Baba says, ‘for the golden age to arrive, you need to become karmateet first‘. It is also the pre-requisite to becoming soul conscious.

Karmateet means to be free from the bondage of karma. Don’t make any person, possession or material comfort your support or crutch, says Baba. To become karmateet is to leave the sides, to step away. It is to realize and make the One my only support.

Sometimes, we can get inadvertently attached to a person. I want to be part of the team if so and so is leading it, I will attend a class is so and so is teaching it, I feel bad when a certain person moves away because they were a ‘good server’ or a ‘good student’ or ‘my best friend’ etc. While it is okay to see a quality in someone and feel inspired to imbibe within myself, it is NOT okay to be impressed by someone and be attached to the person, says Baba. Remember Who gave them the specialty, He says.

Sometimes, we are attached to temporary facilities. I will do that workshop if I will be provided x, y and z. I won’t go there unless someone can pick me up. I won’t travel by bus, I need a car. I need my coffee a certain way every day at a certain time…I now even travel with it!

Baba says, don’t make support from people or things or facilities your foundation, it will shake and can fall anytime. To reach the karmateet stage, I have to go beyond and be de-tached from every person, thing and every bondage of karma. It doesn’t mean becoming a sanyasi and renouncing all my relationships and responsibilities, no. To the contrary, it is about becoming more loving in my relationships by becoming de-tached from expectations, desires, judgments, criticism, prejudices etc. It is bringing my true self to the table. When it comes to activities, it is about doing it from a sense of purpose rather than obligation, it is being free from the burden of outcome.

When I can be free in this way, be beyond the bondage of karma, I feel what Baba calls ‘liberated-in-life’ or ‘jeevan mukt‘. Only when I am free of these strings that are tying me down that I will be able to experience being a soul and fly to Baba in remembrance. I will be ever-ready for when He calls on me.

Baba cautions, ‘don’t ever hide a defect or shortcoming, it will only increase‘. Often we are aware of my defect but try to justify it, defend it, cover it up. When I do that, I give it permission to exist and even grow stronger. But doing so is deceiving myself because that same defect will become a barrier to my spiritual progress, to my attaining the karmateet stage. So, let me strengthen my power of discernment such that I see the lurking defects and clean them out with Baba’s help.

So, is letting go easy? We have been so addicted to making people, things our support and deriving our energy from them that it can feel hard to let go. The trick is to replace. Let me replace everything that starts with ‘My…’ with ‘My Baba’. Let me have all relationships of the heart with Him and learn from Him how to navigate my relationships here.

The only true support is that which is eternal, constant and true. That is God. Let me make Him my world and free myself from the bondage of this old world.