Swami teaches... Know and realize bases of your Divine status

[Guest guest]

Sai Ram

Light and Love Swami teaches.... (20 - 24 July 2005)

Know and Realize Bases of Your Divine Status

Human is not merely a creature thrown up by nature in the process of an

evolutionary gamble. He has a special meaning, a special mission, a unique

role. He is Divinity, encased in the human frame. Human being is a unit of

Atmic unity, a child of immortality, set in the background of this mortal

world, in this mortal flame. Human's mission is to merge in the God from whom

humanity has emerged. Heaven is not a supra-terrestrial region of perpetual

Spring; it is an inner experience, a state of supreme bliss. Humanity is a

million-faced sparks of the Divine Force. Human being can delve, not only into

the secrets of nature, but into own mystery and discover God, who is behind

both Nature and him/herself. The clouds of conceit and ignorance hide from

persons their destiny.

Seeing difference is the bane of the undeveloped intellect. The One Sun is

seen, adored, and acknowledged all over the world; you do not boast of an

American Sun, an Ananthapur Sun... When you pay undue attention to differences,

spasms of hatred, anger, malice and envy overwhelm you. Anger rushes blood to

the brain; the temperature rises; the composition of the blood changes; toxins

enter into it in such quantities that it injures the nerves, and make you old

before your time. Desire to which you are too fondly attached breeds anger

and its nefarious brood. The Aanandha that the Aathman can manifest will keep

age and aging away.

Have the Name of God on your tongue, in your breath, ever. That will evoke

His Form, as the inner core of every thing, thought or turn of events. That

will provide you with His company, contact with His unfailing energy and bliss.

That is the Sathsanga (good association) that gives you maximum benefit.

Converse with God who is in you; derive courage and consolation from Him. He is

the Guru most interested in your progress.

Words without experience is bound to be unconvincing; words that come from

the depth of experience have the ring of sincerity which convinces. The

experience of the Truth alone can foster Love; for, Truth is so all-embracing

and integrating, that it sees no distinction. Through Truth, you can experience

love; through love, you can visualise truth. Love God and you see God in every

creature. Or you can start with the individual, and widen the circle of love,

till it envelops all creation.

Knowledge is said to be acquired when you pursue the analytical method and

divide things, feelings, experiences into categories, pleasant and unpleasant,

harmful and beneficial, lasting and temporary. The higher knowledge however

unifies, it makes one aware of the one which appears as many, it reveals the

truth, on which falsehood is superimposed. To discover this truth, the classic

texts have laid down two codes of discipline, one external and the other

internal. The outer is Nishkaama-karma (desireless activity) - activity that is

engaged in as dedication and worship; or, activity that is gladly carried out,

from a sense of duty, regardless of the benefit that may accrue, with no

attachment to the fruits thereof. The inner is dhyaana (meditation on the

splendour of which one is but a spark). Karma (activity) has to be regulated by

dharma (righteousness) then it will lead one on to Brahman (the basic truth of

the Universe, including oneself).

 

A clean uncontaminated mind is like a fully blossomed fragrant rose. It

refreshes and pleases, whether it is on the wall or on the table, in the left

hand or the right. But the evil mind stinks, and is avoided by kith and kin; it

infects those who contact it. Waves move out from the mind in ever-widening

circles and affect all those who draw near. Let your mind have no waves; let it

be silent, level, calm, so that the Hamsa (the bird of purity with perfectly

white plumes, the bird that can distinguish between right and wrong, accepting

right and rejecting wrong, the bird that is the symbol of Soham alias the

principle of the One, embracing I and the others). Let the mind dwell ever on

God; let it see all as God. That is what is described as onepointedness.If it

is so fixed, it will give up its tendency to search for faults and foibles in

others; it will not run after the foul and the frivolous; it will not

accumulate the trivial and the transient.

Be careful that you do not cavil at another's faith. There is a road from

each heart to the Source of all joy, namely, God. We all will come in our own

good time, at our own pace, through our own inner urge, along the path God will

reveal to us as our own. The Truth that is in all beings is also in you. Search

for that; discover that unity; that source of courage, of love, of wisdom. Each

name and form when it was adored was described as All-powerful, All-knowing.

All-pervasive, etc, so that worshippers may be led through every door to the

self-same entity that subsumes all.

However, the shortsightedness of human won over this largehearted view; the

Names and Forms were taken as essentially distinct and each became the centre

of a sect, creed, with all its divisive consequences. Thus, we have a multitude

of warring factions, each swearing by its own favourite Form and Name, to the

exclusion of all the rest. The real harvest of Aanandha for which the spiritual

operations of rites and manthras (sacred formulae) were gone through has been

neglected, while the weeds of calumny, cynicism and conflict have grown wild

over the fields.

The evil influence of kaama (lust) is at the bottom of this tragedy. The

Geetha laid down that even the Vedhas have to be transcended, whenever they

seek to foster desires and cater to transient urges. It speaks in the same

shloka that human must seek to become Aathmavaan (the possessor of soul) and

the Aathmic (spiritual) strength. The Geetha asks you to be, not Balavaan

(possessor of physical prowess), not Dhanavaan (possessor of a comfortable bank

balance) but, Aathmavaan (having the prowess arising out of the awarenessthat

you are the Aathman, which can remain unaffected by fame or shame, grief or joy

and all thebuffetings of the dualities of the world). It points the way to

lasting happiness - never being concerned with the earning of happiness and the

maintenance of happiness, but, just being oneself. Being established in the

Aathman, never worried about how to be happy (for the Aathman is ever

Blissful), this is the prescription of the Geetha. Nir-dhwandho (without paying

attention to the dual throng of grief-joy, pain-pleasure, etc.),

nithya-sathwastho (ever fixed in the quality of equity), nir-yogakshema

(unaffected by considerations of security and welfare), Aathmavaan (established

in Aathmic consciousness) that is how the Geetha lays down the path of

liberation.

