Dharma Vahini, Chapter 3 - By Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

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Chapter III

One cannot escape from disquiet so long as the fundamental ignorance persists;

mere change of occupation, prompted by the desire for more comfort or the need

for satisfying some passing likes will not give lasting satisfaction. It is

like hoping to improve matters in a dark room by a mere readjustment of

furniture. If however a lamp is lit, even without that readjustment, passage

across the room is rendered easier. There is no need to interfere with the

furniture at all.

So too, in this benighted world, it is difficult to move about truthfully,

correctly and peacefully without knocking against some obstacle or other. How

then are you to succeed? Light the lamp! Let it reveal the reality; get the

light of Jnana. That will solve all the difficulties. You may claim that you

live according to Dharma. But, your basic flaw is that your acts are not done

in the spirit of dedication. If so done, it gets stamped with the authentic

mark of Dharma. Some clever folk might raise a doubt and ask: "Can we then kill

and injure, in the name of the Lord dedicating the act to Him?" Well, how can a

person get the attitude of dedicating all his activities to the Lord without at

the same time being pure in thought, word and deed? Love, Equanimity, Rectitude,

Non-violence - these are the attendant virtues of the servant of the Lord. How

can cruelty and callousness co-exist with these virtues? To have selflessness,

the spirit of self-sacrifice and the spiritual eminence

required for the dedicatory outlook, one must have first won the four

characteristics: Sathya, Santham, Prema, Ahimsa. Devoid of these, mere naming

will not make any deed a votive offering.

 

Acts which are expressions of Dharma are deathless and only those who know that

they are deathless can perform them. That is the highest destiny of man.

Instead of reaching it, he is intent on doing acts against Dharma. Man is

everywhere degrading himself from his status as a child of eternity to the

status of a child of Futility, from an Amrithaputhra to an Anrithaputhra!

Holding nectar in the grasp, he is drinking the poison of sensual pleasure.

Neglecting the joy of the contemplation of the fundamental Atmic reality of the

Universe, he is entangling himself in the external trappings of this objective

world or appearances. One can only bewail that this fate has overwhelmed man!

In the Gita too it is declared "I am the bliss of Brahmam, of Positive

Immortality, of Timeless Dharma, and Eternal Bliss". The sloka is in the XIV

Chapter:

Brahmanohi prathishta - aham amrithasya avyayasya chaSaaswathasya cha dharmasya

sukhasya - aikaanthikasya cha

It is this Amrithadharma that is described in the Upanishads and since the Gita

is the kernel of the Upanishads, the same is emphasised in the Gita too. The

Dharmic way of life is as the very breath: It is the road to self-relisation.

Those who walk along it are dear to the Lord; He dwells with all who are

truthful, whose deeds spring from Dharma. That is the reason why the Gita

teaches Arjuna to develop certain qualities, which help the practice of Atmic

Dharma. These are delineated in slokas 13 to 19 of the XII Chapter. Those who

have drunk deep at the fountain of the Gita will remember these. The most

important of the slokas in this context is:

Ye thu dharmyaamritham idam yathoktham ParyupaasatheSraddhadhaanaa math paramaa

bhakthaasthe atheeva math priyaah

What a grand idea this sloka conveys! That is the concluding sloka of the series

which gives the qualities one has to develop. It calls the entire group

Dharmyaamritham, the Dharmic way to immortality! The Lord has declared therein

that those who have these qualities, those who trust in Him as the only

ultimate Goal, those who are attached to Him as the single-mindedly are dearest

and nearest to Him.

 

Note the expression, Dharmyaamritham, used here. Ponder over it and draw

inspiration from it! The Nectar of the Lord's Grace is deserved only by those

who adhere to the Lord's Dharma. Simple folk believe that they have Bhakthi

towards the Lord, but they do not pause to inquire whether the Lord has Love

towards them! People who pine to discover this are rather rare. That is really

the true measure of spiritual success. The same person is king to his subjects,

son to his parents, enemy to his enemies, husband to his wife, father to his

son. He plays many roles. Yet, if you ask him who he is, he would be wrong if

he gives any of these relationships as his distinctive marks. For, they are

pertaining to physical relationship or activities. They are all terms denoting

physical kinships or professional relationships, names attached to temporary

statuses. Nor can he reply that he is the head, the feet, the hands, etc., for,

they are but the limbs of the physical form. He is more real than

all the limbs, beyond names and forms which are all falsities hiding the basic

Brahmam; he is known as 'I'; reflect over that entity well, and discover who

that 'I' really is.

