What prevents us from loving?

[Mona:] Hello dear Mikael.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Hello dear Mona. Good evening. It's nice to be able to talk to you again in this setting at. I'm very pleased.

[Mona:] Yes, I'm pleased too. And you said I could choose the topic, I'm free to do so, what we want to talk about today. And I'm happy to take love as the topic, and I wanted to explore with you what prevents us from loving. And it comes to this topic because I always feel so much love in your videos that come across to people. You speak to them so directly and there is so much appreciation. It does people good.

Perhaps we are often not used to that in our lives, perhaps we are not able to do it. And in the spiritual environment, on the other hand, it is always said: "We are all love". Yes, that's wonderful, but the sentence doesn't necessarily help... to say: "We are love". I would be interested to know: how did you get there? Has always been like this? Have you always been this capable of love? Or how did it come about for you?

[Dhyan Mikael:] Love is a great topic.

Of course, I had to learn that first too. I used to love a lot and extensively, but I wouldn't describe what I experienced and described as love back then as such today. I was simply in need of harmony, I didn't want to be alone, so I did everything I could, and I was loving. I could do that. I've always found it very easy to really appreciate my counterpart, my partner for example, when it comes to relationships. But it wasn't real love. I was really very needy. And I only learned what real love means much later with my spiritual teacher Soham, and that was a long process.

[Mona:] And can you say something about the process? Because this process would basically show us what prevents us from loving, because of course I felt similar to you, that what I thought was love wasn't love at first. And I think that a lot of people are stuck in it and that's why it's always full of drama and unhappiness and not lasting. But what was the process like? How do you learn that? How did it go?

[Dhyan Mikael:] Yes, it's been a very interesting process and I'm so grateful to my master Soham for that. Basically, I learned two things with him that you might not immediately think of when you talk about love in normal spiritual circles. And one is.... To come back to your basic topic briefly: what prevents us from loving? I don't think there's actually anything that prevents us from loving. Everyone can do it, it's deeply human: to love. But we don't want to. Or let me put it this way: we don't want to love what is there. We want something else, and then we would love that.

And that's how we love, for example, when we have a relationship... We love the image of the person we would like to have, and we don't even know that we don't know the person standing in front of us at all. But we are so caught up in our illusory wishful thinking that we can't even look closely. And so, we love our illusion.

And when it then gradually becomes impossible to maintain the illusion we have without knowing it... When we perceive our partner more and more as they really are, we suddenly find it very difficult to love because we suddenly have someone in front of us that we don't even know. And then we think: the other person has been pretending to us, but that is not true. We've always fooled ourselves. Yes, and when you talk about love like that, you have such a romantic idea of how great it is to love someone and how good it is for me and for the other person, but those are just romantic clichés.

Soham taught me, and that was the first unexpected thing: to start with myself. He said: "Forget the others. Learn to take care of yourself. Learn to look after yourself." And I was very surprised because I had always associated love with others: loving someone else, receiving love from someone else. And at the beginning, even looking at myself or, as he called it, taking care of myself was completely foreign to me. For example, I then discovered that I don't know at all how I actually am; that I don't actually know at all what I want and what I like and don't like.

And then I also realized that this looking at yourself and taking care of yourself is actually a taboo; almost something you don't do, something that doesn't belong. Something we do for others and love others, that's great. But that's not a... That's not the way to achieve the kind of love that I experience today. And so, I started to get to know myself. And that's when I came across the second obstacle on the path to true love. Because I started to get to know myself as I really am. And I found it difficult to love the guy I was gradually discovering.

It's like the illusion we have of our partner, this image that doesn't correspond to reality at all. We have the same of ourselves without realizing it. And so, I first learned to love myself as I am. It was a long journey. I got to know myself better and better and had to force myself, because I am just the way I am, whether I want to or not ... I didn't have to slowly come to terms with how I am, how I feel, what I can do and all the things that I can't do.

And very gradually I made friends with my feelings, learned to love them, my insecurity, all the qualities I don't like about myself: when I forget things; when I'm unreliable because I've said yes somewhere again, even though I can't do it everything, because I always like everything... I always wanted to say yes and please everyone, but I had to learn to love my limitations and my limited abilities. All the things that we don't actually want to have, I had to start loving them.

