Use Your Heart Itself as a Compass to Guide You - 3rd April 2024

The most time?

Most, yes. But waking up, sometimes I wake up with God and then sometimes also at night. Some thoughts, thoughts are always there, yeah.

So are you doing the way I was pointing to, saying the first thing in the morning, don't engage till you come to His presence? And most of the day you spend focused on God?

Yes.

So for me, that is evidence that you love God. And as you keep focused on Him—and because you said it is not because of some fear or some forcing—then what you're probably speaking of is the tasting of the love in the heart, and you want a deepening in that. But you have to keep going because there are many times where it will seem dry, it will seem mechanical. But as you keep digging the well, then the sweetness, the love, the joy, all of that will become more and more palpable. But we are not doing it to experience these things; we are doing it just to deepen in our faith, in our love for God. So I don't see a problem. It sounds like you're doing well if most of your day is focused on God and when you wake up first thing you attempt to come to His presence. Some days it is just organic and other days it may take a few minutes. Sounds good.

But sometimes it is, uh, why I was now laying on the bed and looking at Instagram, Facebook. In this half an hour I could have done the ads.

Yeah, so yes, yes. My phone is overheating, so what's happening is that the WhatsApp closes, the apps all close mid-sentence. So I felt it's very good because every time it closes, then I make sure that I'm in the presence and not getting involved in the activity. So all the activity can happen in the presence, but you know in your heart whether that is true or just an excuse. When you can use this as an excuse and say, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm actually in my heart with God,' and I'm saying the activities are happening, but you know. And if it is Facebook, Instagram, then just surface level, surface level. Stay deeply in your heart and let that happen because it is just purely passing time in Maya. So don't be involved in the Maya; let it happen at a very surface level if it has to. Half an hour already, half an hour here and then, and you can confirm. I can confirm also what is happening in the other room asking.

So more and more deepen in your heart and focus on the aftertaste, the aftereffects. If you spend time on social media and after spending that time you feel disconnected in the heart, then you realize that your compass is pointing the other way. If during that time and after that time you feel like the fire is burning brightly there—so many, we can't really describe what happened. If you're just open and empty, that is one way to describe it. If there's a light in your heart which is shining but it's not perceivable, that is one way to describe it. You see, there's a fire which is warming your self, your Atma, from within; you feel that warmth in your heart, that is one way to describe it. If you feel like there's a sweetness, but it seems like it's a sweet wound, you see? It's like it's oozing love, it's oozing joy and peace and goodness. That is one way to describe it.

So there's so many ways that to the mind all of it can sound very confusing, but we just remain empty of the mind and stay with our prayer, stay with our inquiry, and this will just deepen more and more. So use your heart itself as the compass to guide you. If you feel that the fire burns more brightly, the light seems more and more able, the presence seems apparent, love seems almost like a physical quantity that you can just distribute to all the brothers and sisters of the world, so then you can continue. But use that as a compass and know that if you are staying with God's presence and no other activity is happening, that is still better than every other activity happening—even religious-sounding activity happening—but it is pointless without the presence of God.

So some of you have been in Satsang long enough to be able to use this internal compass of His presence, the palpability of the Atma within, to tell us whether we are going in the right direction or we are going in the wrong direction. Closer, deeper into God, or further away from God? How many of you have the sense that you can use this compass within? All of you? Somebody who doesn't have that yet? And that's fine. So just more and more into prayer, into your inquiry. As you deepen, then intuitively these intuitive senses get more and more activated. They're very subtle, they are always there, but because we're not used to using them in that way or relying on them in that way.

One important thing about this is that we must resolve to live only in His will. If you resolve to live only in His will and move when He moves you, or move when He guides you, then you will see that these subtle indicators will seem more and more tangible, it will seem more and more apparent to us. And it's a beautiful way to live because it's filled with so much peace, so much contentment, so much love, so much joy. It's not an oppressive waiting to follow His will. Servitude to God is the most joyful servitude. So are you using that inner compass, all of you? Use it even now. Notice the light is getting brighter and the flame is getting stronger within yourself. So whether it seems like a deep love or unperceivable and yet brightest light, or it seems like a fire which is warming you from within, use that as an indicator of being in God's presence, in His life. And spend your life in this way. This is the way to live, in the way of the heart, the true way of the heart.

Obedience is important. Then of course our prayer, our inquiry, our silence, which is the inner silence which we call open and empty reconfiguration. That's the only thing. Sitting down sometimes, you should build steps, internal auditoriums. I feel like you have the way is apparent. So let's do what we did the other day because sometimes we may be confused about what is really going on. So first let's get clarity on what I've been calling the project. So what is the project? Is that clear? What is the spiritual project? Not just, but what is the aim of spirituality? To meet God in the form of spirit itself. Spirituality itself gives the answer away: that spirituality must mean that we come to the presence of spirit, is it? And what is spirit? It is the name for the presence of God.

So Atma or spirit, it doesn't matter what terms you use. We can also look at it as the Satguru within, because the job of this external teacher is to truly bring you into the discipleship of the Satguru within. So what I want to convey to all of you is that the true resting place, the true refuge, the true comforter, the true teacher of spiritual knowledge, the true light in our lives, the true source of love and all that is good is a living presence within yourself. Within the Absolute Self, which is Nirguna Brahman, is the presence of God itself, which we refer to as the Atma or the spirit.

So this itself should be amazing news for everyone: that God is not just a concept. God is not just a conceptual comforter where I can just create a mental category called God and leave all my worries over there in that mental category. But God is actually a living presence, a living being. He is beyond that of course as well, but He can be met in your life within yourself as a living being. And that living being is the very source of life. If you consider yourself to be alive, that aliveness comes from God Himself. And when I say 'Himself,' it is just a traditional way of speaking; it is not referring to Him as a particular gender. It is just how it has been spoken for a long time, so we are just following that tradition, but He's beyond all things as bodies and genders and all of these things.

Most of our brothers and sisters in the world do not come to this living light, living presence of God, or even if they get a glimpse into it, they run away from it because Maya is a compelling force. It is designed to compel us outwards, whereas the truth of what we are is inwards. The spiritual project then is to come into the presence of spirit and let go of our grasping of Maya. So that is what we are doing here. Even if you feel that you came to come to the end of suffering because there's too much stress in your life about something, don't then let that become a block just because you came for it. I use the metaphor which may not be fair actually, but I said if you came for it and you have a seven-course meal laid out in front of you, then we should not be complaining, we should be celebrating.

So what is on offer is to find that which is beyond birth and death, beyond waking and sleeping—that eternal life, that eternal light which is the Atma within. So that is the project of spirituality, and true Satsang is devoted in service to God in this way. That is why we gather. Firstly, we must check if our intention is aligned to the project of spirituality. See, because many times we find that our intentions are not yet aligned to it and we are trying to be spiritual with as minimum God as possible. We are spiritual with the minimal sprinkling of God, an insistence. See, otherwise I would rather have it completely agnostic or whatever you want to call it, but it must be as much self-help and as little about God as possible, you see? And that itself, Satsang may work for that, and for many it does work for that, but we come to a plateau then at some point because our intention doesn't align with the purpose of what Satsang really is about.

So it may work and may make us seem peaceful, and anyone who is trying to be open and empty or centered within the presence within is bound to experience some peace in the world. So they may feel like that much is enough for now. But if my life is something to go by—and many of you can also testify to that, if your life is anything to go by—you realize that that seeming peace, that seeming lack of suffering, absence of suffering in our life, you see, seems to also be a because without the stable, stabilizing anchor of God and the love for God in our heart, we find that we quickly become either arrogant or complacent and we quickly go back into newer ways of suffering, if not the older patterns themselves. Because the mind itself will stop you at that point and say, 'Yes, you got what you wanted, now don't overdo it. Do it in a balance.' Ananta is too radical; it is impossible to live like that. You see, this kind of resistance will come.

But you've not yet gone beyond birth and death, you've not truly learned to live in the eternal presence of God, and at best that will just be a stop-gap sort of arrangement. So I'm saying all of this to notice the mental resistance to going all the way and trying to do spirituality with as little spirit as possible. The spirit is the presence of God. And the skepticism may come from various angles because we've seen how people can behave irrationally, how 'ism' can make us into haters instead of lovers. We've seen all of this in our society. So that may have also created some of these mental resistances, but that is not the kind of spirituality, that is not the kind of love for God that we are talking about. It is not a fanaticism; it is a surrender. Our intention has to be to completely surrender this life to God. And we may not completely have that intention fully in our heart yet, but it is important to remind you of that so that you can just keep deepening in that intention. So that is the project.

