Baba says, ‘To pass with honors means not to experience confusion due to even your own thoughts.’

While the Father is the Ocean of Peace, Ravan is the peace-stealer – he wants me to be rattled, confused about something or the other all the time such that I don’t enjoy my life. God wants me to be liberated-in-life, free, peaceful and happy – not confused, frustrated and struggling all the time. He teaches me that peace is my original nature, it is within me, it is my birthright, my inheritance and yet, He says: ‘you become peaceful and refreshed when you are here but, as soon as you go outside, all your intoxication disappears. You should have the deep desire to claim your full inheritance from the Father.‘ I am peaceful when I am meditating, I am peaceful in class during Murli but the moment I step out of that atmosphere, I start to lose my peace to the point where a lot of times, I have zero peace by the end of the day. I claim my inheritance in the morning but then lose it by the end of the day. To live in peace is a decision, I have to crave peace as a vital necessity for my life.

A lot of times, I lose my peace when I try to figure things out that I don’t need to. My duty is to do the things that Baba is asking me to do, then rest. God doesn’t expect me to do anything He hasn’t asked me to and whatever He has asked me to do, He equips me to do. He is asking me to remember Him with a lot of love but I think: ‘that can’t be all I need to do! Surely, I need to be doing more’, and so I start to look at others: ‘Maybe I ought to do what she is doing, maybe I ought to be more like him’. Baba says, ‘only the Father can give you the inheritance, not brother and sister‘ and then He says…again: ‘so, remember Me alone’!

And that frustrates me more – I wonder why God isn’t doing anything in my life! Ravan uses that confusion to add even more confusion in my mind: ‘what are you going to do? you need to do something…you can’t just take it easy! look at yourself, you can’t act today like you did yesterday…you better do something!’ and this chatter starts right in the morning and so I lie in bed, immobilized by the pressure, thinking: ‘maybe if I increase my meditation by another hour…maybe if I get that senior sister to counsel me….maybe if I attend that workshop….maybe I’m not a good brahmin after all…’ No workshop or counseling can solve body consciousness- I have to confront it. I have to make the decision that I refuse to live under this kind of pressure. I have to recognize and let go of these sanskars of religion or bhakti that put the focus on ‘doing, doing, doing..’ all the time- chant God’s name 16,108 times, turn the beads of the rosary 100 times, prostrate myself in front of the idol 50 times….so that I feel I’ve worked hard enough, so that I feel religious enough.

God doesn’t want bhakti, He wants a relationship with me, He wants a partnership. And He Himself partners with the drama. He doesn’t get ahead of it, He aligns Himself with it. He uses people and situations in the drama to work change in me. He waits for the right clicks and signals, He prepares me for what’s coming. All He needs me to do is trust Him and partner with Him, do as He is asking me to do. If He is asking me to focus on controlling my anger, let me focus on controlling my anger. Let me not look at someone else and think: ‘I have to become more patient like her, I too have to learn that skill…’. No! God hasn’t asked me to do those things yet, He may have asked them, but not me. I, have to work on my anger…that’s it. When it’s time to get to those other things He will let me know.

And no, let me not expect the anger to go away overnight. What has been with me for 2500 years will not go away in 2 days. It takes time. ‘Until the time comes for you all to become perfect, the alloy will continue to be removed gradually.‘, says Baba. He changes me little by little, takes care of one stronghold after another. I cannot rush God, I cannot rush the drama…if I try, I will be frustrated. The questions of ‘why, Baba? or when, Baba?’ don’t move God and He certainly doesn’t take my advice: ‘Baba, you could do this…, Baba, why don’t you do it like this’. I have to learn to partner, to trust. It is only when I am quiet in my mind can He get through to me and for that I need to fill my mind with Him, not the issue or the situation or any of the other 100 things that I think I should be working on. And so He says….again: ‘remember Me alone‘.

The more frustrated and peaceless I become, the weaker I become and the more I start to doubt myself. Sometimes, I doubt if I can even hear from God! I wonder how I should remember Him, what the right way is to relate to Him. Let me stop overthinking and overanalyzing things. Yes, I can hear from my own eternal Father, and yes, I do know how to relate to Him and yes, I do know how to remember. He doesn’t have a template or formula He requires me to follow. He just wants to relate to me, normally. Sometimes, I doubt if this is all true, if I will really become a deity. I have to steadfastly believe in myself and God. This, He is asking me to do. I do it by immersing myself in the Murli, in remembrance and through spinning the discus of self-realization. Throughout the day, I stay connected with Him as I go about my business and I experience His peace, His love, His companionship. This, is resting. Resting doesn’t mean I lie down and do nothing, it means that I live like a lotus where I go about my business, but internally, I experience peace, not turmoil. This, is intense effort. Many times, I think that intensity refers to doing more, in fact, intensity is about learning to be still, to be at rest in the midst of the circumstances. That, takes effort; doing something all the time, doesn’t. And when I make this effort, it changes me- it might seem like nothing has changed but I am changing. I am learning to claim my inheritance, fully.

Baba says, ‘you must now remain beyond your thoughts, your confusion. You punish yourself on your own; you become confused; everything becomes complicated, and you then call out. You have to go beyond all of that. You should not be confused even in your thoughts, let alone in your words, actions, relationships and connections. This is called “pass with honours”.’

God alone is the Bestower of Salvation for All, He alone is the Purifier. Only He can change me, only He can show me the way to handle any situation, only He can enable me to do reach my destiny. Let me stop trying to do that which only He can do and learn to trust and rely with Him. Let me learn to trust not just His ways but also His timing and partner with Him. The moment I am confused about something, let me take that as a signal to pause and ask myself: ‘am I trying to do something God hasn’t asked me to do?, am I trying to figure something out that I don’t need to?’ When I am partnering with Him, when I am in His timing, things are easy, smooth. There is no struggle, no frustration, just peace. And to live in peace despite all of Ravan’s efforts to get me to be peaceless, is to be seated in God’s heart, it is to claim my full inheritance, it is to pass with honors.