And then it happened automatically, so to speak... after I had made friends with my own impossibility and then really learned to love it, then "loving others as they really are" actually happened automatically. The first and most difficult step is to love ourselves. And, yes, you slowly learn to see reality, namely yourself, and then you learn, and this is the hard lesson, to love yourself as you are. And you've actually almost reached your goal in life. That's how I feel.

[Mona:] Yes, it was similar for me too. At a certain point, loving myself became easier for me.

I came into contact with my being and realized why the things I didn't like about myself, some things, what they came from, and understood that they arose out of a need; that they arose because there was this being, this very early child, which was based on.child, which came into the world at, which sought love on the outside, which did not resonate because it also had parents who were not capable of love, so it withdrew and somehow formed a strange identity that was alien to itself and from which I also suffered.

So, the love for me consisted to a very large extent of compassion for why I became like that, and out of that, also understanding for every other person, because when I recognized myself in the deepest essence, from then on I also recognized and saw the other person in the deepest essence, or see that everyone has a problem with themselves somewhere and carries a burden with them and that is not easy for anyone.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Yes, it is exactly like that. For me, it was like this: after I had come to terms with the things that were difficult for me before... after I had started to make friends with them and to love unconditionally, without understanding why they were like that... after I had accepted the, then I slowly began to recognize where they came from, but not in the analytical sense. I still don't know where many feelings come from. But what became very clear to me was: it's not me that I'm like this.

I could see more and more how the way this person is, that it had simply been made. And not by my parents, but by life itself, by everything that flows and interacts here. And after I realized that about myself... I feel exactly the same as you: this compassion for myself and this realization that there is no reason at all to judge myself in any way... then of course I automatically had that for everyone else too. And the topic of our conversation is why we find it so difficult to love. We have to let go of so many illusions that we have.

First of all, these are the illusions about how I should be and how I would like myself to be, but then also what we think of others. Of course, I then began to see that others are just as little responsible for the way they are as I am. But this has dramatic consequences for the world view that you carry around with you. In other words: every person, no matter how they behave, no matter what they do to me, no matter what difficulties they cause for me or for the world: this also applies to this person.

And many people have difficulties with this because really means recognizing that no one has control over themselves.

[Mona:] Yes.

[Dhyan Mikael:] And that's an illusion, it's tough stuff. Our entire society, our entire view of how society works, is based on the completely absurd and perverse assumption that people can decide how they want to be. That's why we put people in prison. And if we then start to recognize that this doesn't apply to me, and then of course in the next step we also see that it doesn't apply to others either, then this way out of this illusion is blocked for me.

I can no longer pretend that all those people who are so readily labeled as evil or sick can be locked away with a clear conscience because we know that this is not the cause. And then we have to look at the real causes of why our society is like this and the task that awaits us. And all that goes hand in hand with someone starting to love, and people don't want that. The would rather have that kind of romantic love, but when it gets down to the nitty gritty, first with yourself and then with everyone else, then it gets a bit difficult for some people.

[Mona:] Yes, it becomes difficult when you let go of these images. And at the same time, we've come to an important point. It was the same for me and I think I feel the same for you: the contact with the being that we actually are also changed the relationship. Then these ideas that I had of myself or of someone else were no longer so important. What was important was this being that I sensed, and also this realization that this being here in society does not have the opportunity to develop according to its divine destiny, and that all the problems then arise from this.

And whether the question of whether I'm sitting here now talking to you like this, or whether I've perhaps become a murderer, has a lot to do with the circumstances that have happened to me in my life. And I think we're all traumatized somewhere by this conditioning, that we've been forced into, and it's really urgent to recognize why society is in this state, and that has a lot to do with this question, or it just has to do with the question of love.

[Dhyan Mikael:] So I wouldn't really spend any time at all on the question of why society is the way it is. It only has academic value. The answer is... I'm only interested in the solution.

We are currently experiencing very interesting times in the world, including in our country, here in Germany, and you can see what's involved. If I am someone like Jesus, who really loves, then I can't judge anyone. I can't. You no longer have this ability because you know too much. You only see the children in all people, only the souls who can't help where they are. I once... I don't know if I mentioned this in our last conversation... I had an interesting conversation once.

