Video 3

Vedic Christianity · Class 3 · Practice of the Presence of God · Swami Chidbrahmananda

all right good evening everyone uh so we're again in week three of our uh well third class anyway of uh taking a look at the teachings of brother lawrence a medieval monk uh at the time very simple man uh considered himself to be uneducated and uh but left a a vibrant and lasting footprint in this world in his simple way of loving the divine now this is kind of framed uh just to remind everyone in within the idea of a vedic christianity or a vedantic christianity um who which seemed to be a lot more controversial than i had expected or had thought that it could be uh really my only my only point in calling it that or referring it to that is this idea that religion is not plural that all of the religions that we talk about are really different practices and approaches to the one eternal religion that sanatana dharma the old scriptures will say and that really the problem posited in all of the religions is identical that we were all at once at one time in a perfected state and that somehow humanity has degraded to our experience of life and we want to find our way back to that in in christianity of course it happened right there at the beginning of the world in vedanta it happens continually because every moment is the beginning of the world and we we have the same problem we believe ourselves to be separate and apart from the whole we believe ourselves to be independent and we're trying to figure out what to do with that the sages in all the religions talk about finding a unity or finding a oneness with is-ness with the i am in christianity with pure love with pure intelligence and pure existence so religion in that context shouldn't be so controversial or so difficult and so this class is about that it's about looking at a tradition different from our own and looking to see the beautiful way in which it can help us to find the divine i really like in the book of hebrews in the new testament of the christian bible it says all scripture is inspired by god and beneficial for teaching reproving and development and righteousness or something close to that and i i you know i grew up as a christian and was always told that that scripture meant the bible and i always believed that full-heartedly up until i found out that there was no bible at the time that scripture was written that it hadn't been compiled yet or pulled together yet and so i like to broaden the idea uh that all scripture from any tradition can be beneficial to us to to know uh not just the divine to know ourselves to know what's going on what what is this puzzle this weirdness of life you know which is something you don't often think about asking right i mean it all seems very clear because we're very used to it but if you sit down and start thinking about any of it it doesn't make any sense i mean this is crazy this there is just no telling when you start thinking about you know that we're living on a ball you know spinning floating through space at incomprehensible speeds no one driving that we know of and uh how perfectly comfortable we are with all of these things and uh you know in in in light of that learning to live how is it that we manage this experience of life in a way that we don't get beat up by it that we don't that we don't get defeated we don't uh you know go through an entirely miserable experience and so with that idea and with that approach we jump into the writings of uh brother lawrence um we have gotten into the second conversation we're in the second page of the second conversation and we're going to start with the paragraph that begins with the sentence that he was very well pleased with the post he was now in he has just finished telling us about the story of him working in the kitchen in the monastery for 15 years being somewhat lame so that whenever he was sent to get the groceries and he was sent like a long distance to get groceries he had to take a barge that had all these barrels of things that they needed for the monastery and his his only way of getting around the barge was to lay down on the barrels and roll over them because his legs didn't work properly to get around and he said that he found i guess in his words he said what was it so likewise in his business in the kitchen to which he had naturally a great aversion so he didn't he didn't enjoy the work at all but he had accustomed him accustomed himself to doing everything there for the love of god and with prayer upon all occasions for his grace to do his work well he had found everything easy during the 15 years that he had been employed there and this is where i'd like to start tonight i think we went a couple of paragraphs into this but he says such simple things that have such a profound meaning you know in vedanta to kind of talk about this a little bit christianity is is firmly committed and firmly rooted in dualism so uh within that tradition humans are always separate from god and that the union with god that the saints talk about is a sort of union uh saint john of the crosstalk says that it's really like you as a devotee become like a piece of glass and you get so purified and so shined up that you can't be seen but only god can be seen but you're still there as a piece of glass and okay [Laughter] that's fine with me uh in vedanta we kind of just dispense with the piece of glass and and just say you realize that there is no ego self there is no separateness that there is just one unified infinite love dreaming a dream playing a play seeming as seeming a a conjuring of some sorts however you want to talk about that but here in in these christian scriptures he's very much separate from god and it's a relationship and to make that relationship healthy and vibrant alive and satisfying is not really his goal it's sort of that's that's what happens if you live properly if you live with wisdom that your relationship with the divine is a harmonious one and a peaceful one mostly because you find out that you in your perfect state want what god wants in that you act like god acts you know and so when saint paul says in galatians you know that that uh it is no longer i who live but christ who lives in me his ideal has taken him over he has given up or or at least purified himself of these egoistic ideas of a separate self that benefits at everybody else's expense so it becomes a universal self that rejoices in everybody's betterment and service and it itself lives entirely for the other and no longer for one's own independent existence so jumping in he says that he was very well pleased with the post he was now in but that he was ready to quit that as the former since he was always pleasing himself in every condition by doing little things for the love of god so there's a couple of beautiful things in here one that he was very well pleased with the post that he was well that he was now in i think it's in the book of micah in the old testament where uh the summary at the end the prophet says what is the responsibility of man you know what is the requirement of god but that a man enjoy his work and walk humbly with his god he said that's the whole point in life you know enjoy what you're doing enjoy where you are what you are now on the surface that sounds cool that means oh just do what you enjoy absolutely not it means whatever the moment contains is perfect for you accept it as perfect for you don't try and change it and in that walk humbly with the divine with the beloved surrender all sense of aversion and attraction so you see in such a simple statement that he was