Whose Presence Is Here

Or are you willing to let just some mysterious presence be within me, 'I don't know, let me go about my life'? That sounds super absurd to me. That there is a presence, I am, that is apparent to all of us, isn't it? Those of you who are really new to such things, we can talk about it in a moment, but I'm talking to most of you where it is undeniable. Yes or no? Now, either we have... either the mind has succeeded in convincing you that that presence belongs to a body and is under the service of the mind, or you recognize that that presence is unlimited, it is beyond boundary, beyond birth and death. Which is it? So which is it? We must confirm these things. We cannot be half-hearted about this stuff anymore. Who is living here? How can any other thing be important?

So without you confirming this, the flip that I want you to make is not going to happen. When you are still in doubt, it is not going to happen. So first you have to confirm that it is God's presence, it is God's light, it is a higher being than you can ever imagine. And I am already claiming it for you. I'm already making the claim on your behalf. You have to follow with full faith and explore this for yourself, because without faith you cannot even explore it. You will put it in a construct which is too limited. So a voice that you trust, that you call Father, is making the claim for you. And if you're unwilling to follow that with faith, then there is no point saying Father. Then we are just coffee table friends, chai shop buddies at best.

But if you say Guru or Father, and your Guru is telling you that it is God itself which you call my presence, then that should be the center of your exploration. No other problem in the world is worth resolving as much as this is. So drop your attachment to other things in the world which are going to die soon and get to the confirmation of the eternal existence within you. Nothing else is worth it, especially not any sort of spiritual sightseeing. 'Oh, sometimes I experience peace and then this comes and then it goes away and then I have the experience.' All this spiritual sightseeing business is not worthwhile at all. 'Then this happens when I listen to you, then I find peace, or some days actually disturbed even more.' Doesn't matter. There is a being within you. Until you can resolve who that is, all the rest is all surface-level nonsense.

Whose presence is that? The sages have told us that your Atma is the Paramatma. Your Atma and Brahman are one and the same. The Supreme and the presence within you is one and the same. And what are we going on about? That 'me' which we are going on about has never existed, never been born. God's light is here and our doubt always is, 'But what about me?' Nothing about you, because you don't exist. So stop treating the non-existent as existent and the existent as non-existent. And this is the flip that we need to make. Once you recognize that this presence is here, and either on faith or on inquiry if you find that this presence is God, then this life must belong to that presence and not to the non-existent one.

It is not a discovery so that you can get into a relationship with it. It is a discovery so that you can chop off your own head—the head full of knowledge, but that knowledge as the narrative where the central character is a non-existent 'me.' So come to the holy presence within you, the living Atma within you, and know that it is the only existent. There is nothing else existent here for it to have a relationship with. So when the sages said 'God or me,' not 'God and me,' they are saying it very, very literally. Even now you may be asking, 'So how am I receiving this? What's happening to me as I hear these words? Can I live like this?' It has nothing to do with any of that. Nothing to do with any of that. 'How must I change my life because of this?' Forget about yourselves, the false selves. Forget about the non-existent and see that the presence that is here is beyond any gift that you can ever receive in the world.

It is the most absurd exchange that we make. The mind offers us what? Even in the best stories, what does it offer us? I know about the terrible stories, 'Woe is me, but what about me?' But even the best stories are what? What is on offer? What is on offer? You'll become what, king of this world? You'll become the first world president, all the countries will unite and you will become the president of the world? And then what will happen? Then what is on offer that you are exchanging God for it? You will become the most enlightened sage that ever lived? You will give birth to ten Ashtavakras? What is it? What is it that you want like that? That which every true sage is in service to, at the feet of, that is already in your heart.

You don't have the capacity to desire more than what you already have. It's not that you should not want, but the problem is that the instrument with which you can want what it has to offer cannot come close to what you already have. So to want then, in spite of that, you see, is only possible in a delusion about what already is. Are you hearing me? So how is it possible to want? 'Oh, I want to be special, I want to be this, I want to be that, I want to be seen, I want to be something, I want to be free, I want everyone to know I'm free.' All of these things can only happen in denial of what is already there. Once you say that God is, now say the rest. Especially if you say 'Only God is,' then say, 'God wants like this, God wants to be seen.' Is it possible?

