Trust God to Unfold Your Life - 13th May 2024

Being is your unbounded being, no limitation, and yet it is the arising from the Absolute which is beyond every notion. Every notion of being and non-being doesn't apply to the pure Nirguna Brahman. Within which is the birth of Consciousness, the birth of being. This Consciousness is like the boundless ocean in which the universes come and go. That 'I Am' nature which is also beyond Father, and yet 'I Am,' you see? I as being is this Saguna nature, the Son. And then the Holy Spirit, the Atma, who reveals itself to you within yourself as a primordial presence, as a Holy Light. But can you see that it is purely vibrational? Everyone with us, can you see it is purely vibrational? The sense of when you meet this I Amness within yourself, you meet it within yourself, isn't it? You see, now this I Amness—do you know how you meet it? In what way can it be met? How do you say 'I recognize this presence within myself'?

Phenomenal way? Non-phenomenal way? But if it was purely non-phenomenal, then it would be pure awareness, isn't it?

What is the difference between 'I' and 'I Am'? The difference is clear. And how to meet this 'I Am'? Through awareness, pure awareness. When you come to this pure awareness within which you realize that 'I Am'—now this 'I Am,' how is it distinct? What makes them qualitatively distinguished? What makes one being and one beyond being and not being? How do you recognize this? How do we come to the recognition of this beingness? We say that the most subtle, beyond subtle and gross actually, is the pure within which is the birth of Consciousness. So this Consciousness, how can we approach it? What tells us the distinction between awareness and Consciousness? What does being taste like? Does it have a taste?

It can taste like joy and love.

Yes, just before joy and love, follow the perfume of joy and love. Where is it coming from? How do you know it's Consciousness and not awareness? I know it can sound very irritating to the mind what I'm sharing, but just see if you can follow; it's very subtle. How do you tell the distinction between Consciousness and awareness without relying on the byproducts of joy, love, peace? Let's try another way. Awareness does not come and go, whether it is sleep state, waking state, dream state, Turiya, Samadhi, whatever it may be. So what changes between sleep state and waking state?

Consciousness wakes up.

And this Consciousness, how do we recognize it? Is it just that we are presuming then we are conscious? How do we tell the difference between the fact that we are awake or we are not awake? Just the perception of the world? Then what is that? That sense of being—that is the presence of Atma, the Holy Spirit. The sense of being itself is too broad to get a sense of because it's infinite, isn't it? And yet you get a sense of that, and remaining in the sense of that, you are intuitive enough to recognize the nature of the boundless being. That sense of I Amness is what Maharaj called it, what Bhagavan called it: the sense 'I Am.' What are we sensing? Sensing the being. The sensing of the being—where are you sensing it? Here, but nowhere. That 'hereness' is not there in awareness, isn't it? The 'hereness' you can only tell about being because there's a presence which you can say 'I am here.' It's undeniable. Even if you're coming for the first time, you have to say that 'I am here.' If I say 'No, no, you are everywhere, you are not here,' you say 'Yeah, I know that, but actually I'm here.' So this pulsation, this vibration, this sense of being—you get a sense that 'I am here,' and yet if I was to ask you what is the boundary of this 'I Am,' you will say it is boundless. So there's a 'hereness' about it and there's a boundlessness about it. And the 'hereness' is not in space; you're saying that I have a sense of myself, a sense of existence. That sense is the presence of the Atma.

Pure Nirguna, the Absolute reality—no chance, you can't grasp at it. It's a purely intuitive recognition. How to be purely intuitive? We can't be intuitive through our senses or thinking. Intuition is the intelligence of the Atma within. That is why it is called the Satguru presence. Without going to the Satguru presence, without going to the Atma, the Holy Spirit, you cannot be intuitive. And only intuitively can you recognize yourself. For years I shared something which was: where do you know yourself as the Self? Do you know it in perception? Do you know it in thinking? Then where do you know that you are that ineffable, unperceivable one? We go to the refuge of the Atma within, which is God's presence, and He shows us the reality of the Self.

I just want to follow what you're saying. You're saying that there is a difference between God's being and God's presence? Between the unbounded being, the Saguna Brahman, and the sense of presence that I have about me?

Some of you may say 'I feel it in my heart.' In fact, most of you would say that. Like Bhagavan said, you can see it as the more subtle vibration in your heart—it's not a physical heart, it's your spiritual center. So that presence of the one... let's look at it another way. Is there a being within you now? If it is boundless, it can't be 'within.' So we have to be talking about the sense of presence through which we recognize that there is a boundless being here. This sense of presence is what we refer to as the Atma, as the Holy Spirit, because it is the living presence of God. God as Saguna Brahman then makes himself available to us as the Atma, the sense of presence which we can seek refuge in. That is why we call it the Holy Light, the pure fragrance of love. Between pure Consciousness which is boundless and the taste of love and peace, you sense that there's a presence of 'I Am.' And there's no rush; we can spend our entire life in this discovery. It is that beautiful and that worthwhile.

Some teachers talk about being and presence interchangeably.

Well, we do that often because mostly when I'm saying that there's a living being within yourself, I'm talking about this presence. Words are interchangeable. Like the full arm is there, but I'm just talking about the hand. I often used to talk about the tip of the iceberg. Is the tip of the iceberg different from the iceberg? It's part of the iceberg, and yet you can notice the tip. So although in reality it is one, yet we meet the tip because it's above the surface of the Nirguna nature. Can we say that the Holy Spirit is a gift from God? Yes, only by His grace. Although it is God himself, yet it is a gift from God. The tip of the iceberg is the iceberg itself, and yet it is the gift of the iceberg.

The taste of the presence of the Atma is the being itself. You yourself as 'I Am.' But that recognition of even its source, which is non-phenomenal, is intuitively recognized beyond phenomena. That is called Atma Gyan. So being, relying on its power of intuitive insight, recognizes that which is beyond phenomena. Awareness is never forgotten itself. It is not confused about anything. Everything arises out from there. Then being, when playing as I-am-ness, what happens to it? When this I-am-ness gets attached to name and form, it takes itself to be separate—a Jivatma, a separate entity. When it empties itself from these attachments, these Vasanas, then it recognizes itself as pure Saguna Brahman as well as the source of itself, the Nirguna.

You don't have to worry too much about the semantics. Who is actually recognizing it? It is the sense of presence which is recognizing the unbounded presence, which is then recognizing the pure awareness. You don't have to get into any of that. You know that it is you. Which aspect of you, how you are playing... it's like asking whether attention reports back to beingness or attention reports back to awareness. If you contemplate a question like that, the seeming boundary between beingness and awareness crashes, isn't it? You can never come to a conclusive answer, but it is convenient to say it reports to your being because it's only relevant to ask these questions in the waking state. Attention is only seeming to be present in the waking state. So let's say as a servant of your being itself, it functions. Perception happens in the light of attention. But in our actual checking, we cannot say 'is this going to my Saguna nature or my Nirguna nature?' We can only say it's reporting back to me.