We've seen all of this in our society, so that may have also created some of these mental resistances. But that is not the kind of spirituality, that is not the kind of love for God that we are talking about. It is not a fanaticism; it is a surrender. So, our intention has to be to completely surrender this life to God. And we may not completely have that intention fully in our heart yet, but it is important to remind you of that so that you can just keep deepening in that intention. So that is the project; that is where our intention has to be. So if the project is clear, the intention is there to whatever degree, and if you're still here, then that means that you should ask for what is the method then? How can I do this? Because I want to live my life for God rather than for the selfish idea of me, which I take to be just a body-mind, but I realize somewhere that there is a greater reality.

So you've come to that recognition somewhere that there's something more to this than I'm fathoming at the moment. There has to be something more to this. Usually, it starts with just that kindling. That's, you know, it started here where by God's grace very early on I got what I wanted in life, you see, or what I thought I wanted in life. So then this nagging sort of feeling started to come in: 'But there must be something more to this. What am I doing here? What is really happening?' So this kind of question started to come. So that sort of inner alarm clock is very helpful, isn't it? And if you learn to follow that, it's actually a calling from the deeper place within you. So you must not look at it as some sort of merely psychological sort of problem. The world will tell you that it is, or they may call it an existential dread or some fancy name like that. But no, follow where the calling is coming from because that is telling you that there has to be something beyond this realm of the visible, this realm of Maya.

So just in following that call, that atheist boy, you see, just in following that is falling deeper and deeper in love with God every day and is feeling like he is just beginning, just scratching the surface of what this is, 27 years almost after the beginning of that inkling. Is it the feeling that there has to be something more? So that brings you to Satsang in some way. How do we come to God? How do we find Him? And actually, there are millions of ways to find Him. One way is to find out who you really are. Find out who you really are. That is the path of insight, the path of self-knowledge. The Gyan Marg is simply put to find out who you really are. What is Gyan? It is self-knowledge. It is not Gyan like we refer to with friends, not just casual, trivial information, conceptual information about Him. It is self-knowledge: Who am I really? And why is that self-knowledge all knowledge? Because all is ultimately the Self, you see. So to come to self-knowledge is to come to all true knowledge.

So to find out who you are, that is one way to love God. To be beyond love, to be loving and with a sense of servitude to God is the Bhakti Marg. Love and service to God is the way of the Bhakta. And to be in service to our brothers and sisters of the world, that is the path of Karma. Selflessly, without expecting anything in return, that is the path of Karma. And it doesn't have to be that you pick and you say, 'I'm going to be this one' or 'I'm going to be that one.' It happens. Your heart starts to guide you, and most likely you will be a combination of all of them. It doesn't have to be linear like that, but whatever seems most natural and resonates with you the most, just embark on this journey.

So how do you find out who you are? So if one of the means which seems to be attractive to you is that—loving and being devoted and being in servitude doesn't sound so compelling at the moment, doesn't sound so attractive at the moment, and you really want to find out who you are—how do you do that? It's as simple as sincerely asking. Sincerely ask: 'Who am I?' And it has great power. So I'll take you step-by-step as to how that has great power. If I ask you, 'What is the capital of Ghana?' One or two know, I don't know, but something tries to get that answer, you see, and it may keep bothering us till we know the answer. Now, you know, we may want to look it up, Google or something like that. Or if I say, 'What is the color of a banana?' You immediately see a banana, right? So questions have great power. Just in the simplicity of asking, some force gets activated which pulls us into coming to an answer.

Now, these were two examples of worldly questions, and you can answer them conceptually and you can satisfy your intellect. But there are some questions which cannot be answered intellectually, you see. So Zen made a whole spiritual system out of them. They found questions where the question was posed but the intellect could not answer them. 'How does the goose escape the bottle?' 'Why did Bodhidharma go east?' What is the famous one being, 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?' The point is not to be clever and pose as if you got the answer, because you may say, 'Oh, it's like this, like this, oh I do hear it.' But then that is just you being too smart for your own good. You're only blocking your own progress because you know in your heart that you haven't really answered the question.

So 'Who am I?' is a question like that. 'What is love?' is a question like that. There are many questions like that. Even 'What is music?' 'What is truth?' 'What is justice?' 'What is being?' 'What is existence?' 'Why is there being and not just nothing?' 'Why is there something and not nothing?'—the famous philosophical question. So these questions are valuable because if they take a hold, they will take you to a deeper place which is beyond your intellect. And what is that deeper place? That deeper place is in the presence of intuitive insight, which is just a fancy way of saying that you are in the discipleship of the Atma within. Because intuition is a gift of the Atma, of the spirit. It is beyond intellectual understanding. It comes from a higher place, a deeper place. And that is why Gyan Yoga or Zen or any of these paths which involve contemplations which our mind cannot answer, our intellect cannot answer, they bring us to a deeper place.

And all of them, including 'Who am I?' especially, there's also something along the way: it demolishes our reliance on mental understanding, which to some of you may sound like bad news, but I promise you it is very good news. So when you ask yourself 'Who am I?' and you try just with the mind or intellect, you will not succeed, is it? And then you will start to notice that if my mind doesn't help me, my intellect with all its knowledge, all its books, everything that it has heard and read and every explanation video it has seen—in spite of all of that, the core question of who I am is not being answered. That will leave you with a deep desire to go to a deeper insight, a deeper place of understanding. And Ashtavakra may call the very same thing the refuge of the Satguru presence within, the Atma within.

So not only does a simple question like 'Who am I?' bring you to the end of reliance on just your mind-intellect and the surrender and reliance on the spirit within, we learn to live independently of the way of the head, which is full of the central character of our narrative, which is 'me.' This 'me' which cannot be found. It seems so obvious when we are constructing our stories that 'I am this me,' but when we truly ask 'Who am I?' we don't find this central character. And that itself takes the ground, shifts the ground from under our stories. And for a while, it may seem like, 'I don't know anything. I don't know anything at all.' But that 'I don't know anything' is very helpful for you to come to true self-knowledge because what you have known in the past has been avidya or ignorance. So misunderstanding about who I am is the classical definition of avidya.

So the question 'Who am I?' takes us away from avidya into true Gyan, and you come to the insight of your true nature as pure awareness itself, the Nirguna Brahman. And if you live without identifying as a false one, then love and servitude are bound to flower in your heart. It's very beautiful. It's very straightforward. It seems very complex, Gyan Yoga, is it? But actually, it's very straightforward. It's a simple question: 'Who am I really? Who am I really?' And it leaves you open and empty. What is open and empty? Conceptually, a conceptual compartment remains open and it remains empty. So it brings us to the same openness. So ask yourself who you are and don't settle till it feels completely right in your heart, you see. Thoughts will offer you many answers. It will start with, 'Oh, but I am whatever name you use for the body-mind.' So ask yourself: 'Who witnesses that thought? Who is aware of this thought, this idea?' And the question itself will guide you deeper and deeper as long as you remember that you're asking sincerely. You're not making just a practice out of it; you're truly asking, 'But who am I?'

That is the practice of Gyan Yoga. There's another even more direct way to come to Gyan Yoga, which is to just realize that the source of all trouble is grasping. This is like the Buddhist way, and for those who are trying to avoid God at all cost, this may be very attractive. It's like, 'Okay, I know the world is suffering. Suffering is because of grasping, so I'm not going to grasp.' So what is that? That is open and empty. So the classical Zen teaching, which is 'Thoughts are visitors, don't serve them tea,' allow them to come and go. This just encapsulates the whole way of life. Let them come, let them go, don't serve them tea. What is the tea you could have served them? It is obviously not our attention, because you're noticing the visitor. It is not that you don't see the visitor anymore, so you're not repressing any thought or trying to stop thoughts from appearing, but you're not serving them tea, which means you're not giving them truth value. And the way you give truth value is with your belief.

And you can, in one or two times of just experimenting with this—sometimes you do the 'fresh fresh' game, you see—you notice that it's fairly straightforward. In Satsang, in the presence of a teacher, it seems fairly straightforward. But when you try to apply it in your life and difficult situations, it may seem very challenging to just remain open and empty in that way. And what happens when you remain open and empty? You come to the same self-knowledge. You come to the discovery of the presence within as well as that which is aware of even this being. That pure awareness is the Self. The 'no-self' in Buddhism is the Self of Advaita. The 'no-self' is the same as the Nirguna Brahman. So actually, between the whole divide of Shunyata and the Vedanta, there's nothing, there's no problem actually, see? Because even the Vedantins say, 'Not this, not this, not this, not this'—Neti Neti—till the point where we cannot say 'not this' anymore. It's exactly the same as the one who is saying 'nothing, nothing, nothing.' Yeah, that's what it was coming to.

