If the Purest River In the Universe Is Flowing In Your Backyard, What Are You Doing Digging a Well?

They're suggesting, really, is there such a thing with the Lord what you are saying? That you said in a second we create so much, yes, billions of universes. Yes, I mean, that is not... at least whenever I try to think about something, I mean, creation is what you're saying. There is God, yes. Is it really there? I just want to know. Yes, yes. Either it is really there or I am a trickster and a liar, or I am deluded. Yes, because how can the trust be there and the question be there? Sometimes for children we say something so... that is treating you fully like a grown-up, yeah. But when you discovered one God, yes...

So let me just say that it is not the truth what I'm saying, because what is actually there is much more than what I'm saying. So it's not an exaggeration; it is a limiting definition. Whatever I have said, the immensity of the presence, of whose presence it is that we can encounter—the immensity of that makes me awestruck every day more and more, every moment more and more. The immensity and the ability for us to encounter this and ultimately encounter it as our very own Self kills me with so much gratitude and joy and feelings for which there are no names. So you can trust me, but trust that what I can share is just the tip of the iceberg. Who is really here in your heart at a spiritual core? It's the one that your mind can never fathom. You can never come close to, rather.

And this is beautiful because I can point to that which is unfathomable and your mind cannot digest what I'm saying, and yet because you trust and love me, then you are stuck. So then you have to pick between your mind's resistance and between my testimony, which I am promising is truthful and promising that, if anything, it is an underestimation of the one that is, not an overestimation or an exaggeration. Now your move is to either run or die. No, move is to either run or die, because in the light of this reality, what you take yourself to be cannot persist. It has to be burnt. The room is created for the truth when the false dies. So this holy death, while the prana shakti still continues to play out in this body, this is the true open and empty you. We have to die to ourselves to truly meet God.

But I cannot force it on you because you always can decide how you will play, because you are Consciousness itself. So you may choose to run, and run doesn't mean run from the Master. You can just sit here and avoid everything that is being said. It's like, "It's fine, I'll just sit here, I like the peace, but what he's saying, that's too much, too much." So you could avoid in this way, or you could resist, right? The brother earlier was saying that you're resisting meeting. It sounds scary. Emptiness sounds scary to the one that doesn't exist anyway. Sounds good. But if you continue to remain in Satsang and be open to what is being shared, then you have to die while you're still alive, because there's not enough room for God and you.

So to remain living in God's light, we cannot be personal, we cannot be individualistic, we cannot be selfish. So if you can find a metaphor for this, I am saying that if the purest river in the universe is flowing in your backyard, what are you doing digging a well? What is it for? That much that you will miss the greatest gift, the highest way to live, because you want to glorify a non-existent ego so much? Because all you have to give up is your narrative. Can you resist without a narrative? It has to be some story on the basis of which you can say, "But what about me?" And you don't say, "What about me?" You'll say, "What about my relationships?" or "My money?" or "My security?" or "My future?" or "My something?" But basically, it is: "What about me?"

What about you? If a million of us were working on glorifying one ego—suppose we found a way to collaborate like that, working on glorifying one ego and tried our best to make it the perfect one—it would still be nothing. Yeah, a strange concoction that appears after the waking state comes and disappears when we go to sleep. Forget birth and death, just waking and sleeping. And that wants to own everything in this state, everything here. The true owner of this universe is simply available to us in our simplicity and innocence. Only one of these can be true: God is, or person is. Because if God is and there is a person, it means that God is a limited God. There is God and there is a person—both are not possible. And nobody is here to find a limited God.

Okay, so let's break it down. So this is for both of you then. Which part? God is here or no? So sometimes it feels like God is here and just not sure if that's the same. Is it an existent being? Is it a presence within yourself that your mind cannot understand? It's the same one. The only existent being is God. So you cannot get it wrong unless you're just visualizing or imagining something, which I don't feel any of you are doing. The only existence is God. Then the second question could be: if God is here but I still get distracted, I value other things, how is that possible? And this happens to all of us. But can we see the absurdity in that? Yeah. So either we get into a sort of lack of faith about what God is worth versus what our story is or what things in the world, or maybe it is just like a forgetting and the "me" seems very compulsive. So this part, this seeming oscillation, it's very normal for everyone. As long as you realize... when you realize that you're fooling yourself and getting back in your stories, you find a way back home to your heart. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong.

But one question that must be dropped is: "Okay, so God is here, then what does it mean for me?" Maya says, "Now am I enlightened? Will I stay like this?"

In the process of this, you are using myself in... of I find that there are thoughts and there are experiences that I see that you see or seek, seek, seek. And mostly I seek to know things that I don't know, like why, why are you, why are you...