I was... that was thirty years ago now, I was married to an American at the time. And the Americans, they don't really know much about the Nazi era in Germany. And there's this movie "Schindler's List", a very impressive movie, which of course describes the reality that I was back then very mildly, so it's really very softened down for the mass audience. But at least it gives you a taste of what people were capable of back then. And as I said, I was at the movies with her, we were just in Munich, and she was completely shocked.

She had never had to deal with this topic so closely before, and when we left the movie theater, she said to me: "You, I'm so glad you're not like those Germans." And then I said to her: "What you're saying isn't true. I'm no different. I'm just like them. If I had lived back then, in the social constellation of the time, with people like they were back then, with parents who I would have had just like my parents were back then... I don't know at all what I would have been like then." I am a very thorough person.

I'm a good engineer, a good software engineer. What I do, I do right. Who knows what I would have used my talents for? Who knows? I can't guarantee anything for. I already knew back then: it's not up to me. The fact that I've become a good person right now is not down to me. It's because I've been in certain places at certain times in this life, and that's not down to me, it's pure grace, that's how I feel.

[Mona:] Yes, yes.

[Dhyan Mikael:] And that's how it is for every single person. And I just said: I'm not really interested in why society is the way it is, I'm interested in the solution. Right now people are taking to the streets. One half of the country is taking to the streets because they are afraid of what the other half or a third or a quarter of the people think is right and good. And that shows me how little we understand what it's all about.

We're still doing exactly the same thing we've always done. We judge others, we condemn them, we fight against them. We want to convince them that what they think or believe to be right is complete madness. But of course it doesn't work like that. And when I realize that the person standing opposite me, even if he wants to do me harm, even if he kills me right now, it's not his fault.

Jesus knew that, He stood before Pontius Pilate and He knew, and that's why He didn't argue with him... He knew: "I don't need to say anything to this man, because he will do what he does because he can't help it." He can do no other, and he knew it, and he was perfectly at peace with him. He didn't curse him. Because he knew that. And so it is today. So we have to ask ourselves: what makes people what they are? And in my experience, there is only one way for a person to become what I now call a "good person".

And by "good" I don't mean anything moral at all, but someone who recognizes on their own, without others forcing them to... who recognizes on their own what is human, what is good for everyone and ultimately also for themselves. And that brings us back to the beginning of our conversation. You asked me how I learned to love. I learned to love when someone told me: "Get to know yourself. Start to love yourself." You have to want to do that. You have to have the inner capacity. You have to have been given the space and enough love in life to be able to do it.

And then, when you have received the gift that you are capable of it, you learn to love yourself and become more sensitive. And the more you encounter yourself, the closer you get to yourself, the more sensitive you become, the more you perceive. To do this, you have to be prepared to love your own darkness. You have to be willing to feel your own pain at, all the pain that you carry around with you.

And the more sensitive you become, the more awake you become, the more pain you discover and the more darkness you have to love within yourself, and so you are busy for years and years and years. And you become more and more sensitive. And from this sensitivity, which grows very slowly in this process, where you slowly get to know yourself... and slowly discover what you call "true being", the soul... when this sensitivity grows, then first of all you understand all other people, and then you can only do things that are good for you and automatically good for everyone else.

That's the only way. I don't want to say anything against people who get politically involved, who demonstrate, who show their fear, but we have always done that and it leads nowhere. It doesn't solve the problem. The only thing that helps is... I would like to quote my Indian Guru Swamiji, who says: "Don't look at how far the darkness reaches out there." It's endless, he says. "The only thing you can do that will change the world is to light your own light."

And that doesn't mean standing in the marketplace with a lighter in your hand and waving it around to show others: please be peaceful. That means: be at peace with the war within me and be at peace with the war out there, more and more. More and more. It really only works if everyone starts with themselves. That's the only thing, that's necessary, but not everyone is ready for that.

[Mona:] Because on this path, I completely agree with you, I'm right there with you... on this path to your own depth, it really goes through layers that can be very, very painful, and what comes on top of that is that when you focus on yourself like that... which is necessary because it actually makes you feel a bit like: "I shouldn't be so concerned with myself.

Is that now selfish, or... I no longer have any room for others at all", because it really is a time that demands energy, that demands strength, that is painful, that also triggers division processes in the body, which shows that you are on the right path. But that is socially and sometimes also in the circles in which you may have moved or something, it also meets with a certain disapproval. So you really need the courage and determination to say: yes, this is the way, I am convinced, I am going this way now. It really goes deep.

[Dhyan Mikael:] These are the old stories of the black sheep. So the person who sets out on the path to himself is a black sheep. And that has always been the case and always will be. Incidentally, Jesus said exactly the same thing. He said again and again: "Put God first. God is in you. Look inside yourself." And everyone around him constantly wanted to take care of the world outside. Judas wanted to be politically active, wanted to fight against the occupying forces, the Romans.

His oldest disciple, he tried to stop the people who loved Jesus from pouring precious oils over his feet, because he thought we had to take care of the poor and stuff. And they didn't understand what love is. They didn't understand where love comes from, and Christians still do that today. For us, love means charity. But Jesus did not learn this infinite love of neighbor that flows from him by taking care of his neighbor.

He learned it because he went inwards and walked the path we spoke about earlier. And when you take that path, then, as you know yourself, this source of love emerges and then overflows to all others. But you have to start with yourself, and most people instinctively feel that this is wrong and backwards. Then you think: "What's to become of society?" Well, what society becomes if you don't love yourself is something we've seen everywhere for thousands of years.

[Mona:] Exactly. And for thousands of years, there have also been people who wanted to help and support and went to war for the good. We've also seen that this doesn't lead anywhere.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Yes, not really.

[Mona:] But it's just that you naturally feel quite comfortable in a certain group if you have the impression that you're now fighting for the good, but it's all still on the surface. It is not the depth that matters. And you also said: Jesus, love your neighbor... It says: "Love your neighbor as yourself." And it really does start with self-love. And unfortunately, we have also been given an image of love by the church that has a lot to do with self-sacrifice. So I used to have a bit of a helper's syndrome, and I thought that was good.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Yes, I thought the same thing. And of course you shouldn't forget that the people who work in the church are also just a product of our society and our culture. They are just as little evil. People like to blame the church, but it affects everyone equally, and the only thing you can do is start with yourself.

And I think the hardest thing to do on this path is to acknowledge this one step: everyone out there can't help it that they are the way they are. I have to love him for who he is, no matter what I think about him. You know, like Bonhoeffer in the concentration camp, who sprayed his light in the darkest place on the continent, but not because he thought he was fighting evil with it, but because he knew: everything I see out there, all that darkness, it can't help it.

I'm sure of it, otherwise someone couldn't be like that. He knew that. He saw that. He knew: there's nothing and no one whom I can blame in any way. And that's what Jesus meant when he said: "If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the left also." You don't condemn him. You know that can't help it. And that applies to everyone around us.

[Mona:] Yes, and it's also true: if you have this sensitivity and it's combined with this deep love ... You can really see everything, and you can also feel all the unredeemed pain in the people because you see everything. You see how they suffer from themselves, how they pursue some pleasures and are deeply sad underneath and don't go in there.

For me it was very difficult at the beginning, when this sensitivity increased a lot, to see all this and to endure it and also to see: I can't intervene, I can't do anything except go to myself and heal within myself and take care of my pain. It was also quite difficult at the beginning.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Yes, you have to learn to look after yourself really well and only yourself. We have a funny misunderstanding. We believe that the other person is helped by the fact that I now take some of their burden off their shoulders, but that's not true. The miracle that happened with Jesus, for example, or with other gurus, is: he is so much in this love, in himself, that it's as if it sets an example for our own being.

It's as if we suddenly become aware of the fact that this person loves like this, but doesn't love me and my pain, but simply loves... so that when we are close to him, we resonate with him. And then we start to love within ourselves too. And that makes everything easier. We ourselves make it easier for a moment, because it is suddenly possible for us to vibrate in this energy too.

And that's why it helps my fellow human beings the most if I stay in my heaven and don't take a step out of it, for anything or anyone. If I go out there, then I'm not doing myself or my fellow human beings any favors. Of course, you can't understand that from the outside.

[Mona:] No. It actually hurts when we go out there, in the meantime.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Yes, and there are so many misunderstandings. Many people put up with things from other people because they want to love them. I don't do that. My job is to take care of me. I love myself. And this love overflows at some point. That's what you might have meant at the beginning, that that comes across as me being so compassionate with people because I have exactly the same compassion for myself.

