Video 11

Vedic Christianity, Class 11 · Practice of the Presence of God · Swami Chidbrahmananda

[Music] oh [Music] [Music] i [Music] to me [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] foreign [Music] m [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] to me [Music] m [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Applause] what [Applause] [Applause] the key to knowledge is in the mother's keeping commune when she graciously unlocks the door oh my dreaming immersed in meditation [Music] on other feet remaining [Music] and escape the suffering of life sing the glory of mother and fill your heart with light the world becomes a river of bliss in it oh slowly [Music] oh mind remain immersed in meditation [Music] on this remaining [Music] and escape the suffering of life all these words are on real in vain [Music] mother in your heart sing the glory of mother and fill your heart with light the world becomes a river of bliss in it battles slowly sing the glory of mother and fill your heart with light the world becomes a river of bliss in it also [Music] sing mother's glory and we'll do one more [Applause] hmm this is a nice one [Applause] [Applause] [Music] may all the intensity of my love go to the sweet lord go to thee may all the whispers of my silent aspirations reach your ears oh lord reach your ears [Music] thoughts may stray may they respond at once do your calling may all the sorrows on the way vanish at your pool sweet lord vanish at your [Music] it's filled with arms from the world may that be completely emptied may my heart be filled with gifts from the sweet lord with secret gifts from me may all the intensity of my [Music] may all the whispers of my silent aspirations reach your ears my lord reach your ears may all the intensity of my love go to the oh lord go to thee [Music] c all right [Applause] all right so we're picking up here with brother lawrence and his practice of the presence of god and we read some of the most beautiful verses last week some of the things that he said two of which i want to remind us of just to start the evening because it's a lovely mood it's a lovely space to be in he says 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 god which often causes me joys and raptures inwardly and sometimes also outwardly so great that i'm forced to use means to moderate them and to prevent their appearance to others he goes on to say the king the divine god 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 and 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 that i consider myself from time to time in his holy presence i so enjoy reading that because so many times when we talk about god it's about how we feel and how what we're talking about because we see ourselves as the actor and god very much as the listener which is the irony of maya the irony of this reality that we live in is that it's the opposite god is the only doer and we are only a witness just to witness and how ramakrishna reminds us of that that we are only the doers in this world and that's a very high teaching to understand but to see him talking about knowing and having such a deep experience and interactive faith with the divine that he can sense god delighting in him not him delighting in god in a thousand and a thousand ways which we're very accustomed to but god delighting in him in a thousand and a thousand ways feeding him at his own table feeding him with his own hands you know just this delight of interaction and to grow to that level of faith where your ego gets so silenced that you can see the movement of god you can experience the presence of god which is what he says there you know that he talks that he first starts with this simple attention and general fond regard to god which i call an actual presence of the beloved you know it reminds me of ramakrishna when he was asked by vivekananda have you seen god and ramakrishna says of course i see him now even more clearly than i see you you know that that means that there's a state of knowing a state of being within which we can occupy and see and experience the movement of god more clearly than we see egos more clearly than we see the individual selves that are separate and apart and fenced in by the limitations of ego by our our restrictions you know vivekananda says and i always remind us that that which we cherish the most in our lives our personality our bodies our minds that they're nothing but a set of limitations and restrictions they're just a fence a set of ideas that you've called you your things that you like and dislike you know and that there's no reality to them you can be free in this moment your story that's stored in your mind or your set of karmas that you store and carry with you in your mind that rolling ball of samsara which is your life that you own and grasp onto so tightly is optional that this moment is always free this moment is always every color every taste every smell this moment is divine and by bringing yourself to this moment you can share in that purity you can share in that freedom but to come to the moment the story has to stop dead in its tracks the story of who you are and what you think and what you want and what you dream and what you idealize it has to stop short in this moment and to leave the mind sitting in a pregnant silence full of inspiration full of this experience of faith to bathe in that understanding of the unconditioned love that embraces you in every moment regardless of the experience of mind and body in that moment whether the body's in pain whether the mind is in anger or whatever states things may be in to know them as only story and to be able to push them aside to just set them aside and in that silence sit with your beloved sit with this divine