A- There are a million ways to stimulate the mind. The more I seek truth, the more I also seem to distract myself. How do I break the hold, this ego-mind seem to have on me? It makes everything I know seem important and entertaining.
Baba:- You do it moment by moment , piece by piece, choice by choice. You will wander off the path. That is bound to happen. If you are someone unused to silence, you won’t crave it. How do you begin enjoying food you don’t like? One, by eating small portions of it. Two, by eating it regularly. Three, ensuring you eat what you truly enjoy as well, till this new food becomes a developed taste. Till it becomes something you don’t mind. Then, you will begin to like it and finally you will begin to enjoy it.
You won’t enjoy large servings of silence. You need bite-size pieces in regular intervals. As you begin to enjoy the bits, you will automatically gravitate towards what you enjoy. If you see meditation as a chore, it will be boring of course. So choose only as much as you can. But be consistent. The problem is usually of consistency. For that use free-will and choice.
A- How do I teach devotion?
Baba:- You can’t teach devotion. You can learn to be devoted, but you can’t teach it. Devotion is a very personal thing. You can be devoted to art, food, your children, your work, or God. In fact, devotion can be a part of your everyday life and it must. If you do everything out of devotion, then you do it as an act of God, for God. Being devoted means having the element of selflessness, silence, joy, surrender, your true Presence minus the ego, to whatever you are doing. So first, one has to learn devotion and then we must apply it to all we do.
When you begin to live your life with the element of devotion, you give your best to everything, but are attached to nothing. The act becomes important, than the result. And that’s your pathway to devotion, to God. Being devoted means seeing the Oneness in all things. Hence, if you want to see Oneness in all things, you have to be devoted to God, to walking towards truth else the feeling itself will not arise. The thought itself will not arise. So don’t focus on teaching people devotion. Be devoted, and let people choose if they want to learn or no.
For some souls, devotion is all they know. For others they discover it when it is time. And for yet others, the seed is sown and it takes a lifetime or few more for them to uncover its power. What you need to focus on is walking the path, being devoted to the truth, and constantly giving Truth more and more space in your life. The more you learn to be devoted, the more others witness its beauty, and the more beautiful their lives get.
When the emotion of devotion blooms in a soul, its fragrance touches many lives. Because you begin to pray for all. Oneness is inclusive of everything ever created. When you are touched with devotion, your prayers grow to include all and your devotion impacts other lives as well. That is possibly one of the most beautiful things about devotion.
Living in Grace 