Okay, so what is the best-case outcome? That you live a life and everything you think you can know, you've got to know, and then you die? So what, what is the big deal? Now then...

I seek to know what is that experience of death and who is the experience.

Yes, and that is the one I'm showing you. That is the one I'm showing you. But I can't move it. Of course you can, but not through empirical means, not through traditional means, not through the means that we have described knowing to be. Like, do you know this? The label for it? But do you know it? So what does knowing even mean? Whenever I want to know, are we talking about an experience, a perceptual experience? Are we talking about a conceptual understanding? And usually that's what we are talking about in the world. But the intuitive knowing, the heart insight, is the only thing that I can say is like true knowledge. To know that I am, I don't need to see, I don't need to think. To know that it is I, that I am I, I don't need to perceive or think, but I know it. Just like you know it is you that is aware of the perception of the sound. Is something known more than this? Can you know anything more than this? I, the true I, the one that is aware of perception—can you know anything even close to this? Compare the knowing of this with that. It's not in the same realm at all.

This type of knowing in this strange sort of dream that we are calling life, we have learned to neglect that which is true knowledge, Atma Gyan, and we have learned to value that which is ephemeral and is going to go soon. Even when we know things, we forget them, and ultimately we will die anyway. So all that knowledge is pointless from a long-term perspective at least. So use the urge to seek inwardly, to seek where all of this comes from. Where is the ability to perceive coming from? Where is the ability to know conceptually coming from? You see? And seek to know this as insight and not more conceptual knowledge or perceptual experience.

The same one on this... and most of the times, you see, it's complete insanity.

You must. That's what I'm doing every day. If sanity means taking the unreal to be real and the real to be unreal, then become insane fast. Sanity in the world is to take darkness to be light.

Where all of this comes from? Where is the ability to perceive coming from? Where is the ability to know conceptually coming from, you see? And seek to know this as inside, and not more conceptual knowledge or perceptual experience. The same one on this, and most of the times, you see, it's complete insanity. You must—that's what I'm doing every day. If sanity means taking the unreal to be real and the real to be unreal, then become insane fast. Sanity in the world is to take darkness to be light and light to be darkness; to take that which is time-bound to be permanent and that which is eternal to be meaningless; to take nonsensical material things to have a lot of value, while the highest in the universe can wait until posted on anything, last moment of death, just remember there is a cheat code. If this is sanity, then become insane fast.

It was the one that says 'I know, I know,' but it's also still the mind. So don't buy into the meta-mind more than the mind itself. The mind posing as if it is commentating on the mind is still mind. What's your heart saying? What can you say intuitively from here? Your heart is saying, 'I'm burning like back in a bad way, in a good way.' What can be burnt? Can truth be burnt? So if the false is burning, is that good news or bad? And so most who come to satsang say, 'Burn me, Father. Burn, burn, burn it fully. Burn it.' But we don't expect that the burning will feel like burning anymore. But it does. To become empty, we must let go. We must let go to become empty. But to let go, we must let go of everything. And there are many things where we don't want to let go. We want God, and yet we think we like certain aspects of ourselves—maybe our comfort, and maybe our relationships, maybe what we call our love. Whatever it may be, we want that to continue to persist, you know, in meeting with God. But God is that holy light which will burn everything that is. If your longing for God is this much, then no point resisting. The scientists were legit; you will not be able to save anything.

What do you want to see? Maybe the mind doesn't know. What is the other one? One wants a guarantee. 'I'm letting go of everything, but give me a guarantee. Give me a God sound like this or like a limbo street, that I'll be left all alone, stranded in limbo. What is the guarantee that I will enjoy it?' Risk it. Risk it for me. You say you love me, that I am your master, I am your father. Risk it. And the way this video game will restart anyway soon, so one life you can risk. As many as you want. All I'm asking is that this one life you give, hand over to me. That's all. Do it.

It's not going to be difficult. You mentioned that you have to renounce, yes? To be empty internally, to become an inner renunciate means to be unattached and unfeverish about anything, about everything. Is that the same as renounce? Externally, many do it the other way. They renounce it externally, they wear even the saffron robes, but internally they are full of them, full of attachment.