The prescription to scrutinise always the purity of the means, and not worry

about the acquisition of the fruit of the activity; and the description of yoga

as the stoppage of all modifications of consciousness - both emphasise the same

advice of the Lord. The regulation and restriction of the senses purify the

intellect, which then can boldly and quickly investigate into the real nature

of the subject-object relationship, the I-other relationship, and discovering

that all is I (the One), attains peace, prashaanthi (unruffled peace).

A single seed of kaama (desire) if it gets stuck in the soil of the heart,

is very difficult to dislodge. Kaama can be suppressed and mastered only by

Raama (attachment to God) and prema (love for all beings, prompting sacrifice

of joys and comfort for others). Without a hold on Raama and prema, kaama will

upset your faith in standards of morality and righteousness. It will place

before you all sorts of specious arguments to overcome the pangs of conscience

and enslave reason and sense of duty.

In the life we meet many who desire that others must admire and applaud, and

so, they do japam or sit in dhyaana, where many will be-seeing them. Theirs is

not the attitude of indifference, which says, "I don't care what they say, or

who sees me or who does not." Their innermost craving is for people to notice

them and publicise their spiritual attainments. They are eager for audiences

and spectators. However, saadhana is an activity, which will be vulgarised by

public gaze. This is the reason for saadhakas (spiritual aspirants) retiring

into lonely mountain caves, or into solitary temples in inaccessible regions of

the Himalaayas, or in the depths of jungles.

You need not imitate them; you can create enough privacy in your own home,

screening off a portionof some room. There you can sink into yourself and

discover the Inner Reality as the Reality of the Universe Itself. Concentration

can be mastered in dhyaana (meditation) and this will lead to disinterestedness

in the results of one's actions, for the actions are not one's own, but God's.

The results too are not one's; they are God's. When you become detached from

the fruits of your actions, though intent on action (offering to the Lord your

skill and energy), then, you attain peace of mind, Prashaanthi. If you

cultivate attachment to things of the world, and houses, bank balance and

insignia of power, then, dhyaana fails.

By dhyaana you develop jnaana (spiritual wisdom) and by japam (recitation of

God's Name) you develop bhakthi (devotion) and by both, you cleanse your heart

of the canker of ego. You can link yourselves with God, by a chain of love,

through the recitation of the name, in silence and with full awareness of the

meaning and its nuances. Each Sai Raam, Hare Krishna, Hare Raam, or Vitthal is

a link; the more the links the longer the chain, the firmer the bond. But, each

link has to be well forged out of well tempered steel. One false link, that is

to say, the Name once uttered in sloth or slight, indifference or anger,

resentment or rancour, will constitute a weak link and the bond will not bind.

The experiencer of the prema (love) is the inner I, which is the reflection

of the real I, the Aathma (soul). When the senses are out of action, that I

will shine in its full glory. The senses are one's deadly foes; for, they drag

your attention away from the source of joy inside you, to objects outside you.

When you are convinced that they are at the bottom of this conspiracy to

mislead you, you will certainly stop catering to them. When you get (spiritual

wisdom), Kaivalyam (divine status) draws towards you. Kaivalyam is the state in

which the Divine is experienced as all-comprehensive, as Will, as Activity, as

Bliss, as Intelligence, as Existence. You must suppress your thamas

(ignorance), sublimate your rajas (passions) and cultivate sathwa (purity) in

order to be established in Kaivalyam. You have come through thamas and rajas

and you are now in the region of sathwa,as symbolised by the two gates through

which you have come. Now, you must take the lesson of the symbol of the Flag of

Prashaanthi (supreme peace) to heart. Be seated therein in concentrated

meditative prayer, and open the petals of your heart through yoga, so that the

Supreme illumination may be gained.

 

Many of you have come to witness the amazing evidence of Swami's Divine

Power. But you must not waste time in idle confabulations about the nature of

that power and the process of its manifestation. Experience it, and be thrilled

by it, fill yourself with its amazing Mystery which is divinity.

 

However, without firm reliance on the ever-present God, human being cannot

experience the presence of the Divine Power and cannot have a peace. In western

countries now God is denied, and person is relying on himself; he/she

exaggerates own intelligence and sense of adventure and prides him/herself on

the advance has made through science and technology. Peace is fleeing from the

hearts of men and women; social harmony is becoming a distant dream;

international concord is a mirage, pursued by a few. Man travels to the moon,

but does not explore own inner levels of consciousness, and understanding them,

cleanse them and control them. The sages of India sought to know that which

if known, all else can be known. The Upanishaths lay down the process of this

discovery. The expression of that discovery, in practical life, is Love; for,

it is Love that creates, sustains and engulfs all. Without Love, no one can

claim to have succeeded in deciphering God and Hishandiwork, the Universe. Live

in Love - that is the direction indicated by the sages. (Reet's compilation

from, Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 8. "The inner I," Chapter 7; "Chiththa shuddhi

yoga," Chapter 11 and "Unity in unity," Chapter 17. Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 11.

"Link by link," Chapter 3; "Thirst and quest," Chapter 5 and "This and that,"

Chapter 11).

 

PS: The spelling is always as in original texts.

 

Namaste - Reet