Live in That Part of Yourself Where You’re Like an Innocent Child, Everything Is Unknown - 19 June

But I feel a higher exercise of faith is when we cannot testify to any of this and still in our faith we can be with Him, turn towards Him. That takes a lot of trust. It takes a lot of faith to offer up all of ourselves, every layer of our existence, to offer that to Him without even first being able to testify to His reality. It is a pure leap of faith. So you must take that leap of faith. But as long as we take ourselves to be this objective entity, this body-mind, we are proud about something in our story, then all of this seems far-fetched. Or the mind will create a mental version of all of this and imagination about all of this, and it'll feel like we are on this sort of progressive path. It is a progressive path in a sense, but the steps are not perceivable. It's a deepening. It's a deepening of love, but we can't really say from where to where we've come and how much is there to go. You all getting a sense of what I'm saying? Sense from your own experience, from your own inside, you can see this, this Maya at work. Maya at work always compelling you to turn towards the world, always compelling you to turn towards making your story, adding something to your narrative. That seems to be the most important exercise for us. But to let go of these thought patterns, to not believe them and to just remain empty of the me and surrender to God—head empty and heartful is what is needed.

So is this moment about the me or about God? Me or God? Me or God? Or me or empty? If you're empty, then naturally you will gravitate towards God. As long as you at least started to see this push and pull, you're getting a sense of what I'm saying. Can you see it? Every moment you can see that. That's it. So that this is the lifelong project. Yeah, it gets easier, but you can never be conclusive about it. It's like nobody can say, "I have left Maya forever." That is usually the start of trouble. Only God is Maya-rahit, free from Maya. So when the sages tell us to be vigilant, this is what they're talking about. Don't get involved in the story. Don't get involved in anything Maya is offering. Offer it all up to God's presence, whether you feel it is tangible, palpable or not. To simplify that in a way: suppose you were to look at a table in your house. Suppose you were to look at a table in your house and you were completely without money, you were completely broke and no money, but you wanted to make that table an altar for God. But you cannot afford any of the tools that we use as reminders of God, whether they are pictures, whether they are even quotes or sayings from scripture—nothing. But in your heart you feel like God is there and you're offering yourself, you're bowing down, keeping your head at the table, bowing down. And people may look at you and say, "What are you doing? This table is empty." Do you feel that God would not get your prayer because the table is empty? So our job is to turn that in that way inwards, not be concerned about what is the experience that we are having.

That means faith, isn't it? And what is to turn inwards? With what? With what instrument am I saying that we must spend our entire life eyes closed? And maybe if we can, but no, not really saying that, you see. What is this turn inwards? You have the sense already, isn't it? It's beyond words. It's like a turning in, but it's not necessarily just with the attention. It's like the ability to focus our intuitive abilities, you see, to turn towards our intuitive light. When you are in love, does it mean that your eyes are always closed so you can—that's when you notice the love? You just know it. And I'm talking about that love which is beyond just being a feeling. You can experience a feeling as a phenomena, but there's a deeper sense of love which is like a still, still waters. Sometimes they overflow as feeling. In the same way, this deeper still place within yourself where you can stay by not putting your focus on the false, by not being involved in the false. You can't have it—this is one thing—you can't have it both ways. The lane is narrow. And the focus on me, me, me—then even if we say that this me is for God, but the emphasis is always on the me, then we will keep missing the main point, which is to make God the central focus.

And I want to tell you all that there is no room for despair, for despondency. You have to treat yourself as a beginner every moment. It doesn't matter what has happened in the past. Just now. Now. Just now. Go for it. So this inward turning and remaining as much as we can is what I've been calling to construct or build the temple in your heart, to focus on the heart altar within. Who lives over there? Does it still sound fantastical when I ask this question and you know where the answer is going? Who lives over there for all of us? His presence is not in question. Presence is not in question. Nobody can live without the Atma. It's not His presence which is in question. So He is there. Whether by His grace He reveals Himself in that way is all up to His grace. But for thousands and thousands of years, sages have found that when they detached from the world and the narratives of the me, that is when they found that the revelation happened. But can somebody give you a template, a rule book saying, "Do this 5,000 times and guaranteed"? So the revelation of the Atma within, the revelation of the Holy Spirit, is not something that we can take to be an outcome of a mechanical process, a scientific experiment—none of these things. It's beyond this world. But the ingredients which seem to have worked for our brothers and sisters in the past, those ingredients we mention in Satsang, and those which seem to be so, so clear arising from the heart, those we mention in Satsang so that we set the table well for God's presence. See? But remember one thing, that our job doesn't...

