Recently we met two people who were believers in God, believers who wanted to be with other people who are enthusiastic about their belief. Because we all shared this enthusiasm the experience was beautiful, rewarding, we shared common feelings, emotions and understanding. There was so much of this communal understanding it brought unity; when there is unity God joins us because He wants us to be one. If we do what He wills, His will is to be with us. Why do we have such meetings, why do we come together? We do this to understand how to align ourself with His will, something which allows Him to come among us, to be with us so that we can engage His joy shared with all creation.
Here is a Creator who is compassionate, here is a Creator who is merciful. What has He done for His creation? He has let us know compassion and mercy. In His mercy He has given us the ability to experience compassion, in His mercy He has given us the ability to experience mercy, and what happens when we taste this food of His, what happens when we absorb these gifts? We come closer to Him, and by coming closer to Him a new field of vision opens for us, new ways to see are opened, the love which is our natural state begins to grow. Every time we meet we bring another log and add it to the fire, we make the fire burn higher, we make that thing which burns inside us, the love which grows inside us, we make it burn a little higher as we are set on fire, as we are inflamed. With the certitude that He is with us, that we are with Him, we are inflamed with the knowledge that our Father is with us, we are with Him, and then we are stronger, more steadfast in certitude.
When we sit together sharing space, sharing the air, focusing on the same point at the same time, when we talk we are not thinking, when we listen we are not thinking, we are sharing what is coming through, what is given. We have removed ourself from involvement with anything but Him. He is providing this moment for us—the miracle of letting Him provide for us is being shared. When we think we can push and pull the world to make it do what we want we are not allowing Him to provide, we are deluded into thinking we can provide for ourself. When we are stuck in that place which thinks we are the providers, we are the doers, we are the knowers, we cut ourself off from Him.
We need to understand our state, understand simultaneously the difficulty and glory of it, we need to understand what He allows us to do and what He has kept for Himself, understand what is right and what is wrong, then choose the correct path. Those who have surrendered to a teacher or guru need to understand what this word surrender means. Surrendering has strange implications for us in the west, but there is much more here than we think.
When a child is angry with its parent or a parent is angry with its child, what happens? A separation occurs along with the pain of separation, the hurt felt because of something that happened, something the child or the parent did. Now how is this hurt reconciled? It is reconciled when one of them surrenders to the other, when one of them forgives the other. Surrender permits forgiveness, surrender and forgiveness together permit unity. When a wife fights with her husband or when a husband fights with his wife, they need reconciliation to restore unity. How is this unity established? The will of each is aligned with the other’s.
This is the way it is among human beings, among men and women, and it is also the way between man and God, between man and his teacher. We have been given the explanation that God’s will is manifest through certain qualities. When we align ourself with these qualities we pursue Him, when we are not aligned with His qualities we are separate from Him. We have to surrender the qualities which are not His to absorb the qualities which are. When that happens we can pursue Him, He can show us what He is like, we have not stopped ourself from uniting with Him. Real peace in this world comes only when that alignment occurs. There is a stillness in real peace, a quiet which lets us hear the resonance which is His.
Think of our bodies for a moment. We are made up of various elements, various things which combine to create us as functioning beings. We have been told by the prophets and friends of God that a particle of the eternal has been placed inside each of us, a tiny particle within our heart given to us by God, yet we are so overwhelmed by those elements we have lost the ability to comprehend that particle which is from God. Our work in this world is to focus on that bit of ourself which is His, then we can emanate His resonance. Everything we see has a certain resonance. A scientist can explain the different vibratory nature of things. All creation has a specific vibratory nature; the Creator has a vibratory nature, a resonance. Are we interested in the resonance of creation or in the resonance of God?
We appear to have many choices in our daily life, many choices as we go through our existence, but choices are, in fact, quite limited. We can choose either the world and all that it implies, or we can choose God. Any choice we make associated with the world is not choosing God. Any time we choose God we forget the world. How do we choose God, how do we come to the point where making the choice for God is simple instead of a struggle? We need a certain attitude about our lives, an attitude which must be made easier. If we think life is a struggle, if we think life is difficult, if we think we have to use our effort merely to maintain our own existence, we do not have time to think about God. But if we go through our lives with ease, without difficulty, without being so focused on things which appear to be problems, it becomes easier to choose God.
How do we cultivate an attitude which makes this possible when there are countervailing forces that make us think another way? Our ego tells us we are great, we can accomplish things, we can take on great difficulties and overcome them, we can move things, we are capable of important decisions, overwhelming decisions. Either we move into an understanding of ourself or we pull away from the state necessary for involvement with Him. Sometimes, we deliberately put ourself into situations which are difficult, which we find complicated.