So okay, if it doesn't confuse everyone, I'll make a short digression into this. It's a beautiful story, and at least for me, it was beautiful. Most of the stories I find beautiful, many of you don't find as beautiful. The biggest proponent of this Shunyata, of the nothing, the 'no,' was Nagarjuna in the Buddhist tradition. So he and his disciple Chandrakirti were constantly saying, 'No, no, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, not that.' Then they started getting a lot of criticism that, 'You are saying no, no, nothing for everything, then why do you call yourself the Buddhists? Is there a Buddha or no? Are you in search of your true Buddha nature or no? So you should be thrown out of Buddhism.' The more ritualistic Buddhists, the more traditional Buddhists, then had this whole campaign that these people should not be there speaking against the Buddha, because if you were to ask, 'Is there a Buddha?' they would say, 'No, no.' So then they explained that you're misunderstanding what is going on. They said that if you hold on to any concept about the Buddha...

Then why do you call yourself a Buddhist? Is there a Buddha or no? Are you in search of your true Buddha nature or no? So you should be thrown out of Buddhism. The more ritualistic Buddhists, the more traditional Buddhists, then had this whole campaign that these people should be there speaking against the Buddha because if you were to ask 'Is there a Buddha?' they say, 'No, no.' So then they explain that you're misunderstanding what is going on. They said that if you hold on to any concept about the Buddha, then you will not meet your Buddha nature. So the negation is meant to come to the true meeting, and that is why they were great Buddhists and they spread the Buddhist way, the middle path, far and wide. Because for everything there would be 'not this' and 'not this' also. Is it up or down? Neither. Is it true or false? Neither, you see. So that, in another way, the Buddhists are known for moderation or the middle path. But the real middle path was not to get conceptually attached to any of the opposites.

So they were like—and once we had this where I kept saying—whatever your position is, just soften it a little bit. Just soften it up a little bit. So that is what leads to you being positionless and open and empty. So they explain that they are true Buddhists, but they said to their brothers and sisters that 'You, my brothers and sisters, are getting confused because you're grasping at the notions of Buddha or the notions of religion or spirituality.' But remember that grasping and suffering is the very fundamental of the whole spiritual movement called Buddhism. So, not to grasp. So it gets very confusing for people, no? Because Buddhists say, 'Oh, if you see the Buddha on the road, then kill him.' People are like, 'What? What kind of...?' We would never say that about Ram, Krishna, Jesus. This kind of stuff was very radical, but that is what they were trying to say was this: don't make a position, don't grasp into anything, even your notions of the highest, even your notion of the Buddha. Don't grasp; be empty of that.

So that is why really there's no difference between the Shunya and the Atma. It's only those who are halfway in, halfway out, who can't really fathom this fact. Both are meant to bring you to the intuitive insight and free you from mental grasping, the same as Nirguna. So remember what we are doing. Why are we discussing all this? To come to the discipleship of the Atma within, so that we can be guided to come to true knowledge by remaining empty of the egoic grasping. So what have we discussed so far? We discussed how to do the inquiry to come to the intuitive insight into the true nature of the Self, which is Nirguna, which is the absolute awareness itself. Inquiry. Then we discussed open and empty: how to remain empty of grasping at thoughts, allow thoughts to be visitors, allow them to come and go, don't serve them tea. And we took a side digression into seeing that both the paths of Buddhism and Vedanta actually at their core are the very same. Not even that. So words at best... then they realize that words at best are pointers. The things you hear in Satsang, the words at best are pointers. They're just signposts; they're not actually capturing any truth. There's no truth value really in there.

So now these are beautiful ways to come to the same point: the discovery of God's presence, the discovery of your absolute reality. And then within Jnana Yoga, like even within, there are some ten different sects and ten different sets of beliefs. There is Shuddha, there is Kevala, there is Vishishta, there is Advaita, there is Dvaita, all kinds of things like that. And each of them can have their own way of Bhakti, own way of Jnana, own way of service. All that is possible. So then, how long should the inquiry be done? How long should we remain open and empty? Always. It may start slow, it may seem exceedingly difficult, or we just carry the intention to be that way always and it seeps into every part of our life. And many have called it like a fever, like an infection; it just spreads and spreads. And somebody said it is like jaundice. So you see everything yellow when you're in jaundice. It's not an elegant example, but it sort of becomes like that, that you're just open and empty.

So then at work you're open and empty, and with your family you're open and empty, and in your brain you're open and empty. Whatever is happening, you're open and empty. You mean like that? Or you're inquiring. The question is this constantly being asked: 'Who is witnessing this? Who is aware of this?' And these questions can't be answered by the mind. So it's very helpful because along the way we let go of our psychological trouble, our psychological baggage, our emotional trouble, emotional baggage, and we come to a deeper, all-knowing, eternal place within ourselves. So you'll start to notice that the mind attacks are reducing. You're much more loving to your brothers and sisters of the world. You're not valuing your judgments so much. You're just easing, easing up. You're softening up in all of that. So these are the symptoms of true inquiry, of remaining open and empty. That is symptomatic of that.

Then what is the path of the... so this is the path of the Jnani, we are putting broad strokes. So this is the path of the Jnani. What is the path of the Bhakta? Complete love and surrender to God. If I'm going to use my mind, I'm going to use it to remember His name. If I'm going to exist, it is so that I can love Him deeply. If I'm going to do, then I will do what is in service to Him. So at every layer of my existence, it is in service to God, to love God, to deepen in my relationship with God. So the perfume of unconditional love in our heart is very helpful for a Bhakta, and you can actively create it. You can actively love because your mind loves to hate, but your heart loves to love. Mind loves to hate. You give it a minute and it'll hate on something. Give it five thoughts—not even five, maybe just one is enough—and it will start to hate on something, judge something, find something not right. Even in Satsang, even with what is being said, in something, anything, you give it enough time and it will judge and it will create separation, it will create distance.

So to make this unconditional love in our heart, that's a great anchor because if you learn to focus on that and follow the perfume of that love, it will take you to the Beloved. So if you look at all traditions, whether it is the Catholic nuns or it is Baba Farid or it is Rumi or it is Mirabai, they all consider God to be the Beloved, the partner, the husband. Because when you meet His presence, you want to just shower all your love and everything at your disposal you want to give to Him. So how to remember Him all the time? Use your prayer, the beads, the long prayer, the Arati mantra at the end, or whichever prayer which appeals to you in your heart. It could even be your favorite words from scripture. It could be anything which really you feel resonates with you in your heart. Just use that constantly and don't try to do the minimum possible.

So if you can do: 'Lord Ram, incarnation of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Bless my heart with the light of Atma. Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram.' Because it takes like a lot of centering for you to get that prayer out, especially in the midst of activity, you see? It takes a lot of you. So you get a lot of your layers in line in praying to God. Otherwise, it's just like the box is just literally lip service at times, and I'll tell you what those times are. So that's what I mean by give your maximum to God and not your minimum. You could just go, 'But I'm praying, I'm doing this.' So then that becomes very like a minimalized... not that it's compared to nothing, it is good. And if it is mechanical, if it is like that, if it is robotic, it is fine if you're not doing anything else, then at least do that, you see? But for those who are truly hoping to live a life in God's light and presence, you see, it is incumbent upon us to give it our highest and not our lowest.

So, full, full, full as much as possible, and depending on how much space your life is giving you in that moment. So if you're in a work meeting and you have to speak, you have to actively manage, you're figuring out the task for everyone and all of that, then that ticking the box is excellent, you see? Then you're just still remembering God. Sometimes it needs even more attention and focus. So one 'Ram' every five minutes is excellent, the best, you see? It's all relative, you see, and nobody's keeping score but yourself. You see, you are... you know in your heart whether you really align the maximum aspect of your being to God or are you just doing for namesake. But remember what I said: namesake is still better than not at all. So don't give up on namesake if that's all you're going to do. Anytime you start just like that, by the twentieth 'Ram,' you just... 'Ram.' See, it starts taking hold somewhere. It becomes... so I'm not saying don't do, but I'm saying that why do you have to restrict yourself to the minimum possible?

I say often that if you are in a job interview, you try to put your best foot forward, make sure that you capture all the points, you're being fully attentive and present and all that. But if you are making an application to live in His presence all that time, isn't that the most important job interview you are going for? So why can't we put our best foot forward there? And sage after sage has reminded us that if we do our highest for God, He takes care of everything in life. But we keep falling for centuries, maybe since the beginning of humankind, they've fallen for the same trap saying, 'But I have work, but I have things.' There's nobody who has reported that and said, 'I focused so much fully on God, but He made a full mess of my life.' Nobody comes to God, nobody gives their 100% to God and regrets it. And yet the mind keeps using that over and over. For if you read a book from 100 years back, same thing. 200 years back, same thing. From the beginning of spirituality, same people asking the same thing saying, 'Oh, but what about my responsibilities? What about my family?' They were asking Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi the same thing 100 years back, and today in Satsang you may ask the same thing. And the answer is always the same: you surrender to God, you put your everything to God, God will take care of everything. You don't have to worry at all. Every sage has reassured us and still we don't follow that because that is the mind's Maya which prevents us from truly living a life in His presence. And there cannot be a greater gift than to live your life in His presence.

