The Holy Meeting in the Heart - 8th June 2026

Yeah.

It seems like that is the data, and then the mind is interpreting it. But if I actually observe those perceptions...

Yeah.

Then they seem to be lesser resolution than the actual words. They're more vague, undefined, very...

If you observe the perception which is not in language, not the mind.

Yeah, the inner perception. Like, if I say... like, if I just imagine... if I say, how you... if I see you within, if I look at the face, then it's lesser defined.

Yes, that resolution isn't there.

And then I ask, what tells me that this is Father, and is it about Father, or all these narratives? They're just very vague and almost surreal kind of thing. And that makes me wonder, what is telling me that this is what I'm actually feeling, thinking, believing, or... All of it seems... the wording seems very, like, random. It's not really based in evidence, if I take that to be evidence, the inner stuff.

So tell me simply, what is it that you do? You go inwards, and whatever you...

I'm doing the chanting, and sometimes I just get pulled to... I wonder, what is this exactly? Where am I? If I close my eyes...

What is happening? What is this antahkarana?

Yes. And I just see some very low resolution, vague, amorphous kind of shape-shifting things, visuals.

And the narratives that the mind proposes are very... they assume a lot. They...

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

They make it seem clearer than it actually is. It's more vague.

Yes.

So you're allowing it to remain unresolved in the concept.

Yes. Yeah. And it makes me kind of question my own knowledge of myself: like, this is what I think, this is what I feel...

Yeah.

This is what I want. All of that.

Yes. Like, in a way you are checking whether you really know that, or whether it's really true.

Yeah.

That's good. That's good.

Thank you. One more thing is, I wonder what is the substance of this thing.

Yeah, the antahkarana. Wonder is a good word, because wonder leaves a lot of room for the mystery. The conclusion doesn't leave room for mystery. And anytime we have concluded, then we have actually relied on our conceptual knowledge, and we've left the mystery of God behind. So anything that brings us into wonder is good.

So there's a river, Kaveri. No, the Kaveri river is quite a large river. So many years ago we went to a place called Talakaveri. And when we went to Talakaveri, we saw... we just felt like it's impossible that from such a small origin such a big river can emerge, you see. So in the same way, God is everything, he is everywhere, you see, but his very source is that sacred, holy region within your heart; his presence is right there. So although we can meet God everywhere, in the design of our antahkarana the most intimate, the holiest meeting is the holy meeting in the heart. And this meeting is the highest love, because it is purely unconditional. But love is known as love, is met as love, is seen as the highest love; then it also has to encounter a lot of opposition. You see, so what opposes this love story between the antahkarana and the Atma, between the soul and the holy spirit? It is the highest love. It is a pure love of oneness. And yet this highest love, in a way we can say, is tested, because it is also opposed in a very, very strong way. You see, it is opposed by Maya. And what is the agent of Maya? It is the me, the ahankar, the idea of the me. So how do you want to spend your life: ignoring the highest love possible, serving the me itself?

And when we say the me is an agent of Maya, is Maya real or unreal? So most have said that Maya is just an appearance, therefore saying that it's unreal. Unreal meaning that it doesn't have any tangibility, and it definitely doesn't have eternity. It is changeful in nature. You see, and this me is changeful in nature. So do we want to spend our life chasing this me, or do we want to spend our life in love with God?

Somebody was there... were they in Satsang? I'm not sure. But they asked a very good question. They said, "What kind of god is it? What kind of god is it that demands proof of my love for him?" It was a child actually. She came to my house for dinner along with her parents. So she said, "But why should I have to prove my love for God? Why can't he just... I don't know what... something. So why do I have to turn towards him?" So I said to this child that suppose you had a partner. See, suppose you had a partner who never called you, who never sent you a message, who never came and met you, who never did anything for you, who never turned towards you in any way, never remembered you, and then he said to you, okay, why do I have to prove my love to you? You see, now this is a mental resistance, because when we are in love, we can't help remembering. In fact, we can't help talking about that person also. You see, we find every opportunity to talk about that person. Oh, he's like this, she's like this, she's like that, he's like that, whatever. Like many parents do that with their children also; they can't stop talking about their children. So because the love is... can't help it, you see. So this is just a classical example of a mental resistance, because when we are in love, then our words betray our love. Our remembrance, our memory system, constantly betrays our love. Even our mind is full of thoughts about the beloved. Our imagination is imagining the beloved. So all that we call the antahkarana is attuned towards the beloved naturally; without that it is not really a love anyway.

So when we fall in love with the spiritual me, then we may speak a lot of spirituality, but the love for God is not there, you see, because the focus is on me: look at how much I know, look at how much I have grown, look at how great I am. Even though the topic may be God. So that is called spiritual ego. So love leads to remembrance, and more remembrance leads to more love.

The love for God is not one where we say absence makes the heart grow fonder. It doesn't apply to God. You see, it only applies because we are tired of human tendencies. So we need some space from human conditioning, and that space from human conditioning makes it feel like absence sometimes makes the heart grow fonder. Here, presence makes the heart grow fonder. You see, being present to his presence makes the heart grow fonder.

You see, now what to do if his presence is not felt? You heard about the Atma. It is there. Atma is the presence of the being of God. Yeah, it is the presence of the being of God. So you've heard about it, but you can't taste it. For many years I couldn't taste it. What is this? What is the sense I am? Yeah, what is this sense of presence? So what is this? What to do when we can't experience the presence of God? What would Romeo have done? You would have waited. No, you would have waited. You see, so if we can apply this kind of love, which is a patient love, to our human relationships, then why can't we apply it to God? And that is the story of Ma Shabri. Anyway, she waited 60 years, every day putting flowers on the paths, collecting the sweetest berries after tasting each one of them. That sweet unconditional love which is not rushing, which is not grabbing for me. It just wants to serve God. Just wants to make God happy. You see, that love... it's a mad love.

So we wait till the presence becomes more and more palpable. That waiting without condition, without rushing, without notions, without narrative, without even remembering who is the one who started the waiting. Doesn't it happen when you go inside your heart? Do you always remember: oh, Ananta is the one who is waiting, Ananta started the waiting, Ananta is waiting for you, Lord? No. You see, many times there is no identity. That is just a being present. This waiting is not like a where is he, where is he, when is he coming. It's not that kind of waiting. It is just available. Making yourself present. You see, making yourself present without identity. If you carry identity into the stillness, can it really be the stillness? Can you carry identity into silence? No. You see, you can't carry identity into that. So we cannot be empty... if there is a me being empty, then it is not empty. Everyone with me so far?

So when we say God or Ram or Ishwar or Allah, who is the one that we are talking about?

Yes. The Atma within.

But who is he?

Huh? The Lord.

He's the Lord. He's the Lord of what? He lords over what?

Huh? Everything.

And everything is much more than we can ever conceptualize. You see, just to give you a sense, we may say he's the lord of the universe. Do you have a sense of how many stars like the sun are there in this universe? Any idea how many stars are in this one galaxy, of which there are billions of galaxies? How many stars are there, roughly? Take a wild guess.

Billions.

So there are billions of stars, billions of stars like the sun, you see. So they're uncountable, that many, in one universe, you see. Now he's the one who is beyond anything that we can conceptualize. So we can conceptualize a gazillion universes, each with billions of stars. So he is more than that. He's the lord of more than that. He lords over... he's called the lord because he lords over this. This is all his domain. You see, so what we take ourselves to be is tinier, tinier, tiny, tiny. So if the number of stars in the galaxy are equal to... like, one sun is like one grain of sand on a large beach, you see, then we are like the tiniest grain of sand compared to that grain of sand. So that he is the lord, and this body mind is the tiniest tiny tiny, and yet his love for us is like we are the only ones that exist. You see, his love for us insignificant ones is like we are the only one that has ever existed. He never says, I am too busy for you. You see, and his love is proven by his constant presence within our heart. What else can we call it but love?

So many times in Satsang, because we regularly keep saying God is here, God is here, we are alive, God is here... okay, what else is he going to say? But I want to remind you of who we are talking about. Who we are talking about. He is there. You see, in the most beautiful form: formless, form, form and formless both, which is the Atma itself. And he doesn't have a muhurat, an auspicious time, for the meeting. He doesn't have any condition. All we have to do is turn towards him. Even when we can't recognize that he's there, we just have to carry the intention to turn away from the world, turn away from the selfish me, just turn towards him. And that's all that is actually needed to be done.