We need to move with ease through the world, we need to travel the path of least resistance. The world offers us many choices, and occasionally we decide we want things which do not come easily, which might not be meant for us. Take for example the mayor who wants to be governor, the governor who wants to be president, the president who wants to be emperor. The inability to be satisfied with our own position, the inability to be satisfied with the portion we are given is an obstacle on His path.
There is a story about a poor man who used to earn five rupees a day. At the end of each day he would spend the money on food and fruit which he shared with his friends, then go to sleep at night, wake up the next day, go to his job chopping wood, earn five more rupees and do the same thing again every day. There was a miser who lived up on a hill, a very rich man who could see how the poor man lived. He said, “I don’t understand how this man can spend all the money he makes every day. I don’t even give myself a rupee to buy fruit because it will decrease my wealth, the most important thing I have.”
He went to a wise man, complaining about what he saw, and the wise man said, “Well do this and see what happens. Put ninety-nine rupees in a bag, throw it into the poor man’s hut, then go back up to your villa and watch.”
The next morning the poor man woke, found the bag with the rupees inside. He began to count, “My God,” he said, “You’ve been so generous to me, you’ve given me ninety-nine rupees, I’m a wealthy man. If only You had given me one more, I would have a hundred, I would really have some wealth in this world.” After that, the man could no longer spend money on his friends, could no longer buy food to give away freely. He was too anxious, too worried about the little bag of money he kept trying to increase to a hundred rupees. When he had one hundred he wanted two hundred, when he had two hundred he wanted three hundred, a never-ending story.
When do we say enough? When do we offer our praise to God who has given us such an overwhelming portion we can only praise Him for His kindness, for His grace, when are we in a state of complete gratitude? We can only be in that state if we decide to be in that state, when we are no longer grasping for more, when we are satisfied. We need to understand this kind of satisfaction, we need to understand what His grace is, what He has to give. In a profound way we are all the same even though we do look a little different, we have been raised in a slightly different way, we have circumstances which are a little different. Each creation is a little different from every other, yet if we spend our time looking at the differences we will never understand His point. If we look at each other saying this one has that, that one has this but I do not, we enter the arena of comparisons. Once we begin comparing we are lost, there is no end to it, no end to wanting more than we have.
It is easy to accept praise. When we praise certain people we can get them to do anything we want, praise is their food. If we were to blame them as we praise them they might kill us. Praise and blame are perceived as happiness and sorrow. We should recognize a place where neither praise nor blame matters, where the only thing that matters is His love for us and our attempt to change our life.
Attitude comes mainly from being either positive or negative. We need to place ourself in positive situations, we need to look at things and see what is positive about them. We should be for things not against things, we should move away from situations which makes us negative and move towards those which makes us positive. Isn’t being with God a joy, isn’t remembering the prophets a joy, isn’t thinking about the masters of wisdom a joy?
The immensity and wonders of creation should give rise to great joy, yet for some reason we acquire difficulties which weigh us down. We must unburden ourself, we have to give our burdens to someone. God will take them from us, He will gladly take what we do not want without asking anything in return.
We have been told about the importance of charity. This point needs to be understood as well as the point of our relationship with Him—His relationship with us is the same as our relationship with others. Since His relationship with us mirrors our relationship with others, if we expect certain things from Him we should look at ourself to see who we are. We create our relationship with God through the relationships we create with each other. Understand that His judgment is different from the world which rewards those who have accumulated titles and wealth. God’s judgment rewards those who have accumulated love.
There is a story about two deities, one called the goddess of wealth, the other the goddess of poverty. The two of them had been arguing about which one was more beautiful, and they asked everyone they met to decide between them. Naturally, the people were all too frightened to answer because they were goddesses, if they did not give the right answer they thought they would be killed. Finally, they asked a wise man to answer them. He approached the two deities saying, “Well now, before I answer I have a request, I want you to walk in and out of the room.” They did this, they walked in and out of the room, then the wise man said, “Here is my decision. You, goddess of wealth, are more beautiful when you come in, and you, goddess of poverty, are more beautiful when you leave.”
Now who are we? Are we more beautiful when we come into a situation or when we leave it? Do people applaud our entrance or our exit? Are people happy to see us or happy to see us go? What is the condition of our life, what is the relationship we have with each other? Remember that God has put Himself in each of us. We must not forget this means every time we interact with each other we are interacting with God.
