God's Presence: A Living Being, Not a Concept

Then the mind may say, 'Okay, but all this is fine, but what are you going to do? What about your work, money, relationships, body? What about all these things?' What to do is—what to do with that? What to do with that? You can ask Him. You can ask Him. Because if He's here, you see, it's not going to be like a stereotypical Indian father-son relationship. Usually, what do I mean by that? That there's hardly any communication, and if there is, then it's just like minimal. It doesn't have to be like the stereotypical Indian father-son relationship, but it can be like the closest bond that you create in your life. That is why my pushing and prodding to recognize God's presence as a living being is important, because you will not want to create a relationship with just a scientific phenomenon.

So if you call Atma very scientifically 'beingness' or 'consciousness,' then it seems like very difficult to really go to that with my problems, go to that bowing down, because it seems almost like praying to a cloud or something like that. There's a force field—like praying to a force field or something like that. No, but God's presence is a living being. Isn't that amazing? That His presence itself is a living being. So we can ask Him, we can be guided by Him, or we can say that whatever is here is Yours anyway, so You move me. And whatever I take myself to be, that is servitude—to make yourself available in service to God alone. Empty of self-concern, empty of 'me' is servitude. And servitude mixed with love is devotion, you see? But all of this rests on your faith that God is here. Otherwise, it will all sound like make-believe.