So I'm saying the reverse now. Do it. Become unattached internally. Now, whether your external life is of King Janaka or of the beggar, I don't care about that. For example, if you have the desire for food, you have to leave it externally also, and there is nothing internally. Become empty of it. And if in God's light it moves you towards the best tasting food—I don't know whether I should be saying this actually—when you're living in God's light, even normal tasting food becomes very tasty, yet have you noticed? So if that unfolds in that way, that you are brought into situations where you end up tasting the best tasting food, that's fine. But you have to have integrity about it. Like many of us just become like a Twitter in our speaking: 'Oh, Grace got me in this baklava which is so good, and so I ate it. I didn't want it.' But you have to be true to yourself. Would you suffer without it? That is the test of renunciation. What would you suffer without? If I told you one thing that you could never have after this, what would make you suffer the most?

Good man. You said you can't have God, anything in the world, because I would join you in that software. Yes, in this journey, on this process of inner organization of beauty and duty, yes.

You know, primary duty is to follow what I'm saying. If you truly say I am your master, then follow what I'm saying. That is your number one duty. So be energized. Just follow everything I'm saying. Don't be attached to your narrative firstly, and then elements of your narrative, including the seeker identity and all your evaluations of the seeming self which is him, which is seeking God. They all have to be given. You have to return to the innocence of a child. And it is your duty to follow this because actually, even if you did not consider me your master, I have given you the possibility that no one else in the world is offering you, which is the discovery of God itself. And I'm saying in return for that, I want you to risk your life fully. But to take that bet is up to you. But if you consider me your master, then I'm not asking, I'm telling you: give it up. Either way, even intellectually it makes sense, because even if you met somebody, a random stranger walking on the road, who said you can find God, you see, and in return you have to do this, how will you evaluate that? Is that one a trickster? Is that one mad, crazy, delusional? Does that one have a vested interest from you? How is that one a liar of some sort? Then you would say, 'No, go away from me.' But if you cannot, I won't say you must evaluate such an offer fully seriously. You have the offer to find God, and in return something which is not even yours to start with is being asked. So really you're not giving up on anything truly, this false notion. Such an offer should be taken very seriously unless you can determine that there's something shady about this guy, because not many will make such an offer to you, you see. Remain empty. Pray to remain empty. And in the remaining time, remain empty. It's not a bad life.

Run or die. It's not ideal. And you have never felt like I just said, like exactly knows exactly what you're attached to. It is asked at times, verified. Yeah, Guru within you knows exactly what you're attached to. Yeah, and your mind prays for that, or you pray for that, or you ask for that. Is that what you're saying?

This is not exactly what I'm attached to. He knows what to ask, so you know what needs to be given up because you're attached to that. Yes. Run away from giving that up, or run away from that which you are attached to because I'm giving it. And what is it? It's not exactly... and I have something like, maybe don't talk and say anything to me again. What happens? Okay, so can we for a moment look at what I mean by giving it up? Do not be attached. It means just let thoughts about it come and go. Not convert them into a desire or an aversion, which is the same thing in the world. Yes, let's explore this. So giving up thoughts is easier than giving up something in the world.

Yeah, take any example. It doesn't have to be your thing which you want to tell me privately. So without the thought of that being grasped, you are still attached to that? Suppose if this is, and you are not attached to your thoughts about not having an arm or having an arm internally, then you will still say that is more difficult to cut off. Now that is in that case it is because...

Yeah, because I want to submit to all of you, to propose to all of you, that the greatest addiction we have is to our thoughts. I can check with you on that. The exact thought of motivating giving it a question, that's scarier than actually if you're there in the present at that particular moment. That when actual comes, we are actually hearing it comes, was not that difficult. Thought of being to always make scenarios—what would happen, what will not happen if it's not there this month. Okay, there's a talk about what we thought was, what will it ask next one, next. Yeah, yeah, what else do you have? That's what he lost, everything. Maybe not as much as you would. Would you prefer a Satguru who didn't use this hydro?

If you ask me to stay overnight here and tomorrow morning you will give me a program on state, he wants it. I know I'm still thinking what I will tell my family, everybody. Last question: if I say to you stay overnight here, tomorrow I will give you God.

Shut up. Yeah, I don't know if I will come or not. That time my Guru is calling me, I have to go. Shut up. No, but those thoughts I think I can relate with what he's saying. So again, heart is a different thing. If you ask, I'm good at all. It's like me personally, myself, how would that be? Because if I said to you, if you stay one night you get a million dollars, that's what I'm saying. That either God is not the God, and this is like something is undervaluing that somewhere. Because what is a million dollars in front of God? External factors that really doesn't matter if I just... and other factors really cannot stop me. Yes, because I'm not... that's why I'm saying I'm not asking for anything outwardly. But inwardly nobody can come, and your wife cannot get in there and say don't give up on this on the inside.

So I also felt regarding some of the habits which I discussed with you earlier. Okay, so whatever excuses I was giving mostly is that one, it felt like it's really I just want to go and do it. I'm sorry, all the other things looks like this is the feverishness talking.