You see, now we may say, but nothing has happened... before I come to his presence, till I come to Atma darshan, what is the point of all of this? It is just not true. You see, even though the door may seem to be closed from this side, where he is not perceivable for us, it is always open from his side. It is always open from his side. So the silent energetic, or even beyond energetic, transmission from the Atma to our soul is constantly on when we turn towards him. You see, so our antahkarana, our soul, is getting transformed in his presence, in his light, even if his presence is not palpable to us for the moment. This part is understood?

So not just is his presence available to us; he who is the lord of a gazillion universes, he loves us as if we are the only ones who have ever existed. It is there, and he lives there in the form of the Atma. You see, and it's so beautiful that he's in the form of the Atma, because if he made himself available just merely as an object, then we would completely objectify him only. We would forget his Nirguna nature. You see, and if he made himself completely Nirguna, as pure awareness, and not available in the form of the Atma, then most of us would say it is beyond us. So as the Atma, we can't grasp him, and it's not ungraspable also. I mean, what amazingness. No, how amazing is that, that this Atma, which is the presence of his being, the presence of consciousness within ourselves, can be met, and the purpose of our life is fulfilled in meeting this Atma and staying in its discipleship.

But even before we can testify to the darshan, the gifts of the Atma are available to us every time we turn towards it. And every aspect of our being, including our outer life, is touched by this, because your outer life is not really outside of you. But that's the topic for another Satsang. So every aspect of our being, all the so-called sheaths of our existence: body, breath, mind, intellect, memory, ego, self. So this self, in the form of the Atma within, brings light to all these other regions, including the outer, seemingly outer, world. The saints have told us that when we turn towards him, he does all the work for us. So what is this work? Now we may be very proud of our worldly work, but at least we cannot be... I mean, many of us do become, but we really cannot become proud of our spiritual work, because what can we do in the realm of spirituality? What can we do to cause Atma darshan or Atma Gyan? Nothing. We can turn with the longing in our heart, with the openness, but all the work of transformation is done by the Atma itself, by the spirit itself, you see, and all aspects of your existence are transformed by it.

So such is this love story between the antahkarana and the Atma. But the antahkarana has the capacity to fall for the other side also. It has the capacity to fall for the ego. It has the capacity to fall for pride. For the me, which has the capacity to fill itself up, in all aspects of itself, with self-concern, self-interest, self-judgment. And this self is the smallest self. Me. All of us have met... maybe we are like that... we have also met people in our lives who, first anything happens, first they think about: how does this affect me? What is the impact on me? Yeah. So this me can become the overriding force in our life. The point of spirituality is to make the Atma the center of gravity of our lives. God, the center of gravity of my life. And this could be happening in Satsang also: what's happening to me, what am I getting, what am I understanding. You see, so we may be using the environment which is conducive to letting go of all self-concern and self-interest, but the mind may be proposing notions of the me even here, not allowing really God to take center stage.

What criteria needs to be met before you come to Atma darshan? It's God's will. He can reveal himself in the form of the Atma within to anyone. And yet if you look at the lives of the sages, that sort of gives us a broad sense, isn't it? Now one thing that is common is that there was a dispassion towards the me and a deepening of longing or love for God. That's... if you were to draw some broad strokes in the lives of a thousand sages, you will see some commonalities, and these are some of the commonalities: that there comes a dispassion towards me and its stuff and its story and its things, you see, and there's a longing for God, or longing for truth, a longing for something higher. All of these are synonyms for God himself. Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram. So God and beauty and truth in their highest representations are one.

You can come here. Come... just in case somebody else comes.

So a sense of detachment towards the me and its things and its stories and its narratives, a sense of detachment towards this me, and a yearning for truth. There's nothing special about this one who's speaking at the moment, but just to share some symptoms of what happened here: everything started being seen through a lens of, what is the real purpose behind any of this? What is enduring in this? Everything started to seem very temporal, very... so then this will happen and then this will happen... so what? You see, so there was this detachment towards these things, detachment towards grasping so much, so tightly, at the world. While external movement, activities, work, family, all that continued to move, but there was not so much of a seriousness about it, not so much of a grasping about it. It was always about who am I, what is my reality. See, because something became clear: that I don't want to lead a life which is a lie. You see, it started to be like an abhorrence towards the false, and a deepening inwardly, a deepening of turning inwards. So this dispassion, this detachment towards me and its story, and a yearning for love, truth, God, even peace, becomes overriding.

What are the credentials of this one, that he should come to Atma darshan? No credential, nothing at all. The most inconsistent spiritual seeker, jumping from path to path, jumping from practice to practice, not consistent about anything at all. One day reading this, one day reading that. There's no criteria. And why I'm saying that is that this should be really encouraging for everyone. You see, because I look around in this room, I look around at all of you, I look around in Zoom, and all of you are much more committed than I was. Now don't make that the template. Don't become less committed. But just also have this sense that if God is here, he's here for me. He's made himself available to me. When I ever feel like, it's not actually for me, I will just focus on just giving myself some peace for a few minutes a day, but to meet God and all that is not for me... He is available to you. No. Why would he waste his time making himself available to you in your heart? He could have written you off and said, no, not for them. He's available for everyone.

You see, so all our antahkarana is designed the same way. At its very center is his presence. From that light is the light of this universe. So as Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi said, in which light do you see the light of the sun? Where is that light coming from? Right? From within you. From within you. And if you were to be completely radical about it, you would say that all of this is just about you. Just about you. Yes, you see. So it is completely accessible to you. He can be found, will be found, if you make yourself available to God. So it's a process of not getting but a process of giving. After what I've said, you may feel like I have to grasp at God and get him. Gyaneshwar Ji said that without giving we cannot get. So what do we have to give? Ourselves. We have to... how to give ourselves? Like, these kind of questions always become obstacles to us. Now he has said we have to give ourselves, but how to give myself? How do I know if I'm giving myself? But it's not an obstacle; these are mind tricks, you see. The way you know how, you give yourself. The way you know how, you jump into his arms. You see, the way you know how, you jump. You turn towards him in your heart. You see, because he knows what your intention is. You don't have to manage it. You don't have to say, okay, now my attention was turned inwards, but did I really offer all of my attention? My emotion also? He said I have to offer my full antahkarana, but I forgot to give my senses, then my application will be rejected... So it's not a bureaucratic system like that. It's not college admission. It is your bhav. It is your intention which is most important. Your feeling, your love. It is not about the preciseness of method. It is about the longing, the love in your heart. You cannot do it wrong, is what I'm saying, basically. So how to offer yourself? Say: I am yours, Lord. Finished. With as much intention, as much feeling as you can bring in. What did Gyaneshwar Ji say in the Haripath? He said cry out to him wholeheartedly. He knows. Yeah.

Okay, look at it this way. How well does the author of the book know the scene the character is going through? He knows more than we could ever. So sometimes it's helpful to look at it from that lens. He's the author of the book of our lives. He knows very well what my intention is, because this is a play actually. Okay, we'll get there. But this is a play he's playing only with himself. You see, but as long as it seems like there are two of us, then we have to go along with the play. And just by mentally coming to the conclusion that there is only one is not going to help you. It may help you like a pointer. If that helps you turn within, to make that a living insight, then that is helpful. Otherwise, it's like I was joking the other day, saying that it is like saying that I'm an expert on London because I've read a tourist guide book. You can read every book about spirituality, but till you have not met him, till you've not met spirit, how can we call ourselves spiritual? So all our reading... I'm not against reading, I love reading myself... so all our reading must help to turn us towards him, turn inwards, not to become a collector of facts or information.

Atma Gyan is a completely different texture to any type of worldly knowledge, and unfortunately I can't put more into words about it. I can only tell you it is not what you can think, and it is not what you can perceive. But if I was able to tell you what it is, then I would be able to put words to the wordless. You see? So God loves to be mysterious. So as long as the mystery is alive... and that's why we started Satsang today: that if the mystery is getting killed, you're going in the wrong direction. If you find yourself getting more and more conclusive, you see, then you're going in the wrong direction. If you feel like you can't really put to words what is happening, you're encountering that which is ineffable, and yet by God's grace some words sputter out of your mouth, and you're comparing the words with the magnificence of the insight you're trying to convey, and you're finding the helplessness of those words... then you're getting somewhere.

Yes.