very well pleased with the post he was now in but that he was always ready to quit that as the former because he wanted it to be more difficult we find out in the first couple of paragraphs of his story that he joined the monastery because he thought he was an awful an awful guy he thought he thought he was a terrible person and he thought well this will slap me into into place and i'll go and i'll get rid of all of my faults just simply through the mean discipline of being in a monastery and he was always greatly disappointed because he enjoyed himself he he loved everything that came his way why because he had found this very simple formula of living in the presence of god in an awareness of the presence of god which is an important distinction because we all are always living in the presence of god god is existence itself and so the very fact that we exist is by necessity of that existence we are borrowing that from the beloved so he became he set about to be aware at every moment it's he says it took him 15 years to master this to where he actually got in a habit that didn't end of living consciously in the presence of divine love at every moment and he says that that this gave him such a great joy because throughout the day he would just do little things as a favor to god you know i remember he first want me to talk this way now i'll get in trouble for this but when i was younger and going around the dating scene you know i remember those those young brushes with love you know where this person was oh my god the feelings and the the you just you know i remember spending hours making up little cards you know and drawing pictures and little cutouts and stuff anything just sitting there thinking about my new you know my new my new friend and here we have an image of someone living that way that life itself was his lover that god himself herself was his lover his romantic interest his best friend his closest confidant and so just throughout the day he would do little things to express that love the way that he would you know cook the omelets for the monks in the morning the way that he would buy the groceries the special way that he would roll over the casks on the barge you know just always thinking of ways of manifesting love and there's a great satisfaction in that why because apparently we're made of the image of in the image of god we are a reflection of the nature of god and in vedanta we say that means that we're made of love pure love that in vedanta we say that we share god's existence that if god forgets us or doesn't think about us for a split second boom we just aren't there anymore so we are in god's mind constantly we are in relationship with the beloved constantly uh he knows from that position that we are his and of him and so there's a very deep feeling a very deep established relationship to us but oneness to him or her or that when uh when this experience when this relationship is experienced and so he says since he was pleasing himself in every condition by doing little things for the love of god that with him the time set for prayer was not different from any other time that he retired that he retired to pray according to the directions of his superior but that he did not want such retirement nor ask for it because his greatest business did not divert him from god so he understood you know that our spiritual practice is not the hour that we spend in meditation you know early in the morning before we go to work it's not the hour we might do in the evening at arity that our life is practice that religion is not a part of our life we don't identify with a religion you know and have this component of self that life itself is religion life itself whether regardless of what you believe regardless of why you think you're alive the design of this universe if you contemplate it is to help you grow to develop you just by living even if you paid no attention to the idea of god even if you paid no attention to anything religious at all you're going to develop as a person you're going to grow you're going to learn that treating people in certain ways doesn't work and treating people in other ways does work you're going to find out that doing things in a particular way bring you satisfaction and doing other things in different ways bring you misery you're going to find this all out why because you're living inside the divine you are in god you are that in the ultimate truth but your experience of life is literally like a fish in the ocean of god that you're just going along you will grow and you will develop and eventually in the vedantic tradition anyway you will find god everybody gets there there there's there's not a division everyone returns to their true nature everybody comes to the understanding of what they really are and what they have always been that they were the dreamer and not the dreamed right we've talked about that to some degree so this idea of living your life as if every moment is your time in the shrine you know that you're walking around remembering the name of god on the bus and wherever you are and even more so that you're identifying the beloved in everything around you you know that if you touch this desk you know there's a there's a story about the divine mother sri sharda devi that a monk had finished sweeping her room and when he was done with the broom he just cast it away and his mother his divine mother srisharta devi said to him why with such disrespect would you throw the broom away did it not perform its duty faithfully all things should be respected in their place for what they are and that shows us that teaches us you know even the way you treat the desk in front of you even the way that you treat the chair you're sitting in can be done with consciousness with awareness with love you know and that will bring this joy that brother lawrence is talking about that when you speak to the cashier with the familiar familiarity of prayer you know that that will make a very big difference in the way the cashier responds to you when you look in their eyes and you see pure love there you talk to god to your your beloved through that cashier it changes the way you view that cashier you approach them with a great reverence with a great respect with a great love a great intimacy that's not warranted by the relationship between you and the cashier but is warranted because you're looking through the cashier to that image of the beloved that image of god that is their own creation that is their own manifestation their own reality and that that will both inspire you and inspire them also that's why we're always looking for holy company we're always looking for these holy men and women that look at us that way that don't see our ego personality self but they see the beautiful thing there that god sees that spark of holiness that spark of pure love that exists within us before the ego gets hold of it so he's he's living in this realization that that the time of prayer is not different from any other time that he doesn't need to retire to a hermitage somewhere in order to think of god because he's already got it going on to the extent that his most busy moments do not divert his mind from god that really deserves a moment of stillness to think about that that in his busiest moments when he's most stressed out perhaps you know the biggest responsibilities coming his way he didn't forget who he was he didn't forget that it was all divine that it was couched in love that's a very beautiful thing to understand because how much stress is relieved in life when you come to know the nature of the