Twelve ways of Realising me

Excerpted from Discourses

1. LONGING: If you experience that same longing and thirst for union with me as one who has been lying for days in the hot sun of the Sahara experiences the longing for water, then you will realise me.
2. PEACE OF MIND: If you have the peace of a frozen lake, then too you will realise me.
3. HUMILITY: If you have the humility of the earth which can be moulded into any shape, then you will know me.
4. DESPERATION: If you experience the desperation that causes a man to commit suicide and you feel that you cannot live without seeing me, then you will see me.
5. FAITH: If you have the complete faith that Kalyan had for his master, in believing it was night although it was day (because his Master said so), then you will know me.
6. FIDELITY: If you have the fidelity that the breath has in giving you company, even without your constantly feeling it, till the end of your life (that both in happiness and suffering gives you company and never turns against you), then you will know me
7. CONTROL THROUGH LOVE: When your love for me drives away your lust for the things of senses, then you realise me.
8. SELFLESS SERVICE: If you have the quality of selfless service unaffected by results, similar to that of the sun which serves the world by shining on all creation  - on the grass in the field, on the birds in the air, on the beasts in the forest – on all mankind with its sinner and its saint, its rich and its poor, unconscious of their attitude towards it, then you will win me.
9. RENUNCIATION: If you renounce for me everything physical, mental and spiritual, then you have me
10. OBEDIENCE: If your obedience is as spontaneous, complete and natural as the light is to the eye or the smell to the nose, then you come to me.
11. SURRENDERANCE: If your surrenderance to me is as whole-hearted, as that of one who, suffering from insomnia, surrenders to sudden sleep without fear of being lost, then you have me
12. LOVE: If you have that love for me which St. Francis had for Jesus, then not only will you realise me but you will please me.

Sometimes people stick to unconventional things for no other reason than that they are out of the ordinary. The unusual nature of their pursuits or interests enables them to feel their separatedness and difference from others, and to take delight in it. Unconventional things also often generate interest merely through their novelty in contrast with conventional things. The illusory values of usual things become insipid through familiarity, and the mind then has a tendency to transfer the illusion of value to those things which are not usual instead of trying to discover true and lasting values.

Those who would transcend the stage of external conformity and enter into the high life of inner realities must develop the capacity to distinguish between false and true values irrespective of conventionality or unconventionality.