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A teaching from Sri Sathya Sai Baba
 Dear devotee, your hands are very
small, but with these little hands you are trying to serve me. Your eyes are very small, but my creation is enormous. With your
two little eyes you are trying to see the whole vast universe. Your ears are very small, but with these two small ears you are
trying to follow my words. With your two little feet you are
attempting to come towards me. Merely serving me with your two
little hands will not achieve very much. Merely looking at my
vast world with your two little eyes will also not be of much use. Merely listening to my divine words through your two little ears
will not get you very far, and merely coming into my presence with
your two little feet will also not fully serve your purpose. But
there is one thing that you can do, which will have a great
impact, which will produce a truly significant effect; that is to
install me permanently in your heart. Once you bring me into your
heart, then those other activities will not seem very important. Whatever form of worship you engage in, using your eyes, your
ears, your hands and your feet only serves to control the mind,
but when you invite the Lord to enter your heart, then control of
the mind and the senses becomes very easy. The mind and the
senses will become still on their own. There will be no need for
any special effort to be made in order to sacrifice the fruits of
your actions. Lord Krishna said, "Once you start thinking and
indulging only in thoughts of me, then all the rest will be taken
care of by me automatically." To achieve this state you must
develop a resolve and an unshakeable faith in the ever-present
Lord residing in your own heart.
Wake up my children! Wake up to
the dawn of knowledge, wake up to your divine duties, wake up to
your divine rights and wake up to your divine reality. Engage in
action, but all the while remembering the Lord's name. You should
always keep this goal before you and strive to attain it. Due to
silent sitting an expansion of energy takes place within you. This is Man's electric power. The current of the human body is
will power. You should be careful how you use this energy. By
talking too much, you are wasting a lot of energy. This leads to
a loss of memory power. Silent sitting does not mean merely
keeping your mouths shut. You should exert control over your
thoughts. The brain should get full rest. By rest, in this
context, I mean a change of activity, for example, after studies
you can engage yourself in manual labour or in singing bhajans.
Whatever you study, study with full concentration. Above all,
respect God, Who is your protector.
The first and foremost duty of
children is to make their parents happy. It is because of our
parents and their sacrifices that we possess our bodies. Even
after growing up, we should never forget our duty towards our
parents. We should always be proud of our parents, and show
respect and love towards them. If we love and respect our parents
today, then we can expect the same treatment from our children
tomorrow. God pervades the whole universe. Self-confidence is
the foundation of life. To realize the core of divinity, expand
your love. This has to be cultivated right from a tender age. If
the sapling is straight, then the tree will grow straight. If
human values are not developed in childhood, then that person will
remain devoid of human values in adulthood. A child should be
taught the 3Ds - Duty, Discipline and Devotion. Duty is God,
Devotion and Discipline are the two bodyguards. Children are the
makers of the future. If their life is good, then they will be
good citizens of a good country. Ego comes due to ignorance. The
causes of Ego are status, wealth, knowledge and material
possessions; these come and go. Money comes and goes, but morality
comes and grows.
Fill your hearts with love, and
then the whole world will be full of love. Where there is love
there is happiness. If you commit a mistake due to ignorance,
then resort to prayer. Prayer unites two people, Man and God,
into one. Prayer elevates you and helps you to abandon the evil
path. Inculcation of human values (love, peace, righteousness,
truth and non-violence) is the true education. The hallmark of a
true education is humility. Discipline your life by practicing
the human values. Take to the good path. Try and guide those who
have gone astray, lovingly, onto the correct path. First endeavour to improve yourselves in a systematic and humble way as
charity begins at home. Light the lamp of knowledge within
yourself. By transforming yourselves the effect will spread far
and wide. Remember the minute that has fled is no longer yours;
the minute that is approaching cannot be counted as yours; the
minute that is with you, this alone is truly yours. Make the best
use of it, for it may be your last.
Joy and grief, heat and cold, are
both in the plan of God, and yours is only to know this and to
treat both as valuable. God draws the individual towards Himself;
it is in the nature of both to have this affinity, for they are
the same. They are like the iron and the magnet, but if the iron
is rusty and covered with layers of dirt, the magnet is unable to
attract it. Remove the rust, the impediment, that is all that you
have to do. Shine forth in your real, natural form and the Lord
will draw you into His bosom. Trial and tribulations are the
means by which this cleansing is done. Sadhana (spiritual
endeavour) is most essential, in order to control the mind and the
desires after which it runs. If you find that you are unable to
succeed, do not give up the sadhana but, rather, do it more
vigorously. Sadhana means inner cleanliness as well as external
cleanliness. You do not feel refreshed if you wear unwashed
clothes after your bath, nor do you feel refreshed if you wear
washed clothes but skip the bath. Both are needed. The Sadhana
that you practise must make you a better, happier and a more
useful person. It is your primary responsibility to demonstrate
your calmness, humility, purity, virtue, courage and conviction
under all circumstances. When suffering comes in waves, one after
another, be glad that the shore is near. In both joy and grief
remind yourself that they will not last long.
