Video 10

Vedic Christianity, Class 10 · Practice of the Presence of God · Swami Chidbrahmananda

so so so so so so so so so hmm so so so so so so [Music] so oh mother give me strength to love truly with that just offers everything not holding back anything it's all about letting go and finding you quietly waiting in the heart that has nothing nothing but you [Music] oh mother may i have that simplicity [Music] to surrender everything that i call mine the past my present the future it's all about letting go and finding you quietly waiting in the heart that has nothing nothing but you through all the tears and that pain through the joy and laughing through our birth and our growth ageing and [Music] it is who has always been here quietly waiting [Music] is yourself this is all i'll ever need nothing more nothing else it's all about letting go and finding you quietly waiting in the heart that has nothing nothing but you it's all about letting go and finding you quietly waiting in the heart that has nothing nothing but you know [Music] looking for the piano pedal well good evening everyone so welcome to our discussion playfully called vedic christianity which is really just learning about the divine from all different forms of his or her lovers of god we're looking at brother lawrence and the practice of the presence of god and uh just trying to learn from a very simple perspective from someone who wasn't interested in the deep philosophies didn't think that he could understand it didn't think that he could manage the difficult austerities of a an austere you know approach to god but someone who just decided to never forget for a moment that love of god the presence of god and there's some delightful things that that come to our awareness in a practice like this because in the end the sages tell us that god and you are one and that happens that that that knowledge comes as the ego gets worn down as that sense of separateness breaks and you find that this pure love this inspiring unconditioned unlimited intelligence and existence that you've walled off and put outside of yourself and that you've now come to seek and to try and find that this this imagined wall of eye this imagined wall of separateness uh begins to break itself down and you begin to realize that this divine will all along has been your own will you come to realize that this this path of the divine has always been your deepest desire there's a beautiful poem i should have brought it uh by hafiz where he utters three times in a row in there that every desire of your body is holy and he says it three times i remember when i first read that poem i was quite shocked by such a notion in a spiritual scripture i was like how is that possible that i've been trying to control these desires all my life and here you are telling me that all of them are holy and really that's one of the truths that gets betrayed to us when the ego begins to disappear and we realize that the essence of our desire has always been for that unity in god that we have thought about finding it in lovers and pleasures and tastes and smells and places and ideas and accomplishments but all along it was our very own nature it was who we are and everything that we vainly tried to grab in order to find this divinity was really just our self clawing to find a love that was strong enough to be secure a love that would outlast the body that would not be temporary wouldn't be within time because this is our knowledge within these are all the things that become apparent the way that swami tatwa mayananda said it you know so that that which is obvious can become apparent to you this presence of god this this oneness this unity your own immortality the truth of the fact to be experienced and understood as a fundamental that you indeed have never been born and that you indeed will never die so we looked at him last week he closed by saying i found myself changed all at once after 15 years of practice so don't don't think oh tonight well maybe actually it's a manner of grace so if somehow somehow that happens for you tonight god bless you let me know immediately and you can do the class from here on in that that touch of grace where you find yourself changed all at once and my soul which until that time was in trouble felt a profound inward piece as if she were in her center and place of rest so this was the this was that moment after 15 years of practicing this idea of never for one second and when he says never he's not talking about like every day he means from one second to the next he never took the center of his mind to the core of his mind off of the presence of the beloved the presence of the divine and that helps that that doing that turns everything around you into a very different experience and in time everything begins to conspire for your success instead of as an ego self where everything seems to be conspiring to bring you down or to cause you pain or to you know grab out of your fingers everything that you've thought that you've accomplished or that you've had so he starts tonight with these words ever since that time i walked before god simply in faith with humility and with love and i apply myself diligently to do nothing and to think nothing which may displease him now what this works out for in a vidantic sense is to do nothing or to think nothing that's contrary to your nature that's contrary to that image of god which is you that pure self before it goes through this jumble of a mind that you've concocted in the days of your life before it manifests through this melting aging form of a body that has genders and ailments and deformities and weirdness and pains and all of all of the things that come with what we have to get up and dress every morning to approach the life so he has come to this point of with humility understanding that this idea of himself this idea this ego sense to know that it's false that it's built on wrong ideas completely it's built on senses that weren't there before you were born aren't going to be there when you die and have changed every minute of your life instead of building an identity on something that stands still about as long as a a nervous chihuahua you know it's like instead of building your identity on that go deeper go to the source go to that part of you which is watching that part of you which looks at your thoughts listens to your ear that part of you which sees your eyes and is borrowing all of this apparatus to conjure the mistake of thinking that you're in it that somehow you are within all of this and disguising from your inner eye the truth that all of this is in you so ever since that time i walk before god simply not a complex thing not a matter of philosophy not a matter of memorizing or knowing or reiterating or being able to answer any questions that are asked not like that just in faith god is the only reality like what sri ramakrishna says god alone is real all else is false all else is a projected idea of reality you've taken this idea of ego that's why ramakrishna says that if you go looking for your ego where is this sense of eye coming from inside you know now ramakrishna when we do it it's a very messy affair because we can't hardly hold one thought in our mind at a time we can't focus and concentrate to actually hold on to something and to draw a conclusion from it and then casually set it aside and grab the next thing and study it until we learn its lesson and then set it aside our flitting minds you know as we attempt to go in and find each other it's like we're looking at the butterflies of thought and you know all the smells and oh yeah oh yeah this oh yeah my oh god my my my ego where is my ego you know we don't we don't have the tools in the beginning to do what ramakrishna did where he was able to actually go in and grab these ideas and see what their substance was and he said it was like peeling an onion and when he got to the center it was just like an onion there