You see the magnificence of what you're discovering inside you, and you see the helplessness of your outer expression in words to be able to convey that, and you're just somewhere laughing at that helplessness, because then it's very possible for people to take the words to be true, or debate the veracity of those words, and you're saying, actually it's not about any of that anyway. I'm just trying to point to that which I can't really put into words. Huh? Okay. So when you find yourself helpless like that, when your family asks you, 14 years in Satsang, what have you got? Huh? Like some of us have been asked that recently. So 14 years in Satsang, what have you got? And you find yourself unable to articulate... what am I getting? What have I got? Then you are on the right track. But if you're able to say that I can recite these 10 scriptures fully, I can give you a commentary of 15 different sages on them... that's also fine. But then that is not spiritual progress. Spiritual progress means spirit. So this inability to articulate is a beautiful sign of your spiritual growth. And then we have to reconcile ourselves to not be considered very great in the eyes of the world, even to be considered foolish in the eyes of the world. But you have nothing to worry, because once you start tasting the inner realms, no, tell me, what is left to taste in the outer realm? What is so great? You start tasting your heart, no? So you start eating your heart; then no eating on the outside seems so important.

And this is very naturally designed by God, because you may get criticism from the world, you may get praise from the world, you may get all kinds of things in the world, but all of that doesn't seem that relevant anymore, because you don't want to go away from what you're tasting in your heart. Cuz that Atma's transmission is happening in your antahkarana, and you don't want to break that process. You may not even understand what is happening, and you most likely will not, actually, but you feel something holy. You feel something beautiful. You feel something full of love, like a fragrance that you cannot define. A love which is unexplainable to anyone else. Cuz who is sitting in your heart? Some strange things are coming up to say: if he wanted to reveal himself in a phenomenal way, then all the billions of stars in this galaxy would not be enough to make a garland for him. That very one is sitting in your heart. So our mind's attempt is to always, no, try and regularize it, normalize it, and make it into physics and biology and chemistry. But this is beyond our fathoming, who is here. And how, in his own design, Maya has designed to make us forget about him. Pass the mic to Shan.

Father, you said that when you taste the inner, then the outer... what did you... what can the outer offer you?

Yeah. If you're enjoying the taste of that... yeah. You see, like, if you're eating grapes, then somebody offers you, like, dirt: will you leave the grapes and say give me more of the dirt?

And yet in Maya's design, anytime we do that... I... so much interest in the world. Then I go, I get beaten up, then I come back, then I go, I get... like, I'm not learning the lesson that this place is trash. I don't... and it's happened a thousand times, but I go to the same gali... then, out of habit, Father, I keep going there, but I see there's no substance there, there's no... it's dirt, but I still go there. It's like an addiction, like, out of habit. It's like my cigarette. I have to go there. But when I go there, it's a slap. I get one tight slap.

In a way, that is grace. In a way, that is grace. Because we only get slapped in the world when we put on the costume of the me.

Yeah.

Isn't it? Yeah. So if you went empty of this me... and like Lord Krishna is saying, if we just follow a dharma which is the will of God, which is apparent to us moment to moment, and we're not grasping at the outcomes, we don't want anything out of it, then we don't get beaten up in that way. So... but I would say, put on the life jacket of God's presence, you see. Don't get into the garb of the me, and then the world also becomes a reflection of God himself. You see, the world is oppressive as long as we put on the me. The world is hellish when we wear this posture, this mask of the me. You see, but the world is nothing but God's reflection if you stay with God inside. But in a way it is good. So what you're saying is that, I think I have to deal with the world on my terms, in my will, and achieve for the me, and then I am blessed by these reminders by God, and I'm sensitive enough to remember that they are reminders. Like, most of our brothers and sisters are not able to... like, even if they turn to God, they turn to God in blame and say, why are you doing this to me? Why is my life so terrible? You see, but most don't even turn to God, even though suffering is squeezing their throat, till the squeezing becomes really strong.

So the world is designed so that even in the play of Maya, ultimately the truth has to prevail. You see, so the false can try and build whatever castles in the sand it wants, but they are not really stable. You see, fundamentally, even if we try to create the most stable castles, death is coming. So what stability can we really have? Death is coming for this body mind. So what can be stable here? So to expect the journey to be fun for this me in the world is like expecting to have a great time after tying yourself to a drunk donkey. Why can't I have some constant peace? You see, because you've tied yourself to a drunk donkey, you'll obviously get a lot of kicks. Because if, let's say, the world is stable for a day... the world is stable: is the me stable? We wake up in the morning wanting something; by afternoon we want something else; by evening those two things are forgotten and it's completely about something else. So the me itself is unstable. Who are we complaining about, the world?

By the world I mean...

I know. I know.

I'm suffering only because I am expecting something from the world; otherwise the world in itself is not... Father, even after seeing the truth, I mean, after... I still want to go out and want what the world has to offer. But in my heart I know that I will forever be thirsty if I keep looking outside. This is clear, but it's still not clear... like, I still... because I'm still going out and looking for pleasure in the world, in many ways.

So the only safe refuge of that is: make your pleasure into God's happiness. Make his happiness into your pleasure. You see? Yeah. Now some of you have been in Satsang long enough to get a sense in your heart of whether he's smiling... the inner compass is pleased, you see, or you feel a sense of distance, you feel like the Atma is not accessible to you... you see, those... I don't know how to put this in words; hopefully you have a sense of what I'm saying. So you learn to live like that moment to moment. Learn to live like that moment to moment. You walk into those roads only where he is giving the green signal.

That's why even a great sage like Kabir Ji said that I'm just a dog on a leash for Ram Ji. What was he trying to say? Kabira... or something... I don't want to mess up this one; it'll sound really strange. So... but can our pride accept that? A great sage, Kabir Ji, said: I am just a dog on Ram Ji's leash. Can our pride accept that? In fact, we may not say it openly, but actually we want God to be our servant. What can I do so that I can get mastery over God? Exactly. Isn't it? That's her intention. What can I learn so that then he will make my life better? He will do this for me. He will not make me suffer anymore. You see, so we want him to do and do and do, and he does and does and does, actually. But we are never satisfied. So, can we live on a leash tied to a heart? Now, those also who intend to live like that are not able to do it, because Maya rushes them. See, Maya says, no. Now. Now what? What? You have to do it now. There's no time to go inside and wait, and nothing is happening. Your heart doesn't tell you anything anyway. You're just fooling yourself. Get real. Isn't it? Aren't these familiar things? I can say from my experience: very familiar thing. It says, get real. So... but forgetting what is real, claiming the false to be real... it wants us to get false in the guise of getting real. So it rushes us. It rushes us, and the rusher then gets in trouble, because they follow the path of egotism. And blessed are those who get slapped early on the path of egotism. Blessed. No? Imagine your whole life, and at the end you realize...

We need to go all the way through the place.

So I would rather... my prayer always is: if I'm going down the wrong route, Lord, please give me the slap as soon as needed, so that I don't waste another day, another moment, away from you. Just pride. Just pride. Pride is when I'm not vigilant. It is when I think I've got this. Now there's so many layers of depth to every instruction from a sage. In what way can the Lord guide us? In what way is he holding our leash? What is it that is not available to us that was available to him? How is he able to sense the Lord's pull? All this we can contemplate, isn't it? So just this, what we keep talking about in Satsang: the heart compass. The heart compass is the Atma guiding you moment to moment, but we need to become sensitive to that. We need to remain in the heart long enough to notice its inner textures. Like, most of us may believe that when we turn inwards, it's just a sheer limbo, like a nothingness there. And some sprinkling of spiritual experiences: some chakras shining, some blue light here, some orange light there, some... all fireworks happening. All of this stuff is what we may feel like our insides are made up of. But it's not like that. It's much more textural than even the outside. So once you start noticing the music on the inside, no, the beats on the inside, then you start getting a deeper sense of how to follow that. So therefore we need to spend time in those holy realms. So: what are you doing without Atma darshan? And if you had Atma darshan, what are you doing leaving the Atma? These two questions will keep us safe from Maya.

These lines came here, which I really loved. I don't feel like all of you love them that much, but I really love... like... that's all right. But really, like, what is our life so involved in? You have been told that you have the potential to meet God. Not just meet God for an instant awakening experience, but to make God your constant companion, and ultimately to realize the oneness, is one way of calling it; the other way of calling it is to merge into him. We have been informed of that potential of our lives. But what are we stuck with? This one said like this. This one did like that. This one is rude to me. This one is nice to me. This one, whatever. We're just stuck on all these people topics. But have we found God, that we have time for these people topics?

You know, when you said that... so long ago, you thought... now I feel that I know what I'm saying. You think he's saying something, and it's like... it's all rubbish, that... I mean, like, you just hear the words, but you're not seeing what is he pointing me to. That... why are you wasting time? And like you said, I can meet God, and if you haven't, then why are you involved in those people... and there is... oh gosh, I think I need a reset button every single day. It's like...

