We Gather in Satsang to Find That Kingdom Within Ourselves - Christmas 2023

So then ultimately Jesus had to come to show us that it is possible to lead a life like that, after so many great prophets, kings, all the role models also tried and didn't succeed. And that continues in modernity even now. I try every day and I fail. There are still moments where I fall for believing that I am right. So this is the human problem, which is illustrated well in the Bible, that we don't live in the Kingdom of Heaven because we want to live with self-will. So he came to show us, and across the world wherever there is so much of this error, so much of this problem, then God himself incarnates to show us the way out, whether it is Ram, whether it is Krishna, or whether it is Jesus himself.

So we must celebrate today, and that's very important because it is the birth of the Son of God. But it's also important to remember the reason why he had to come. And now, are we now part of the same invitation for him to come again, or is our life reassurance that he doesn't have to come? And in the human condition, the problem is difficult. It seems difficult because it seems that letting go of self-will seems to attack the very premise of our existence, of our knowledge, of our righteousness, of our self-respect. But that is what all of us need to learn: to let go and accept the incarnations of God themselves to show us the way.

There is no human historically that I'm aware of who did not fall for individuality, who did not fall for the human condition. But our job is, moment to moment, thought by thought, to the best of our ability, make that choice: do not go with the temptation of the mind. And yet we fail, and yet we must not give up. We must try again because it is in that trying that we can stay in His light. We cannot give up and say that this is too difficult. We cannot even give up and say that the life has to change, circumstances have to change, people have to change. We cannot make any of those conclusions, although the mind tempts us to. We must make that change within ourselves.

So notice the moments that you go with your own will; it is the same biblical moment of Adam eating the apple. So I wonder if you even notice this. So you notice that I have been really openly saying that I'm just a stupid, foolish beggar for quite some time now. It is because of this that although God is available to guide me moment to moment, I often still fall for the rush of the mind. It tells you you have to be right about something, you are right about this, and it seems to win that moment. But what to do when that happens?

So is it possible to live in the Kingdom of Heaven, live in God's presence, if you were just full of self-will? It's like saying, 'I will live in God's light if Jesus was here, I will live in his presence, but I will do what I want.' And that is the world's idea of freedom, isn't it? That God's presence must be there to make me feel good, but my freedom means I am allowed to do exactly what I want. That would be so perfect, isn't it? Because nothing will go wrong because He's there, and I will get to do exactly how I want. But we cannot live like that. We have to return to the pre-apple, to the pre-fall Adam, to live in the innocence of a child where God's kingdom is available for them.

So it is coming to say—now if it sounds foolish, I apologize—but we must imagine that we are like Adam after eating the apple. So now what is our move? We realize that because there is suffering, because the heat of the world, the heat of the seeming hell, which is the way life seems when we live in our mind, is burning us, what must our next move be? To return like this, of course. The prodigal son gives us a great clue. Many times the prodigal son may say, 'Okay, now that I've done this, I'm going to make this work. I'm going to make this work. I'm going to make my self-will actually work for me and lead a life which is good.' But it just doesn't happen.

So the only thing that we can do is to return to Him. Let go of our mind, let go of our right and wrong. That is the meaning of repentance. That is the meaning of being contrite. Yesterday some of us went to the mass in the church close by, but to be contrite is not a word that is very familiar in India. In our culture, it is not so well known. So to be contrite is a word where you have contrition in the sense that you recognize that you went with your right and wrong, your will, your ideas, and that is causing the heat in your life, that is causing the suffering in your life. And to recognize that and to commit that you will not make this mistake again, you will not make this error again with full heart, with true heart, is contrition.

So those who are contrite, it is said in the Bible that all their sins will be wiped clean. So just like the prodigal son, we must return to the Father, but not return with pride. We must return with the recognition of our mistake. And this return is over and over. So that story is not a one-time narrative. All these stories are not one-time narratives; they are moment-to-moment narratives. So you commit that you will live in God's will and His presence, and you follow, you follow, you wait. You're not rushed. You follow from His love, you follow, follow, follow. Then something comes, something comes, and then you go, you quickly go into the mind and you are right. And then you notice that, you see. Now the idea is not to prove yourself right; the idea is to notice that and to return home to the Kingdom of God's light.

