Happy Mothers’ Day to all of you. Yes, even the men. Because we are all mothers, giving birth, giving birth to ‘ourselves’; and what greater creation than giving birth to yourself? For the past so many years, it has only been a journey into that. But a large part of that journey we spent in first ‘killing’ ourselves. In that sense we were Shiva. We opened our ‘eye’. When your eye of inner knowledge opened up, you realized that there was so much more than what you thought you had. In that moment of awakening you began the process of using your own Shiva energy to destroy all that was not useful for you anymore. There is no right and wrong. So you were not destroying anything that was wrong. You were destroying what you didn’t need, and as soon as you started on that process, you at once began the process of creation; creating yourself anew. Whatever vision you have of yourself, of your spirit essence, of your soul, of your I Am presence, that’s the creation that you have begun manifesting into reality, into the world of form. In the world of illusion you are now creating a physical manifestation of reality, and so for that reason, Happy Mother’s Day.

Today I am doing the topic of LOVE.

This LOVE is not infatuation, attraction, affection or physical love. We are looking at a love so great and vast that often our conscious minds wish to push away that kind of love, because the love that we are embraced in day after day, by the angels, by the Masters, and yes, by our higher selves, is a love that is not soft and cradling at all times. That is a love that is sometimes tough, very often sharp. It is brutal in its honesty and in the truth that it lays bare to you. And so Gibran tells you, when love beckons, follow him. It is this love for self that leads you to the path of reawakening, to who you really are.

His ways are hard and steep. Our path to self awakening has not been an easy one, for not one of us in this room. The roads we have traveled on have been very often tumultuous. And yet though our feet have faltered often, some how the strength of love for ourselves have seen us through and we have walked on.

But, you now, very often, we have played a little game with ourselves. The toughest thing in the world to admit is to say "I love myself." Because if you were to admit that, you would have to admit, that you love all your flaws as well as your strengths. And therefore when you don’t have that courage, we sometimes convert these words and then we say "I love my Masters and my Masters love me." And that knowledge pushes us on. But if you were to be very, very quiet, extremely still, somewhere within you a very soft voice would say "There are no Masters, it’s only you." And then you would have to admit, "I love myself and myself loves me because of all that I am; all that is significant for me and all that is not so significant for me, but I still love it all."

Isn’t that what has happened to us? We have been enfolded, embraced, felt, tangibly, the love of those we call our Masters. We won’t to admit that it’s ourselves, so we will go along with that illusion. We have been embraced and felt a very tangible love, touching us, holding us at times when we have been shattered, and yet often unseen to us, there is a sword that rips us apart, lays our souls bare and insists that we look at our truth, telling us that the truth is not ugly. It’s just the truth of Who You Are Not. And it is when you see that truth, that you will move on to know the truth of who you are.

Yesterday I read a beautiful saying "All that is exposed to light becomes light itself" and that is what this hidden sword does. All that we want to keep unexposed in fear, the sword rips out, sometimes we feel quite heartlessly. Sometimes we feel where is the choice that I have got? Did I wish to yield the sword? Of course, you did. If you didn’t, the sword wouldn’t have torn you in two. So when the sword once again rips you, and I promise you it will do it again and again, enfold yourself this time, even if you have to use the name of a Master. Know deep within yourself that you are holding yourself, embracing yourself and allowing the sword to do its work.

Our beloved Master Jesus wore a crown of thorns and went onto the cross. What did he want to do? Have a name for himself? No, it was symbolic. He wanted to tell each one, "That it is not me, it is you. You are the Christ. But you can only become the Christ when you can wear the crown of thorns bravely and courageously. When you get onto the cross and allow your persona to be crucified, without paying any heed to the blood that flows. Without paying any heed to the pain that you feel, because you know it’s only temporary. That very crown of thorns will be replaced by a crown of light and that you will resurrect as the Christ."