God's grace is not given free. There are today two aspects relating to Man that have to be
considered. One relates to a person's rights, the other relates
to a person's duties. Most people are more concerned about their
rights than their duties and engage themselves in various
struggles to secure them. They are, however, not keen to
recognize their duties. In all the different fields of human
activity - social, political, economic and even spiritual - people
do not recognize their responsibilities, their duties. They want
high positions and high salaries, and they devote their entire
lives to the pursuit of them. Rarely does a person stop to
consider whether they are actually performing the necessary work
to earn their salary, whether they are discharging their duties
and responsibilities correctly. Such an attitude is prevalent not
only in the workplace, but also in the spiritual field.
Everyone says, "I want God, I
want liberation, I want to ensure my well being both here and in
the here-after", but are they making the necessary effort to
achieve these desires. They say that they have no time for
bhajans, that they are too busy to do any sadhana, that they have
no time to think of God, and yet they still want God. To get
anything you want from a shop, you have to pay the price, but Man
today wants God in order to ensure his well being, but is he
prepared to pay the price for getting Him? Is he prepared to
offer to God the sacrifice he has to make to secure his well being
in the here-after? Is he prepared to offer to God the love that
has to be given to secure his peace, prosperity and security? Man
today seeks to get something without paying the price for it, but
the Lord cannot be deceived. He offers the appropriate reward for
each action according to its nature - whether it is a gain or a
loss, good or bad. We are entitled to expect what we desire from
God only if we make the appropriate offering to God. Today no one
is prepared to offer anything to God, but everyone is eager to get
something from God.
Unfortunately, today, because the
parents themselves have no purity of character, are lacking in
spiritual qualities and do not lead regulated lives, evil
practices and wickedness are springing up all over the world. Because of the malefic effects of the Kali Age, parents tend to
be quarrelsome and the children of today take after their parents. The tree is based on the seed and the seed determines the nature
of the tree. For the evil ways and the bad behaviour of children
today, the parents alone are to be blamed. Few parents choose to
tell their children how important it is to speak the truth, to act
righteously and to earn a good name and, as a result, many
children today are a disgrace to their parents and to their
country. For all the ills with which the nation is afflicted
today, parents and teachers are responsible. Teachers do not
punish the students for their lapses of behaviour, and because the
students are not punished for their mistakes, they behave as they
please. Teachers are responsible for the sins of their students. They do not teach the students the right path. They transmit
only book knowledge, and do not teach right knowledge, wise living
and higher values. If there are no morals and no human values,
then Man becomes a demon. Parents are concerned solely about the
material welfare of their children and have no concern for their
spiritual well-being. It is not wealth that is important. Character is primary. Parents do not teach their children the
importance of cultivating good qualities. They do not try to
control their children when they go astray; rather, they condone
the lapses of their children and often encourage them in their bad
ways. It is because of such parents that many children today take
to wrong courses of action. Parents today are afraid of correcting
the mistakes of the children or of chastising them, but they
have the right to warn and to correct their children.
The most important thing in this
world is the life of the spirit or atma. Mere bodily existence,
mental life or intellectual life cannot be considered as living at
all. The satisfaction that Man derives from time to time from
these endeavours nearly always ends in disappointment. They are
like the pursuit of a mirage. They do not serve to quench Man's
thirst because they are not lasting. They come and go leaving a
trail of misery. Who is a real conqueror in this world? Shankaracharya once said to his disciples, " Not the one who has
subdued the world and brought it under his sway, not the one who
has scaled the Himalayas and planted a flag on its summit, not the
one who has crossed the oceans is a hero. You cannot look at
conquests in such worldly terms. If viewed in this way even an
animal can fight another and establish its victory. Likewise
birds can cross oceans and can fly over the Himalayas. Where is
the victory in all of these? Nowhere! Only the person who has
subdued his mind is a real conqueror. It is a mental aberration
to think that one has achieved a victory without subduing one's
mind." All spiritual aspirants should cherish in their hearts
with gratitude the good that is done to them by others and always
remember the form in which help was rendered to them. Only those
who lead such grateful lives will be able to find peace and
happiness in their lives. Every person should therefore cherish
the sense of gratitude. When wealth is lost nothing is lost, when
health is lost something is lost, but when character is lost
everything is lost.