My worry is that I will never be able to bring across this point. This point itself may seem very obvious, but until you recognize it as a moment-to-moment thing, then the point will not be fully met. So this is the main battle in the human condition. And Jesus and Ram and Krishna, they came to show us that it is possible to live in God's will, come what may. And it's important to remember because people get confused about a couple of things. One of the things that is important to remember is that we may say—the mind may say—'But it's easy for him, he was God.' Somebody wrote to me on Facebook a long time ago saying, 'What is the big deal about the crucifixion of Christ? It's fine for him, he's God, he won't feel anything. What's the big deal in that?' you see. And then as a way to say that, so what if he came because he was God? He was God, so what is the human condition to God?

What we forget is that it is clearly written that the incarnation of God is full God and full human. So the full human means that the entire human condition was just as painful or just as tempting, was just as true-seeming to them. Because only after that could they say, 'You can follow the will of my Father, the will of God.' If they did not have the full human experience, then the word would not ring as true. So they experience the exact same pain that we would, the exact same temptations of the human condition that we would, and the mind's intensity that we do, and maybe much, much more. See, that is why we see that in the lives of Jesus, Ram, and Krishna, all of them, in spite of being full God, they were also full human.

And then they had their moments. Ram is said to have cried when Sita was taken from him. Krishna is said to have got very angry; he promised not to participate in the war, but many times he almost took out his Sudarshan Chakra. And Jesus also had a couple of occasions where he said, 'If this has to pass, let it be so,' or wondering whether his Father had forsaken him. So that they came as full God and full human did not give them an advantage or make it any simpler for them to experience human life. They went through all of the same things. And that is why there's a beautiful term which in India, again as an Indian, first I found a bit strange: it's called the 'Imitation of Christ.' Why would you want to imitate? Imitation in a way sounds fake, but that's not how they mean it. They mean that there is a role model; God himself had to come and show us how to live. So we must imitate that role model. We must imitate the role model of Jesus Christ with full sincerity. Imitation doesn't mean acting; imitation in this sense means emulating.

So just like Krishna did in India, where there are so many Upanishads, there's so much writing, everything is basically said. So he simplified all of it by giving us the Bhagavad Gita. He said, 'Okay, it is next to impossible; you may spend lifetimes studying the Upanishads and then get to start to get the essence of it. So here is the Bhagavad Gita that you can study.' In the same way, in the tradition of Judaism, there were so many rules and the so-called law and so many things that had to be followed that Jesus had to come and simplify. Because it seems there were 600 and something things that you had to follow. So he said what you have to do is love God with all your mind, body, spirit, whatever you have. Love God with all your mind, and then he said, and love your neighbor the same way. Who could have imagined that all those complex-sounding laws could be simplified to this: to love God with all that you have and to love your brothers and sisters in...

Jesus had to come and simplify because it seems there were 600 and something things that you had to follow. So he said what you have to do is love God with all your mind—mind, body, spirit, whatever you have—love God with all your mind. And then he said, and love your neighbor the same way. Who could have imagined that all those complex-sounding laws could be simplified to this: to love God with all that you have and to love your brothers and sisters in the world the same way?

How to do it? We cannot do it by our will because our will consists of right and wrong, and there will always come a brother or sister who will have a different view, an opposing view of what is right and what is wrong. And then when we are faced with that, then all our love seems to go out the window. So our commitment must be to try and follow his will every moment, and when we fail, we must be contrite and return to him. So he told us that 'Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.' But he also more strongly told us that you may say to me 'Lord, Lord,' but I will not recognize you unless you followed the will of my father. That's a very strong statement for one who loved us with all his heart, and we must take it literally.

So he told us that you may say to me 'Lord, Lord,' but I will not recognize you unless you have followed the will of my father. If you've gone with your own will and you have not returned to my father's will, what is my perspective on that? My perspective on that is that I may never succeed in this life. I may not succeed in this life to fully live in God's will, but I'm going to die trying. And whether he is going to recognize me on that basis of 'die trying' or not, I don't know, but I'm going to die trying.

What does that translate into? I will live in his light. I will live in his presence all the time. That is the commitment. Then I notice that I fail, and I fail often because the mind comes with the same biblical condition: now you are right, another is wrong. And when I recognize that I fail, the attempt must be to fully return home as quickly as possible and to remain. And again, I've said this before, don't look at this as an oppressive life. It is the best life. A life like this is the best life, rather than me just doing the mind's bidding, the mind's slavery all the time, because even that moment of being oppressed by the mind seems like complete hell.