was nothing there it's all a matter of illusions so you've built your idea of self on something that doesn't exist you've put yourself on a foundation that's unreal it's just a collection a conjuring of of experiences of likes and dislikes of uh of you know aversions and attractions that's how you define yourself so he says i applied myself diligently to do nothing and to think nothing which may displease him i hope that when i have done what i can he will do with me what he pleases so that's that absolute surrender surrender to what surrender to this third party you know victory monger in the sky who's trying to do it all his way not at all it's that unifying of wills when you come to realize that this mongering presence of greatness outside of yourself that you've imagined is really the sweet source of love for everything you've ever touched or enjoyed or loved in your life and that that this surrendering to the will of the divine is a giving up to love giving up to intelligence becoming what you have always known yourself to be but have been utterly frustrated in being able to express because you put yourself in the seat of the doer not understanding that these things come through surrender because they're what you are they're not what you do they're not what you think they're not what you imagine this is you it's fundamental and basic you are pure love and your deepest frustration is in life is not being able to express it because of a mind that has moods and and likes and dislikes and a body that gets tired and gets sick and runs out of energy and you know gets old and so that trying to manifest this infinite unconditioned immortal self trying to paint it in a finite world this imagined experience this dreamlike reality that takor says is unreal in the sense that what you've imagined it to be isn't true but is very real in the fact that it's drawn on the mind it's a reflection of the divinity within you a reflection of god on your mind the mirror of the mind reflecting god and you the watcher having all attribute or no attributes depending on how you want to look at it have forgotten that identity and identified with the image in the mirror because this is a very very fancy mirror that has five components that it reflects that taste touch hearing smelling seeing did i miss one anyway those five senses so it's like a it's like an uh what do they call that ar it's the ultimate ar experience virtual reality your experience of your own mind is the ultimate virtual reality so he says as for what passes in me at present i i can't express it i have no pain or difficulty about my state because i have no will but that of god and i endeavor to accomplish in all things and to which i am so resigned that i would not take up a straw from the ground against his order or from any other motive than purely that of love to him so it's that surrendering of all other motives that you have that are driven by your hungers and your thirsts your longings for comfort and beauty and all of these things that you let go of all of that and desire nothing but the pure manifestation of that inner love that you've let go of everything else and so you spend your day in a silent mind not a mind that's flickering and flitting from thing to thing a mind that's secure in that unchanging self and is simply aware of the world and understands that all of it is divine that all nothing can be taken from it you need nothing from it because it is your very own reflection it is you and you come into this world with nothing and you leave with nothing is that depressing not when you understand that all of it is within you that you can't take anything and so it's giving up that idea of i'm going to get something from life there's nothing that you can get from here nothing everything that you get has to be left behind and you know that it's not fulfilling anyway it lasts for 15 minutes it lasts for a single weekend and then it's gone it lasts for two weeks of vacation and then it's gone but everything goes everything always going and so in realizing this and in his surrender he makes the statement i have no pain i have no difficulty about my state it's not i'm i'm unconcerned the body does what it does i'm only watching it it isn't me the mind does what it does i'm only watching it it does not affect me i use it when i when it's useful it idles in quietness when it's not you know eckhart tolle makes a big point of that in his power of now this whole notion of your mind should not be making any noise when you're not using it it's like a hammer you know you don't want the hammer doing things on its own while you're not using it so your mind is your tool and when you understand that there is an impassable boundary between the self and the active mind you understand that in that silence you can get that sense of self you can return to that tranquility which is your own you don't get pulled out of that center and the problem with getting pulled out of that center into mind the reason that that spiritual life seems so difficult for us is that you can't find your way back you know when when you get caught up in your anger or caught up in your pursuit of greatness or or your need to apologize to everybody when you get over these things and you're left there you're standing outside of yourself and all you've got left is the noise of the mind you you don't know the silence of the self the tranquility the peace the contentment that's within you you can't find it why because it makes no noise it's the unchanging absolute the infinite stillness of perfection you know change implies imperfection will implies imperfection implies need implies dissatisfaction in that divine self in your internal self there is none of that there is no need for anything and so it's absolutely silent absolutely stable absolutely at peace so how do you find it when you've imagined that you've lost it and you're wandering through a noisy mind that's picking up all kinds of things through senses senses of which you don't know the source incidentally which you can't validate a source of your your sense of self becomes lost it becomes based on things that aren't always true they're only true in the in a moment in a passing flurry and so you wonder why am i insecure you wonder why am i always hungry why do i always need something else you know why can't i find the perfect partner why can't i get the perfect job how come i can imagine it but i can't have it this is the reason because it exists behind the mind behind the body where you were god you that divine spirit enters the world through this little thumb-sized hole in the heart where pure love comes in to be distributed by the mind and body as the localized will wants but because it has wants it suffers i have quit all forms of devotion now that's interesting to read about brother lawrence who's the very essence of devotion to god he says i've quit all forms of devotion and set prayers so he's not at this point now mind you there's 15 years before this so it's this isn't the place where we start we don't run out of here tonight thinking oh i can finally quit all of my practices and my prayers and all of this devotion it's not like that this is because he has reached that goal he has had that moment where he finds himself changed all at once where he found in himself no trouble but a profound inward peace as if he had found the center of his very self so he says i quit all forms of devotion and set prayers but those to which my state obliges me those things which come spontaneously through inspiration called manifesting it's not an act of will it arises and in your surrender it manifests it's done you know so you walk by somebody in a pure mind you always know what to do you never take a wrong step in a pure mind and a pure heart you're always perfectly correct in what you do and what you do is always beneficial to the world around you because that is your nature that is what it means to