knowledge that god delights in you in a thousand and a thousand ways that he embraces you and dreams of your life and enjoys you as you are in the moment not as you imagine yourself to be in the story but as you are in your is-ness of being free in the moment because you're his very own you are in fact tonight he starts off and says if sometimes my thoughts wander from it by necessity or infirmity and that it is the divine name the divine presence i am presently recalled by inward motions so charming so delicious that i'm ashamed to mention them i desire your reverence to reflect rather upon my great wretchedness of which you are fully informed then upon the great favors which god does me all unworthy and ungrateful as i am so this beautiful negation of the ego you know this beautiful negation of his story that he would claim any responsibility that he would claim any doership or accomplishment in this relationship with god he's come to a place of knowing there is nothing that you need to do or can do to earn or to achieve this relationship with god this kind of knowing this kind of relationship is done purely through surrender through letting go of all sense of i and me and i can do and i'll become and i'll fix and i'll be pure and i'll make it right and i'll teach and i'll tell all of these these these emotions of vanity he's let go of and he says that when my when when when they get in the way when any idea about myself with any idea about my problems any ideas about my likes and my dislikes my needs my conditions the circumstance of my life whenever of those whenever my thoughts wander in that direction and leave the name leave the presence of the beloved leave my awareness of being he says i'm charmed back into it by the memory of god that god won't let that happen now he's been at this point practicing for 30 years we know from last week's readings so it's been 30 years fifth the first 15 of which were just a hard continual practice of trying to bring the mind back and put it on god over and over again multiple times of the day that he's not talking about his practice the periods set aside for prayer or devotions he's talking about every minute of the day he was aware of the thought of god and watching the mind and becoming teaching himself to become aware of what the mind was paying attention to and any time it wandered he brought it back to the name this is extremely important because that is what is meant by taking refuge in god when god says take refuge only in me he's saying leave your mind leave your story leave your desires leave your distractions and come to the moment by reciting the name bring your mind into my presence into the awareness of my presence which is always there and always perfect and in that space be established and guard that space carefully with your awareness to make sure you're watching the mind that it doesn't wander into the story it doesn't wander into its longings and its conditions but it stays present in the pure moment where there is only stillness always regardless of the freeway noises regardless of the birds regardless of the conditions of heart and mind the moment is always silent the moment is always pure the moment is always stable always secure and by taking the name you can find it you can find that stillness within that you left a very long time ago when you took on the life of construction the life of building so he says here i'm presently recalled by inward motions so charming and so delicious but i'm ashamed to mention them he gets embarrassed you know it's like you're like your mother dropping you off at school and tickling your chin and giving you a kiss goodbye and you're like mom stop it i'm in public you know this is how he's feeling as he's writing to his senior one of the senior monks and he's writing to get this man this this teacher's opinion about his practices so you see his humility even in that as accomplished as he is and as full of the divine as he is he knows himself as an ego self to be wretched that this ego self that bears the name and bears the ownership of our actions it can never be good because it's born of a will separate and apart from our nature from who and what we are it can never be beneficial to us because it's looking for something that it needs whereas if it knew itself as it is it would know there are no needs that the present moment is always full and perfect the presence of god is always enough to carry you through any experience any condition of mind any story of the world and he's he he holds on to that humility and he and he tells he's telling this teacher he's saying although i'm sharing things that seem grand and seem like great accomplishments as i tell them to you i don't want you to give the credit to this i don't want you to respect this there's nothing here it's by surrendering what is here that i have found these things it's by denying this here that i have found the presence of the beloved and so he says to him he says see me always reflect rather upon my great wretchedness of which you are fully informed you know probably the man is his confessor maybe and then upon these great favors which god does me so this is a knowing if you have a great meditation it's not your fault it's god's love you know it was god's grace to you if you manage to overcome your difficulties in life it's not because you're a great practitioner it's not because you finally mastered meditation it's because god loves you because that divine love is making its weaving its way into your psyche into your heart into yourself into breaking down those gates of separation that wall that you've built around yourself saying from here to here is me and everything over there is maybe it's god maybe it's the world maybe