Your time is fleeting fast but one in million values the precious time. We  are living in a state of unawareness as if surrounded by a fog from all sides. Sometimes the fog evaporates and we become aware of ourselves in the company of enlightened souls but this fog soon engulfs us and we start living in a swoon with little or no awareness. We never spare a moment to ponder over the questions:-

Who are we?

What are we?

Where are we?

How are we in reference to the unfathomable infinite universe? Answer to these questions can be had in deep meditation.

To meditate, we just need to know how to relax, how to be stress free and tension free. If we are on a massage table, we let the masseur take care of us. Similarly in meditation, we do nothing. Let our true Self, the Witness, the Real Self take care of us. In the words of Swami Vivekanand Ji:-

There is but One; the Free, knower Self without a name, without a form or stain. In Him is maya, dreaming all this dream. The Witness, He appears as nature, soul. Know thou art that sannyasin bold I say

"Om Tat Sat Om!"

The simple thing 'To do nothing in Meditation and sitting silently and peacefully' becomes the most difficult thing. The restless mind won't let us relax. It would start a film on its screen that would have a beginning but no ending. Wayward thoughts would be coming from somewhere, elsewhere, nowhere and everywhere.

Gurudev Shri Swami Vishvas Ji reminds mind to be awake and aware:-

जाग जाग ओ मनुआ जाग रे, तेरा अवसर जागन को आया

Wake up! Wake up! O mind! It is your time to be awake and aware. As if this clarion call is not enough, Swami Ji again gives a trumpet call:-

जागो ऐ सोने वालों कोई तुम्हें जगाने आया,
मैडिटेशन का मौसम तुमको मस्त बनाने आया।

Wake up! O ye immersed in deep slumber! Someone has come to wake you up. The auspicious and glorious Meditation is here to bless you with Bliss and ecstasy. Even then we are living in a swoon, in an automation and in an unconscious state in which we take this unreliable lease hold as our permanent home. We have been spending all our energies and faculties for other who won't be ours in any way and never cared for our own Real Self.

Horse is saved and the rider is lost. We are totally unaware of the rider. Hands work due to Self, body moves due to Self, eyes see due to Self, ears hear due to Self, mind and intellect work due to Self but unfortunately we have ignored Self completely. Rider is lost and the horse is well looked after so much so that the horse become master. The first essential prerequisite to be aware is that we should seek Self honestly and earnestly. We should seek the rider. We seek Him in temples, gurudwaras, mosques and churches. Gurudev Shri Swami Vishvas Ji reminds us:-

कोई कहता यहाँ, कोई कहता वहाँ
सारी दुनिया में ढूँढा मिला ना निशां
जब मैं भीतर गया तो मिला मेहरबां
कोई कहता यहाँ कोई कहता वहाँ

Vain is Thy search outside of yourself. "The kingdom of heaven is within us". "Where goes thou to seek for the kingdom of God", asks Jesus of Nazareth, 'when it is there within you.'

The keynote running through music is "I am He, I am He", all other notes are but variations and do not affect the real theme. We are the living books and books are but the words we have spoken. Everything is living God and there is nothing but God which is Real, unchangeable and everlasting. For the undeveloped intellect of the uneducated man, that God is seen as being for away up in the heavens somewhere sitting on a throne as a great judge. For spiritual advanced man, God is omnipresent, He must be in him, He must be everywhere, He is not a distant God but clearly the Soul of all souls.

Individuals of pure heart and highly developed mind find they and Father are one. When delved in deep Meditation the seeker exclaims in ecstasy.

ये सैर क्या है अजब अनोखा, कि राम मुझमें मैं राम में हूँ
बगैर सूरत अजब है जलवा, कि राम मुझमें मैं राम में हूँ

"I am Atman", "I am beyond all the senses." I am the knowledge and Bliss. "I and my Father are one". When were you two that you talk of two or one? It is only the mind which is the creator of dualities. It is only the mind which is erecting a wall between you and your true Self. Be aware, this wall can be razed through regular Vishvas Meditation which is going beyond mind and seeing the real Self shining all the time.

The mind is a mixture of sensations and feelings or action and reaction and cannot be permanent. The mind has a fine body and through this acts on gross body. Behind mind is the Real Self. Besides body and mind, there is Eternal, the Ultimate, the final conclusion of analysis, the indivisible unit where there is no final conclusion. Remember that you are that ultimate Self and that you are neither the body nor the mind. Get rid of the fundamental superstition that we are obliged to act through the body. We are not. Go into your own room and get the Upanishads of your ownSelf. You are the greatest book that ever was or ever will be the infinite depository of all that is.

Until the inner teacher awakens, all outside teaching is useless. It must lead to the opening of the book of the heart to have any value. So long as our needs are confined within the limits of physical universe, we do not feel any need for Self. It is only when we have hard blows in our lives and are disappointed with everything here that we feel the need for something higher and we seek God. Every blow forces us to look within and seek the self and finally find that, "I and my father are one."

All this is summed up in a parable in our scriptures:-

On a tree sat two birds of golden plumage - the one above, majestic, serene, peaceful, silent, immersed in his own glory; the one below, restless and eating the fruits of tree now sweet and now bitter. Once the lower bird ate an exceptionally bitter fruit (had a blow); then he paused and looked up at the majestic bird. He soon forgot about the other bird ad went on eating the fruits of the tree as before. This went on for some time. Again he ate a bitter fruit and this time he hopped up a few branches nearer to the bird at the top.

This happened many times until at last the lower bird came to the place of the upper bird and last himself in him. He found all at once that there had never been two birds but all the time he was the upper bird, serene, majestic and immersed in glory.

I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE.