You, from you, to you: Prof Anil Kumar

[Guest guest]

The Sunday Talk Given by Anil Kumar

“You, From You, To You”

August 10th, 2003

OM…OM…OM…

Sai Ram

With Pranams at the Lotus Feet of Bhagavan,

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am so glad to be with you again this morning. The topic of the day is this:

You, From You, To You. I repeat: You, From You, To You. That is the topic. Here

we have three aspects. First one is you; from

you is the second ‘you’, and to you is the third ‘you’. So, though you appear to

be one, but you are three. Bhagavan always says, “You are not one but three: the

one you think you are, the one others think you are, and the one you really

are.” So, everyone here is not one but three.

You, From You, To You: Following this topic of the day, I will bring your

attention to certain points along this line of thought. Many people in the

mundane world are not aware of this aspect of trinity – the three you's or the

three I's -- the one I think I am, the one others think I am and the one I

really am (or the one you really are). So, these are the three aspects. But

many people do not know this unless they are in the spiritual line of thought.

How do we get to know that? How do we become aware of the three? You -- that

you are from you, and that you will go back to you -- how to know that?

Closer and Closer to God

The first and foremost point, which I want to draw your attention to, is that as

you come closer and closer to God, you will know this. If you are closer and

closer to the world, you will never come to know it. I will be able to know my

true Self; I will be able to experience my true identity, when I am closer and

closer to God.

Many may say, "Yes, I am closer and closer to God. How do you question me? Do

you doubt me?" You may question in this way: “I am closer to God. Why do you

doubt me?”

The answer is simple. None of us will get up and dare to say, “I am closer and

closer to God.” I do not think that anyone would dare to say that. Why? As you

come closer and closer to God, you evaporate more and more. You evaporate, you

disappear, you become non-existent, you vanish, and you do not exist.

Therefore, if I say I am closer to God, it means that this ‘I’-ness is still

present. You are just boasting that you are closer to God, but you are not in

reality.

So my friends, the first point is that you evaporate, you disappear, and you

vanish when you more and more come closer and closer to God. You get exhausted

like camphor. At the time of aarati you must have seen how they light the

camphor. By the time they sing “Mangala aarati anduko”, the camphor is fast

disappearing. And it is completely gone by the time aarati is over. That is the

symbol of being non-existent. That is the expression of disappearance. That is

the sign of self-annihilation and self-effacement, which is the hallmark of

spiritual awareness.

Be God-Loving

The second point I want to draw your attention to is that all of us need to be

God-loving and not God-fearing. We always say, "He is a God-fearing man." I am

sorry. God-fearing is secondary. God-loving is primary. We should be God-loving

people and not God-fearing people. When we have a God-fearing tendency, or

God-fearing temperament, or God-fearing attitude, we feel like keeping a

distance from Him. We want to be away from Him.

God is not to be feared. One is not to be afraid of God. Instead we have to

develop Love of God and fear of sin. Have fear of sin, but Love of God. Once I

develop this Love for God, I will understand the reality.

When There Is Love, There Is no Fear

The third point is that we should be very clear that where there is Love, there

is no fear. Where there is fear, there is no place for Love. If I say,

“God-fearing man”, then I can say there is no Love that is lost any longer.

When I say that I love God, I cannot be fearful. Fear and Love will never go

together.

I will tell you what Bhagavan said: "Why fear?” What is the cause for the fear

complex? The reason is that where there is a mistake, there is fear. Where

there is a

mistake, there is fear. So, when I think of mistakes, I get frightened or I am

fearful. But in fact, God is forgiving. God is forgiving! Therefore, there is

no need to be afraid of Him. It is only your guilty conscience that makes you

run away from Him. If you do not have that feeling of guilt any longer, you

don’t need to be afraid of Him. You can come still closer and closer.

To substantiate my statement, I can tell you one thing. A person came here and

like many, he said, “Bhagavan, pardon me. I committed so many mistakes. I

committed so many blunders. With all the mistakes I made, I have come here in

front of You. Please forgive me.”

You know what Baba said? “Past is past. Past is past. Forget the past. From

today, you lead a new life.”

