Baba says, ‘The expansion of the consciousness of “mine” is a burden and those who have a burden cannot fly, they cannot become angels.’

While on this journey, I sometimes come to a standstill; I change from being an intense effort-maker one day to being just an effort-maker the next day. The main reason for my effort to become slack, Baba points out, is waste thoughts. The cause of having waste thoughts is a lack of pure thoughts, pure ideas and the treasures of knowledge. Even when I do get them, I don’t know how to use them or accumulate them. I become happy when I hear the knowledge but I don’t really imbibe the points into myself and am unable to use them at the right time. This is why I am then unable to remain constantly powerful and constantly cheerful. Then, because I am weak, Maya easily attacks me.

The main method for accumulating the treasure of knowledge and for increasing the treasure is to have a clean and pure intellect and an honest heart. And the basis of having a pure intellect is to know the Father with the intellect and to surrender the intellect to the Father. To surrender means to finish the consciousness of ‘mine’. When I surrender the intellect in this way, I receive a divine intellect in exchange. In other words, my old intellect that was caught up in the ‘mine’ now becomes divine. To give is to receive; the giving comes first. The method to give is by having pure thoughts- everything belongs to the Father. It is not mine. To let go completely of my rights resulting from the consciousness of ‘mine’ is known as surrender. ‘This is known as being free from attachment‘, explains Baba. The reason for not being an embodiment of remembrance, for having waste thoughts and for becoming unhappy and feeling like a servant is that I have not yet become free from the consciousness of ‘mine’.

There is indeed a lot of expansion, Baba points out, in the consciousness of ‘mine’.

I don’t just use ‘mine’ for gross things, it goes further than that. I think in terms of ‘my nature’, ‘my sanskars’, ‘my intellect’. When I have surrendered myself to the Father, then, Baba points out, nothing is mine anymore. The Father’s nature is now my nature, the Father’s sanskars are now my sanskars. Just as the Father’s intellect is divine, so my intellect is the same. But often, while I say: ‘everything is Yours’ in words, I don’t show that practically in my thoughts, words and actions. One minute I say that nothing belongs to me and yet, in my mind, I still hold on to it as if I have a right. Sometimes, I offer something to Baba but then take it right back through words. Its as if together with the new, I also want to hold on to the old. I call myself a trustee but in reality, I am a householder. ‘The basis of finishing waste thoughts‘, Baba says, ‘is to relinquish being a householder.‘

When someone says something rude to me, I no longer get to respond based on: ‘but what about how I feel’. When Baba asks me to do something, I don’t get to respond based on: ‘but I think…’, ‘but I feel…’. If I were to simply reflect back on just one full day, I’d find many occasions where my response or my actions were based on ‘what I think’ and ‘how I feel’. The point of surrender is that it doesn’t matter what I think or how I feel; I simply do what Baba is asking me to do. It is when I bring myself into the mix that there is then conflict in the mind and a storm of wasted thoughts. Similarly, I no longer get to speak or act the way I want and then say: ‘I didn’t mean to say what I did, it is just my nature…’, ‘I didn’t mean to act in that way, it is my sanskar..’.

As long as I still think in terms of ‘how I feel’, ‘my nature’, ‘my sanskar’, then, Baba explains, they will definitely pull me towards them. Then, I will continue to commit mistakes as a result and waste precious thought energy and time due to what I did. Instead, my attitude now is: ‘these are not my sanskars, this is not my nature’, these are Ravan’s. To call those ‘mine’ is wrong, it is stealing. ‘If Brahmins steal the property of Ravan, that is not becoming to being a Brahmin‘, says Baba. Even to say. ‘Baba, this is all Yours’ and then consider it to be my own, is also cheating. ‘Once you’ve offered something, don’t then hold onto it as if it’s still yours‘, He teaches. By committing mistakes in this way, I am unable to keep my intellect stable and in an elevated stage. This is why I have to come down to the stage of waste thoughts again and again. Then I feel heavy and I cannot fly. And so Baba says, ‘If you have any consciousness of “mine”, even in your thoughts, you should understand that you have become dirty. Anything covered with dirt would be burdened with dirt. So, hand over all your burdens to the Father, finish the dirt of the consciousness of “mine” and you will become an angel.‘