We used to do a lot more of these contemplations earlier, but that can be beautiful while being intuitive and it can be frustrating when being categorical. In our mind, we want to know 'is it like this or like that?' That is where all the debates start between the different sects, because they are trying to determine which category it is. It doesn't really matter because you know in your heart, you see? You know intuitively. It's where the boundaries collapse. Does attention report back to your presence, your being, or to your pure awareness? You look and you look, and sometimes you feel like it's coming right to awareness itself, but when you have that looking, then you can't find a being. So when you're waking up, the play of attention and perception happens. We say attention is bringing perception to your being. That's why we say that, although we can't really say it because actually there's no difference between the water and ice.

Something waking for that which I was seeing in a dream may not know this is a dream.

Yes, but the more interesting one is—it's so easy to conclude that 'yes, I was there in the dream, I'm here in the waking.' The I-am-ness seems to be constant. But when we wake up from sleep, then what are we saying? Because in sleep, even 'I Am' was not there. That is a very beautiful contemplation. What wakes up? Who falls asleep? Who remains there to witness that there is something called sleep? You know that there is sleep and there is waking. Your mind doesn't know. Your mind shows you an image of dark empty space, which is not sleep. The pure nothingness only you know intuitively.

For a Gyani who has come to the realization that the sleep, dream, and waking are transience, do you still dream in the same way? Does the misidentification dissipate? Do you still see two different states and are not aware in the dream? I'm just trying to understand because at some level, if you recognize the truth, why does the cycle keep going? Why does one keep going back into rejecting the waking state in dream and vice versa once you know they are revolving aspects in the same reality?

Well, I don't know about a Gyani, but I can tell you my experience is that in most of my dreams, I'm quite identified with whatever I notice. So maybe not enlightened enough yet! One child once said to me very innocently, 'Father, you've taken care of the waking state; I rarely get identified here. But in my dreams, I'm often identified. Can you help now with that?' I said, 'No, for that realm you will have to find a Guru there. My job responsibility is only this.' The quality of the sleep state does change. Waking up is immensely different. And God blesses us with sleep if we are in inquiry, if we are empty, if we are in prayer. God blesses us with sleep because otherwise, in the human condition, you'll notice that as you get older, for many, sleep becomes a great difficulty. But the more you deepen in God's light, He really blesses us with rest—not just sleep, but many people are not able to be restful even sitting down because the system is just out of whack. Without the restful presence of the spirit, we don't get rest or sleep.

You must have noticed the days you're inquiring—because inquiry is your practice—those days your quality of rest will be better. And it doesn't have to be sleep. Suppose that you meditated all day; then you're not that sleepy, but you feel very restful. God blesses us with rest. I was amazed at the power of this. You could have very stressful days at work, and when you start coming into spirituality, this is one of the things that attracts you—that you have exhausting days, and then just 20 minutes of any practice and you feel so refreshed. I felt that, oh, this must be doing something in the body or mind, but actually, I just put it simply and say God blesses us with rest in His presence. Only in His presence do we really rejuvenate.

What happens when we go on a holiday? We give ourselves some space; we just empty for some time. If it's a good holiday, you're giving yourself space to not be so focused on 'what do I need to do?' and you just return to your presence within. Most do it without realizing and they feel rested. Even if it happens for a few seconds, they feel rejuvenation. Often people like to go to places where they see something very unique, but what's the big deal in that? No perception actually touches us in any way. But the big deal is because it is so unique that the mind doesn't have the narratives yet; it doesn't know how to play. We come to a stunning mountain and we just empty for a few seconds. That is the price that is worth the price of the tickets! But after a few seconds, we're gone; we want to capture it forever, we want family photos. I'm just saying that then that's a different kind of resting. The few seconds of just being empty if you see something stunning—that itself is very rare in the human condition, except through your spirituality where you learn to be empty in the most natural of things.

Suppose you're looking at the Grand Canyon; you're just immersing yourself in that no-mind state because the mind is not able to yet determine things. But if you jump into 'these rocks were created in that age,' then that part of the beauty is gone. You may enjoy that if you're a geography buff, but that pure meeting is gone. There you learn to be fresh. Then every day is a holiday. These ones never looked stressed, never looked exhausted emotionally or mentally; it's fresh. And that can be attractive to many. 'How can I just be like that?' Are you seeing the difference in the way of life? We can have a way of life where we're trying to get rest through outside things—get the best mattress, the best couch—but unless you meet yourself in this way, meet your Atma in this way, true rest doesn't come. That's why sleep is so beautiful, because you have that meeting beyond even being and not being. So that rejuvenates you. If a few days you don't get sleep, it's going to be very tough because you haven't really met yourself. True rest only comes from within.

Then the mind also wants to know so much: 'What is this? What is this?' But true knowledge also comes from within. From innocence sprouts the highest knowledge. That's why I love this episode of Mira Bai that I saw the other day. If you just look at her expression, people like a Gyani would say she's a fool. What a fool! She's just holding on to the Murti of Krishna as if it is Krishna and saying, 'Mere Giridhar Gopal,' with everything—'I'm going to feed him, I'm going to bathe him.' To a Gyani, it can look foolish. Then in one episode, she really describes the true nature of reality and Nirguna Brahman and the play of the Leela. How does she get that without studying anything? Just in love with God. How did Maharaj come to it? Through inquiry, but not through literacy. He was a very simple bidi seller. He didn't come to it through education. What is that which taught him all of this without going to school? That is what I'm calling the discipleship of the Atma. As a disciple of the Atma, you know things which your mind cannot fathom, but you're not interested in using them for personal gain. You're not interested in showing off or claiming anything, because you know it's a sheer gift from your heart.

So we learn humility and faith in the light of the spirit within. That presence of being is the being, and yet it is the tip of the iceberg. Look at His grace, look at His love. Otherwise, it would be so difficult. We have this holy teacher in our heart, the Satguru presence. It's astounding how literal all of this is. When I first got into spirituality, everyone used to say that the Satguru is within. All masters have said that. I thought, 'Okay, nice thing to say, they're just being humble.' But you realize that there's a living being within you who is the Master of masters, the Sage of sages, the Light of lights. And because He is the unknowing, we don't ever have to be concerned about the method in which we are praying.

