SAI BABA GITA – Part XXV – Answers for all questions

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Arial; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">XXXI. Do your Duty - But without Concern for the Results

Krishna said, "Arjuna, you have work to do. Do it! But give up all interest in

the fruit of your work." Krishna did not say that there would be no fruit. The

fruit will certainly be there. Every action has its consequence or fruit. But

the fruit is not your concern; you should not aspire for it. Therefore, the

essence of Krishna's teaching is that you must do your duty, but do it without

keeping the outcome in mind. Embodiments of Love, For every

action there is an outcome, and subsequently, this outcome gives rise to another

action. This ongoing cycle of action and result, result and action, manifests

itself in a way similar to the cycle of the seed and the tree. The seed and

tree also follow one after the other, with the seed giving rise to the tree and

the tree giving rise to the seed. Without a seed you cannot have a tree and

without a tree you cannot have a seed. The same thing is true for an action and

its result. These are natural cycles in the world. When this is so, with one

always following the other, why should you take a special interest in the

outcome? Your duty and responsibility is to perform the right action; have no

concern about the result. Krishna told Arjuna, "In this battle, you should be

indifferent to what happens to your own people or what befalls you. Do your

duty without letting your mind dwell on the outcome."

Arial; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">The Shield of Devotion and the Armor of Wisdom In

battle, warriors wear shield and armor. This gives them some protection against

the powerful weapons that are shot at them by their enemies. In the spiritual

battle which you must fight, you must also wear a type of shield and armor.

Here the shield is devotion and love for God, and the armor is wisdom. In an

ordinary war relating to the world, the fighting may last only a few days, or

it may drag on for a few months or even some years. But the spiritual battle

goes on continuously; it never ends. It has been fought by mankind unceasingly,

right from ancient days. Since time immemorial there has been the fight between

good and bad,

between virtue and sin, between attachment and detachment. Humanity has been

waging an endless war with its feelings of I ness and my-ness, with its

feelings of hatred and jealousy and other evil qualities that have taken

shelter within it. Egoism and attachment, in particular, have extraordinary

strength. They are really dreadful. Compared to them, you, the individual who

is fighting them, are not so strong. You are really quite weak. In fact, you

have become so dominated by these negative qualities that, like Arjuna, you

have identified yourself with them. Now, to fight such powerful enemies and

qualities, you have to follow the directions of the indwelling Lord and you

have to wear a very strong shield and armor. The mighty shield and armor that

you have to

wear in this spiritual battle are devotion and wisdom. They will protect you

from such formidable enemies. When you have a parasol to shade you, you are

not troubled by the hot sun. When you wear sandals or shoes, you are not

concerned about stepping on a thorn. When you wear a shield and armor, you are

not too much bothered by the weapons being hurled against you. "Therefore,

Arjuna," Krishna said, "in this inner battle you must don your spiritual shield

and armor." When Krishna lifted Arjuna out of his despondency at the beginning

of the Gita, he gave Arjuna the armor of wisdom. That was the first teaching

that Krishna offered. Use Wisdom to Conquer your Inner Enemies Krishna said

to Arjuna, "All these attachments that you now have, all these desires to

possess things, are not tendencies that you acquired yesterday or the day

before. They have been with you for numerous births and they are responsible

for all the pain that you are experiencing. You have no way of knowing when you

will finally be able to rid yourself of the pain they have caused. But you

cannot do much about the past, so do not worry about it. Focus, instead, on the

means for eliminating the pain that would come to you in the future, were these

attachments and desires to continue ruling

over you. "In the battle that you are about to fight, you have provided

yourself with worldly armor. That will help protect your body from external

enemies; but how will you be able to protect yourself from the internal enemies

which you are battling inside you? To protect yourself from them, you have to

wear the armor of wisdom. You are concerned about your external enemies, but

you are not thinking about the inner enemies at all. If you succumb to your

inner enemies you will never be able to conquer your external enemies.

Therefore, first conquer these inner enemies."

10pt">It is natural to search for a doctor when you are sick and suffering, but

it is of greater importance to see to it that you do not contract any illness

in the first place. It is said that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of

cure. From earliest times, the inner enemies have been subduing mankind and

filling human beings with sorrow. As long as you are filled with egoism and

attachment, you will not be able to free yourself from grief and sorrow. You

have been engaged in wrongful actions, and these have been responsible for all

your pain. Does this mean that you should abstain from action? No. You have no

choice but to act. You must act, and you are free to enjoy your actions as

well. But from now on, you must perform all your actions properly, in a way

which will not accrue harmful consequences and pain to you in the future. In

keeping with this, it is very important that you understand the underlying

principles of right action.

justify"> Every Worldly Experience can be traced to Karma Action is called

karma. You are born in karma, you develop in karma and you die in karma. It is

karma, or the actions you perform, which are responsible for all good or bad,

sin or virtue, profit or loss, joy or sorrow. Truly, karma is responsible for

your very birth itself. Karma is really the creator for mankind. It shapes your

life. It follows then that you should not look upon action with carelessness.