universe we live in is divine love and that the only thing that prevents us from experiencing and seeing it is an insistence on ego an insistence on being separate from it and that gives us a need to control it a need to dominate it to need to manifest the infinite self that we know through some sort of weird intuition it's why it's why you can work and make 120 billion dollars and still work you know still get up and go to work because a billionaire isn't just trying to make a lot of money a billionaire is trying to manifest his infinite power his infinite security you know the infinite nature of the divine soul he's trying to mimic that because he believes himself to be a body mind he believes himself to be separate from god and so this knowing of his nature this infinite self drives him to manifest it in the material world that he thinks he is and so that is the nature of lust that's the nature of greed that's the nature of all of these things and why that great poet that persian persian sufi poet hafiz says in one of his poems that all the desires of your body are holy he doesn't mean that lust is holy he means that that which lust is trying to accomplish is holy that lust is trying to make in an infinite connection with the world around you it's trying to simulate that oneness with all things you know depending on how driven you are in that direction so it's it's all of these qualities of the soul that the body mind tries to paint on the material canvas it comes out wrong because it can't be done you can't you can't create infinity in the finite world so he says uh here he says that he knew his obligation to love god in all things and as he endeavored to do so he had no need of a director to advise him but that he needed much a confessor to absolve him there's a reason for that that you know this is one of those common things in spiritual life when you sit in the presence of a divine perfection i always like to think of it in terms of like a partner you know that you marry you get lucky enough to marry somebody who's perfect they always love you they're always patient with you they're anticipating all your needs they never forget your birthday they're doing everything right and you're the imperfect one you know you're the one that's forgetting birthdays and burning toast and forgetting to get up in the morning you know and all of these things and so in that relationship we get lost in guilt we start to feel totally unworthy we start to feel all that anxiety of shame and and all these things that we identify with which are not our nature and this beautiful thing here that we see brother lawrence even in the perfect life that he seemed to be living even in a life that was full of joy and full of this peace that he was experiencing that even in that that relationship with god hurt at a level because he would see that he wasn't living up to the mark all the time that he was very sensible of his faults but not discouraged by them this is a beautiful thing and in vedanta you know you there is no need for being discouraged in it because you are that you know you are of that divine nature when the divine looks at you he's he she that i need all the pronouns uh is not uh is not concerned with how you see yourself at the moment you see yourself from a deluded state that you're a set of memories you're a set of activities that you're a certain age that you have a certain gender that you've done certain things your whole ego self is built on your past which is very short when you talk about the the age of the universe you know very short goodness you don't even have to talk about the age of the universe it's just short you know you can find out i just of course i have to talk about age that's part of my tradition but you know i just turned 57 and i'm like what i'm how old you know and you start seeing people treat you you know i remember the first time that a high school student called me sir i was i was terribly distressed because i had asked him what time it was and i to me i was just a bro on the street you know hey dude what's time what's what's the time right now and he's like he's like uh um i said do you have the time he's like oh yes sir it was the first time in my life that somebody had called me sir to my face and i was like oh my gosh so this is who we think we are and this is what we deal with and so that conjures up all kinds of insecurities you know because in our pure self we're infinitely connected infinitely loved but in our body mind self our ego self we're always lacking we're always small we're always separate from everything else and vivicananda says that our first notion of being separate which you see mirrored in the story of adam and eve that when she ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil the first thing that happened was that they felt their lack they felt naked they realized they were naked and that was their first concern and then they hear god walking in the garden in the cool of the day which sounds lovely and any other time they probably would have run to them but it says that they hid in fear because they had realized they were naked and that's what happens when we live our life through the senses through this body that we feel the limitations of this finite world knowing at least implicitly our infinity kind of makes us shrug with some discomfort but the ego takes advantage of it the ego loves you to feel small because the ego will fix it i'll make you better you know come over here but let's go get that cream that one that makes you look younger let's let's fix the gray in your hair you know let's let's do all these things the ego has the fix it it it causes your desires and it relieves your desires or fulfills your desires but in that perfect self what room for desire is there it's unchanging because it's perfect absolutely stable no noise no crying no upsetness it's in that perfect state so here we have our brother lawrence realizing his fallen state but not being troubled by it accepting it as it is and continuing on in this relationship with god and uh it says that he was very sensible of his faults didn't was but was not discouraged by them that he confessed them to god but did not plead against him to excuse them that's what living by faith means it means you trust what god says about himself i am love i'm pure love i'm perfect love we know from corinthians that love does not keep any record of wrongs which i always took such great comfort in because it seemed in the church i grew up in i was always being told of my wrongs you know that god was checking his list much like santa claus and and sometimes checking it twice you know and i was always left wanting and so i was in a beggar's relationship with the beloved but here we see from from brother lawrence that he didn't live in that beggar's relationship he assumed that god was love he assumed that the infinite mercy of god meant that god had infinite mercy so he was contrite he would confess his sin he would confess his shortcomings his mistakes but he wouldn't be troubled by them wouldn't get discouraged about them and didn't feel any need to go back and say sorry more than once didn't feel like he had to go and beg forgiveness over and over and over again so this is that faith when we say that you know live by faith alone this is what they're talking about when sri ramakrishna says that faith is everything that's what he means that when you when you think of the beloved know the beloved when vivekananda i keep saying the same things but when vivekananda makes that beautiful statement stop seeking for god and