Divine and Personal

A person doesn't have life unless he has a personal relationship with God. I am talking bout life that is filled with divine consciousness, and its accompanying joy of living, the joy of the Self Within.

I remember once traveling in a subway in New York, and watching people around me as they started unthinkingly into space, and then picked up their lives again when they reached their destination. How many people's entire existence is like that, as though spent waiting for something to happen. Is this living? Until you have at least something of God awareness, you don't really have life.

The spiritual path is like climbing a mountain, moving upwards for a time, and then descending into a depression, then upward to fresh heights. In our relationship with God, we rise consciously towards Him for a time and then suddenly discover things coming from the subconscious that pull us down - hopefully, temporarily. When this happens, we find ourselves needing to work at getting back. It may seem to us that we've gone backwards. But if were trying steadfastly and sincerely, this very dip of consciousness is part of the overall climb towards Him.

In this divine relationship, you find your inner joy ever increasing. The higher you climb up the mountain of spiritual attainment, the more you feel an underlying current of happiness in everything you do. You feel guided in everything. You find that you have only to ask; and suddenly, you know the answer.

When people ask me questions, and I try to answer them out of my anxiety to help them, I often come up with no answer at all. But then I remember: I'm not the one who has the answers. I then pray. "You tell me what to say". Then, almost always, the answer comes to me immediately.

The more we feel God's presence, the more we find Him playing an active part in our lives. Things that we need are there when we need them. Right opportunities seem to materialize almost as if by magic. Inwardly, we feel an ever-increasing sense of security, happiness, love and joy, until joy itself begins to pervade everything we do.

In addition to prayer and meditation, cultivating a personal relationship with God involves your attitude towards your work, and towards others. It's here that descent into touch with the joy with it is mostly because they have allowed ego to intrude. Real spiritual work takes place inside, in the realm of consciousness. The outward work that you do is secondary. Offer whatever you do to God; to try to serve Him in others - not thinking with you want from Him in return, or what others want from you, but rather what God wants from you.

The essence of spirituality is impersonality - not coldness or indifference, but absence of ego-motivation. Cultivate a direct relationship with God. Not to ask oneself, "What would God think? But what do you think"? This practice brings your thoughts to Him directly, instead of in a roundabout manner. In everything you do, hold the though that He is there, listening to you, guiding you. Share directly with Him everything that you do. This has been called "practicing the presence of God". The more you continue this practice, the more it will become natural for you, and the most rewarding thing you can do in life. And you'll see, gradually, that is really very simple.