Your entire life is associated

with action. Therefore, recognize the importance of right action and engage in

that, unwaveringly. Do not think that action is just a small thing. It may

start as a small sapling but it will grow into a very big tree. Before a seed

can become a tree, it has to break out of the soil in which it was sown. Then,

once it has become a big tree, it will offer you its fruit. Whether this fruit

brings you joy or sorrow depends on the seed that you have sown. To get the

very finest fruit, the seed of action which you have performed must be of the

highest quality and it must break out of the soil of egoism. Then this action

can be transformed into yoga. Yoga is union with God.

10pt"> Egoism Develops when you Forget the Indweller What is the root cause

of egoism? Why should you ever feel egoistic? Egoism arises because of the

ignorance which is inherent in you. You have to think out for yourself what is

the birthplace of this egoism, where did it come from and where will it end?

Consider these facts of the physical universe: Light travels at the rate of 670

million miles per hour. At this rate, light travels a trillion miles per year.

We consider the sun to be very near; the distance between the earth and the sun

is approximately 90 million miles. For us, the

splendor of the light coming from the sun is exceptionally bright. But this is

the light from only one sun. There are billions of suns and stars. The distance

to the nearest of these is almost 4 light years, or something like 23 to 24

trillion miles. The stars look as though they are very close to one another,

but the distance between any two stars is tens of trillions of miles. They look

as though milk has been spread all over the sky. The stars that you can see with

a high-powered telescope number in the billions. And there are many, many more

objects in the heavens which you cannot see. What is the size of the earth in

the context of such a vast universe, where there are billions upon billions of

stars, spread over distances of trillions upon trillions of miles? And what

is the place of this little planet earth in relation to the huge sun, which,

nevertheless, is only a minor star among the countless stars that speckle the

heavens? On this earth, what is the size of the country in which you are a

citizen? What is the size of the state you are living in? Within it how small

is this district that you are now in? And how much smaller is the little town

that you call home? And then, how very much smaller still are you on this tiny

plot of land that you occupy within it? If such is the scale of the universe

and such is your size in it, why are you so puffed up with egoistic feelings?

If you were to take true cognizance of the vastness of the world, you would not

have any egoism. Only when you are oblivious of the greatness of the universe in

relation to your minute size can you ever be filled with such a foolish notion.

Perhaps you are proud of your own body. But the body consists of only the five

elements. One day or another it will perish. Only the indweller is permanent.

It does not have birth or death, it does not grow or decay. It shines

everywhere. In the whole world it is the one permanent entity shining as the

effulgent one, in a sea of changing forms. It is behind every form, it is the

splendor animating every feature in the vast universe. Even in utter darkness

it is there, for it is that which reveals the darkness to you. This

all-pervading splendor is the indweller, the eternal flame ever shining inside

this inert body. Look to this indweller, turn towards it, and you will not be

deluded by pride and

egoism. The Body is an inert Thing made of the five Elements Take shelter in

the indwelling Lord. Do not keep looking towards the body and feeling proud. The

body is subject to so many diseases; it undergoes many changes. It is barely

able to journey on this ocean of worldly existence and survive. The body is

only an inert thing; it is nothing more than seven buckets of water, the iron

from four 2-inch nails, the phosphorous from 1,100 match sticks, the carbon

contained in four pencils and two

pieces of soap. When you put all these things together with a few other assorted

substances, it becomes a body. So, the body just consists of this inert matter.

But it is able to move and exhibit life because there is an indweller inside.

Consider the wall clock that is hanging there. It has three hands: a second

hand, a minute hand and an hour hand. As soon as you wind the clock, all three

hands start moving at their own prescribed rate. How long will they keep moving

thus? They keep moving as long as there is power in the spring to energize them.

The moment that power is exhausted, they stop wherever they are. Your body may

be compared to a clock. The breath may be compared to the spring. Your actions

may be compared to the second hand; your feelings may be compared to the

minute hand; and your joy may be compared to the hour hand. It is the divine

energy within which empowers and vitalizes all this. In the context of this

example of the clock, you can answer the question as to why you perform actions

at all. You see that the second hand, which represents your actions, moves quite

fast and soon covers one whole revolution of 60 seconds. At that point, the

minute hand, which represents your feelings, will have advanced one sixtieth of

a revolution. It is only when the second hand has made sixty full revolutions of

sixty seconds each, and the minute hand has gone once around, that the hour

hand, which represents an experience of divine joy and bliss, will move one

division. The hour hand moves so slowly that you cannot even detect its

movement,

although you can see the movement of the minute and second hands. There is an

inner secret here. Once every hour all three hands meet. When the action which

is associated with the body and nature, when the feeling which is associated

with the inner man, and when the unending joy which is associated with the

divinity all come together, then you have the meeting of nature, man and God.