I'm saying that suppose you're just watching some TV or, like she said, you're just scrolling, doomscrolling as they call it, you know, on social media, and it's not really important. So something in the waking scene, some activity is going to happen, so it's fine. So those are perfect opportunities to do the full prayer. So what happens there? Because after a while of chanting or praying, it becomes natural to easily do, but to say the full prayer gets your attention into focus and you need to... I don't... I can't say you need to, but it so happens that your system comes into alignment. Then you are bringing the highest for God, you see? Your emotion, when you say 'Have mercy on me, a sinner' and you mean it, see? So your emotional system is also in alignment with the prayer. There is a natural repentance for following our own terms instead of waiting for God's will to guide us. There is trust in His mercy because attainment of God, realization of Bhakti-prapti, is not going to happen by our doing; it is always going to happen because of His mercy. So we are praying for His mercy. There is servitude inherent in that. So the prayer is designed in such a way, you see, that every posture that you need to take inwardly is triggered if you say the prayer meaning it. And I'm not taking credit for designing the prayer; it is from the Jesus Prayer, which is so, so effective. So, the full thing as much as possible. Sometimes what will happen is that as you're saying the full prayer and suppose you're ending with 'Ram,' so just then you may find that the next one...

His Mercy, there is servitude inherent in that. So the prayer is designed in such a way, you see, that every posture that you need to take inwardly is triggered if you say the prayer meaning it. And I'm not taking credit for designing the prayer; it is from the Jesus prayer, which is so, so effective. So, the full thing as much as possible. Sometimes what will happen is that as you're saying the full prayer and suppose you're ending with Ram, so just then you may find that the next one is not starting; the Ram is going on. But you know it is heartfelt; it is not the tick in the box, you see. It takes a life of its own. It becomes like a japa, and you hear—you start to hear your heart chanting.

Okay, let's go in detail slowly about this. So what happens when you start your prayer? It is mental, you see. Your mind is repeating the words. Just and it may seem like a struggle sometimes; you may find that you're not even able to do that. Then what is—you have to use your words. You find that even using your words is not enough; you need a Mala. I'm not saying that it's levels, okay? The greatest sages use Malas still. Mooji is always carrying a Mala with us. So don't think of it as levels, but they are just tools to get us to pray. So we use the Mala, we use the words, then naturally what happens is that it becomes subtler and subtler. The concentration which you were finding so difficult earlier becomes subtler. You may find that you're no longer counting on the Mala; your words are not vocalized. You may find sometimes that just your lips are moving as an aid to concentration.

Then you may find that this mental effort being done—'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, bless my heart with the light of spirit'—it may seem like you're putting the effort to say the words mentally. Then after a point, you see that it has become a flow, and yet it is still mental. So the mind has now gotten used to praying, so it is saying the words. Then the prayer drops into your heart and you're no longer hearing it in your mind. So you're hearing the words 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God' from your heart. And then a very beautiful thing happens: it is that all words fall away and you're just praying silently. The 'prayer of quiet' as St. Teresa called it. Prayer of quiet, as she called it, where you're just praying silently.

And that is exactly what happens once you get used to remaining open and empty. And that is the point where you notice that actually open and empty is a form of silent prayer; it is not an avoidance of God, which it may have started seeming like. So the prayer of quiet, the silent prayer—and remember, don't fall into any ego traps. Don't say—you can't force it. You can't just say, 'Okay, now let silent prayer begin.' You see, it has to organically become like that. Then what happens is that as you get used to this silent prayer, then this prayer—it's like the Atma starts taking hold of more and more of your life as you come to the discipleship of the Atma.

It's like first the Atma is waiting for your permission. Then you have to go, you have to go, you have to go. Then after a point, even when you are doing other things, it calls you. And it doesn't just call you; it's like, 'Come.' It's an order; it's not a request anymore. So that is when you truly attain the discipleship of the Atma, because when it says 'Come,' it is now an order; it is not a request. So then you are just pulled into your heart in silent prayer, and that blazing light or sweet wound of love in your heart, that becomes more and more palpable to you and you love being like this.

So all the great sages said that after the awakening, or in the process of awakening, there were many times, many months at times, where they were just sitting. So whether they are open and empty in that way you come to this, or whether you've been praying you come to this. And to be in this holy fire of the Atma within is the beginning of our spiritual life; it is our beginning of our true spirituality because now spirit is here. And as spirit starts, it starts calling the shots. It is at that point that we can say that we are disciples of the Atma. The point of coming to satsang is to come to the discipleship of the Atma.

It's so beautiful how—and maybe it is for this reason that the japa is called the way to God, the most convenient way to God in Kali Yuga. Not that I pay much credence to all the yugas and all that, but it's very straightforward. So most of you, or many of you, are done with the initial resistance phase. You see, initially you resisted it so much: 'Do we have to do this?' Most of you, I know, are done with this and you've settled on either praying all the time in this way or trying to be open and empty all the time, which actually is no different from the quiet prayer anyway. So basically you're praying unceasingly, as was Jesus's command, right?

So whether it is to be open and empty, to live in the true insight of who we are, to constantly be in the remembrance of God at whatever layer. And I've discussed with you a part which I didn't mention today, which was the bhava samadhi aspect of it, where there comes a point where you just feel so much love in your heart that it becomes such a beautiful anchor to your silent prayer that none of the mind's temptations seem that attractive. So it becomes the opposite of the resistance. The resistance was always attracting you to things on the outside. Now if things are compelling you outwardly, you're just like, 'Oh, do I have to? I have to leave this pristine?' And then you notice that it doesn't matter what work is happening or not happening on the outside; you are not leaving this.

So that is when—and even before that—that is when it truly becomes the compass we started with. So your heart is guiding you every moment. Is that love deepening? Is that light, is that fire burning more brightly? All that becomes more and more palpable and apparent. So that is the bhava, Jnana, and Bhakti, and you're seeing that actually it's just emotional difference; the objective is the same. Then Karma Yoga: unselfishness. Everything is worthwhile only if I'm doing it for my brother or sisters. It's only for you, only for you. Another way of sharing the Nanak story: he kept giving the thirteenth one. Everything is for you. And when you serve your brothers and sisters of the world unconditionally with love, then it is as good as to love God.

If you have a sense of belongingness with everyone as if they are your children, then you'll find the same love of God, love for God, come in your heart. So remember what I said: the mind loves to hate, but your heart loves to love. Just like your heart loves to pray. That is how it becomes a japa; that is how it becomes wordless. All these layers that you're finding, the subtle layers of peace, that is because the Atma loves to pray. What greater evidence can there be that this Atma is an aspect of God? It's the part of Consciousness itself, that there is hardly a greater joy for the Atma within than to be in prayer of God, whichever aspect of God you may resonate with.

So Karma Yoga means don't worry about the outcome, don't worry about the fruits, don't grasp at anything for yourself. Let everything be for the world, for your brothers, sisters. Every action that you do, don't worry about what it leads to; hand it over to God's will. The classical—like most people think the Gita is just about this, which is not true; it has every section in it, but this is very popular. Allow your karmas to happen, actions to unfold, but don't care about the fruits of the action. Leave all fruits to God, surrender all fruit to God. That promise you talk about, that God will take care of everything once you surrender everything.

On the other hand, this Atma is not in allegiance to the false self. You see, this fear of discomfort—in the US he was in the dust, in the cold; Jesus on the cross. And so, can I approach the Atma with any self-concern? And it's something better to go to the Atma with every self-concern than to worry about it yourself. What is the Atma's allegiance like? So as a child, another way to look at Bhakti is to become a child of God. This is saying discipleship of the Atma; it is really an innocent discipleship. It's like we become children; we return to our innocence. So it is the most not-knowing, most innocent way to just surrender, like a child is surrendered on a mother's lap, like that.

So when we give it to—when we take every concern to God instead of worrying about it. So, okay, let me elaborate on this a bit more. If we can be completely empty, then it's okay to say that 'I don't want to pray for anything specific.' But usually what we find is that we block ourselves from going to God with these specific things, but we sit and worry about these very same specific things and taking time away from being in God's presence. So instead of that, I would say just take it to God. If something's really been bothering you, just say that 'I'm giving this to you, God, and you please help me find a solution to this because I'm completely lost. I don't know what to do.' With all honesty and integrity, make the prayer to God and wait for His answer with patience and courage, and don't move on yourself till the answer is apparent in your heart. That's how you deepen your inner compass as well.