it's the universe whatever it is i don't know and i don't trust it i'm terrified by it but in here this is me my domain the problem is we mess that up all the time when we're in charge of our own domain and so really letting god in breaking down that fence of ego he says as for my set hours of prayer they are only a continuation of the same exercise and this is something that i've worked on so much with you know so far i'm still begging but this notion of of life as practice you know that that when you get up in the morning and do you do your meditations you're not doing something within an hour for something down the road what you're trying to do is set your state of being for the day so that it's actively in that state for the rest of the day it's not oh now i'm done with my meditations now i can go out and have fun or i can go out and go to work and go do the things i really have to do that's not what it was about it was about sitting in the presence of the divine and establishing yourself there so that the rest of the day is a continuation of that habit a continuation of that effort a continuation of that that mindset so he says uh let's see this as for my set hours of prayer they're only a continuation of the same exercise sometimes i consider myself there as a stone before a carver whereof he is to make me a statue presenting myself thus before god i desire him to form his perfect image in my soul and to make me entirely like himself because to be like god is to be authentic because it's your nature it's what you are you're not borrowing some grand personality from the sky you're not trying to mimic something else something other than yourself you're trying to return to your authentic self you're trying to return to that center of who and what you are so that you can act naturally and freely you don't have to put on airs you don't have to put on personalities you don't have to be witty you don't have to be funny you don't have to be hard working you don't have to be better you don't have to fix anything you're in the presence of of the beloved who formed you as you are and has given you everything that you have and has brought you to a place like this to become aware of that love to become aware of that presence so sometimes i consider myself there as a stone before the carver now what role does the stone have when it sits before the carver all right does the does the stone have to practice being still does the stone have to you know make sure its arms stay down so that it doesn't get in the way the stone does absolutely nothing and that is how we should know our spiritual life really is it's an act of surrender not an act of doing and we present ourselves to god as the stone that's being carved god is making the changes god is presenting the insides god is giving the awareness god is giving the love god is the one receiving it all you're just watching just soaking in the presence of this divine this this is a very practical way of doing things it's like it takes prayer more deep in into the self like when you're in a difficult circumstance our efforts usually are to try and verbalize that to god in a prayer as if god was something else and and we have to explain to him oh i'm having such a hard time and you know all these things my mind is here and i'm thinking this and i'm struggling with that and i can't get over this constant you know cycle that i'm stuck in where i keep falling into my bad habits or even my good habits i just keep circling you don't have to the stone doesn't have to sit there and describe itself to the carver the carver you know i read the life of michelangelo and he always talked about he could look at us he would look at the stone and he would see what it is when he when he when he looked at the stone that became the statue of david he didn't have to you know do anything he looked at the stone and he saw david and he just removed the unnecessary bits that's that's the essence of our spiritual practice god looks at your stone of a head your thick skull he looks at you and he doesn't have to imagine or try and come up with something to do with you he sees that divinity in you and so little by little with great patience and great love he removes the unnecessary and lo and behold you become a statue of david you become a perfection you become a beauty and it wasn't your doing it was you sitting with that attention to the carver surrendering yourself to be made into your image into that image of the divine and so when you sit there before god no need to describe yourself just be in the presence and be aware of that presence and then give god permission to look everywhere and let him in into your deepest trouble into your most impure thought into the most difficult place that you sit don't present it to him with an idea of what needs to be done open to him and let yourself be fully seen become fully aware of all that god can see as he looks within you at all that is present the deepest darkest most beautiful and most hideous places simply let the divinity in why because that's what transforms you that's what feeds your surrender and allows you to become holy yes sir so god or the divine can already see what's in us the devil and the same so what's the need for there is no need for verbalizing that's what i'm saying but it is though there's a need for a conscious surrendering a conscious opening because you need to become aware of the devils and the gods within you you need to see what what is going on in there uh swami prabhupada said something to me very important he says hold your troubles before the lord he says because the knots of maya come undone of their own accord in the light of awareness so it's purely becoming aware of your own self becoming aware