I think, you know, we all go through mind states where even if you're thinking to your induction or your engagement with your mind, there are states of clarity and states of confusion, right? But if you're going through a particular challenging circumstance, your mind has completely taken over everything. No matter how good you sometimes feel this, at some... when you're in that environment, it's sometimes very difficult to get out of the grasp of your mind. And something else I've struggled with, and that woman didn't die in, no matter how much clarity you have about anyone with God being God yourself is quite difficult. And I was just trying to understand over time there is a better way to use to kind of ease into lead you to stay. I don't know if that makes sense.

Where the mind has us, it has us. There's no escape. But can we truly say that all the other times we are in the heart? That is what we need to start. The mind will fixate about those times because the mind has you anyway and say, 'No point till you can do it at those times.' I am telling you the opposite. Start with the other times because not even the most powerful mind has you all the time. Even in the midst of the greatest difficulty, there will be some moments where you are not fully in its grasp. Can we use those moments to meet God in our heart? Start with those, and that itself will expand. That will expand to see the mind trick which tells you that you have to be able to do it, then only then is it worthwhile, otherwise it is pointless. But actually it's not true. Start with those times where it's not goddess so strongly. Start with that moment. One moment it is a good start. And then you'll see that that becomes more and more natural, and the gravitation needed to pull you out from the mind will seem to be more and more difficult for the mind now. But you have to start moment to moment, every moment. And then when you realize you got caught up again, then don't fixate on feeling guilty and unworthy and say, 'See, I'm not able to do it.' All of that then continues to perpetuate the same thing. You have a moment where you're released from the grip, meet God. Then that is the way to, to use your term, to ease into this in some way. There'll be a very rare one who can just... I give this instruction to when there's this very, very... in fact, not happened in 12 years where I've just told someone, 'Be empty of the mind,' boom. So it's like that. The second point I want to address is that clarity or lack of clarity...

Unworthy and 'See, I'm not able to do it'—all of that then continues to perpetuate the same thing. You have a moment where you're released from the grip of 'me and God,' then that is the way to, to use your term, ease into this in some way. There'll be a very rare one who can just... I give this instruction to when there's this very, very... in fact, it has not happened in twelve years where I've just told someone 'Be empty of the mind'—boom—so it's like that.

The second point I want to address is that clarity or lack of clarity is only in the mind-intellect. You cannot be clear or unclear intuitively. Those phases and opposites are not there in your intuition. So the idea that you could be clearer and clear even in your heart is not true. These are just states of the mind itself. In the heart, it is not that you're trying to hold on to something when you're in the heart that can then be blurred. Only when we think—like you may come to satsang and get a sense of some understanding and then we feel like, 'Oh, it's clear now'—then something comes in the world or you hear someone else, something happens, and the stability of the sturdiness of the conceptual house of cards seems to get shaken and we call that the lack of clarity or blurriness or cloudiness. See, it's all happened only here, not here, because it doesn't have states. It is not changing. It is not... at best you could say that it is deepening. See, maybe we can say it's deepening, but we can never say that I became unclear in my heart. Unclear is only when we've gone to the head.

I mean, another method, for lack of a better word, that has been used or I've been taught or other people talk about is, 'Oh, there's an earthquake in Turkey, so what are you complaining about? Look at those people suffering.' Yeah, in that moment, if you ask yourself that question, your suffering is almost laughable. But that doesn't stay, right? And I'm just curious why that doesn't stick. I don't expect it to. I have some intuitive understanding that it's kind of a false attempt to try to make sense of your life by using some external reminder that you should be okay and other work. But do you have a sense of why that doesn't work?

Yeah, I think no practice always goes. Yeah, it's like all these rule-based stoic philosophy; it's like nothing has really worked. Yeah, this moment to moment, if you're drawn to something and that makes us open and empty, that's good enough, whatever it may be. Yeah, I was saying that if for you juggling three rocks makes you open and empty, then that's your spiritual design. That's good. But these things don't become... no, I was telling someone, but these things mostly we see don't always work and they may change even day to day. Yeah, that which seems so potent one day, it can seem so important, and the next so-so.

On that, for example, music does that for me. But then the self-doubt comes like, oh, like to your question, 'Can you give up music?' and then will you suffer? Yes, music makes me open and empty, yeah, most of the time. I would say ninety-nine percent of the time. And it's fine, I don't go to very unstructured... I have no thought, I mean flow, and I can go for hours, there's no boredom. So everything is good about it. But when I ask this question that you asked, 'If you give it up, will I suffer?' I think I will.