So this is the project, so to speak. And as Guruji said, follow God's will—be the highest of his pointing. But we must be careful of presumption. Like I spoke to a friend who had seen after many years, he came home and he visited me, and I told him that there is no time to waste. He said, 'But aren't I living in God's will already? Isn't everything already God's will? So what is this?' It's a good question because yes, everything happens in God's will, and yet we must follow God's will. Otherwise, all the sages would not have told us. And you notice for yourself: has that choice gone from you, to be empty and remain in his presence or to go with your mind? Is it gone from you? It's not gone for anyone. Nobody that we have ever known historically, no aspect of Consciousness that ever played the human game, put on the human garment, has been free from this.

And until we have self-will, until we go with self-will, all the talk of loving God with all our might is lip service. All the talk of loving our brothers and sisters in the world with all our might is lip service. But at least let's move it from being lip service into a true intention. Can you have self-will and live in the kingdom of God? Truly? So the same Adam's apple, same Adam's apple of good and bad, better and worse, right and wrong, has literally got humanity in the throat. You would rather be right than be with God. I would rather be right than be with God on many occasions. And that is the project. Project: make it minuscule. That is actually the Mahabharat, the battle. Why is it a battle? Because it is easier to spot in front of you and more difficult to spot inside. It's easier to spot individuality, self-will, self-concern, self-importance in our brothers and sisters than we can spot in our own expression.

And for those who recognize the truth of this, there is no alternative. It is not that you can be told that God's presence is within you and then you say, 'No, I don't want it actually, I'm good thanks.' Then either you have not understood what God's presence means and you're not noticing the ephemeral nature of this life where death is going to come and that is literally the only lifeline that you have—your Atma within—or we are in denial about our own condition, about how important we've made ourselves in our head, how much self-will and self-importance and self-concern we still have.

When I look at it here, I realize that I'm just a beginner in this spirituality, and all that is good that comes from here is only his grace, his light. And it's a mystery as to how he would pick such a foolish beggar to share his light. So then when the world forces us to pick between good and bad, right and wrong, and we say, 'But we have returned to the pre-fall Adam,' but it seems like life forces us to make these choices, then what are we meant to do? What are we meant to do? What I've learned is the only good is where it depends on where it comes from. So if it comes from God, it is good. Only right depends on where it comes from. The rest is all foolishness, arrogance, the pride of the human condition. Pride is basically amnesia or forgetting about death. That's one way to look at it.

I'm a lump of food that is standing up straight and is so important, and soon this lump of food will be dust. If that 'soon' part is remembered, you cannot be proud. So today on Christmas, can we commit to try and live in his light and his will with all our might, and to recognize that you will fail? Moment to moment you will fail, but we must return. It's very important.

So when Jesus said that, 'Love God, love your neighbor,' we all see these things. We all see these things. But like a parent will say to their children—in India we say, 'What has afflicted you, may it be my affliction instead.' So Jesus actually took that in the most literal way. He said that all of you—he didn't, he could have, but I don't think there's a record of him saying it that way—that all of you have been so foolish, and for this foolishness, if in God's justice there is a price to pay, then let all that—like in India it's called the karma kosha—may all that burden be mine. And he proved that love by enduring that pain of crucifixion. So in a way, it is saying that the slate was wiped clean for us by the coming of Jesus. But now we must also reciprocate that love by handing over our entire life to him.

If you try to intellectualize what are objects of faith, then you may make yourself right in your head, but you lose the whole design. You will lose the whole plot. If you start to say, 'No, no, but actually I don't think that it happened,' you know, then you're doing yourself a disservice. You're doing yourself a disservice because we need these objects of faith. We need the crucifixion. I don't know how to say it in words. A sacrifice like that needs an immensity of love which our intellect cannot fathom. To be betrayed by one of your closest, to endure the pain, the insult, people spitting on him while he's made to carry the cross, then called a thief, and all of this happening while your biological mother is still alive. So if you give this to your rational mind, it's not going to be helpful to you. And it doesn't matter at all what you think is true or not, but if you can meet it somewhere in your heart, then that one single symbol of Jesus on the cross can become your anchor for life. Here is one who is showing us how to love, for that love has given up on everything, although he was the Son of God himself. That is what the imitation or the emulation means.