We talked about this jokingly. Suppose you're praying, but your mind is confused, so instead of praying to Krishna, you're praying to 'Shri Kumar' or something. You spend your whole life doing that. Do you feel like God is going to say, 'No, no, you got my name wrong, so you wasted this life'? No, it's your intention that counts. There's a story of an Orthodox monk sitting in a cave for many years saying the Jesus Prayer. A bishop of a higher rank came and heard him say with lots of tears, 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, don't have mercy on me a sinner.' He was confused; he had learned it wrong and for years he said 'don't have mercy.' So they taught him the right version: 'have mercy on me.' He was very sad that all his life he prayed it wrong. They taught him the right version and they left on a ship. As they left, he completely forgot the words. He was like, 'Oh my God, I forgot!' So he ran behind them, but they were in the middle of the sea by then. The bishop and his assistant look back and they see a man walking on the water, coming and saying, 'Sir, please tell me, I forgot the prayer.' Then the bishop says, 'I'm so sorry I corrected you. Please say the same prayer, that's the prayer for you.' He realized the monk had earned so much spiritual wealth. If your heart is in the right place, then the method is not that important.

Having said that, don't use it to short-change God. Don't say, 'Actually, I could have done it 30,000 times today, but I will say it thrice because God knows I love him.' Don't use the fact that the method is secondary to be lazy. What is most important is your intention. Is your intention to surrender yourself to God? Then the right method, everything will unfold for you. But if your intention is to use God to get personal benefit, then it's going to be very difficult because first your intention has to be cleaned up. When we hear of the Atma, the Holy Spirit, we should actually be in awe. What are you being informed about in satsang? Leave everything aside. What did you understand from this fact that there's an Atma? That God illumines us from within. This illumination is in the form of a living being, a living presence who is intelligent, who is alive. The highest intelligence is living inside you—not your body, you. You are being informed of this fact because you are being told about the possibility to merge with Him. And before that merging is fully apparent, you can create a loving relationship with Him. That is spirituality, because it is about Spirit. Any spirituality without Spirit is not spirituality.

Is there such an Atma within you? Only the Atma can say. What do we come to satsang for? Atma already knows itself. You're not going to go to the Atma within and find it saying, 'I'm a bit busy finding out who I am at the moment.' Atma knows itself; it knows the reality of God, the Nirguna and the Saguna. We come to satsang because the rest of the layers of our existence are giving us trouble. It is not the Atma layer which is causing you trouble. It is because your mind is giving you trouble, you think your emotions are giving you trouble—but actually, without the mind, no trouble. You think your body is giving you trouble, and you think that which is outside of you—which is not actually outside, this is your living dream—is giving you trouble. To get relief from that trouble or to realize the true nature of all of these things, that is why we come to satsang. To heal ourselves in this way, we come to satsang. How to heal ourselves? Because the Doctor is within.

The Doctor is within our heart. He's the one that gives us rest; He is the one that heals us. When Guruji says that this is a rehab center run by Consciousness for Consciousness, it's literally because we are sick. We are sick because we have forgotten ourselves and we have got disconnected from God's presence within ourselves. That is why in this world, you see most of us are going through a hellish experience even though we try to make it palatable. We live in a world where there's anger, greed, attachment, all sorts of desperation. How is it possible, while saying that everything is God, we live in this sort of existence full of fear and anxiety? Can we be healed by meeting this Doctor in our heart? There are simple things you can notice. There are some days where you love to pray and you love to inquire, and there are some days where you just don't want to do any of that. What is the difference in the two days? You notice these things. It seems so unapproachable; it seems like we have to work harder to come to His presence within ourselves. This is the play of Maya. And who's the best warrior for Maya? This one sitting in your head: the mind.

When you don't feel like coming to satsang, you don't feel like praying, you're not interested in God—the world seems very real and all its offerings seem very real—then you are in the grip of Maya. In another way, you can call it a 'mind attack.' Even in the midst of a mind attack, that is why that morning thing I've told you—every morning start with God—is very important, because you blunt that attack. You blunt the play of Maya right in the beginning. Otherwise, what will happen is Maya will make spirituality also about you. 'I want to be more productive at work, so give me a practice so I'm more peaceful at work.' But you're going to die! When death seems too far and distant, know that you're being tricked by Maya. I'm not saying we must live in some impending fear, but to remember that death is coming is very important. It's not at all a taboo topic. It's very important to remember the finite nature of the dream. Otherwise, we can think that just accumulating stuff here is more than enough. So many people say, 'I think long-term.' Just go one step longer, then what is best? In the long term, everybody's dead. But how many are really thinking long-term? Fifty years of this man's life have gone; it seems like just a short dream. Where did it all go? Whatever years are left will also go like that. Then what? That is why this element of time is very important. That is why sages like Kabir and Tulsidas kept emphasizing: don't waste this opportunity. The mind is snatching time away from you.

In the Bible, it says 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions.' What is the meaning of that? I was very confused as a child. You have good intentions, but you never bring them to fruition because you never look deep inside your heart. We never go and find out: is there God? Who am I? Either way is the same question. I went looking for myself and I found God; you go looking for God, you'll find yourself. But nobody thinks that long-term. And then you have the strange ones who have come in the form of incarnations, Avatars, sages, masters—all of them have come and said there is eternal life, your true nature is deathless. But you have to come to Atma Gyan, you have to come to self-recognition. Otherwise, this duality of birth and death will seem real and you cannot escape it just by having a notion that it's not real. You say, 'Oh, but I heard it's not real,' but if you haven't come to Atma Gyan, to a holy meeting with yourself, it's just like saying, 'I know avocado ice cream is very nice, but I've never had it.' Just having a concept of something is not going to help you. You must come to an insight; you must live in that insight.

How to do that is directly proportional to what you're willing to give up. How much of the 'me' are you willing to surrender? How much of your pride are you willing to surrender? How humble are you willing to be? How much faith are you willing to have, which is going to be contradictory to everything you think you know? Something very beautiful I read this morning is: both fear and faith are about something that you cannot see yet. Which one are you going to follow? Fear is about some presumed future; faith is about an unperceivable reality within yourself. To trust that is faith. So how to come to that? Are you willing to put your head on the guillotine? Spirituality is self-sacrificing and not self-serving. I keep saying this over and over just so that you start to get a sense of it. Because in the modern world, spirituality has become so convoluted that it is just 'peace, joy, it's not working for me.' It's about grabbing instead of self-sacrificing. But when we hear the history of the sages, it was of surrender, not about 'what did I get?' Am I willing to really surrender? Am I willing to say 'there is nothing of me in me, everything is yours'? Or is our spirituality also about getting better emotions and having a stress-free life? As byproducts, all those things could happen, but if they become central to your spirituality, then you're blocking your own path.