The revelation of the Holy Spirit is not something that we can take to be an outcome of a mechanical process, a scientific experiment—none of these things. It's beyond this world. But the ingredients which seem to have worked for our brothers and sisters in the past, those ingredients we mentioned, and those which seem to be so, so clear arising from the heart, those we mention in satsang so that we set the table well for God's presence, you see. But remember one thing: that our job doesn't change. Our job doesn't change. It may actually seem easier, you see. So, our job is to always turn inwards.

The world is full of examples of sages or people who came to this discovery and then turned back into Maya. The great supervillains in our history like Raavan are probably testament to that. So, it is not useful for getting credit, for the world to respect you, for you to get disciples, or for any worldly purpose, you see. But it is useful for your inner journey to deepen. And if you try to use it in that way—that which is in the sanctum sanctorum of our heart—if you try to use that presence for worldly benefit, it's the silliest possible thing. What's a good metaphor for it? It's like saying that I've got some nice darad paa and now the character that I'm watching in the TV screen should feel happy. You'll get there; you just give it a minute.

So, it's like that. We don't expect Maya to give us benefits if we are coming to a reality which is beyond Maya. Because the one that is coming to this presence, coming to this insight, coming to the truth of who they are—does that one have a name? Does it have a form? Can anyone say, 'Oh, Ananta did it, he made it,' or 'This one did it' or 'That one did it'? Maybe just conversationally, but it's not possible for any 'Ananta' to do it. The one that turns inwards is the one that is sitting in the heart. Don't try to understand this. And that one is not the name for your body-mind, not the form of your body-mind.

The wagging of the tail or the rattling of the rattlesnake's tail—it caused itself a lot of suffering. Now the rattlesnake itself is eating its own tail. So don't expect the—I'm stretching the metaphor too far as always—but don't expect the shadow of the snake to benefit out of that. You have a sense... where these metaphors go, I didn't get the snake at all. That's not bad, actually; even till then is good. Everyone else is wondering. He said smooth sailing till then. You have a sense, some of you have a sense of what I'm saying about this.

So, what I said was that it's nothing for the person, the imagined one, to take credit about. So, this 'I Am,' the God's presence itself, God's being itself, being the entirety of the snake, then the tail of the rattlesnake being the 'I am something' identification, caused suffering, or the play of suffering to happen. And now coming to satsang, turning inwards, it is like the snake or the 'I Am' itself which is dissolving the somethingness into itself. And in the dissolution of that 'I am something' into the I-amness itself, it seems like this process of spirituality is deepening.

Now, the shadow of the snake is this body-mind identity, the persona that we take ourselves to be. And we must not expect any benefit to happen to the shadow because of that process which is unfolding. And that is why many of us get trapped. 'So, what is it? Is it happening for me? Is it not happening for me?' These are very compelling things because every day in satsang, if you're hearing that God's presence is there and you just feel like, 'Oh, but I'm not finding it,' it can sound disappointing personally. But we must not fall into that kind of despair and traps of the mind. Now the metaphor makes more sense.

Yeah, so Father, it just feels like what you're saying is that in the being, there's the light and the intelligence and God, the Divinity. And then there's the form of the body, and the mistake was for the thought arising in the being that 'I am the body.' So, you know, what you're basically doing is we're sort of saying, okay, now that thought also came from somewhere and actually the thought content of the thought itself was emptiness, and it's just a thought and believed in. So then try to just let it go, and then you're just left... the tail is... you broke the connection, you severed the connection between the body and the somethingness, like the rattling tail of the rattlesnake is just left alone.

So now, either we leave it alone—so if it's not what we perceive, then that doesn't bother us—so that is to remain open and empty. So we just let it go. Or we inquire into that somethingness, like, 'Is there something? Who is this I?' So the something dissolves. Or that something is offered up completely. What does the something survive on? On the idea of individual will, on the idea of individual separate existence. So to sacrifice its will, to sacrifice all that it thinks it has, to surrender that to God is also another way of freeing ourselves from the something. 'I Am' freeing itself from the idea of 'I am something.' Whichever way we do it, it's all pathways to God. All pathways to 'I Am' empty of the operation of the somethingness.