What is another way to see that he is God, he is the Son of God? A human, even as a sage or a saint, can only bow down to the Atma, to the Holy Spirit, and say, 'I request you to bless my heart and my children's heart with the light of spirit.' But the sage or the saint, as evolved and as great as they may be, can never promise the light of spirit because they are not greater than the spirit. But Jesus was able to make such a promise, and it came true in the Pentecost. So a saint may say, 'Bless us, Father, that if it is your will, your grace, your spirit may be received here, may be palpable here.' But only God can command even the spirit. It is his spirit, his presence.

So we are that. We are also the Son of God, therefore God himself. But never in the human condition can we deny our servitude to him. Because in the design of this play, the design of this play is for us as aspects of Consciousness to remain one with Consciousness, but also in the play be his servants. Because no man can ever say, no woman can ever say, 'I command spirit,' or even that 'I request spirit to do this.' You can only pray to the Atma, the Holy Spirit. You can only bow down and plead and beg and request. And I don't mean to make it sound like bad news. It's such an honor and privilege to be able to even do that, which is the only thing probably that tempts me about the human condition versus a plant or an animal: that I can invoke his presence, that I can invoke his light.

So for all of you as future teachers of God, remember that. Let others claim your godliness, yet your insight show the Oneness with God. But never make a position for yourself except as a mere speck of dust at God's feet. It is not for us to be anything greater than that. Your insight will show you what your reality is with him. Your mind may stay claim, and when it does stay claim, may you never make an identity around that. It is by his grace that Atma Darshan can be received. Please don't ever get into the ignorance of trying to command God or spirit. That kind of flaw is the Ravana problem.

I'm just going to end with this last point about his life: that he valued and showed us how to value the invisible more than the visible. It's a very important thing because, like in Vedanta that we are told—all of us were told probably decades ago—that this world is a passing dream. It's not real. It is Maya. All that is perceived comes and goes and is not real. So in his life, he showed us also, he told us to value that invisible Kingdom of Heaven more than what the world is showing us. The play of Maya by design is to keep us involved, to keep us engaged. Every day, every minute, there is something new to keep us engaged with. So when this world realm of appearances comes and the mind is given free hand to interpret them, every moment we can add to our story something, something. But all this is a passing dream.

And at the end, if all that we are left with is a report to say, 'Today went in this, today went in this, today went in this, today went in this'—every day there is content, every day there is something in this, this—and I left no time for God. And it is not going to help if you say that, 'But as far as the realm of Maya goes, I was right. I did the right thing as far as the world is concerned.' Did you do the right thing in the only eyes who matter, in front of the only eyes that matter: God's presence within ourselves? This is the mistaken idea that because this dream seems to be persistent, it is true, it is real. So we must learn to live in God's light and occasionally wander into the temptations of the mind, and not the other way around. Because see, soon this will be over. The gurus, Kabir Ji said something beautiful. He said that, 'I don't want to play this game over and over, these births this time.' Because if you do it, they said, he said that if...

The only eyes that matter are God's presence within ourselves. This is the mistaken idea: that because this dream seems to be persistent, it is true, it is real. So we must learn to live in God's life and occasionally wander into the temptations of the mind, and not the other way around. Because, you see, soon this will be over. You see, the gurus—Kabir Ji said something beautiful. He said that 'I don't want to play this game over and over.' This time, because if you do it, he said that if Dharamraj would come—the one who keeps count of right and wrong would come—and do my study, then I would definitely fail. And all of us would definitely fail. That's why it is said, 'Have mercy on me.' The same as because even if you were to be judged at the level of the intellect, which we value so much, the only saving grace would be His mercy.

But to keep us from making the error over and over, you must have faith in that which you are finding in heart insight, intuitive insight. More than this play of light and sound, there is an invisible reality of the Kingdom of Heaven whose presence we can meet only intuitively with the most subtlest primordial sensory perception. So you must have faith in His words, in the words of the teachers, to trust that, to have faith in that reality. And we can learn by example that we have to bet our life on that. It's not just enough to talk about it or to say yes, yes. To bet our life on that—that God's presence is here, the Kingdom of Heaven is here, and I have to live in that light even if the mind says, 'I'm losing everything. You're being a fool, you're losing everything.' Live in the holy place within, live in the Kingdom of Heaven within.

