Baba says, “Our hearts should have true love for the Father, the One who does so much service and who makes us into such elevated deities!”

For half a cycle, I called out to the Father: “O Purifier, come and make us impure ones pure. Liberate us from this sorrow and take us to a place of rest and comfort.” The Purifier is here now and He is making I, the soul, who had become impure, pure. He is giving me Shrimat, His elevated directions, to enable me to live righteously again. Unless I become pure, unless I become righteous, I cannot be happy. Human beings think they can give each other happiness through gifts or by doing nice things or by fulfilling desires etc., but that is limited and temporary; it lasts for a short while before I feel empty and sorrowful again. Then, I need someone to prop me back up again. Human beings cannot give happiness to each other, that comes only by following shrimat and becoming pure and righteous.

After half a cycle of living selfishly, doing the right thing can be hard. Where once my mantra was “I want, I want, I need, I need”, Baba now says, “to give to others is to receive”. That means, I get to give others respect, give others honor, and I will then experience the same in return. Where I once routinely held grudges against people, I now get to forgive instantly, I get to show mercy and compassion. Where I once got angry and irritated at the slightest thing, I now get to exercise tolerance and patience. Some days, it feels like the Purifier is correcting me about everything, it feels like everything He points out as wrong, I have it! It’s a bit too much, I think. “C’mon, doesn’t it matter at all how I feel?”, “how come they get away with doing what they do, and only I get all the correction!?”

Baba says two things in response: 1) “You told me you want me to make you into Lakshmi-Narayan. That’s My most elevated creation and so you’ve asked me for a lot. Do you want it or not?” (2) “I know its hard. But O traveler of the night, don’t be weary, the destination of the dawn is not far off!”

Let me not get weary of doing the right thing. I may have to treat someone right a long time before they ever treat me right. It’s easy during these times to get weary and sulk with God: “Baba, I have done everything You asked me to. I follow all Your shrimat, I did this, I did that…and yet, look what I have to put up with”. Let me stop doing something to get a certain result from God, rather, let me learn to do something because it’s right. That way I will always be committed to doing what’s right and it will become a sanskar; then I simply leave the results in God’s hands. Sometimes I find myself following shrimat because I think if I can impress God then He will promote me in service. Then when I don’t see my situation change, I sulk: “Baba, I’ve done all that You asked and yet, I am still doing this little thing and all those people who don’t do half of what I do, are on stage preaching!” If I have the talent of imparting knowledge to others, then God is the One who gave it to me and so clearly, He doesn’t need to be reminded of it.

Let me stop working for a reward here, in this old world. Let me remember that my study is for the new world; the outcome I am working toward is not on-stage performances, not a big service project, rather, it is to be the person Baba wants me to be and that I signed up to be- Lakshmi-Narayan. I know that I am guaranteed this reward if I continue to do the right thing, no matter what. I need to spend my time preparing for there, for that world, not for a reward here. Yes, it would be great if everything was fantastic right now and everyone just behaved the right way, with love, if no one rejected me or opposed me, if everyone helped me….but I already know based on the knowledge of the world cycle, that it ain’t going to happen that way. That world where everyone is nice and sweet, where there is no sorrow, is waiting for me on the other side of my effort.

And that’s the key- my effort. Every soul will only need to answer for themselves. I can keep talking about how someone should or shouldn’t be doing something, but it won’t help me in reaching my goal. Let me be concerned with what I am doing! How I am treating people. Let me not get weary in doing the right thing even when everyone else, or everything else is wrong. Yes, its hard but God will not hurry up His work in me no matter how hard I scream. I can ask Him: “Baba, how much longer?” and He will say: “not much longer, the destination of the dawn is not far off”. Then I say: “Okay, but Baba, how far off?” and His response would be: “not far off”. In other words, I don’t know any more about the timing than I did a few minutes ago. So I might as well settle down and enjoy the journey! When God knows I’m ready, no one can stop me from getting whatever it is that He is preparing me for! But I CANNOT hurry God. When doing what’s right hurts, it simply means I am making spiritual progress; I am growing up! I am becoming spiritually mature which requires obeying God when it is difficult to do so.

It’s time to transition from “God, I need this, do this for me, fix this person, make this alright” to “God, what do You want to use me for? Baba, make me what You want me to be”. Let me transition from: “God, this is what I want” to “God, whatever You want”. That’s a turnaround God wants to see in me. “Our hearts should have true love for the Father, the One who does so much service and who makes us into such elevated deities!” Let me not love Him for what He can do for me – make my life easier, make my circumstance more comfortable. Instead, let me love Him for Him, because He is my most Beloved Father. It may seem as if what I’m, asking for is legit, that I cannot do without those things, or that I won’t be able to keep going if circumstances don’t change; but God knows what can and cannot work, my job is to trust. If there is something He wants me to have, I will end up with it but if I could simply get my mind off myself– from what I need or don’t need- and put it on Him, if I could simply follow God, then the blessings will follow me. “Yes, this circumstance is uncomfortable but Baba, if it’s here and You are letting it be here, then I know it’s working for my good.” – that’s a faithful attitude.

For half a cycle, I lived for myself; it’s now time to live for God and for the world He is benefitting. I am God’s representative, His helper through whom He wants to reach His other children. If there ever was a time when God needed my help, it is now! I am important to His cause. More and more people have stopped believing that God even exists or that He cares about them. They want to see proof and God wants me to be that proof before my brothers and sisters.

When people see me change from angry to sweet, when they see me treat them well no matter how they treat me, when they see me be patient when I used to be impatient before, they start to sit up and take notice. That’s how I represent God to them. Some of the characteristics of souls who are spiritually mature are: 1) self-control, 2) willingness to follow shrimat no matter how hard, 3) they don’t live by their feelings- they do have feelings but they are not ruled by them, 4) they show consistency- they aren’t happy when everything is good and then sulk when things are not, 5) they show lots of generosity- they don’t have to be convinced to be great donors, rather, they look for ways to be benevolent, 6) they have lots of humility, 7) are quick to forgive, 8) difficult to offend.

I will be growing my whole life, this isn’t as if one day, I ‘arrive’. My job is to keep learning and maturing. Let the past be the past and let me keep moving forward to what lies ahead. My aim is not to go to heaven so that I can get away from this world and live comfortably, no, that’s not the motivation. I want to develop God-likeness, I want to become like Him while I am here and reveal Him to the world. I want to reveal to those brothers and sisters who have given up, who have lost hope, their Father. I want to be God’s instrument in liberating His children from their strongholds, from their bondages, from their sorrow. There can be no higher purpose to live for, which is to say, to die alive for. When I live purpose-based in this way, I automatically become heavenly or the elevated deity along the way.

I am already pre-destined to be the helper of God and so until I fulfill that destiny, try as I may, I cannot be happy. So let me allow Baba to grow me up by simply getting out of His way, by simply taking me off my mind and turning my mind toward Him. He is making me elevated here and now, let me surrender to Him. Let me not get weary.