But that doesn't mean that I allow myself to be treated badly, or that I put myself in a situation that I don't feel comfortable in if I have a choice. If I don't have a choice, then I say yes. And that doesn't mean, for example, that you say: yes, let's love everyone now and everyone can be who they are and do what they want. Of course, that's not what I mean at all. The is of course a completely distorted idea. You do what is obviously practically necessary.

I do the, and everyone does it in their lives, every police officer does it in their job, every politician does the in their job, everyone does it as best they can. But if we want to answer the question: what are the real causes? If we finally want to approach this project "humanity" or this project "society" wisely, for the first time in human history, then we have to ask ourselves: "Okay, what are the real causes? How can we really solve the problem?"

And then we have to start teaching people to love themselves; to teach people that they can live as naturally as they like, from childhood onwards, and that would change society as a whole. But it is important to me that it is clear: it is not a solution to suddenly fall into a kind of love mania and believe: "Yes, everyone is good anyway." I take care of myself when I can. And if not, then I say "yes".

[Mona:] Yes, I'm very much with you on that. What I also felt for myself, I don't know if it's the same for you: the deeper I got into this love, the more I realized: "I" don't love myself at all, but it's this one love that loves; this deep source that is also in every other person, only he hasn't found his source yet. So this connection... it's right, in the process you need self-love and to love yourself, but at some point I then realized: it's not like that at all.

It's this one love that flows and you can't go into resistance anymore. And at the same time, this question of whether something is good also depends very much on the depth at which you find yourself. If you really get into this deep well and act out of this connection, then it is good because it is good in its depths. And if you are still in other layers, then you behave as well as you can, but it is not yet absolutely good.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Everyone does their best. What is the best for one person may look terrible for someone else, but for the person it is the best, from his experience, from his point of view. That's just the way it is.

[Mona:] And what I have just sensed is that in many people, and I was also affected by this, certain distortions have taken place due to their development and they thought things were right or thought they were right for themselves, and out of this comes action, which always has a deformation and a deviation from this actual love, and that it is totally important to recognize this bit by bit and then things solve themselves.

Then you come into this flow on your own, into this unity with yourself. And for me it was also the case that characteristics that I had, that I didn't like about myself, were released somewhere along the line.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Yes, I know what you mean. Basically, it's about: we have an identity problem. We have a big misunderstanding. Normally we think we are this body. We were born and we're going to die, and that's a terrible... For most people, the idea of death is a terrible tragedy, because you have the feeling: then I'm no more. And most people have never even remotely experienced for themselves that it's actually different. And if you think you are this body, which is very sensitive, very vulnerable, totally dependent on the world and the circumstances, then that's how you react.

Then you live and act through and through with fear. And this gives rise to the most absurd things. And the more I discover that I am not really the body, the more I discover my soul and realize: "Ah, that's me", and that it has nothing to do with the body at all, then you relax. You still live in this body, but the fear is gone. And then a completely different kind of action happens, which comes from somewhere else entirely. And people often say: "Yes, in reality you're not the body, so there's no reason to act like that", but you can't approach it intellectually.

It also sounds like a contradiction: "To start loving yourself, to take care of yourself", when you actually have enough books where you can read that this is not true at all. But in my experience, it's like this: you have to discover it for yourself. When you start to love yourself, that is, what you think of yourself, and to love your feelings and everything you experience... On this seemingly absurd path, you start to discover yourself at some point, that's my experience... then it's your own experience: "Ah, there's something completely different."

And then you experience more and more who you really are. And it is only from this own, truthful self-discovery, from this truthful self-experience, that what you are talking about arises. But it is not enough to have heard it. It is not enough to know it up there in your head, that is not enough. You have to know it existentially for yourself through experience, and then everything changes.

[Mona:] Yes, and the experience I've also had is: when you feel access to your soul and bring your body and life into harmony with it, then your body also heals; then you're no longer so dependent on this healthcare system, which is very much based on fear with all these preventive check-ups and whatnot; so the vaccinations and so on, you know, so everything is driven by fear.

And for me, that was initially... When I got out of it, there was also a lot of fear, like: now I'm going to leave all these safety aspects and stuff out of it... but I then realized that when I let go of this fear system, it was good for my body and me; that I gained trust in the information from my soul about how it wants to live here in this body. So making this connection has been very, very healing.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Yes, but I don't think you need to think too much about it, because what you've just described was an automatic process for you that happened by itself. I was just thinking: what can you tell people who want to know how to get there? In my experience, it's enough if you simply do one thing: somehow turn to yourself and start to accept what you experience within yourself. And meditate, of course. I like to talk about Samarpan Meditation, which I would also like to mention briefly today.