For them, they can't—it doesn't work in the room anyway. So it all actually looks funny at times. Everything looks funny, the way creation is made, right? It is said that God created Adam and Eve. Why duality first? Second thing is, he created the—why duality first? Because two people always trouble, right? And the two opposites. On the top of it, he created the mind and then the trouble, and he vanished. So if you basically look at it, you know, the biggest thing is he vanished. So he wanted to be there as presence but not being visible, right? So, you know, the entire context at times looks a little funny, non-serious as well. But, you know, isn't it—you also have compassion that when people—you see people suffering. You know, some people may not be—some are blessed, some basically go through the entire process throughout the life. I mean, they're not able to come out of that thinking process and other things. So I wouldn't say it's unfair or something, but you know, why have a blind eye to—if everyone is equal in the eyes of God, why have a blind eye to a section of people? Why not compassion? Why not sort of love, acceptance?

So maybe you can show Him the way. Let's see that compassion. Let's see that love. Let's see that one equal attention to all your brothers and sisters. So we can either say that 'I am an obedient son of my Father' or we can say that 'I'm a rebellious son of my Father and I will show Him the better way to do it.'

Doesn't the will come into picture?

Yes. So then if we have concluded the errors of the Father's will, then our will is already in the picture. So let our life be a representation for Him as to when He creates this Maya next time, He can follow your example.

Wouldn't that be like going against the will of—?

Yes, because already that conclusion is there that 'I know better, He should not have done this.' Why would you do that? He's turned a blind eye towards so many of our brothers and sisters. 'If I was running this place, I wouldn't do that.' So if that idea is there that 'I could have done better,' then you're already—right? I'm saying God could have done better, He can still do better. I'm not saying it's us versus God, but just saying and unity.

So if you were to look at really where is the true place where you can make those conclusions from? How is it that very intelligent ones—very intelligent ones who we revere so much as the sages, even the incarnations—saw all this suffering in the world, saw all this seeming disparity in the world, and they said, 'God gave us a beautiful world. He gave us the Garden of Eden. We could have lived in heaven, but we had the capacity to go with our mind or God's will.' So we have done this. And there are others who say, 'Oh, all of this is God's will. He has done all of this and I believe that it could have been better. There was a better way to do this.'

So now the choice for you is to say, okay, did we do this? Did God give us a world which is full of oppression and war and disparity, all of this? Or is this all the doing of the post-Adam, and do I not need to take responsibility for that? And then can my life not be the representation of what it would mean to be—forget even a true God, but to start with—be a true human? So I think it should be obvious by now as to which one I'm suggesting. One is to say, 'You have done all this.' But really, if we continue to follow God's will, we would continue to be in the Kingdom of Heaven. So in fact, it is God who should be asking, 'I gave you the Garden of Eden. What have you done to my beautiful world?'

If you at least turn it around that way, then at least we can start working on what needs to be worked on here. Otherwise, we will always look outwardly and say, 'That's a problem, this one is a problem, that authority is a problem.' And that kind of rebelliousness may make us believe in our minds that we are right and we have the capacity even to judge God. But it is a denial of the fact that actually we are not living in His will, we are not living in His life. So, my child, if you say, 'I can see what He did right or wrong,' then let your life be a representation of the right. Because to say is one thing, because everybody can say, but show us. So that one of us may lead the way. And because as humanity we have failed over and over again at creating a life which is imitable or emulable in a way, that is why Jesus's life is so important.

It's difficult because even the perceivable universe has no responsibility to make sense to us. That which is the creator of even this is far beyond. And that is why the human embodiment of God is something that you can emulate. So don't spend more time on thinking about how God is unfair. Only after we've lived a good life, a life full of righteousness, can we even come to contemplating that. But it's a very powerful distraction by the mind, and it has kept many, many, many sincere ones—those who have great potential to love God and their brothers and sisters—spend a lot of their life on contemplations based on intellectual understanding of good and bad, right and wrong.