This is the concept of resurrection. Resurrection is a beautiful concept in

Christianity. “Unless you are born again, you shall not enter the Kingdom of

Heaven,” says the Holy Bible. You die and you are born again.

“Well, I am not prepared to die because I am not sure whether I will be born

again or not!” My friends, that is physical death. Well, I don’t mean that. You

die in this sense: “Let the ME die – let there be death of the past, death of

all past ideals and notions and concepts, so that I will be born again. Through

such resurrection, I am born again.” Resurrection. This ‘second life’ indicates

that all your mistakes are forgotten and all your sins are forgotten. They are

written-off, that’s all. God is capable of that.

But we don’t want those things to be written off, as we are comfortable with

feeling guilty. That’s the reason why in our centres of worship we find people

with long faces, who do not smile. (Laughter) People smile in theatres; people

smile at the Holiday Inn; yes, or when they enjoy a hamburger or a soft drink,

they smile. But they don’t smile in places of worship!

I go to church, I go to temples, or I go to the mosque. But I only see looong, looong,

looong faces! (Laughter) Why? Is God waiting to see these castor oil faces?

(Laughter) Is He not waiting to see smiling faces? Will He not be happy and

smile when you smile? You think, ‘No! Oh God, You deserve my face, my looong

face.’ Why do we put on that long face particularly in places of worship? You

ask any man who goes to church. He smiles till the doorstep all right, then

stops. Why? It is only a reflection, reaction and resound of our own ideas: ‘I

committed a mistake, which will not allow me to smile inside.’

My friends, the moment the sun’s rays appear on the horizon, darkness

disappears. First, there is the sunlight. “But yesterday was darkness.” Please

get your eyes tested! Get your vision corrected! With the dawn of the sunrise,

there is no question of darkness anywhere around. Similarly, with the very

thought of God, with the very sight of God, with the very utterance of God’s

Name, everything is gone. All kinds of mistakes are written off.

“Oh, I see. Is that possible?”

“Why not?” God is beyond good and bad.

Sometimes we get a doubt in darshan lines: "Oh Bhagavan, I am so regular in

going to. I am very prompt for all bhajan sessions. Why don’t You call me for

an interview? Why? I see You calling some fellows who never attend our Sai

centre activities. I pass some fellows with questionable character coming to

You. I know some people who do not enjoy the confidence of the society. I see

those people being given interviews. Why not a man of my type, who is very

prompt, very regular? Why not?"

My friends, good and bad are the norms or the parameters according to your

thought, according to your estimate. God is beyond. God is beyond right and

wrong as per our calculation. God is beyond the pleasure and pain of our

experiences. God is beyond the victory and defeat of our knowledge or of our

awareness. God is neither avoidance nor indulgence. God is transcendence. Let

me repeat this beautiful sentence. God is transcendence. He is neither

avoidance nor indulgence. That’s the reason why He calls anybody.

You cannot say, "Oh God, I kept some people in the front row who participate in

service activity, and some in the second row who regularly attend the

nagarsankirthan, plus group I, group 2 and group 3 activities. You may prefer

to call them for interview anytime You choose." Who are you to say that? Who am

I to declare that so-and-so is good? “Judge not lest thou shall be judged.”

Judgment is the worst of all sins ever possible. Let us not judge anybody.

Therefore my friends, unless I stand in front of God without any mask, without

any covering, without any ‘dress’ or ‘apparel’ of artificiality, I will not be

able to know my true Self. I will not be able to know my true Self unless I

remove all my masks, all my ‘apparel’. I have the ‘mask’ of my educational

background; I have got the ‘dress’ of my profession; I have got the ‘garment’

of my status in society. So I am fully dressed, fully clothed and artificial

with the synthetic fibre of position, class and caste. So, God will never look

at us. God will never look at us unless we are free from all these masks. That

is clear. Let us drop all these deceptions -- deceptions that we very well

know.

"Bhagavan, here is a person who is a man of activity. He is the president of our

Sai centre. Please talk to him."

"That’s the reason why I don’t talk to him," He responds.

