Servitude to God: The Highest Path

So when Hanuman Ji said that when I take myself to be the body, I am your servant; when I take myself to be the Atma, I am a part of you; and when I see my reality, I see that I am one with you. Now, when we hear this, we're usually hearing it as a progression. I start off in servitude, then I progress to being a part of God, and then I'm becoming God, one with God, you see? Now, that is very dangerous to hear it like that. It is very dangerous because it seems like a linear progression, but it's not like that. It is concurrently like that. There's an aspect of myself that still takes myself to be the body. If there's some strong body pain, I will say, 'Okay, now I have to go, I have to go take some medicine.' So it is that recognition is there—I am That—and yet there's a potential which gets activated many times a day. It's no longer a potential of taking myself to be somebody separate, and the only safe place, safe refuge for that somebody separate, is to be in servitude of God.

So Hanuman Ji is not saying that I started like that, you see, and then I saw that I am the Atma, therefore I'm a limb or a part of you—the Paramatma-Atma relationship—and then I saw that I am one with the Paramatma itself. 'Now I'm one with you, Lord, let's sit on the same throne,' or 'Get me a throne which is same as you.' Did Hanuman Ji say like that? He should have! That's what many Advaitins today will say: 'Why should I bow down to God? Because I am the same. I am That.' It is true, but Hanuman Ji is saying all three things about himself presently, and he's probably still saying the same things about himself presently. Are you getting what I'm saying? So don't feel like it is a progression, although the deepening of our spirituality may lead progressively to those insights to come. It doesn't mean that we have to now confuse that part of ourselves which still takes ourselves to be a separate body-mind to then force that claim onto it of being That, and therefore saying, 'Give me a throne as big as God's.' Is it complicated, what I'm saying?

I'm just saying, why didn't Hanuman Ji... why did Hanuman Ji want to sit at Lord Ram's feet even after he recognized that he is one with God? See, that's the only contemplation that will lead to what I'm trying to explain to you all. So this, which means that unfathomable, non-comprehensible oneness and distinction, or distinction and oneness, is the human condition. But one important thing to contemplate in this is that if Hanuman Ji did not ever have insight that he is Atma, or ever have insight that he is one with God, he just felt like he is God's servant and he will serve Him with all his love and heart and everything—would he be less Hanuman Ji because of that? He is still revered as the biggest devotee of God, as the biggest servant of God, you see. But suppose that he came to oneness with God, to the recognition of oneness with God, but left the servitude? Then would he still be Hanuman Ji?

Shabri waited for Ram Ji to come sixty, seventy years—I don't know how many years. And after He came, she's like, 'Yeah, I've met myself, I'm one with you. Come, I'm not feeding you all these berries. I see you now, I see that we are one.' Then she would not be Shabri anymore. And I am not at all undervaluing the insight of oneness. That is what we are all here for: to recognize that, to merge into that, or to recognize the union already. Whichever way our life's path will unfold, that is the goal. But we should not feel like we've gone from lower to higher. Servitude of God, servitude towards God, is already the highest. So it only gets better and better with the addition of these insights.