So first, to want, to desire, you must be in denial of what already is. And that is why I'm saying that don't leave this exploration halfway. There is a living presence within you. If it just came, if it just came, then won't you drop everything else and say, 'Who is this who has come inside me?' Suppose we were all dead, like walking zombies, we were all dead and suddenly the presence is here. Would you say, 'Oh, let me tend to my work first and then I'll see if I have time, I'll see who this is'? It's not possible. Who is this? And once you recognize who this is, how is it possible to value anything in comparison to this? Because God is here. And if God is here, then how are we even talking all this?

So we have taken the unreal to be real and the real to be unreal. Because if an aspect of God which we recognize objectively as God, as a form of the Lord, walked into the room just now, then we would not even need to have this conversation. But you are getting a more intimate insight, a truer insight, which is beyond coming and going. But that, we don't value because we don't value the real, the unchanging; we value the changing. So they are still waiting for spiritual experiences, some presence of some feeling, something like that. And in all of that looking for the real within the unreal, we're missing. We're spending our whole life missing the real. This is the whole game of Maya.

And moment after moment after moment, days after days after days, weeks after weeks after weeks, months after months, years after years, we spend like this. And soon it is time out, time over. Lifetime after lifetime, the one that you want to become is going to die anytime soon. And another lifetime of Lakshman not getting off the horse of individuality, of pride, of specialness, and another ring going into the sage's well. There is no clue that all of you have not been provided now. There is no clue that has not been provided now. But if your only lamentation continues to be, 'But the mind says, but the mind says, but the mind says...' I know what the mind says. Tell me what the heart is saying. You see?

And if you did not have the power to switch out from your mind to your heart, then why would I repeat this for twelve years? Where are you trying to get clarity? Where are you trying to understand? I'm talking about a living presence. Where are you hearing all of this? 'I still... but I don't get it.' Are you denying that you are? So there would be no hope in this Leela if there was no power in us to follow a higher voice than the mind's voice. If these two voices were made available—the mind and intuition, the ego and God's light, the ego and the heart, the head and the heart—but the second one you couldn't go to anyway, then why would God create it? Just to tease you? 'Oh, it's there but you have...'

Understand I'm talking about a living presence. Where are you hearing all of this? I still listen, but I don't get it. Are you denying that you are? So, there would be no hope in this if there was no power in us to follow a higher voice than the mind's voice. If these two voices were made available—the mind and intuition, the ego and God's light, the ego and the Heart, the head and the Heart—but the second one you couldn't go to anyway, then why would God create it just to tease you? 'Oh, it's there, but you have no power to go to it.' Every sage has told us, Bhagavan has told us: as long as you think you have any choice in anything, make the choice not to go with the stream of thoughts. Make the choice not to go with the stream of thoughts. Was he fooling us? You may say Ananta is a fool, he's a liar. Was Bhagavan fooling us? Is he a liar? He said, 'Keep quiet.' Was he talking about your physical mouth? He was talking about that absence of egoic belief. Don't buy into your mental notions. Keep quiet.

Guruji says, 'Don't identify.' He has told us clearly that you have attention and belief, and using which you identify. Don't identify. I keep saying, 'Don't believe.' And if you buy into yourself—'Oh, but my mind says, but it happens automatically, and the belief identification happens automatically'—do you really believe that all of us are that stupid? I have spent twelve years of my life telling you not to believe your thought. And if your defense after twelve years is 'I can't help it, you know, it just happens automatically,' then I must be the most foolish teacher you can ever go to. So, I'm provoking you, of course, to switch out of this limited mind, and I'm introducing the fact to you that you are Consciousness. You are not hostage to any mind. The mind is under your power; you are not under it. If you were not God or an aspect of God, then we could not have this conversation. Then satsang would not be Consciousness speaking with Consciousness. But because you do have that power, but you are still enthralled with what it is offering and you keep denying that, then I have to provoke you. Don't be enthralled by the mind's temptations and positions. Nothing that it says is true. And if you use the content of what your mind is saying to audit your state, there can be no greater foolishness than that.

So, how are you right now? The most popular question in the world: how are you right now? Where will you go for the answer? Does anyone say, 'I'm so good, God is here'? 'Oh, I'm all right, you know, this happened and then this, and I wanted this job and I wanted this girlfriend.' And who are you using? What tool are you using to determine you are that in which God is? And your report is about what you ate, some food, and you keep reporting about that. So where will you go for a true report? What is happening with you? How are you? What are you? Where are you? Who are you? Where can you go for a true answer?