You said something earlier that I wanted to say something more about. You said, that many people don't even have the opportunity to find themselves in this society and in these conditions. But I would like to disagree with that a little bit, because the amazing thing is that we are independent of this in a certain way. I mean, the fact that someone wants to or can even listen to conversations like ours, for example, is of course also grace, or that they somehow come into contact with such topics in their lives.

It doesn't have to be through you or me. It's just a huge gift, of course. But it is really possible for everyone today to start doing Samarpan Meditation, for example. That was what brought about the final breakthrough in my life, so to speak. And that automatically paves the way. Everything else, including all the difficulties, these apparent difficulties with the social framework in which a person finds themselves, suddenly no longer play a role.

I know people who do Samarpan Meditation, who live in the most impossible conditions, where you think a person has no chance at all. That's not true. That's not true at all. Nowadays, really everyone has the opportunity. And in practical terms, it's really easy and it doesn't cost anything. However, you need patience and that willingness that we talked about earlier: to accept all the things that you find within yourself and, of course, in the world.

[Mona:] Yes. And another question arose in me: what is it like to love a Guru? Because I don't know. I know the love for God. I think it's similar. How can you imagine that?

[Dhyan Mikael:] Well, it's like this: Love for God is comparatively simple, because God is something that is subject to one's own feelings. The is the first stage. But at some point it becomes more concrete. At some point, someone comes into your life, for me it was my spiritual master Soham almost twenty-four years ago. Someone comes into your life through whom you then experience this divine in a concrete way, and in a way that is a much greater challenge than this rather diffuse God who is far away and everywhere.

And then, six years ago, my Indian Guru came into my life, and it was like another earthquake. Through him I experienced God in a way, directly, that went beyond anything I had experienced with my master. And in a way... it's not a different kind of love, but it no longer leaves you room to deceive yourself. It makes God more concrete. Of course, everyone knows that the master or the beloved Guru is not God. No human being can be God. But through this Guru you experience God within yourself and you cannot explain it at all.

The Guru doesn't do anything either, the is just there. But through his energy alone, things become possible within you that you simply cannot imagine. And it's like when someone turns up the heat on the stove: you get cooked hotter. Love is suddenly no longer under your own control, but begins to consume you and burn you. And I don't mean that romantically and dramatically, but quietly, but... It's hard to describe. If you love God, you can do it the way you want to do it.

If you love a Guru, you suddenly do it in a way that is completely embarrassing and seems completely absurd. You suddenly go down a path that you don't actually want to go down, but you can't help it because it's quite clear: "This is my path, this is the way I want to go. That's the way to go." You hardly dare to tell others about it because you think: "For God's sake, what are they thinking?" And you only think like that because that's how you think in reality, otherwise you wouldn't think like that. You then encounter the funniest things in yourself.

So there is no qualitative difference, and yet... I can of course only report on my own life. There are people like you who experience it differently, the experience it without a Guru. I used to love Jesus, I loved God, I only wanted one thing, without knowing what I wanted at all. But only when my master came into my life and then later through my Guru did that... Let me put it this way: it's like an accelerant, that's what many gurus say. You know, I say in a lot of my videos: "You can't do it without a Guru", and that's not true.

There are always people who go it alone. But these exceptions don't apply to everyone. Anyone can do it with a Guru, and if you do it alone, it takes a long time. It's a long way. With a Guru... it's incredible. The Guru is like a highway, and you don't even understand how it's possible. But I experience this myself in my life. Recently, between Christmas and New Year, there was another big event with my Guru Swamiji, which I only took part in online, for eight days. And you don't even realize what's happening. You just notice that it's very intense.

And then afterwards, in the weeks that follow, you realize how your life changes, how new things happen, how you change yourself. You don't even know what's happening to you. There is such a force at work, as if you were connected to a huge pipe through which energy flows that pushes you forward. So, you can do everything on your own, but with the Guru... with the real Guru, there are lots of people who are only called that... with you will reach your goal in this life, effortlessly, in no time at all. And I think that's the big, big difference.

