Baba says, “You are now in God’s lap. You become Brahmins by being in God’s lap. The shudra clan has now ended for you.“

This is Raja Yoga, the study to become kings and queens. However, to become kings and queens requires courage and full power, says Baba. Courage for what? Courage to die alive, to sacrifice myself. To become a king or queen requires that I pass with honors in all four subjects and that I win the blessings from the heart of the Father and from the hearts of everyone in the Brahmin family. I have to be someone that is loved by everyone, with whom everyone co-operates, who receives regard from the heart of everyone. “It is those who have won such regard that can claim the throne“, explains Baba. If I have received 100% in service but only 25% in dharna, then I wouldn’t qualify for the throne. Indeed, many children do pass in other subjects but when it comes to practical dharna, I fall short.

Often I have trouble with dharna because I prioritize being right over being good. Someone is wrong and I am right and so I feel justified in expecting them to apologize, to admit to their mistake. I also think I am more ‘deserving’ than them for that reason. And so when I hear Baba ask me to accommodate their wrong, I find that unfair, I feel like I’ve been asked to sacrifice myself. And so I say things like: “Is it always I that has to die in every situation, every time? Is it that I am here for dying for others and others are here to have things their way and enjoy themselves? I always have to die! This is really hard, it is so unfair…”

I died alive to become a Brahma Kumar or a Brahma Kumari, that was easy. But the daily dying that follows after becoming a BK, that part I find to be very difficult. Students say that they have to die a lot more and teachers say that they have to listen to a lot more. “Should one die or should both die?“, asks Baba. If both die, then the situation is resolved but more often than not, both sides hold onto their case, become lawyers for why they are right and for why the other should be the one to die first. Baba says, “this dying is not dying.” After half a cycle of being in Ravan’s lap, I have now been adopted by God; I am now in God’s lap. To be in God’s lap means to die alive from the old birth completely. This is my new birth, I have a new name: child of God and a new family: the Godly family. Let me check if I am still answering to my old name: ‘so-and-so, position, title, bank balance, social status…’ It is when I think of myself as someone other than a child of God that I feel the need to be right, I feel that if I die first it will be insulting to me, I will be perceived as weak etc. There is fear.

To die alive, Baba explains, is to die alive from body consciousness and come into soul consciousness. When I remain in the awareness that I am a pure soul, a child of the Bestower Father, then I don’t feel fear, I don’t feel burdened by the need to be right, to prove myself to anyone, to argue my case etc., rather, I live life easy and light. Often I say: “but why do I have to tolerate something that’s clearly wrong?” I forget that I have not be ordered to tolerate by the other person but by my Father. I forget that the other soul is not an outsider but my own brother or sister. And so even when I do tolerate, I do so out of compulsion, not out of love. “You are not tolerating because of the situation, but it is Baba’s direction to be tolerant.“, Baba reminds me. “So to accept the Father’s directions is accepting God’s directions, and so is it a matter of happiness or compulsion?“, He asks. If I am going to tolerate anyway, then why not tolerate happily!? When I see the person, I feel it to be compulsion but if see the Father in front of me instead, then I would follow His orders with love, not out of compulsion.

The Father explains: “At this time, you must only remember Me, the Father. May you be soul conscious! May you be bodiless! Have the faith that you are souls and remember Me, the Supreme Father, the Supreme Soul.”

To truly die alive means to come into an elevated life. To die alive means to live a contented life. To try to prove my ‘rightness’, to want the other person to bow down, to show off that I am more deserving is ordinary behavior, it requires no power whatsoever. Anyone and everyone in Ravan’s world has these sanskars of shudras. To die alive means to go from being a shudra to being a Brahmin; my Brahmin birth took place in God’s lap. So this means I always think about and act based on what the Father has given me in this Brahmin life: “What are my nature, sanskars, attitude, vision and awareness in this Brahmin birth?” These are my own, anything else is not mine. I have died alive from ordinariness and am now living a life of specialty, that is, I have now taken a new birth. To tolerate sometimes, not other times, to merge sometimes, not other times, to be sweet sometimes but to get angry and irritated other times means that I am half way between being a Shudra and a Brahmin. This, Baba teaches, does not qualify me to become king or queen.

“The Father comes and creates a land of happiness. You should make a lot of effort.”, says Baba. “The effort you make now will become your effort for cycle after cycle. You become the most elevated of all by following shrimat.“