And what is it to be the Christ? It is to be the best vision you have of yourself. It is your Christ consciousness. Let us take two moments just now, and in silence visualize, the best vision of ourselves. The best. Visualize yourself in all your splendor and all your glory. It is your vision. And the next time you talk of the Christ, do not only see the Master Jesus’ face. See this vision. This is your Christ consciousness. You are reawakening day by day, moment by moment.

Many of us love gardening, and we know that the best way for a plant to grow, is a regular trimming and pruning. If we allowed our plants that we love so dearly to just grow wild, they wouldn’t look as beautiful as we had envisioned them. They will be beautiful in their own way, but they won’t be your vision of that plant. And that is what you are doing to yourself. The Masters have told us repeatedly, "Growth is a natural process." You don’t really have to do anything to grow. If you allow it to happen naturally, in its own time and pace, it will happen. But will it be Your Manifested Vision? And for that vision to manifest, a little pruning is required here and there.

Every time I prune my plants, every time my shears cut them, I always say "I am so sorry." Always. Because I know that there has to be a pain, but I also know that the plant doesn’t feel that pain. I feel it. Because I very often resist my own pruning, fear of pain. The plant knows, far better than you and I, that were it not to be pruned, it wouldn’t be the beautiful plant of my vision.

Love takes you to the highest pinnacle of all that you are, and still it takes you down to your roots, from where you took separation. It takes you on that often fearful journey of "that which I am not." That is the root. That is the truth. Your roots lie in who you are not, not in who you are. Your peak lies in who you are. That is what you are striving for. That is your growth. And love takes you, allows you to experience that height. But it also promises you, when you have experienced that, you must come down and shake your very roots hard and strong.

Take a small plant that hasn’t really grown to a great height. If you wish to take it out from its roots, you won’t have such a problem. A bit of strong shaking will take the roots out easily. Take a big, tall, strong tree. If you wish to replant it, do you think a small shake will do the trick? The roots have to be dug out from the very bowels of the earth. They have gone deep into the Earth, stronger and stronger. And that is what happens to us. As we grow stronger and taller, we reach our highest pinnacles but our roots also keep going lower and deeper, getting stronger. And do we have to uproot ourselves? We don’t. We just have to see where our roots are taking us. We have to see the worms, to see the muck that is around. But we also have to love that worm, that muck, that earth, that dark deep place. We have to love it for making us the tall strong trees that we are. Then why should you fear the roots that love makes you see? Love is only asking you to see your roots and understand them. It is from this that you have grown to this magnificent stature.

How beautiful these words are. Think of ourselves growing beautiful golden sheave of corn. If it had to be left there, it would finally rot. The farmer has to come and pluck it. He has to remove the grain. He has to ensure that the skin is removed from the kernel; and that takes hard rubbing. Then when it has come off, he has to blow away the husk, so that it doesn’t lie with this golden wheat anymore. When this golden corn is lying there in all its glory, the farmer has to grind it up, put it into the mill and make it into a fine soft powder. And how tough that is. The wheat does not give itself up so easily. It takes a very strong stone mill to grind it again and again and again, till it is fine powdery flour. Then the flour is not allowed to rest. The flour is kneaded and beaten into shape, into softness, into making it pliant to take whatever shape the farmer wishes to give it .And even then it’s not allowed to rest. After it’s given a shape, it’s put into the strongest fire that the farmer has, for hours on end.

Have any of you ever baked bread at home? It is one of the most fulfilling things that you can do. When that bread has gone through this slow fire for a long period something beautiful happens to the bread. It begins to rise, it begins to expand, and the small lump of dough, is now a big golden brown loaf of bread, ready to be eaten by those you love.

And that is what we are too. We have to go through the grinding, the rubbing, and the fire so that we become these beautiful big loaves of bread, so that those who are hungry can share what we are. And for that the force needed is love. Love is the farmer who grows us, separates us, grinds us into flour, kneads us and puts us through fire.