So what the mind will try to get you to do is to make even this process about the something. Notice that. Then it becomes about my journey, my recognition, my realization, my progress. And then what happens? If this 'my' is there, then 'other' will also be. And there's nothing in the world where, if you have a progress chart for yourself, you won't have so many other people who are doing better than you. Nothing in the world. When it comes to anything, you will always find that there are people who are seemingly doing better than us, you see. And we will, of course, not focus on the so many who are worse off than us. We'll always find a way to feel jealous. We'll find a way to make ourselves antagonistic to our brothers and sisters. So if you make it 'my, my, my journey, my progress, my spirituality, my God,' then you'll always feel like, 'Oh, but I'm not doing as well as the other.' Or you can be proud also, actually: 'I'm doing the best.' So don't get caught up in these things.

Yes, even thoughts are all God's thoughts. Everything is God. Everything is from God. And even the process of deluding ourselves in this way is God's, and the process of returning from the delusion is God's. But the movie is obviously more fun if He has also injected us with this pretense of will. The feeling of separation also comes with the feeling of individual desire, duality, doership. For so many years we've talked about the 3D ego: desire, duality, and doership. So as it is playing this game, it has also given for itself these tools to make the game seem more compelling.

As long as we identify ourselves as objects within this game, the knowledge that all of it is God's doesn't help us. Maybe it is like mildly reassuring somewhere, but actually in our moment-to-moment day-to-day life, it doesn't help us. It only becomes a sort of conceptual spirituality where we can use that to hide from God or use that to hide from the work that we have to do for inquiry and surrender, hide from the seeming difficulties in the spiritual path.

So another way to look at this is that we are all Krishna. All of us are Krishna. But does any of us right now feel like they can pick up Govardhan? So till we can do that, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Like Ma said—somebody asked her, 'So how is it that all these sages like Durvasa and all these people also got so angry, and they were supposed to be great sages that they, you know, with their sharp curses they could turn something into ashes?' So she said that they also had the power to bring them back to life, you see. So till you don't have that power, you don't have the right to get angry. Because if we use that conceptual spirituality for a seeming very high understanding, it doesn't help us when the rubber hits the road.

Because all these concepts are the first to leave us when life is squeezing our throat. Then all conceptual knowledge of oneness with God is the first to go, isn't it? Otherwise, you won't feel like it is squeezing your throat in the first place. So that which we understand or we heard in satsang, that has to become a lived experience or moment-to-moment reality. There's a difference between conceptually knowing that God is here and truly offering ourselves up fully more and more, so that one day it becomes a true insight, a true lived experience. Otherwise, satsang would be very short: 'God is in your heart, He's everywhere, just know this, bye-bye.'

That process of decoupling from that force field of Maya, to stay fully committed and to fall in love more and more with Him in our heart, to surrender ourselves more and more to Him, to inquire deeper and deeper into the nature of our reality—that is what is important. So the day you start to realize that you're not to value what you think you understand—you're not to value that which you think you understand, but only that which is clear for you in your heart and not in your understanding—that will be the day where you embark on a spiritual project in earnest. Because our head is too tiny, it's too primitive, and it is too linear, you see. Everything has to be a straight line for it to fit in a head. A plus B has to be A plus B; it can't be A plus C. Like the fifth cannot fit into our head.

So as you come to satsang, even if you spent the whole day just being mental about some things, about your story, about whatever narratives are playing out, just as you come to satsang, just breathe it all out. Just come to like a free space. Then the meeting can be a lot more alive. Swami said something very beautiful. He said God is the only thing you can get—of course, the term 'thing' is used loosely—but the only thing you can get by turning towards. It's a beautiful thing to say. Can I quench my thirst just by turning towards the water? Can I acquire some worldly possession just by turning towards it? I also have to act on it, I have to plan for it, I have to do. You just turn towards God and He's yours.

Of course, He didn't tell us for how long you have to turn to it, and nobody can, because that's why Grace comes in. Actually, in the world also, nothing is determined that way. You'll say, 'Okay, I got lucky or unlucky with things.' But here it is a question purely of Grace. But our job is to turn, and our faith tells us that if we turn, He knows that I'm turning. It is very important. Me and you, mine and yours—all this we have to leave from our life as much as we can. Be empty of these stories. Because if your heart temple is clouded with all these things, then the revelation may get clouded as well. If you want to do 'me and others,' say: 'All good to the other, all affliction to me.' Even just this—I know I'm saying 'just this,' it may seem very big—but this itself will help you to create such a deep spirituality. Because spirituality and pride, selfishness—all these things can't be together.

I have two things to share. Yeah, but ask me... you know me well enough to ask one at a time. Father, what you just said, it's easy to say yes. In fact, this is the second part because I was just going to ask you, because I've seen that when I pray for the other or when I'm offering something to the other, I'm most... you know, I'm just... presence is clear, or you know, I just... when I pray for somebody else, Father, it just comes to life.

Okay, so the first part first, so to say. So can we say it every day? Let's say it every day, huh? So when we say it every day—I don't know if it seems easy to all of you—but start by saying it every day. Even if it is lip service, then you're saying it, it will deepen. Because many times the mind just discards the thing by saying that, 'Oh, but that's easier said than done.' Okay, so start, huh? Start. Start with easy, you see. But it doesn't let us start by saying, 'Oh, I can say it, but you know, who can really mean these things, right?' So let's start easy. Every day when you pray in the morning for God's presence, pray like this, even if it's...

It seems easy to all of you, but start by saying it every day. Even if it is lip service, then you're saying it, it will deepen. Because many times the mind just discards the thing by saying that, 'Oh, but that's easier said than done.' Okay, so start. Start, start with easy, you see? But it doesn't let us start by saying, 'Oh, I can say it, but you know, who can really mean these things, right?' So let's start easy. Every day when you pray in the morning for God's presence, pray like this, even if it's just mechanical.

Even this the anger thing that you asked us to check? Which one? The anger thing that you asked us to check. When I get... I feel like I set myself up for failure every day because something or the other just irritates me. A delivery person will call and that'll irritate me, just every day.

But as long as you're working on it. Are you working on it, or has the mind compartmentalized it and said, 'Impossible, this can't be done'?

Working on it. I pray like... but like when you get irritated, notice yourself.

Yeah, and say, 'This is that irritation which Father is telling me about in satsang.' Just like that, we notice. And then it becomes... every time you notice like that, it becomes distant from you, more and more distant, you see? And that's how I'm working on it, and I feel like I'm making tiny progress.

We just make like tiny, tiny, many steps, you see, every day. That's all we can do. But be very careful of this voice which says, 'Oh, easier said than done.' Okay, start. See, I was going to ask you something more with this, you know, a little while earlier before you said this. This really got my attention. Okay, the second part. Firstly, that is slippery territory. Slippery territory in the sense that with full integrity and sincerity, pray for it for your brother and sister. Full this thing. Because otherwise, if you conclude too much that 'that is when it helps me,' then very quickly it will become a tactic to help yourself in the guise of praying for another.

So that famous example of what you resist persists, you see? So then, 'I'm not going to resist it, you see, then it won't persist, it'll die,' you see? But if the intention is for it to die, then it won't happen like that, you see? Because in that non-resistance, that resistance is embedded—that you're waiting for it to die. That's why these tactics don't work like that. See what I'm saying? So you may notice it, like many say that if you resist the ego too much, it persists, you see? So, 'What I'm going to do is I'm not going to resist it and then it'll die,' you see? Or, 'I'm going to love my ego and it'll die,' you see? So then we fake this love because actually, is it love if you're waiting for something to die? If you're waiting for that to die, then you're actually more than hate. But in the... we try to put on these guises and we feel like our ego itself won't recognize these guises. It is itself playing that game, like 'I'm going to love my ego to death,' you see? It doesn't happen like that.

And this sort of New Age spirituality is full of tactics like this which just don't work. So never consciously include the second part, that 'the only way that I will be helped is if I help another or pray for,' because then it'll become just a way to help yourself. Just with integrity, mean it with as much integrity as you can.

Must, but could I mean it faster than I know?