see him you already live surrounded by the beloved by the divine everything around you is god just like in your dream last night everything you experienced was you that dream all that you saw everyone you met everything that happened happened in you and was composed of you your own mind created that entire story and experience and the sages say this is that the sages say this is all god there is only one unseparated eternal self perfect in love perfect in intelligence absolute existence know that have faith in that and live a life of freedom in that knowing that it's not the body that defines this experience it's not the mind that defines this experience it is the thing itself which is what it is and that all of our trouble is we ask the mind what is this experience and we ask the body what is how do i feel about this and we get lost so he says he did not plead against god to excuse him when he had when he had so done he peaceably resumed his usual practice of love and adoration what is that usual practice of love and adoration that happens in awareness when you stop making assumptions about being alive right when you stop thinking you know what everything is when you stop thinking you know the game and start realizing that you can't answer more than five questions about anything that you know right i'd love to bring that point up with toddlers asking why you know that you get to the third why and every adult because that's the way it is at some point you get angry and shut it down why because the ego needs that assumption the ego exists because of assumption and when you start seeing things as they are you start not forgetting that you're living on a ball and not even the top of the ball that you're that you're protruding straight off the edge of the ball and that this ball is spinning and this ball is in space and it's moving and it's moving at speeds you can't even conceive of that brings a sense of awe does that mean we all walk around thinking about that no but it means that we we are acutely aware that things are not as they seem that we have never sat still we've never known a moment of of stillness in our life because it's not available to us in the physical body we're spinning and moving and gyrating in multiple directions at one time so it's living with an awareness when you look at another human being and realize you have no idea how they are how could they be there how can that body do that how how does it talk how does it see you know how does it breathe why does it breathe what is it breathing you know all these things have answers to a certain extent within the material world but at another level they don't they're inconceivable and the rules begin to break down you know read a new york times article on on quantum physics and you'll know immediately it takes nowadays these days it takes as much faith to be a physicist as it does to be a monk because the premises are equally seemingly absurd like wow that's crazy i was told that i read in the new york times it was a new york times article on on uh quantum physics i'm not going to get this right so just mark that down ahead of time but he said that the nature of reality was like this black goo that didn't take form until it was observed and within which time ran forward and backward simultaneously and didn't and didn't pick one until you saw it until you see it and so it's our consciousness that creates the world in real time and that's physics that's not some sadhu on a mountain in india that's you know physics our cherished materialist understanding that's so absolute about this world and i read in wired magazine a few days after that that they had they had managed to put a particle into the state of movement and non-movement simultaneously what you know that can't be that's physics how can that be how you can't do that so anyway it's living life like that with a sense of wonder a sense of awe a sense of seeing it and not assuming it that this moment it's very important when you start that practice the presence of god because really that's the the practice of the present everything is god given you can't get away from the divine it's everywhere around you but the practice of the present that means removing history removing the story that defines you removing your your idea of causation you know and living free i can i am everything and anything in this moment i don't have to act the way i've always acted i don't have to do the things i always do i'm free and undefined in this moment and in that with without the past you have nothing in you to create a sense of lack or a sense of preference or a sense of need because the moment's undefined it's free the is-ness is enough and so without that sense of definition that sense of lack that sense of limitation that your past provides to you you don't have a need for the desires to fix it your desires is when you can't see the perfection of the current moment you feel like you have to fix it and as a matter of fact sri nishigadatta says that's the difference right between the holy man and and the sinner to use the christian word the difference between the holy man and the sinner is that the holy man recognizes the moment as perfect and enjoys the beloved in it whereas the sinner is always trying to improve the moment always trying to make the moment better because he has a long list of needs and desires of things that are lacking in the moment so that gives birth to future where we're trying to come up with a plan of fixing this very unpleasant moment the body the moment may be unpleasant to a body it may be you know it may be too cold in here maybe too hot in here but you're not a body it's your choice to respond to that or not just like in the dream that dream body could be hot or cold does it make a difference does it really matter because you're the body that's wrapped in bed you're fine but in the dream you imagine you're too cold too hot and see you mature some as you mature in spiritual life you come to that understanding i'm not a body i'm not this body in particular you know and then the mind comes closely second to that you're watching your mind all the time if you're watching your mind by necessity it's not you you're the observer of mind so you can choose to answer it or not answer it you don't have to run your life by the mood of your mind by the conditions of your mind but who are you then that's what brings us here tonight because you are something that cannot be objectified you can't be grabbed by the mind you can't be defined by the mind you can't be limited like a body you can't be seen by the eyes right so your real nature this is-ness this pure and perfect love the sages say that it's actually the unchanging absolute that it doesn't change you can witness that if you think about it in the fact that you've always been you no matter how different your body is today than it was 30 years ago you're still fully you you know there's always that conversation of is it true that all the cells in your body change after seven years or not and i get differing answers online and sometimes some people say yes it is true some people say no nerve cells can't be regenerated they're the same ones boom but i can tell you that my body is different enough from the age of one to the age of 57 that i can get the idea that there's a sense of i in here that is unchanging that is always stable that's in that all of this change implies that unchanging me that needs nothing that's ever free and ever pure and is of this nature the nature of pure love the nature of existence itself that nature of intelligence itself