Baba says, ‘the sparkle of an easy yogi must be seen on the face of each of you children‘. Let the sparkle of the intoxication of elevated attainment be visible.

Baba comes and gives me His introduction. I am the Father of all souls, I am the Purifier, I am the Ocean of Knowledge, I am the Almighty Authority, I am the Remover of Sorrow and the Bestower of Happiness. The key operative term is ‘I am…’. He is constantly in the state of ‘I am..’. He never doubts: maybe I am God… He doesn’t base His identity on outcomes or other false, body-conscious metrics and think: I have been at this now for over 80 years, these souls still haven’t reached completion…maybe I am doing something wrong, maybe I am not the Purifier after all! Neither does He doubt me and say: maybe you aren’t a deity soul after all! Instead He’s always telling me even in my worst moments that I am an elevated soul.

This is accepting my truth and then stepping into it. This is self-respect. If I don’t even dare to accept that I am an image of support, then I will never act like one. If I tell myself I am ordinary, then guess what, I will be ordinary. It is both lazy and careless. This is exactly what I did in bhakti- I told myself that I have no power, that everything is up to God or the gurus and settled down into Ravan’s mediocrity. This is why bhakti is the deep sleep of ignorance which made the soul bankrupt stripping it of all its power and self-respect.

Acceptance is key to self-respect. It is the key to an easy spiritual life. If I don’t accept who I am then I will be caught between my own self-imposed ordinariness and what Baba is telling me every day. That’s when I labor and battle with myself. But life doesn’t have to be complicated! The life of a child of God, especially when God is right here, is supposed to be easy and natural, not one of effort and labor.

Let me accept who I am, who God is telling me that I am. He came to remind me of exactly this- who I am. It isn’t enough to just know and recite that I am a soul, but I have to realize what kind of soul I am. Let me spin the cycle of self-realization and see my whole story, not just the few last scenes. Then, let me make a list of all the things I am:

1. I am a child of God, His heir to the inheritance
2. I am an elevated deity soul of the golden age
3. I am an ancestor soul
4. I am the roots of the human family tree
5. I am an image of support to the world
6. I am a master remover of sorrow and bestower of happiness
7. I am a worship-worthy soul whose non-living image makes souls peaceful
8. I am a completely pure soul
9. I am the one seated on God’s heart-throne
10. I am a jewel of contentment
11. I am a great soul who follows Shrimat accurately at every second and every step
12. …

Sometimes, we feel that to think this way is to be egotistic. It is in fact the opposite. Baba teaches me that to experience myself truly as I am, to maintain such self-respect, brings humility, not arrogance. By remaining stable in my stage of self-respect, I cannot experience any type of arrogance, whether it is arrogance of the body, intellect, name, service or special virtue. For example, when I truly realize and step into the role of an image of support, by definition, there cannot be arrogance. All of that naturally comes to an end, and I thereby become a constant destroyer of obstacles. When I truly respect myself, when I realize who I am, I don’t crave respect and regard from others. I give.

I am the child of the Father who is the treasure store of attainments and I have a right to all the attainments. What could I possibly want? When I truly step into this and experience myself to be the child, I become like the Father- full, a bestower.

There is a right way to make effort and several wrong ways to make effort.

One of the wrong ways is where I think easy yoga means to sit back and relax telling myself: I am Baba’s anyway. If He doesn’t help me, whom will He help and then we ask Him to do everything, ‘Baba, make my remembrance powerful’, ‘Baba, make this situation go away’ etc. This is not easy yoga, this is carelessness and lack of courage to follow Shrimat.

Another wrong way is where I see myself at point A and the destination, for example, being an image of support at point B. When I do this, Point B can seem so far away, so tough a climb that I give up before I even start. Then, I even go before Baba and cry in my mind: ‘Baba, I am not what You say I am’, ‘Baba, but I don’t even have good yoga…’. Baba is not moved by this. This is self-indulgence, a sanskar of bhakti.

The right way, which God is showing me, is to realize that I am already at point B. He has told me what I am, now, I just have to be it, own it. Easy!

This is what Brahma Baba did. When Shiv Baba told him who he is, He accepted and stepped into it. He shifted his consciousness from being a householder to the father of humanity. He became the instrument of God in the creation of the yagya, of Brahmins. He didn’t fight it or look at it from a distance and think: I’m not that…I still have to be that…, or get trapped in the questions of how and what. He became Brahma.

Let me follow father. Throughout the day, let me spin the cycle of self-realization and see myself in the various forms. Let me realize and experience each title that Baba has reminded me of. Let me not get trapped in the cycle of ‘I have to be…’ and step into the truth of ‘I am..’.