Now your question is that, but Atma wants more closeness with God, so what is this reassurance about everything will be taken care of? Isn't that—that's the question, is that how can there be a reassurance of things in the world being taken care of when the Atma really wants to be with God? Not even like some contradiction, it's just that I'm worried. I'm worried that if I go to the Atma, then it just—what? It'll push me into discomfort more into it? Like it'll push me more into the thing that I'm worried about? You'll become more like Jesus? That all the Satgurus were killed and all the apostles who were killed? So sometimes the mind can use these stories to scare us: 'But I don't want to end up like that.' So don't worry for now; none of that is happening.

Some of these—look at the ones that we admire. Okay, so let's leave out the ones that were killed in God's name, but even the Namdev, the Tukaram, what is their life? They are just walking from village to village praying, singing praises to God. So it's like a nomadic beggar life. Is it scary for all of you? And it's okay if it is. God is there. So you must not be scared that your life may become like that. That may be the most fruitful life you can have. Because this life of—I'm not predicting or I'm not blessing that it will go that way, okay? I'm just saying that if that much openness also we don't have, then what are we talking about surrendering our life to God? Then our boundaries of our surrender are very low, you see.

So I'm not saying we must immediately become like Abraham or we must be open to being crucified, you see. I'm not immediately saying any of that, you see. I'm just saying that if you're not even willing to become like actual servants, then what do we mean by surrender? Like what are we actually surrendering? And again I'm saying it's not a prediction, but it's really, really bringing into your view the lack of surrender in our lives and how much we still want to control things. If God said, 'You must, for your body's sustenance, you must only beg for food,' okay, how many? Okay, a little bit half-hearted, still it's not bad.

And remember that the mind will say, 'But this is sounding very radical.' It is not. It is just putting some fire in us to say—we say, 'My whole life is surrendered to you, God.' What does that mean? 'As long as, oh, my comfortable bread and bath is not taken away from me'? Is it like that? So then say, 'Okay, now this is my boundary.' Otherwise what can happen is mentally we live as if we are fully surrendered to God, but that is the lie of spirituality I'm talking about. It's better to say, 'I am so weak, I am so foolish, I'm not even sure whether if you commanded me to lead the life of a beggar I would.' See, so that we can take to God, for example. And you can find for yourself, you may have a lot.

I mean, as long as my comfortable bread and bath is not taken away from me, is it like that? So then say, 'Okay, now this is my boundary.' Otherwise, what can happen is mentally we live as if we are fully surrendered to God, but that is the armchair spirituality I'm talking about. It's better to say, 'I am so weak, I am so foolish, I'm not even sure whether if You commanded me to lead the life of a beggar, I would.' See, so that we can take to God. For example, and you can find for yourself, you may have a lot of these small fears: 'I can't do without my air conditioning,' 'I can't do without four meals a day,' I can't whatever. So don't say then, 'My life is fully surrendered to You.' See that as long as I have air conditioning. So that is when our spirituality becomes a true spirituality. And I'm not saying jump into things which may seem uncomfortable to you; I'm just saying that bring this into your life. And by bringing it with integrity and honesty to your life, then you are bringing it to God's light also, and not in your mind being the greatest sage the world is in and then actually, in actuality, you're still grasping at a lot of things. And then our spirituality starts to become true and not just like a modern New Age type feel-good spirituality.

So what you're willing to risk becomes the boundary of your faith. So God has given us enough examples in the form of Abraham and Jesus and the Sikh Gurus and the apostles and so many, so many great examples—Harish Chandra, even Ram Ji himself. Brilliant examples for us to see. Like, imagine a young boy who was supposed to be the king of the kingdom, and on that day he was supposed to be made the king, he was told to go spend fourteen years in the forest. And that's a long difference because many times our mind can make this idea that it is easy for them because they were God. But remember that the incarnation of the Son of God is full human and full God. Many have said, 'What's the big deal of the crucifixion? He was God, he wouldn't have felt anything.' The point of the embodiment, the point of the incarnation, was that you experience everything like a human and don't lose touch with the godly nature of the presence with you, you see? To show us how it is, how it can be done. It would not be authentic if Ram, Krishna, Jesus were not full human as well as being full God. It is to show us how it is possible in our life for us to become the children of God truly.

So again, don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not saying start begging tomorrow. I'm not saying do any of those things, because that can also become egoic immediately and it may continue to deepen or so. But I'm just saying that if you find for yourselves boundaries like this and say, 'God, Father, bless me because this is the boundary of my surrender at the moment. Help me deepen in my love, help me deepen in my surrender,' and trust His will. Whatever He will do with your life will be greater than what your mind can ever do. So that fear is natural. That fear is, sorry, that fear is very natural for it to come, that 'Oh, what if, what if that happens?' That is the problem with that—is the risk that faith entails. That's why it is said that no risk, no faith. If it doesn't seem like a risk, he said, no risk, no faith. If it doesn't feel like a risk at some level, then what is faith? Then it's all rational; it's nothing much. Is the right way, yeah, this way.

It's scary, Father, when you're saying all these things. But also, like in the morning when I was, you know, contemplating about a few things, that one moment of when you pointed to Hanuman Ji, and that was just that one moment of God was just enough that nothing else mattered. But, you know, it still brings up fear and to just completely... as a good God...

One of his most famous books is a phrase from the Bible called 'Fear and Trembling.' Fear and trembling. You must commit to God in spite of all the fear, or with fear and trembling. Because if there's no fear and trembling, then what are we really risking? What is the faith needed? And you'll rarely hear this in the satsang of today's world because everything is meant to feel good, feel better, feel nice. But to have this dichotomy between what our lips are saying or what we think to be true about ourselves and what we are not able to meet—what our lips are saying in our life—that dichotomy will become a big block from your living in the true presence of God. The dichotomy. So if you're saying, 'I'm fully surrendered to You, Father, fully, fully surrendered,' you see, to You, God, and but then you get pricked in your heart to say, 'Okay, today you don't eat anything that you have not got except from what you've got from begging on the streets,' then how long? What are our tactics? First, we'll pretend we didn't hear God speak. Like that. Second is to say, 'No, no, that's so difficult,' all of that. But even to meet that difficulty head-on, eyes open, is better than that idea that 'I am fully surrendered to God.' Isn't it funny that in the olden days, even the greatest sages would not so easily say these words, that 'I'm fully surrendered to God'? They would say, 'I'm trying to surrender deeper. I'm very foolish. I'm getting there, you see. God, please help me.' But in today's world, we see a very big thing: 'Fully surrendered to You,' like that. Because actually, we realize that in the modern world, it's not going to be tested, we think. But in that whole process, who are we fooling? We can't fool God. So we are only fooling ourselves there.

The kid who says to me, 'Oh, I'll do everything you say,' I know their boundary. They know if I say, 'Finish your homework today,' they're going to say, 'Look at tomorrow.' So God knows that we are living in denial, and that is because we live in this instant, fast-food, self-gratification world. Everything is available. The spirituality has gone from being a constant risk-taking, self-sacrificing process to—okay, I'm going to be harsh, but—a sort of bliss-junky, feel-good idea of self-help. So in all the paths, whether it is Atma Gyan, Karma, we need to deepen in our faith. We need to deepen in our humility. We need to deepen in our gratitude. We need to deepen in our obedience to God. We need to be patient. We need to be courageous. Yeah, even now, even now. That's why he was wearing the black cloth and so that's why telling, 'I'm keeping Lent, but you're keeping Sahaj the same.' What I said, you just bring every layer of your existence into serving God, and it brings us out of the lips of with armchair spirituality. Lips are saying, 'I'm fully, fully, fully for You. My life is for You, God,' and then—and I'm speaking for myself—that if a chocolate pudding is lying on the table, then I'm living for myself at the moment. So just this small thing we start to notice, just the small thing.

