We have some informal chat after every arti, the "post-arti party"! But once a week, Jeff Wolverton joins us for some serious mining of the spiritual depths. Join us for conversation, more readings, songs, quotes - you never know what treasures will be uncovered! The Topic: “We Are Meant to Flow”Dear folks of Baba, “We are meant to flow”—these are the words that we heard Darwin Shaw repeat many times when he would share with us his life with Baba. He would tell us, we are meant to flow with the divine love that Baba has infused in each of us, and our work is to keep the heart open so that love can grace our own lives and the lives of those around us. Too often, however, our awareness is trapped behind a formidable dam, so to speak, that is impeding the ocean of this love from flowing into our lives. What is this massive dam? It is the accumulation of countless impressions (sanskaras)that we amassed during the long journey involved in acquiring consciousness. Our destiny is that this dam will gradually break under the loving force within us! What causes our hearts to close? Unfortunately, our reactions to others, to ourselves and to the world can frequently impede the flow of Baba’s love emanating through us. One of the major obstructions to this flow is our mind with its notions of right and wrong, good and bad, appropriate and inappropriate, loving and unloving. We release or withhold this love according to what our mind deems worthy. We let our likes and dislikes, which we feel are our right to assert, dictate who we will love and who we feel is not worthy of our love. Fortunately, we have the example of Baba and His intimate mandali who received everyone with their wholehearted love whoever they were. Baba has said that human love is conditional; certain conditions have to be met before there is a release of love. We often require that the object of our love must be deserving. Our love is rarely unconditional. Darwin would insist that we are capable of unconditional love in this very life! Baba has said that divine love “is released … even in circumstances which would be looked upon as unfavorable by those who have tasted only of human love.” Whenever we choose not to flow out to a situation or a certain person, we diminish ourselves. We remain small. Baba urges us to always be wholehearted in what we do and how we express ourselves in this world. Even certain attitudes like unworthiness or feelings of superiority interfere with the flow of our love.Darwin has said, “Letting love flow, instead of thinking of selfish things, helps to remove veils in our consciousness by dissolving the selfishness, which is based on misconceptions and what Baba calls ignorance of the truth. It is not a matter of arbitrarily forcing the mind or the feelings along certain lines, but entails becoming subtle enough to be aware of how our selfish thoughts are formed from desires, where those desires come from, and what all of that leads to.” Baba encourages us to live in the present; in each moment and situation, we are given the choice of favoring our selfish desires and self-interest or opening to the expansive ocean of love within. If we let this loving current flow toward Baba, which is the best thing we can do, it is His joy to return it transformed and, as Darwin has said, “it flows back into us where it can be expressed in the world of forms as a giving energy.” Another way of putting it, this flow might be described as the natural generosity of the spirit. It is a fusion of our love and vitality, a vibrational flow, which emanates from the heart center, and not from the head with all its self-focused thinking. What attitudes and likes and dislikes do you find that impede the flow of your love? Are you able to experience that the flow of love is on a higher and different track in you than the lower emotional or desire track? Can you feel that withholding your love leaves you feeling diminished in a subtl