God's Presence: Beyond Perception, Known by Heart

Remember that Maya's whole design—and it is the Lord's design—He has made it like this so that our love for Him is not cheap. You see, I keep taking that example of if my son calls me when he's really busy, then that feels like that is love. But if he calls me because I forced him or because this ritual has to be done every day at this time... most of our lives become ritualistic like that with God, that it has to be done. 'I have to call Pa at 9:00.' Then does that really indicate love? No. It just indicates there's a rule that we are following. You see, so in this moment, can you all lose your self-consciousness and just meet God and let your reaction be based on that? Let's try again. Feel that He's appearing in front of you. Whatever form of God you resonate with, you see. But I just want to take this experiment further: why are we unable to do that? Is it because I'm scared of what people will think if I look so happy, or what is it?

So deepening in spirituality is how real do we take His presence to be? How literal do we take this fact of His reality to be? Otherwise we still, no matter how spiritual we think we are, we're still going to think that we are a separate entity living in this vast universe and we have big trouble in our life. But do you care? No. But I'm allowed to ask him that. He's not applying peer pressure. I'm just saying that... is there an aspect, a form of God that is really dear to your heart? Who is that? So if He was to appear right here in front of you right now, how would you be? You won't think of 'me.' Very good point. But would there be like an expansion? A sense of letting go of the 'me' is like we feel that expansive sort of love in our heart.

You see, so in a way that because we have so much spirituality in the world today, we've normalized 'God is here.' Yeah, but what about my problem? And it's so strange that all of us want to be Advaitins but we are still stuck in the phenomenal. Including myself, where if the door opened and Ram walked in, all of us will... and not that we must not have that reaction. And you're saying, but then is it not the same Ram who's in our heart right here with us, in fact waiting for us to turn to Him? Is it not the same? In fact, that one will just be a projection of this one. This is the reason why when the sages told us 'Mukti Sada Sukhi'—the inward one, the one who has turned inwards, is always happy. Not just because it's an avoidance of the phenomenal world and therefore you can just be happy, run away from the world and you can be happy, no. Because it is His presence which is right there. Okay. So, He walked into the door. Where will you feel Him? You won't feel Him at the door. No, you still feel Him in your heart. So, He's right there in your heart. See?