm also working on it. I'm working on this. I still have this like irritation that comes. And as I worked on it for the past few weeks, I see it is getting milder. So it's a project all of us are doing together, but the intention is to not fall for it. And there are no excuses, no spiritual excuses—'Shiva energy came,' 'this Kundalini made me do it'—none of that. It couldn't help you. Then you start to notice that we give permission to these things. We determine. And if you're not noticing that, then you're not living your life from a place of stillness; you're living your life from a place of rushing. If you're rushing, rushing, and you just say, 'Anger just came, I became angry,' it means that you're not observing your thoughts. You don't notice when you give consent to a thought making you right and saying, 'This is wrong, I have to fight.'

And I make you one promise, you see, because I know a lot of you are wondering, 'What about the other one in my life? My partner, my children, my parents?' All of you are thinking like that. So if you promise yourself you will never get angry, then you will see the change in others as well. Try it out. Turn the mirror within. Within for everything, turn within. You get rid of pride in your heart, the world will not be proud. You remove jealousy, greed, one-upmanship—you remove all these things from your life, then you set a true foundation for a meeting with God. These simple, simple things. Otherwise, getting angry many times a day but spending twenty minutes doing self-inquiry is not going to lead to anything. So use your prayer, use your inquiry to help empty you, empty you out of all of this. Because if your heart is full of all of this, where are you going to build God's temple? Where will you build God's temple? I'm telling you that He lives there. That is the meeting point between Maya and true life: God's home. The meeting point is your spiritual heart within yourself. But if you cloud it up with anger, resentment, pride, all of these things, then how will you chant His name when you're saying Ram, Ram, Ram?

So use your prayer, use your inquiry to help empty you, empty you out of all of this. Because if your heart is full of all of this, where are you going to build God's Temple? Where will you build God's Temple? I'm telling you that He lives there. That is the meeting point between Maya and true life: God's home. The meeting point is your spiritual heart within yourself. But if you cloud it up with anger, resentment, pride, all of these things, then how will you chant His name? When you're saying 'Ram, Ram, Ram,' you will start thinking about what is making you upset. How will you inquire 'Who am I? Who am I?' if in your mind you're saying 'How did he treat me so badly?' or 'She treat me so badly'? No inquiry is happening.

So make your life a holy Temple for God. Make your heart a holy Temple for God. And what you construct is every moment. What are you offering to God now? One moment of looking for truth, one moment of bowing down to Him, one moment of loving Him with your heart, offering Him your life, becomes a holy brick on this heart Temple. But if you lead a life which is where there is no temple in your heart, you're not even trying to meet God in the form of the Atma within yourself, then where have you lived? In which moment of your life did you actually live? Just being involved in pleasure and pain, that is life? Filling ourselves with sensual experience, that is life? What is the source of life within you? What keeps you alive? Don't leave this life without finding that. Otherwise, you tell me, what is your project? What are you trying to do with your life? Just build, build, build so that one day you can leave? Build here, not here—this outer building which you'll all leave—or you're trying to build something which is eternal, which is a true life?

When will we embark on this project? How much time do we think we have? So let me make it simpler. Don't give up on your will, but every moment make your will to be with Him. And that may lead to that. Make the focus God. Many of you may feel right now that you can't tell when you're with God or not, you see? But if you make Him the focus, then He will show you. You will feel His presence in your heart. And when you feel disconnected from that, you will feel like a fish out of water. You see, right now the fish is trying to make a home on land. That's the problem. Most of our brothers and sisters in the world, the attempt is trying to make a—the fish is trying to make a home on land, you see? Trying to make an eternal abode in Maya, you see? And then trying different, different ways. 'Oh, if there's a statue in my name, then I could become eternal in this place. If there is a building named after me, then I could be eternal here. If I leave my children with a lot of wealth, then I could be eternal here.' We're trying to do all of this because we are looking for that eternity. But that eternity has to be found in the true place. A fish has to build their house inside the water.

So make that your project. Make a house which does not get demolished by death. Make a house which is stable in love and not dependent every moment on what someone outside does or says. Make your love so strong that it becomes unshakable. And it can only become that strong when you are a disciple of the Atma. At least struggle with this. Don't give up. If you make it your heart's truest desire, it will happen. If it can happen for a foolish man like this one, it will definitely happen for all of you. So make every moment about God and not about you. When you come to satsang, look for lifelines, you see? Look for lifelines. Look for pathways to God. What can connect me in my heart to God? So many gifts come up by the grace of God in the holy presence of us sitting together like this, that as words come from this mouth, I am also listening intently. What are the lifelines here for me to follow?

And you have the support, you have all that is needed for you to dive deeply into your heart. But don't think when satsang is over, then it's all done. 'Maybe now Monday is over, so now I'm fine. Now next Wednesday...' Wednesday is over. Your life should become a satsang like this. Don't leave God's life. Whichever tool you use, whether inquiry or prayer, it doesn't matter.

Yes. So are you saying the project is—intention also changes moment to moment, but every moment my intention should be either finding or living?