I see! A reason which I find deserving, You say is the very reason for being

undeserving! Why? Because this man does it with a sense of pride, with a spirit

of ego, which is as much as not doing anything at all. Better we don’t do

anything than do something with a sense of pride and ego. So long as ego and

pride exist, there is no chance of coming closer and closer to God. And unless

we come closer and closer to Him, there is no chance of knowing the real Self.

 

God Is not an Idea

God is an idea, according to most of us. Why do I say that? You talk to anybody.

They go on interpreting: “God, you know, is all-loving.” If you ask another man,

“He is all-compassionate.” If you meet another devotee: “He is all-forgiving.”

Why? Why do we speak of God like that? Why do we identify God with an idea?

God is not an idea. Why do we say that? For example, I need His kindness now

because I am going through some difficulties. So, I say, "Oh God, You are

all-kindness. Be kind to me.” My present position makes me say that He is

all-kindness. “I want Your kindness as I am passing through the worst of

times.”

When my present position is a position of isolation, when everybody leaves me

because of certain acts or certain feelings of my own making, when I have

become almost an untouchable in the society, at that time I pray to God. “Oh

God, You are compassionate.” Or when I commit so many mistakes I say, "Oh God,

You are the Lord with a forgiving nature. Giving and forgiving is Your noble

quality.” So all our attributes, all our thoughts, all our praises are related

to our existing state of mind and way of life at that moment.

Friends, let us be very clear. God is not an idea. God is a living reality. You

live in Him and He lives in you as a reality, not as an idea or a concept.

Then, why is the name ‘God’ there? ‘God’ is the name that symbolises the

totality of existence -- the organic and the inorganic as well. So, we should

think of Him as being the whole totality.

God Is the Cosmos

That’s what we call ‘God’, the cosmic form. ‘God’ is the cosmos. Yes, ‘God’ is

the name representing the whole cosmos. It is something like a map on paper. A

map on paper is not the be-all and end-all. A map does not speak of geography.

It does not speak of the climatic, environmental and societal features of the

land. All that is something beyond. A map is just a symbol.

Likewise, ‘God’ is just the name given. But, He is the totality of existence --

the plant world, animal world, human world and mineral world. The whole cosmos

is God. You cannot simply limit Him. God is not an object to be possessed. He

is not a person to be feared. He is the One to be experienced. He is the One to

be felt. He is the One to be visualised. He is the One to be contacted within.

 

‘Cut Darshan’, not ‘Shad Darshan’

Here is a very important point. Since last year, Bhagavan stopped coming towards

the men’s side. Because that happens to be the route, the women are blessed. Had

we been there, He would have come there. That has been the regular route. Men

have been avoided since last year’s evening sessions. We got used to ‘cut

darshan’. ‘Cut darshan’ means He cuts across the middle of the hall and goes

straight up to the veranda because we stopped reading the ‘shad

darshan’.

There are six schools of philosophy. Shad means ‘six’; darshan indicates

‘philosophy’. So, as we stopped experiencing ‘shad darshan’, God has chosen to

cut darshan! And since the beginning of this year (since His return to

Prashanti Nilayam in July), He is avoiding morning darshan also. So what shall

we do now? Shall we cry and join in chorus? Not this time! That time is up.

Perhaps the time is mature now, and we have to feel Him from within. We have to

experience Him from within.

When He discontinued the

padanamaskaar, there was a hue and cry everywhere. “No padanamaskaar? Oh boy, what is wrong? No

padanamaskaar…why?”

Swami made it amply clear. The padanamaskaar had become a sign of boasting,

publicity and propaganda. Some used to go on inquiring, “Did you get

padanamaskaar? No? You know, I got it.” The person would inquire only to let

you know that he got it. So padanamaskaar had become a matter of propaganda, a

sign of pride, a feature of publicity. So He just cut it.

What a spiritual explanation He has given: “You and I are One. When you and I

are One, what is the point of doing namaskaar to Me? It is better you do

namaskaar to your own Self. You and I are One.”

There is a long way to go. Well, I have not yet come to that stage, experiencing

You and I as One. There is a long way to go. Yet, it is the only way. This time

or next time, this life or next life, that is the only thing. That is the only

route to experience Him within. Turn inward. Turn inward. Instead of bolting

from inside during the nighttime, we want to bolt our doors from the outside so

that it is easily accessible to everybody!