So, to emphasize the strangeness of, the absurdity of it, I said, no, that... like, it's like one who doesn't have a single grain to eat and set out to buy an elephant in the market. So our situation is like that: we have not fulfilled what we are here for, what our design is. A car is designed for what? Transport. No? The antahkarana is designed for the holy rendezvous with God. So if we haven't fulfilled our design, can we say that we fulfilled our purpose? And if our purpose is lying unfulfilled, what are we doing wasting time on topics which have nothing to do with it? Now you may say that this is designed for nimbu pani, lemonade, or you can say... but it can hold gutter water also, you see. That can hold... so your antahkarana can hold... but does that mean that it's the highest design? It is not its design, you see. We can fill our mind, we can fill our intellect, we can fill our emotions, we can fill imagination, memory, with all the worst things. It is completely possible for us to do that. But does that mean that we are fulfilling his design? It is designed to be filled up with God. That's why the sages went hoarse saying, don't waste this opportunity of human life. Don't waste this opportunity of human life.

You know what got me into the most trouble, and has got me at 50 now where I'm a beginner at this path... 51 now... that I'm a beginner on this path? What got me into the most trouble is... I would read something by a sage, and then I would say, okay, what do I think about this? And many times I would just say, no, I don't think... Now, what I'm learning now at 51 is that if a sage has said it, what is the possibility of... who is the one who is possibly more right? 99.99999 percent the sage is more right than what my intellect is telling. You see, not that... so that .00001 I still hold, I still hold... maybe it's pride, but I hold, I feel, so that I can take it to my heart and really come to a settling of that, you see. But a lot of great pointers, like about not wasting time and things like that, I just ignored, because I felt, no, how can it be? God can't be like that. Our life can't be like... But it's not some person you met on the street who's telling you, no... it's a great sage like Kabir telling. So a lot of this sort of intellectual pride gets in the way. Again, I'm not saying... don't take everything you read from every sage to be the gospel truth, but take it to your heart, and really don't get into any pride to dismiss anything that you come across from a sage. Just... don't dismiss it, because that dismissal could cost you 10 years.

To think that this, your path, is the right one.

Exactly. Exactly. So now, as we're reading the Bhagavad Gita, we're reading with all the 12 schools, and we're not saying which one is right, which one is wrong, which we agree with, which we disagree with. We're not saying that. We are going to immerse in all those. So some say jivatma is eternal. Some say Atma is eternal. Some say there is never an atma; it's always only the highest self posing in Maya as if it is separate points of consciousness. All various interpretations we will read, we will enjoy. But we realize that our intellect is not strong enough to determine that this is right, this is wrong. Because these are time-tested great sages we are talking about. You see, so if you look at Shankaracharya... anybody in this room can say, I will counter Adi Shankara? He went and spread this throughout the country as a young boy. Then on the other side there are people like Ramanujacharya, Madhvacharya, Vallabhacharya. Anybody in this room will say, no, no, no, I know Shankara is right, these ones must be wrong? None of us has the tongue to say it. You see, so we have to remain in our humility, immerse ourselves in the holy words of the sages, and realize that the truth is beyond what our intellect can conceptualize. But we find that holy place in our heart where all of these merge. See, all of these merge, and we see the truth of them. We see why they were presenting it this way, how that is helpful, how that may have helped in the cultural context that they were in, or their design of the antahkarana was more devotional in some way. So then it allows us to taste all these pathways, all these rivers leading to the same ocean, without becoming proud that, no, I think... no, I know better. So I would say that any of the sages we've named, and many many more... we should not be quick to give ourselves a pedestal and say, no, I could judge what is right here, what is wrong here. This humility will take us a long way. This humility will take us a long way.

Like, if in 2009 somebody told me that one day you'll get great joy in walking the street singing God's name, I would have said that is one path that just doesn't appeal to me. Why? And God is right here. There is only one self. What is the reality? Pure awareness. What is this, walking the street, or going to temple? What is this? You see, I would have laughed at it. But what he plans to do with our lives is just beyond what we could ever fathom. And the more humble we become, the more open we become to his will. And I have to tell you that in the last walk I saw so many turning for one moment towards God, whatever their conceptualization of God may be, that those hundreds of people turning for one moment sometimes made me feel like that is equal to all the Satsang I've shared in 14, 15 years. And... I mean, we're not really weighing that... there's a value to depth, there's a value to deepening and sharing like this, but there's also value in providing that moment of trajectory change, from a life of Maya to just one moment of reminder to turn within, to hundreds as we walk. There is value in that also. But I would have laughed at the stupidity of it a few years ago. Because of all this, we pick up new conditioning with everything that we learn.

What did you do wrong? You were staying with the inside of those times. Inside your head, you were staying with it. You say, throughout the day, you stayed. When you heard, you're still staying. So, what was wrong with you?

No, not wrong. I'm just saying that there could easily have been... like, those days... these days, every day I still fall for Maya 100 times at least. And if I was to track it, it may be actually more. So there could be those prideful temptations of Maya saying, no, my path is higher, I know better. By God's grace he's allowed me to return to empty, return to him, fairly quickly since those days. So... but that's only his grace.

You mean conceptually... you were saying that's you dismissing... did you check with it, is what this is saying.

I don't know, I have to go back and check, but it's very possible that I could have just conceptually dismissed it. It's very possible that I may be conceptually dismissing many things even now. But we don't see, in our pride, no? Our pride doesn't allow us to fully see. Then life gives us some pokes and pinches, then we spot our pride, then we open up.

You said so beautifully... if you check now with the Atma before... I mean, you're not this way or that. Or, like, you check the... God would want to hear his guidance rather than using this. That's so important, because if we didn't do that, and we're using our head to decide...

It's tricky. It's tricky. So when I hear a question, am I always able to go to the Atma and allow the Atma to speak? Because some questions you've heard so many times over the years, you just shortcut them. You just shortcut and say, yeah, this one I know. And the minute we get into this-one-I-know, and we rely on our mind, intellect, to provide, then you're no longer being an instrument of the Atma. You got Ananta into the picture. So the attempt here is to wash this one away as much as possible, and you taste it for yourself, because in hearing of the Satsang coming from this mouth, then you can smell whether it's contaminated with Ananta, or whether it's the Atma itself speaking. Maybe it's not that straightforward for all of you, but I can smell the taste... like, smell the taste, whatever that would mean, of the source of what is being shared. But in pride, many times I may not want to admit that.

I feel that hearing your first few Satsangs... from that time, if you...

Yeah. Sometimes they seem very beautiful. Sometimes they feel very innocent... like, a very young boy used to come with this big grin on his face, and you're just, like, sharing very innocently. But sometimes, I don't know... I don't really audit that much, but sometimes I do spot that this came from just a learned understanding of something, or I would see it differently now. Whether that means it's better or not, I don't know.

Why is she being so sheepish?

Through the mic. That's how we communicate at home. He's not responding at all. Yeah.

Can you say about love versus attachment?

Are you attached to this question?

Yes.

Simple is... so if I didn't answer this question, would you suffer?

No.

Then it's not an attachment. So love means... love is full of freedom. Love gives freedom. It stays in freedom. Attachment takes freedom. You see, and in the taking of freedom from another, we also put ourselves in chains. You see, attachment means this has to be only like this. You have to be only like this for me. You see, and then if you're not like this, if you're not treating me like this, if you're not changing yourself like this, if you're not only like this, then I suffer because of that. Then that is attachment. You see, love is freeing. Love is unconditional. When we add conditions to love, it becomes attachment. You see? And what strange human games we play. What strange human games we play, where if somebody dances to our tune, we give them more love; if somebody doesn't dance as much to our tune, we withdraw our love. Then what kind of love is that, based on all of these conditions? So it's just... in the guise of love, it's trying to fulfill some desire. That is attachment. Love is godly.

Father, I can say, I love... you know, I'm just looking at this... but it would bother me if you didn't... let's say there are, like, some... no, like, I can't say it's unconditional... like, there are... so is that attachment?

Yes. It is. Yes.

Like, no matter what you do, I will love you. I can say that. Like, you come closest to that kind of love. But even there, conditions apply.