of this divinity which is that presence of god within and opening to it not trying to cover not trying to hide not trying to be not trying to fix not trying to do but simply opening up to the beloved and let him see you as you are and in that exercise you see you as you are and if because your nature is divine and because the presence of the beloved is divine in that awareness the healing happens in that awareness the surrender happens in that awareness your renunciation happens your discernment becomes clear you see things as they are and you go forward effortlessly because you are not the sculptor you are the rock you just make yourself available to the beloved in the most pure open and honest way that you possibly can all the time continuously like he's saying here so sometimes i consider myself as a stone before a carver he is to make a statue presenting myself thus before god i desire him to form his perfect image in my soul and to make me entirely like himself what is it to be entirely like the divine it's to be motivated by love alone it's to be motivated by intelligence alone it's to be fully present to know what is-ness is devoid of all attribute to know that silent tranquil immortal eternal self and to sit in that place at other times when i apply myself to prayer i feel all my spirit and all my soul lift itself up without any care or effort of mine and it continues as it were suspended and firmly fixed in god as in its center and its place of rest wow that's almost intoxicating just to read at other times i apply myself to prayer i feel all my spirit and all my soul lift itself up again that passive experience not the doer not because he's not he's not saying i lift myself up before god and you know hold myself there in this space not at all he says i sit there quietly and in that presence of god the soul does what it rises up it's inspired it's carried on by a love that it can't find anywhere else of a quality in the depth that it has never known from the senses or from others and relationships and whatnot my soul and my spirit i feel them lift themselves up without any care no anxiety no no diminishment but diminishing thoughts of self no recoiling because of your impurity no recoiling and defensiveness because of your failure and how awful you are as a person you know none of this that's a sign in that stillness you've surrendered even that because those things are equally ego to come up with an attribute for yourself is an egoistic move you know whether it's to call yourself good or to call yourself bad both are egoistic both are there to feed the ego ego can feed off of negativity as much as a feeds off of an over positive view of ourselves and we should be aware of that and it's an act of surrender to be quiet to surrender that before the lord and it's an act of faith to not be afraid it's an act of faith in what this perfect grace of your lover the perfect grace of your divine self who always hopes in you always believes in you always trusts in you this is what we worship this is what we know this is what the sages see i know that some charge this state with inactivity with delusion and a self-love i confess that it is a holy inactivity and would be happy and would be a happy self-love if the soul in that state were capable of it because in effect while she is in this repose she cannot be disturbed by such acts as she was formally accustomed to and which were then her support but which would now rather hinder than assist her this is an important clue as to the state of this of this self it would be self love if your focus was on your ego self you know if your focus was on what's what you're doing in this moment oh i'm surrendering so well oh i'm having such a wonderful experience oh i'm having such a moving time with god oh i love this feeling in my heart when i do this i love that if that's the perspective then yes it's a self-love it's an egoistic journey but you're in silence what's coming is coming and what's going is going and you're not grabbing touching describing holding anything you're allowing it to rise and you're allowing it to settle it comes it goes there's no attachment in this it would be laziness or that inaction if you were doing it for the sake of not doing something else if you were taking refuge in the not doing itself but that silence is pregnant with action that stillness is pregnant with movement the movement of inspiration the movement of security the movement of establishment you know that strength that comes from that that's where all of the strength comes from actually because in this state what happens is you get to the source of your thoughts you get to the source of your desires the source of your weaknesses and you can win in a second because they are all less than a baby in this point none of them have blossomed bloomed or sprouted and so in this state of awareness as soon as you feel the seed of that desire even begin to flicker you take the name of god that's your refuge and it's not big enough to fight you it's not big enough to argue you caught it immediately and you doused it with the name of god and you return to that presence of the beloved the problem comes when you don't have that awareness when you are caught up in the cycles of your stories and your demons are able to sprout and grow and then fight and then you have to argue with this whole litany of thoughts that have built the situation they've built up your lust or they've built up your desire for pleasure or they've built up your anger they've built up your jealousy and now you're in the middle of it and you're trying to fight you won't win you've already given in at that point you fight only long enough to feel good about fighting and then you give in to your vice and