Human life is supremely precious
in this world. But not all are aware of this truth. Wherein lies
this preciousness? Humanness does not consist merely in the
physical and the mundane. It is for the pursuit of righteousness
that the physical body has been given to Man. God is the
repository of Bliss. He is eternal. Humanness originates from
Bliss and Bliss grows in Bliss and merges in Bliss. This Bliss is
the goal of Man. Man is born in Bliss. To manifest Bliss is the
duty of Man. This is the secret of the human saga. From infancy
to old age Man dedicates every effort to secure Bliss, but this
Bliss is not to be found in the places in which he searches. When
he is the very embodiment of Bliss, to seek It outside of him is
sheer folly. Does any Man search for himself outside of himself? If such a search is done, it is a sign of ignorance. Human
existence is based on the Divine. Man is a spark of the Divine,
and without the Divine, Man cannot experience Bliss. Consequently
even though Man is the embodiment of Sat-Chit-Ananda, of
Being-Awareness-Bliss, he desperately seeks Bliss elsewhere. The
Upanishads have long exhorted Man to wake up from his sleep of
ignorance and to realize his true nature.
Man assumes that he is
investigating various phenomena. This is not so. It is Man's
senses that are experimenting with him. Man imagines that he is
making use of his sense organs; not at all. The truth of the
matter is that his senses are sporting with him, but Man is not
aware of this fact. If Man had really mastered his senses and had
full sway over them, he would not be subjected to anxiety. It is
the senses that are holding sway over Man and are utilizing him
for their own enjoyment. As a result Man has become a weakling. He is a victim of peacelessness and is prey to many troubles. It
should be recognized that the senses are merely instruments. You
should wield these instruments; you should not become their
plaything. Unfortunately, because Man has become an instrument in
the grip of his senses, he has become powerless to act properly. The slave of the senses is a fool. Only the one who subdues the
senses is a hero. Anyone who misuses their senses is a fool,
whatever the extent of their knowledge. It is essential to bring
the senses under one's control, so that the senses will be
powerless to cause any harm to Man.
Many feel that it is human to err
and that God should forgive their lapses whereas, in fact, if they
are truly human, they should not commit mistakes at all. Even if
sometimes a mistake is committed, wittingly or unwittingly, it
should not be repeated. It is a grievous error to think that it
is natural for a human being to err. Such a feeling should not be
entertained at all by anyone. Every man should realize, " I am
not weak, I am not an animal. I am not a demon, I am a man ". When a man has this conviction he will not commit mistakes. Man
is the very embodiment of the spirit or Atma and the Atma cannot
be affected by any taint. It is the attachment to the body, which
is the cause of bad thoughts, bad desires and bad actions. It is
the one who is a slave to his senses that is a prey to such
impulses. To follow the directive of the senses is a mark of the
animal. To be guided by the Atma is the real sign of the human. No one should attempt to justify his weaknesses and lapses as
being natural to a human being. They should be regarded as signs
of mental debility. You should continually strive to master your
senses. When you have truly acquired sense-control, you will
experience the power of the Divine within you. Right is right
even if nobody does it, wrong is wrong even if everybody does it.
If people do not love you, be sure, that it is your fault. It is
disgruntled people that find fault with the world. It is those
who have no peace in their hearts that cause disturbances in the
world. They are restless, so they, in turn, engender restlessness
in others, and then think that it is a rotten world. You should
know what to do; have the right knowledge, the right judgement and
the right action. If you want to see the whole world coloured
green, then you should not try to paint everything green, you
should simply wear green tinted glasses. Many people declare, "I
am an individualised soul, I am a spark of consciousness, I am an
embodied spirit", but declarations such as these do not reveal a
true understanding of the life principle. The individualised soul
is Divine Consciousness, installed in a chariot, the body. It is
not a bundle of inert stuff, moulded into a form and labelled with
a name. There is only one all-pervading Consciousness, but Man
experiences It in fragments and, mistaking It as many, he gropes
around in the confusion caused by his own ignorance. Many
scripture have instructed Man of the truth that God dwells in his
body along with the ego, with God inducing him to aspire for the
heights, and the ego advising him to be content with the low. The
ego has faith in the reality of the world and of itself. The
Divine Principle, on the other hand, asserts that It is ever
present, both close to Man as well as far from him. The fact is
that people only feel that God is far away, because they are not
aware of God being near them, nay in their own hearts. The truth
that the scripture teach is that God is everywhere, both near and
far, both above and below, both inside and outside. God is one,
Indivisible and Omnipresent.
"The study of sacred books and
listening to religious discourses is meant to develop self-control
and peace. I am not for indiscriminate reading of books however
valuable they may be. Much reading tends to confuse the mind. It
fosters argumentation and intellectual pride. What I insist upon
is putting the things read into practice, if not all, a least a
thing or two. Moreover, remember that a book is only a pointer, a
guide, a signpost. Reading alone cannot be the completion of the
journey. It is only the first step; read for the sake of
practising, not for reading's sake. Too many books in a room
indicates that a person is suffering from intellectual illnesses,
just as too many tins, capsules and bottles of medicines in a
cupboard indicate that the person is suffering from physical
illness."
-Sathya Sai Baba
Source: Ramala Centre Newsletter,
September 2003,
http://www.ramalacentre.com/newsletter09_03_03.htm
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