Do unto others as you would have done unto you, that is a basic principle in all the religions. Who are you, who are the others, how do we need to act? First, how do we need to act with ourself, do we have appropriate respect for that God inside ourself? Where do we go, where do we stay, what sort of situations do we stay in, what sort of thoughts do we allow ourself to think? Once we are appropriate with God in ourself, can we accept God in other people, can we be their witness for what is inside them, can we look into their eyes as if we were looking into our own, can we see ourself in others? Are we separated by our skins or are we integrated in the best way, could we live in each other’s skins? When there is a moment we are so close we feel there is no separation, there is only one, He has joined the party. He has come among us because we are one with each other, completely together, not separate, and when we are not separate from each other, He is not separate from us.
We must not be separate from Him, we must not be separate from each other. When we come together in small groups, when there are only a few of us, we can look at each other, we can acquire the ability to be aware of each other. God is simultaneously intimate with each of us and with all of us. We need to remember He is no more intimate with me than He is with you, an intimacy shared in an absolute way, beyond imagination in its glory for you and for me.
If I think it is more glorious for me than for you, I have cut myself off from you and from Him, these are not the conditions He operates under. He operates the same way with all of us; when we are all one we are with Him. We have to understand this explanation, we have to pray to find Him in each other, find Him in the gifts we offer each other. The best gift we can offer each other is the gift of God who exists within us, who wants to come through us to each other, allowing us all to see the truth of ourself in Him. The great mystery is the mystery of man and God, the truth which exists in each of us. We all walk around with that mystery, we are as important as anyone else. If we believe God separates us, what chance is there He will be among us?
Every religion, in its time, has moved towards and away from the understanding of oneness. When understanding becomes more institutionalized and restrictive it begins to separate people, yet there is a path of love which opens doorways beyond our comprehension. God is beyond comprehension, if we try to think about Him we limit Him, and we cannot place limits on Him. Stop thinking about Him, just let Him show Himself to us, let Him show the glory our eyes can see and our body can feel. This happens when we stop interfering, when we stop imagining, when we stop supposing and learn to walk His way, without expectations or conditions.
Expectations keep us from movement. If we want something, if we strive hard for it and do not receive it we are disappointed, a disappointment which ends in negative energy. If we have no expectations we cannot be disappointed. We need to learn how to have no expectations, how to do what we need to do, treating this place as a school, as a test for us, a test to learn how to know God, a test whose results are not in our hands but in His. He only has to say, “Be!” and it is, while we struggle and struggle to make something happen. We think we can force that thing into existence, then when it does not happen we are disappointed, when it does we are happy. It is not the outcome God tests us on, it is the way we go about our life.
They say it is not about whether we win or lose, it is about how we play the game. This is also one of God’s rules, our life is not about what we accumulate, our life is not about the status we earn, not about the titles we receive, our life is about the way we live it. What are the things we do as we go through our existence, what is our relationship with other people like, how much love do we walk around, how much love do we take from place to place?
This is the reason for the existence of the great teaching masters who came to teach us a state of being, they came to give us an example of someone who is not attached to coming and going, to the status and titles of this world. In their presence we feel a joy we cannot comprehend away from them, the awe that such teachers exist. Think about such awe, think about being so overwhelmed we drop all thought of everything going on in our life because the thing in front of us is so amazing, so beyond comprehension it comes close to shutting our mind off altogether.
Can we conceive of moments in our life when our mind has been shut off, can we imagine traveling on a boat and being thrown overboard? Our mind is shut off because all we can think about is staying afloat, everything else is suddenly of little significance. We have all been thrown overboard, we have all been dropped here, we are all here together, mortal or immortal depending on how we play the game, how well we learn to swim. We cannot swim with a piano on our back, we cannot swim dragging an automobile. There is hardly anything we can swim with, other skills are involved which do not include acquiring things, having things or taking things with us. We need to learn how to swim in His qualities.
On the path to infinity we have an infinite number of thresholds to cross. Each one beckons us to call it home, yet if we decide to stay at any one of them we stop being a pilgrim and become a defender of thresholds. What does this mean? It means that every time we have reached a new plateau, every time we catch a glimpse of grace and say I’ve got it now, we have stopped. We need to have the steadfast humility which reminds us that the road is long, the journey continues, there is no time to stop, we must keep going.
The fire of love is an interesting fire. Teachers of wisdom tell us when we get rid of our base desires we can be like them. That fire does not burn our good qualities, it burns our desires which cannot survive this light of love. When we expose animals to fire they run, and the animals inside ourself run away when the fire of love burns near them. They are ashamed, frightened of the things they have done, embarrassed when true love is there. They hide or run, only the part of ourself which tolerates light remains. Let us build a large fire, let us come close to the fire, then when we have the urge to run let us stand still. The animals inside will run away, but that part of us which is one with the light will stay. May we know that inner place which accepts light, which is one with light. May this light illuminate our lives.
