Love God More, Not Attain Self-Realization

So that is the first aspect. The second aspect is the idea of attaining self-realization. So I would say that let's get rid of this idea instead, because we know that there is nobody who will attain self-realization. When there is self-realization, there is nobody. So rather than keeping the focus on what is needed for me to attain self-realization, let's only keep our focus on: how can I love God more and how can I recognize the truth about myself more and more? What that leads to is none of our business. So I, for one, don't want to talk about so much the attainment of self-realization because for many of us, then that itself becomes the stumbling block to that which we are trying to attain. And then that becomes again like the dog chasing his tail. 'I want to get self-realization, and to get self-realization I want to be empty of myself.' But the idea that 'I want self-realization' is the idea that keeps me as myself. 'I want self-realization, I have to be empty of this I, but I want self-realization, but I want to be empty of this I.' So then we can never really—then we get into that trap of a conceptual self-realization that 'now I understand that I am one with God,' but our life doesn't become a living, breathing example of that oneness. It doesn't really translate into that lived love, lived compassion, lived kindness, and we remain like this on the spiritual treadmill every day thinking we are making a lot of progress because we understood something new.

So don't try to attain self-realization. Just stay with the truth. There is nothing to attain in spirituality. Do we want to love our children more because we'll attain something out of it? Do you want to have a deeper relationship with them—children, parents, partner, whoever? Is it a question of getting something out of it, you see? So the idea of getting will only contaminate the relationship and put yourself in a getting mode. Put yourself in a getting mode and see whether you can really come face to face with the truth, or whether you can love deeply in your heart when you are in getting mode. How are we in getting mode? Wanting, wanting, wanting, you see? So we are grasping, grasping, grasping like this. We can never really meet the Atma within. We can never meet His presence inside us because we remain in that getting mode, you see? But the problem with the getting mode is that it promises us the delusion, the illusion of progress. 'I got this, then I got this, now I got this.' Nobody gets God in that way. All we ever get is a glorified sense of 'me.' So let go of the goal of attaining anything at all.