Otherwise, what you hear in satsang is very simple: just be empty, open and empty conceptually—no mind, empty mind—or just pray all the time. Why is it difficult? Because the 'me' gets in the way. The 'I want' gets in the way. We say 'I surrender my life to God' and the next instant we say 'I want peace, I want this, I want that.' Those days where we don't feel like praying, those days are more important. I keep saying—I need to find a better way to say this—but what we do in the sand is more important than what we do in the honey. Our spirituality feels difficult some days. Many days I also feel like, 'Okay, let me just watch some news, I've had enough.' Then what we do then is more important. Because when it's all honey, honey, then He's taking over, everything is fine anyway, He's driving, it's all so joyful. Very beautiful, those days all the Sadhana happens. Inquiry is so beautiful: 'Who am I?' and 'I am pure awareness.' Those days are a gift; enjoy them. But the other days where the mind has got you by the throat, where your relationships are all topsy-turvy, where the money in the bank is depleting, where the body seems bad—those days, what you do then? Do you then have faith? Do you then have humility? Do you then come from love and kindness and compassion? That is more important.

Or do we make excuses for our anger, for our irritation, for not treating our brothers and sisters kindly? All these small things may seem like they're not relevant to my inquiry, but you see for yourself how relevant each of these are. Imagine yourself being proud and angry all day—you think you're going to sit and inquire and come to the Self? In God's grace, everything is possible, but it's very unlikely. If you fed the 'me' all day, then you feel like 'I'll sit 20 minutes and meditate and all will be fine.' It doesn't work like that. It's still better you do that than not do it, but all these things moment to moment—how are we? Are we surrendered to His will? Are we waiting for His guidance in our heart? Are we allowing His presence to move us? All these things are very important. And if you don't cultivate that, then what is the big deal if you had an awakening experience? The minute the 20 minutes are done, you're back to your old ways. How does that help? It helps to come to recognition, but if you go back to 'Ravan,' then it doesn't help to be 'Ram' for 20 minutes if you're going to make that an object of your pride.

Many times those who have awakening experiences are worse off than those who haven't, because you become proud. We often speak of Ravan—maybe because I'm watching this Shri Ramayan also—but do you wonder how someone who can write something like the Shiva Tandava Stotram could behave like such an evil, proud man? So it is possible for us to be blessed by God, have the grace of God, even great things to emerge out of us, and yet refuse to bow down to God himself in our pride. We have been nudged and prodded over and over to become humble. Do we learn the lesson? Ravan got so many lessons. He wanted to pick up Kailash and take Shiva with him to Lanka, so then Shiva just put His foot down and almost broke his hands in that process. How many times did you see that he was nudged against his pride? It's so beautiful because you can meet this even as a story. What can you learn from that? I meet it as history; that is my faith. But okay, I'm not imposing that on you. Why is it that the stories are all the same in spirituality? Every story in the Bible is about pride. Every story in Indian spirituality is about pride, whether it's Kansa or Ravan. It's all about faith, humility, love. What are they trying to tell us?

The play of this Maya is so much that before you come to the discipleship of the Atma, you come to at least an openness to that. We don't even see our pride. When I'm talking about pride, everyone will be thinking 'he's talking about everyone else.' Only in the light of the True Light within do we see our own blind spots. But I promise you that there is no one in this room who is not proud, starting with this one. So it applies to us all. That I say in satsang applies to this foolish man more than anyone else. We must never get into any sort of delusions. But so beautiful is the grace of the Atma that He shows you in such a beautiful way. At least it starts off showing us in such a beautiful way, like a mother always first will try to explain with love, cradle the child in the arms and say 'don't do like that, it's not good for you.' And you don't feel bad because you're getting so much love in the process. That is the preferred mode of the Atma's teaching. You're recognizing, you may be even confessing your pride and saying 'I'm the most foolish one,' but you're tasting so much love inside you in bliss. It's such a loving way of teaching us. God's love is so beautiful.

But if we don't listen, and we don't listen a million times, then would the loving parent just say 'Okay, I'm going to use the same approach'? Then the nudges have to become pushes. Then it seems like 'Oh, my life is full of suffering, how can I turn to God?' Anyone who is now sensitive to this will notice that there were hundreds of nudges before that happened. Suffering doesn't usually just come; it tells us 'change, improve your ways.' If we don't listen, then the mother has to take stronger action. Otherwise, what's going to happen? The Doha said 'Maya is Mahathagini.' So this Mahathagini is going to take your whole life, finished. But the thing is, he also said 'Kabira khada bazaar mein.' The combination of these two Dohas is very important. At one level, Maya is the greatest con artist, and at the second level, he's also saying that the opportunity to escape her claws does not come again and again, and you must use this life for this. What other wake-up call can we get?

Like when you were saying that spiritual wealth—remembering His name—transcends death, I started thinking that this will come again. If in this life, however much I did, even if it was not full-on, some amount I did, it'll get carried forward in the next life also, and then somehow this opportunity will come again.

It's fine, it's fine. This is the true wealth that you can carry forward. Think of it like that. But you see, true wealth... we're reading a book by Brother Lawrence, 'Practicing the Presence of God.' He said in his last days that '40 years of my life I have been in Your presence.' I looked at that and I said I haven't even started my spiritual journey, and this life is almost 50 now. So how much wealth is a lot? We can only use this moment to turn to Him, to surrender to Him. If there's a man who started at the age of 30 and died at the age of 70, and he honestly was able to say that for 40 years I've at least tried to be fully in Your presence, it means empty of 'me.' To be in God's presence means 'You are here and I am Yours.' Even the Gyani should not mistake this. Many times we make an experience out of God's presence. No, to be in God's presence means that You are here and I am Yours.

Most of us in relationships—if you're with your partner and you're in the same room with them but you're not really with them in your attention, your focus is elsewhere—you say 'but I was with you.' Is that an acceptable answer to the partner? No. But that's what we try to do with God. We heard the podcast that God's presence is that He is present, but have we made ourselves present for Him? Available to Him? This is the irony of Maya—that in Maya itself we've heard since we were children, especially in India, that God is everywhere, He's with you here and now. But very few sages have ever lived in a way that Krishna is actually with them all the time, Ram is actually with them all the time. Are we available for God? Are we willing to belong to Him? And if we make ourselves available, then I've been talking about setting the dinner table for Him without expecting a guarantee of the dinner showing up. Have we offered up ourselves to Him in this way? Or are we just waiting for an enlightenment experience?

