God as a Living, Loving, Intelligent Being

A mistake we've made, and it's a very popular mistake, is that we have taken all love, intelligence, beauty, light, grace out of God and just made Him into like a scientific force of nature called Consciousness. And although it is true that He is Consciousness, but when we look at that as just that scientific-sounding word, then it just feels like, 'Okay, now when we go to this side we have the Indian Ocean and we go to that side there's the Bay of Bengal,' like that.

So, a very popular mistake we've made is that we have taken all love, intelligence, beauty, light, and grace out of God and just made him into like a scientific force of nature called Consciousness. And although it is true that he is Consciousness, but when we look at that as just that scientific-sounding word, then it just feels like, okay, now when we go to this side we have the Indian Ocean and we go to that side there's the Bay of Bengal, like that. So when we go within, there is my being, you see. My being is made up of the boundless Consciousness and I am that which is aware even of all of this. So we made it pretty lifeless, and especially if it remains as just an object of understanding. That's why for about a year or more I've been reiterating this point that remember that you're speaking of a living being, a loving being, an intelligent—the only intelligent being. Isn't it such a great discovery to find that he lives in your heart?

Who is the sage or teacher you admire the most historically? This is Shankara, somebody may say, or some other. Now one day you found that it is Shankara who lives within you. Then... but I'm talking about God, without whom even the greatest sage like Shankara is nobody. He lives within you as the holy presence of Atma within. So remember that your mind wants you to fly higher in the world while also restricting you from flying higher. The world plays this game. But the more worthwhile endeavor or more worthwhile expedition is to see how deep you can go in your heart. What are the depths of your being? And nothing in the world can stop you from that. They'll try. The mind in all forms will try, of course—your own mind and those around you. Everyone will say, 'Enough, enough, enough.' But this exploration to go deeper and deeper, dive deeper and deeper, it only gets sweeter and sweeter.

You will hear from me, you will hear from those who have come to the darshan of that in that way, but don't try too much to force your mind to understand or to even believe, you see. It is getting seated in you as you're hearing the words in satsang. And more and more as you deepen in his light, for now you may say, 'Yes, there is a sense of presence here,' but that sense of presence doesn't seem like a living being yet. But it is only on that basis do you call yourself a living being, you see. I don't want to give you a conceptual understanding too deeply, but let's look at this: How is this bundle of food a living being? It can talk, walk, and it can move. Talk, walk, and grow. That's the... so suppose you're not moving, you're not even breathing. You don't have to go step by step. For a moment you even stop breathing. Are you a living being? You may say that 'I am perceiving, I am perceiving.' This perception doesn't go away when I'm awake. So this 'I am' which is perceiving makes you living, isn't it?

So who is that? The 'I am' which is perceiving is the only living being. Yes. Who is that? You will see that your life comes from it, from him, and he is made up of just absolute reality of the Self. Whether we call it Nirguna Brahman, whether we refer to it as the highest usage of the word Shiva, the one who lives in your heart, your spiritual heart, is made up of this absolute purity. Okay? And the mind wants to make it a force of nature like a river or an ocean, but you will start to notice that it is the animating force of this universe. It is the intelligence that runs this world. And we have seem to have gotten disconnected from that, although we really can't, but we seem to have gotten... and we seem to have pledged our allegiance to a more limited form of intelligence called the mind, whose narratives are very different from what you know in the heart.