Baba says, ‘remember the Father with a lot of patience and maturity’.

God came to liberate me from the prison of Ravan- the prison of sorrow, helplessness and hopelessness. He does so by purifying me of all the vices that are the cause of that sorrow and the root of all the vices, He points out, is body consciousness; when that gets rooted out, all the vices automatically get removed. Body consciousness comes from wrong identity- I think I am the body instead of the soul. God comes and reminds me that I am in fact a pure, peaceful, loving soul, and His child. And that is the only foundation on which I need to stand, anything else is body consciousness, it is a recipe for disaster as I have experienced for half a cycle.

To remain stable on this foundation of ‘I am a pure, peaceful soul and a child of God’ is soul consciousness. When I am firm in this identity, I no longer need or want anything else. This is what I had been seeking for so long, I have now found it, I am full and content. Then, when the Father offers me correction in the Murli, I don’t feel condemned by it, I don’t shrink into a corner, I don’t fall into a pit and think: ‘there we go, one more thing that’s wrong with me!’, ‘I guess I’m just not cut out for this…I’m just a big old mess’, ‘what is wrong with me!?’. Baba says, ‘remember Me with a lot of love and maturity’. To throw pity parties for myself, throw temper tantrums, become frustrated with myself, reject myself are all signs of childishness. Baba says, ‘you must always remain child-like but never become childish’.

When I am spiritually mature, I am child-like and know to separate my who from my do. Yes, I made a mistake but it is not who I am. I remain confident that my Father does not love me any less because of it and that He still approves me just as much as He did before or will in the future. He may not approve of what I did but He approves me. So I skip over the pits of guilt, of shame, of condemnation and all the other childish games and take charge of my next moment in the drama; In doing so, I open myself to learning what I need to from each scene and making the next one better.

This is a spiritual pilgrimage, Baba reminds me daily, not a sprint. Often times, I hear Baba tell me about anger and I decide: ‘Okay, that’s it, I’m going to change’ and then I expect to change by the next day! And then to meet my own self-inflicted unrealistic expectation, I adopt unnatural approaches to change. For example, I might just stop speaking altogether; I try to get through the day avoiding people or simply by nodding my responses. This is not mature effort and it certainly doesn’t bring change; on the contrary, it might bring me more frustration and misery! Baba says, ‘develop a patience attitude, patience leads to maturity’. Let me settle down in the understanding that this study will continue till my very last breath. Sanskars that have been with me for half a cycle don’t budge just by me understanding them, it takes time. Let me also get a clarity on roles and responsibilities: God is the Purifier, I am not. I cannot change myself, neither should I want to, on my own strength; only He can. He uses situations and people to pull those behaviors and attitudes out of me. My role is to tune-in to what is going on and co-operate with God by receiving the teaching He is giving me without fear and shame and move forward on my journey. When I am not tuned-in, I throw a fit and cry in front of Baba: ‘Baba, why is this happening to me…I try so hard but I never seem to get it right….just my karma….’. Let me realize that this does not move God.

The sign of a mature person is trust in God and the drama, patience and perseverance, stability– not up/down, up/down, and self-control. ‘How can you become experienced if you don’t face obstacles’, He asks me. Maturity is experience. When I’ve been through a few things with God, I trust Him and I trust myself with Him; I tap into a strength I didn’t know I even had, my faith increases, my character builds. Isn’t this the point? isn’t this the study? ‘It isn’t just enough to recite the knowledge‘, He teaches, ‘you have to be willing to live it out‘. Then, when people see me remain stable in the midst of the storm, when they see me smile and keep a good attitude in tough circumstances, they too feel inspired to learn what I’ve learnt. This is how I reveal God- through my changed life, not through lectures.

At the end of the day, this is the sign of a spiritually mature person – a deep desire to reveal God, to glorify Him by allowing Him to make me and mold me into His image; to make me the person He wants me to be. And that means I get myself off my mind– what I want, what I feel, what I think and obey God. I might not feel like it, the ego will throw a fit and scream that it is unfair but because I know Who my Father is, because I remember all the things He has done for me, experienced the mercy He has shown me, the love He has for me, I choose to obey Him anyway. ‘People in the world are ready to die for impure love’, He points out, ‘here, you die alive from the vices because of the pure love you have for the Father and that He has for you’. I then don’t labor but choose to forgive the person that wronged me, I choose to not need to have the last word in everything, I choose to overlook the flaws and focus on the specialties.

‘You have to become so firm in your foundation of who you are and Whom you belong to, that you are are constantly full yourself so that you can bestow on to others‘, He teaches. To be full is to be complete and perfect. The reason I cannot attract souls toward God is due to my own lack of perfection. This isn’t about putting on a perfect performance, but about having a perfect and mature heart that allows me to enjoy my walk with God, to enjoy this journey I am on with Him. When the degrees of the moon have decreased, no one’s attention goes to it, but when it becomes full, everyone’s attention goes to it even against their conscious wish. In perfection, there is power to influence. ‘So become patient and mature now‘, says Baba, ‘that is, become soul conscious‘.