Yeah. And even intentions like—well, if you're not living, then your intention has to be finding. That's why I keep saying that in the morning, sometimes if I feel disconnected from God, then my only intention is to find Him, isn't it?

I notice like if I look at the day, then I do the prayer trying to find Him. Then one round is over, one mala, then I check my phone, WhatsApp. These are intentions. This also I shouldn't have only? Or somebody asked me something, I should intend to do it for them. Are you saying that's the lifeline? Only try to find or be? That should be the only intent?

100%. Yeah. Okay. And whatever—that's why I said that, how is it possible then to lead a householder life? Because as your intention remains that, as your sitting turned within, you see, then also activity can happen. Satsang is only satsang because the one who is sharing satsang is turned within. So as they are turned within, then how are these words being spoken? Who is speaking them? You see, in the same way, I have no intent to say these words. I'm hearing them come, you see? So in the same way, all that is needed in the outer world will also flow from there. You see, our pride tells us that without my doing it, it won't get done, you see? And that is really stupid because what are we doing? What are we doing anyway? All the main things, even what you think you're doing, that is because 99.9% of the things He is doing already. If your breath stopped flowing or your heart stopped beating, then what you going to do? So all this is being done by Him. Okay? But because our ego needs something to take credit for, it takes credit for our actions. But we don't know how to act. You don't know how to move a finger. You looked at that many times. Then you intend that your finger should move, you see? What is the process that happens? Apparently, neurons get fired, nerves get activated, and millions of neurons—not even one we know how to fire. So all these prideful delusions we have to drop. If it feels like I can do something, pray. Pray or inquire. Remain empty.

Father, I'm very new and raw at all this. So last time I came with a question to you that I was overthinking things and expecting things to go my way, and you gave me a simple tool that whenever you're overthinking, let the thought come and thought go and don't serve it. The last four months I've only—physical, I mean, I imagine myself physically, imagine the thought coming physically, and that's how I've gotten through it. Since today it came to you that we should not get angry, like it's one of the things which really apply for me because I lose my patience quickly. Could you just give me a simple tool on how I can work on that?

This is enough. If you're letting your thoughts come and go in this way, and if you keep a strong intention now that you will not lose your temper, you see, then what will happen is that because it has momentum, you see, next time it happens, then you would have lost your temper a bit, but you notice. So you check yourself. Then you start to notice like bodily reactions, what your mind is saying, all of this in much more slow motion than you are. Because most people say like that, no? That 'Oh, it happened so fast, I just lost my temper.' But actually, it's not happening that fast. It's just that we are losing our ability to remain attentive and observant. So just remain like that, open and empty. Let it come, let it go. And then when you have this now—now you have this instruction that you must not lose your temper—then it'll happen a few times, but you'll check yourself, check yourself. And then your temper will become a mild irritation, and then you'll say, 'Ah, this also He said we should not have.' So then even that. So in this simple way, our heart becomes transformed. Our heart becomes transformed for self-inquiry and for the love of God.

So you will not—it will come, the offer will come, you see, for you to pick up that position. If it's seeming difficult, it's okay. We have to sometimes take on difficult challenges, but we can't keep making excuses for ourselves. 'You made me angry'—cannot say that. How can another make you angry? That is the number one excuse we have. 'I didn't want to get angry, but you made me.' I have used that very often, so I'm saying from experience. No, we are not to lose it. Let the world do whatever it wants. Let it dance in front of our eyes in whichever way. The way of my being is my responsibility. For your—there's no kid in the world who has grown up and said, 'I'm so grateful my father was so angry.' Any kid? Because when you make this resolve to make your life a holy Temple of God, then God will give you the alternate tools as—exactly, exactly. That's what Buddha said: 'You're not punished because of your anger; you're punished by it.' You don't see these things? You heard that before? You're not punished because of your anger; it itself is punishing you. Very famous saying.

See what happens to you inside when you are angry. Does it seem like a holy place for God to live? When you start becoming sensitive about your inner being—what pride does to you versus what humility does, what anger does to you versus what love and compassion and kindness does—you start leading your life in this way, that you can't do without God's presence. Then all these things become essentials, not like moral habits or something like that. Are you willing to—for you to be right and get angry and help someone change their ways with your anger, are you willing to be separated from God for three days? Not feel Him in your heart because the residue of that energy just blocks your life? What does a moment of pride do to you? We don't spot these things, but sometimes because of a moment of pride, we may lose our connection in our—and again, all of this is from my experience, day-to-day experience. Now try. Don't take my word for it, but if you have to, then try. Like, judge a brother or sister and see what happens to the light in your heart. Immediate. Immediate, almost. No, it is immediate.

So with all of this—faith, humility, kindness, compassion, gratitude, all of this, obedience, servitude to God—all of this true love will sprout in your heart. And true love is the flower in your heart on which He can come and rest, you see? Look at it that way. This, this—keep it soft, sensitive, alive, kind. You know, in your heart, you keep it like that, then Ram Ji can come.