Diligence

Poonja-ji used to say we have to be diligent. For a long time I didn’t really understand what he meant by being diligent. This was because at the same time he said to be diligent he also said there is nothing to do. So if there is nothing to do, how can we be diligent? It’s confusing, but it’s also very clear.

There is nothing to do. Obviously there is nothing to do because that that we truly are, that that we cannot discuss or comprehend or touch or talk about, that is perfect and there is nothing that can be done in that.

But we walk around now in a human body. We have a brain. We have desires and we have thoughts and we have opinions. We have a life that we live here. Taking all these things into consideration, we have to be diligent to make sure that this life, this gift that has been given to us here, is not a wasted gift.

Being diligent means that we have to be alert.

When we start seeing that our life, our actions, the way that we behave, and the way that we live don’t seem comfortable or appropriate, we have to be alert and ready to do something about the situation.

If it doesn’t seem as if we have a life that is worth living, then we have to be diligent and do something to change that.

We have to see that, in fact,

we have the power to do something

and that we are strong enough to do something.

We are not helpless.

We can’t take the attitude that we are helpless. We can’t take the attitude that everything is pre-ordained, that everything is of no consequence or of no importance. Because that is not the reality of the world we live in.

We have a tremendous amount

of strength, power, energy, and ability

to do, to change, and to create things.

We have power and strength

far beyond our imagination.

We have that ability.

We have to pay attentionto keep looking, to keep seeing all the things we have that we must be grateful for rather than looking for things to complain about. We have to keep reminding ourselves whenever we start to feel that things are not right, that no matter how bad they are, there is something that we have that is worthwhile.

My hope is that you will pay some attention to what I have just said and try to apply it to your life. I love you so much and I want you to have a good life. I’m not doing or saying these things for any other reasons.

I know that you come here and you’re glad to see me. And I’m glad to see you. Sometimes I ache because I know that you ache. I feel it because we’ve been here a long time together. I’m a lot closer to you than you may think I am. And I want you to know that I feel a lot of what you feel.

So what I wish is that you make a decision that this life is a good life.

Life is a great gift. And when sadness or unhappiness or despair or other negative feelings come up continually, they have got to be stopped.

We have to develop a strength so that we recognize these negative feelings and basically tell them to go away. Tell them to go bother somebody else that is ignorant and can’t see through this veil.

We have to learn to recognize

negative feelings and thoughts.

We see them coming. We see them changing our whole complexion, our whole attitude about the beautiful beings that we are. And we stop them.

As soon as they come in

they have to be taken out.

Even as simple and trite as it may appear, learn to say, “I recognize you, my problem. I see you comingnow go! You fooled me for the last 15-20 years. You’ve been telling me this stuff for the last 30 years. I don’t want to hear it any more. You’ve told me this same story for the last 38 years. I don’t want to hear it for another 38. Enough is enough. I don’t want this to continue.”

It doesn’t continue once we don’t want it any more.

It’s only when, in some part of us, we want it that it keeps coming. It’s only when we want to keep ourselves in a place of misery that the misery keeps coming. Misery rejoices with those thoughts. But by being a warrior, by being strong, by being powerful, by recognizing that we are much more than just these thoughts that come and go, then they crumble away because we have taken their power.

What I am saying now is not reserved for some few beings that have somehow or another mastered these things by doing who knows what.

It is just a conscious, diligent decision

that, in fact, this is the way I want to have my life.

This is not something reserved for others. It is for us!

How long am I going to suffer?

It’s a question we have to ask ourselves.

How long am I going to suffer over certain events in this life no matter how important they may appear? How long am I going to mourn somebody that is not here anymore? How long am I going to hate somebody that has not been nice to me? How long am I going to remember memories that, in fact, have caused me so many difficulties for so many years? Now I’m seeing them, but when am I going to put them in perspective?

Those are the questions. And the answer to all those questions is that I am going to start immediately. I know that I am going to fail many times. But I have the right to try it again…and again and again and again and again. This is what is meant by being diligent.

Eventually we will succeed in taking control over these things.

The help of the Beloved is always there for us. Even if worse comes to worse, we can always say, “I need help. I love you. I try my best and I rest in your hands. I thank you for the gift of life. I thank you even for the misery that I appear to be having.”

It’s very, very strange to think of thanking the Beloved for the misery that we may be having. What it means is that, in fact, we are still feeling and sensing. We still have life because we are feeling, even if it is misery that we are feeling at the moment. So in that sense even misery is a gift.