Usually, I will not ask you to give up that which makes you open. Okay, so it's a good addiction to that of all the energies. But if I can produce a little more and say that, does it make you empty of yourself to an extent that all you then care about is God? All you then care about is your true self or presence? And music is a spiritual practice for me. I'm completely agnostic on... mostly, I'm sure one of you can win something absurd, we shall say no, but I'm mostly agnostic. So what method you want to use to come to this openness?

Oh, um, okay. There's this misconception, I think, that's playing here. Yes, and um, it's constantly dragging me out in the presence and actually relates to that question you said, 'What is it that the mind uses?' We got the question, but I said God away. Yeah, what do you make yourself? If I told you to give it up, and I realized the only thing that ever causes me to suffer is when my attention has this presence and goes out towards something phenomenal. Okay, there's a movie that... there's something within the phenomenal realm that's causing that. And so now the mind takes a position of 'I must remove that thing, I must be on watch for that thing,' so like I find I can finally be with God.

So let's experiment with this. Try to suffer just by moving your attention. Yes, we believe it's impossible. Attention inwardly, seemingly inwardly or seemingly outwardly, cannot make us suffer just with attention alone. Try to suffer without a thought, without believing a thought. It's not possible. So it's not so much a question of attention because in pure perception, who you are is fully apparent to you. Perception is perception unadulterated by labels and narratives, and understanding who you are is fully apparent to you. So that choice is always with the witness to not stretch with interest, to abide there, not follow the interests or the belief.

Yes, and there's no... there's nothing I need to do to have that power in any condition. God is there. Yes, even if my brain is... well, that's a difference of like, if I have a class and my brain isn't fully functioning yet, can God still be accessed by my heart? Yes, you know, it feels like I really feel in such a claustrophobia at times because I know that this voice shouldn't be followed and I need to just honor God.

Did you get the main point about attention? Because that wherever your attention may go, it cannot cloud your self-knowledge. It cannot cloud the currency of your self-knowledge. Who you are is fully apparent to you if you're looking without mental adulteration in anything, or you're fully in a samadhi where the whole perceptual world has disappeared. This is a radical point because most are trying to control their attention. And of course, it's fine to control your attention because if your attention is not on thoughts, then there's no question of believing them. But belief, or letting the absence of belief, identification, letting go, surrender, seems much more simple than trying to get mastery over attention.

Understand what other person is saying, or let's say... but if I'm watching television and understanding what's going on, I have given more of that attention to understand.

Okay, understands, okay. Just don't give any belief in this keyboard. I don't need to say 'glass, cup, tea' then drinking to drink from the glass in the cup. Thank you. You may not be able to make a narrative out of it, you may not be able to reproduce it in words for a friend, but there is no knowledge machine. True knowledge is inherent already in you without needing that phone call from the mind saying, 'Hello, this is what he's doing that.' And to respond to somebody's question or to attract socially, you won't have to give more of their attention to things. Yes, you don't have to, because your heart can also speak if words are needed.

So when I say we must... okay, so let's come, let's put everything on track. So God is here. God can be found. You are finding God now. You must abide in God's light or presence. And to abide in God's presence is to follow God's will. What does it mean to follow God's will? The first aspect of following God's will is to allow the presence to unfold naturally without mental intervention. And the second aspect is when you start to receive God's guidance in your heart in what I've been calling like a holy whisper, then we must follow that unconditionally as well. That is... I hate making steps, but if you were to try and make steps to what is being said, this is a simple way to see if it is impossible to... is this a social interaction? Let's suppose that this is a social intervention. So I am telling you that these words are coming from my heart without mental intervention or pausing to think or figuring out what to say next, just allowing the heart to use this heart-to-mouth communication. So the heart can do it.

So how to live in the world, what to say in the world, right and wrong—everything depends on whether it is coming from the heart or head, whether you're living in the planet of the heart or on the planet of the head. That's all. Actually, it takes out all the fun. One part of watching movies out if you are watching it download. Try, try one movie. Okay, just try one. Tell me if you had fun. They just had this robotic land, you're all meaningless, meaningless. No, but true meaning is found in the heart. I don't feel I met anyone before I met guruji. After I received what he gave me, only then I felt like I truly met anyone. Are we only meeting projections before that? Ideas and impressions and judgments? I don't feel like I ever enjoyed a flower, a really soft flower, or tasted any food also, I need him. Before I came to this, all my attention was dissipated in thoughts trying to grasp, understand 'what's in it for me.' My attention is so limited. It takes away from the taste of the world when we try to think and perceive at the same time. So it's not true that the movie cannot be enjoyed without my mind. That is the only way to enjoy.

