Baba says, “If you say that you don’t have time to remember the Father, you are disregarding yourself and not the Father.”

For half a cycle, I have been calling out to the Father. The Father has now come and has given me the knowledge of who I am, who He is, and of the time. The whole world has forgotten this but I now remember. I know the Creator and that I am His child. I know His task of purifying the impure and bestowing salvation on everyone. I know my whole story- the beginning, middle and the end; I know of how I have taken 84 births and that I am now at the end of the cycle. I know that while taking rebirth from the golden to the iron age, I have continued to come down. Now, at the end of the iron age, it is my stage of ascent. I know that this is the only time I get to ascend in the whole cycle. I know that this time is called the most auspicious confluence age, when the Father comes to enable me to ascend. He comes only this once, the time to become pure and obtain salvation is therefore also only now, the time of ascension is also only now….I have now remembered everything. I didn’t have this awareness before, I received it from the Father.

And now that I am aware, what am I doing with the information I have?

Yes, it is the time to ascend, yes, it is the time to become pure and attain salvation, liberation-in-life. But none of this will happen on its own, just because God is here. I too have my part to play to claim, to receive, to ascend. I have to remember. I have to become an embodiment of remembrance. When I took birth after birth, I forgot who I am, Whose I am and the cycle. As a result, I fell prey to the vices and performed wrong actions which cost me my peace, joy and contentment. I developed biases, strongholds, prejudices, attachments, weaknesses, etc. The only way I can become free or liberated from all of it is through remembrance. Remembrance of what? of the Reference. At this time in the cycle, God is my only reference for who I am and how to be. Not just that but He is the only one who knows me accurately as I am, understands my journey, and loves me and accepts me unconditionally. In fact, the very first thing He does is He adopts me as His own child and makes me belong to Him. That identity and belonging is my anchor for this last leg of my journey- that of transformation. Without this anchor, I cannot change, it’s not only hard, it’s impossible. God becomes my Father, Mother, Teacher, Guide, Friend, Beloved,…He fulfills all my relationships. I experience the type of love that I want or need at any time through Him, always, unconditionally. He helps, He doesn’t judge. That gives me strength to change.

But along the course of my journey of transformation, there comes a time when I think I know it all – I can teach the course, give lectures, help at the center…whatever. I know the knowledge and I serve…and in the process, I kind of have Baba on the sidelines. It’s not that I don’t love Him or that I even forget Him, no. But I don’t remember Him deliberately, throughout the day like I used to when I first came to Him. I don’t remember Him like the lover who meets the Beloved after a long separation, that intensity is lost. I remember Him for a little while – during Amritvela and evening meditation…or perhaps when I am in a bind and need His help. I confine Him to a set time, I am no longer combined with Him. His name, His remembrance is no longer part of my every breath. I go about my day, perform my activities and then when I get a few minutes, I remember Him…but I forget to go about my day with Him, do everything with Him.

For someone who believes ‘I know it all’, my chart of remembrance demonstrates that I don’t know anything at all! If I really, really knew that it is the end of the cycle, that it is time to go home, that I cannot go home without becoming pure, that I cannot come into the golden age without burning away my sins and imbibing divine virtues, that God is the only One who can purify me, that He is here only now, that He loves me more than life itself and that only His love is selfless and pure, that His love is the only alchemy that can heal and transform, that this is my one and only chance to claim all that I have lost…..if I actually, truly, deeply ‘knew’, then I would not betray myself by ‘being busy’. I would not do myself the biggest disservice by relegating God to the background as I ‘serve’. To not remember Him is not so much disregarding Him as it is disregarding myself, betraying and deceiving myself.

Ravan deceived me for half a cycle, but then, I didn’t know; I had forgotten. But now, I have been reminded– of who I am, Whose I am and of the present time. Let me not deceive myself by forgetting again. “Ask your heart“, says Baba, “Do I have that much interest? Do I make effort?” There is a time in the cycle to forget, that time is past. Now, it is time to remember.