I know in the beginning it starts like that. In the beginning it starts with good intention and all of that, but soon the mind tricks us into saying, 'Ah, now if really you're going through this pain, so what you have to do is you have to pray for another, then your pain will go away,' you see? So then it becomes about me again. So that's why I'm just saying let it happen organically, but you don't conclude that that's what happens. You're getting a sense of what...

It's almost feeling very selfish in the guise of... in the guise of offering something.

Then it can become like that, no? It can become convoluted if you leave it to the mind for some time. That it starts with pure intention can easily become into some convoluted tactic to help our... I'll look at it this way. Did you get new specs as well? Okay. So look at it this way, that no matter what you may say about smoking, you know that at least whatever it may be doing, it's not helping your lungs, you see? So whether to quit helps your lungs, whether to, you know, drink a certain type of other water helps your lungs, all that stuff is unimportant. You know that smoking is not helping your lungs, see? So in the same way, to do this 'me and you' and 'me and you' and 'me and you' and to be selfish about life does not help your spiritual journey. It does not help the revelation of God in your heart. Just simple like that.

Before, I just want to say, before you said this, it was actually making it so holy, you know? It was making it into a thing that I must pray more and more for the other and you know, it's ultimately again helping, you know, me. And soon then the intention becomes to help me, help me, which is fine. Then just pray for yourself with just that... round and round is to be careful.

So tricky, Father. You say when we feel God's presence in our heart to contemplate deeper to no separation. Is it possible to please guide us in this contemplation? Is it possible?

No. Is it possible? No. Because when we get there, no, then all words... actually, what words can help us? It's just... I don't have any word like that. I just... I can just point you to that point and all that inner work, inner working has to happen in the discipleship, in the quiet discipleship of the Atma within. The quiet discipleship means that there comes a point where the teaching and the learning will happen wordlessly, just remaining in the presence of the teacher within. Because words can at best point to that. But once you come to the presence, how to deepen in the contemplation of Oneness? Can't really... words cannot penetrate such a place.

So you keep saying that 99.9% of satsang is wordless. The way... the job of the outer seeming teacher is just to deliver you to the Atma within, to the Satguru presence within. I'm just a courier, dzo, try to pluck you from Maya and deliver to Atma. And I do a terrible job of it. It's fully imperative in our life to use every power that we have to let go of this 'me, me, me' story, this attack and defense and all this. It may seem like you're making some headway in the world, you're making our point known there, being proved right and all of these things, but what is it in the eyes of God? It's only because we are taking the unreal to be real and the real to be unreal. So we can keep being involved in all this for the next 50 years also, and then what will happen? Every moment wasted is a precious opportunity wasted.

Don't... I don't even need to know how to do the sadhana better? That also I don't need?

Is... are you having any trouble in your turning inwards, knowing how to do it better? In the sense that, are you feeling like you're not able to turn inwards or stay like that?

I feel at some point the 'me' needs to be taken care of and I don't know if I don't do it, how...

That's not about your sadhana better. That was a bait and switch. Bait and switch. So he... 'Do I need to know how to make my sadhana better?' So then I said, 'Huh?' The 'huh' was the bait. And then I said, 'But are you having any trouble in your sadhana, which is to turn inwards and to remain like that?' He said, 'No, I just want to know about who will take care of this me if I don't take care of it.' So that was the switch. That was not the original question about sadhana. Or about taking care of the me. 'Will I not be able to do my sadhana better if I know how the me gets taken care of?' No. What to do with that concern about the me? We just keep ignoring it.

Yeah, body needs food. Even that, it's been coming on, it's coming. It's about this only. No food is there. Last night, last... so I was doing the ads and then that pool of Maya was there, you know? 'It's getting late, restaurants are closing, you need food, nobody,' blah blah blah. And then there's the other side about having faith in God and He'll take care. And this restaurant... it keeps going back and forth, that concern. And I'm like, so if I just sit down, keep doing the areas, then how will the food come? Who will bring it?

Has it not come so far?

No, in the end what happened was I ended up in one rush, I ordered and it did come. But was that a bad way of doing so? Was that to not have faith? So like my family is traveling now, I may have to order food.

But if you allow it to unfold, you see? There's a difference between using the notion of unfolding as an excuse for the mind and to actually see. And if you start living like this, you will see that it's quite absurdly miraculous how things work, you see? In the sense that if you just live on that, 'You move me, You guide me,' and either He moves you like that, Swiggy or Zomato, or it just comes. What is needed comes.