So, what am I saying? I'm saying that this is not about reforming your mind. I'm not expecting that your mind will change. At best, what will happen is that the intellect aspect of your mind will start judging things for God and not against God. That is the best outcome we can expect in the mind. But you as Consciousness can recognize that there is a higher power calling you from within your heart. You have to give up wanting to be right. Suppose you die fully convinced with all your mind's nonsense, and you convinced yourself and everyone around you that you are right. So what will happen? What will happen? Fully, fully you convinced yourself that you are right, and not only yourself—and this will never happen—but suppose everybody around you also will think that you are right, and you die the rightest in your head. You were right about what you thought, you were right about your judgments, you were right about your master, you were right about the teaching, you were right about everything, you were right about how life is, everything. But it's all here, conceptual. That's how all the zombies are living anyway, thinking that they are right. Get out of this righteousness. It's not true righteousness; it is only pride. Get out of it and step into the humility of your heart. Don't care about being right; care about God's light. That's where humility comes in.

And I'm happy I'm sharing this with you because this morning, as I opened my page of the notes page for the contemplation to be posted, something felt to refer to the Narada Bhakti Sutras. And some of you may be aware of this, and one sentence attracted my attention there, which was: 'God hates pride and loves humility.' And I was going to post the contemplation about that, but then it just occurred to me in my heart that the children will not understand this, like God hating pride. Maybe it's better said and explained rather than put in words like that. It's not that God hates. It's not that God hates, but our pride is blocking us from God. Our wanting to be right—'I need to be seen, I need to be special'—is blocking that absence of egoic belief that I'm talking about. It is stopping you from becoming quiet like Mooji Baba wants you to.

So, when the invitation these days is coming often from this expression that we must live as if we are humble servants of God, just because as a humble servant of God you don't need to be right, you don't need to prove anything to the world, you don't need to become special. To switch out from egoic intent, egoic belief, to a life of God's light cannot happen while we are arrogant. And the extent to which that goes is to the extent of even one thing is still often said: that to know even one thing is to know too much. Or do you know without knowing anything? That is the extent of humility that is needed. And I mean completely and being fully literal. You have to become fully empty. Your knowledge pleases you, it makes you suffer, it is making you tired, it is the burden on your heads. You may think it is what you have that is of value, but it is not. Is it so?

When your mind is empty of conceptual knowledge, that is the only point at which intuitive knowledge can sprout and flow within you. Till you are not empty, then all your talk about awareness and Consciousness and God is empty. Very important: till you're not empty, all your talk about awareness, Consciousness, Brahman, Nirguna, Saguna, God, surrender, inquiry—all of this stuff is empty. Empty of light, empty of fragrance. And when you are empty, then you may be the most inarticulate, uneloquent of all speakers, and your words will carry your perfume. You will meet it yourself in your heart. Maybe that is a good test, actually: speak as if the words are meant for yourself. Believe that which you would teach yourselves before wanting to share. Find the words where you will experience your own fragrance. If you don't enjoy your own company, you don't enjoy your own words, then no amount of special knowledge is going to help you. You may combine the words of the great Adi Shankaracharya with the words of Buddha and Christ together and come up with the best-sounding words, but if you're full of identity, those words will have no power. Empty your head, be full of God's light in your heart, and even the most infantile words have the potency to spread God's light. But when you are full of pride, even you don't want to hear yourself.

So, where are we? We talked about who is it that lives in your heart, whose presence is this? And I'm claiming on your behalf that God is here. God is living in your heart. Then we're saying that our life must become about the centrality of God's light instead of about the non-existent me. And we are exploring how false knowledge and the need to be right can prevent that from happening. Now, humility is very important provisionally while we make the switch away from head to heart. Now you're here, empty of pride, God's light is unobstructed within you. Now, firstly, the question will not arise as to how should I live. But suppose that it did. Suppose it arose within us: how to live? God's light is already living you. It's already living you. So allow that to unfold without mental obstruction. Open and empty. So that solves the problems of what is and how to live. To live surrendered to God. And there will also come a time where guiding will be palpable to you from your heart. Whether it arises for that which you call yourself or for others, you must follow that guidance. So that is to live in God's light. That is to live in heaven on earth.