While, it is so hard to analyse and understand your entity, how can you

pronounce judgement on other entities with any definiteness? What you refer to

as 'I' and as 'You' relate to the body, the appearance; they are not Sath. The

Atma is One and Indivisible; Dharma based on That is genuine Dharma.

Some ask: "You go on saying 'Atma', 'Atma'; well what is the Rupa or form of

this Atma?" But, wherefrom is Atma to get form? It is eternal, unchanging,

immortal. It is goodness, right, beneficence. It is immutable, unblemished. It

cannot be limited by any particular name or form. It can be understood by the

Jnana that dawns in and through the Karmadeha, i.e., the body acquired as a

result of activity. The body alone has name and form, and so, in every activity

of the body, you should manifest the Atmadharma, Dharma based on the

Atma-consciousness.

It is said, "the Atma is neither male nor female; nor cattle nor sheep nor horse

nor elephant nor bird nor tree; it is beyond such categorisations". These

distinctions and differences arise on the basis of activity; the Atma is

incapable of modification; only one thing can be posited about it, viz., that

It is. The sum and substance of all this is that the Atma is the Absolute, the

Paramartha. The rest is all particular, insignificant, false, unreal,

denotable, and identificable.

Take a palanquin. Before being transformed into that article, it was a tree,

which got changed into timber and planks and finally into a palanquin. With

every change in form, the name too changed. Sitting in a palanquin, no one

would say, he is on a piece of timber or on a tree. Objects undergo change;

they are not eternal. They are not Sath, real.

 

Objects can be distinguished only by means of name and form. They can be

described only by means of their characteristics. For they are artificial and

temporary.

What exactly is a chair? It is a particular modification of wood, isn't it?

Remove the wood, the chair too disappears. Think of the wood which is the

substance and the 'appearance' of the chair will vanish. So too, Dharma!

Varnadharma, Grihasthadharma, Vanaprasthadharma, Sanyasadharma,

Brahmacharyadharma, this Dharma, that Dharma... all are modifications of the

basic Dharma, like the chair, the bench, the palanquin etc. The separate

varieties disappear as soon as you go deep into their nature, the corporeal

Dharmas fade away and the Atmadharma alone remains. The articles of furniture

vanish and the wood alone remains, so too, the objective Dharmas disappear and

Atmadharma alone shines in unique glory.

Of course, for the worldly career, the corporeal Dharmas are important. I won't

say they are not. As wood is turned into furniture and used, Atmadharma or

Santha Dharma or Sathyadharma has to be shaped into Grihasthadharma,

Vanaprasthadharma, Varnadharma, Stridharma, Purushadharma etc. The stuff is the

same in all; the substance is identical, in every separate form. How can the

substance be used up? It can only be transmuted and transformed and the various

modifications named differently when used for different purposes. The Atmadharma

can be viewed piecemeal and compartmentalised for different purposes, as the

wood is hewn and sawn and joined, and arranged and rearranged, but, it is

Atmadharma nevertheless. So long as the different systems of Dharma are derived

from that "Wood", there is no harm; remember however that the furniture can

never be regrouped into the original tree! Apply that Atmadharma in the fields

of worldly activity but do no call the worldly Dharmas, Atmadharma!

That will be playing false to the Ideal, the Absolute.

Dharma is the moral path; the moral path is the Light; the Light is Ananda.

Dharma is characterised by holiness, peace, truth and fortitude. Dharma is

Yoga, Union, Merger; it is Sathya. Its attributes are justice, sense-control,

sense of honour, love, dignity, goodness, meditation, sympathy, non-violence;

such is Dharma that persists through the ages. It leads one on to Universal

Love and Unity. It is the highest Discipline and the most profitable. All this

'unfoldment' began with Dharma; all this is stabilised by Sathya; Sathya is

inseparable from Dharma. Sathya is the law of the Universe, which makes the sun

and the moon revolve in their orbits. Dharma is the Vedas and the Mantras, the

Jnana they convey. Dharma is the course, the path, the law. Wherever there is

adherence to morality, there one can see Sathya-dharma in action. In the

Bhagavatha too, it is said, "where there is Dharma, there is Krishna; where

there are both Dharma and Krishna together, there is Victory". Dharma

is the very embodiment of the Lord; since the world itself is the body of the

Lord, the world is but another name for the Moral Order; no one can deny it now

or ever.

http://beaskund.helloyou.ws/askbaba/dharmavahini/dharma11.html

Sathya Sai Baba Dharma VahiniTranslated from the Original TeluguPublished by Sri

Sathya Sai Books and Publications TrustIndex:

http://beaskund.helloyou.ws/askbaba/dharmavahini/index.html

 

 

 

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