So in the process of inquiry, when you're settling into the position of looking at being in presence and then noticing that your being is experiencing the body, the body is in there, and you know, its sensations, is there a process where you feel a lot of burning and discomfort? Because I just, that's what I'm temporarily, I'm sort of feeling a lot like a physical one, yeah, the region of the head. So I'm observing it and then, you know, there's just been a lot of just, you know, intense discomfort in the region of the head. And so I'm just surrendering that and I'm saying, you know, I'm looking at it, I'm observing it, you know, God, I'm looking at... everything is being squeezed like that. Yeah, it just feels like there's strong sensations in this area and, yeah, it's like everything is getting squeezed. It's like into a hard, hard mass, you know? And you just feel it's just... it's okay if you're sitting in meditation and all, but if you're just out in daily affairs, it's very difficult to take attention away from it. So it's gotten easier actually today sitting in satsang, you know, able to just surrender it and say that, you know, where am I looking from? Where am I noticing this from? And so I've got to be looking at it, you know, looking at the being and the presence from, you know, the boundless, and then this is in there. So why focus so much? So it's really helping right now, but I just thought I would bring it to you and ask just because during the day it was all kinds of thoughts were coming up like, 'Can I deal with this? Can I literally...' It's like pain, a kind of pain, you know, pain continuously, right? 'Can I deal with this? And what does it mean?' And you know, just wanted to surrender it to you. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for sharing that. So yes, it is very natural for this to happen, and many of us may have experienced this. As we, like conceptually it sounds so simple, just be open and empty, you know, we do the fresh-fresh and it seems like, 'Ah, that's it.' But along the way, like a lot of these energetic realignments are happening, a lot of, at every layer of our being, I keep saying that our things are getting changed and transformed. So when these things would happen here—and you must remember that most of my spiritual journey was not under the physical guidance of a Master; most of it was in reading books and going to some ashrams or whoever was my Guru at that point to visit them once in a year or twice in a year, something like that—this sort of constant advice was not available. Why I'm saying that is because so when I was meditating or doing things and then sometimes it'd feel like so much pain and, you know, you have these experiences and sometimes it's just lost, and after that the whole day I would actually feel happy. You know why? Because I would feel like, 'Okay, something is happening.' I didn't have a Master like physically available to guide me. I just feel like, 'Okay, you know, there's something, something.' And somewhere in your heart you know it is right, you know it is auspicious. And as you go through all of this, you start to notice all of this, which is very helpful as well. But don't worry that these are natural things and God is doing them with His intelligence, so you can trust it. Nothing will... it will always be for your, for making things better. It can feel uncomfortable, it can feel at times inappropriate also, the body starts moving in certain ways, so don't... His intelligence takes care of everything.

Remember that the internal compass, don't leave that. What is that compass? The light is brightening, if the love is deepening—and I'm talking about moment to moment, I'm not talking about just generically—moment to moment, is His presence more tangible? Is the love deeper? Then you're on the right track. But it may be seeming like you're on the right track mentally, you're seeming to do all the right things, is it? But you're feeling a sense of disconnection in the heart? Just pause and return to your heart. It becomes the simplest way to live. It's not always easy because it may stop you from doing what you really wanted, what you think you wanted. That is the meaning of surrender: to follow His will. So His one simplest way of finding His will is that: is His presence deepening? Is His presence more tangible? Is the love more palpable? Is the warmth of your heart getting warmer? And I said that if your commitment is to live in His will, then all these indicators will become clearer and clearer. Sometimes the love for Him becomes so sweet that you can taste the sweetness in your mouth. I don't know if I should say these things. It's this journey that you're undertaking is incredible, and I don't want to talk about so much about the gifts of God because your mind will use these very words to oppress you and saying, 'You're not there.' This is the checker guy will come into the picture. But a transformation that you can't imagine, literally the cocoon and butterfly thing is so true about this. Not that the tiny caterpillar is always feeling peaceful in the transformation, then sometimes these things happen. But trust me on this, nobody regrets it. To come to God and to live in His presence is the highest gift you can give yourself.

These very words to oppress you and saying you're not there—this is the checker guy who will come into the picture. But a transformation that you can't imagine literally—the cocoon and butterfly thing is so true about this. Not that the tiny caterpillar is always feeling peaceful in the transformation; sometimes these things happen. But trust me on this: nobody regrets it. To come to God and to live in His presence is the highest gift you can give yourself. And the price is very little to pay. It seems like a lot to our selfishness and to our own will, our self-image, and our self-concern, which is nothing anyway.

We try to manage our self-image, we try to have so much self-concern, and we try to do things in self-will for so long. What has it gotten us, really, except a suffering roller coaster, up and down life? Sometimes feeling like the king of the world, sometimes feeling that we're the worst of the worst. When you come to God's presence, you won't find stability, you won't find real contentment without God's presence. All that hell is, it doesn't need to be any other hell—to feel disconnected in your heart is the experience of hell. But because one has not fully tasted His gifts yet, we may not feel like this is hell.

It's like that TV show called The Good Place. They've been told that it is heaven, that they did all the right things and they ended up in heaven. But it was so topsy-turvy: one day like that, then one day like this, then one day that. And there was fear, and there was guilt, and there was pride, and all of these things. Until one day it occurs to them that, 'Oh, this is hell, actually.' There's enough roasting in this world; you don't need to be roasted, honestly. Something like that, you know?

The beauty of living in God's presence is that His fire, His love, His fiery love will burn all these things from our life—all the grievances, all the resentments, all the blocks that we have. We forget. Okay, did you hand? Soon you will find it impossible not to love. You have to sacrifice one thing. What is that one thing? My way. Yes. Which means that you have to sacrifice being right. It is about this. This is about satsang. Don't go to anyone and say, 'Oh, my satsang is the best.' We've been wrong. You've been wrong so many times; you may be wrong again. Don't become proud about anything. Keep your eyes clear of any kind, and you see that, yeah, we have not even scratched the surface of spirituality. All these things which may be already sounding a bit esoteric or mystical, they're not even the surface.

Retain your innocence. Don't think you know something now and stay with it. There will be times where the mind will resist with all its might. Sometimes it feels very sweet, sometimes it feels super dry. Still, don't get attached to the experiences on the path. Just for God's sake. Everything is for God's sake. Everything is for the truth's sake. Then you find things within yourself which no words have been invented for. But if you limit yourself in some way, then you'll just block yourself at every part. So everyone's clear about the project, your intentions, and the method? Yes. And whatever confusions there are, I'm happy to resolve. The realization of God is the project. To remain in His presence and the realization of God is the part. Our intention has to be fully aligned to that, not any byproducts of them. And the methods I have elaborated on, and I keep doing so while doing the Adas.

I think since I've been in Bangalore and I've been doing more of it, it's a beautiful experience, but it's making me go inwards. I may be wrong, but my expression is more not as smiley or not as, you know, it's a bit almost... the people I'm speaking to get a bit concerned. 'Are you okay? Are you depressed?' I'm only doing the Adas inside, okay? So the face is not giving any expression. And sometimes the mind comes with the fact that I am not even aware of little things of gratitude or generosity or sensitivity that I would normally do in the course of the day because I'm just doing my Adas and I'm within that, and sort of grimly. So that is the way my mind is describing this. Is it okay?

This is very, very common. Guruji also talks about it, that in the times where he was just doing this, then people all came to him. Because you can tell that Guruji must have been quite extroverted and all that earlier. And then this was happening when people... he would just go to this place in the market, you know, and just sit over there, mostly in his room but sometimes outside also. And people would come to him and say, 'Are you depressed? Is there something wrong with you? Are you meditating?' 'I'm just sitting. I'm just...' So it's very natural to, especially if you've been... and you also give that impression of being very efficient and full of life and things. So suddenly to just withdraw in that way can seem strange to those who are around you. But it's very natural.

And you realize that from this will emerge the new external person. And that is going to be generous, truly coming from God. That is going to be compassionate and kind, coming from God in a deeper way than we can ever hope to have done by ourselves. As we are meeting Him in our heart, we'll see that it's going to be a deeper generosity, love, and compassion. My mother, she's also doing very well. She sends me some messages; I'm very happy to hear. She's used to my being... please tell her whatever is happening with you is also happening with me. She'll understand. At least from the messages that she sent me, she's also doing beautifully. And I'm very happy because for older people, their coming to God's presence is so important. So when she sends me those messages, I'm very happy. And she doesn't complain about my... she just goes through with it, doing Adas throughout the day on God. God is blessing with so much life.

I also sometimes feel it's easier to just stay separate in my room or the company of people... stay with at a particular point to have the luxury of a cave is very helpful.

If life is making that space for you, you must use it because you don't know when you will get that opportunity again.

And a little fear of not wanting to go back to life, coming here... because I may get distracted coming... stay separate.

You do everything for God; God will do everything for you. Yes, that in my life so often. Every time I remember that it's for God, everything in my life is for God, everything outside gets sorted out. And the instant I take on something on myself and like, 'This is for me to do,' it goes south very far.

I just don't want the goodness to affect people around you.

Because what is the option? You cannot give up on your satsang because of not affecting people. It now stop my... then all your external expression, everything, it will only take care of. Don't get into the mind trap that you must now stop it or something. That's why we have all these irrational ones in the world. Stop it and say, 'What will the world think?' Immerse yourself in satsang, in prayer, in inquiry, and seva, devotional singing, and all these beautiful things. And something, anyone that is resonating with your heart that home... just randomly on YouTube I clicked today and I saw that beautiful... the whole video is very beautiful, but that part where this one says, 'These simple things really attract me these days.' So Hanuman Ji was asked what date is it and what other guidance do we need in our life? That one line is enough. He's literally saying don't worry about these things in your life; they'll be taken care of. Focus on both—not knowing and also absence of any concern about it. Self-concern coming to zero is such a gift. It's only possible for Hanuman Ji, of course, but we can strive. We can, of course.