So is God here right now? Are you with Him? Use the energetic support that you get in the satsang environment to both experience, to feel His presence, and to allow yourself to focus like that. Because then when you leave satsang also, you can live like that. We must always feel that He is here. Something Saint Teresa of Avila said was very beautiful: 'The only difficulty in prayer is when we feel that God is absent.' Super potent line, said so simply. So then how to make our life an unceasing prayer, as Paul said? His presence must always be here. And it is not that God is absent; you know what she means—that God is present, but we are not present for Him. So to remain in God's presence means God is present, but we have made ourselves present for Him as well. Just like that relationship example—you took your girlfriend out for a date, but throughout the date you were on your phone. You were sitting together, you had a nice meal, but you were not present. Are you making yourself available to God? And that availability will become a full sacrifice, full surrender. That is when we can come to 'there is nothing of mine in me, all there is is Yours.' But first, make Him your focus, and in this itself you have left all trouble behind. Because the presence of God is what is called Heaven. You cannot suffer, you cannot be troubled; your life is full of miracles. Every day you're surrounded by miracles. See how grace takes care of your every need, your every true calling from the heart, just by being with Him. Everything in life is taken care of. The goodness of God then runs our life. The only compulsion is 'my way, my will, what I want'—that gets in the way.

Right now, what do you want? For example, he may not even have heard what I said because he's thinking about 'but I want an answer to my question.' So that 'I want' gets in the way. Some of you may come to satsang and say 'I wanted more inquiry to happen today,' and the ones who don't like inquiry say 'I wanted more talk of love for God to happen today.' That 'I want, I want, I want' gets in the way, and then in the same breath we say 'my life is surrendered to Guru, to God.' When we start to notice all this duality within ourselves, then we can shoot it down—which is a more inquiry way—or drown it in love in the Bhakta's way. It's important to start to notice.

Father, in fact, it was interesting that you said this, because when you said 'there's something more I need to say,' I was noticing that there's a tendency to actually hold on to the question for some time until you finish, which means I'm not paying attention. Somewhere in between I felt, 'What is the point in asking the question?' and just dropped it. If it's not significant anymore, then it doesn't matter anyway. But anyway, now the question is... I see it's still alive because you spoke of the gap between satsang and how we can make use of this energy and God's presence here to be present fully to Him so that this carries forward. Father, you had also mentioned in one of the walks about how important it is to see this—that it's not important to win in the world, but it is important to win in His eyes. And I see that more and more. As you said, probably the day you said it, it was not very apparent, but now I see it with so much more clarity.

And that's very good, that's very good. In fact, it's very correlated with what I was saying. It is not important to win in the eyes of the world because this dream is here now and gone tomorrow. But win in His eyes. How to win in His eyes is to follow His will, be in His love, be in His presence. So that 'audience of one'—it's very important. And we must notice our own life. I must notice this life here: am I playing to the gallery right now? Am I really in service to the true audience of one here, or have I got into some 'show' spirituality and some amount of pretense? I notice it in every satsang; that's my project, I'm working on it. Because that pretense, I just feel like plucking it out and throwing it away. This is the conditioning of 12 years of sharing satsang, that somewhere that drama comes. So more and more, all of us have to deepen in this insight: how am I serving Him? He is the only true audience. The true Sakshi, the pure witnessing, is Him. It's very good to remind ourselves that the world is very quick to crown you king and very quick to throw you back down. Don't get involved in that roller coaster at all. It doesn't matter.

I sent this child a song. The question is: even if you got this whole world, so what? And we must never get into this kind of mode where we use words like Maya, we use words like Leela, but we are still only interested in the world. Then we must not call it Leela. It's not a play for us. If we take it to be real, then why call it Maya? Why call it Leela? It seems so real, it seems like 'I want to win over here.' Then let's say this is my reality; it is not Maya. Maya means that God is real for you. So is the inner more real for you or is the outer? There was a beautiful conversation that Jesus had: 'If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to that mountain go here and say to that mountain go there.' That means—what is he saying? He's not saying that we just build up our faith to become the size of a mustard seed. It is not about the size of the faith, but who our faith is in. If our faith is in the Infinite, then even if you have 0.000001% of faith into that Infinite, it's still infinite, isn't it? But to have faith in the infinity of that, in the boundless love of that reality called God, that is important. If you have faith, then all this world is nothing for you because you have attached yourself to the Light of this universe.

Another way to look at that is: if there's a mustard seed in front of you, what is more real—God or the mustard seed? I used to say in satsang: the day God becomes more real to you than your hand, you are free. Now, what is more real to you? When we say it is Maya, then you are saying by very nature it's not real. Or if you're a Shankara follower, you're saying it's neither real nor unreal; it's just a product of Avidya. So, is this hand more real than God? No, not to me. That is because you're not listening to what your heart is showing you; you're more taking what your senses are showing you to be real. What is faith? To trust that which you know intuitively, which you know in the discipleship of the Atma within—that is faith, isn't it?

I don't think I know. Again, I'm using that, but I don't know. My question is: is God here? I can just... is He more here than this hand is here? No.

Okay, so God is here, but less than this hand? In what way are you saying that God is here? Because this is the question I had. In what way is God here? I've seen so many people who say God is there, but if I ask them 'have you met Him?', it's just conceptual knowledge. Is that conceptual? That's what I'm saying. You just heard it from another, then you picked it up. It's like saying that I know that this Earth is moving, but my experience is that it is stationary. So are you saying that God is here in the sense that 'I know because I heard it from credible sources that it is moving'?

What other option do I have? I don't have that.

Okay, what do you know which is beyond what you could know conceptually or perceptually right now?

Nothing.

Okay, what have you known beyond the empirical dealings of this world which are in thoughts, notions, and perceptions? The one who's aware of them, who witnesses—knows. So is that one here now? One is aware here now. I don't know, but is aware aware in this moment? You can confirm from your inside that He's aware. It's not something that you're remembering from the past or relying on a concept. 'I am aware.' Stay there. Don't rely on other modes of knowledge. Allow everything to unfold from there, because only your intuition can show you that you are that awareness. But God, again, I don't know. I'm aware. That one will tell you. You stay where you know yourself as aware. You see, it's not 'aware,' but you know what I'm pointing to. A few seconds back you were not aware of aware. Then you changed your mode of knowledge away from the senses and from your thoughts and you went inside—let's call it inside—and there you recognized that 'I am that I am aware, I am awareness itself.' So that insight comes to you only through the Holy Spirit, the Atma within. So you don't have to understand that yet. Because when I say this to you, you may say 'but where's the Atma? How do I know?' So let it reveal itself by you remaining there. That is to remain open and empty. It's not easy; it becomes very convoluted in a way whether you're really in the actual... so if it's difficult, then you pray all the time. Pray all the time. And 'I don't know what faith is'—that's also okay. It's still... if you pray, then prayer will teach you. I can postpone all that now, just stay. Prayer is the only thing.