Some of you already have that sensitivity now that as you find your attention itself gravitating towards the mind, you're able to withdraw it. But don't worry about that. If that attention is still in the head a lot, at least don't believe what you do offer. Question is: 'Father, you say that God is, God is that's here. What are you doing? But sometimes the word God seems to create more separation than union.' But that is in our heads. If I said Bhagavan... so suppose you don't hear God, you hear Bhagavan instead. This is nothing but Bhakti for God. Or I said Allah, or I said Yahweh. Point is not that. The point is not the word, although the word I have no aversion to. But really the point is that there is a presence within you. Who is that? That is worth exploring. And it feels like a holy presence, a divine presence. Whatever word you may use, how can anything else be worthwhile? One point that is not this—and of course, it was not your question, but it reminded me of that because it came to me in some conversations with some of the kids I had yesterday—where it just came from here that a lot of time we are trying to take our accountability from God. 'I can't believe in a God that does this. How can a God be like that? I can't buy into a God that is like this,' you see. But what you believe and don't believe and accept and not accept, it is not God that is on trial in your court. It is completely irrelevant. God is not accountable to you. God doesn't have to make sense to you. Even his created universe doesn't make sense to you. Like the great scientist said, 'The universe has no obligation to make sense to you.' And you want that which is the creator of that to make sense to you?

Are you accountable instead to God? How about we switch it? In what way are you accountable to God? God has given his presence to animate your life, to make you life. How have you... what have you returned as God's gift for even one breath? What can you pay back God for even one breath that he has given you? Then now we are out to make God accountable to us. And these things have become very natural and regular in the world, but I spot the ignorance in them. And therefore, not with the idea of producing any guilt or unworthiness, but just to get you to look. What is happening? Look at the way the mind is playing this game. It has made itself the judge even for God. Forget about you and your friends and relatives and relationships. 'I can't believe in a God that does like that.' Who cares about the judgment of a non-existent one? If you exist, where have you got that existence from? Who has gifted you that existence? And if that one was to hold you accountable for the gifts that you have received, have you valued the presence of God? So switch it around. Egoic way of thinking is big trouble and only the doorway to suffering. God is giving you life. God has given you a beautiful instrument called a body. God has given you this universe, this dream called the universe. You're living and breathing in God's light. If there is one that has rights now, which one is that? If there is one that can demand now, which one is that? It's like a guest came to the party—like Guru said in a different way, paraphrasing—guest comes to the party, says, 'I'm hungry.' You offer bread. 'Is it organic? Is it gluten-free?' God has already given you everything, and then you hold God on trial. This is the absurdity from the mind.

So there's another question on this, on the term God, or actually the presence itself that is here now. You must admit by now that there is a very palpable presence. I am. Nobody looks at this presence and says, 'You are.' Everyone says, 'I woke up this morning, I am. I am sitting.' So this is undeniable, no matter what words we are using. Now we are also finding that this presence, I am, has no limit.

God has already given you everything and then you hold God on track. This is the absurdity from the mind. So there's another question on this, on the term God, or actually the presence itself that is here now. You must admit by now that there is a very palpable presence. I am. Nobody looks at this presence and says 'you are.' Everyone says 'I woke up this morning, I am. I am sitting.' So this is undeniable, no matter what words we are using now. We are also finding that this presence, I am, has no limit. It has no boundary. In fact, very little of it, and yet the most magnificent, is in the perceptual realm at all where you can sense a vibration, a subtle presence. I am. You can sense its presence, and yet the being, instantly as you meet the presence, you recognize that it is coming from an unlimited source.

Nobody comes to the presence of being and says, 'Yeah, that could be a little bit. There's a little bit I am.' Has anyone had that experience? When you come to I am, then is it big or small? Unlimited. You cannot define it. So this presence appears as if it is within us. Of course, upon investigation, you see that it cannot be within the body, although it may seem to correlate in this. And yet you find this unlimited, the presence of an unlimited one within you. The words are secondary. The question is: who is this? Whose presence is this? And if you do find a word that you can use for it, if that one is here, then how is my stuff, quote-unquote 'my stuff,' relevant anymore? Whose presence is here? Whose life is this?

So if there is a duality, is it that, okay, I already take myself to be me and now there is another one here? But that 'me' is indisputable? So if we confirm that another one is here, that would mean that there is separation or that there are two. I am saying that the 'me' is not there. It's completely questionable, and you must ask the question. And only God is.