be created in the image of the beloved in the image of the divine i quit all forms of devotion and set prayers but those to which my state obliges me and i make it my business only to persevere in his holy presence wherein i keep myself by a simple attention and a general fond regard to god which i may call an actual presence of god or to speak better a habitual silent and secret conversation of the soul with its god which often causes me joy and rapture inwardly and sometimes also outwardly so great that i'm forced to use means to moderate them to prevent their appearance to others that's a nice problem to have i will trade any of my troubles to have that problem of having to disguise this inward joy because the sages said excuse me the sages say that your inward nature is that satchitananda you know that existence that being that quality of existence which is my favorite one i could camp the rest of the night on that one idea just your own existence and how profound that is how bottomless that is to think about how you will never ever even begin to touch the profundity of just what existence is what does it mean and this this ananda this love this bliss it's your nature if you can come out of the mind which is never content never stable because the ego underneath it doesn't exist you know that's why it's always clawing and collecting trying to always be better and greater stronger richer more secure taller more beautiful more handsome you know all of these things more talented more gifted the reason you have all of those needs and draws is because the ego that you're building your identity on isn't real so you always feel like you're falling you always feel like you're missing out like you don't have something and brother lawrence is saying after 15 years 15 years of practice trying to keep the thought of this love that's within to come to the understanding you know the earliest scriptures that we have today is the rig veda and one of the first ideas in the rig veda is one that is mirrored in all the world religions this idea that you are the temple of the divine and when you come to understand that that's not a metaphor that this body this mind does in fact house god that which you are seeking that which you are looking out here for exists within this temple and it's the perfect temple which means it has the most sacred environment that you've ever experienced if you've walked through the redwoods up north have you ever done that walking through a redwood forest is the most beautiful temple experience that you will ever have these giant columns going you know hundreds of feet into the air this padded ground with absolute silence no underbrush no noise and you walk there in beings that have been living for a thousand two thousand twenty five hundred years and you begin to wonder about their patience what is it like to be a living thing that has stood in one place for over a thousand years what is it that it has learned that it has seen as it had watched generations of hikers walk through and around it when it has watched countries come up around it and disappear watch cultures rise and fall what kind of being you know and when you walk through a redwood forest you can feel that but everything that you feel in that redwood forest you are providing from an un and unwilled knowledge of yourself that sense of sacredness isn't coming outwardly inward it's being reflected from inside on the mind by putting yourself in a condition where you're very close to the harmony of god to the divine when you're very close to seeing the environment around you as scripture itself as the words of the beloved when you come close to understanding that your life is this beautiful waltz with love with intelligence with existence and that you've created this piece of art with your name on it and lived this life of expressing your love as you understood it in everything that you chose during the day today you were using god to make those decisions what do i want do i want this or that that measuring is your soul looking for itself which one has more of me in it but it's all unconscious we think it's because it's the right color or it was a right smell or because i ran out of bananas and had to get some more you know we think it's all of these reasoned things that fall into time space and causation when those are not of your nature you are is-ness itself you are the perfection of being in this moment and to know that to know that firsthand not as an idea not as a thought but as the very foundation of what you are this is what he's talking about here this is what he's saying i keep myself by a simple attention and a general fond regard i love that that's so sweetly understated that he just has this sweetness about the presence that now he's become aware of within that soul that is-ness that solitude that inner peace that tranquility he's begun to see this and he keeps himself by his simple attention just you know at this point he used to have to pick his attention up and ah get back over here thudded on the desk you know think of god think of god come on come on do this do this in the beginning it's like that it's not a simple fond affection it's this massive wrestling with this serpent of a mind to try and bring it under control for two seconds to think about one thing for two seconds but after his quest of 15 years he's come now where he can just give it gentle little taps keep it in the center keep it keep it thinking of this divine love and he says he has he does this with the simple attention and a general fond regard for god which i may call an actual presence of god that which begins in the imagination because you don't have the you haven't touched it yet you haven't seen it yet you haven't quieted the mind you haven't let go of your desires enough to become aware so in the beginning it's imagination you know there's this imaginary friend called god that you carry around with you for to keep you safe and happy and you know and if you stay in that you know you deserve to be ridiculed you're you're you know your religion deserves to be laughed out if that's where you live in this i world of imagination that's equally as unreal so it has to come to the practiced point where the mind quiets and it becomes an experience of presence not the the revolving around in an idea not playing with an imagination the mind is quiet here the mind is not imagining the mind is not spinning and conjuring anything this is the silence of is-ness before thought before identity where you are your very self which i may call an actual presence of god or to speak better a habitual all right so it's something that he has worked on over and over and over again and now the mind and body are just in line they're obeying they're doing it they're finding that silence themselves that habitual silent and secret conversation secret conversation it's that one without a second there's no one to know no one who can this this this cannot be shared with you know that's that's that's the struggle between religion and science at least in vedanta it's considered a science because your your tools that you're given for practicing vedanta vedanta is not interested in telling you what is vedantis very interested in giving you the tools for you to find out what is and why aren't they interested in telling you what is because it's a secret and silent uh conversation between your soul and and the divine it's not something that you can show someone it's not something that you can repeat in a laboratory and and put out for peer review the only peer review you can do is to say this is what i did go try it i can't show you this secret silent inner reality that i've discovered that has manifested in me but if you do these things you'll see it as well and and and i imagine if it was something you could do in a week in a laboratory in six hours a day probably everybody'd be like cool let's do it but when you first say what what do i