Video 4

Vedic Christianity · Class 4 · Practice of the Presence of God · Swami Chidbrahmananda

[Music] so [Music] oh [Music] mountains [Music] is [Music] nose [Music] have [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] with us [Music] lead our minds to truth and strength [Music] oh oh always seems so distant and crowded ignorance foreign [Music] is is [Music] [Applause] [Applause] mountain i shall be lost [Music] knowledge with the fruit of truth [Music] and [Music] quench thirst of my heart [Music] [Applause] is [Music] me i shall be lost within the [Music] knowledge with the fruit of truth i'll dance [Music] so oh with me [Music] glory unto thee with me [Music] of pure snow confusion i so so all right good evening everyone online and in the room so we're going to continue our investigation of brother lawrence and the practice of the presence of god as you know he was a monk from the middle ages and i have to correct myself here tonight because early on i think two or three weeks ago i mentioned that i had thought that he had written out these conversations of his own accord and i find out here in the biography that actually in 1710 we find out who the real biographer was and it is a uh joseph de beaufort of the bishop of shalom in france who wrote and who wrote down his conversations or who put together this this book and included those conversations with brother lawrence and uh in in celebration of this i don't know this kind of idea of blending the world's religions and the world scriptures and pulling the truth the common truth from all of them i found a hafiz poem who is also a poem sufi poet islamic sufi poet from the middle ages who wrote this poem surprisingly enough called a hole in a flute i am a hole in a flute that christ's breath moves through listen to this music i am the concert from the mouth of every creature singing with the myriad of chorus i am a hole in a flute that the christ's breath moves through listen to this music i kind of when i found that poem and was thinking about brother lawrence they're within a couple hundred years of each other there and i liked to imagine a friendlier day i don't know what was going on in the middle ages to be honest with you but i like the idea of of a sufi poet writing a poem about the christ and i i love brother lawrence you know the practice of the presence you know and and vedanta which you know has been a part of the world's religion gosh going back millennium and uh to kind of revive and remarry these traditions and grow hearts you know hearts of openness in a time of division a time of ego a time of conflict and to just demonstrate through our inspiration and through love this unity that's meant to be right this this togetherness that really should be the hallmark of humanity of what it is to be human and uh so with that we can jump in to what i have marked as our beginning tonight i think we read this paragraph but we'll we'll check in it check in on it so this is a conversation brother lawrence again just as a quick review was just a simple monk who joined the joined the monastery really thinking that he would be slapped into shape he was kind of feeling down about his life feeling like he wasn't worthy of god that he was probably damned given his knowledge of his own life and that maybe throwing himself into the severity of a monastery he would find some discipline and some i guess penance for his life and the beautiful the beautiful thing about it is he was so disappointed because because he found nothing there but bliss nothing there but joy and got along great in the monastery was able uh through his very simple practice uh his practice can be learned in less than a minute to think of god always and to be aware of the presence of the divine in all things everywhere and to never forget that and to do whatever is necessary to keep the mind framed in that ideal to be in the presence of pure love pure love you know it's one of my favorite thoughts and meditations to roll that idea around in my mind that god is love it's not that god is loving you know christ was loving ramakrishna is loving buddha was loving they are the verbs of this unchanging divine but god is love itself and what is that what is that how what could come out of love but love you know to sit there and meditate on being in the presence of a perfect love a love with no tokens of exchange and no no need for evidence no need for behaviors or proofs a love that that that just begins with love doesn't have to fall in love it is that love itself and to know that to kind of change our tack on the presence of god on the existence of god and to see it like we mentioned last week this notion that that instead of using the word god even use the word love when we talk about these divine spiritual realities then you don't have to worry about belief and proofs and evidence everybody knows that love exists everybody knows that it's an undefinable mystery that it's everywhere present that it can be seen and experienced anytime that you become aware of it any time that you put your mind on it and to know that to know that that is god that is the beloved that if you need more god and your love start treating people with love and love will be returned and your awareness will grow of that divine love and then come to know that you being created in the image of god as it were or being a reflection of the divine are that self-same love you will always know how to act you will always know what to say you will always know what you are and you'll become acutely aware of the pain that happens in life when you act contrary to that nature that nature of love that nature of intelligence that nature of being of existence and to see that self-same love which is you before your personality which is you before the mind before the body that that self-same eye is everything that you're seeing that every one of us here is that self-same eye before we have broken it into its component pieces of you and me that we find our motivation in that love