Suppose something happened, something happening in the realm of light and sound. Then the mind came and said, 'But you have to like that, that, that,' and you went to your own will instead of waiting for God's will to move you and guide you. Then what happens is that usually in the human condition, we keep doubling down on it. We keep saying, 'Okay, now this, I have to prove that I'm right, I have to prove that I'm right,' until then we come to a point where life has squeezed us by the throat and we give up and we say, 'Okay, now I give up. I surrender. I can't do this.' So instead of that, notice that we went with being right instead of going with God. And to repent that and to be contrite in the sense of being truly with integrity, committing to not make the error again, recognizing the folly in it, and to return to His presence not as an entitlement but as a privilege. That is the way I look at that. It could be very different from the dictionary definition, but that's how it appeals to me.

In those days, it was a common way of punishment, and in fact, he was not alone there. If I was to ask my Father, He would send an army of angels to rescue me, but no. So to willingly be subjected to that—that's going to be one episode at least of *The Chosen* which I don't know how we're going to watch. I'm going to watch it.

Similar question, Father. Pain was so much a part of Jesus' life, even when he was crucified. Is this pain a part of love? I mean, how is that love? It comes with love. When you have so much love, you have so much pain. How is that, Father? How is that?

You don't have to wait for the big opportunities. You don't have to wait for some big event to prove how deep our love is. We must use what God gives us on a day-to-day basis. So that would be the imitation—not to wait and say, 'No, no, one day I can also be,' but can I be now? Can I be now with every brother or sister? Can I be now?

Father, you were saying Jesus says to love your brothers and sisters just the same way you love God. I was just looking at that and something was coming. I wanted to clarify. To not love my brothers and sisters can only come from the mind, Father. Yeah. So wouldn't it be that my original state or my most authentic state is to love my brothers and sisters? Only the mind can bring in the 'or anything' from what—anything of 'what's in it for me' also. That's also possible. Yes, Father. So the original state is to love my brother.

One confession here. So that kind of deal, yes. So I have spent a lot of my years in very intelligent questions. Oh yes. And at least you confirmed that they are intelligent. Yes, yes. And then—double quote, I missed it—so and I explored many things with mathematical precision. And we don't have a lot of time for that, but it was actually many, many things that I explored, including like maths, then set theory and chaos theory and biology recently, psychology, and this ongoing thing also. And I can't do anything but marvel at the design that's out there. And I couldn't even fathom a function of evaluation of anything at all that can even come close by where there's no possible definition that can be picked up to decide anything at all. So it's very easy to conclude on things like—to define anything at all to lead to that conclusion is far from possible. Limitations still we don't see.

And thank you, thank you for that. It's very helpful. We must see that in our mind, intellect, we can't even gauge this moment. Like, who can tell me what this is? If there was a truth about what this is and you could evaluate it, then we would all have the same idea. You don't know anything. Like, what is this? What is this? Based on your conditioning, you will have a different idea about what this is. This is a stop sign, this is Ashirwad, this is 'we-we.' What is this? This is just a hand. You don't know. And if you don't even know this, then it is only the mind's stubborn pride which allows us to conclude that we can make judgments and conclusions and things like that.

Having said that, is there then no right or wrong, no good or bad, no better?

And if that was the case, how is it that even children from anywhere in the world come to know that it's not good to steal, it's not good to lie? Even if they were born in a mafia family, you know, as children you would still know that this is right and this is wrong. So what puts it there? What is that intelligence? And that is what we lose out on as we grow up and we start to believe in conceptual knowledge more than intuitive insight.

Just making the same mistake over and over again. Yeah. You talked about repentance kind of, but let's just—admitting I'm foolish, that's enough?

Yes. Integrity. Suppose there's a child who doesn't have a driving license yet—I'm just making this up, no I'm not—but he takes the car without asking me. And then through God's grace, he comes back safely. The parents find out and they're like, 'Don't take the car out.'

We start to believe in conceptual knowledge more than intuitive insight. We are just making the same mistake over and over again. Yeah, we talked about repentance kind of, but let's just admit, "I'm foolish." That's enough, yes. Integrity. Suppose there's a child who doesn't have a driving license yet—I'm just making this up, no, I'm not—but he takes the car without asking me. And then, through God's grace, he comes back safely. The parents find out and they're like, "Don't take the car out next time." We're like, "Yeah, please, please forgive me." And you know, you can tell there's no actual... they don't mean it. So maybe in the simple way, we have to mean it, like, "I won't do it again." And if the parents notice that the child means it when he says, "I won't take out the car again because it's not safe and I could have got hurt or someone else could have got hurt," a parent can tell the tone of the child's voice. Same way, you just mean it when you say, "Not again."

