Baba says, “don’t develop doubts about the Mother and Father.”

This is the great Mahabharat war, explains Baba. The battle is between Maya and the children of God. Maya’s army is vast, it comprises of experts, scholars, pundits, businesspeople, the wealthy etc. This is the Kaurava army with Maya as their commander-in-chief. God’s army, in comparison, is tiny; it is the Pandava army with seemingly ordinary people, and has God as the commander-in-chief. The means to win the war is faith– in myself, in my commander-in-chief and in the cause. If my faith in any one of these three shakes, I cannot be victorious.

And one of the classic tactics that Maya uses to weaken God’s army is of sowing doubts in their minds. Indeed, the battlefield where this great war is being fought is my own mind. Along the course of the war, the mind creates thoughts of faith, then suddenly, there is that seed of doubt that Maya sows sneakily. To the extent that my intellect remains faithful, I will reject that thought of doubt and I win the war. When my intellect is weak, that is, when the power to discern is weak, I become easily influenced by the thought of doubt and lose the war. If I lose faith in myself, then through help from the commander-in-chief and the rest of the army, I might stand back on my feet again. If I have doubts about the cause, about why I am fighting this war in the first place, I might be reminded of it. But the clincher for Maya is when she is able to sow doubt about the Father itself, about the commander-in-chief itself. Then, chances are I simply leave and just like that Maya deceives me out of experiencing sustenance from the greatest Father for whom I’d been waiting for half a cycle, she deceives me out of the greatest inheritance of the deity sovereignty for 21 births and out of liberation-in-life now and forever.

And so Baba cautions, “whatever happens, don’t develop doubts about the Mother and Father.”

I’ve been speaking to Baba about my unfavorable circumstances for sometime now and yet, they don’t appear to be changing. I have been following all of Baba’s shrimat, had asked for Baba’s help with securing that promotion at work and yet, not only did I lose it but it went to the least qualified person on the team. I do everything right at the center and yet, when it comes time to name names, the instrument teacher always forgets my name, the credit always goes to someone else. Someone betrayed me very badly and Baba seems to want me to forgive them! It is these situations that are like golden opportunities for Maya to do her thing. Without wasting a second, she whispers in my ear: “If Baba is really God, then how come your circumstances aren’t changing? Isn’t He the Almighty?”, “Are you sure this is really your Father? If He is, then how comes He didn’t help you? You deserve better…and yet, He allowed someone undeserving to get the promotion…that’s just not fair!”, “You are the best student in your center but Baba doesn’t seem to notice you at all…”, “If Baba really loved you, He would never have asked you to forgive that person….He clearly is taking their side, He doesn’t care about your feelings at all…” If I am unable to discern what’s going on, I will get sucked up in the quicksand of expansion, and rather than use my weapons, I put them down and practically surrender to Maya.

On this spiritual path, it is important to live by faith and not by sight. I know this is my Father, I know His nature, I know and have experienced His love, I have sung and heard His praise, so why must my intellect develop doubt? God is not nearly interested in changing my circumstances as He is interested in using the circumstances to change me. If a situation has come, He has allowed it- not to make it hard for me, but to teach me something that I will need on my journey to reach my destination. Let me also realize that this is my Mother and Father, not someone I have recruited to help me win a promotion. He is here to purify me and return me to my original soul conscious state, not push me further down on the path of body consciousness. And unforgiveness is the door that Maya uses the most to attack me, it is the heaviest weight I carry on my intellect and so Baba is helping me, not the other person, to relieve myself of this heavy weight and become liberated through forgiveness. This is the time of settlement, He reminds me. My final thoughts lead me to my final destination. And if I have unsettled karmic accounts with other souls, they will deceive me at the end.

In the scriptures, it is shown that during the Mahabharata, God took Arjuna, the greatest warrior, all the way to a remote corner of the battlefield to fight some ordinary soldiers and taking advantage of this absence, the Kauravas killed Arjuna’s son unfairly. When Arjuna learnt about this upon his return, he was distraught, in pain about his beloved son’s death. But, at no point did he turn around and ask God, His Best Friend, why He took him to a remote corner that day. He didn’t blame or doubt: Is this really God? Why did He let this happen? Didn’t he know they would do this to my son? Maybe I made a mistake…No! Instead, he took an oath that he would kill the enemy before sunset the next day. When God questioned him about taking such an impossible oath, Arjuna calmly replied: “Because You are God and You are my Friend.” This, is faith. This, is what leads to victory.

“The unlimited Father is making you worthy so that He can give you the inheritance of unlimited happiness.“, says Baba. He doesn’t give me any difficulty. While He works tirelessly and does all the hard work of purifying me, all He asks of me is to keep the faith. And that faith builds as I get to know the Father more and more, as I follow His directions for my life and see that transform me. But if I don’t do my part, if I simply say: “I am Baba’s anyway” and continue to live life on my own terms, then I won’t have the faith or the power that comes from that faith. Then, when situations come, I shake and wilt and blame the Father. This is why the very first step on this journey has to be truly , deeply accepting myself as a child of the Father which then allows me to surrender the intellect, the ‘I and mine’ and simply follow the Father. A child never questions: ‘Is this really my father?’, it knows. Even if the father were to pass away, a child still vividly remembers its father, there is no doubt in its mind. It will point to a picture of its father and identify him. Here, I cannot see the Father with these physical eyes; He is invisible and extremely subtle. The only way to see Him, so to speak, is through the eye of faith or the divine eye or the divine intellect…it’s all the same thing. The more I use this eye, the better it works. His murli is His most tangible form. The more I imbibe every direction He gives me and apply it in my practical life, the more I get to know Him and ‘see’ Him work in my life.

It is the time of destruction of the old world and the establishment of the new. The Boatman is here to take me to the other shore. If my eye of faith is sharp, I will remain seated in the boat with my eye on the Boatman. If my faith is shaky, then when there is the slightest turbulence, I might jump out and try to swim back to the old shore. And that would be most unfortunate. Sometimes, I hear something like this and brush it off by saying: “This would never happen to me, I love Baba too much.” Baba cautions: “You are becoming maharathis, so Maya makes you fall and completely swallows you. Very good children have been swallowed whole by her.” The first rule in a battle: Never underestimate the opponent. Let me heed the Father’s word and remain cautious. Let me take His shrimat at every step.