The Masters come here and they teach us laws and truths. But these are abstract. Abstract as any theory book you might open and read, till what you have read is turned inwards, like a torch light, and in that torch light you search your own heart. It is then that that knowledge becomes wisdom. And when it becomes wisdom, you are the heart of life, and you know what life really is. All you have to do is just BE. And all others around you live because you ARE.

But you have to take that torch light and turn it inwards. The Masters only give you the torch. Then they say, "Now you do what you need to do with it." You can leave it unused or you can take it and turn it inwards so that in the light of this torch, nothing stays unseen.

If you are truly in love with who you are… That same wonderful feeling, when you meet someone you want to unite with….. if you are in love with who you are, then you don’t want to keep who you are in the dark. Do you go and meet a beloved one and ask them to wear a mask? No. You want to see them in that soft candle light that is so romantic. And that’s what knowledge is; the soft candle light that tells you, "Here is the greatest love affair you will ever have. Just turn it inwards."

If you fear what you are going to see, then its better, you do not have LOVE as your companion. You will live a comfortable life, no doubt, but it will be superficial. The laughter will never quite reach your eyes. And the sorrow will never quite empty itself from where you are. It will always be suppressed, somewhere deep within that same dark place which only needs the torch of love.

The next time you say "This is my…. Son…. and I love him," that very pronoun "My", should tell you, you have not learned to love. You cannot possess anyone. You have not one son, but all. Not one mother, but all. And when they become my son, my husband, my child, my mother, my father, then that is not the torch light of love. It is the torch light of possession which is a harsh light, which wants you to keep your ‘possession’ in chains. You cannot set them free because you have not set yourself free. Your roots are in chains, and you can’t set those whom you identify with as ‘yours’ free. Because were you to set them free, then you are lost, you will not know your own identity because you are too scared to free your roots to see them clearly.

Why do we need all our various possessions? Our cars, our homes, our family. We are what they are. So I am my car , I am my house, I am my money, I am my job , I am my husband, I am my children…. There is no other identity. LOVE gives me my identity. It tells me "I AM" and that is what makes love sufficient unto itself. You don’t need any other ‘belongings’ because I AM. I know that in that "I AM" the universe. I have nothing else I need. "I AM."

Maybe this is why our relationships don’t work out. We want to direct them. We want to control them. We want them to go where we steer. We want the ones we love to be what we have fantasized them as. There are so many young adults whom you talk to and ask "are you sure you want to marry this person? There seems to be such a difference between the two of you." Pat comes the answer, Oh, I know he/she will change." They won’t change. They can’t. If you go into a relationship, wanting to change the other, instantly love, even physical love, flies out of the window. Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

How can you prove to LOVE that "I am worthy"? By first having the courage to take the torch that love has already given you and turn it inwards. Once you do that LOVE says "Here, is a worthy candidate. Now I will steer her course." And you have to do nothing else, then. Universal love does it all. It takes you where you know you wish to be. You don’t even have to consciously know it. Your depth knows where you need to go and LOVE will take you there.

There cannot be a desire where there is love… I want him to do this; I want her to be here when I ask her to. I don’t want my kids to do this. I want my parents to say this. These are all our desires and love has no desire but to fulfill it. If we truly loved, the way the universe loves us, then we expect nothing and get it all. But if I have to have a desire, let my desire be to acknowledge who I am not, to remove that from my daily existence because I don’t need it anymore, and to melt like the brook in the night, to become a melody, a song, a tune, so that my life as I live it will just be gentle music for the ears of all.

How many of us can honestly say that every single day in our lives, we awake with a winged heart? With just sheer joy and ecstasy for being who I am. That is LOVE. That is the truth of loving who you are. To awaken everyday with a smile and say "Thank you. Thank you for the roots that go so deep, for the branches that spread so wide, for the tree that is growing taller everyday." To take a little time during the day to turn inwards, for just that moment, to embrace yourself and say "Hey don’t forget I am in love with you." And then at night as you hold yourself, to sleep with deep contentment that you are in the arms of your beloved one, knowing that these arms will never grow weak, will never fail you; they will always embrace you because you are in love with YOU.