we find our inspiration in that sense of being that that is what gets us up and keeps us going so brother lawrence starts out tonight we're starting halfway well i don't know if it's halfway but partially into the second conversation and he's talking about uh practices and and his routine in the monastery kind of the nature of his spiritual life he didn't consider himself a very wise man a very learned man as a matter of fact he saw himself as being kind of clumsy and dumb so he wasn't interested in learning at that time greek and hebrew and latin which was all part of his monastic upbringing he was instead assigned to the kitchen and he made his only practice to do everything for the sake of love in the in the conscious awareness of god's presence with him and he's talking tonight or starts off talking about mortification these these self-punishments or penances that people it was very common i guess in the middle ages and still among some zealous religious practitioners it's still there wearing hair shirts and you know the famous bed of nails that some swami somewhere must have laid on at one time or another but he says that all possible kinds of mortification if they are void of the love of god they could not efface a single sin that we ought without anxiety to expect the pardon of our sins from the blood of jesus christ only endeavoring to love him with all of our hearts that god seemed to have granted the greatest favors to the greatest sinners as more signal monuments of his mercy there's a lot to unpack in there first of all whenever we when in my world or in this world of vedanta whenever someone names a particular avatar if you're not comfortable with that uh you know jesus came as rama jesus came as buddha or buddha came as jesus however you want to name it that this this manifestation or the purest manifestation possible let's put it that way because you need some impurity in order to manifest in order to to enter the world of the changing but that this purest manifestation of the beloved is not about personality it's not about body and it's not about mind you know even in the christian scriptures we see that when paul says in galatians it is no longer i who live but christ who lives through me you know so he he makes an acknowledgement then you know if paul was his body then paul of course would be still living you know if paul was his mind then then paul would still be making the shots and living his life but since paul knows himself to be spirit he knows the nature of the divine to be spirit uh he abandons identification with his body abandons his identification with mind and hands it over fully to the presence of love he he surrenders himself to living purely for and in and through love and he says the nature of this relationship with the beloved is that love is is is everything you know that that what we do is not the important thing what we say is not the important thing excuse me rituals and and practices and doctrines and dogmas are not the important thing that one most important thing every scripture says it and we in our thickness of our heads can't seem to get it into an understanding place all religions teach that love is the one most important thing you know i used to always when i first started lecturing i made it a practice because i thought if i wasted my wasted everybody's time with the rest of the hour at least the beginning of my lecture should be the most important thing so i always started off with what are the three most important things from the studies of the world scriptures that i've studied so far and the little that i know i've come up with three things where the scriptures say these are the the most important thing the first one is love love is the one most important thing you know when when jesus is asked what is the most important thing he says love the lord your god with all of your heart soul mind and strength and love your neighbor as you love yourself that that is the most important teaching according to ramakrishna ramakrishna said right up there they all name all three of these in different ways but the one that i got from sri ramakrishna was sincerity in earnestness he says if you're sincere and earnest in your practice god herself will take charge of your spiritual life we'll make sure that you get where you're hoping to go you know he uses the example if you're going out to find the market if you're sincere and earnest and wanting to get to the market you don't even have to know where it is you walk out the door you ask the first person which way is the market oh that way okay very good you go that way for a while i've been walking this way for a while you ask someone else where is the market you get there right you undertake anything with sincerity and earnestness and you'll be fine so in your spiritual life it is of utmost importance that you are sincere that you're an authentic person that you're real that you are who you are at the time that you're being not and the third one that that uh comes along is the idea of truth and this truth i've come to understand to be an inner integrity it's it's being what you say what you think and what you do that those three things are always in alignment it's the absolute absence of hypocrisy and why would that be truth because what's going to manifest if you live in pure integrity with your nature god is going to manifest pure love pure love intelligence and existence will be your life will be your experience of this being so here he's bringing that to light he's saying with all of these different possible kinds of penance with all these different types of rituals and things that we undertake to know god if they are void of love if they do not have love at the center of them they're not going to cover even a single mistake even a single fault you know and the converse is true if you can manage to live solely for love and purely for love and manifest love in its best way then everything is covered why because well you're not going to take a wrong step if love