then you're oh i'm so sorry lord i didn't mean to do it i tried not to see and you justify yourself by your own deeds and by your own efforts and where is the surrender in that where is the presence of god in that it's just another story of the ego yes so i find myself do this practice for 15 years there's not a short answer the grace of god is always present and the wind is blowing so you you pray with that level of sincerity and and this moment it's yours there's no doubt in that if it's not your yours in this moment then chip away you know by just being in the presence continually bringing yourself back to the present you know someone was out wrote me an email today i still have to i still have to answer it asking how do i practically uh do the yamas and the niyamas you know in in my life the the practice of the doing the virtues and avoiding the vices you don't have to get involved in that you don't have to get down to that technical level be in the presence of god and you'll act properly all right be in the presence of god you're not going to do what you think you might be doing you're going to be in the presence of god and so don't leave the presence of god and nothing those those vices will not grow those call them temptations since we're looking at a christian scripture those temptations won't grow won't won't get big enough to fight as soon as you smell them as soon as you hear the ripple immediately you're back at the feet of the beloved o god do you see it and then you just show it to him you don't even have to pray something about it you don't even have to mention it it's better if you don't because you don't want to put the mind on it you don't want to give the mind that that permission to think about it to ruminate on it to to to sneak in how nice it was the last time or how good it would be to have that you don't want any of that to happen so immediately you're just inundating your own mind with your nature with god with the presence with the richness of isness and so you dwell there and that's how you do it it's not overnight we're looking at 15 years before he said he was established in it where he would never forget the presence of god and now he's 30 years into it where he's experiencing these divine ecstasies and this bliss so profound that he has to hide it from people so they don't think he's crazy running around giggling and laughing and absorbed yes sir we're talking about brother lawrence yes brother lawrence but it could be vivid canaan absolutely the time span very different maybe who knows how those things are but yeah he this could be any spiritual practitioner that's the thing that he's very adamant about saying about himself there was nothing special about him he was kind of a clumsy dopey guy who didn't have a lot going on intellectually and joined the monastery in the same reason a lot of people joined the military just trying to get their life together you know just trying to get some structure and some some strength and actually he derived this practice from that space he was like i wasn't so i knew i wasn't smart enough to like go in there and learn the greek and the hebrew and to study you know high philosophy and and the upper echelons of theology i i couldn't get that stuff i worked in the kitchen i was the cook so i just decided that i would always think of god and that would be my practice and there would be no boundary to it that in the time of prayer and the time of cutting vegetables i would be the same the effort would be the same and that was that's it that's the simplicity of it that's the delight of it i you know i to me that's the essence of truth you don't need to be you don't need to to just like the ghani say there's nothing to be done you know you don't have to you don't have to go through all of these academic gyrations unless you find that inspiration you know mother has her way with everybody everybody has their own path but the actual way to god is very simple just realize the presence that's why they call it realization yeah i was wondering um do you think that brother lawrence is having the sense that that the spirit that he's relating with as a is autonomous as if like maybe it's got because he talks about the spirit delighting in him and one thing i i never hear in romantic conversations with the sense of autonomy or or intention that a higher spirit might have you've read the gospel right no i'm sorry the gospel of sri ramakrishna the gospel of ramakrishna no oh okay well that's a great way to read that uh he he definitely experienced his mother in that active uh way he has conversations with her quite frequently through there where she says something to him and he's like what you know or where she does something and he responds or she walks into the room and he is like overwhelmed with how beautiful she's dressed that day you know so so god that your devotion you know and take sriracha says this your devotion will give form to god and that form is real it's not an imagination you know you are the imagination the presence of god is the real thing and god will manifest as other according to your devotion and in that purity of self when you when you when you start coming to that level of of being able to quiet the mind so that you can become aware of these more subtle things of reality that that your mind isn't so centered on sense and so centered on thought that you begin to see the underlying reality you know you really have to hit it on the nose for me is that i keep on feeling as though it's my own imagination like it's wishful thinking and i i ran into the same issue when i was under the influence of sacred medicine that a very special insights would happen but then there was always that question am i inventing this or