have to do well first of all you have to give up all sense of self everything you desire you have to let go of you know you have to understand there's nothing in this world for you to have and you have to quiet the mind to a perfect stillness and it could take you on the short side 15 years on the long side maybe a few thousand [Laughter] you know a habitual silent and secret conversation of the soul with the divine which often causes me joys and raptures inwardly and sometimes outwardly so great that i'm forced to use means to moderate them and to prevent their appearance to others in short i am assured beyond all doubt that my soul has been with god above these thirty years i pass over many things that i mean that i may not be tedious to you yet i think it proper to inform you after what manner i consider myself before god whom i behold as my king i consider myself as the most wretched of men full of sores and corruption and who and who has committed all sorts of crimes against his beloved touched with a sensible regret i confess to him all of my mistakes all of my wickedness and ask forgiveness i abandon myself in his hands that he may do what he pleases with me the king full of mercy full of goodness very far from chastising me embraces me in love makes me eat at his table serves me with his own hands gives me the key of his treasures he converses and delights himself with me incessantly in a thousand and a thousand ways and treats me in all respects as his favorite it is thus i consider myself from time to time in his presence there are several beautiful things here you know when he talks about i consider myself the most wretched of men you can't help but to think that way about this ego self the self the selfish self the self that's serving the body and serving the mind serving the particular serving that which has a name on it that self when it's pressed up against this unconditioned love seems selfish seems so needy so angry so alone so broken so incomplete to have identified with that as being who i am to have found my joy and my identity and my sense of self in that at some point reaches this point where it's just like how did i do that why did i do that but the reaction is not one of self-hatred the reaction is not one of self-condemnation it's one of trust because you've come to know that that which your love originates in is unconditioned it's not an if then situation and so you don't have to hold on to that self-hatred you don't have to hold on to that pain because you're in the presence of pure love and the intimacy is so silent and so sweet that it's just this gentle communion this gentle enjoying of each other's presence and the things that he says here full of mercy and goodness very far from chastising me embraces me with love i can't imagine really to be embraced by pure love by god this divine essence to know it so sweetly that it's not there's no separation between your deepest sense of being and the presence of this divine love that there's no chastising there it's an embrace in the presence of god it's only an embrace it's the mind that creates this self-hatred that creates this remorse that creates this regret it's the mind that holds your karma and and weighs you down to anchor you firmly into time space and causation it isn't god it's your mind your body because it is finite and it has to work for everything and it has to grasp at everything because everything's always disappearing always slipping away but that's not you it has never been you it will never be you you are this embrace of the divine he makes me eat at his table literally this is not a poetic description this is an experiential statement as you sit there eating and you know that the ego self has no real existence that it's an imagined separation from the divine you begin to understand that this when you brought food and that offered it on this shrine and said here to the picture of taquer take this i offer this to you you come to understand that every time you put something in your mouth it was takor who tasted it first it was the beloved who tasted it first and your ego came in later and enjoyed it or didn't but it was an offering and to sit there and to eat a meal without ego and to not taste it for yourself but to taste it as a gift to the beloved as a giving to this divine spirit within that communion that you're feeding god how sweet that experience would be to sit there at the table consciously aware that this divine presence within you you're getting to feed him her that that this intimate act of actually feeding someone is yours and it's god that you're doing it with i eat at his table he serves me with his own hands this one it's these these things are very high they're very difficult to actually understand or for us to experience but when you come to this knowledge that that you are not the doer that's one of the major things that ramakrishna and vivekananda repeat over and over you are not the doer god is the doer you just assume responsibility for it you you you think you're the one doing but if you're watching your life carefully if you're being objective about what's actually going on in the world you will see that you cannot manage to make anything happen for sure but your ego will keep changing the plan to match what's happening you know remember that experience that that that uh is it a metaphor parable i don't know that story that i always tell it's like i remember in high school getting together with some friends and making a plan that on friday night we were going to go to cairo's and have some you know food and when friday night came i was actually at the movies with scott and jim or someone i don't remember who it was it was the drama group but it was something completely different and yet if you had asked me did you make plans for this oh yeah yeah i planned this weekend i i yeah this is what we set up and then someone points out well on monday you told me you were going to carrows with with barbara and joanne and now it's monday and you're telling me that on friday you were actually at the movies with scott and jim how do you imagine that you planned that how do you imagine that you're responsible for that when literally nothing about what happened and what you planned are the same you see that's our ignorance that's our delusion that's why they use that word you are in a delusion you are constantly changing the rules within your own mind to convince you that you are the doer that you're the one making your life happen that you are the one causing this outcome when in fact very little of it is yours it is the divine placing you where you need to be to experience what is best for you what is most helpful to your soul not to your body some things that happen to you will hurt your body very badly but they will always be beneficial to the soul not to your mind some things will hurt your mind very badly but they will be beneficial to your soul when you get this perspective of this walk with the divine this dance with the divine in this life you begin to understand what the scriptures say in the christians it's romans 8 28 i think all things work together for good to those that love god for those who are aware of love who love love those who know their nature everything in your life is conspiring to give you what this man is describing in short i am assured beyond all doubt that my soul has been with god above these thirty years can you imagine feeling that way with no doubt there's no possible alternative the experience has been so vivid and so real that you have been with god are with god and it's been 30 years that you've been working and living together i pass over many things that i may not be tedious to you and yet i think it proper to inform you after what manner i consider myself before god whom i consider as my king and then he talks of this self this wretched self this wretched ego self full of sores and corruption why because based on the