Baba says, “You do everything just in name as an instrument.”

To become Lakshmi-Narayan means to become a self-sovereign now. It means to become someone who maintains a constant, stable stage, easily, naturally, without any effort. It means to become someone who is not disturbed by anyone or anything. It means to become someone who claims their full inheritance, not someone who claims on Monday and loses on Wednesday. There is no fluctuation, the stage is constant. It means to become someone who constantly remains full of all treasures. It means to become someone who is a bestower of happiness, and a remover of sorrow. In short, it means that I become similar to the Father. While He is the Ocean, I become the master ocean in everything.

Each one has to make their own individual effort to claim their fortune, explains Baba. It isn’t that a father can make effort and the children simply ride on that. No. At the confluence age, the fortune of each child is their own and each child’s fortune is elevated. Why? simply for being the child of the most elevated Father of all. He is the Highest-on-High and so the fortune I receive from Him is automatically elevated and the highest. My Father is the ‘Bestower of Fortune’ Himself, there can be no one greater than Him. No one can give an inheritance greater than He can. So someone who is to become Lakshmi and Narayan would have the attitude: ‘I have to claim my full inheritance. It is my fortune in the drama to be able to do so.” In other words, the Father shows me the way, it is up to me to walk the path and claim what is mine for the taking. Everyone has equal opportunity to walk the path, whoever walks it fully claims the full prize.

To be able to walk it fully requires me to follow Shrimat accurately, else, it is not possible to get to the destination. Many who start walking the path develop arrogance of the body along the way: ‘I am so-and-so and so I should be treated a certain way, my ideas should be implemented, I should be respected and recognized.’ and so they get entangled in that mess. Some others think that they know the way, that they are right and so they start to chart their own route to get to the destination and even find others to follow along their path. Such ones cannot get to the destination either. They stumble and cause others to stumble like the gurus of the copper age and onward. The only One who knows the destination is the Father and only He knows the path to get there. Unless I follow His and only His directions, I will be defeated by Maya and Ravan and end up instead in the cottage of sorrow. When I get defeated repeatedly, I get disheartened and leave the path altogether. I go out into the world and defame the Father and the knowledge and cause people to think that God must not be the Teacher after all. Even if such children were to realize their blunder and return to the Father, they would have lost precious time and their whole stage, making it a steep climb to reclaim the lost inheritance.

The Father says, “You children understand that Baba comes and teaches you.” This is the first step- firm faith that indeed, it is the Supreme Father, the Supreme Soul, that is teaching me. “It is the only the poor that can study here”, He says, “it is the poor who become heirs. The rich have too many complications.” To belong to the Father requires that I become poor- not physically, rather, it means that I completely surrender the ‘I and mine’. It means I become poor of the arrogance of the body, of what ‘I think’ and how ‘I feel’. Only when I am poor in this way, that is, to the extent that I can surrender my own will to God, can I follow His directions for my life accurately. This is what Mama did. She belonged to the Father and said: ‘Mine is one Shiv Baba and none other.’ I don’t follow the dictates of my own mind or those of others. It doesn’t matter what I think or how I feel about a direction I receive, my duty is to simply follow.

Sannyasis think that to be able to make God my whole world in this way requires that I leave this old world, walk away from my home and settle in the mountains. God teaches me to continue living at home, take care of my family- but according to shrimat. This, is unlimited sannyas. This requires power which I can only receive through remembrance. Without surrender, without considering myself the child of the Father, without the attitude of ‘Mine is the one Father and none other’, I cannot receive power. Then, every little thing that someone said or did continues to anger, frustrate, irritate me. The boss treats me unfairly, and I feel offended. The friend didn’t smile at me and I feel hurt. There is financial tightness and I feel worried and anxious about the future. There is an illness in the family and it is all I think about. It becomes hard, if not, impossible to have remembrance when I think ‘I am in charge’, ‘it is my responsibility’, ‘this is my problem that I need to solve’. No. I am the child and the Father is responsible. My duty is to follow His directions for my life.

This is also what is called having a trustee or instrument consciousness. When I do everything as an instrument, I find everything easy, there is no labor. For half a cycle, I made a lot of effort for everything, I labored a lot. Now, even after having found the Father, the Supreme Beloved, if I still continue to labor and battle, then what is the point! What have I gained in this confluence age? So consider yourself the child, as the trustee, the instrument and continue to move along according to shrimat, teaches Baba. Then there is no worry, no anxiety, no labor because nothing is mine, it is all the Father’s. Where the attachment has been finished, it is easy to stay an embodiment of awareness of who I am and Whose I am. Then life is easy, as it ought to be. That is becoming a self-sovereign, that is claiming the full inheritance.