We have to open

within. We have to seek God within. “Seek the Kingdom of Heaven

within you,” declares the Bible. The Kingdom of God is within you. God is within

you. That kind of experience will enable us to feel Him and to experience Him.

Swami Whispers

Somebody once asked me, “How does God talk to you?” I am going to answer that here.

Right now, we have two courses going on there in the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of

Higher Learning. I just excused myself from the deliberations of the conference.

(I didn’t want to disappoint any one of you here, as my name was already there

on the bulletin board yesterday evening. I didn’t want you to return in

disappointment, so I came.) So right now, two conferences are going on. One is

an in-service teachers training camp for teachers coming from the southern

states, plus a few from the North. Also, a national seminar, sponsored by the

Department of Biosciences and attended by scientists of national and

international fame, is going on there.

Many people are here for the first time. They ask me, “Does Baba say something

every day? Has He messages to convey to you every day? Does He talk to you

every day? Baba talks to you.”

What shall I say? I only say, "Day after day, I am waiting.” (Laughter) Day

after day, I have been waiting.

Then I said, “My friends, Baba’s speech is speechlessness. Baba’s words are

wordless. It is soundless. Baba‘s speech is silence. Silence is greater

eloquence. Swami talks to you by not uttering a word. Baba communicates to you,

without giving any speech. Baba’s speech is wordless. Baba’s speech is silence.”

 

I am not playing with words. I am a student of literature. In fact, Swami talks

to you, but not necessarily by words. Swami’s gestures communicate. Swami’s

looks are themselves beautiful vehicles of communication. His gestures, His

movements, His looks convey more than a formal talk or more than any word ever

can.

Words are limited, my friends. Those of us who want to express through words may

not know the futility. Words fail to communicate the depth of every word. Words

communicate only superficial sentiments. Words fail. So how do you expect God

to talk to you through words? Therefore, Bhagavan will never make use of words

to communicate every time with everybody. Instead His looks communicate.

A mother need not have to talk to the child. The child will feel the vibrations

of motherly love. The beloved, the sweetheart, the one whom you love, will know

your feelings without having to speak. Once the beloved starts looking at you,

volumes and volumes are spoken. The moment you think of your beloved, volumes

and volumes of sentiments are expressed.

So my friends, that which is unexpressed verbally is expressed at higher

intensity. Therefore, to this question, “Does Baba talk to you?” my answer is,

“He talks to me, but not necessarily verbally, as words are futile.”

Words are simple expressions by simpletons, including this self here, as Love

cannot be expressed by any words. If there is anybody who can express Love

verbally, vocally, if anyone tries to do that, alas, his understanding is

limited. If I express Love by verbal expression, by language, by words, it

shows limited understanding. Can Truth be expressed by words? No. Most sacred

things cannot be expressed in words. So God’s language is silence. That’s the

reason why He insists that we be silent -- so that we can listen to His

whisper. He whispers into your ears.

Bhagavan said one time, “Boys, I want you to be silent. You know, God is walking

behind. You may miss the sound of His footsteps.” When God walks behind, you

will miss the sound of His footsteps when you go on talking. You will not be

able to listen to His footsteps. Therefore, in silence, the voice of God is

heard. The voice of God is heard in silence. Further, silence is ‘Sai-lence’.

Silence is ‘Sai-lence’, where there is a greater projection of Sai on the

screen of our heart – amplified and magnified far greater than any possible

verbal communication.

Blessed are those who are not spoken to by Bhagavan till now -- I really mean

it -- as they feel Him from within. They feel Him. There are thousands and

thousands of devotees all over the globe who have not been here till now. Still

they feel Him from within.

I met a devotee in Milwaukee in the State of Wisconsin in the United States. She

works there in a hospital as a nurse. She came to me and told me. “Sir, Baba

tells me to do these things.” I was spellbound.

I responded, “How much do you know Baba?”

She answered, “As much as you know Him.”

“Oh, I see!” (Laughter) As much as I know Him!

She said, "Yes.”

