We Must Return to This Beginner’s Way

Thank you. Thank you for starHng us off with this quesHon. One of the things I want to point to all of you more and more is that the amount of Hme we spend in self concern becomes inversely proporHonal to how much Hme we get to spend in love with God, in love for God, living in the Presence of God. So, it is very possible that in spirituality, especially in Satsang like this, that we spend a lot of Hme in self concern, and how am I progressing, and am I doing alright, rather than using that Hme to just be in love with God. And it is possible to love God with all our Heart. Because at least we claim that this path is very direct, and because this path is so direct, it is in some sense natural for us to be able to say, that if I'm not constantly living in God's light or in the apparency of my Self, then what are the blind spots that are ge^ng in my way, that are stopping me from doing that. But you have to be careful that that doesn't become a new project on which we spend a lot of Hme over. It is much easier to empty the lane for God. To park our car at the side and keep the whole lane for God rather than to figure out what is stopping my driving skills from ge^ng to God. The funny thing about this is that even the aZempt to empty ourselves can be taken by the checker guy to make it about self concern, „Am I empty enough?“. And this is why in Satsang recently I've been making the baZleground very, very clear. And although that has been my main poinHng since I started sharing Satsang a long Hme ago, I feel like it is worth emphasizing that the only „work“ we have to do is to remain empty in this moment. And to remain empty of what? It is to remain empty of idenHficaHon or belief in the mind. So, in this way then we keep the lane empty for God and we allow God's will to unfold. Otherwise, our self importance, our self concern and therefore self will including the desire for God Himself, for Truth itself can become just the obstacles which we end up fighHng or encountering for a long, long Hme. So, really the job is to be empty for God moment to moment, and that is more than enough. Now, when that „empty“ seems difficult, then we have presented so many different ways in which to return to that empHness, whether it is Guruji's [Sri Mooji's] InvitaHon [An InvitaHon to Freedom] or Bhagawan's [Sri Ramana Maharshi's] inquiry, or the Atma Darshan Samadhi, or just chanHng or breathing or prayer or any of the methods that have been prescribed by spiritual teachers over the centuries. The only aZempt is to empty us of ourselves, and in that moment to be dead to ourselves, so that God's Presence can shine through. So, the way this game works, the way this play works is that if the Me is taking up space, then it seems as if God's Presence, God's light is dimmed in that moment. If we want to pose as if we are separate from God, then God lets us. But the instant we are empty of that, we are empty of ourselves, then we give God's light the opportunity to shine through. As you started Satsang by saying that you have not been in this light of Satsang for a while, what is this light? This light is not by any means or by any stretch of the imaginaHon Ananta's light or this body's light. It is just that there is an instrument available which allows God's light to shine through. And the idea of this light shining through is that it can shine through all of us. So, that is the ethanal to all blind spots, that we are to be empty of self importance, self will and self concern. These things are built up only moment to moment with our belief in what the mind is telling us.