Not in love, but... As I said, I can't compare it, I can only report from my life, but I have the feeling that it's a blessing to be one of the people who experience a Guru. Normally people feel the opposite. They have the feeling: "I can do this on my own", and are proud of it. But that's exactly the problem. The one who is so proud of it and who wants to do it alone. I used to always want to do everything on my own. And with the Guru, it all happens by itself. You have nothing to say. Your whole life changes. You change yourself.

You have nothing to say, nobody asks you. And that has a quality that you have to experience for yourself. You know, I'm thinking of the fishermen that Jesus met, Peter and Simon, I think their names were. I always get the names mixed up. They weren't thinking about anything, they weren't waiting for a Guru, they wanted to go out that morning to fish, and then they wanted to go back to their families and look after their parents and their families. And then Jesus came, he just walked past. He just greeted them. He just said: "You two, come! Follow me."

And that's the miracle: they dropped their nets and followed him. Normal people who had never thought of such a thing, who probably thought they were completely crazy themselves, and everyone else anyway. And that's what happens with a Guru. It's like you suddenly slip, get pushed down a slide and then it's off. That's my experience.

[Mona:] That's how I experience it too, but without a Guru, but I've never loved God or loved Jesus. I wasn't interested in that at all. And then there was this experience, and since then this power has been there, and when it happened afterwards, I had the impression that I would either become insanely or pious. So I opted for pious. But this power, this encounter, that works for me. On the contrary, I was looking for a Guru. I envied people who had a Guru, but I didn't find one because this force was already active. It didn't allow that.

[Dhyan Mikael:] You know, I can't see past lives and all that stuff. But we don't live our first life as a human being. And from my own experience... If what I know about myself and my past lives, if that also applies to other people like you, for example, then I would guess that you already had your Guru. You already had your Guru, all that was missing was the icing on the cake, and that's what's happening to you in this life.

[Mona:] Yes. Exactly. Yes, that is indeed an amazing power, an amazing experience, yes.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Yes.

[Mona:] There is no alternative to the path. And at first, parts of me didn't want to and my mind didn't agree with it, but there's no other way.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Yes, you are no longer asked.

[Mona:] No. You're put on the track and... [Dhyan Mikael:] Yes, wonderful. Nothing better could happen to you.

[Mona:] Yes. And then nothing stops you from loving, because that is the pure power of love.

[Dhyan Mikael:] I don't know if I would subscribe to that from my own experience. This power is there, it's not my power, and it teaches me to love anew every day. It illuminates me more and more. I can see everything that is still preventing me from loving more and more better, it is becoming more and more painful. I notice more and more little things where I think: "Ouch...".

[Mona:] Yes, exactly.

[Dhyan Mikael:] "Ah, that just hurt, the way I was just now." So, the process... I am always keen to mention the process, because especially in the spiritual world, people like to have the idea: "This and that happens, and then this and that is done." And in my life, it's not like that. The is an ongoing process, and this energy that you are talking about, this current, it purifies you and teaches you to love, continuously and more and more. And my master reports the same thing, saying: it goes on. And my Guru reports the same thing: it goes on... [Mona:] That's how it is, yes.

[Dhyan Mikael:] ...until the moment when this blessed life ends, when you attain liberation and then leave the body at some point... Until then, this divine learning of love continues.

[Mona:] There is also something relentless about it. So, it's like that. And it was with me because it caught me off guard, at least in terms of my consciousness. I went through tens of years of hell. So I had no choice but to follow this path.

[Dhyan Mikael:] I've heard that from a few people. You just asked, the difference, how it is with the Guru. I think it's easier with the Guru.

[Mona:] Yes, I believe that too, yes.

[Dhyan Mikael:] What I've heard from you in our conversations so far, but also what I've heard or read from other people, is that the people who experienced this suddenly, they had a harder time than I did. I was caught by the wisdom and power of my master from the very beginning. I also had to go through my hell, but I was never alone, and I had guidance in this darkness, every step of the way. It was painful, but it was easy. And the people who experience it alone, well, I don't envy them. I have the easier path.

[Mona:] Yes, I agree, but they don't ask you about that either.

[Dhyan Mikael:] No, not at all.

[Mona:] I looked in a lot of places and then realized with everyone I met: no, it's not. I can't stay there. I can't go there. And then I had no choice but to follow this path. Then it was meant to be for me.