it's the reason you understand things it's the reason you can look around this room and take in all the five senses and make sense of it that's borrowed that's borrowed the mind borrows that ability from the divine nature within it you know that's how that works so here he has found this this this ability to live in this this contentment in what he's doing because he's not a cook in the kitchen he's a lover he's incidentally a cook in the kitchen you know and i always think in this world where our jobs get so specialized you know where you go and i remember in college working for a billing department at a hospital you know i just had to just take the piece of paper change and after a while you begin to wonder what is life about is there any meaning at all in this and every job is that way i remember when i was in the monastery i'd been in the monastery like i think eight years and i was sitting and having lunch with swami prabhupada like i did every day and i was quite troubled because i had talked to my father that morning on the phone and he had told me that he was he's like what are you doing with your life he's like every time i talk to you you're either weeding the garden or cleaning the toilets you know or you know it's like when are you going to be a teacher when are you going to give lessons or stand up and speak to somebody you know and it planted this feeling in me like oh my god i'm a failure i don't do anything and so i told swami prabhupada at lunch i said i said you know i feel like i'm just a glorified maintenance engineer you know i'm i'm a maintenance engineer who gets treated like a monk and it's like can't i do something meaningful can't i do something important in life and he sat there and he looked at me and he says first can you think of any job in this world that isn't that is anybody out there not just a glorified maintenance engineer are you not just keeping things going in at the end of the day so we see here the answer to that is this this beautiful approach of our brother lawrence that our approach to life is to understand that we are not engineers of any kind that we are lovers that we were created to experience love and to give love and that a life based on love makes anything endurable and not just endurable but inspiring so when you go to that cubicle farm and you're sitting there with the 23 other accountants in the office ticking away with numbers on a computer that don't really exist even nowadays just in there remember that you're not an accountant in an office that you are pure love pure intelligence and it's up to you to express that to everyone there to go around and find out how betty is how sally's kid is doing to remember that it's jackie's birthday you know to to go and give your condolences that she just lost her brother yours is to love that is what gives your job meaning that is what makes your life profound that is what will bring you joy in being that is what saves you from being a cubicle rat and and hitting that midlife crisis you know somewhere in your 40s i can promise you if you're not there yet somewhere in your 40s you're going to wake up and realize for the first time in your life that you've probably got fewer days in front of you than what you have behind you and at that point you ask yourself wow my life isn't about my future anymore all the way up until this point it's always been what am i going to be what am i going to accomplish what am i going to do and at some point in your 40s you wake up and you look around you're like oh my god this is it that guy that dreamed those dreams in kindergarten when the policemen came to visit town and this is all i've done with my life you know is this it and you can know that everybody regardless of accomplishment comes to that point comes to that understanding the material world can't offer you fulfillment it can't offer you what you're looking for because everything in this world has that expiration date on it you can be happy for a while you can be in pleasure for a while you can be in love for a while but everything ends even your body mind comes to an end and knowing that alone can set you free from being controlled by those things when you understand that your nature is far more than that it does not end it does not have an expiration date it does not get tired it does not wear out it is constantly manifesting this entire world for you you know when you look at a sunset you know it's beautiful did somebody have to teach you about beauty no it's because you have that divine nature within you can recognize beauty love how do you know what that is how can you define that you know it's one of those words that that can't be defined as soon as you try and say this is what it is it manifests to something different how do you know what love is and yet you always do it's because of what you are so we start looking instead of seeking for love instead of seeking to touch something real we do what vivicananda says we see it we take away these glasses of assumption and we look at the beauty we look at the table for the first time again we're like wow that's cool how does this work how strange this is you know how it how do i see it am i able to see it so he says that in his trouble of mind his trouble of mine was actually that for for a long time he just believed that he deserved to be damned you know he felt he said that in last week's reading that he just he felt like he deserved to be damned and that was very troubling for him and the fact that he couldn't get god to punish him because he needed some sense of of absolvent you know absolution from from deserving to go to hell he needed some sort of payments to to pay up that price somehow do you remember that that there was a movie called the mission i think it was a long time ago and uh in this book there's this there's this conquistador who has been to the new world and and he had killed millions of natives i mean probably not millions but he killed a lot of them and he felt really guilty about it and so as his penance he was he made himself carry this big netted bag of all of the gold and stuff that he had plundered he made himself carry it everywhere that he went and he'd run into this very beautiful priest who had really taught him about the reality of god and he had completely repented of that whole life but he was carrying this bag of of penance everywhere that he went and at some point they're being hunted by an army you know representing the church because they had quote gone native you know they had sided with the native peoples and were trying to help them defend themselves and so they're being hunted and they're climbing this huge wall our huge slope and the army is is catching them slowly from behind and so the priest tells them you've got to let go of that bag if you don't let go of that bag we're gonna we're gonna die and the guy's like no i you know he he couldn't forgive himself he said no i have to carry this and so the priest takes this knife and slices the bag so that it falls off of his shoulder and goes rolling down the hill and the guy turns around and runs down the hill and meets his demise going after that and see this is what brother lawrence is trying to prevent this inability to forgive yourself this inability to let go and believe or have this faith in the nature of love that you can move on you have full permission to walk away in this moment free of your past free of your habits you do not have to pay the price infinite mercy infinite grace is the nature of this divinity that we are and that we inhabit the world around us so give yourself