The Discipleship of the Atma: God's Inner Guidance

Pure Nirguna, the Absolute reality—no chance, you can't grasp at it. It's a purely intuitive recognition. How to be purely intuitive? We can't be intuitive through our senses or thinking. Intuition is the intelligence of the Atma within. That is why it is called the Satguru presence. Without going to the Satguru presence, without going to the Atma, the Holy Spirit, you cannot be intuitive. And only intuitively can you recognize yourself. For years I shared something which was: where do you know yourself as the Self? Do you know it in perception? Do you know it in thinking? Then where do you know that you are that ineffable, unperceivable one? We go to the refuge of the Atma within, which is God's presence, and He shows us the reality of the Self.

Some of you may say 'I feel it in my heart.' In fact, most of you would say that. Like Bhagavan said, you can see it as the more subtle vibration in your heart—it's not a physical heart, it's your spiritual center. So that presence of the one... let's look at it another way. Is there a being within you now? If it is boundless, it can't be 'within.' So we have to be talking about the sense of presence through which we recognize that there is a boundless being here. This sense of presence is what we refer to as the Atma, as the Holy Spirit, because it is the living presence of God. God as Saguna Brahman then makes himself available to us as the Atma, the sense of presence which we can seek refuge in. That is why we call it the Holy Light, the pure fragrance of love. Between pure Consciousness which is boundless and the taste of love and peace, you sense that there's a presence of 'I Am.' And there's no rush; we can spend our entire life in this discovery. It is that beautiful and that worthwhile.

Well, we do that often because mostly when I'm saying that there's a living being within yourself, I'm talking about this presence. Words are interchangeable. Like the full arm is there, but I'm just talking about the hand. I often used to talk about the tip of the iceberg. Is the tip of the iceberg different from the iceberg? It's part of the iceberg, and yet you can notice the tip. So although in reality it is one, yet we meet the tip because it's above the surface of the Nirguna nature. Can we say that the Holy Spirit is a gift from God? Yes, only by His grace. Although it is God himself, yet it is a gift from God. The tip of the iceberg is the iceberg itself, and yet it is the gift of the iceberg.

The taste of the presence of the Atma is the being itself. You yourself as 'I Am.' But that recognition of even its source, which is non-phenomenal, is intuitively recognized beyond phenomena. That is called Atma Gyan. So being, relying on its power of intuitive insight, recognizes that which is beyond phenomena. Awareness is never forgotten itself. It is not confused about anything. Everything arises out from there. Then being, when playing as I-am-ness, what happens to it? When this I-am-ness gets attached to name and form, it takes itself to be separate—a Jivatma, a separate entity. When it empties itself from these attachments, these Vasanas, then it recognizes itself as pure Saguna Brahman as well as the source of itself, the Nirguna.

What is that which taught him all of this without going to school? That is what I'm calling the discipleship of the Atma. As a disciple of the Atma, you know things which your mind cannot fathom, but you're not interested in using them for personal gain. You're not interested in showing off or claiming anything, because you know it's a sheer gift from your heart.

So we learn humility and faith in the light of the spirit within. That presence of being is the being, and yet it is the tip of the iceberg. Look at His grace, look at His love. Otherwise, it would be so difficult. We have this holy teacher in our heart, the Satguru presence. It's astounding how literal all of this is. When I first got into spirituality, everyone used to say that the Satguru is within. All masters have said that. I thought, 'Okay, nice thing to say, they're just being humble.' But you realize that there's a living being within you who is the Master of masters, the Sage of sages, the Light of lights. And because He is the unknowing, we don't ever have to be concerned about the method in which we are praying.