is this something autonomous yeah you're going to have to wrestle with that in the beginning it is imagination because you don't have the faculty developed or honed for the real as it were so through that imagination you know in vedanta imagination is not separate from the real you know we vivicannonda says you become what you think this room here this used to be just a a yeah a space of scrub brush just like the hill out behind the up here on the hill you know this space here how did this happen this happened because someone imagined it you know somebody imagined a temple and they drew it out and then they put money into it then they put effort into it and they got a bunch of people together and boom a temple is here now so imagine imagination is the first step of manifestation you know and so give god that space and he will inhabit it and yes for a while it will seem like you're imagining it but then one day something will happen where you will become aware of something that you didn't know you'll get an insight that you didn't have you know so that's one way of thinking it the other one is to come to realize uh you know and not to shed a light on you but how absurd it is for us to see ourselves as the doer you say oh i think it's my imagination well exactly what is your imagination and it's something you're doing well exactly what are you doing and how are you doing it and you'll come to realize you know nothing of your own imagination you don't know how it's controlled you don't know how it's functioned you don't even know what it is you couldn't even define it you know ask yourself what is a thought you don't even know what it is i have no idea where it comes from or where it goes and yet you'll own it in a second you know and yet you'll take responsibility for it immediately you know lift your hand like this how am i doing that i have no idea how i'm doing that i'm barely even thinking it and it's going but i'll take responsibility for it i'll put the eye on that in a second that's the nature of e that's the nature of ego you know to own all of this stuff but you have no idea how did your body become what it is how did that happen how does it function you know how does the heart keep going all day long what is what is breathing how does how does how does everything know what it needs you know how does how does your body figure out it's got a pimple on the ankle that needs to be fixed and then go about fixing it sending the white blood cells down there to figure it out and to to fight some enemy that you can't even see that you don't even know it's there but you'll take it you'll take responsibility in a second i i take care of my health i stay healthy you do nothing you inhabit a body as a witness and you take and steal from the divine left and right this is me i do this i want this i get this i accomplish this i build that you're a thief you know nothing of the processes you know nothing of the abilities you just experience them and then own them that's ego and that's delusion that's why we use words like that so don't be afraid of that of of it being imagination imagination is as hard to understand as god herself is to understand it's as mystical as the moment it's as inexplicable as existence you know this consciousness which we say is everywhere in in the thousands of years of scientific research we still don't even have a definition for it we can't even say what it is we don't know where it comes from or how it's produced or if it's produced you know so don't be afraid to imagine things blame it on imagination if you if you must but then ask the next question what does that mean you know like that this uh teaching is very much like the story of the lower bird and the higher bird yes and he keeps lifting toward this thing with feeling done and there's this it's reverence his presence and it's just so much like seeing this light and moving toward it it's the same with us we're running around all the time in the left brain and then we come and sit here and get into the right brains and my god what is this and we begin to see the our own higher self and i guess because we're lost in the world in our own lower self and the opportunity we have here in the temple is to to rise as he did toward that higher self or the higher bird which is the revelation of you know the thing i think i am i'm not and what i actually am is god eventually possibly and that's all i have to say yes no it's just it's kind of thinking of that higher bird that's it it's a matter of inspiration and the inspiration comes just by paying attention by what by paying attention you know when you when you start asking the questions stop assuming that you know what's going on stop assuming you know what a chair is stop assuming you know what what a bird is stop assuming that you know anything and just start asking questions to find out what do you know you know one of one of my most enjoyable i don't know one of my most interesting let's just put it that way meditations was uh i'd been in the monastery i guess three or four years and i was in the shrine it was beautiful day and the sun was shining in the windows and i thought to myself what is the one thing that i know that depends on nothing else that i know you know and i just started going through my thoughts what is the one thing i know that doesn't depend on anything else that i know see where that takes you it'll take you very very deep very very very quickly and it will show you what a tangle of of delusion the mind holds that one false idea supporting another one another one and another one and another one and another one until it's got a name and a personality called you but there's nothing there start lifting those thoughts up and start looking under