And the absurdity of this waking state is no less than Pathan, although we found all sorts of rational explanations for this. But there's no rationality. What are you doing here listening to this strange man who can explain you mind me? I rationalize various things. Some of you have flown from far-off lands to be here in the noisy Bangalore in the middle of traffic. It's not rational. You know, I had plans, then it is, you know... I also had the experience of meeting many of my relatives over the past few weeks and days, and for the first time I've just been communicating openly saying, 'Don't waste your life. God is saying.' I said in the prayer meeting for my father where everybody was like, 'Oh, but he became the president of IBM and then it became this and we came from his education that and he got 300 people jobs and we had the village so much,' you know that. So I just wanted to stand up and say there's something even much more valuable than all of this, much more valuable, and we must not waste our life without finding guides. All of this is just part of this ephemeral play and the roller coaster of life will take care of all of these things.

So what you heard was after like at least what, twenty-five, thirty speeches and on time, it's a beautiful, beautiful act workshop. Like forty, fifty workers were there and when I got... when I sat down to speak with them for a minute, I was just like, 'I have never spoken with an audience like this. I have no idea what I'm going to say.' We just started to flow. We asked questions there. Okay, I had so much innocence about them that I felt like my heart really went out to them and embraced them and I was feeling like I wanted to stay a few days and just talk to them. There's a recording of that as well. The Hindi one with the locals, yeah. So we went from my village, which is very rustic, you can... yeah, just a typical village by all standards. Into Chanda, very graciously hosted us in her place and that's a very, very beautiful house, very luxurious and probably the best house I have ever stepped in. But... and but... and I was saying this in a very good way that actually nothing really changed. The love, the presence was so much felt in both these places and all that perceptual difference doesn't actually make that much difference. Both environments were just so sweet and present with... they were enjoyed fully. So don't have this fear about not enjoying life anymore, movies and... because the only way to know good and bad is where it comes from.

Thank you. So I don't know about a hundred percent, I don't know about a hundred percent, but and all those things which I may be still hesitating about having shown up more and more over the last few months, see, and to transcend in that way. That is, to the mind, this kind of talk is very scary. But as your faith ripens, it starts with very simple things like I've had so many satsangs, there were times where I was doing some...

Life anymore, movies, and because the only way to know good and bad is where it comes from. Thank you. So, I don't know about a hundred percent. I don't know about a hundred percent and all those things which I may be still hesitating about having shown up more and more over the last few months, you see. And to transcend in that way, that is to the mind this kind of talk is very scary. But as your faith ripens, it starts with very simple things. Like, I've had so many satsangs; there were times where I was doing something every day over twelve years, and not once has this voice let me down. It's not let me down ever. So that is the deepening of you. If it has helped me for so many years, because there's so much trust and faith in there, so as we start living by it, the trust, the development of trust also happens more. And I'm not saying tomorrow you must just, you see, because I also want to give you time so that you can truly assimilate in your heart. Because many times the mind will pose as if it is your heart, and you need to have, you know, the practice of having lived from the heart for a while before you get into some radical sort of thing, yeah. So the heart is the best teacher and it knows all of these things as well.

The highest tip to determine whether it's heart or mind is: is who you are apparent to you or not? If who you are is apparent to you, it is from the heart. Is it? Because as you use the mind, in the hypnosis of the mind, your self-knowledge seems to get lost; it seems to get blurred. So of course we can say many other things. Is there a presence of love, peace? Is it in a rush or is it grasping? You can use all of these, but I feel the highest point there is you know you are being intuitive if you remain in the apparency of self-knowledge and this guidance is arising within you.

Outside for social norms you have to act, but naturally I cried also, okay. So I noticed that was fine mostly, and I feel like thankfully with God's grace I did not have to put on any sort of—so I won't even know how to do that anymore—stuff. So how it played out is that throughout most of the day I was fine, just every day for like a minute or two I had these crying spirits. They give outlet to the grief too. Around there was something like some good times, you also sitting around joking. About ten minutes I was joking with someone saying there's this much difference only between a funeral and a wedding when relatives gather. Yeah, it could seem like on people very different, but then everybody soon realizes that even the one who we are leaving would not want us to be sitting around morose all the time. So it can sound like a very absurd thing to say, but there were many times of laughter, joking. The only time just somebody in the family started crying and they were remembering him, I can really touch the heart to unfold and in the way which I don't want to say it's best, because then 'best' can be based on a mental benchmark. Thank you.

