[video with English subtitles]
[music]
Silent Retreat Zmar 11 -18 April 2018
'To Whom Should I Pray?' 16 April 2018
[Mooji] You. Yes, you.
[Questioner] Hello Moojibaba. [Mooji] Namaste.
[Q.] To whom should I pray?
[Mooji] To whom should you pray?
If you feel to pray, then there will be one to pray to.
Even though one may discover
the Is-ness as one's very own Self, we may say then,
'If all there is is the Self, and that is what I am',
and something can rest in That as That itself,
then fine, move in this, move in this.
But if there is inside you a yearning, a gratitude,
then is it wrong to express it, and to whom would you be expressing?
Because I still express this.
I still say, Thank you, Father. Thank you for all of this.
Whatever way you come into the realisation of the Self,
or the realisation of God,
God-realisation, Self-realisation - it is the same.
It may seem strange that even a jnani, a sage,
of the calibre of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,
who clearly has realised the Self,
at the same time, he is singing praises to God everyday,
having bhajans three or four times a day.
People say, 'Why?' He says, 'It has to happen'.
One feels an intense ... if that is your temperament,
one may feel an intense sense of gratitude
that one's life has been lifted out from living in a hole
and raised up into such a beautiful state of consciousness,
seemingly undeserved.
And then one feels tremendous gratitude,
'Thank you. Thanks to life. Thanks to existence.'
'Thanks to God', if that flows for you.
What is God?
It is the pure intelligence, spirit, Being, eternal, formless.
From where does love come? And this joy?
For some people, it is like, 'It is from the Self', and that is fine.
If it is from the Self, it is from my self,
and if there is still something that feels,
'It is from 'my' self, what I am, me',
and if there is any fragment of undetected ego in that,
then it is better that one says, 'Thanks to the Supreme Consciousness'.
It is not a mistake. You feel gratitude, 'Thank you, thank you'.
It is strange to say, 'Thank me. Thank myself.' [laughter]
Yes, you can say it.
I read each day from the Ashtavakra Gita,
where he says, 'I abide in myself. I adore myself.'
But there is no ego when the sage is expressing this,
because it is not two selves, it is one.
But yet, while one awakens to the Truth of oneself,
still, the dynamic life does not disappear, we are here.
We still have a family, we feel love for them.
They say, 'Thank you, Dad', and we say, 'That's all right, darling'.
Still it arises as an intuitive thing, 'Thank you. Thank you, God.'
And it is very alive.
It is like somehow, 'I am the person.
I am a human being who has awakened to itself',
still there is a feeling of great gratitude.
'Thank you. Thank you Supreme Father of the universe.
Thank you Supreme Mother of the universe.
Thank you Supreme Being.'
You may still find yourself uttering these things.
'Rid me of anything that is hidden
and merge me with you completely.'
Because amongst those
whose temperament is inclined more towards philosophy,
they tend to go more towards the field of,
what we call jnana yoga, which is the field of wisdom.
They tend to not believe, or have a feeling for a god.
They feel that they can relate more to consciousness.
So, the jnani knows both expressions,
knows both, that God is that which you pray to ...
You cannot flatter God,
you cannot trick or manipulate.
It is the pure intelligence, pure wisdom,
from where the wisdom in you shines.
And there are those who feel a deep sense that it is in them,
their temperament is made like this,
they tend to just feel this reverence, this love,
this feeling of surrender, of abandonment.
I find amongst these two avenues of expression, you may say,
there is less ego amongst the bhaktas,
meaning those who are devoted,
than there is amongst the jnanis
who are those who feel, 'I am all there is'.
It is because the mind can easily survive as a person
who is feeling, 'I am, it is me!'
And still something can feel, 'I got it'.
Sometimes, we are not sure, 'Do I understand this just mentally,
or do I know this in my heart?' Sometimes we are not sure.
'Whom do I thank?' 'To whom do you pray?'
No one can define God.
It might be known as Shiva to the Shivaites, and …
or Ishwara to those who are devoted;
or Yahweh, or Allah, to the devotees;
and to the jnanis as Brahman, or Parabrahman,
or the Supreme Self - it is all the same to me.
[Mooji] If you feel gratitude in your heart,
[Mooji] if you feel an intuitive sense
that you still have the sense of individuality,
which does not necessarily mean ego,
it is just that has to be there in the feeling of 'I am'.
If you are still enjoying the experience,
an experience can only happen through duality,
then one will naturally feel that one is existing inside an immensity
which you can say, is yourself.
Also, it is fine to say,
'All waves belong to the ocean, they are one'.
But it doesn't feel right to say, 'The ocean belongs to the wave'.
It is just a question of feeling. If you feel inside genuinely,
'There is no other, absolutely, absolutely',
and then somebody owes you money
and decides they are not going to pay you and you get angry,
'I am going to take you to court'. Who is this other?
So it is best that one continuously keeps dissolving in the seeing.
If a feeling of gratitude arises in your heart,
because you see so often that
you are living in either answered prayers or undeserved grace,
then something just feels, 'Thank you existence, thank you'.
Then it is beautiful and you find peace.
[long silence]
[Mooji] Wonderful.
[Q.] Thank you.
[long silence]
[Q.] Thank you so much. [Mooji] Thank you.
[laughter]
[Mooji] Thank you, my love.
[audience clapping]
[Voice in audience] Thank you, Moojibaba.
[Mooji] Thank you.
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