body and mind there's always sores and corruption in the body and in the mind if that's who you think you are that's what you have to suffer that's why we say ridiculous things like i'm fat i'm tired i'm angry you know i'm lonely i'm hurting i was now my now my time to give this plug that i give all the time actually everything i repeat this notion you can say three things about yourself anybody remember what they are there's only three things you can say about yourself that are true oh if nobody can remember i don't feel bad about repeating perfect what's up that's it that's it i am love i'm loving i'm intelligent and i exist those are the three things that you can say about yourself that are true if you say i'm angry it's a lie the mind is angry the self is never angry it needs nothing it lives in perfection the mind gets angry i'm depressed no you're not you're looking through a depressed mind you are ever free and ever pure i'm tired no you're not you've been aware always there's no sleep for the soul that's how you know you had a good night's sleep because the soul is there experiencing it the whole time the soul never sleeps you're never tired the body is tired i'm sick no you're not the body's sick you're perfectly fine and there's this scripture in the new testament i forget where it is it says that the wages of sin are death i always wondered what that meant i was like what are you talking about everybody dies how can that be the wage of sin you know and i understood only after i became a vedantist the reason that the sinful die is because they are deeply identified with the body that's dying and the more things that you do in service and honor of your body the more you serve your body and the more you deepen that conviction i and the body are one this is me this is who i am you will experience death you will experience its decline and as you lay there on your deathbed you'll be in terror because you're about to die what a thing is this but if you do the work if you use the tools and you practice this presence of the beloved you can lay there and watch the body die watch this old shriveled up thing 92 years old it stinks smells like urine like like all old men do eventually it's a terrible condition the things that mother has to do to our body to give us to get us to the point of giving it up i mean literally just has to bring it down to the most horrible of things before we're willing to let go and just leave it behind i'm assured that god has been with me above these thirty years i pass over many things i consider myself the wretched of the most wretched of men full of sores and corruption who has committed all sorts of crimes against my own nature against love against pure and unconditioned love i have acted contrary to that against the intelligence that is mine i have done stupid things on purpose i've done all these things we can say against god and make it look like it's this mighty something in the sky that we have to worry about making happy but the reality is it's your own self that you violated it's your own self that you hurt and you come to know this and you ask forgiveness and you abandon yourself into his hands that he may do what what pleases him you abandon yourself to the is-ness of the moment you abandon your ideas of how it could have been improved and you accept it as perfect you know that this moment may not be perfect to the body may not be perfect to the mind but to the soul it's perfect and you can let go completely sit down and relax in the arms of the divine give yourself over completely to the perfection of being nothing's necessary all is well touched with a sensible regret i confess to him this wickedness i ask forgiveness and abandon myself in his hands that he may do as he what he pleases with me the king full of mercy full of goodness very far from chastising me it's not even in the same room it's not like he's working on not screaming at you you know like your mother's furious angry and her lips queering and she's trying to be patient she's trying to be nice with you but you can tell she wants to pick up the broom and let you have it it's not nothing like that with god he's not looking to punish you know there's that scripture in corinthians since we're talking about christian saints you know that about love you know love always hopes always believes always trusts love never fails love is always patient it's kind these this is god this is the divinity how we've turned that into a judgmental demanding angry being who can tell a couple of thousand years of error the nature of god is love love is infinitely patient infinitely forgiving a love unconditioned which means you have to pay nothing you don't have to earn it you don't have to act a certain way then why bother acting a certain way because people don't hurt themselves on purpose if they're healthy that's why why do we do why do we practice the virtues because there's some sort of you know bitcoin for spiritual life no because they're purely your benefit your life will be fuller will be more contented will be happier and you'll find your courage to endure it in the most delightful of ways like brother lawrence is sharing the king full of mercy and goodness very far from chastising me embraces me with love makes me eat at his table serves me with his own hands gives me the key to his treasures so you get the key you get the key once you've come to a certain point of purifying the mind purifying the heart you no longer have to make this concerted effort to go to god to give you this experience or this being you're not a beggar you're an heir to these things they are yours and god gives you the key you can have them at will sit down any moment or don't sit down keep walking and just open your eyes and inner spirit to this wealth of existence this delight of being he converses and delights himself with me incessantly indeed all the thoughts of your mind all the experiences of your day you begin to understand as the voice of god you begin to understand that this moment that you're in right now is eternal has never begun and never ended you begin to you begin to realize that you are sitting in the moment that jesus sat in sits in that buddha sits in that krsna sits in there is no past to which all of those things have been relegated they manifested in this moment as you are manifesting in this moment this is-ness this is-ness that is is the same is-ness that that is krsna that is jesus and if you can listen with the pure ears of a jesus or a buddha or a krishna you can sit down and write the scriptures with your own hand not from memory but from your own heart because they came from you your true self they live in you your true self you have full access to them in yourself if you can silence the mind if you can surrender the ego the key will be yours he converses and delights in himself himself with me incessantly and in a thousand and a thousand ways such a variety this this this inner communion with the divine not merely words going back and forth that's for the beginners this is communion this is wandering in and through each other's existence wandering in and through each other's mind and body no barriers no separations no boundaries the thousand stories of love are yours you begin to understand that here in this room look every single one of you is a story of love every one of you is a story about god through that mind through those eyes through that experience this moment as you've climbed this hill with so much effort hacking away at life every day choosing your desires this moment is yours the sum total of your desires put you in a pew in a church or in a temple put you here tonight and look around do you know what an intimacy that suggests between us do you understand what a sweetness that suggests between you and me and each other that the sum total of all of your desires has put you within arm's reach of me that all of your desires has put you here to hear these