Yeah. So the simpler way to look at love is to allow the love from God in your heart to flow out. You don't take yourself to be, like, the provider, the giver of love, or the receiver of love, because that way we will never succeed. You see? So if we allow ourselves just to be an instrument of his love, then how it is meant to flow, it will flow. Otherwise what happens is, with the mind's idea of making it an unconditional love, then it can also become convoluted. I can love even if somebody is completely opposed to godly ways... then I come up with this idea that I have to... like, God's love is not always candy flavored, isn't it? Like, we don't know how God provides love in our heart... the love in our heart as an outpouring. There's a constant love, which is the presence of the Atma itself. But the outpouring is not always on full. No, because he knows how much is needed to keep us humble, how much is needed to reassure us. So what best we can do is take the me out of the picture. Like with everything in life, get the me out of the picture and allow God to move us moment to moment. So... but if there's a want, then there is a me in the picture. So: I love you, but... the but is me getting... So then that frees you from a lot of the pressure also. Like, imagine if somebody had the pressure of deciding how to love everyone in their lives. Couldn't do that... it would be so tough. We can't even manage one person; how will we manage the people in our lives? So... be empty of the me. He knows best. He moves me.

Then we don't need to determine how much, when, what?

Getting a sense of...? And remember that there are no... like, there is no special relationship which is exempt from this. Like, we may become very me-oriented, or take on a different persona, in that which we call our special relationships. You see, like a romantic relationship, or like a worldly relationship. But the same principle applies. God knows how to run our relationships better than we ever could. He knows the texture of our relationships. He knows what is required when. He knows how to make every relationship godly. So don't feel like, okay, now, what is being spoken about in Satsang is okay for the teacher and Sangha, but it doesn't apply to my work relationship, or it doesn't apply to my romantic relationship. It applies throughout.

Along similar lines... or especially relationships with parents, or siblings, or childhood friends... Father, there's this groove of behaving, or, you know, like, some replies just come like that. Or I feel put on the spot, you know, when questioned about certain things. Every other place I feel like there's a lot of freedom to just say things, you know, and there's no... need to be, like... contraction doesn't happen. But here there's a fear that comes, contraction happens, and immediately, like, you know, quickly, quickly, I feel like a lot of things from the intellect come, you know, as answers, to win whatever has been... like, how do I be with God even in those situations? Because I find it very hard in those relationships, with others.

So what is the symptom of those who are deeply immersed in their heart? No, the symptom... one of the symptoms is equanimity. Now equanimity... on both sides. There are people around you and they are bothering your identity. Yeah. So you notice the start of the irritation, and you see that you're going down the wrong path. You see, it's not about them. Your irritation is never about them. It is that you are taking yourself to be something that you're not. And in simple words, it is your pride. It is my pride. If I ever get irritated in Satsang or something, it's my pride. So that is... so we have to return to equanimity over there, to see everything as equal. And then the second thing is that when we are with cousins, friends and all that, sometimes we can get into this haha hehe mode... like, we lose the steadiness, because excitement and all of that. And that... very quickly... it starts off as a lot of fun, but very quickly it becomes... like, people start putting others down. We start making jokes at others' expenses, and so... and many times it doesn't end well. Like, it doesn't end... So in the same way that we spot our irritation, we also see our, like, enthusiasm... as a different flavor to this... excitement. Like, we get into this excitement mode, which removes the equanimity. I'm not saying we must have a robotic life... to be, like... joy, enthusiasm, all those are fine, but it becomes this mental excitement, no, or a mental irritation. We can spot these, and just return: return to God's name, return to our center. Then we don't react... you know, like the self-help people will say, we don't react, we respond in those situations. So... but to carry that steadfastness in our heart, that takes practice, when we are not in those situations. You see, we practice for those situations. So that's why it's called a practice, because we practice for those situations, when we are not in those situations. Like, we go to the gym so that one day when we need to lift a heavy bucket or something, we don't... we don't lose our muscles when we need it functionally; then we need to have done the practice to do it. The same way, we practice staying with God's name. We practice remaining open and empty. We practice the self-inquiry, so that we don't misidentify, we don't forget God, we don't fill ourselves up with identity when push comes to shove. That's why, I remember, we used to always say: when the rubber hits the road. So we practice when the rubber is not hitting the road, and then we get so used to the practice that when it hits the road, we don't lose our center.

Then the grooves also change.

The grooves change. Exactly. So even the neuroscientists will say that... what Bhagavan used to call vasanas, or conditioning, the neuroscientists will say these are grooves, right? So the neural connections are made in that way: that we go to anger, we go to irritation, we go to grief, we go to attack, we go to all of these modes. And then we learn to study ourselves. According to a neuroscientist, we are creating new neural pathways. We are creating new neural grooves. According to spirituality, then, we are breaking out of those vasanas, and we are creating pathways to the heart. We are learning how to remain in the heart, and when we find ourselves at some distance from the heart, we are learning how to return to the heart. So this also applies to all the layers. It becomes like a muscle memory. It becomes like a transformation. So the transformation happens across the board.

I also feel like there's this need to please, and all of that also comes very quickly in these relationships, Father, because there's a way of being around them, you know, and it just... sometimes you'd much rather keep the peace than say what's in your heart. So I feel like, it's okay... like, even if they're saying whatever, I'll just keep quiet. But... I want to say something, but I just zip it up. Or sometimes say too much... that's not needed also.

So even in this, don't take on the decision-maker place. Just stay with God, and if something has to be spoken, something has to be shared from the heart, it'll come. Practice to practice. The more we practice, the more our insides are filled with his light, then the more it'll express itself in outer ways as well.

One sentence. I mean... so he said that, so if you start getting irritated, you notice that, and through the prayer practice you just return back to God. You don't carry on in that trajectory. And then you realize that it's not about what the other one was saying, ever. It's about that you took on this identity, and so it was getting poked. If you had just stayed...

Have we all noticed now that we rarely go from just natural, natural, natural, straight to anger? You see, something pokes us: first we start getting irritated, then that is built up, then the mind pulls memory into it and says, last time also they did like that... then it pulls all this conditioning, all of that, then it escalates, it escalates. So it rarely goes, as the kids would say, from zero to 100 immediately; it first builds up. So if you can start sensing this quiet irritation... then... and returning... that you're losing your center, you're losing God's presence... so you treat that as a reminder to return to God, then that is helpful. So that which is called patience is also all of this: that we don't allow ourselves to get shaken by what the senses are bringing to us.

Because I see that, supposing I didn't even answer back, but if I still held the grievance...

Yeah, exactly.

Then I'm still holding it.

Still like a spring, which is...

Yeah, then it's just waiting for the next opportunity to... wait for even 10 days, you know, and then... because you're just building up a case. Because then, you know, whatever your eyes show you, it's going to interpret as wrong. Even if they're innocent, you're just going on. So you really have to let it go, because you can't just be quiet and think that you've let go, because you have...

Yes. But if we feel a lot of the force is there... like, then, egoic energy or separation is there... then sometimes just forcing yourself to keep quiet is all right.

That's true.

Yeah. Because it wants to use that moment. Yeah, it wants to use that moment, spread that thing, and then it spreads everywhere. It's very contagious. Like, to remain in the heart is contagious: you come to the Satsang hall and hopefully you feel like something pulls you in, deep inside. In the same way, where there's a lot of conflict, there's a lot of this thing that also then pulls that conflict energy out of us, no, in a way, to add to the conflict. So sometimes, just... you want to lash out, but just... So we learn patience. Sometimes, in this way, it may seem forced. It may even seem unspiritual: that he's curbing my naturalness... spirituality is supposed to be natural. You see, so it is... unless it's clear... like, unless Krishna is telling you, Arjun, pick up your bow and arrow and fight... till then, you don't fight.

Yeah. In that... what you provided about how we become internally when believed in Maya... just brilliant. It's like... it's sad, but it's like a map of how it is internally, because there's contraction, rush, then ego identity building, softening of the position... you know, there's no softness inside... all of that. I don't know whether I made it...

That was so... it's even okay to not react at that moment, because you don't want to be pulled in. But later on, when you can calm down... because you do, actually... if you do turn, you will calm down, and then you can really just let it all go. Because... you want to hit back and you want to argue, but it leads you nowhere. You really...

No, you're wrong. You dragged it down. She kept the mic and said, no, I know I'm not... because your face is... I know.

A very good example of attachment I've seen in my life is the attachment to words once they've been spoken out of this mouth; then we will go to any extent to prove them to be true. No? Like, although our relationship with that construct may be just 10 minutes old, but if it has come out of our mouth once, then we will stand by... no, then it's like, why are you not seeing it like this? It is like this only. Like, something happens, no... like, we make a public claim about something, or even in our relationships... when something is... like, we may not be bothered about something at all... I noticed this in my marriage, and I'm sure all of us notice this in our relationships, that it may be something which is not a topic, no, but once I've taken a stand about it, like, words have been spoken about it, then it becomes a thing. Then I have to defend it, then I have to own it. So, learning to let go... like, it's not a thing. It's not really a thing. Like, 15 minutes ago it wasn't a thing. So why is it suddenly a...