So that's why our noticing of our inadequacies is helpful, but that should be less than our trust and faith in the possibilities that God can do. So the first one prevents us from getting proud and the second one deepens our fear, and both go together. The heart... sometimes the heart takes over while the mind is doing its own chattering. So there's this gentleman who delivered my grocery at 10:30 at night to C2, C3, sitting and waiting for calling him over and over again. And he says, 'I got the dresses too.' So I went out to show him C3. We got our somewhere. The heart, it was so subtle; it just went to the fridge, took out two cold mangoes and said, 'Please don't leave empty-handed. So sorry for the confusion for you.' The mind is saying, 'He delivered your grocery to... what are you doing?' But the smile, the mango... the body did what it had to do. And the gentleman from the... he also accepted with the grace straight from the heart, no matter what his mind might have been saying.

So subtle, these are miracles. We don't need working on water, especially because we can't do. But these are so, so beautiful that what could even more... more food for the ego actually became food for the heart. You're saying stop being right. So the moment we stop looking onto C2 or C3, maybe he's right. From that, God helps you in that instant. He helped pick up my grocery, I bowed down to the combine grocery together, we carried the grocery quite peacefully, harmoniously into C3. Just pure grace, simply because maybe he may be right. Maybe he may be right. Sorry.

And you know that Gandhi's life, for example, is a great example of this: humility, meekness, love in these interactions, but such courage and strength when it came to the injustice of oppression. This can seem like... mind can seem contradictory. But that spiritual strength that you get from within, you see? Then, of course, love even for the oppressor. Because his whole simplicity, which maybe he picked up from Christianity, where he said, 'Attack the sin and not the sinner.' That just one line can transform the human condition because we are so quick to make it about the person instead of about the block. And we are so quick to say, 'Oh, this one is like this,' instead of noticing that we also suffer from similar blocks. We have the same thing.

So at least like if in our satsang itself we started living like this, that you must attack the sin and not the sinner. Love the sinner, attack the sin. Imagine what a shining light we could become now. Love your brothers and sisters, but attack the sin in the sense of saying, reminding them that you feel from your heart that something blocks them, something... but in a way which is not just lip service. 'Oh, but I'm coming from love.' It should be felt. That love should be expressed in the words. It should be in the texture of your way of communicating. Like you can tell, and you don't need to say, 'I'm speaking from love.' It is. If you need to say that, then there's something wrong, right? Because if your word, if the texture of your words is not conveying that, if the texture of the content of the words you're using is not conveying that, then it doesn't help to say, 'Oh yeah, but I remember that I'm coming from a place of love.' Okay? Because then it's just like Donald Trump saying, 'Believe me.'

So I have a question to ask on this. The driver has not come to work today and he made up a story that he's not going to come. I said, 'Please come by 2:00 because we have to pick up the car from his office.' He said, 'No, I'll come by 5:00.' I said, 'Five will be very late because you have to pick up the car.' He didn't respond. No, no, I sent him a message. No communication at all. And yesterday he had already asked that, 'Is it okay if I don't come to work?' I got a message, 'I'm not feeling well.' How to feel love for the driver? I'm not going to feel... I cannot feel the love to say that he's just done this and cheated today.

Remember when we judge another for lying, is it true that we have never lied? That we have not got out of work by saying, 'Oh this, oh that'? So how would you remedy this? We would say, 'Okay, let's not make it about the person.' How can you attack the sin? If you find that somebody is just lying latently, then how can we express that without making it a personal attack? So we're not attacking their entire persona; they just have to point out that they have this particular block which is stopping them from shining. You see, it must...

Is it true that we have never lied, that we have not got out of work by saying, 'Oh this, oh that'? So how would you remedy this? We would say, okay, let's not make it about the person. How can you attack the sin? If you find that somebody is just lying latently, then how can we express that without making it a personal attack? So we're not attacking their entire persona; they just have to point out that they have this particular block which is stopping them from shining. You see, it must come truly as a gift.

So there are two examples of neighbors in this building which you can probably identify. I decided some time ago that every interaction with them, I will only come from love. See, I will not attack them personally. I will just point out to them—I will not not point out—I will point out to them what the error is, but I will be open to hearing their side of it as well. But I will not make it ever a personal attack. Now, with both those people, when we engage our conversation, the texture, the tone has changed so much. Like, 'How are you? I hope you're well. How is everything?' You know, it's happening in that way. That's just 'fake it till you make it,' right? Not fake it—how are you feeling love for someone like this? It's just authentically if you give it to God, then He gives you that love, you see.

Like today, I had a conversation with one of them and he was quite strong with sat and all of that. So I could notice some anger was coming because he was being unfair. But when the call came, I just prayed to God, saying, 'Okay, let me come from a true place.' And everything that needed to be pointed out was pointed out, but it never became like a personal attack. Both sides were like, 'Okay, yeah, you have a point there, we'll look at it.' Authentically, not like a put-on. The thing is that the mind's version of the truth is very different from the reality of life. So what happens is that we become conclusive and we say, 'This person is like that, this person is not like that.' They just... like somebody can get a disease and one organ can be affected. In the same way, Maya works. When the mind works in this way, they're diseased by it.

So if you can treat our brothers and sisters as if they are afflicted by something instead of to be blamed for something... how does somebody become a liar? They're not born like that. It is because life conditions, the mind plays, and what they've seen in their life makes them that way. Haven't we also been conditioned in the same way? Yeah. And how would we want to be treated? We would want it to be pointed out gently with love. So we are all learning in this process, and the more we stay with God, these things come more and more naturally because He shows us His ways, you see.

Imagine if God... I don't know if you heard that, but I heard this from Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji. He said that we are so lucky. At first, it's a bit confusing. Oh, but God is a just God, so what does it mean? He doesn't do justice; He does mercy. He gives grace. Because he said that he was quoting Tulsidas Ji or that, imagine if God did justice with us, where we would be? And it is His mercy that allows us to live in His presence in spite of all our foolishness and pride and selfishness and self-image and all of that. Such a beautiful... the beauty of these sages is how they can say such big things in just a simple way, a simple sentence. So God does mercy with us at the cost of what may seem like justice. And who are we to say, 'Oh no, but I have to do justice'? So, justice, but never at the cost of mercy, the cost of compassion and kindness. Because when the spirit meets this world, the spirit is the father of all, the mother of all. How is it going to be unloving and unkind?

So as we are learning to live in the spirit, right, all this will start changing for us on its own. So instead of trying to change it necessarily, what we must do is just stay with God's presence and see what unfolds from there. What does God want to say through this instrument, through this mouth? Trust that his mind will fight it and say, 'But that's so unfair, it's not right.' But the Gandhi example is good. The Gandhi example is so good that he fought so valiantly in such a non-violent and loving and meek way almost, but with so much strength of inner courage. Yeah, so much.

What is work? Work for this one again? Again, with humility, you take whatever food and you offer it to someone you are annoyed with. You see the way grace comes? The grace simply changes it. It changes the scenario in the most miraculous way. The mind cannot fathom it, but it works every time. If food is given from a place of humility, even if the mind is saying that the other person is at fault, ignore it.

So two sages have spoken about this. One is Anandamayi Ma and the second is Neem Karoli Baba. Neem Karoli Baba said that when people come to me, many can't really understand what I'm saying, what I'm pointing them to, but I want them to be left satisfied in some way. And food has this power to satisfy, at least for the moment. So I'm going to feed annam to whoever comes. And that was Baba's whole... he just fed people. He would hardly speak to people, he would feed people. I would say, not even a template, just be heartfelt about it. Don't even make this into a template. Just let the Satguru guide you. Fully come into the discipleship of the Atma. Let it guide you moment to moment, you see.

Why that is important is so that no pride ever comes in. You don't realize when pride comes in; it becomes a blind spot. And very soon it can become, 'I am giving, I have learned that to do this is the way.' So subtly it can come. So when you become just... remain innocent like children. He moved the feet to the fridge, He moved the hand to pick up the food. You also saying so beautiful, but never make it like a thing. Because the minute you make it into a thing, then quickly it becomes a thing that 'I' am doing. Then that is the door to pride. The mind is always spinning the story of the 'I.' You have to be careful. And that's why Anandamayi Ma is... Ma is classic. It's too good.

Father, I spoke to you about the chanting that happened and the conflict about it last week, and it was immediately resolved. I told you about that also. There was no... just trying to... so now just allowance is there. Whatever is happening keeps happening. Yesterday night, you know, in one of the messages, a friend passed away. That message... there was spontaneous prayer after that. After the prayer, I noticed like I've been chanting for quite a long time, but I was not praying at all for quite a long time. The chant was happening mechanically, but you're not meaning... the meaning happens for all of us. But as long as even though it is happening mechanically, it is not nothing. But when you notice, then offer more of yourself.

