Sai Inspires - 29th January 2006 from Prashanti Nilayam

[Guest guest]

sufficient cleverness to keep silent, instead of telling either truth or

untruth. If you tell the truth, tell it clearly and sweetly. Do not tell

truth in an unkind way, or tell untruth to endear yourself. In some

circumstances you may have to be very careful. You should know how to use

words without hurting people. - Divine Discourse on the Gita, Sep 1984. You

cannot always oblige but you can speak obligingly. - Baba Loving

Sai Ram and greetings from Prashanti Nilayam. Tomorrow is 30th January, the

anniversary of the death of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi often said that he wanted to

live till 120 but he died much before that, not due to natural causes but due to

assassination. Gandhi preached and practiced non-violence, peace and love; but

ironically, he died on account of the anger and hate in the mind of the

assassin.

Gandhi is remembered for many things but today, we would like to dwell briefly

upon a few aspects most important for our times. If there is anything that

stands above everything else in the personality of Gandhi, it is his firm

commitment to Sathya and Dharma. Where these two were concerned, Gandhi took no

orders from anyone except his Conscience. As Swami often reminds us, Conscience

is our true Master. Even recently, Swami was telling a couple of people from

overseas, “People worship my Form but that is not enough; God is Inside and

they should listen to His voice which is

always speaking and giving good advice.” Getting back to Gandhi, one might

ask: “We all have Conscience; God is in all of us; then how come we are not

able to do what Gandhi did?” This is a question we really ought to be asking

ourselves all the time, especially when Swami often tells that we are very

deficient when it comes to following His teachings. The answer to the question

we have posed is simple: Gandhi practiced many of the things that Swami teaches

even though he never met Swami and had never even seen Him – remember Gandhi

died on 30th January

1948, when very few people in this country knew about Swami. We, on the other

hand, pride ourselves in listening and reading Swami’s Discourses, but avoid

practice. Gandhi took God seriously, indeed far more seriously than most of

us do, and that is what made him so very different. Now what are those things

that Gandhi did that gave him such towering Inner strength? Firstly, he was

always chanting the Name of the Lord so much so he literally died with God’s

Name on his lips. Next, he tried his best to remain true to his Conscience,

indeed even in politics. Chanting the Name and being true to one’s Conscience

are precisely the things that Swami wants from all

of us; yet we consistently deny exactly those two to Swami whereas Gandhi gave

just Him that; and that is because he really loved God. Gandhi was called

Mahatma; what does that mean? All of us are embodiments of the Divine Atma, as

Swami often reminds us; but Gandhi made that embodiment come ALIVE, and that is

why he was called Mahatma, which means a great Atma. Gandhi was not born a

Mahatma but by strictly adhering to the command of God, he became one. Swami

often talks of bookish knowledge and practical knowledge. Gandhi is a good

example of a man who translated bookish knowledge into brilliant practical

knowledge. And this is something we should pay careful attention to. Today, if

anyone were to say that Sathya and Dharma are very essential in national and

international politics, people would dismiss that person as a bloody fool.

Gandhi showed, however, that indeed even politics must be pursued keeping in

mind all the time, what we call human values. When Gandhi launched the

famous Sathyagraha [non-violent,civildisobedience] movement as a part of the

freedom struggle in India, he made it very clear that the struggle would be

non-violent. However, some misguided people let their passions run away and

burnt a Police Station, which resulted in the death of many Policemen. Gandhi

was stunned; he did not expect this. Promptly he suspended the Sathyagraha,

publicly declared that he had made a huge mistake – a Himalayan blunder as he

called it – and then went on a fast to purify himself. In August 1947, the

British partitioned the subcontinent into two countries, India and

Pakistan. All the assets of British India were divided between these two new

countries – the railways, the Central Bank [calledtheReserveBank], and so on.

It so happened that as a part of this division, India had to pay Pakistan 550

million rupees [or 55 crores as we would say in India]. Immediately after

partition, there was an armed conflict between the two countries and on that

basis, India withheld the 55 crores. Gandhi criticised that action as being

morally incorrect; the word having been given, must be kept, politics or no

politics. Such was the respect that Gandhi commanded, that the Government of

India yielded and did precisely what Gandhi advised. Gandhi started off as

like most of us, as an ordinary person. He was not a scholar of the scriptures,

the Vedas and the Upanishads. But one thing he knew – in life, Truth and

Righteousness are always of paramount importance. And he resolved that never

would he compromise on these, even if it meant death. That is what firm faith

is all about. In other words, Gandhi

demonstrated beyond doubt that with firm faith and deep love for God, one can

develop so much self-confidence that one can face any adverse situation. It

is no surprise that Gandhi attracted and continues to attract admirers and even

followers. Speaking on the occasion of Nelson Mandela’s 85th Birthday, President

Clinton said that in politics he admired no one more than Gandhi. Martin Luther

King never saw Gandhi but he showed that Gandhi’s principle of non-violence

works even in modern times. And, in his own way, Nelson Mandela too

demonstrated that non-violence is superior to violence. These are days when

people tend to dismiss Sathya and Dharma rather quickly, claiming that they

won’t work in the age of globalisation. This is a myth and it is tragic that

such falsehood is being actively peddled amongst the gullible. If we concede

that it is God who has created the Universe of which we are a part, and that God

is Sathya, Dharma and Prema, then we too must have those genes of basic values.

If we have come from the Creator, how can we not have at least some of the

“Divine genes”? Under the circumstances, to deny Sathya and

Dharma is to deny ourselves as well as God. Nothing could be more foolish.

Today’s generation might tend to dismiss Gandhi but, as Einstein said of him,

centuries hence people would wonder whether such a man did really walk on

earth. When Swami talks of values like Prema, Ahimsa etc., we nod our heads

and clap but later dismiss them as irrelevant for this age. That is not true;

as long as there are humans on earth, values are a MUST, and instead

of dismissing them because we are too weak to follow them, we must take courage

from the shining example of Gandhi and try to emulate him, in at least a small

measure, by listening to our Conscience, for example. Well, what do you

think? Why don’t you write to us and tell us? Jai Sai Ram. With

Love and Regards, "Heart2Heart" RadioSai's e-Journal Team, In Sai Service.

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