So on the topic of repentance, and Sh kind of brought this up so many times, like the same mistake is made and how can I genuinely say I won't do this again? You know, the prayer here comes: "May I have the strength not to do it again." And yeah, maybe it's a beautiful prayer that, "Please give me the strength to not go with the mind again." But not in a way that it becomes convenient. I know you're not saying it that way, but many can make it also a convenience, saying, "Oh, but you didn't give me the strength I asked for." So it's very good to ask for the strength, but not as a defense mechanism. No, no, no. To ask for it, but if we got tempted again by the mind, not to blame God and say, "Because you didn't give me the strength."

See what happens is, to take a simple example, the percentage of people who suddenly have the willpower to quit smoking after the first heart attack is astoundingly high. You had a heart attack, then you have to quit smoking. "I'm going to quit smoking." That percentage is much higher than the ones who haven't had a heart attack. But the heart attack didn't change the amount of willpower you already had; you just needed a big enough shake-up. So it is there. It is all our power. But I am admitting, of course, that it is completely in my power to not go with the mind at all, and yet I do because that temptation to still be right breathes out here. Still, this pride is a forgetting of death, a forgetting of the inevitability of death.

I should be proud because I didn't do enough, and I should be proud because I didn't... I mean, it's not bad, you're saying something else, that I am somebody, yeah.

That "I am somebody" is the basis of pride. So if that "I am somebody" is demolished, then we remember our death.

Father, a question is coming up. Will there be ever a world where we only know God's will? To follow only God? There will be a world where we only know what is God's will, we don't know our will? Will there a world be there that way?

In God's way, everything is possible, but we are not to wait for that time. So far as what we see in the human condition, it seems like my way and God's will are both always available to us. That's why the lives of sages who really, with all their might, dedicated their life to serving God and His will must be revered. But my concern is that many, even in spirituality, don't even pick up the project because they have some idea, some just convenient idea of, "Yes, it's all okay, all good." It is, but it isn't. The avoidance of the project itself is like a very convenient spirituality. The ostrich mode gives free reign to the mind. "If I follow the mind also, it's God's." Then all the sages are forgotten, and they keep reminding us that you must follow God. Then the prayer of the Lord Jesus would not have said, "Let thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven." He would say, "It is done in both places." No, he said, "Let thy will be done." So we must include that which is uncomfortable also in our spirituality. That's what differentiates spirituality from a sort of New Age self-help type thing. It's not easy. The path is simple, but not easy.

Father, about loving your brothers and sisters... so without the mind, Father... something's coming and it's not very clear, but without the mind, Father, then it's already the aliveness of unconditional love or active love is already alive, right?

Yes. In the no-mind, in the unborn, the presence of love, the flowering of love is constant. But the thing is that just when the instruction comes to us that we must love God with all our mind, we must just love God with all our mind. We start to think about it, then that's not it. Even if the thinking is about whether the block is from the mind or not, just love God. Also, I hope I made it clear today in today's conversation how much exactly similar that which seems so different—Advaita and Christianity—that which can seem so across two different ends of the spectrum, actually it is so precisely the same. Some terminology is different. Is the Holy Spirit and Atma the same thing? What is Atma? What is the definition of Atma in Vedanta? It's literally the presence of God, the ansh of the Parmatma, or the play of the Parmatma in the form of this Atma. So it's exactly the same.

Father, bless us all with your grace, with your love and your mercy. May we never forget that our life is meant to be in service to you. May we never get caught up in pride. May we always live in faith and love. May we be truly humble in our heart. May we serve to emulate the life of your son Jesus Christ. May your hand, may your blessings always be on our head. Forgive our mistakes, forgive our all. May our life always be in service to you. May we love you with all our heart. May nothing in the world take us away from your feet. All this, Father, is possible only by your grace. Thank you all so much for being in satsang today. Satguru Sri Mooji Baba ki Jai. Thank you, Father.

When we love the Lord and Jesus with all our might, that same guidance can be towards our brothers and sisters. It is part of the guidance from him also that in the same way that we must love God with all our might, we must love our neighbor.