Then I said, "Sister, please correct your English. You know Him

more than I know Him, not as much as I know Him. You know Him more than I know

Him. Those of us who are very near, go only by physical proximity. Those who

see Him day-in and day-out take things for granted. We are deluded by His

physical presence, whereas you, who have never met Bhagavan physically till

now, receive messages every day. So, you can proudly declare, 'Mr. Anil Kumar,

I know Baba more than you know Him.' Yes, you do. I know something only if

Swami talks to me through words, only if I listen to His speech or talk, or

only if I hear Him when He is talking to somebody else.”

Be Childlike, not Childish

We find some people go on peeping when Swami is talking to others. I don’t know.

It is viral infection!

(Laughter) When Swami is talking to you, when you are asking something personal,

I go on interfering, and see to it that you will not be able to see His face. He

wants to talk to you; He wants to communicate something to you. But I go on

jumping like a frog. No!

We have to be

childlike. We should not be childish. Be childlike, but never childish. When

Swami wants to communicate something to someone personally, then what is the

fun of jumping in like a frog, standing between that person and Bhagavan, just

extending the neck like a giraffe? If we want a video of our own faces and

necks, we do not have to visit His zoo at all. (Laughter)

Entertainment is provided free-of-cost. No tollgate or any fee is required at

the entrance because we are the exhibits! You can just watch and see.

So my friends, God has a message He wants to convey to you. In trying to hear

what He wants to tell you, I will be misguided. I will be misguided, and I will

be misdirected, because it has got nothing to do with me. Why does one do that?

Why does one jump like that -- shift from one place to another place? It is

nothing but ignorance; it is nothing but delusion. It is nothing but a physical

approach to spiritual Swami.

I want to go by train across the sky. I want to make use of aircraft on land.

What a fool I am! To approach Bhagavan, I cannot have physical manoeuvring,

physical worldly manipulation. What a disgusting thing it is! What an

unfortunate thing it is! When are we going to evolve ourselves to higher levels

of consciousness?

So, we will be able to understand the reality if only we try to see Him within.

Perhaps the time is ripe enough now. Swami has got His own ways of teaching. By

talking to you, by talking to me, He wanted to correct us, so long as He

approached His 78th

birthday.

We may say, “Bhagavan, You may be 150 or 200, but I want to continue there in my

nursery school level of experience. I want to continue this same state of

learning of the alphabets. I do not want to grow.”

Now God has to become a surgeon. He picks up a cane. Now He wants you to learn.

So long as He has been speaking to us softly and sweetly, so long He has wanted

us to evolve to a higher level. But we refused.

"All right then, I will make you forcefully evolve by avoiding you."

This God does not cane. This God does not whip. More than whipping, more than

caning, He has got a higher level of punishment -- avoiding you totally. On a

day when you manage to get the front row, He does not come along that line at

all. Why? He knows that the best treatment is to avoid you. So my friends, it

is not an occasion to feel sorry or to feel badly.

“Oh God, You have chosen another channel - DD2, Doordarshan, Channel 2. When the

channel 1 is not clear to me, You are taking me along the second channel of

avoidance so that I may try to evolve, so that I may try to look within.”

That’s what we have to understand.

Swami Has Chosen Me

We should also try to learn another important point. I told my friends from

different parts of this country, some leading scientists, “Let not any of us

say that I have chosen Baba as my God. Let not any of us say that I have chosen

Swami as God. No. Instead of that, let us say, 'Swami has chosen me. Baba has

chosen me. I cannot say that I have chosen Him.'"

When you say, "I have chosen Swami as my God," it is nothing but ego. How do you

know that He is God? What is your eligibility? What is your capacity? What is

your ability? What is your level of understanding? How do you say, “I have

chosen”? No, nonsense! “You have chosen me, God. Swami, I am very grateful to

You.”

Now, what is my responsibility? When I say, “I have chosen You,” I have a

responsibility. When You have chosen me, it is Your responsibility. (Laughter)

It is a convenient philosophy, yes? No! “Swami, You have chosen me so that I

may hunger for You. I may develop a thirst for You. I may die for You, as You

have chosen me.” Well, God! How compassionate You are! How loving You are! How

abundantly merciful You are because You have chosen me. And my responsibility

now is to live up to Your expectation, to rise up to Your level of expectation.

