Unceasing Prayer: Being Present to His Presence

So, 'Body, I'm running out of money. My relationships are not what I think they should be.' All of these things are not worth worrying about because we are confident not in our own strength but in His strength. So when we invoke Him, when we remember Him, it is that we become present to His presence. We become present to His presence and there's great power in that. There's great strength in that. So just to live in that way, to be present to His presence, is to be in unceasing prayer. And if we can be present with Him when Maya is playing out in this way, then we'll definitely be present with Him when Maya is gone.

That's what the sages have told us, that the idea is to be with Him even in the temptation of Maya so that we can be with Him when the temptations of Maya are not there. Now what happens is that Maya realizes that these ones are warriors of God. So it will play in a way where all the phenomenal aspects at its disposal then seem to act in concert to make us involved in worry and anxiety. You see, they seem to all come together. It happens. One day you say, 'Today I'm going to really pray,' then you get a call, 'This happened. What about this? Should we do this? We have to do this urgency.' You see, it all comes together. So they say when it rains, it pours. There's something in that because Maya is using the chance. 'Oh, you were going to pray all day, is it? Let's see.' So we must value every opportunity that we have without distraction. Value that deeply. Don't postpone. You see, because when you postpone, then you will see something has happened. You see?

So the good thing is that Maya seems to have inexhaustible power, but it doesn't. It takes breaks. It leaves us alone every day. It leaves us alone for some time. You see, those times we must run to God and then when it comes back in force, rejuvenated, then we are already steady in God's strength. You see, so we stay there. But the mistake we do often is that we think we learn this conceptually, so when Maya attacks, then I'll be able to fight back. That's probably the most difficult time to fight back. You see, we must build our foundation when we don't have a distraction. If we have built that strong foundation, strong strength, then Maya comes and says, 'Oh, what about this? What about this?' Then we are strong in God's presence. You see, so when we remain strong like that, then our life becomes completely devoted to being in His presence, completely devoted to unceasing prayer—prayer, inquiry, whatever modality we pick, it all goes together. You see, faith, humility, patience, and forbearance.