Did you answer your question? The audience of one?

The question really was... you can always stop me if I haven't answered... you more than answered. So I thought, why... Father, when you spoke of surrender and faith, and I see that the understanding comes that 'okay, winning in the world is not important, God help me' or I turn to God, but there's always a sense of conditionality. A sense of conditionality: God has to do this, and then I will have faith in Him.

So who loses out in that process? We. This is the condition, or the human condition, that I see in me. It's like saying—sorry, we have a chat about this—but isn't it like saying that 'if you don't get rid of my headache, I'll set my head on fire'? Just like that. 'Oh, if you don't help me with this thing, then I won't have faith in You.' Not somewhat like that, but I would say... if I were to ask what is stopping me from fully turning to God, I would look at it and say that the very basic worries of life—which you always put it like body, money, relationships—and so when very basic... these are it. These four are it. There is nothing else. Life is not complicated, just these four things. Just that when they get all mixed up together, it seems so... everybody seems to have a unique life, but there's not a fifth thing you have worried about.

Whether I see that, for example, in the context of this retreat—to break even you need some end number of participants, then you can truly fulfill whatever you thought you would fulfill. All of that comes into play. I see that the awareness is there that 'yes, just turn to God, He's right here,' at the same time there is this worry or this fear that kind of keeps you out. And that is where this feeling comes that 'God, just take care of the money and ensure this is done.' But I don't like this conditioning. And it's good in a way that at least you're asking the right one for help. That's a good thing. So instead of sitting and worrying about it too much—hopefully you're not doing both things—but if you're praying to God about it, then don't worry about it. If you're worrying about it, then it is wasting time anyway. So just prayer, but no worry. And then you're right that there is conditionality in that—'just take care of this money thing, then I am free to be with You.' That is a living example of what I meant by saying what you do in the sand is more important.

If everybody had enough money, had the best relationship, had no problem in the body, and knew everything that they wanted to know the meaning of, and everybody was free to be with God—why is this Maya compelling? Why is this a Mahabharat? Because these things act up in Maya. They are acting up only within Maya. So why is she compelling? She's compelling because here is one who wants to turn to God, but she's not letting him turn to God by doing all this drama. That by very definition is Maya. So what you do in these moments where Maya seems to be so strong is more important than what you would do when you had the right bank balance and the right everything. Otherwise, what is the need of faith? Then even Ravan would say that 'oh yes, I can be with God, let me just... it makes sense, I have nothing better to do anyway because money is taken care of.' Then you don't need faith; then it's quite rational. Faith is that which you need which is beyond your rationality. When your rationality is pulling you in a different way, can you still have trust in God?

But trust in God means trust in God fully, not outcome trust. Our trust is usually half-baked. 'I want this, now I'm trusting You to do it.' This is how we delegate work in the office! It's not... then who is the servant and who's the master? So as long as we get the relationship right: 'I trust in You for both, whatever You do.' That is a beautiful line: 'What You're doing is my good because I don't know good from bad.' I don't know good from bad; what You do is good. And those who are in satsang can no longer say 'yes, yes, whatever is happening is God's will and therefore it is for my good.' It's fine for those who are not deepening in satsang, but for those who are in satsang, you must allow yourselves to only operate under God's will and trust that fully. So full servitude and full trust makes a devotee. Are you waiting for His hukum? Are you being moved by His hukum? That you can trust. But if you wanted to eat the apple, you wanted to go separate, you wanted to do things your way, and then you say 'now You make it work for me,' then that is a very convenient spirituality. And it's okay for those who are starting out, because even that is a beginning of trust. But those who are in satsang with full heart, then you must say 'Thy will be done.' I'm just an instrument of that. But you cannot say 'I want this, now make it happen for me.' Better than not saying anything at all, at least you're in communication with God. That also needs faith. Because if you're sitting in a room and a work colleague comes and says 'what are you doing?' and you say 'I was just talking to God about something,' they'll say 'something's wrong with you, you need some help.' Because in the world, even this normal heart relationship you can have is considered like a great stupidity. So even to have that in this unfortunate human condition—that you just even had this thing that 'okay, I'm here now, now You please help me, give me some money so I can break even'—even that needs some faith, because your own mind will come and tell you 'are you losing it?'

So you're getting the degrees of what I'm saying. Even this is fine, but deeper still is to leave the outcome to Him. Deeper still is to move only when He moves you and move only when He guides you and leave the outcome of that. For all of you, this applies. You don't need to think about anything at all. You don't need to ask any question. If you are empty all the time or praying all the time—or even if that is your wholehearted intention: empty for God, head bowed down to God, focus on God—and somebody comes and says 'what's happening in your life?', some shapes show up, some shapes go, some drama is going on. This light and sound show is always on. But what it means, what's going to happen... when you surrender, you're not so attached to all these things, enjoying God's presence so much within yourself. So you don't have an apathy towards the world; you don't have to be antagonistic. It is just playing out. What does it mean? No relevance. God, you're delighting in God's love in your heart. Somebody makes a face at you in the world—how does it matter? You cannot be in hell and heaven at the same time. Otherwise, sitting here, one day all of you will say 'no' and you should see all the faces you make at me! So if I started worrying about that... enjoying God's love so much, your concern will be 'how can I help? How can I help bring you out of your suffering? Why are you troubling yourself so much with all this? Come live with God, live in His light. Why are you finding it difficult? Tell me.' You want to help in that practical way.

It is the tough times where the rubber hits the road; that is when we have to hold on to God really tightly. And this instruction has nothing to do with what action or inaction happens in the world. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying inwardly leave everything, allow Him to move you, allow Him to unfold this play. You don't interfere with your will. Don't say 'I want, I don't want.' Whatever You want, all is Yours. Is this life yours? It's not yours. Then whose life are you concerned about so much? That's what... so that's when life gives us situations where we are forced to live up to our prayers, we are forced to live up to our words. It's a beautiful situation. And of course, when they are on our head, they seem like impending doom. Nothing's going to happen; that much I learned from my gray hair. There have been millions of times I feel like 'what's going to happen now? If this doesn't happen, it's all over.' Nothing gets over; life goes on. The same grace which gives you troubles also gives you so much opportunity. It's okay. Don't think anything is the end of the world. Grace will always find a solution. In fact, get out of that whole problem-solution mode. Nothing is a problem, nothing is a solution. Enjoy God's presence.

