How to know God’s will?

जो किछ कराय सो भला कर माने-ई हिकमत हुक्म हुक्म चुकाइये

~ तिलांग, पहला महला, शब्द हज़ारे (नितनेम)

Those God-Oriented people will tell that to attain God, we should accept as good whatever He does, and stop our own cleverness and will.

~ Tilang, 1st Mehla, Shabad Hazare (Nitnem)

Question: Pranaam Acharya Ji. Can you please explain this statement?

In daily life, I take decisions and interfere with things happening around me. How do I know when to stop interfering and accept whatever happens as done by God, and to be taken as ‘good’?

Acharya Prashant: You have to take as ‘good’ whatever HE does, not whatever you do.

“To attain God, accept whatever HE does and stop your cleverness and will.” Your own cleverness is to be stopped. Whatever HE does, is to be bowed down to.

How will you find out, whether a particular action is arising from HIM?

You cannot find that out. But you can at least find out where your thoughts, and actions are coming from. There is a difference. Please appreciate the subtle difference.

You cannot find out whether a thought or action is coming from God. But does that mean that you cannot just find out where your thoughts and actions are coming from? No. You can find that out because anyway, 99.99% of your thoughts and actions are not coming from God. Were they coming from God, there would have been nobody to enquire where they are coming from. They come from God, only when the enquirer melts into God.

Luckily for you, luckily for the enquirer, neither you nor anybody else, operate too frequently from God. We operate from many other places.

We do not operate as God-lovers. We operate from many, many other identities. We operate from multiple brands of falsenesses. The Truth cannot be detected but at least falseness can be detected. So find out where your life is operating from. Find out the origins of your words, your determinations, of your hopes, plans, actions.

All that comes from God, is good. Conversely, all that comes from you, is abhorrent.

The moment you detect something arising from your various inconsistencies, your weaknesses, incompletenesses, don’t support them. Is that too much to ask? It’s not at all too much to ask for. You are just being requested, to shun the rotten. You are not being asked to reject the precious.

The verse makes it amply and beautifully clear. “That which comes from Him, is good. That which comes from your cleverness and smartness is abhor-able.” Find out where your life is really operating from. It is possible to see that. A little effort, a little honesty is needed.

How would you know if something is happening from God? You would not know! The knower would not be there! And when the knower is not there, that is mostly a very good sign, except in those cases where the knower is not there because the knower is deeply unconscious.

If you have no ordinary consciousness of the happening, it indicates either of two things.

One: it is happening from the God-center and you have disappeared in the Truth, so there is nobody now to take cognizance of the happening.
Two: you are so deeply drunk, that you do not know what is going on.

And that is the reason why spiritual seekers often try various kinds of substances, chemicals, drugs, psychedelic ones, in order to get a faint experience of selflessness. Because selflessness can come to you, in both these conditions.

One: when you have truly dissolved in the Truth. Second: when you are so very unconscious, that even the ego goes for a toss. Even the ego is not there, you are so deeply unconscious.

But while the first kind of selflessness is pure nectar, ambrosia(amrit). The second kind of selflessness, is a poison, worse than the ordinary life. It’s a false medicine that is actually poisonous to the patient.

So, seeing that, the questioner here usually resides between the lowermost and the uppermost state. He is in the ordinary state of consciousness, in which there is neither substance abuse, nor is there God-drunkenness. The way ahead is to see, with honesty, and determination — why you were doing, what you were doing.

The moment you see why you were doing what you were doing, you also come to see who the doer is. It is always great fun to catch the doer.

The doer is a thousand people, all wearing your name. When you catch the doer and you say, “You look like me, but you are not me, don’t use my name to create the mischief”, it’s great fun. Whose name is the doer always wearing? Your name. But is the doer ever you? He is not.

Catch the doer. Catch the thinker. Catch the little, false ‘I’.