Father, I wanted to ask something about focus prayer.

Focus prayer.

Sometimes, no, Father... like, I don't have the... like, I've sat for, say, half an hour, and then there is a point, I feel like I tell myself that it's okay, just come, you know, come out of it... or just, something is distracting and I just come out of it. And it is... like, I... because you're also saying now... is there some point that, I... you know, if I push through, then will it be different? Like, I have to keep staying there more and more, because... someday... it's grace, I can tell... I can't tell anything else, but I know that it's... it's like... there's a quality of some sort, of, like... you've left... I don't know how to say this, but it's like how you feel when you've had a good sleep, but it's not like that. It's not so... it's subtler... but it's pulled in like that. But some days I'm not able to even... like, sometimes it's like 10 minutes have passed only, but it feels like so long I've prayed... but, you know, and some days I feel like after 20 minutes, half an hour, I'm not able to... something... like, I'm not able to push through... maybe after a break again I'll sit... but I'll try to focus... sorry... finish the hours. But it's... it's like that... it's not... like, today, when you said about... if you put everything in the universe also, you'd... you'll not be... and multiple universes in the entire cosmos, you'll not be able to even build, like, a mala for him... and there's just... it's not able to remember him like that, you know, and it's... I want to, but it's...

It's tricky, because Maya gets in the way. Like, I was feeling yesterday: how foolish am I, how foolish am I, that God has not said that I have stopped giving you what I want to give you... like, you can sense the flow from the Atma within, and yet I say, okay, enough... or, okay, now time to sleep... or, okay, now look at something in the world. So... so one is this aspect, that where you can sense that inner light, you can sense the Atma, and you can sense the Atma is flowing within you, and still... like, something, no, some Maya, some something... like... So I was just contemplating that if it was done, then he would know it's done, and he would stop the transmission. No, but nine times out of 10, I am the one who's deciding: okay, now time to sleep; okay, now 2 hours over; okay... no... so, like that. So that is one foolishness I do. Second... the more tricky is when we don't... we're not sensing any inner transmission, when we just... like, it seems like a job. It seems like a job, which is before the pulling in by him has happened... which is called, then, the active recollection, where it seems like I need to put a weight for me to be inward focused. I need to put some sort of weight in the form of the remembrance of the name, or the practice, or whatever. I am exerting a slight... at least, this thing. Sometimes it's not even the name. Sometimes it's just trying to turn... keep some slightest effort to keep the attention turned that way. I don't even know whether we can call it attention... just the antahkarana turned that way. So now, in that state, we are very susceptible to distraction. The mind comes and says, but what about that thing? No? Or it says, but you had to tell the kids something... or whatever... something... it's enough time... some something... to be susceptible to distraction. Then... when, by his grace, he pulls us in, where it would take some effort for us to step out... no, it would seem like I have to pull myself away, like a magnet is connected, but I would have to pull the magnet out... so then, to pull that out... then it is easier to stay in that quiet contemplation. No, we just come to that point. But it's not that Maya doesn't try even then, you see. So yesterday, for example, something very beautifully... it was happening in the night, and then this body just started feeling like coughing, and my throat was full, and I know from where this cough came; I just recovered from that cold. So it is... that coughing started, all those... So sometimes you just have to laugh at this Maya thing and say, okay, now this was needed, for this to get snapped out. So then, just to be grateful for opportunities where life has made the space for us to turn within, and use as much of those opportunities as possible, because something or the other otherwise keeps showing up in life. Yeah. So just to grab every opportunity to be with God. Like, otherwise... like, sometimes your children fall sick, sometimes your body falls sick, sometimes some work is there, sometimes something else is there. So if you keep postponing when life makes the space, then we'll never have time to turn inward. So every opportunity, every opportunity that we get, just take God's name, turn within.

Like, it's such a beautiful gift that the Atma does the work in my heart. Isn't it such a beautiful gift that the Atma does the work in my heart, in my heart? In all of our hearts the Atma is doing the spiritual work. Can we all testify to that? There comes a point where it seems like I am doing the work of contemplation, of meditation. But when we come to nididhyasana, when we come to true contemplation, then it is God himself, in the form of the Atma, doing the work. Now I can't spell out what it means, that work. What... you have to taste that in your heart. What a gift. We are outsourcing to the highest force in the universe. What is this Maya that pulls us away from such high, high potential things? Right, Summer?

Father, Bhagavad Gita notes. You had asked if we are living like avoiding pain, and then you spoke about enduring... enduring for God.

So what is the enduring? It is not to lose our center. You see, and what is enduring? It is not to get shaken from our dharma. So Lord Krishna is telling Arjun that you cannot be shaken from your dharma because of your... now... concepts about what is right, what is wrong. None of it is based on any reality. Because at the same time that you're speaking these wise-sounding words, you're speaking absolute rubbish, because you're taking the self to be something that dies. You're taking reality to be something that dies and can be grieved over. No? So, in your some conceptual understanding, based on ethics or something you've learned somewhere, you're pretending to say some very high-sounding words, but this is conceptual knowledge. It is not true spirituality. So he said that we must... so when the Lord shares, he's sharing for all of humanity. No? So that's why he gave the divine vision, for these words to be captured. So what is our dharma? First, a dharma is to follow God's will. That is our highest dharma. You see, so that is the path we are meant to walk. Now, if anything tempts us to leave that, what is God's will, into following what I think is better, worse, right, wrong, all of that, then... that endurance we've left, because something compelled us. You see, so that's why these stories of... Raghukul reet sada chali aayi... no? So God's will is such that it gives that strength for it to be followed, and yet the world resists that, no? You see, Ram Ji could have easily said, no, I'm not going... just because you gave some promise to this woman so many years back, why should I leave my kingdom and go? So he set an example of not being shaken by worldly situations. So, to endure. But in our context, I would say that there are so many things that come on a daily basis that keep us away from God's presence, keep us away from remembering his name. And if you feel like that is what our path is, then we should not be shaken from that, given whatever the world throws at us. We should remain on our path of dharma. We should remain on our path of self-discovery, of Atma darshan, of Ishwar praapti, in spite of whatever, whatever the world throws at you. So you must endure.

Now this, again, like everything, there are many layers to it. Like we were saying: suppose someone said something very irritating, and some anger was coming here, and something wanted to lash out... to just endure the heat of that, without lashing out, without giving in to the lower tendencies, that is also part of the enduring. To not lose our steadiness, like we were talking earlier, to not lose our steadiness even at the face of provocation, either good or bad. See, a lot of kids these days, for example, get into peer pressure: friends are smoking and drinking, so they feel like, we must also, otherwise we won't fit in. So that's also enduring. So the child who's able to stand strong in his or her heart and his or her values, that's also enduring, because you endure that social pressure. And so, to endure all of these Maya's constructs and pressures, to stay what is true to your heart, that is one level of enduring. But in our case, I would say that, since we are in Satsang, whatever your path is, to endure on that path. Not get shaken because something happens in the world: husband says this, somebody else says that, this happens, boss says like that at work... to just endure as much as we can. That is called tapasya. So this tapasya, the heat... taking the heat of that situation is purifying for the antahkarana. Purifying in the way that it makes us fertile for Atma darshan. So then there may come a point that when the heat is on in the world kitchen, then we use that as an opportunity to endure. You see, we are open to that opportunity to endure, and in that tapas our pride is burnt, our other conditions are burnt... very deeply... pride, most importantly, is burnt. Like, one condition I have is that I have trouble wearing an insult. Like, a few years back, though, if somebody insulted... I'm like... I don't know... my western UP blood would start activating very fast. But now it's a little better. But still, I'm not... I wouldn't say I'm very good with bearing... because there's this whole condition about, but I am so nice to everyone, then why should I be...? So this kind of nonsense... the pride is still at play. So then I have to learn to bear those situations and come... respond only from my heart, only respond from God's will. That is part of the enduring. So all of us have our things that still poke us. So I was saying to some... one of you, I don't know who I was saying to... that Maya has given at least one or two agents in everybody's life, no? And their job is to pull us into anger, irritation, temptation, all of these things, you know... either pleasure-seeming or pain-creating, either way. But our job is to endure in God's light, and to respond from there. Not react from our mind; to respond from God's... Huh? Got a sense?

Father, in that situation... the only thing I can do is chant the name, and...

It's a very high thing. Huh? So many times I've noticed all of you saying, but the only thing I... It's a very high thing, you see, and it takes a lot of maturity even to come to that point. Like, if I look back at my life... and I've been in situations which I never enjoyed, but... and I quit really fast and started my own businesses. But if, like, a manager was being, I felt, unduly rude to me, or unkind in their expression, then I would not want to endure those situations, because I was immature in those times. But if in those situations I remembered to return to God's name, that would be a very high maturity. It is a million of these small, small, small, small things that makes a saint a saint. Don't have to do big things... just a million temptations to get into anger: stay with God, remember his name. Like St. Nektarios in the movie, you know... they came to search his monastery and they made all kinds of accusations against this pure saint, and they pushed him and they pushed his children, and he just pointed up: I'm not going to react, because God is watching; his justice will be done. Such a difficult scene.

Yeah, it is a beautiful movie, called Man of God.

We have to start with ourselves.

I know. I'm just saying. We have to be the change we want to see in the world, because it's contagious. It's contagious. The change we make in ourselves is contagious for our brothers and sisters in the world.

Really, like the butterfly effect.

Yeah, very much.

I see... even, say... sorry...

The one who doesn't speak in the mic has to transcribe this part.

Now, I've seen with my younger brother... not like I'm... not like there's any inspiration there, but I feel like even small, small changes, no... I feel like... just moves... like, your near and dear ones, they just move in a particular way, if there is... it's both ways... like, even when he does, it's... you know... something.

One more thing. Like, when you talk about layers of the antahkarana, sometimes it feels like this is the eighth floor, then you go to the floor below, you see only thoughts, then you go below, you see only emotions. But that's not it. No...

No, not really... like that.

Kind of it, but not...

Kind of it is like that...

I don't feel I'm going below, below, below.

Not below specially, like that.

How else would it stop?

Your attention traverses through your being in various modes. So if I say to you, bring your attention to your thoughts, then you can bring your attention to your thought. Then if I say, okay, now bring your attention to the sensations you're feeling in the body, you can bring your attention. Tell me what emotion you're feeling: then you can start noticing for that.

So it's not really levels. It's not that the attention goes from level to level.

You see... but it knows where to traverse.

But they all seem to be in the same space.

It is all in the same space. It is all in the same space. And yet we have the ability to narrow down...

Distinguish them. You don't go to a different place.

Okay. What is the emotion you're feeling right now?

Nothing.

Huh? So you went somewhere and checked.

Yeah. It's not...

What are you feeling? What sensation are you feeling in the body?

My feet on the floor.

Check. Check.

Yeah. I'm feeling my fingertip.

Bas. Yeah. You're lucky you're young. By the time of my age, I look for sensation... there's always some ache on this knee, some this thing, this one, some soreness, this... I wish there were... this kind of age, no... it's just like, yeah... sensation: feet on the floor. But returning to the point: we're able to check. We're able to send our attention in such a way that we're able to localize, to remove the other things and to focus on those elements.

It's like the way I can tell this apart from this, though it's in the same space... emotion from thought.

Yeah. What if I say, now keep your eyes open, but move your attention inwardly to your thoughts?

Yeah. But once it's inside, then that layers... I don't... I've never seen it like that. Inside, outside... yes.

Yeah. So... if you were to report on the language of every thought, notice where your attention goes.

I feel they're in the same space.

Yes. But... I'm just saying that within the same space you're able to localize what is called the sheath of thought, thinking; the sheath of emotion; the sheath of body sensation; the sheath of just pure being... I don't know about that, whether we can localize that yet. But...

Sheath... I don't get that. I mean, maybe it'll get revealed. Is it something that gets revealed? Is it... am I not noticing hard enough, or...

No. No. It's just the way to represent. Like, how would you tell... like, if Radha was new to Satsang...

Yeah.

And you wanted her to notice her emotions, what would you tell her?

It's not about being new to Satsang. She would already know.

Yeah. So what... what language would you use?

The word? Like, what do you mean... English?

Like, in what way would you tell her... you know, a thought from a feeling?

She already... you know a thought from a feeling.

Yeah. So, to know from... is the distinction. No? How do you know... how do you know a thought from a feeling?

Different... different word. One is in language, one is more... blobby something.

Okay. So, emotion versus body pain and pleasure?

Yeah, it's... it's body pain...

Both are blobby something.

Blobby. Yes. But it's more... gross.

That's what... so those distinctions are called levels or layers. It is not...

So is it like...

Because what are we saying? So where is the inside, anyway?

Yeah, it's strange. Yeah.

Where is it? It's not inside this body. You imagine a tree: where is the tree?

Can't see.

You say it's the projection of the mind. Where? So it's... we visit a space which is beyond the three-dimensional space of the world. What is the inside? That inside is where we find God himself. So that inside is not inside the body. It is not inside the mind. It's not inside the brain. Is this brainism idea?

To add more... everything is inside the brain.

But where is the brain? Some people... even the body is seen within the brain, no? So then, where is the brain? Then this is the... back to the jar thing. Whose jar is it? The... somebody's jar... no... jar...

Vat in a jar. Huh? Vat in a jar. Brain in a jar. Somebody's... it is also called somebody's jar, no? That... brain... Boltzmann's brain. Boltzmann's brain.

Boltzmann brain. Okay, maybe that. So anyway, that's not the point. So we have to stay away from these ideas of things which we are not intuitively getting a sense that they are like that. Talking about the brainism thing.

Okay. Okay. Like, one other way I theorize a bit... like, in Photoshop, you do know, if you've used... opacity of the layers, and transparency, you can change. Would that be more accurate, or...

Very tough. Maybe. You see, but in all of this, don't forget the key point: that he is there. You keep looking at the dimensions of the sweet shop and forget to eat the sweet. So don't do that. Oh, how many counters are there? You know, what is the length, breadth, height of the sweet shop? And then we feel like we spend our whole life in the sweet shop. But the point is to eat the sweet. To eat God. Cuz if you don't eat God in this life, it's a zombie life. Yeah. None of this is meant to make you feel like, oh, I'm so guilty, I'm leading a zombie life, I am so unworthy, I'm leading a zombie... No. It is to just wake up and say: yes, my life is for God.

Oh, my father, you said God is a watcher.

God is a watcher, I said?

Watch... he's watching everything. I said like that... yeah, I heard like that. Sorry if it's a wrong... It felt like he's a CC camera of the entire universe. Could you please throw some more light on that? Yeah. Thank you.

So there is sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. These senses are there internally. We may have some other faculties as well. So the witnessing of sight is not seeing, you see... although we may call it recognition, or Seeing, capital S. Yeah. So awareness is not sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. Many times what happens is, when we speak of awareness, because we're used to attentiveness in our waking state, awareness is taken to be attentiveness. Like... yoga... and we were speaking about this a few weeks back, that how awareness and attentiveness are confused. Because for most of our lives we feel like we don't have access to that pure witnessing, so the thing that comes close is the attentiveness, because attention also seems to be without attributes. So when the questions are asked about awareness: does it have any attributes? No. Attention doesn't have attributes. Does it come and go? Kind of. But we can put it in the box of: doesn't come and go, is always there. So a lot of the boxes of the self, which is the pure awareness itself, attention can tick, you see. But one area where it clearly fades, or fails, is: is it limited? Attention is limited. So if you were to try and listen to my answer, and everybody starts talking on the side of the room, you will tell them, quiet, I want to... you see, because what are you running out of? You're running out of attention. You need attention to be able to perceive clearly what is being said. So... so, like, if you close your eyes now and try to imagine a picture of a tree in your imagination, and hear these words, you see, you will notice that either the words have to become a little unclear, or the tree has to be a bit blurry. But if you had unlimited attention, you could imagine the tree also in full high resolution, and you could hear the words also clearly. But attention is limited, you see. So perception is a functioning of attention. Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell is all a functioning of attention. Awareness is the backdrop. In a way, we can say that attention is reporting back to awareness, but it is not changing. You see, so one question to ask is that, if you send your attention from thought to emotion to sensation, like we were doing, who witnesses the changing of the attention from here to there to there? Is that also changing? You see, that unchanging is the watcher, the capital Witnessing, or the awareness itself. Because even through the changing movements of attention and perception, it remains unchanged.

So be attention... attention is gone, but awareness is...

Remember how much we used to talk about this topic? Like, I used to keep saying, how do you know there is a state called deep sleep? Many used to say, in those days, that even I go away... like, even I am not there in sleep state... then how do you know there is a state called sleep? Yeah. So if I said to you, every night you go into Super Mario toy state, you say, no, I don't go to any... you see, so you know. But if I say you don't go to sleep every night, you say, no, I go to sleep every night. You see... but I say, which part of you is able to report on deep sleep? No part of you... like, no empirical part of you, no phenomenal part of you. You see, so only the most primal, the pure witnessing itself, the pure awareness itself, remains. And that is the beauty of deep sleep... like, it's a replica of nirvikalpa samadhi every night. Replica... not the same.