them and trying to find the one true one that's true in and of itself with no dependence and see what you come up with you might find yourself very close to what brother lawrence is experiencing here you know because the only thing that i saw or that i can find is your is-ness that's the only thing that's not dependent it's just there from whence it comes what it means what it is how to define it how to describe it it will lead you right to the god to god it will take you right to the beloved i know that some charge the state with inactivity delusion and self-love and i confess that it is a holy inactivity and would be a happy self-love if the soul in that state were capable of it because in effect while she is in this repose she cannot be disturbed by such acts as she was formally accustomed to and which were then her support but which would now rather hinder than assist her yet i cannot bear that this should be called delusion because the soul which thus enjoys god desires herein nothing but him if this be delusion in me it belongs to god to remedy it let him do what he pleases with me i desire only him and to be holy devoted to him you will however oblige me in sending me your opinion to which i always pay a great deference for i have a singular esteem for your reverence and am in our lord yours and that's the end of his second letter there so he says that that it's self-evident that it's not a delusion because there's nothing that it depends on there's not a reason there's not a cause and effect this is is-ness if the soul were doing anything yes i could call it a delusion i could call it a laziness i could call it a an inactivity but the soul is not in a state of responsibility the soul is not in the sense of an egoistic eye where it's the the attention is on this side of the equation the soul is in a state of surrender in it this is what is manifesting there is no thought in it it is it is not a machination of ideas it's a surrender it's a letting go there is no goal there is no place there's just is-ness and an infinite possibility of the moment the cessation of a particular story and the realization of an infinite song how's that for poetry but that's that's that that is what he's sharing and what he's talking about here and this marvelous you know way of describing i presently recall by inward motions so charming and delicious i've never i've never described my spiritual practice as delicious but what a great word you can just see it's just delicious it's charming you know that's another word i've never used about my spiritual practice but you see how free he is how effortless this is for him how sweet it is and how trusting he is in it you know he has known grace he has touched a love that has no condition he knows what that is and that's what gives him that safety that's what gives him his security it's what's manifesting his joy and his love and his enthusiasm you know and he wants nothing more than that presence the safest desire of all because he already has it it cannot go away it is eternal it is dependable for without it your existence ceases as long as you exist that is your assurance that god is he is your existence he is your love he is your ability to understand know that there's nothing here that you're responsible for there's nothing here that you've done you've just collected things and called them yours you've had thoughts that you liked but you didn't even know what they were they were just a thought this is not a receiving life this is a giving life you give your life to this thing that you're speaking of here you you give your attention you give your love you give you everything but mostly you give yourself and then you receive it but he's just trying to grab something to be some no that's just the world yeah it is i mean and there's a beauty in it for sure but it's a short-lived one usually we get we get exhausted by it after a while but it's one of the first lessons of life is it not i mean you know you're born how with nothing right you bring nothing into the world with you except that which watches your eyes and listens to your ears that's all you've ever had and you live your life however long it is what do you leave with you leave with nothing that self-same entity that inhabited the body leaves it and walks away from it where is the getting where is the taking what can you get what can you take try as you may collect as much as you want it's just going to be an abandoned pile when when this self decides to leave to leave it behind you know that's the beauty and then the in the bhagavad-gita when it says the self cannot be wedded it cannot be burned all of those things we think that it's talking about equality of the self it's not it's talking about freedom it's talking about uh this it's a it's talking about uh the freedom to know that you're you you nothing can be taken from you nothing can be you you can't add anything to yourself nor can you lose anything from yourself what is there to fear in that there's no fear that's total freedom you can collect nothing and you can lose nothing what a beautiful way to live be free in this moment knowing that nothing can be given to you and nothing can be taken from you know it to be a dream in that sense you can work yourself to death in a dream all night long what did you accomplish you know you can dig a mine you can build a house you can build a whole city if you want when you wake up where is it what did you do what was added to you and what was taken away from you nothing just a story a series of thoughts occurred in the mind know that to be the truth this life is the same you've never known anything but your own thought all of your sensations that you think come from an outside world have only been in