is your your motivation if you've purified your mind of what it's done with love when it's particularized it in there but i love this part that we ought without anxiety that means with no insecurity no unsureness we ought to expect the forgiveness of our faults from the beloved that there should be no doubt no anxiety that grace is at least for a dualistic relationship with god which everybody's going through at this time you know if you if you took a shower this morning you're a duelist and for us this relationship with the beloved is built on grace because we're just a bundle of mistakes you know the very fact that we think that we're a body the very fact that we think we're separate from god the very fact that we think we're separate and apart from the world at large the very fact that we have this imaginary picket fence around us as big as our ego that says from here to here i'm number one i'm in charge i'll consider what you have to say lord i'll think about it but you know between here and the fence i'm going to do what i want to do that's the situation that makes us individual personalities and to the degree that we're able to purify that and kind of understand the unity of our nature with everything everywhere we we cure that you know in christian language we we we undo our sin we pay do our penance and we we get our forgiveness you know vedanta doesn't really it's actually very interesting vedanta doesn't really talk about sin as sin there's not really any such thing as sin in in vedanta it's ignorance you just don't know better so you do things you do things without knowing or with with knowing the wrong thing you think the wrong thing is right and so it's a matter of curing ignorance and overcoming ignorance and we do that through our practices and through the constant remembrance of the divine and interestingly enough i found even i can't remember which book in the new testament is it's one of the pauline letters though where he's writing and he says all things are lawful but not all things are helpful which is the which is what the the profound message of of god's incarnation as jesus was all about it was that moving away from the idea of law moving away from that idea of requirement you know and guilt and having to to sacrifice and do your penance into a world of grace where that can be assumed your relationship with the beloved can be assumed because god has done as much as what can possibly be done to demonstrate love to you you know he flipped the tables he made the sacrifice for you instead of requiring you to make the sacrifice for him or her or that and so in brother lawrence's approach to god here he throws himself completely into that security of the grace of the divine and that grace of the divine is what becomes the power of of inspiration it's the fundamental thing that makes us respond to love that teaches us what love when it manifests looks like and it's couched in that fundamental understanding that love is absolute you know in corinthians again i always like to remind people corinthians says the nature of love it does not keep a record of wrongs so this idea that god is keeping a record of wrongs or that god's watching your behaviors and waiting for you to fix one before he talks to you or before he relates to you is inaccurate god is not keeping records of wrongs your own mind is keeping a record of your wrongs it's your own mind that won't let you sit comfortably in a church and pray to god or to sit comfortably in relationship with whoever is in the temple that you're sitting in and it's grace fundamental and absolute that gives us permission to be here it's not that we're good people it's not that we've done the right things it's not our samskaras all those are stories here and now there is god and god alone and we being heirs of that being the very manifestation of that are here by invitation or here by grace that we should endeavor to love him with all of our hearts in response to that grace that god seemed to have granted the greatest favors to the greatest sinners as more signal monuments of his mercy the way he shows us how infinite that love is is by taking you know girish gosh you know that drunkard in the in the gospel of sri ramakrishna who shows up drunk and abuses the master himself and all his devotees are saying why do you let that fool in here what do you put down he's a drunkard what what's he doing in a temple and why are you entertaining him and ramakrishna he said he scolds them he says what you do not know what you're talking about you cannot see what i see and just through that relationship with girish girash ends up a saint girish ends up a saint without ever having once been told that he needed to stop drinking that the greatest pains or pleasures of this world were not to be compared with what he had experienced of both kinds pain and pleasure in a spiritual state so that he was careful for nothing and feared nothing desiring only one thing of god that he might not offend him that was his only desire that was his focus in the moment was that he might not go counter to his own nature that he might not violate the law as it were of love that he might not forget grace and act contrary to what those things would inspire to what those ideals would would would call us to so in his day day-to-day he says it took him 15 years to reach the state of not forgetting god at any moment to being in constant awareness of of the now of here of here and now and so to live accordingly that he had no scruples four said he when i fail in my duty i readily acknowledge it saying i'm used to doing so i'll never be able to do otherwise if i am left to myself so we knew that the nature of this manifested body mind you know that he was tied up and he knew the nature of it was was ego and that because of its identity with the finite that it was going to make mistakes that it could never get the whole picture it could never understand the whole picture and that if he was left to his own thinking left to his own analysis of