things together to know these things from the life of a man who's still living through his words through his realizations what a sweetness that's what sangha is that's what fellowship is for the christian sangha for the buddhists treats me in all respects as his favorite this is a beautiful one and it is thus that i consider myself from time to time in his holy presence to be the favorite of god there's a wonderful story i've shared that also the bhagavatam about shri krishna dancing around the fire in the woods with the gopi girls the the cow the milk maids he's dancing around and you kind of get this cinematic ability to kind of dip into each of these women's heads for a moment and you find that each one of them thinks that they're krsna's favorite each one of them thinks that that that krishna is thinking about them alone and the beauty of it is that it's true when you have an infinite love that's unconditioned everybody can be your favorite because you don't have to take something from here to move it over here when you're infinite and unconditioned you can truly have and let everyone know that they are in fact your favorite and not diminish that sense for anyone else because in the end when the game credits roll you will know that this was one without a second it was you loving you you mirroring yourself why who knows you'll have to ask yourself that question why why do you live the life you live why do you think the things you think don't ask god what is that you did this this is your world you've created this puzzle why do you keep doing it you like it for all of its terror it's fun for all of its for all of its its price it's entertaining keeps your attention so you buy in you get lost and you enjoy being lost for a while and when you're done when you've come to understand there's nothing to get nothing to have nothing to collect you'll sit down and say i'm finished ma and if it's true all of this will disappear into yourself and the is-ness that it sung for its time in time space and causation will shrink to a single point of your being my most useful method is this simple attention and such a general passionate regard of god to whom i find myself often attached with greater sweetness and delight than that of an infinite at its mother's breast so that if i dare use the expression i should choose to call this state the bosom of god for the inexpressible sweetness which i taste and experience here i mean he's talking about life how have i ever described my day like that have i ever expressed even a moment like that you know and here this is his life a description of his life my most useful method is just simple attention and such a general passionate regard for god you know i always like to change out that word god because that word god it's really it's it's it's just a concept in our mind and so you never know what you're saying to somebody when you say god so i like to use the word love because according to first john anyway god is love they're synonyms and so this general passionate regard toward love to whom i myself often attached with greater sweetness and delight than that of an infant at its mother's breast think how intimate that is is that child afraid at all of mother does that child at all doubt that its needs are being taken care of does that child at all doubt the existence of love does that child doubt the idea of refuge is that child afraid no that's the nature of you with your beloved that's the mature relationship between you and divinity knowing that it's your very own it's your mother it is providing for you it is bringing you forward and teaching your soul and training you in the ways of dharma the ways of right living the ways of right seeing the ways of right being so that you can experience this a moment of tranquility an infinite moment of tranquility and peace and if i dare use the expression i would choose to call this state the bosom of god for the inexpressible sweetness which i taste and experience there so we're going to leave off here for this week does anybody have a question or an idea or an argument yes alex yeah the soul what is the soul uh i mean the soul is your is i mean it's in vedanta it's your subtle body you know it's it's they talk about us kind of stepping down in vibration that that you know so so god is the highest sweetest purest i don't know if you'd call it a vibration but it's it's it's the potential of vibration let's put it that way and then when it manifests that first level of vibration that would be the soul the subtle body you know then it steps down into this and it then becomes the material world as it becomes lesser and more i guess what a grosser and grosser vibration as it steps down i often think of the soul in the end it's one without a second right so we all have in reality the same soul the same self if we could all right now turn around inside turn our spiritual self around and look inward we'd be quite surprised to find that we're all there within each other that we're not separate we're only separate when we look out through the senses we're one when we look inward and so it's like a dish towel imagine a dish towel that's god that's the soul the universal dish towel and all of the people are like if you put your hand up under the dish towel and you put rubber bands around the tips of all your fingers and then manage to pull your fingers out and leave these little nipples in the in the dish towel with rubber bands around them that's the individual soul that's your soul your soul that you refer to as a self it's the same nature we all have the same one and the nature of that soul is is sachitananda it's pure love and by nature we're not allowed or not allowed it's not true to give to to give any attribute to god because god is all attributes and many more much more so you can't capture him in a word or in a thought or in a rule or in a statement and so these rubber bands are imaginary they're egoistical egotistical ideas of self they're particularizations that are made up which is you you're made up you're not real it's like all the people that you left behind in your dream last night they're all really nice people you spent the night together you had a time doing whatever you were doing in the dream and then when you were done with each other you woke up and you found out well there's just one of us where'd everybody go and that's the nature of life so this soul is that still unchanging part of you that the the sages describe as the witness that which is watching the dream but it's that self without any identity involving the dream it knows that it's not the dreamed it knows fully that it is the dreamer it doesn't see it it knows that it's not in the dream it knows that the dream is in itself so this is the soul it's immortal unchanging ever free ever pure blissful intelligent it's what allows you to understand you know as the senses throw all of this experience against the wall of the soul it's the nature of the soul to understand it to understand the implications of the senses to understand the thoughts that it's watching to understand the body that it's inhabiting so that's the intelligence that love allows it to see beauty allows it to recognize love allows it to recognize the virtues you know that's the bliss and then that that existence my god the existence the awareness an inexplicable experience common to everybody so assumed and so accepted and yet we have no idea in all the thousands of years of science we still do not know a working formula for what consciousness is we have no idea we don't know where it's coming from is it coming from the body is it coming from the brain is it inherent in the universe we have no idea the scriptures say yes it's the nature of the universe it's it's it's the fundamental so this such an under we were only allowed to say that it's kind of like as you fall into god before you merge into this infinite oneness of peace and and no will the last