How... how absurd does that sound?

Does the excuse I give myself to... in the sense that when I say that He just moves you like that. So suppose that I said, 'Okay, He doesn't even move you like that, it just comes.' How absurd does that sound?

Very absurd.

So then start like that, where you say that, 'Let's allow Him to move me or guide me to when to order the food or what has to be ordered.' See, then as you deepen more and more and more, you will see.

That was that Him moving me? That's my question. Was that Him moving?

That only you can tell, because He could be moving you or you could have gotten into some mental like fear, fear or some just mental rushing in. Like I've asked you this many times, I know, but you say the presence... like how can you tell when He's moving? And you said the presence will be apparent. And then presence is there and then...

Not necessary that... you just know that it's not rushed, it's not grasping, it's not... it's like the presence of peace and love is unmoved in that process, you see? It doesn't seem like you are the doer of that action. All these... like right now your head is moving, but it does not seem like you're doing it now. Post-like... like difference between me doing and presence doing, it's not clear.

And I don't need to know that. Just keep it very simple. Keep your forehead relaxed. Don't worry about anything. Have I shared with all of you, forehead relax? Maybe not the new one. Yes. Don't make any lines on your head. That's all. Simplest pointing. Not like that. It may seem like as an instruction, it may seem very simple. You just observe yourself, you quickly start making that orange juice in your head. I used to take this metaphor, some of you will remember that every thought is like an orange. You have to just let it go, don't squeeze it in your head. Notice now, notice the squeezing. We start... notice that involvement, the giving belief, that is to get involved in Maya. The rest is being taken care of, see? Because otherwise you will make that a different position saying, 'I'm not going to do it, it has to happen,' or 'I am going to do it because it won't happen,' you see? Both these are like that. Head empty, heart full. Everybody's instantly looking a lot more relaxed. You start satsang like this, no making mental orange juice. See, Anubhav's face has only changed, he just chilled out.

I mean, two months back I remember that... I mean, I skipped satsang for a week. So then I made some rules that I will not break it, like doing ads in the morning first, then coming to satsang. I made a note, a lot of this and this and that. But now two weeks back my work spiked. First week it was overwhelming, then I just told to God, 'Okay, now I'm going to go, You have to catch me.' And that day somehow... going to go away, going to go far from... yeah. And that day somehow He made things very simple and I did come to satsang. I remember that week when the work was on the peak, I did come to satsang. But then maybe I don't know what, I'm just still analyzing that, was it some pride or I don't know what. Somehow the week after that it was totally out of control. I mean, I didn't feel like doing ads in the morning, morning at 6:00.

I told to God, 'Okay, now I'm going to go; You have to catch me.' And that day, somehow, I was going to go away, going to go far from... yeah. And that day, somehow, He made things very simple and I did come to satsang. I remember that week when the work was on the peak, I did come to satsang. But then, maybe, I don't know what—I'm just still analyzing—was it some pride or I don't know what? Somehow, the week after that, it was totally out of control. I mean, I didn't feel like doing anything in the morning. At 6:30 I get up, start work; it was just like that.

So it happens sometimes. That ebb and flow is there sometimes, but you start getting a sense if you're going too far into Maya. You start getting a sense. But it's not... even here, the ebb and flow happens like that. Sometimes it's like full fire, sometimes just more relaxed, and it's okay. Mostly you can trust this. It is like working out: you have the workout, then you have recovery, then you have workout, then you have recovery. It's a bit like that also, because when we become too mental about our sadhana also, then we'll find ourselves burning out. That basic check is good. If you started checking on yourself in this way, 'I don't feel like...' you still have the check, but I don't feel like you'll run very far. We really run when we don't realize this thing. Rather, turning away from God seems organic then; we don't feel like it.

I said keep your forehead relaxed. They have this injection. A child said to me this morning—one of the first few messages I opened—this child said, he said, 'I swear sometimes I hate you, Father.' I said, 'Okay, good morning.' So then, what is that that happened? What was it about? He was feeling conflicted. Conflicted about—to make it simple—just conflicted about like the ways of the mind or the ways of the heart that he gets to hear in satsang that seems very squeezing at times. Like, nothing in the world makes sense. Is it really helping? What is he even saying? So it can happen that way.