permission to be free from your identity to be free from your path from the deterministic things of body and mind that have got you stuck you are free in this moment so in this trouble of mind he had consulted nobody but knowing only by the light of faith that god was present he contented himself with directing all of his actions to him doing them with the desire to please him let what would come of it so you see he was doing things for the sake of love alone in karma yoga swami vivekananda drives lies out this exact principle the secret to work is not to do it to get the result but to do it for its own sake as an act of love so i always use that same example going to the dmv the department of motor vehicles to and you're sitting there you know you've waited five hours to get your appointment and you're filling out that form and you're filling out that form and everything is for a reason so there's this stress i've got to get this done i've got to get this accomplished i've got to do these things stop fill out that form as an act of love how would you do that you do it carefully you do it neatly you do it honestly you don't do it for any reason other than that and when you hand it to the woman you consciously are the man behind the counter you consciously hand it to the beloved this is my act of love i did it carefully i did it with attention i did it beautifully and now i'm giving it to you my beloved you know to the woman the man behind the counter accepting it from you in that method of doing work you will find your contentment and your fulfillment work is only that only the now exists the imagined cause and effect the imagined results are just that they're imagined they they're they're a forced way of thinking only this moment has ever been experienced only this moment has ever been if you want to know eternity think about the nature of being this moment never began when did it begin this moment never ended when will it end you see we live in the eternal we exist eternally time does not belong to us we have no experience of time we always are here and we're always here now that is the only reality we've ever known that is eternity that's the beloved so exist in this moment and don't imagine the trace of it that's left in the mind to have a reality it doesn't it's just in the mind and don't imagine a future where something is going to be fixed and made perfect because that future is only now all of your past is summed up in this moment all of your future is projected from this moment it's all contained here nothing here is going to change to make you happy nothing here is going to change to make you content if you cannot be content here and now you cannot be content if you cannot find a joy in living here and now you will never find a joy in living because this moment will always be where you are you will never experience anything but it so in this moment become aware of divine love become aware of eternity become aware of your intimate relationship with the lover of the universe as it could be interpreted so only by this light of faith that god was present he contented himself with directing all of his actions to him doing them with a desire to please him let what would come of it come of it that useless thoughts spoil everything getting caught up letting your mind take you out of your consciousness letting your mind take you out of your awareness of the moment as it is getting caught up in the story of mind that creates what tension anxiety lack need so useless thoughts they spoil everything that myth that all mischief began there but that we ought to reject them as soon as we perceive their impertinence to the matter at hand or our salvation and return to our communion with god so at every moment remembering and not forgetting that we are in communion with divine with divinity we are in communion with love with intelligence with existence that we're dancing this dream dancing this life it can't hurt us yes it can hurt a body that's not you yes it can hurt a mind but that's not you and through practice you begin to see that separation and as you practice and stay aware of that separation when you understand that you have to ask your body how it feels that's your first clue that it's not you that you have to ask your mind about its moods and its health that's your primary clue that it's not you always ask who is the asker who who is the one that wants to learn to be an engineer who is the one that wants to learn about god who's asking these questions from where are they arising become aware of awareness according to srinish and also eckhart tolle if you want somebody younger that notion become aware of awareness in that is bliss if you want to be happy become aware of the awareness in yourself it is an ecstatic happiness that is always present in you but always you're distracted from it so these useless thoughts they spoil everything we ought to reject them as soon as we realize that we've gone into headspace we've left the real world we've left the moment we've gone into the spin learn to catch that immediately never allow yourself to get more than two thoughts away from your beloved never forget that your only task in this world is to love is to love and if you love you will be loved in in in measure you can't imagine so these useless thoughts that spoil everything put them away as soon as you catch yourself as soon as you realize and bring yourself back to communion with the divine that at the beginning he had often passed his time of appointed for prayer in rejecting wandering thoughts and falling back into them see that's what he said so at the beginning he had often passed his time appointed for prayer in rejecting wandering thoughts right or all of us have that experience even in vedanta when you practice your meditation we we i mean to be honest none of us probably has meditated yet you know we're constantly trying to bring that toddler of a mind back into the get get what are you doing over there get back over here again you know and the places that it ends up oh my lord i i almost quit meditating completely my first year in the monastery i told my friend philip this because i was sitting in the shrine and my mind had wandered to a place that i won't even describe in public and i didn't realize it until it had been sitting there for quite some time in that space and then i kind of came to you know like you do where you suddenly become aware oh my god you know what am i doing what i'm sitting here in a shrine at a monastery thinking like that you know so our effort is just constantly bringing this kid back into control come get over here come stay here so he says that most of his time also he's a kindred spirit with us most of his time in prayer wasn't praying he was trying to bring his thoughts back to to the moment to being in the presence of god and then falling back into them again you know you get it back under control you you start your mantra you start the name of god whatever your practice is and then suddenly you're just off wandering again and it's a wonderful practice this gives you a real idea of maya this delusion of what we're up against try and become aware of the moment that you lost awareness it's nigh impossible how did i end up thinking about this you start to try and backtrack when was the moment that i left the room and i promise you you it never you can never really seem to put your finger on exactly when you left the room when you left awareness that is maya that's that that's that sleep that's why all of the sages all of the avatars jesus and buddha they're always saying wake