Making God Your Own

Notes from a talk at 2002 Convocation by Sister Parvati (direct disciple)

God is Your Goal

Always ask yourself:  “What is God to me?”  Remind yourself each day that God is your goal, because maya tries to throw veils over the Truth.

God is both personal and impersonal.  If our Creator was only an impersonal God, how could it be that he created personal beings?  The Father can be personal to us when we permit it.

God loves us, but do we comprehend it in our hearts and every fiber of our being?  Reject thoughts of inadequacy, of not liking oneself.

Master said, “Love is law.  Love is the highest law.”  And he also said, “The next step in the evolution of the world is ‘One World’. “   This will come because of you or in spite of you. 

Don’t concentrate on the ego.  Concentrate on getting to God, and the ego will fall away. Let God shine through you.  Then He will go through you to the world. Master said, “The channel is blessed by what flows through it.”

See God in everything.  Refer everything back to God during the day.  Then you will overcome the ego naturally.

Master said, “God is not a mute unfeeling being.  He is Love itself.  If you know how to meditate to make contact with Him, He will respond to your loving demands.  You do not have to plead; you can demand as His child.  But which of you will spend the necessary time?  Which of you will persist?”

We have an embarrassment of riches.  Who else has six gurus?!  And each one has said they came to earth only to help us.  We must do our part to connect with them.  How we apply the techniques is how we make God our own.

Master said, “The minutes are more important than the years.  If you do not fill the minutes of your life with thoughts of God, the years will slip by; and when you need Him most you may be unable to feel His presence.  But if you fill the minutes of your life with divine aspirations, automatically the years will be saturated with them.

We attain God in increments, little by little.  It is what we feel minute by minute that makes God our own.  Master said, “Be one hundred percent present in what you are doing.”  Be here now.  Don’t be ahead of yourself mentally.  So often the mind is racing ahead.  Watch your thoughts and you will see this is true.  It is attention that creates habits and memories, both good and bad.

Perseverance

Ask God to guide and help you.  Have patience.  Perseverance is the whole secret of the spiritual life, the whole magic of spiritual success.  Thomas Carlyle said, “Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.”  Our efforts may seem difficult at first because we haven’t made it a habit.  We get discouraged too easily.  Don’t give into that.  Apply the minutes of your day.  Some days will be hard.  Don’t give up.  There is no time limit.

We have meditation and we have responsibilities.  We can bring those things into alignment with God.  Be like water.  Water doesn’t seem very strong, but it can eventually wear away stone.  Just think - the Colorado River made the Grand Canyon!  The minutes matter!  They are very important.  Don’t waste them.  If we get discouraged and put off meditation until later, that time won’t come.  There is no other time!

When you sit to meditate make a practice of throwing everything else out of the mind.  Master this!  It will become habit, and then as soon as you put your mind there, it will immediately obey.  It is your attention that brings the results.  This is a battle worth winning!

Don’t compare yourself to others.  Master used to say, “Just keep your mind on your own plate.”

Master said, “Get into the spine where I can help you.”

Never meditate alone.  Always meditate in Master’s presence.  We are never alone unless we choose to be alone.

Don’t let meditation become mechanical.  Don’t let it be just going through the motions.  If we are not paying attention, why should God pay attention?

Devotion

Find ways to stimulate devotion.  Think of the Father – the One who protects me, the Mother – the One who loves me unconditionally, The Friend, Beloved – the greatest Friend you can imagine.  In prayer, say the guru’s names and feel their presence.  You must!  You must make a real connection.  Use simple things to rouse devotion.  Find what works.

Think about what you are saying.  Don’t let prayer become mechanical.  It makes all the difference in how your meditation will go.  Start the prayer over if necessary if your mind drifts away.   Sister said that one night she was saying a prayer, invoking the gurus, and suddenly she realized that her mind had drifted away, so that she hadn’t even been aware of what she was saying.  So she started the prayer over again and said it with deep attention.  Don’t miss the opportunity to make that inner connection.   Take for instance, the Prayer before taking food – think that everything is God, and we are a part of God.

Keep your mind positive.  This is God’s nature – positive.  The negative drives God away.  Use the tools that Master gave us.  Resist gossip, anything that pulls your mind down.

“Just Keep the Mind Here” (at the spiritual eye)

Sister said she was 13 when she came to the ashram.  One time she had bad thoughts.  She didn’t like them, but didn’t know what to do about them.  So she told Master about it.  He closed his eyes for a moment, and then he said, “Don’t dwell on it.”  He gave no other detail – that was his way.  To those who came for his training, he often said, “Just keep the mind here” (at the spiritual eye), or “Just keep your mind on God.”  Master never spoke idly. Sister wondered what his advice meant.  Finally she realized that Master’s meaning was that when we concentrate and put the needle of attention on our thoughts, we identify with them.  But thoughts are just passing things.  They aren’t part of us.  We can feel great freedom in letting go of those negative thoughts.

Make room for God.  Trust Him.  Don’t doubt.  Doubt is like static on the radio – we can’t hear the radio station if there is too much static.

The guru knows things about us that we don’t even know ourselves because he knows all of our previous incarnations.

Finding God has nothing else to do with other than yourself.  You have free will.  You can receive Him or not.  Your environment may not be perfect outwardly, but you can create a good inner environment, and then you will become impervious to the outer environment.

Master said, “And if you must live with people who make you nervous, then once in a while you should change your surroundings.  But it is better still if you can change your mental environment, so that you won’t be disturbed by others’ actions.  Change yourself, and you can then live anywhere in peace and happiness.”  (Man’s Eternal Quest, page 77)

When your mind is fixed on Divine Mother, everything runs smoothly.  Keep a sense of humor.   If you aren’t pleased with your efforts, determine to improve tomorrow.  Stay open about your life.  See what God has in mind.  Don’t resist.  Keep your faith that God is doing what is best.

“Divine Mother is My Only Necessity.”

Sister told a story:  The night before she was to leave for India she was in her room doing last minute packing.  She suddenly remembered she had forgotten to purchase an item that was absolutely essential for her trip.  It was truly a necessity she could not do without.  But it was too late to do anything about it.  After fretting about it for a while she decided that she could not afford to worry any more.  Inwardly she left it in the hands of Divine Mother.  She went on packing her things, and put the issue out of her mind. A while later there was a knock at her door.  It was another nun.  The nun said she knew how busy Sister was and apologized for bothering her. But, she said, for some reason she had felt compelled to come to her room to bring her something she thought Sister might need for her trip.  The item was exactly the one that Sister needed, to the last detail.  Sister said when she got to India she wrote on an index card and kept it on her altar during all her years in India:  “Divine Mother is my only necessity.”

Consciously every day think of all you have to be thankful for.  Master was so appreciative of even little things.  Sister remembered one day seeing him standing on the driveway in Encinitas.  There were a group of disciples nearby, but Master was standing apart from them, gazing down the driveway.  Sister looked down the driveway in the direction of his gaze and noticed a little piece of wadded up paper lying there and so she walked over and picked it up to throw it away.  Master smiled at her and said so sweetly, “That’s what I like to see.”  Even a little thing like that, Master was so thankful for.

Use acts of will when you don’t feel devotion.

See God in Everyone You Meet

See God in everyone you meet, even though they may not see God in themselves.  Encourage them with universal spiritual principles.  They may feel discouraged, depressed, fearful, have negative emotions.  Share your joy with them.  Life is mostly service.

There is a responsibility we have as devotees in this changing world. Master predicted profound changes are coming – great ups and downs, and then afterward a period of unparalleled progress.  The only safety is God alone.  Only our relationship with God counts.  Our primary duty is to seek God in meditation.  Our efforts, our meditations, will help the rest of the world, setting in motion new thought patterns all over the world which will spread with increasing momentum.