Baba says, ‘You children have the intoxication that God is teaching you. We Godly students are claiming the sovereignty of heaven from God, the Father, the Supreme Father, the Supreme Soul.’

Bhakti is blind. Devotees undertake dangerous pilgrimages, they observe fasts, prostrate themselves before the idols, beg, sing, praise, ring bells, but they do it all blindly. There is no aim nor an understanding of anything; they simply do. They ask for peace, happiness, strength, for help with their situations, activities, everything. In other words, the deal is, I blindly perform rituals in the hope that it pleases the deity and then the deity does everything for me.

Baba says, ‘this is not devotion, this is a study. One studies at school, there is no question of blind faith or blessings here.‘ Just as with any other study, there is an aim and objective here: to change from human to deity and claim the kingdom of heaven. A student doesn’t ask his teacher for blessings, he studies well to earn a good grade which will in turn help him earn a good income. Here too, those who study well, Baba says, will become the masters of heaven; those who don’t will earn a low status. With a study, there is accountability which doesn’t exist in bhakti. There, I keep waiting on the deity to help me, to do things for me; here, I do for myself. I create my own fortune by putting in effort.

The effort is to follow Shrimat accurately. This is the University of God, and the unlimited Father teaches me Himself. God doesn’t teach at any other school, college or university, He only teaches here. Only He is the Ocean of Knowledge, He alone can give me knowledge. All the rest is devotion and blind; it cannot grant me salvation. Only the one Supreme Soul is the Bestower of Salvation for All and He comes from the faraway land to personally teach me Raja Yoga through which I become a deity and claim the kingdom of heaven. There is no other study with such an elevated aim and objective, no other teacher as elevated as the Supreme Teacher, Baba reminds me. Do I have this intoxication?

If I do, then I will find it easy to follow Shrimat because I will want to. To do something accurately comes not from force or compulsion, it comes from caring and believing. When I care about my aim, when I believe in myself and in the One that is teaching me, I will follow the directions accurately. And so Baba says, ‘always have the form of being a Godly student in your consciousness‘. I am not an ordinary student and this is not an ordinary study. God Himself teaches me and His versions are my study. Each word enables me to accumulate an income of multi-millions. If I don’t imbibe one word, therefore, I have not just missed that word but I have missed earning multi-millions, the elevated reward of many births and the attainment of an elevated status. And so, always have the transforming thought, Baba says, that: ‘God is speaking and I am listening to Him. Baba, in the form of the Teacher, has come for me! I am a special, beloved student. This is why Baba has come for me.‘ Where has He come from? Who has come? And what is He teaching? Imbibe these elevated, transforming thoughts at the time of class each morning and then study, says Baba. This is not an ordinary class, this is God’s class.

Sometimes, I’m not impressed by the instrument teacher reading the Murli and so I decide to skip class. ‘Don’t see the person who is relating the words to you, but remember whose words they are! keep Him in front of you. See the incorporeal Father and the avyakt father in the corporeal form and then listen to the Murli‘, He instructs.

Sometimes, I am too engrossed in service, it’s out of balance; I stay up late night to finish my tasks and have a hard time staying awake in the morning. This is laziness, says Baba. The Father, God Himself, comes from the most faraway land especially for me, to teach me. People try to go to God, and here, He Himself, in the form of the Teacher comes to teach me. And He has been carrying out this service for decades. Do I ever become lazy and make excuses such as: ‘Today, I have a headache’ or ‘today, I don’t feel like it, maybe I’ll take a break’ or ‘I wasn’t able to sleep last might’ etc., asks Baba. Since the Father doesn’t tire in giving, why do you tire in taking?, asks Baba.

Sometimes, I am caught up in the day to day- in what he/she said or did to me, my kid who has misbehaved, the fact that I have all those chores to do, wondering if I will get that promotion at work, etc. etc. Baba says, ‘none of that will go with you, everything you see with your physical eyes will be destroyed.‘ Only what I imbibe of this Godly study will go with me, my sanskars are what make me a deity. And so Baba says, ‘become soul conscious.‘ When I am body conscious, that’s when I remember the old world and become caught up in ‘I and mine’. This, Baba reminds me, is a school for souls; I speak to souls. It is the soul that imbibes. Yes, the soul cannot do this without a body but I have to have the awareness that I am the soul and use the body for what I want to do as opposed to identifying as the body and being ruled by that consciousness.

Baba says: ‘Children, don’t be careless! Maya will very quickly extinguish your light. This is why you have to remember the Father very well and also study.‘ When I lose the awareness of Who is teaching me, what an elevated study I am studying and what I will become as a result of this study, I become careless. It only takes Maya a second to pull me back into the old world. With those other forms of intoxication, it is said, ‘bring it down’ because it does damage, but with this, Baba says, ‘maintain it’ because the damage happens when it comes down. There are thousands of people who go to satsangs but they can never say that it is God Who is teaching them nor can they say that they are changing from human to deity. But I can! But when I forget these aspects, there is very little difference between me and the devotee attending the satsang.

Baba says, ‘have mercy on yourself, don’t become careless‘. The Shrimat or the elevated direction of God is like a sword that has the power to cut through the toughest bondages and set me free. But if I miss the study or if I am mentally absent, then I will miss that specific version, that direction that would have guided me out of that crisis, that much needed medicine that can cure me of that illness that’s been bothering me. Baba says, ‘don’t come calling to Me for mercy, instead study well‘. Sometimes, I listen but I ‘don’t feel like’ following the direction because ‘I think’ it’s unfair or ‘I think’ it won’t work. Again, let me remember Who is teaching me and stop mixing the dictates of my own mind with His directions. I’ve had half a cycle to do as ‘I thought and felt’, it’s now time to follow God.

If a child of a king is being taught by the king himself, the child would say, “My father, the king, is teaching me.” Here, it is the Purifier Father who is teaching us! He is teaching us Raja Yoga! You should constantly have this internal happiness: I am a Godly student and I am claiming the sovereignty of heaven from God, the Father, the Supreme Father, the Supreme Soul.