[Dhyan Mikael:] You can only follow your own nose. That's what I always advise everyone to do. It was different for me. I didn't come across a master because I thought I should have one, and then I just made a compromise and said: "Yes, now I'll just stick with this one." No, not at all. I was never looking for a master, and then I met him and it was immediately clear to me: "I'll stay here".

I didn't even know what was happening to me. I wanted to stay, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to stay. I wouldn't have been able to stay, even if the whole world had said to me: but this is important for your spiritual development. Yes, I mean: if I don't want to, I can't. There's no other way.

[Mona:] Exactly.

[Dhyan Mikael:] That's why I totally understand.

[Mona:] Yes, exactly. And I think it's important to feel this sincerity within yourself and to pursue it. Apparently it was the other way around for us. I wanted a master or a Guru and always felt: I can't stay here, I have to go again. And with you it was exactly the opposite. And yet we come to a point where the truth meets again.

[Dhyan Mikael:] One thing is very, very important on this path... and then people might listen to such a conversation or videos that I make and then think... then it's very easy to think: "Ah, I could do it like that" or "I should do it like that". But the only thing that matters is to love yourself. And that means: "I am who I am", no matter how inane I feel, no matter how wrong I think it is, but... maybe someone thinks: "I should have a Guru".

But he doesn't want to, she doesn't want to. And then it's like that. And being true to yourself... I told it in so many of my videos how I often heard something from my master, and I didn't want to. And then I made my own path. And then of course I came out at the same place sometime before, a few years later, and then I understood why he sent me on this path.

But it was so important and so right for me to be true to myself, because if you're not, then you go astray. And that's something I would like to encourage everyone to do again and again: to trust yourself, this intuition, even if you think you're totally crazy and even though you don't even know where you're going. But simply trusting your own compass is the only thing you really need, life will take care of the rest.

[Mona:] Exactly. That feels really well rounded to me right now, really coherent. For you too, Mikael?

[Dhyan Mikael:] Oh yes, absolutely. I just wanted to mention one more thing. I don't think it was part of the recording earlier, but I reported on it earlier in our brief preliminary talk... I've just had another week that was very intense for me, and I had a conversation with people who are in contact with my Guru Swamiji, and I heard things that contradicted what I felt inside me.

And I had to... so not in the conversation, that was wonderful, there was no problem at all, wonderful people, I love them, and we had a wonderful conversation. But afterwards I realized: "Wow, there's a contradiction or a conflict between what I'm hearing and how I feel." And I went through hell for days, and I have to be true to myself, no matter what that means.

And if the whole world thought: "he's wrong", I have to be true to myself. And so many beautiful things have already come out of this in just these few days, simply because of this alignment, because of this trust in yourself, even if you are convinced that you have no idea. And I can only say this again and again: this is a good way. It's not the direct way, there is no such thing. But it's the way that life leads me and every other person: through this own energy, and everyone has their own built-in compass.

[Mona:] I would like to agree with you. I felt the same way last week, not in a conversation with other people, but in my own fine-tuning, I felt once again: this is where it's going for me. And then it was another path where a part of me said: you are distancing yourself from everything else. And at the same time I felt: but there's a joy there, that's where I'm drawn to.

And then to feel: then that's where I'm supposed to go. At least I'm following this now once, otherwise I would have the impression that I wasn't living something that was intended for me, and I believe we can also recognize on this path that we really are all unique and that we can also be very far in that the more it is about our own divine realization, the more it is also about expressing exactly what we are, what is inherent in us, what wants to come into the world through us.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Yes. And I have just said that I think the path with master and Guru is easier than the path alone, but that is a point where it is more difficult, because in the midst of a master and Guru you inevitably come to the point, where you are forced to be true to yourself, even though the revered beloved master apparently says something different, and that is also a fire. It's not easy, but that's where I keep encouraging people.

And I have seen it time and again that people then cannot be true to themselves and it leads to nothing good, because then they also lose their Guru and their master, You cannot be close to God if you are not close to yourself. And the Guru is God for you, and you can... if you start being unfaithful to yourself on this path, then you also lose the Guru, Not everything works. That's a challenge, especially on this path with master or Guru.

[Mona:] But I think everyone is led to this point. It's really like riding the razor's edge that you then have.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Yes, that's how it is.

[Mona:] Thank you, Mikael.

[Dhyan Mikael:] Oh, thank you, Mona. Thank you very, very much.