three things you'll say is love intelligence existence absolute then like an old-fashioned television that little light [Laughter] disappears the whole world collapses into that single little light and then it itself merges into that oneness so that that's at least a poetic description of soul does it work okay yes talks about how some people are blessed to feel very terrified of offending god um and if i guess my question is if a person is still at that stage where they feel like god can be offended do you think that that's a useful perspective or do you think that that needs to be like scrubbed out uh well i i wouldn't frame it that way it's it's it is you know our our first vivekananda says religion begins in fear because we don't know what what this is we've got an ego that has walled us off from everything else and unfortunately everything else is a lot bigger than what we've reserved for ourself you know we're in this doughy very soft very vulnerable body you know in a mind that's equally vulnerable and we've got everything else out there and so the first approach to spiritual to to god is like oh my god don't let me displease anybody i want to make sure my food is there my planet doesn't fall in the sun you know all these impossibilities going on so religion begins in fear but he says that it ends in love he says it's good to be born in a church but it's a tragedy to die in one so you should transcend all of these all of these separations so are they helpful yes it's helpful at first fear gets your attention you know gets you thinking maybe i should look into this maybe i should figure out something about this but then like brother lawrence you start out in that that terror and that shame and that remorse and that sorrow you know oh my god i'm so horrible i've messed up so badly but when you start understanding the reality when you start understanding what what the real scene is then you start experiencing this divine love this divine unity and you understand that none of those things you were afraid of ever existed ever happened or ever would happen in their reality and then you understand the nature of the dream you know if if if in the dream terrifying things are happening and you come to know that you're dreaming what happens to the fear immediately it goes away you know that you're the dreamer and not the dreamed so you watch it and you experience it then as you like if you want to buy into the fear you can come down in your consciousness and experience that fear and that excitement if you want to rise up above it and see it all as one that's that was the gift of of the avatars you know ramakrishna he says that given those few people the companions the eternal companions of god they have that ability to go up and down they can view this experience of life you know ramakrishna himself he gives that experience when one of the devotees died and he explained he said oh my god i felt like my heart was a towel being rung dry you know just that pain was intense and he says the next moment i realized that that it was just the pillowcase had been removed from the pillow it was nothing more than that and i laughed at the misery i had imagined around it you know so yes it's useful because it brings us home eventually you know all of us all of us are going to know these things all of us are going to to find this enlightenment as it were without getting too much into the the the the contradictions of that statement but all of us are going home [Music] and so it's because of life that we do and uh you know it's a life that's tailored every one of us like right now it seems like i'm teaching you which is utterly not true this is an opportunity for worship i'm learning from from this experience and from these words as much as anybody's learning from these words and every interaction you have in the day if there's two of you you're both being taught perfectly at the moment god or the universe this being this is-ness has conjured up the perfect lesson going two directions all the time in every one so learning is never one way giving is never one way service is never one way we're always equally a share in everything and so god has arranged all of your experiences to bring you home to bring you home in an authentic way you know in a way that you come home because you want you wanted to come home to come home because you longed for home not not in some way that you had to be beaten into it in in the end all of us are inspired into it in the end we all jump because we want to jump yes what do we do mom yeah they it's just that notion that past present and future don't exist the only one that exists is present the now you've never experienced anything but here and now you've never been anywhere but here at a different time than now your mind keeps an echo of it you know it takes it your attachments to the something in the moment your mind attaches to it and tries to share its immortality by putting it in the mind and you know where i'm going with this and so that creates this illusion of a past which is just conceptual it's it's not real there's there are multiple ways of thinking about it there's an island off of i think it's off of south america where their language has no past tense the the language has no past tense fascinating look it up online it's an amazing thing you try and think how is that possible and there's a whole culture that has no words for the past so this this idea that it's it's purely conceptual that there's a past and purely conceptual clearly projected that there's a future you know a future is is caused by your discontent with the present so you have to come up with a plan of getting receiving having and so you invent a future so that you can bring things into your the experience of your moment so if everything has if this moment has no beginning and this moment has no end you can't find the you can't you can't slice time and find the moment before before this moment is it's gone you know if you measure it with past present and future in your mind the present is never here so if you're going to insist on the idea of past present and future you're going to have to get rid of the present you've only got future and past because that's an infinitely small slice of time that you're going to call now that actually is never going to be here so either there's no past and no future and there's only present or there's no present there's only past and future which you can see the fallacy in that so so is there a phone going no more chirping please so this this this this present if it never began and never ended then those things that it contains also are eternal that that which was buddha could easily be conjured out of this moment as as our mind says it was conjured out in the past you know when you when you say buddha he exists the name and that which the name implies cannot be separated the name and what it represents cannot be taken away and so you you the problem that we have is that we think buddha is a body a buddha was a span of time a span of life that wasn't the buddha you know the buddha was the realization the buddha was was the knowing that is-ness and he says there are infinite buddhas you know it's the same with jesus i mean it's the same with all these sages because they're all the same person you know jesus was buddha was krishna was rama was shaytania you know was whoever else i don't know it's like it's the same god manifesting you know as is manifesting you at the moment you're just not quite as powerful quite as pure but you i would like to ask something that i love crap and an art and in that room over there was his table as big as all outdoors and if i would refinish it i'd get some sandpaper and i'd sandpaper it and she like and i mean that's the most extraordinary thing i've ever seen anybody do you did it do all these ideas go into that you don't just sit down and your whole life went into that table didn't for a period of time [Laughter] i'd be sitting up there in the parking lot but uh a little piece of wood i didn't realize you were doing the entire thing yeah well that's you know that's all illusion in a way you know it's like last night in your dream how much work did you do and when you woke up how much did you accomplish you know so while we're in the dream yes there seems to be past present and future there seems to be cause and effect there seems to be results to work and whatnot but when you wake up in the morning nobody would be silly enough to sit down and try and figure out what was the physics of the dream that i was flying you know because you'd know there's no reading about brother lawrence and how he approached exactly that and you're teaching that and you did that it all goes together doesn't it yeah you're doing what you're preaching [Laughter] these things matter yeah these manifest these things manifest you know it's like we we do away with our ignorance and little by little we move into less ignorance you know as we grow and ultimately the ignorance is gone there's a knowing and we find that all separation was a matter of ignorance and all that separation is what produced the ideas of cause and effect all that separation and and identity caused the idea of past present and future but for someone like a takor you know it's it's kind of funny because you see takur playing both roles when taqwar realized god there was no more taqwar but because we believe in bodies and minds we saw a body and we called it takur and we said that takur died and that takur lived and the taqwar did but tahakur the realized self at that moment ceased to have any connection with the body that we called taqwar with the mind that we called ramakrishna understood that there that was never real he woke wakes up from the dream and he sees the rest of us in the dream and okay he's not separate you know he knows you to be him he knows that you are merely a thought within his own self you are an idea within his own heart you know that that it's as intimate as that just like in your dream everything was yours everyone was yours they were you you gave them every bit of existence that they that they enjoy you know and in your own ego separated yourself from them let them live but you wake up in the morning everything's one you know yes you are huh um of gods and goddesses it does not conflict the miracle because when you go deep into meditation the way i look at it it's like they say that you have to have a raft to cross and cross the lake but when you get over the it's not monism that that is not a concept of vedanta it's it's advaita means one without a second yeah you can't say one because that implies two not two so you say one without a second is the only way to really say it and and still be short of the goal uh but this advice of edanta is not a path you know advaita this uh this one without a second is a realization and uh as far as we know at this point there's four paths to get there and bhakti is one of those paths bhakti is not a contradiction bhakti ends in advaita if the practitioner wants it to there is a place ramakrishna says for those who are not interested in being sugar they want to taste sugar and so they keep a little sense of separateness a little sense of ego by the blessings of the divine as it were and they see the divine as separate from themselves but he says all of these things are true it's like if you're in the woods at the bottom of the mountain and you describe what your view is and then you get halfway up the mountain and you describe what your view is and then you get to the top of the mountain and you describe that view for what it is can you say that one that the first two views were wrong can can you say that the first two views were were inaccurate not at all they were simply what was experienced and seen from that point of being as you grew as you climbed up that mountain eventually you get to see the whole thing as one but that doesn't in any way negate all the experiences that you had on getting there you know so all of the paths diminish and disappear into that oneness at the end but whether the dua the ramakrishna says that that duality qualified non-dualism and advaita are all true at different times you know from from different levels of understanding different levels of realization and i'm sure any of those words would get me in trouble but uh like that they are all simultaneously real and yet not all right it's getting late what oh yes let's say some dating tools in terms of systematic ways of how to control the using the diagonal the attachments and conversions within the mind as well as like how to start how to step by step eliminate the sense of both of people well uh that's a that's a huge topic every one of the vote all four of the yogas answer that question uh and it's kind of due to your up to your disposition as far as which one's interesting to you but in general the best practice that's that's that's a part of all of the paths is awareness be present be fully present silence the mind don't go into the mind the mind all the thoughts that you attach with and that you think are meaningful they're just neurons firing there's nothing there so in silence see the moment as it is and discern look at the nature of your desires you know look at the nature of the things that you want uh this morning and we did a saint theresa class this morning and we talked about this notion of discernment that every desire that you've every object of desire that you've ever entertained you've desired it because it it held a name of god a name of god is tucked in it somewhere you've confused that name with the object itself and thought that it's the object that you want one of the things ramakrishna says is like with lust he says you see this beautiful person and you feel that desire for that person fine but stop for a moment and begin asking yourself questions mind what is it that you want is it a body part here's a knife go take the body part that you want and immense immediately you're repulsed that's gross oh you want the whole body okay well let's lay the person down dead so that you can have them now you've got the whole body but once again you're repulsed and yet you felt this attraction yet you wanted so what was it you wanted if the dead body doesn't offer it then it wasn't the body that you wanted if a part of the body didn't offer it it wasn't a part of the body you wanted what you were looking for was that life essence as it expressed and manifested in that body and you confused it with the body you confused it with pleasure but in fact it was the presence of god that yourself recognizing itself in the other desired that unity desired that return to knowledge and not to feel this illusion of separateness so you take all of your desires and you freeze them in your mind and you walk around them like you're in an art gallery and you ask questions what is the nature of this desire what did it give me the last time that i fulfilled it was it lasting did it add anything to my life am i better because of it you know it's like just poke at it poke at it poke at it shake it until that which is divine falls out of it and then you realize ah it was it wasn't money that i wanted it was to be all-powerful to have no fear it wasn't a it wasn't a beautiful marriage that i wanted it was absolute security and oneness that i was looking for uh you know it wasn't amazing good luck good looks it was just comfort with myself within myself i was looking for you know so so discern always constantly and the best way to do that is exactly what brother lawrence is talking about be aware of the presence of this ideal within you this love this intelligence this existence and and and and be in communion with that all the time and with the help of your chosen ideal like for me it's the divine mother quite often she'll sit there in my mind you know and like when my mind is being being