Going back to... you were saying before that some days we want to pray and some days we don't, and you said that you experience this yourself. I was sharing... no, can I say? Sorry, I know I'm cutting everybody's question today, but I just feel like to say these things is important because not everyone may have heard what I said the other day and it may be helpful to them. Like I was saying the other day, three or four days back, I just woke up and I was feeling so disconnected with the presence. I just felt like a fish out of water; I felt oppressive. So then I started to use the breath and pray, and 'Neti Neti' was happening and like that, but I was very impatient with it. I was saying, 'Okay, what now? I can't live without Your presence, so I have to do something.' Then just a Bhajan helped. I just played the soundtrack of Shrimad Bhagavatam. You never know at what point His light is alive in your heart again. So I know that most of us by now have become stubborn enough to not let Him go or stay with Him during the day. This waking up time—that's why it's so important. Don't start your day without meeting Him. Cancel all your meetings if you have to, but become stubborn about that. Grace will always find a way.

So you say that it does begin with prayer and with the presence of God, but then it goes on and nothing too challenging happens, but instead of choosing to be in silence and pray, I choose to watch a comedy on Netflix or something. And that goes on for a while. The question comes sometimes: should I force myself to stop? I don't need to keep doing this, but I don't, because it's one of those days that you mentioned where you don't feel as attracted to the prayer or to the scripture as you do the rest of the time.

So what to do in those times is to just play a Bhajan, whatever works in other times. Try. Okay, prayer is not working? Okay, this. And don't give up on the 'Neti Neti' like I told you. But it's not that prayer is not working; it's that in that moment I don't want to pray. Then you must force yourself to turn off Netflix. I wanted and I did not want to ask this question. It could be the last moment of your life! Or the mind attack, the hypnosis of Maya, could play out so that you never want to be with God again. At least... so how does it work? If you notice—I notice for myself—it starts off very simply. It doesn't say 'you have to leave God.' At least for those who are truly spiritual, it doesn't come and say 'leave God.' Initially, when some of you came, maybe it was saying that: 'leave all this, it's not for you, it's too difficult.' But now it doesn't tell you like that. It says 'take a break, just catch up on something.' All that I'm saying is from my experience. Something like that, then that ten minutes has gone, then it says 'okay, it's fine, just put on this also, put on that also.' And what you could easily have done instead is spend a few minutes, just return to His life, and then allow it to unfold from there. Because once you get into the mindset of not being in the presence, then it could keep giving you things. Something could happen, you get a phone call, you have to rush, then you get something else. You don't even know—you may forget about God for years. I know I'm exaggerating to make the point, but do we actually really know? So that risk is not worth it.

I noticed that one of the dangers of those moments are those 'should, shouldn't' thoughts, clinging to that. I don't think that's the answer either. Like, there is a voice of 'return to being empty for God' or 'be praying for God' in whichever way.

So if your mind is telling you, say 'I'm going to be empty.' The highest of Advaita is whatever you do, you come to the no-mind, unborn. In the unborn, through insight, it is palpable, it is apparent to you. So become... it's not about following the voice of so-called duty or anything; it's for letting go of everything for God. And there are times where this will seem like a risk. 'Our appraisal meeting with my manager, I'm getting late, my alarm didn't ring.' Father has said start your day with God's presence, come what may. What are you going to do? So these small things will test us. This is how Maya works. Maya is not going to come in some Apsara dancing in front of you; you don't have to wait for the Narada story to happen to you. It is in the small things.

So I was praying and doing 'Neti Neti' and everything, and then about 9:00 I said 'okay.' Now, I was watching something on the TV itself—I mean that cast, watching a Bhajan—and then it got over and I said... then Netflix is at the back. Because then it says... so I said 'okay, I haven't watched a movie in a really long time.' Anyway, I didn't really ask, but half-half quickly just put on some... it's called 'Laapataa Ladies' or something. It was a very sweet movie. Then after that I was like, 'but now I'm awake, now I can watch another one.' So I actually scrolled and then... no, no, no. After five minutes I said exactly what he said: 'Okay, let me go back and see whether I should... let me ask, should I watch another one or just...?' It was so simple. 'Now we can watch two more, I never really watched more than one movie, come on, let's watch one more.' If you don't stop that... something just made me stop and look backwards. But one movie I saw anyway!

So don't have this idea that God wants you to have some sort of oppressive life. Just trust Him to unfold your life; that is the main thing. And don't apply to yourself 'I will follow my will because God doesn't want me to have an oppressive life.' Because the mind... how could God want you to have an oppressive life? And we call the sages call that freedom: to follow God's will. Moment to moment, sages have called that freedom, and the mind says it's the most oppressive way to live. What if God doesn't want to watch 'Laapataa Ladies,' He wants to watch some Discovery documentary instead? Some boring documentary? Because God will have better taste than 'Laapataa Ladies'! So don't allow your mind to ever bully you in this way by convincing you that if you just leave it to God, then it's so boring. Because the source of all joy is Him. You could be in the most entertaining situation, but if the joy doesn't come from His presence in your heart, then it's not going to be joyful anyway. But what will happen is that you won't need stuff, but stuff may still happen. Stuff still unfolds in front of you, but you're not dependent on it.

How do you know if you're dependent on something?

That you suffer when you don't have it. That's a good one. If you're very dependent on something, we don't want to ask God, we don't want to wait for Him to move us. All satsang becomes lip service. 'I will do this.' Will can sound like a very big word. Will to be empty of your will, leave it to God's will. To be empty of wanting, wanting things to go a certain way. To be empty of this compulsion to want and not want. Exactly. It makes hell seem like heaven and heaven seem like hell. 'Don't go with God, you'll become so boring, you'll die boring.' And what is the mind actually saying? 'Remain a zombie.' Because without God, there is no life. At least you die a well-entertained zombie! Everyone is scared. What are they scared of? Of course, they're concerned about you, but I feel they're more scared about the fact that you may question the way of their life and you may actually be right. So a friend says 'No, no, don't get too much into that.' Of course, they could be concerned that you'll become a Sadhu or something, but I feel like the bigger fear comes from this idea that we're all living like this—misery loves company. 'If you discover something better and I've been wrong all this time, I don't want to face that situation. I'd rather die stupid.'

There are many layers at play when we face resistance from friends and family. Suppose you've invested 50 years of your life in a particular idea—that I have to seize the moment, grab every opportunity. It almost sounds spiritual. And then you say 'No, no, actually just God's presence, it doesn't matter what's happening, no grabbing at anything in this world.' 'Don't do like that, you'll become very boring, you'll lose all the joy from your life.' Maybe out of that concern, but also 'I don't want to know that I've been wrong 50 years of my life.' You don't want to be wrong; we're scared of that. So if you send anyone who is following Narendra Modi a Rahul Gandhi video—'No, no, I don't want to see that.' Anybody who's following Rahul Gandhi... 'No, no, I don't want to see that.' I don't want to be proved wrong. I'm happy being right about this. And this operates with everything in our life. That is why satsang can seem like an attack for most. What you're hearing in any true satsang is completely contrary to the ways of the world.