the material world because that's all that most of us are aware of is this this material world that he's like of course of course i'm going to make the i'm going to do it wrong don't just know that god if you leave me for a second if you let me forget you if you let me become unconscious of the moment of the purity of existence here and now if you let me forget that i'm just gonna mess up so don't don't leave me but his fault he acknowledges him readily you know expecting nothing more of that ego self i fail not then i give thanks you know so if he lives in gratitude if he's not making big mistakes if he's not forgetting the divine then he's living in gratitude he's grateful for god being present you know i we talked last time and some people liked that idea that your very existence is god's signature on the love note he writes to you that god is existence sachit ananda in the vedas god is existence absolute he is bliss or love absolute he is intelligence absolute and so absolute meaning unchanging so your existence is because of that divinity in you and we're god to not be with you for a moment like a light going out you would just simply cease to be it is that existence that you are it is that existence which is divine and so to live in this and to know that when i do not fail then i give god thanks acknowledging that all strength comes from the divine you know that there is no weakness in this world there's no weakness in you there is only unused strength you choose not to be strong you choose not to use the strength that's within you for other reasons for pleasure for a moment of unconsciousness whatever it is that you're looking for it's always based on a need of the body or a need of the mind or a desire of body and mind the spirit is never in need and as soon as you sort that out kind of you know keep those three parts of yourself separated you know like if you can dream a dream and in that dream be aware that you're dreaming that's the exact same idea of what we're trying to accomplish here that all of this there's a unity in it that we can't see because it's being pushed through five senses it's being broken into five first of all and then the mind is trying to gather all that together and cobble together an idea of a unity that explains the world you know and that's of course incomplete inaccurate and can never describe the limitless undivided nature of god so he starts his third conversation here he says that he told me that the foundation of the spiritual life in him had been a high notion and esteem of god in faith which when he had once well conceived he had no other care at first but faithfully to reject every other thought that he might perform all of his actions for the love of god i marry this this little paragraph here part of a paragraph with the teachings of eckhart tolle on the the presence the practice or that the power of now that in this moment you become aware of your awareness just the awareness don't objectify to be aware of awareness of course you're using the awareness to be aware of its own self so you're not going to be able to to see it touch it taste it smell it or hear it it's not in front of you it is you and that's the nature of intuition it's when you become an ear you turn your whole self into a listening device and only then do you become aware of the inner world the the self the spirit the soul as it were as we call it it's like in a dream how are you going to become aware that you're dreaming in a dream if you're taking everything for real you're touching and tasting everything you believe yourself to be a particular perspective in that dream a point of reference and that dream always makes sense during the dream but when you wake up and try and tell your roommate about it you don't get halfway through the dream before you're like that didn't make any sense at all i can't even pull the narrative out of that and yet in your mind when you think about it it seems like it's a cohesive whole it's not and that's the the sages say that's the exact same thing going on here so to be aware that you're dreaming means that you have to intuit the dream you have to intuit the sleeper the dreamer who's in a bed not present anywhere in the dream as it were as the dream as the sleeper there's no evidence of you as the sleeping body in the dream there's only you as this imagined individual taking on whatever body you're taking on and isn't it interesting that in the dream it doesn't occur to you that you're not a fish you know in the dream it doesn't occur to you that you can't be here this second and then without traveling suddenly be there that second doesn't even occur to you how easily you identify with anybody that you're in a close context context with that's the nature of our delusion how easily we that infinite self has identified with this small body this small mind taken its attributes to be our very own and have gotten caught up in the story of the dream so much though that we run in fear from things that we run after things in desire just like we do in the dream even though when we wake up we realize oh that gang wasn't chasing me you know i'm not in new york whatever it is and so coming to the awareness that just like the dream everything that you're experiencing and witnessing is you it's your own self mountains they're in your mind created by you of your own mind stuff you know the whole story that's being told coming out of your own mind to you and how fascinating that is and here he's talking about living in this notion of the ideal which is the self that's not that that is the entirety of the dream and beyond you know that not only are you the dreamer everything in the dream you're also everything in that waking world that you're not aware of at the moment that you're in the dream and so god is of that nature also as he is you in this dream playing his part he's not limited by the material universe he is also that which is beyond our understanding or our awareness at this moment and so he's making himself fully aware of this this the nature of what it is to be the nature of what it is to exist and making sure that the fundamental reality of it is love and its relationship between this unknown self and this deluded limited self this bundle as vivicananda says he says you're nothing but a bundle of restrictions and limitations that's all you are you've come up with a list of limitations and restrictions and put your name on it and so our action is to undo that that he was that he carefully built his faith on on this notion of love this idea that yes everything is of love everything is of god the built on faith of the idea of grace that in that one of the first corollaries of being everything is that you don't hate yourself you don't you don't punish yourself unnecessarily for your you know for just for the sake of punishment that it's always got purpose it's always got a point just like your life does you are nurturing yourself at all times to learn to grow to transcend this bundle of limitations and restrictions that you have confusedly assigned to yourself and that he faithfully rejected every other thought so he was never more than one or two thoughts away from here and now from being fully present in god with god in faith and in grace and in that all of the actions were simply a carrying out of the expression of love that his life described his nature his life described his beloved and that was love that when sometimes he had not the thought of god for a good while he did not disquiet himself for it he didn't get disturbed when he made mistakes when he got absent-minded when he forgot the presence of god but after having acknowledged his wretchedness to god he returned to him with so much the greater trust in him as he had found himself wretched through forgetting him so he always had such a security in that acceptance of himself by god regardless of what condition he's walking out of that it was always a homecoming when he remembered the beloved when he returned from his thoughts his wandering mind that it was always a relief and that he acknowledged it he he told god you know i'm just a bundle of limitations and restrictions i'm just an ego and of course if i wander away from my remembrance of you i'm i'm going to be bad i'm going to make mistakes i'm going to mess up but he also knew and had that firm foundation that it was never held against him by the beloved that he was always fully welcomed the whole story of the prodigal son which anybody growing up in christianity knows that son who in his ego decides he wants his inheritance now he wants to leave his family and he wants to go out and live his life so his father gives him his inheritance and he goes out and he squanders it and one night he gets super super drunk he falls into a pig sty and passes out in the mud in the pigsty and in the morning he wakes up you know covered in pig poo and he's like wow i used to be this this this prince you know i used to be the son of a wealthy man i used to be my life was everything and look what i've done i've squandered all of my inheritance i've just partied and partied till i had nothing left and now look at me i'm covered i've passed out in a pig pen for crying out loud so he goes home thinking i on the way thinking i'll just ask my dad if i can just work as a farm hand if i could just you know if i could live maybe in one of the servants quarters and just work on the farm and just at least you know so he's thinking that as sorry as he approaches home his father comes running down the road with him and embraces him and brings him back and throws a huge party and gives him his the family ring you know which i guess in that culture was the thing and reinstates him fully without reservation not asking where he'd been not asking what he had done not blaming him for leaving no remorse fully accepts him back and gives him everything this is what it was for brother lawrence when he wandered away from god in his mind for even a short few moments to know that when he returned that there was a party a momentary thought party a great rejoicing a great happiness at coming back to your own self coming out of it the stress and anxiety that mind always brings and to sit in that you know and and your part as the prodigal son is not to go and sit in the corner at the party and just like oh my god i don't deserve this oh my god you guys wouldn't believe what i've done you you can't possibly know the things that i've what i've done to your reputation you have no way your job as the prodigal son is to let to accept that love and to be inspired by that love and just to not return to it to that former mistake but to do your best to be to be that that perfect son as it were or daughter or any any modification thereof that he did not disquiet himself for free forgetting god for a while but after having acknowledged this wretched mistake he returned to him with so much the greater trust in him as he had found himself wretched through forgetting him that the trust we put in god honors him much and draws down great graces this is a beautiful ideal that your willingness to trust grace is one of the most beautiful flowers you could put on the shrine your willingness to accept god's unlimited love for you is unlimited forgiveness if you want to talk in those terms your willingness to accept that is one of the greatest offerings that you can make to the beloved in your spiritual life it's a trust of his love it's a trust of the depth of his or her or that grace it's knowing that god is that it was impossible not only that god should deceive but also that he should long let a soul suffer which is perfectly resigned to him and resolved to endure everything for his sake so you see that this is the idea he had of the divine god will not let me suffer in an unhelpful way that all suffering in life is teaching all suffering in life is to help you remove yourself from the things that are causing your suffering you know the sri nishigata maharaja that advaitic seer in bombay who made cigarettes i love that every time i say it i love it a cigarette maker who realizes god in bombay that he says that all all suffering is an is an invitation to inquiry look for attachment what changing thing are you trying to hold on to that you're trying to grasp and make immortal what is that thing because all suffering is born of attachment is born of desire wanting to take things that are not immortal and make them mortal make them immortal taking changing things and making them unchanging that's the whole process of putting them in your memory that's why you remember things you don't want things to go away because you don't go away and you want everything around you to have the same nature that you have this immortal soul this immortal self which is you the the immortal principle of love that is you and so when something in this this passing changing world reflects that nature to you sparkles a little bit a name of god you have a desire for it because you forget to look through the thing to see god behind it and you for a moment in this forgetfulness of brother lawrence is talking about you run after it you try and grab it and when it disappears you hold its memory you try to share your immortality with it by remembering it and holding it in your mind but all holding it in your mind does is emphasize its absence in the now it's unreal you can't have it it never was it's like it's like all the objects in your dream own as much as you want in a dream when you wake up you'll be in the bed you went to bed in you know work as hard as you want have as many wives as many children as many husbands as many experiences as you want in the dream when you wake up you don't bear the mark of a single one of them that's the nature of this world so stop stop trying to collect dreams phantasms stop trying to find meaning in the unreal in things that never are they passed so quickly that it was impossible not only that god should deceive but that she should long let a soul suffer which is perfectly resigned to him and resolve to endure everything for his sake that he had so often experienced the ready suckers of divine grace upon all occasions that from the same experience when he had business to do he did not think of it beforehand but when it was time to do it he found in god he found he found in god as in a clear mirror all that was fit for him to do you see that's that practice that's the book is called the practice of the presence of god it's being here and now you know i've mentioned this many times but god in the old testament the christian old testament when he's asked what his name is i am is his name you know and that is our nature we say it all the time anytime we speak of ourself we start with the name of god i am and then our problem is that we put a whole bunch of adjectives after that we don't just stop with i am and know that anything you could attach to it is also true but the thing itself is i am and so this experience of being that he always stayed in the present moment he says that when he knew that he had things to do he didn't trouble himself now about the things that he had to do that he knew that the divine would provide him with all things necessary to opt to to navigate the moment correctly if you are present fully aware in this moment mind is clear you always have all of the tools necessary to navigate the obstacles there are no problems in the present there are only obstacles and they come one at a time and you deal with them as they are in front of you in the presence of your beloved for your beloved as an offering to love as a manifestation of your life of love that he found in god as in a clear mirror all that was fit for him to do that of late he had acted thus without anticipating care but before the experience above mentioned he had used it in his affairs when outward business diverted him a little from the thought of god a fresh remembrance coming from god invested his soul and so inflamed and transported him that it was difficult for him to contain himself hmm that's too beautiful a couple beautiful things in there one is this idea of a fresh remembrance you know of the divine that when you forget god a fresh remembrance and where does that remembrance come from it's not like oh oh i remembered oh good i remembered god no he understood it was god giving him that fresh remembrance of his presence so he understood that god was the source of his remembrance his source of awareness his source of love and in that found that celebration and he says here that he was it's so inflamed and transported him in bliss that he could hardly contain himself he found it too difficult to contain himself this moment's nature is bliss to become aware of the moment is to find bliss you know i think i've shared this before but it's good to be reminded for myself anyway a swami i had lunch with once this was probably 18 years ago i think now he was he was visiting the monastery in san francisco and he was telling swami prabhupada he says i've learned something very important about desire and and and bliss and swami prabhupada nando's like oh what what is that what have you found and he says i've come to understand that the joy that i get from fulfilling my desires does not come from my fulfilling of desires he said what i've become aware of is that in the moment that a desire is fulfilled for that short period of time i am without desire and because i am without desire my natural bliss becomes apparent to me i'm not distracted from the awareness of my own bliss by a desire and he says but it's almost no time at all before the next desire arises and once again i have forgotten the desire that was already present in me or the the bliss that was already present in me and i'm running after the next one you know that he was more united to god in his outward employments than when he left them for devotion in retirement there's a there's a twist he felt that he was closer to god when he was engaged in his daily routine than he was when he was sitting and trying to do nothing but remember god you know that he was more aware of the presence of god as he carried on his life than he was when he stopped what a wonderful place to be so i always talk too long so i'm going to open for questions does anybody have any questions or comments if not i'll keep going but doesn't is there any questions online coming up not online okay we'll keep going then that he expected hereafter some great pain of body or mind that the worst that could happen to him was to lose that sense of god which he had enjoyed so long but that the goodness of god assured him he would not forsake him utterly and that he would give him strength to bear whatever evil he permitted to happen to him and therefore that he feared nothing and had no occasion to consult with anybody about his state so he fully expected pain was coming he fully expected that probably more so than many he had this really gloomy idea of himself by his nature and so that he he had no fear because he he really accepted as fact as fundamental axiom of existence that god would never hurt him more than he could bear and never without a purpose wrapped in love to bring him higher to teach him to help him grow that the whole point of pain was education and that that education happened because of the love of god you know even in even in that story of adam and eve which i gave a lecture on a couple weeks ago where they get kicked out of the garden you know god makes them clothing and he tells them look you've decided to live through your senses you've decided to go through your senses for your for your fulfillment he says because of that you know you're going to have to scratch at the dust of the earth for the rest of your days to fulfill your your uh your desires and then he puts that a flaming sword to to prevent them from entering the garden of eden that flaming sword of desire he puts it there to prevent them from eating of what the tree of immortality because he didn't want them to be permanently caught in desire permanently left out of the garden that as soon as they realized that there's no fulfillment in the senses as soon as they realize that you can't go out through the senses to find your sense of self to find your fulfillment to find your happiness to find your bliss when you come to realize that that that flaming sort of desire which which which you know protects the entrance to eden goes out and only then can you eat of the tree of immortality you know only then can you be forever when you've given up the changing when you've given up this world of expiration dates it's only then that you find your bliss when you become aware of that satisfied self that has always been content that has never needed anything bodies need things minds need things but as soon as you've done the work and practice to separate out your sense of self from the changing components of body mind then this song of bliss you can actually hear and like brother lawrence you'll find it difficult to contain the amount of joy the amount of bliss and you see these great sages in their ecstatic moments completely the body completely shorted out the mind completely shorted out because the finite in no way can contain the infinite bliss of self the infinite awareness of being the infinite nature of love and when the mind when you the self begin to know yourself separate from those you're no longer that bundle of limitations and restrictions now you manifest as a whole self who you really are and that love and that bliss which becomes apparent to you will short-circuit those that little mind and that little body but the goodness of god assured him he would not forsake him utterly that he would give him strength to bear whatever evil he permitted to happen to him and therefore he feared nothing and had no occasion to consult with anybody about his state that when he had attempted to do it he had always come away more perplexed because trying to put these things into words trying to put them into cause and effect trying to bring spiritual experience into this world of of separate objectified material is always more perplexing it doesn't make sense it can't go there so he always came away more perplexed and that he was conscious of his readiness to lay down his life for the love of god he had no apprehension of danger that perfect resignation to god was the sure way to heaven a way in which we had always sufficient light for our conduct that in the beginning of spiritual life we ought to be faithful in doing our duty and denying ourselves but after that unspeakable pleasures followed that in difficulties we need only have recourse to jesus and beg his grace and that with everything became easy so it's good that he he does acknowledge there's a certain amount of purification that has to happen it's you can't well you can this is that perplexing thing when you try and take things that don't really fit into words uh in one sense no you don't in one sense yes you do the habits of your mind and your habit of being identified with it and your habit of believing that you are the body and your habit of serving the two of those things your mind and your body like god is a difficult one to break therefore it is necessary to renounce it's necessary to discipline yourself it's necessary to do these mortifications these practices not because they're necessary for the thing itself you already are that this very moment is god and has never been anything different your very existence is his love that has never changed but the fact that you are not full of bliss and in ecstasy at this moment is the reason that you have to do practice you have to separate that idea of self out from body and out from mind you have to get an inner world that's silent enough to hear the inner teacher to hear the voice of the beloved that is what is giving brother lawrence his assurances i will never let you suffer more than you can manage i will never let you forsake you utterly i will never allow you to be overcome by an evil greater than yourself i will not