Anand Swami has asked, "What kind of thoughts occur to one who has a deficiency in their conviction in God?" Then Shriji Maharaj said, "One who has a deficiency in conviction, when God..." The chapter on conviction is currently being discussed with Maharaj. In the Vachanamrut, Maharaj almost occasionally, you know, during every discourse, it is as if the entire chapter is being discussed. Then Shriji Maharaj said, "One who has a deficiency in conviction, when they see some divine power in God, they feel extreme joy; and when they do not see divine power, their heart becomes gloomy. And when evil thoughts arise in their heart and do not go away even when they try to dispel them, they attribute flaws to God," 'I have been doing satsang satsang 1) True company. The practice of associating with Bhagvãn’s sant, other satsangis, the ãtmã, and the sacred shãstras, and also observing vartmãns and niyams. 2) Also refers to the sampradãy, which is the presence of good company. Tap to open in glossary → Someone might have done it for 50 years, 40 years, or 30 years, yet 'nothing prosperous happened to us.' So what does that show? Huh? What does it show? There is a deficiency in conviction. In God... is it that God is not capable of making things prosperous, or what does it show? He has not said that. He has not acted in a way that leads to prosperity. He does not have conviction in God. He has not recognized God as He is. In reality, he has not recognized His work, the work of God itself, as to what God's work is meant to be. And like those asafoetida pills, he put them up his nose and smelled only that. He has not received the fragrance of God's work at all. So how can he say, 'I smelled the fragrance of a rose'? How can he say that? He says that the same foul smell is present here as well. That is what he feels. Therefore, to recognize God, he must let go of his own mind's desires, and he must develop a curiosity about God as to what God wants to say, what God wants him to do. If he feels that way, then perhaps the inner dirt will be removed. Otherwise, everyone will keep regretting, 'Brother, we performed seva for so many years,' another says, 'I observed rules for so many years,' another says, 'I did this,' yet the inner dirt was not removed. Maharaj asks, what is the deficiency? The deficiency is actually one's own, but they blame Maharaj, saying, 'Maharaj did nothing for me. Maharaj did nothing for me.' So is it that Maharaj is not doing it, or is it that he did nothing for Maharaj? Do we come here so that Maharaj does our work, or do we come to do something for Maharaj? What do we do? We do Maharaj's. When you became a sadhu, what did you come for? Did you come to take something from Maharaj or to give something? What did you come for? Since you are fresh and new, you might have forgotten all this. Have you come to give seva or to take seva? The fresh ones would know, but after that... in two or three months, they must have forgotten, right? We have come to do something for Maharaj, and then Maharaj will do for us more than we do. But what did we do for Maharaj? Nothing like that. 'Maharaj did not make me prosperous.' No one would say that to Maharaj, but they say to the sadhus, 'My... they were saying, right, that they have served Him for so many years, but He did not make us prosperous.' What is his objection about? Huh? He does not recognize Maharaj. The objection is regarding conviction. He has an objection regarding recognition. More than recognition, more than recognizing the person, he has not recognized His work. Maharaj's work is this satsang satsang 1) True company. The practice of associating with Bhagvãn’s sant, other satsangis, the ãtmã, and the sacred shãstras, and also observing vartmãns and niyams. 2) Also refers to the sampradãy, which is the presence of good company. Tap to open in glossary → satsang satsang 1) True company. The practice of associating with Bhagvãn’s sant, other satsangis, the ãtmã, and the sacred shãstras, and also observing vartmãns and niyams. 2) Also refers to the sampradãy, which is the presence of good company. Tap to open in glossary → satsang satsang 1) True company. The practice of associating with Bhagvãn’s sant, other satsangis, the ãtmã, and the sacred shãstras, and also observing vartmãns and niyams. 2) Also refers to the sampradãy, which is the presence of good company. Tap to open in glossary → And he has not done anything properly, nothing proper has come into his hands, and therefore he remains regretful, thinking he did donkey-like labor. If donkeys do labor, they get no benefit. They are beaten, made to labor all day, beaten, and driven away in the evening. Then they eat grass, and in the morning they are caught by their ears, brought back, and yoked. 'So we did donkey-like labor, nothing happened for us. We never got sweet feed.' Does a donkey get sweet feed? And if they have come only to eat sweet feed, then they won't get it. If they have come only to eat sweet feed, they won't get it. They should have decided beforehand whether they want to eat grass or eat sweet feed here now. And we take beatings from children and wife, so they say, 'Now let these beatings stop and let us get sweet feed.' In that case, they will only get beatings here too. That is what happens. AI translation of the Gujarati transcript above, produced in the same pass that transcribed the audio, one English segment per Gujarati segment. Devotional and technical terms with no precise English equivalent (kirtan, satsang, vasana, samskara, and similar) are kept as their plain transliteration rather than force-translated. Not human-proofread., AI-translated, unverified · Source details