That's why you have to admire people like Bulleh Shah, who in those times said: 'You don't have to go to a Mandir, you don't have to go to a Masjid, you don't have to take a dip in the Ganga. And if you do all of this also, it will not help if you haven't gone within yourself, if you haven't looked in your own heart.' The courage it takes to say—to Kabir, to Bulleh Shah, to so many beautiful sages—'You're wearing this topi but your heart is dark. You're japping this Mala but your heart is dark.' It's just disconnected. Our life is actually—it may sound strong to say—but it's diseased. It's diseased with egotism.

It's not really satsang related, but I just thought I'd share. I enjoy science and reading about historical scientists and how they came across their discoveries. Some of them were quite intuitive. A lot of modern science is incremental and mathematics-driven, but a lot of the earlier guys were able to come up with intuitive leaps. I was reading about Einstein, and what I found was really fascinating was that before that, in classical physics, everything was taken as being absolute—gravity, time, everything is fixed. And then he came up with relativity, which to me was basically like: okay, the subject-object, and you have to look at a system, you have to look at the witness of the phenomenon, and then the measurements vary. He introduced the witness into the whole system. And somehow the observer effect and all that was him. He started to say that, for example, if you're on a train moving on a track and lightning strikes at two places, it's simultaneous to somebody on the track, but to somebody sitting in the train it won't be simultaneous because he's in motion. So he started to introduce the whole concept of the witness, and it resonated deeply because a lot of what we're doing is we're saying: okay, you notice something, but then you ask yourself who's the witness? And eventually you come into nothingness.

I thought it was quite beautiful because he's applying it to the objective world, but we're also applying it to the body and thought and everything, and even the is-ness within. And then I read about quantum physics and Heisenberg and Niels Bohr, and they find that you can't really make out the nature of anything—it could be an electromagnetic wave or it could be a particle. It could be anything actually, until you observe it. And then also, frankly, you can't sort of predict causality; it's all probabilities, which leaves it completely open even in this analytical world that there is a greater force that's causing everything to happen and you can never predict it. And then I later read that Heisenberg came and spent a lot of time with Rabindranath Tagore, and then he became a huge follower of the Upanishads, and even on his tombstone he talks about something from the Isha Upanishad. So that's very beautiful, that even the scientists eventually surrender.

I used to be very fascinated with this stuff a few years back. In fact, I played some videos for all of you on quantum entanglement. There was that 'What the Bleep Do We Know?' that had that whole observer effect. There was this thing—remember how our perceptions could be misleading us? The McGurk effect. It's fascinating. Just go home and look on YouTube for the McGurk effect. It's this whole thing we talk about: Maya. So, what they do is the person is always saying 'ba, ba, ba'—the recording is just 'ba.' Then they change the video to show the person saying 'fa,' and you hear 'fa.' As long as you're looking at the video, you're hearing 'fa.' If you look away from the video, it becomes 'ba.' It's fascinating. Imagine the whole notion there—it was just by your attention you were hearing it. Exactly like that, because Consciousness... if you just start contemplating what all there is, it does imply because anything that you would put a boundary to would just be false for Consciousness. God would not be God unless He is all there is. Once you look at it in that way, then you can just... very, very interesting that you're speaking about this.

Every frame of that comic book—how do we create time out of it? It's already there for God. God doesn't have to go through time to experience that. What is that movie? 'Everything Everywhere All at Once.' So how would God create this notion of linearity? He would visit the frame with His attention, giving a sense of forward-moving time. Imagine one universe is just the frames of a comic book, but a stack of comic books. But for Consciousness, what would be the limitation on the total number of stacks? He would have infinite. One thing I noticed—earlier on, satsang would be very Advaita and analytical Jnana, but now I'm seeing it's much more devotional: God, Ram. I also feel here that you may understand everything, but you need God's grace to finally show it. And that can only be God's grace. You can demand it, but you have no right to. In fact, a lot of even Bhajans are like that. There's a song by a famous Karnataka singer: 'Paluke Bangaramayera.' Essentially it says: 'Dear Ram, have Your words become more precious than gold that You're not talking to me?' His fight is: 'Why are You not talking to me?' But he keeps referring to God as Father. And there's one line in which he says: 'I may make a big noise about You not talking to me, but I don't deserve... I cannot do that.' He realizes he is not entitled. It's how grace is unfolding here.

It's just coming to me that in that time when we were more inquiry-focused than devotion-focused... now also, sometimes when somebody would ask me a question whether I'm an Advaitin, I would just really look and say: if you were to really ask me and say am I a Gyani or a Bhakta, I prefer to be a Bhakta. It's so strange. It just somehow is playing out that way. This expression also has much more room for emotions. I really hope it's both a broadening and a deepening. I really hope that what is unfolding from here for all of you is helping a two-way process. I feel like that's what's being felt here. We're not limiting ourselves to like a branch of spirituality or only one particular way. But really, I have to honestly say that it's the Atma that decides the curriculum. I have no idea how this happens. Many times He says things in satsang which I have never contemplated before, and after He says them in satsang, I contemplate on them.

What's the difference between this and moving your hand and the wind blowing or something? What would be that?

Trying to make me feel better? I'm not always boring! You said what's the difference between this... why is this my action or your action versus a cloud moving in the sky? Mildly poetic now. But I haven't said 'What do you know when you know nothing?' in a long time. You loved it too. I feel like that's it. Once I pointed this out and everyone takes on to it, where if to know even one thing was to know too much... we had it written down on a blackboard here. So if to know even one thing was to know too much, then what do you know when you know nothing? It sorted me out. I feel it all sort of assimilates somewhere, although the expression may seem to be very different. I feel like it adds weight to what is being pointed to even though it may seem completely different. What if I could be a bacteria and I'm revisiting this? This could be like a 10,000-year-old memory that I'm just coming and visiting. How do we really know? So that was a really mind-bending statement, honestly. So yeah, we had a lot of these just to shake off this rigid association about the nature of reality—that it is like this, and time goes like this, and space is like that. It'll come; if it has to come, it will come. Because your heart insights don't leave you, just how grace uses this instrument to share. So I'm not averse to any of that, of course, because it's so true and it came from the same light in the heart. But I have to dance to His tunes.