up wake up and you're like what i'm awake leave me alone like no you're not you're not in the room and you don't even know you're not in the room you've you've wandered into your mind and you're not even aware how far away you are you know it's like become aware of awareness move back to reality be back in communion with your divine self that he could never regulate his devotion by certain by certain methods as some do that nevertheless at first he had meditated for some time but afterwards that went off in a manner he could give no account of which is what we were just talking about you know that we sit there with the best intentions of meditating and uh you know the next thing you know you're like what was that you know that's just these things happen you lose awareness and that is the practice of of religion as it is to make you aware if you can be aware of the nature that you're inhabiting the here and now if you can be fully present that is what it is to be realized that is what it is to know god you know that god is this moment and to be able to be fully present in that to be able to be fully aware in that is ecstatic you look at these great lovers of god you know like sri ramakrishna you know zipping into ecstasy 4 five ten twelve times a day constant in his life it's just that's it the mind the body cannot endure this moment without the the visor or the the sunglasses of assumption if you you can't open to the experience of being without short-circuiting the mind short-circuiting the body it's ecstatic he literally went into ecstasy literally left the body left the mind you know the doc there's one story where the the doctor that was taking care of him sees him go into that ecstatic state and goes up and touches his eyeball and he doesn't blink doesn't doesn't move at all he's completely completely transcended this small self you know the dream body has standing just standing there completely overwhelmed you know tears coming down the sides of his face and and just useless that's just a side note so that he had meditated for some time but afterwards that went off in a manner that he couldn't give any account of that all bodily mortifications and other exercises are useless except as they serve to arrive at the union with god by love that he had well considered this and found it the shortest way to go straight to him by a continual exercise of love and doing all things for his sake so all of these spiritual practices these mortifications that you see whether they're you know holding your hands up like you see some people do you know for their whole life or you know refusing to get up for a whole life all of taking cold showers all these mortifications and things that sometimes ultra religious people do he said if it's not motivated by love if it's not couched firmly in divine love it's absolutely without meaning so if that's true of mortifications and disciplines of the body how much more true is it of what you pass your time with if you're sitting there playing that video game and not not aware of the moment not aware of the divine presence in that moment it's just a waste of time it's the same with going to work you know even if you're a doctor that person's going to die do as much healing as you want give them as much medication as you want give them as much exercise regiment as you want change everything about them they're going to die and nobody lived beyond the period that they're going to live so it's like if you approach life in that way you come to realize all things are meaningless if you want the the christian reference the book of ecclesiastes vanity of vanities all is vanity you know where that's a great book to read actually what it is is king solomon who at that time well i mean the scriptures say he's the richest and most powerful king to have ever lived that god blessed him dearly uh because god had offered him when he when he became king god said to him ask whatever you want i'll give it to you do you want riches do you want power do you want what do you want anything you want you know thousands of wives what do you want and solomon says you know all i really want is the wisdom to lead your people faithfully you know to lead them in the right way and god was so thrilled was so happy with that answer he's like you know what take the whole thing and he gave him everything made him the richest most powerful he had 700 concu no 700 wives and 300 concubines or maybe it was the other way around i don't remember anyway he got it all right got everything he ever wanted and so one of the things he did was he set out to find the meaning of life so he took all of that money and he took all of that power and all that prestige that he had and he just went out and he started doing things like i'm going to try i'm going to try this and see if that is fulfilling and the book of ecclesiastes is the story of everything that he did and the recurring theme is vanity of vanities all is vanity what is has been before what will be has been done before it's like this understanding that this world is a loop and if you look closely everything in this world is a loop that earth going around that sun you getting out of bed getting back into bed you having breakfast having breakfast having breakfast having breakfast washing the dishes dirtying the dishes washing your clothes dirtying your clothes everything in this world is a circle if you're expecting that to mean something good luck [Laughter] you it just goes round and round there has to be something more there has to be something implied in all of this and brother lawrence is telling us about that it is love itself to learn to live for that sake alone to live to that and aware of that that when you're aware of god you're not aware of a third party thing that's somewhere else out there you are aware of the image that's reflecting and burning within you that image of divinity that has been given to you that you experience as life that it is the most intimate thing about you and that in finding that and resting in that eternal moment where things do not go in circles where things are the i am the very sense of being when you learn to touch your own awareness that own self that is the seer and the knower when you begin to understand that everything learned has come from within and not from without when you come to know there is no distinction between within and without in that in that is beauty in that is freedom in that is love that we ought to make a great oh it's 8 30. well we'll do this one paragraph that we ought to make a great difference between the acts of the understanding and those of the will that the first were comparatively of little value and the others all that our only business was to love and to delight ourselves in love in god that that's our only responsibility you know to delight in love i'm replacing the word god with love because when you say god we conditioned ourselves to think of something whatever every one of us has a different idea but when you say love who doesn't believe in love most people don't believe in god most people question god well not many people are big in big favor of that today and really with what we've done with it is there anyone to blame i mean you know who is but when you understand god is love say i believe in love everybody will get in line with you yeah right on brother [Laughter] love is where it's at so let that inundate your love your life become aware of your infinite well of love give it freely don't let your ego meter out your infinite resource in small little spurts i'll love you because you were nice to me