Anandamayi Ma said something beautiful I saw in a YouTube short. She said the prayer itself teaches you how to pray. It's okay. Usually, it starts to be a stain only after a few hours and goes to time to leave. And you see the mind very much in operation in the world today because Gandhi was a swindler apparently, and Mother Teresa was just a con. These narratives are all being replaced by mental narratives, and these don't help us. They only help us be more divisive. So even if they were those things, what is more helpful for us? To consider them to be saintly and learn from what they said. You're not going to sit in judgment of them. What difference does it make what we think? But if we close ourselves to insights and knowledge from these ones, we are just blocking ourselves. So a lot of this hatred is at our own cost. We don't realize. And in social media, everybody has a sandbox to stand on. I think nobody cares, but you're just blocking yourself and your Atma.

It's a great disservice to ourselves as a nation and for us individually. So now everything, all the tools, everything has been made available to you. Now it's for you to use. And it's not really work, work; it's the most joyful work. This one I haven't seen yet. Put it on. I can't remember exactly the conversation, but the essence was asking the Satguru what you have to do. I heard a similar one yesterday where someone says it is like Mother's... it's astounding the tantrums people threw with her. It's more than satsang here. This is the most I had seen, but listening to those is much more. All kinds of questions are being asked.

The tantrums they had with Anandamayi Ma are amazing. That also is testament to her humility and openness. So beautiful to see one of the greatest gurus ever to live in this country, the kids could come and throw tantrums just like he said that. And sometimes words of English, some very sweet to find. Even Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji, I love their expression because they can put so simply what I try to explain in one hour; they just say one sentence. But what's amazing is how grace helps us. So all these influences from across religions, across the world, all seem to be saying the same thing in such a beautiful way. And just like the mind also tries to give you a theme for the day, the Holy Spirit's curriculum, you see, is also well set out. You'll notice that day you'll get things about that particular topic all the time if you're open. So beautiful, this strange Mahabharat which is on between egoic pride and God's presence. And both have their theme. One is trying to teach you something else, the other is trying to teach... which way will we listen? That is the question.

Then I was praying today and many times it's a struggle. Like, I feel like it's a struggle. I don't know what this is. And when you say put your best foot forward for God, I felt like something got revealed inside that I know God loves me immensely, there is no doubt. But I have to also put the effort to show... not to show God, I don't have the right word... to just prove, like to show love. Like that is... I'm not getting the right word, but I have to do, you know, I have to make the effort. I can't just... I don't know how you can't just non-doership about it.

Yeah. And it has to be a struggle sometimes. It has to be tough, you know. If it's very easy, then it's not... how to say this? Armchair spirituality that I've been raging against. This is the same armchair, lip-service spirituality that I've been raging against. Very convenient spirituality where we take our selfish ways to be God's will because everything happens in God's will, you see. So, 'One day He wants me to stop being selfish, He'll do it.' That's why to start helping ourselves in this way. It's not that God needs our devotion; it's not that He needs our love. We need it. We need our love for God. We need our devotion for God. And we have to make the effort. That's all we can do. Everything that we have at our disposal, we are willing to do when it comes to things of the world. But when it comes to this, then we become the non-doer. The convenient spirituality is what we need to shake out.

Father, even this I noticed. Like, say I wake up early, I just wake out of sleep. Say it's 4:00 in the morning and it's not time for me to get out, just an example. And then I start... like the prayer comes automatically and I'm just lying there. And something like my heart just says, 'You have to go into prayer position.' But the mind just is not... but you can't... it's almost like you're desanctifying the prayer by just praying but lying down. It's like your heart guides you, you know, 'Just go into the position.' And it brings more vitality to the prayer when you are in that. So many times I'm seeing like if I'm not doing nothing and I'm just resting, but even if the body is tired, it wants to go into prayer position, like whatever that is. So in that moment, to choose that is to show your love for God. It's not to just... and there could be times where your body is tired, yeah. And even to pray seems difficult. I notice that in illness and all of that. In illness, it can seem like such a convenient time to pray more, but when the body is... it becomes a big distraction from prayer. You have to work at it, to pray more. That's why I'm saying that every moment that we have that we can pray, we should be grateful for that. This was there in Hanuman...

Those that is to show your love for God, it's not to just... and there could be times where your body is tired, yeah, and even to pray seems difficult. I notice that in illness and all of that. In illness and thing, it can seem like such a convenient time to pray more, but when the body is... it becomes a big distraction from prayer. You have to work at it to pray more. That's why I'm saying that every moment that we have that we can pray, we should be grateful for that.

This was there in Hanuman Ji's one thing I said yesterday. So one of the latest disciples, he translates his... or something. So he died of cancer apparently. And if I'm not wrong, that's what it was about. And he was in a lot of pain and he couldn't even speak. And the doctor was there, he was just moving, you know? And he said, 'Don't do that, your lips are getting dry, you'll feel a lot...' you know? He said he was chanting the name of God. It was very painful. So that here, like because he said there is no opportunity where you cannot, you know? You have to find that courage. Because very easily the body is tired and you don't want to do with the breath, and the breath is very shallow, you don't want to. But they're very big inspiration. Even in that, he would always want to meet people and encourage them. Because when the body is ill or tired, you are so much in concern, 'I'm not... I can't be available.' So it's one is that, and second it's also... yeah.

That entic oppressed in that way was oppressed. There was this another story he, Hanuman Ji, had written about another saint. And he was so much into God and all these like, no body concerns, nothing. But I don't know if you heard that. So there was this one somebody, some big sate who came to him. And this man used to always go prostrated to temples and he would always have this one cloth he would wear. And there was this lot of rain and he was prostrating and going to the temple and full kesar, right? And so this one saint saw him and he felt like, you know, like a big money, like a lot of money. And so he brought him a silk cloth and he said, 'Use this.' And so he said many times he denied, he said, 'I don't need anything, I don't need anything.' But eventually he gave him and he took it because the sate was insistent, so he felt bad and he gave it.

So this narrator was saying, you know, if you are so into God, don't ever need these people for too long because they will convince you. You know, some... like he was just... anyway, this man got convinced and he made himself a silk... and the next day he was going to God. And then he said instead of a constant japa of God, he was not concerned about his... and it actually, he didn't prostrate. And when he realized that, that he forgot God, you know? And so like you once you had said, 'I'll not narrate this because it's so extreme,' even this was extreme. So he burnt away these clothes and he completely became naked, tied himself to some bulls, and the bulls took him into... like his body was completely in blood. Like this was the true story. And I stopped at that because I couldn't take more. But then he was about to say how God rescued him, but I just stopped, I couldn't. But it's... this is beyond. He was so distraught with himself that, 'How could I forget God and be worried about...?' So they will say Ramakrishna, if somebody gave him a towel that was... he immediately burn it. Like he hated it. Somebody gave him something that could pull him into Maya beyond... how these people never become proud, anything.

I saying that God reminds you when somebody does something and that you have also done that before, so you don't judge them, remember? And I was saying I can't be like that at all. Today I was seeing, Father, that if somebody does something that I can see is like a weakness in me, because it's a weakness in me, I tend to judge them more. I tend to put them down. Like something is waiting to say that, 'Oh look, I spotted that,' something like that, you know? But I was seeing that I do see that it's there here also. How do I switch that into what you said, how you see it?

I don't know. In the Course in Miracles I read long back that the Jesus of the Course in Miracles said, 'If you spot it, you got it.' It is very strong for me to read, which meant that if you spot this thing in someone, then you have it. So that affected me in some... but just as you deepen in God's presence, that you'll take care of all these things. I mean it very literally when I say we have to become a disciple of the Atma. It's not like metaphorical or... literally moment to moment He will guide. So as we live more and more in His presence, He will show us how to be non-judgmental. He'll remind us of our own foolishness before we call someone else a fool. He reminds us of the silliness we've done. Just deepen in your love for God, rest will happen inside.

That's so crazy, recognizing like unfathomable to actually be a disciple can join because God is so vast, so unfathomable that in His mercy He sent His presence as our Guru, as Satguru with him. And only through the conduit of the Atma, only through the like the electrical wires of the Atma can we connect to God in these ways. So as a disciple of the Satguru within, of the disciple of the Atma, then He introduces us to the glory of Krishna, to the glory of... glory of Allah, Jesus.

Usually you should remain quiet about the sins of your sisters and brothers as you have enough of your own to be busy about. Speak of kindness, sacrifices, and loving acts that brought you joy. Focus on the many, many good qualities of others. Remember that if a soul is not united to Me, that soul feels a gaping emptiness, a loneliness, and a sadness. Dearest children who are close to My heart, have compassion and mercy as I have had compassion and mercy for you. This is direction of our times as given to Anne the Lay Apostle, Conversations with the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. So Atma got from Anne.