 

When I have chosen, it is my option to be with You or to be away from You. When

He has chosen you, you cannot get out. Finished! You are no more. There are

many people who want to go out from this place, but they cannot go. Physical

imprisonment is seen; spiritual imprisonment is unseen. You cannot get out of

this because you are chosen by Him.

A simple example: One gentleman had forgotten Swami totally for 20 years because

he was not happy with Him. He expected so much of money and all that. But after

some 20 years, life proceeded in a negative direction. He started losing more

and more. He had to sell off his own house. He had no place to live in -- no

shelter.

At that moment, he received a letter from Baba. “My dear son, don’t cry. I am

with you. You are passing through this crisis. Why? I want to teach you a

lesson. You should learn a lesson out of this crisis so that you may remind

yourself of the existence of God. You cannot get away from Me. From tomorrow,

things will be set right.” He received that letter. Next day, like a windfall,

he got cheques and cheques from his near and dear.

So my friends, God has got His own method of coming closer and closer, because

He has selected you. He has chosen you. And it is up to you to develop hunger

for Him, thirst for Him, because it is not an easy selection. Election -- you

can work for it; selection -- it is not your choice.

“You May Leave Me, But I Will not Leave You”

Bhagavan went a step further and said, “You may leave Me, but I will not leave

you." He will not leave you! “You may leave Me, you fellow. I will not leave

you.” Why? Because of the spiritual affinity: Spiritual togetherness is

inseparable. My dress and I are separable. When I remove this shirt, I am

separated from this shirt. But I cannot separate me from myself because I am I.

How can I separate myself? Impossible! So, when Swami is in you (and you are in

Swami), how can you be outside of Him? How can you be away from Him? You cannot

be free from yourself. You cannot be away from yourself.

A Spiritual Contract Is Permanent

Similarly, Baba is YOU and you can never be away from Him. This spiritual

contract is permanent. With a spiritual contract, it is not seasonal,

incidental, and not accidental. It is permanent, from womb to the tomb to

eternity. We will be having a number of lives to come and this bondage will

continue.

You must have gone through the biographical notes of Walter Cowan where he

mentions who he was in his earlier lives and his death experiences. All that

was published in the form of a small booklet. Most of you must have gone

through that, where Walter Cowan describes his death experiences so that we may

know our life’s living experiences. Walter Cowan goes on to say what he was in

his earlier lives -- how he was earlier in the company of God.

So my friends, it is not by accident that we are here, no. It is by Divine Will.

It is a Divine ‘master plan’. When Swami talks to you today, He has got a master

plan. Many people must have hardly imagined that they would settle here.

Persons, who have had name, fame, a car, etc., have given up everything and

decided to stay here. How did it happen? Let me be very clear. It happened in

spite of them.

Lead a Choiceless Life

Why don’t we reconcile? Why don’t I lead a choiceless life? If I lead a

choiceless life, it is going to be an exemplary life. What is choicelessness?

“Swami, I will be leaving at 5 o’clock. To be at the station or at the airport,

I need to be there one hour before. So, I should be leaving by 3:30. Why don’t

you complete Your

darshan by that time? Why not? Swami, today is the last day of my stay. Why

don’t You grant me an interview?”

This shows that I have some preferences; I have certain choices. So long as I

have got some choice, I am bound to be disappointed one day or another. One day

or another, we are bound to be disappointed when we lead a life of choice.

When you lead the life of choicelessness, you say, "Oh God, it is up to You. I

go on in my own way, thinking of You." That’s enough. That’s what is called

surrender. Surrender is choicelessness. Surrender is leading a choiceless life.

That makes you feel very happy, so happy.

I met one gentleman. He was all smiles. He said, "I have been here for the past

one week. I enjoyed my stay. I am leaving now, Anil Kumar. ‘Bye. I hope to see

you very soon."

Well, innocently, as ill luck would have it, I put an inconvenient question.

“Did Swami see you? Did Swami see you?"

What was his reply? “I have not come for that purpose. I have come to see Swami.