Am I... the I am... we may say, like, sometimes we may say that a very thin, thin, thin sense of I am still is there, or it's a spectrum which fades away depending on how deep the sleep is. So... self-realization is to recognize yourself as the one in deep sleep, even in the waking state. Or, to remain as the one that we are in deep sleep, even in the waking state.

The point you made about awareness versus attentiveness... which always brings up the question of, can you ever experience not being the little self? Uh, you know, which means, can you actually get out of your own head? And the only time... and this is also not from my own understanding, I read it somewhere... where you can always imagine a clock ticking: the last tick, the current tick and the next tick. The last and the next are objects of your imagination, while the current tick... which means, anytime I'm in this exact second, just looking at you, feeling everything... that might be the only time I'm actually experiencing. Is that the right way to think about it?

Well, there are various... various questions in that. So, can we be empty even during the waking? We can. Like, like you said, the present moment, in a way, you see... just remaining in the unlabeled perception of the content of the appearances, without any narrative structure: it is possible. Do I think it's likely? And I'll expand on that: I think it's highly unlikely. What makes it more likely? When it is not a godless spirituality, it makes it more likely. So a godless spirituality means I'm just trying to be in the now. I'm just trying to be empty, in my own strength. Now, there is nobody in this room who doesn't know that to be free from suffering we just have to be in the now. Everybody, especially after Eckhart came, everybody knows that that is the pathway. Now, how many have actually rid themselves of suffering just by knowing that? Nobody... not that I am aware of. And I'm not talking about... I'm not putting Eckhart down; last time I said this, there was this misunderstanding that I'm putting him down. I'm just localizing the particular pointing about remaining in the now, and looking at whether that works independently... that theoretically it should work. It seemed like a simple enough instruction: just be in the now. Now. No, now. You see, so many years in Satsang I just spent clicking like that... just being, like, now, you see. Then more and more it became apparent to me that without the anchor of love for God, without the anchor of God's presence in our heart, to remain just organically empty, or in the moment, is... I would say, next to impossible for most of us. Some Zen masters may disagree with me, but in my experience, when we are inward facing, in God's presence, in the sense I am, then it's very organic to remain just now, now.

Right. So... but the point... the word you're using is also presence... God's presence. So I think the whole discussion today, which I really resonated with, about, you know... you leave here, you go to work, you go somewhere, you know... somebody in your house says something, where... you know, what are you talking about these days?

Exactly.

I think, in any of that... even then, the only time you can come back to center is in that moment, with that presence. Otherwise it's... you're... it's one more story, and you're chasing that.

Exactly. Exactly. That's why... this sounds very confusing to many when I say it, but I have to say that when we are just... when we are being empty, then we are not being empty, because there's still traces of the one being empty there. You see, the only remaining empty is to remain in God's presence. I also have to add some words of caution to that, because the minute we try to use God's presence so that... something... then it is not a true love, and then we can't really remain in God's will. So we also have to examine that element of it. What is being said: that God is here, and we can be in his presence. Once we can be in his presence, what do we have to worry about? Like, what is left? God. No? That's why I always make it a point to take out the scientification of God, or force-fieldification of God. So it's not a force field, on the basis of which then we will... you see... he's worth it for himself. More than worth it for himself. It's God. So otherwise it becomes a god for me. And then the same thing that we try to avoid in the godless spirituality, which is the traces of the me, you see... that I am remaining empty so that I can be free. No, but because I am remaining empty, that I am is still a posture of remaining empty. It's not really empty. You have transport back.

Yes.

So the posture of remaining empty can pose as if it is empty, but it's still got the posture element to it. And anytime we try to use God's presence for something for me, it is no longer purely God's presence. Getting God... what else do we need? This sounds absurd to some. Oh, wow. There are many hands. Can I go to someone I've not spoken to first? I see RP's hand is up. Are you here? Doesn't look like RP is there. This is only the nirguna rup, not the saguna rup. Okay, let's go to the one...

I'll try with words. I just try to... I will never be able to thank you enough, you know. I'll never be able to... my human voice always... always fails. This is the most I can do, is to just thank you. Cuz there's so much power that is here in this place. There's just so much grace and power that is here, that it's just like... in the spirit, you just know that there's so much blessings and grace that is flowing. And I'm really hearing more and more what you say, when you speak about, like, the spirit... that's actually the spirit that's doing all the work. And it's like... and the mercy of God... cuz I see that, even in spite of my increasing foolishness, there is still, like, the mercy... I still feel like... it's just as though he doesn't even see the foolishness.

Yes. Exactly.

Sometimes I just feel, like, so unworthy of this grace and this continuous showering of blessings, and even to be able to... even to be able to hear what you speak, and to testify to the truth of it... and that is only the spirit that is able to do it. I'm very much aware that any effort or intellectual capacity cannot understand what you speak.

Yeah, it's very clear.

But in this place, there is... you just know this is true. I don't know how to explain it. Like, here, you just know... it's just like, something just knows it's true. Like... it's not... you're not really involved in the same way. It has nothing to do with the character of Divan and his life. Like, it's just a kind of thing that is there, and there's just something that is just doing that thing. And I'm very grateful to the Holy Spirit, the Atma, because it is manifest through your words and through your mouth. For me, it's that thing. It's him who is doing it. I'm very much aware that it's just him that is doing this. I'm very grateful that this is allowing me to even see and acknowledge this. It's undeniable, master, just undeniable... like, the power of the spirit is just undeniable. And I'm very much seeing as well that, in terms of the human expression... like, it's so much limited, that even when I hear the words coming, even if they're baptized by the spirit... like, the instrument is so limited, and the most I can do is just open up to it, to just allow it to speak, and to just honor it as much as I can. But the truth just shines. It just shines on, by its own light and perfection, and no human being can actually fully ever embody it. And so I'm grateful to you, because at least you show us how we can... that it is possible to embody, with as much intention as possible. I just feel so blessed, and just so, so, so blessed. And the spirit of truth is, like, in everyone, you know. It's like... it's a unique story with, like, every soul, somehow, but he's speaking through a lot of things... like, speaking... he's been speaking, somehow... he does his work in very secret ways, in the way that only... like, I don't know how... it's only after, you begin to see that, yes, it was just him doing this thing, like that. And my prayer is that I should never, ever forget... that it is not by any, like, sort of qualification... and to honor, and to just be an instrument of it, as much as I'm able to... understand, like, how... it's like... I don't see the nonsense... I don't understand this thing... this... I'm very grateful, and you're just pointing to a secret, you know? Like, it's just the secret of... to honor, like, the spirit. Cuz without the spirit it is impossible to come to the truth. That's why he said that I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes...

Yes.

...to the father except through me. He was speaking on... it's not a personal statement, or a religious statement... speaking about this thing.

Yes. Yes. Did you hear what he said?

Spirit is always reaching out.

I'll just... I'll just repeat what you said. It's very important. He said that when Jesus said that no one comes to the father except through me, he didn't mean it personally. He also said, when he was leaving: I will ask my father to send you the comforter. So the same spirit which was in his heart is the spirit which is in our heart. And we cannot reach God... we cannot reach Saguna Brahman, Nirguna Brahman, without the Atma within. So we must come to Atma darshan. We must come to Atma Gyan. Whichever... it's universal, this truth. It doesn't matter which religion, which faith, which country: this truth is unchanging. And those who have sought the truth, have sought God, throughout the centuries, all have pointed to the same truth. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that.

Your grace... must... your grace... shown that the Holy Spirit is always reaching out, you know, in the heart... is always fully open to, like, guide, and it's always just there... just, like, so much power... like, in just intending to... because only the full emptying... I don't feel like any human being can do it, but in that spirit... in the spirit, you can undress yourself of you, you know? And that's... most, like... holiest first place, somehow. And you're continuously pointing... I'm seeing how you're just continuously trying to point at this... continuously, tirelessly, trying to point at this, using different parts, using different tools, to point to this, with different temperaments of beings. I know my words never be able to thank you enough, but... I mean... my heart... you and... your spirit is forever in my heart, and... I'll forever honor you in my heart, forever.

I feel you in my heart. I feel your words are very heartfelt, and they're coming from the heart itself. So always so beautiful to hear you, and may God bless you with more and more of this light, of this love, of this grace. All my blessings, all my love. And may you keep deepening, growing in this humble, beautiful way. Bless you, my child, always. Bless you. Bless you.