your mind you assumed the outside world and then you created it to explain it but this that you're looking at is just a symbol you've never seen this room you've never seen it it's impossible for you to see it the light went in your eyes and it became a signal possibly all you got was the signal and from that signal you created these symbols for light this symbol for a window the symbol for another human being the symbol for a chair because you've never seen any of it you've never known anything but a thought your whole life and existence is just a string of thinking a thought in the mind of god come to know that come to feel the immensity of that the freedom of that to know that god is your existence and has always been this is the birth of bhakti of love to know that you have nothing can get nothing can do nothing and to yet find an absolute security in knowing that all is well because god is you know an unconditioned love you know a limitless grace you know an infinite mercy and you dared to trust it and in that moment when you first dare to trust that will be the moment of your enlightenment when you'll be free jaime swamiji yes all right an online question so the question is what is the difference between consciousness and awareness uh well consciousness doesn't need the other to exist awareness needs the other if there's nothing to be aware of what is awareness if there's one without a second it's consciousness another question i'm not sure if it's related uh can you please elaborate upon the three beasts of the great of sedai the what the great of sinai three can you please elaborate upon the three beasts of the great of sinai the three beasts of the okay maybe he's talking about oh boy let me see if i can remember them one of them is laziness or inactivity one of them is fantasy or imagination now what's that third one the three beasts that we have to overcome well one i i mean it leads you into it the first one that laziness is is that inactivity that uh not guarding your thought not guarding the mind not putting in the effort to to to stay to stay untrapped by the mind uncontrolled by the mind uh and when you fall into that laziness or that idleness of mind then fantasy becomes the second beast that has to be overcome because you'll start imagining a moment better than the perfect moment you inhabit and in that imagining of a better moment than the perfect moment you inhabit you get into all kinds of trouble and the third one i'm not going to be able to pull up at this moment i just i just stumbled on those in the philocalia just about a month ago i did a i did a vlog on them when i read them because i was very excited about them so you can write me at monkotronic gmail.com as a okay yeah so just type that in there and uh and i'll answer in an email from the text itself that'll be better m-o-n-k-o-t-r-o-n-i-c at gmail.com hopefully i don't have 40 million emails in the morning but [Laughter] so all right is that everything um in hinduism i find that love itself is not enough for all the love and devotion that thakur had for divine mother still he had to formally do why so that well takur is special in a way in that he wanted to follow all of the paths and prove the efficacy of all of the paths and so he did all of the practices he also lived as an example he he did not really need to do anything he was born ever free and ever pure ever perfect there was a thin veil that mother kept there for him so that he could enact his leela so that he could communicate with us you know it it certainly would have been a great value for him just to sit in a room in ecstasy for 35 years and then pop out at the end but to have there there wouldn't be there wouldn't be much of a gospel there'd be a pamphlet of one page and he sat in one place in ecstasy for 35 years and that was that so mother kept that veil over his eyes for our for our benefit you know he's an avatar so he had no sense of self he was a hole through which god was seen and so god manifested herself through that hole through the play of taquer through the play of the divine mother through the play of vivekananda this time you know that he came in that sense so it's not that love is not not enough love love is all there is i mean love love is one of the fundamental businesses of the universe it's inexplicable and infinite and immortal so certainly love will always be enough what won't be enough is is your surrender to it your your uh acceptance of it your faith in it your trust in it as long as the mind is your tool of choice it will never have a complete picture of love it will never have a complete picture of grace that that only happens at the death of mine the death of the purification of mind uh when mind and god become one mind and brahman are the same when it's pure when you've removed all sense of me and mind from it in that pure mind so yes no love love is enough but so is truth so is intelligence so is existence any one of them uh you know the describes a practice you know bhakti comes from the love guyana comes from the intelligence raja from isms you know so the paths to god come from our own nature so they are enough takur lived his life not out of need or accomplishment but as as a play as a as a whole through which we look to see god we know what a perfect human being looks like we know what a realized soul is and thereby we know what we are in our true in our truth in our authentic self and he played the play so that we would know how to get there since that's how we approach it some of us some of us didn't have to do that some of them just went to taco and got there got their gift and went away it was finished and some of us are still working on it in that sense all right jaima jai takor dry swimming shanti you