Baba says, ‘If you become free from thinking and keep your intellect free, you will experience the Father’s power in the form of help.’

As I go through life, it is easy to worry about everything- that situation at work, the family member that’s sick, if I will be able to get something done, etc. But the longer I live, the more I realize that worry does me absolutely no good. In fact, it does me a lot of harm- physically and spiritually. Physically, it causes me stress, drains me of all my energy, and leads to a whole host of health issues. Spiritually, it shuts me down, steals my peace and joy and even more importantly, breaks my connection with the Father.

And I usually worry about things I have no control over. Then, I expect others to worry with me and if they don’t, it makes me angry: ‘how can you not be worried! you need to do something!’ Worry doesn’t stop any of the bad stuff from happening, it just makes it impossible for me to enjoy any of the good. And so rather than worry, the better approach, Baba teaches, is to do what you can/should do, then rest. This, is the spiritual effort. It takes absolutely no effort at all to worry and stress about things but it does take effort to keep my peace and joy in the midst of the turmoil or circumstance.

It is one thing to worry when I don’t know God but I have no excuse to worry once I do know God. He says, ‘give Me all your burdens and become light‘. The truth is that if I know God even a little, I have no trouble believing that He can do anything but what I do have trouble believing is that He will do it for me. I think of all the mistakes I’ve made and allow Ravan to convince me that God will want nothing to do with me. Baba says, ‘I am your Father. I come bearing the gift of heaven on the palm of My hand. Check your palm to see if you are holding your gift of heaven or something else.’ Heaven is liberation-in-life, not worry or guilt or shame or regret. And if there is a time in the entire cycle where I should have no trouble feeling liberated from all worry and stress, it would be now when I have direct access to God, when He becomes my Father practically, when He offers to be responsible for me. Let me dare to trust Him and my relationship with Him.

And trust is not something that I feel, it is a decision I need to make. I have to decide to trust God when He says He loves me unconditionally, when He says He will take care of me. And my response to situations and events is in fact a great litmus test to check if and how much I do trust God. If I am worried, then there is something lacking in my trust; they are mutually exclusive. Sometimes, I start out by trusting God but along the way, I become impatient. I wonder: ‘why isn’t God doing something?’. The thing is that I have a certain expectation of how and when God should do something but God, as it turns out, neither takes direction from me nor does He follow my timeline. To trust God is to trust His way and His timing, not mine. But when I allow myself to panic, I tend to take matters into my own hands- I start to knock on doors, run from pillar to post trying to do things in my own strength and as a result, labor a lot in the process. Baba says, ‘always have the awareness that Baba is Karavanhaar and I am the instrument’. This is the effort- to work with Him, in His timing knowing that His way will always be better than my way. Let me dare to trust Him.

Along with trust though, there also needs to be surrender. If the only time I think of God is when I have a problem, then that doesn’t work. God is not a dump for my worries and problems, He is my Father. When I live my life according to His Shrimat, then, He becomes responsible for me; He doesn’t take my problems without taking me first. Baba says, ‘To be a Brahmin means everything is Yours. It mustn’t be that you when you have a selfish motive, you say “mine” and only when there is no such motive, you say “Yours”.’

Sometimes, it isn’t a problem or situation, it is a dream that I am depending on God for. I heard Him whisper the dream to me in the dark and so I have no doubt that it is what He wants me to do. But when I look at where I am right now, the dream appears next to impossible. I neither have the training nor the skill nor the connections to make it happen. And so I try to push it away but it keeps coming back- because when it is God speaking to my heart, it doesn’t go away. So then, I go to the other extreme and start strategizing about how/what/when rather than simply trust and stay in faith. He Who has started something in my life will also see it through, I don’t have to worry or labor. ‘If you become free from thinking and keep your intellect free, you will experience the Father’s power in the form of help. If you keep your intellect busy thinking, you will not then be able to catch the Father’s touchings or imbibe power from the Father.‘, says Baba. All I have to do is listen. When He tells me to do something, I don’t question or procrastinate, I obey promptly. Sometimes, it might seem like I am going in the opposite direction from my dream, but I don’t panic, He knows what He is doing. It might be that He needs to teach me a few things first- like patience, like faith, like treating people right; let me dare to trust Him.

Brahmin life is the life of being a carefree emperor. Why? because I have found the Father, the Creator, the Almighty Powerful, the Highest-on-High. He comes bearing the gift of heaven on His palm and seats me on His heart-throne. If I can simply have these gifts in my awareness, I will have nothing to worry about. Then, all I do is sing the song: ‘having found You, I have attained the whole world. Not just the earth but also the sky’.