So the question then really is: have you found God? Check. Yeah, what does it see? What would your response have been? Yes? No? What is the 'yes' part? Okay, let's say let's forget that question. Is God here now from your direct experience? And I know you know the right answer, but truly as lived inside, as living inside, is God here now?

A sense of person is not here, yes.

But is God here? A person is not here, but you are there. That is God. There is no difference between Atma and Parma. That which seems to be the individualized self is actually the universal Self. Otherwise, you would be able to determine a boundary for your presence, for your being, but you can't do that. Then you can also confirm that everything that you perceive is happening within you, within that being. You do not experience the world outside of yourself, of your being. So, is God here now?

We will need some more than on... as you said, the presence is that, that I cannot see anyone before that. So yes, but still when you said everything else, everything is part of that being, including with others, that is I think my mind is trying to...

Okay, so let's break it into two steps. First, let's forget about what is the actual state of everything else there, what is happening to it. Let's forget about that. At least can we confirm that every experience we are having about everything is within us? Where it actually is, let's leave that alone, but the experience of it we can confirm is within us, within the being. Even in the world, if you ask this question, they will say, 'Yes, yes, my eyes are receiving it and then retina did something.' Even then they would say 'within us.' Of course, they would say a thing like 'my brain' and all of that nonsense stuff. But here you can confirm that every experience is only experienced within your being. No? Intuitively you will get the sense that there is no difference between the existence of anything and the experience of it. Its existence is only what your experience is. There is no existence of it other than your experience of it. And you may testify to that truly if I was to say this is a dream, because you can conclude that about your dream, you see. But it may seem like speculation for you to say that about the waking state, and that is fine at this point. Really, intuitively you have a sense that all there is just appears within me, without an ability to rationalize it conceptually. So does that mean that whatever I've ever known, so this is everything that can ever be known, is only within you?

Within mind and within your answers.

If this was a dream, if this is a dream, you would say, 'Yes, I had nothing, I had a dream of you for the last month.' Sometimes I get this: 'You came in my dream last night.' Within that, within your dream, there was an appearance of a body-mind character that you would call Ananta or whatever, but you realize that it was within your being. Now my intuitive insight is that this is no different than that, but there's no way we can rationally explain that. So it's beyond rational understanding. So you have to wait for your intuition also to confirm it in that way. And therefore, when all the sages have said this, then they are only referring to their intuitive insight, which they trust more than what their rational mind is telling them. So when it is said that the scriptures were heard, they were heard, Shruti, then what does it mean? Not from a sound from the sky; it was heard intuitively. And you notice in the world that that which is written in a mental way has a very short lifespan. But those, that which has been written with God's hand in this way, heard intuitively, although people may scoff, it may be skeptical, may never believe, but those seem to last a long, long time. They never seem to fade away, those writings. Everything else has a flavor-of-the-month type thing, except that it is written by the hand of God. And you can look at it across cultures, across traditions, religions, all coming to the same point.

And all that is being said here... one of my cousins actually, his wife shared satsang in a small place called Muzaffarnagar. So she said to him that—initially I didn't like the words what she was trying to say—that it is not religious, it's not a religious discourse or sermon or something like that. It is not religion that we... what I would love to have told her actually, like I consider myself to be Dharma, like I believe all religions. Everything where I at this end of God, my money is following that. So I don't consider myself unreligious. If there were ten different roads to go to the house of your beloved, would you say, 'No, no, I will pick only one and only use that'? The road is not important; it is the Beloved. Good parts and bad parts, the point is not the road, the destination. What is it pointing to? The important thing is: have you met it? Not what you choose to call it. I call it Atma, another calls it the Truth; the labels don't matter. And it is the nature of the mind to cause so much division and everything.

So we got a sweet question from one of the workers in Chanda's workshop. He said, 'Please help me, it's so confusing.' And translating from Hindi, he said, 'It's so confusing. Somebody says pray to Shiva and another says pray to Vishnu, and then we say that if we pray to Shiva then Vishnu will get upset, if we do Vishnu then Shiva gets upset. What are we supposed to do? And sometimes praying to this one helps, sometimes praying to that one helps. What are we supposed to do?' I gave a longer answer; the crux of it was that if God was egotistical in this way, then God is just like humans. There's no need to pray to such a God who is upset. Don't buy any nonsense about God getting upset if you pray to another aspect. The second thing is, the highest in every tradition, it is very clear that there is one God who is formless. Because in the human condition we don't yet have the capacity to meet God in that way, therefore whatever aspect is most appealing to us, that has been made available to us. Feel free to go with whatever your heart resonates with. A lot of misunderstanding and mental resistance in the world, and after having traveled this much, I feel like I should travel somewhere. So many may be suffering from these sorts of problems which seem very big, and because they hear from seemingly credible sources that, 'Oh, you must pray only like this, otherwise the other God gets angry,' or 'This God will get angry if you pray to another one.'