i'm withholding from you because well i'm a little offended by you you know i don't like your politics get out of here your ego will take this infinite resource that you have and will make you a miser with it to your own misery because your greatest joy will be when you come to understand that it's your infinite resource and you can give as much as you want and will never run out it will always be a self-fulfilling thing so that's brother lawrence for tonight and the practice of the presence of the beloved practice of the presence of god or the practice of being the practice of i am the becoming aware of that self unchanging ever free ever pure ever blissful jaima chai talk or jai swamiji all right can i pray to god to get rid of laziness for me um yes you can but it's going to be troubling in some sense in that you are the one being lazy so ultimately it's going to have to be you who's not lazy it's interesting in that as long as you believe yourself to be separate from god you can ask god for anything and god is everything that is not you right so god does exist in that sense but also be informed but by the realization of all of the of the saints that have gone the direction that there is no separation between you and the divine and come to the realization that you're asking your own self to not be lazy who is going to answer your prayer if it's not you and to know that you have that infinite strength in you because you know that you don't want to be lazy you have the ability to not be that become aware that you're begging your own self not to be what you are and then ask yourself well then who has made me what i am are there more than one person living in me who else is in here that would make me lazy when i don't want to be lazy and come to that understanding and let yourself be changed by not holding on to the story that you're lazy not holding on to the habits of yesterday that you define today as being lazy so take that and and ruminate think about it come to the realization of what's really going on there and be free know that you can be lazy as soon as you stop thinking that laziness is somehow benefiting you there's a reason that you lay there and don't get up think about the whole cycle it's true that those few minutes that you're laying there are very pleasant and that's what the mind is going to replay to you over and over and over again you're those few moments of laziness but then think about if it was all fun and games being lazy why is it that you're praying not to be lazy so broaden your thoughts so when the mind plays that idea of like oh the bed is so warm and i'm so comfortable and i don't want to get up broaden your your what your awareness wider than that moment of pleasure put yourself at the office when you're 45 minutes late for the fourth time this week oh i didn't i didn't mean i didn't want i just i just couldn't well you couldn't get up because you kept replaying those few seconds of bliss in your mind comfort the pleasure that keeps replaying you're not broadening out and seeing the consequences of obeying that so you're not able to fight against it because you're fighting against the very best part of it you're not fighting against the whole story so in all of your vices know that to be the case you know it's like you'll go out on a friday night you'll drink with your friends you'll dance on the table you'll do all kinds of embarrassing things and pass out at the end of it saturday morning you'll wake up and you'll be like oh god i'm never doing that again and guess what next friday night you're right out there again doing the same thing why because your mind only played that fun part over to you again and again and again and you ignored the suffering the lost time the following day so increase your awareness that's the answer to everything be conscious in the way that you live and these things will take care of themselves that's one of the things swami prabhupada nanda said that i've repeated quite a few times he said my the knots of maya which is this delusion that we the world as we think it is as opposed to the world as it is that he says the knots of maya will untie themselves when placed in the light of awareness so you don't want to be aware you don't want you don't want to be aware well that's probably true too but you don't want to be lazy so put laziness in the light of your awareness see what it's doing to your life to be lazy and come to realize you have no desire in you to be lazy and then practice getting out of it you know it's just a matter of time to break the habit you will be successful that's the guarantee this world is designed to unify you with god ultimately fight against it you suffer you're welcome to live like brother lawrence in awareness your knots come untied of their own accord so senators and another one who's that okay yes well they're not well i guess in in some sense their mental states but different ways of being uh ramakrishna says you know that some people are interested in tasting sugar not interested in being sugar so there is uh there is this ability of of maintaining a duality a relationship with god and it's important it's important to know this i mean this is an important point ramakrishna was fully aware of the unity of all things that that the nature of the universe was one without a second and yet he had multiple visions of god he had multiple experiences of the divine so it's not that god is not real and you are and you need to get over this god thing it's exactly the opposite of that god is real and you are the imagined thing and you're welcome to stay an imagined thing as long as you like if you subjugate it to the qualities of the divine to to the nature of the divine there's a great joy like what brother lawrence is experiencing this this sharing of love this life of sacrifice as a dedication to love uh and and that's a perfectly fine place to be you don't have to go out of that you know but then there's some who want to be sugar they if that's the truth i want to know the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i don't want any of this other bhakti love stuff going on that's fine too you know so it's there's not there's not much difference it's just in the nature of the devotee you want do you want to be in love with god or do you want to to what you call one without a second there's no one there to call it anything that experience is there also and ultimately at the end of the hugo at the end of the age god rolls everything up anyway back into the pure undivided self so but in the meantime there are lokas that are very much like heavens you know and and uh in vedanta christians will go to jesus loka where they get to spend eternity in the presence of their beloved and enjoy that company and buddhists well buddhists will go for the one without a second they're not interested in the devotional aspect but krishna will have his people in krishna loka and and rama will have his people in ramalloka you know for us they're all different but in fact they they are all the same that which is rama and that which came as krishna and that which came as buddha and that which came as jesus is the same the same being it's that divine self the word manifested you know and he's come many many many times and even when he came as jesus he says i'm coming back again and when he came as ramakrishna he says i'm coming back again and so it's it's the way that it is you can enjoy god any way that you want to enjoy god but live in awareness and light and love and go forward does that answer it okay sure all right shaima jaitakur try swamiji you