Trust in the Power of the Prayer

It is the heart of the Bhakta also which can recognize the difference between the purity of God's light and the way that we have been living. This is very helpful because in this, our blind spots cannot hide. So it is a meeting of truth with true humility that is very, very good. That is the first thing, you see? Because when we are on our knees like this, we are the most fertile ground for His presence to reveal itself. To be on our knees is only possible in this true humility.

The second part of this is that even with all the faith in the universe, all the humility in the world, all the good things, unceasing prayer, never forgetting—not all things being best—for His presence, His life to reveal itself and to live in our heart is always going to be up to His grace. It's always going to be up to His grace. And His grace takes care of all of His children. Just know this: His grace is like a rain. If it's raining in the city of Bangalore, anybody living in Bangalore can get wet in the rain. It is not more for somebody and less for anybody else. But what He does do is that at the earliest point of time—and I'm nobody to speak on His behalf, but whatever little experience I have, this is what I've seen—the earliest possible opportunity to give you whatever is the highest for you, He gives it. He is not waiting for the latest possible chance; He's waiting for the earliest possible chance.

What does that mean? He knows what gift will have what effect on us—what will make us complacent, what will make us proud. So He knows really well, and we can trust Him with that knowledge much more than we can create a plan for ourselves. He is unfolding a plan for us, so we must trust His love. If there is so much love in biological relationships in the world, biological parents and children, we can't even fathom how much God loves us. So always trust His love, faith, and grace. You're right that we can never do this and we will never be worthy grounds for His life to live, but He knows how to clean us up as well, you see? We just have to keep offering ourselves up over and over again. Say that 'My heart belongs only to You, Father. My heart belongs only to You, Lord God.' And you see that He cleans us up. Whatever needed to be done, He does.

At least we are breaking out of a prideful place where we just feel like we had insight, we had experiences, we are just this 'lips of a spirituality' which I have been ranting against for almost two years. I feel like we are starting to see the fruits of that process of transformation that was happening here. We are starting to see that it is so important to be unceasing in our faith, to be unceasing in our worship, to be unceasing in our inquiry, in our insight. That is why this ever-deepening—we never know how deep this goes and where it will take us.

If it was up to all of us, we would say, 'Okay, now who's aware of the perception of this hand? I am. Is this I perceivable? No, it isn't. So I must be that unperceivable awareness.' You see, can't I just rest in that? We would love to, but we can't because this remnant of this 'me' that still plays out—we can't let it just expand and become spiritual pride and spiritual ego and then torment ourselves and the rest of the world on the basis of some pride of having knowledge of our true nature as awareness. The moment we have pride, we have forgotten insight. It just becomes contaminated, just conclusions in our head. And it's hurtful. It's hurtful to God. Pride is not good.

It would have been easier if I just stayed with 'Who is aware of the perception?' It's still a beautiful question, and I retain the right to keep coming back to that. But you see, this has to be met at so many different angles because I could see what's happening to all of us in the process also. This grace guides us to a broader, more multi-pronged approach at times, and we just have to trust how it is unfolding. So yeah, it's very, very good to bring our blind spots onto the surface, into our vision, and allow God's light to operate on us surgically. Many times it feels like a difficult surgery.

Yeah, it doesn't feel good. It's like ripping the band-aid off, you know? It's like you've got to do it or you just... I don't know, that was a stupid analogy, but it's the only way in is through. And I keep stopping there, you know, because it just has to be gone through. It has to be seen.

Yes, and you're doing well with the prayer. I want to tell all of you that if you don't trust me about anything else, just trust me about the power of the prayer. That is a magnificent way, a magnificent power that God has graced us with—that we can invoke Him and we can bring focus to Him. Father, these challenges are not in opposition to that. These challenges are a testimony of the power of the prayer because these things are seen. These challenges are not a proof that it's not working; they are absolute proof that it's fine that I'm seeing these things, that it's powerful. Yes, these will come, these resistances.

I say today that some of you read the book 'The Screwtape Letters.' In response to your prayer and the deepening prayers, Screwtape will send everything possible. And how to respond to that? With even more prayer, with deeper prayer. And then it runs out. Then Screwtape runs out of moves. It tries to torment you with some beautiful thing. Once the mind, once Maya, once Screwtape is done tormenting us and it realizes tormenting is having the opposite effect—that we are praying even more deeply—then you know what it switches to? You can guess with the way sages do. It tries to make us proud. Then it starts telling us good things about us.

There was one sage who was being tempted by Screwtape in the same way that Jesus was tempted. This voice in the head said, 'Oh, but if you truly found God, then you can jump off from this cliff and you will easily fly or angels will come and rescue you.' So the sage picked up a rock and just threw it down. Then the mind realized that this kind of thing is not going to work with this sage. So it said, 'Wow, that's such a brilliant response! Even Jesus did not give me a response like that. That's so good!' You see, we have to be careful of both sides. Once it tries scaring us or tormenting us, if that doesn't work, then it pulls out the trump card: it tries to make us proud. 'Yes, yes, you're doing so well.' From all angles, it attacks us. That's why we must constantly be with head bowed down—just God, God, God, God, God.

I heard this beautiful quote, and it's kind of strong, but maybe I'll understand. A priest said that human pride is worse than the devil's pride because the human is in denial and unaware of their pride, but the devil was well aware of his and proud of his pride. I found that really strong—this blind spot of pride. But we are all getting the clues now. When resistance comes, when we don't want to listen to something and all these things happen, then we don't want to necessarily admit it at that moment—and I'm talking about myself—is that because we want to hide our pride? Hide the something that we think we already know if that starts being questioned?

Yeah. And to recently just to pray harder, you know? Not that I always do that, but just recently. So the mind attacks, we pray harder, we inquire more.

Yes, it's the only way. It feels like the only way, Father.

There you go. Thank you.