I have no answer when you ask me, ’Did Swami see you?’ No, I have come here to

see Swami.”

"I see. Could you please elaborate on that?”

What he said is this: “Swami sees me anywhere, wherever I am, all the time. He

sees me everywhere, anywhere, every time. But I will not be able to see Him

unless I come here. So, it is more important that I see Him. And I don’t have

to say that. I don’t bother at all if He sees me or not because He is in me,

above me, below me, around me.”

What an answer! That is why I say, blessed are those who have got such lofty

ideals! Blessed are those who have got that high level of understanding, that

high level of awareness. “I have seen Him. That’s enough. He sees me all the

time.”

I met a villager, unlettered and illiterate. Well, he was very happy packing his

luggage to leave. I know him. I said, “How are you, sir?”

“Very fine. I am going.”

“I see, good. Did you have any chance to sit in the front row as you have been

here for the past 15 days? Any such chance?”

Then he said innocently a wonderful statement that still rings in my ears! I'd

like to share it with you, my friends. What did he say?

Villagers may hail from villages, cut off from the madding crowd,

unsophisticated. We may prefer to call them ‘uncivilized’; but yet, as Bhagavan

repeatedly says, “If there is any culture, it is there in villages, but not in

cities.”

In the cities, everything is artificial, synthetic. Even smiles are artificial.

People say, “Very glad to see you”, while thinking, ‘Most disappointed to see

you in reality.’ (Laughter). Or, one says, "See you again", while thinking,

‘Not for a lifetime I hope!’ That is the true feeling within. (Laughter)

So, with city life, with this urbanisation, this so-called ‘civilisation’ has

made our life totally artificial. We don’t mean what we say. The real culture

-- if at all there is any harmony of thought, word and deed anywhere -- is

there in the villages.

So, going back to that villager, that ignorant yet innocent man, unsophisticated

and half-naked, what did he say?

“Sir, I heard Swami telling that the whole world, in fact the whole universe, is

in Him. When the whole universe is in Him, how is it that I will be outside of

Him?”

My friends, please understand the depth of his statement. “When the whole

universe, the cosmos, is in Him, how can I be outside of Him? Therefore, I am

happy being one with Him. I am very happy to be in Him. I am not bothered

whether I get the first line, or fifth line or the thirtieth line.”

“Aareh Baba! Let me touch your feet first! I will touch Baba’s feet next.”

I very well remember Baba saying one thing. What did He say? “When I hold this

paper, it only means I am bigger than this paper. So I am able to hold this,

right? So if you say, “God is in me”, it means that you are bigger than God. On

the other hand, if you say, “I am in God, God is bigger than you!”

Oh, oh! This villager conveyed to me this Divine message indirectly. When you

are conscious of the fact that you are in Divinity and of Divinity, then there

is no question of being far or being near -- because you are essentially

Divine.

Baba Chooses YOU to Find Him

Another point, which I want to draw your attention to, is this: When Bhagavan

chooses you, He desires you to

find Him. Please follow the sentence. When He chooses you, He desires you to

find Him. Oh, I see.

Our good Lord is an expert in the hide-and-seek game. When He comes in that

battery-operated cart, He will take the attendance there itself -- who is here

and who is not there – finished! When you are close to Him, He looks in the

opposite direction -- because the attendance was already taken there at the

entrance itself!

When He has chosen you, He desires that you find Him. Therefore, you should go

on waiting; you should go on looking within; you should go on longing; you

should go on pining for Him. God chooses you so that you may find Him. God

chooses you so that you may love Him. God chooses you so that you may hunger

for Him, so that you may thirst for Him. That is why He chooses you.

So my friends, as there is a national conference going on where I am supposed to

speak immediately after this, I beg your pardon and seek your permission to

conclude my talk a few minutes before the schedule. Now join me in chorus.

Anil Kumar concludes his talk with the bhajan,

“Bhajamana Narayana Narayana Narayana”.

OM…OM…OM…

Asato Maa Sad Gamaya

Tamaso Maa Jyotir Gamaya

Mrtyormaa Amrtam Gamaya

Om Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu

Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu

Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

 

Source:

http://www.internety.com/anilk2003/10.08.03(E)central.htm