Let's go there. So when we went there, it just felt like this man was there, a little bit indifferent to start with, but then as he saw us moving and just quietly something he started feeling. And then as I was sitting inside, he got me a blanket to sit down. Maybe he asked one of you, I don't know, maybe they asked one of you and said, 'Who is this? What's happening here?' He just came like that. And then when I was talking to him later, he just started saying things like, 'I was very worried about this thing, but now you have come and it will all be fine. So happy to meet you.' And then he took us to a section of the ashram which is not open. He took us to a section where Neem Karoli Baba's closest disciple, she used to give darshan and she used to live. That was closed to... and on a different floor. He took us there and opened to us very beautifully. And I felt in my heart so much connection with him, although the words we spoke were very little, but I felt like we've known each other for a long time. Met with such kindness and beauty. And first, like Chaitanyaji came to meet us from Rishikesh, so first they told him, 'No, no, you can't sell snacks here' and all of that. At the end of the visit, they were just like, 'Yeah, yeah.' So we were having samosa, all these things, and they also got a chai. And it came away sweet with it. By then, those who are attracted to God in their heart are actually bound to feel some affinity to the presence. And we received a lot of love, right? He gives us a big bag of prasad. Let's see you anything as part of connections. It's fair, God's connection. I didn't see that never. Can you be about never so much passion? Have you ever stopped talking now before I get a swollen head? Seriously, impossible to be in the presence of such shining lights like... and on my mind to still take yourself to be something, impossible.

Krishna mentioned about it. He is that everything is beginning. So he's talking about the being, that he is the being itself. The same being you are trying to show us through patterns of being and let me check which is part of me. We can never at least...

Okay, so I have to say that I can never compare myself to... and I feel like we must never compare ourselves like sort of Krishna, Jesus, all of these things. Because at one level we can say that we are one with the highest Self, in whatever we may say, higher than that also. But at another level, it's as true to say that to even be able to utter the name of Krishna is a privilege and...

The same being you are trying to show us through patterns of being, and let me check which is part of me we can never at least... Okay, so I have to say that I can never compare myself to, and I feel like we must never compare ourselves like sort of Krishna, Jesus, all of these things. Because at one level we can say that we are one with the highest Self, in whatever we may say, higher than that also. But at another level, it's as true to say that to even be able to utter the name of Krishna is a privilege and an honor. Jesus. The only thing which makes this living, this human condition, worthwhile is that we can remember God, we can pray to God, we can meet God in this way. We can utter the name God or Krishna or Ram or Jesus or Allah.

That which we are invoking, and we start to realize that more and more within ourselves, we actually also become more and more astounded by the privilege and the honor it is to be able to even invoke God or pray to God. And sometimes I feel like a complete duet in not even... not waiting... it's like the highest is if God gives me a tiny place at His feet, that itself is beyond any expectation. Other times I can see that even God takes birth within myself. So basically, you become insane pretty fast. Somebody tell me, what is your system? What is my system? Then actually, still go to like somebody asked me in the village, 'What do you share?' So I naturally still say Advaita. It's coming here to see that I feel a more genuine answer at the moment is to... I just share my love for God. If you are being, then you are you. Yes and no, and both. The most useless servant of God and the birthplace of God at the same time.

The fact that God is important in the presence already. So even if that means that you spend your whole day in bed and you have one moment of being in God's presence and then you go back to sleep, that day would be more worthwhile than spending the entire day doing a lot of fantastic things in the world but not living in God's presence at all. Sometimes, of course, you wake up and you feel that you are already so naturally in God's light, you're not in the influences of any thought. But many of you report that early in the morning is when the mind tries to attack the most, try to grab you, because he's also attempting to do the reverse of what I'm saying. He can have you in the beginning of the day itself and give you that momentum, that mind momentum, for the whole thing.

So if you follow something simple like that: just don't leave your bed until the God's light is apparent to you, and then stay in that. And when you go to the mind and you notice you went to the mind, yes, gently return back. No analysis, no postmortem, no guilt, no unworthiness. Yeah, sleep in God's presence, in God's light, till naturally even that gets dissolved to pure awareness itself. Deep sleep to Him. When you ask, 'Is God here now?' I'm gonna ask this question and I can use all my mind's power to say no, but I can't say no. Yes, any moment, irrespective of what, this mind has no power to say no. God is here. Then what else is better? Exactly.