let your pain be for nothing i will not fail to love you i have already discarded all of your faults and will never look at them again you have to do practice to clear a mind to the level of purity and silence that can embrace something that this material world has never shown you to show you truths that cannot be interpreted into this material world the truth of immortality there is nothing in this world to teach you immortality perfect love there is nothing in this world that can teach you perfect love you know so these these are the reasons that it's necessary to do these practices and to to do the self-discipline and to control your mind and to control your body because un until you have the power to say no you do not have the right to say yes you know so that's a very good rule to follow if you can't say no it's very unsafe for you to say yes to a thing so take back your power that's what self-discipline is it's taking back the reins of the horses you know the gita says that the body is like a chariot in the senses of the horses you are the driver you know the one take back yourself through discipline through self-control through practice until it gets quiet enough in your head where you're the one in charge where you can stop the noise in order to hear the beloved the bliss of being that sense of i am that is immortal that is ever pure and ever free and ever blissful that's your birthright you will get there either way it's just a matter of time at this point if you're in this room for the fun of it the snake has bitten you talk war says sri ramakrishna says the cobra has bitten you you are you're doomed to realize god it's just a matter of time but take great delight in that remember that story it's one of my favorites that i repeat all the time also the two young disciples that go to their teacher and ask when am i going to realize god you know or am i going to realize god and the older brother comes first he says teacher when will i realize god and the teacher says oh do you see that mango tree over there all all the leaves on that mango tree so many lives will you have to live before you come to your realization and the older brother was so sad like oh my god there were a lot of leaves on that tree so the younger brother gets his you know courage together and comes up to the guru says will i will i realize god and the guru says yes and he says well how long for me you know and his guru turns in the other directions and makes him look out over this valley and he says do you see the valley there he says yes do you see all the trees in the valley yes do you see all the leaves on all the trees in the valley yes in so many lives will you realize god and the young boy just jumps up and down laughing and giggling i'm gonna realize god i'm gonna realize god and runs away happiest bunch because he was in fact going to realize god to him it was nothing that it was that many leaves or that many leaves and the message of that is not about the leaves and about that it's about enjoying your relationship with god now even before you're aware of it even before you're conscious of it do it now just by assuming your forgiveness assuming the grace assuming the depth of love until it becomes an axiom of your life and if it's built on that nugget built on that center it's yours everything is you alright okay oh yes and any other questions too and if you have to go you're welcome to go you can never say you know if if you can't say yes can you clarify that i didn't get it yes yes that that if you cannot say no to something then you do not have the right to say yes yeah uh okay yeah well it just well uh i'm sure almost everything we ever desire would be an example of that uh if you can't what's that if you can't say no to a cookie oh thanks go straight from straight for my weakness all right if you can't say no to a cookie then you don't then you can't say yes to a cookie because it's not you who's saying yes if you're not able to say no then it's not your voice that says yes you know it's a compulsion it's something that you are not in charge of so you you are not making a choice even though it looks like you chose to eat the cookie you didn't choose to eat the cookie because you couldn't choose not to eat the cookie and without the ability to choose not to do something you don't have the ability to choose to do something which implies your slavery you're a slave to of your body or your mind you're not free any desire is slavery you know i i once was went through a little exercise one time in the morning whereas reminding myself that to be in the moment you know to that i'm absolutely free there is no story to my life i have no history that requires me to be something act a certain way or do something at this moment i can walk out the door infinitely if i want i don't have there is no necessity there's no future there's no past there's only isness and i remember sitting there and really gathering a certain amount of great enthusiasm in that great sense of joy was in that and then my mind came up with i can do anything i want that was the first thing my mind said to me we can do whatever we want and i was like and then for a second i actually got caught in that i started thinking oh well what do you want to do and as i started kind of playing different scenarios then you know i'd like to think that like brother lawrence gave credit to god for helping him remember i feel like at that moment god put it in your mind it was like hello freedom means you don't have anything to serve not your body not your mind not your desires to be free is to be without desire it's to be content to see the perfection in the moment as it is regardless of what the body thinks about it regardless of what the mind thinks about it so don't be led by desire that's what it says you know if you can't say no it's not you saying yes so like that anything else anyone else all right be free enjoy counting your leaves and know that all that you will have is already yours already surrounds you you