So we said, 'But how do I really know that I can trust you? I can believe you? And how do I know which is my mind and which is my heart?' So I said to him that you're clearly conflicted. On one hand you're saying 'I hate you,' on the other hand you're also writing to me for help without even saying 'help me,' you see? So which is that part which is writing to me in spite of the apparent hate? See, what is that one saying? So trust that one that brings you to satsang. Trust that one which makes you turn to God. It doesn't have to be this satsang. You can hate me, that's okay. As long as you turn to God, it's okay.

So find that within yourself which longs to go deeper in His love, longs to go deeper in His presence. That which your mind cannot explain, try to live over there in the unknown. Otherwise, you spend your whole life in the known; it is going to be a wasted life. Live in that part of yourself where you're like an innocent child; everything is unknown. Otherwise, we'll spend our whole life... you know the story of the elephant and the six blindfolded men or blind men? Everybody will say... one will say it's a pillar, one will say it's a rope, one will say this happened, one will say that happened. Nothing really happened. You just waste your time determining all of this, trying to label truth into things which cannot be determined, and you'll miss out on a completely different life which you could have had. Wasted opportunity of this life.

If you really understood just that one simple story of the elephant and six blindfolded men, then that will be the end to most conflict, most arguments in the world. Because who can really determine the nature of something? Only one who has the full information, who can see the full elephant. Only from your heart do you really want to spend your life saying it was a rope, another one saying it's a pillar, another one saying it's a water pipe? You really want to spend your whole life in that argument to try to determine the nature of what is, what is happening, what's happening, what happened? Through that very limited lens, it will keep you stuck in this. Dive into the unknown. Your mind is very scared of that. Everything else is just a facade, just tactics to avoid you from diving deep within. You don't know what to do? Relax.

There was a question on how does reading the Ramacharitmanas help as the Self or to remain in God? Simple answer is because one of the greatest sages told us that it does, you see? And he said that anyone who reads the scripture, tries to read the scripture, their life will be blessed with auspiciousness, with all that is mangal, all that is auspicious. So that is the simplest way: that a great sage like Tulsidas Ji would not be lying to us, and to have faith in that is good. But just notice for yourself as you stay with this holy book, what happens internally, inwardly? Okay, Shiv wants to come up. Let's go to Shiv.

Hello. I don't hear you. Yeah, you hear me now? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Hello, hello. Long time.

Well, yeah, it's too much. Well, I see you, but you have not come up for a long time.

Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to come up because for the next few weeks I will be working, so I don't know if I will be able to. And so, yes, I just wanted to come and see what... because I was thinking, 'Oh, I should say hello, I should say this and that.' But I just wanted to come and say, I don't know what, that's the... I love you so much, Father.

And love you too.

And yes, and I've been praying and all this. Yes, the prayer... to pray and to have faith somehow has become, I don't know, a way to... even in the darkest moments, in the doubt moments, to have faith has become so beautiful somehow. So even though maybe, as you were saying today, that though maybe no big effects or no big revelations are there, but the faith and the feeling that God is here always is somehow giving so much strength.

Strength, yeah. It's very good, very good.

And the other day Laria told me we should go to Bangalore in January.

Oh yes, yes, she told me. So I trust that very, very much. It was very nice to meet her parents also. And so does this mean that you both have your passports now?

She has her passport, yeah. Oh yes, that's good. Yes, yes, good.

But I'm very happy to hear your report that it doesn't have to be big revelations, big fireworks. But if you can say that in the moments of lack of faith, of doubt, of this darkness that Maya surrounds us with, if you're taking God to be more real, having more faith in His presence now than before, that is very beautiful. It's very important.

Yes, that has been my experience in the last year somehow. Very, very. And I pray to be able to come and just sit with you and the family there.

Yeah, always welcome, always. And love you, love you, love you so much. And when you're away, remember to pray.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you, thank you so much.

Very good, very good. You are away for how many weeks, you said?

No, well, I will be... I will work here nearby the house, but I will be working in the hours of satsang. So from Monday to Friday. Yeah, so I will work with the children's art laboratories.

Yes, very nice. Yes, yes, it's very nice. Yes, very good. All my love, all my blessings to you for your work, and to Laria, family, everyone. Thank you for coming.