Measuring Devotion: Time Given to God

Maybe this is an important guidance for everyone. Remember that this battle between Maya and the Atma is a battle for time. So we don't have to judge the quality of insight. We cannot, in fact, we can't know how much we are deepening or not deepening. Really, we can't know. We can't smell our pride on us. We may be thinking we are very humble, but actually we may still be full of pride. We can't really tell. But one simple thing we can do is: How much time did I give to God today? You see, and it's not too late today, but it will be too late tomorrow.

So just keep that simple measurement: How much of my day belonged to God in a focused way? That I'm not juggling, that I'm, you know, going to watch a movie but I'll say "Ram Ram" every ten minutes. You see, it's okay to watch a movie, but then that is not focused time with God. So in fact, if you're watching a movie and saying "Ram" is the best way to watch a movie, I'm not against that, I'm not saying you must not do that. I'm only saying that really we cannot count like where God is just a side character, you see; He's not getting our full attention.

And a simple way to look at that is to look at it as a human relationship, you see. If you tell your parents or your children or your partner that "I'm going to spend time with you. Let's watch a movie together. I'm going to spend time with you. Let's go for a run together. I'm going to spend time with you. Let's do this together." Yeah, they may say okay, some value, but where is the time which is just one-on-one? Where are we actually communicating? So look at it with the same principle because the principle God has made it simple for us remains the same. How much time are we spending with God?

Now in this case, we don't have to check whether we are proud or not. It's good to check, but if we can't tell, we don't have to see, "Okay, I took myself to be pure awareness." We don't have to say, "I was with..." in the sense, "I am constantly" or not. Did I give one hour to God today? Did I give two hours to God today? You see, did I offer myself completely to God for ten minutes, half an hour, forty-five minutes, one hour? What is that? So that is just... use that as a simple way. And if you keep offering your life to God in this way, because He knows very well how attached to experiences during the waking state we are. So if we close ourselves out from outer experiences and we offer our time and ourselves to God, there's nothing for us to worry. But if we spend our entire time in Maya and then say, "My life belongs to You, God," then He's not going to fall for just words.