>From Sacred Action to Devotional Feelings to Bliss Nature has been described

as the field of action; it gives you the opportunity to sanctify your work and

reach your goal. When you perform 60 good actions, one good feeling will

emerge. Therefore, to get the one good feeling you have to perform so many good

actions. And it is only when you have sixty such good feelings that there will

be one small movement of the hour hand, which represents the ineffable

experience of divine joy. Therefore, Krishna told Arjuna to perform good

actions. When you do innumerable good actions, you are likely to get one or two

deeply satisfying and lasting good feelings. And it is only when you develop

innumerable such good feelings that you will be able to reach the bliss that is

the eternal state of the atma. Therefore, you must start by performing many good

actions. The body has been given to you for this specific purpose of

performing actions. It is impossible to spend even a moment without being

active. That is why the performance of sacred activities, which includes

ceremonial and ritual worship, has been given so much importance in the Vedas,

the holy scriptures of India. But sacred actions do not just refer to

performing sacrifices, doing penance and giving charity, each of which gives

rise to an anticipated result. There are many actions that you can undertake

from which you would not expect any fruit, at all. Such actions, which are

performed without any concern for the fruit, can be termed karma yoga. When

an action is performed without desire and without any feeling of egoism, then

it is karma yoga. That is the highest form of action, the most sacred of all,

and it's one you should follow in every move you make in life. Remove your

egoism. Drive it away. Remove your desire for the fruit. When you perform

action with this attitude, it becomes work in the spirit of true sacrifice, it

becomes penance and it becomes yoga. All three of these, sacrifice, penance and

yoga convey the same idea. Every action you perform should be sanctified in this

way. Even inhaling and exhaling are actions; they are also karma. Without

performing karma, man cannot live for even a moment in the world. But karma

associated with ego will always be narrow and harmful. Food gives Rise to

Thoughts, Feelings and Actions Therefore, perform all actions with only the

feeling of sacrifice in your heart, not with a self-serving feeling of egoism.

The results will be good or bad, beneficial or harmful depending on the type of

actions you perform. The actions themselves depend upon the feelings of

selflessness or selfishness you have. The feelings, in turn, depend on the

thoughts you harbor. And the thoughts depend on the food that you consume.

Therefore, you have the sequence of food leading to thoughts, thoughts leading

to feelings, feelings leading to actions, and actions leading to results.

These results, in turn, lead to more feelings, ones of pain or joy, depending on

the nature of the actions, feelings, thoughts and food. From this you see the

great importance of always taking in very pure and wholesome food. Assume

that a sage performing a vedic ritual makes a small fire, as is prescribed by

the scriptures. The smoke pouring forth will depend on the type of fire that

was made. A cloud will form as a result of the smoke that has risen up. Water

vapor condenses due to the cloud and there are droplets of rain. The crop below

depends on the rain, and so the food that is consumed depends upon the crop.

Finally, the physical body, being the same as food, depends on the food that is

taken in. Therefore, even food can be traced back to the type of actions,

in this case, to the fire that had been built and the sacrifice that had been

performed. Focus on the Action, Not on the Fruit If your actions are good,

then your birth will be good. Your actions are the original cause, your birth

is the final result. In this context, Krishna said, "Keep all your attention on

performing good deeds; do not pay any attention to the fruit." The fruit will

follow by itself, but your focus should be on the action. In the past, you

have been associated with a number of good or bad actions and as a result, you

are now enjoying or suffering their consequence in the form of joy or sorrow.

How do you get rid of the sorrow that is the result of your past bad actions?

It is only by engaging in good actions that you can remove this sorrow. That is

the reason why action has been given primary importance in the Vedas. Bad

actions must be replaced by good actions, which then lead to totally selfless

actions, where there is no personal interest in the fruit. This, then, becomes

karma yoga and brings you into union with divinity. If

you are careless with your actions, or if you waste your actions, your whole

life becomes a waste. Life has been given to you so that you engage yourself in

good karma and ideal activities. Karma does not mean just performing actions

with the body. Karma is the very name of the body itself. Since the body has

come as the result of actions performed previously, one of the meanings of

karma is body. Body is the consequence of actions; it is associated with

time, circumstance and causation. But this applies only to the waking state. In

the dream state, the body is inactive, so there cannot be any action at all;

there will only be the illusion of action, or maya. In dreams, all the senses

will be still. In the state of deep-sleep, which has

been called the causal state, there will not even be any mind. Beyond this state

is the ultimate source, that which is called the great cause, the original

cause. It transcends the causal state. This original cause is the divinity.

Here is a small example to illustrate these states. Those of you who are

students walk here from the hostel, which is about one kilometer away. At 4:15

in the afternoon, you leave the hostel and by 4:30 you reach the gates of the

ashram. So, it takes you about 15 minutes to move your body from the hostel to

this complex. Your purpose for coming here is to hear Baba's lecture. In every

action you undertake, there will be these same four factors, a time, an

activity, a cause or purpose and a result. The time, as you have seen, was 15

minutes. The

activity was to walk from the hostel to the prayer hall. The reason was to

listen to the lecture. The result is that you will be sanctifying your life

thereby. In this way, the waking state can be used for one's spiritual

advancement. Time, Action, Purpose and Result apply only to the Body Now

consider further, that after this discourse is over you return to the hostel.

After you have had your dinner, you relax on your bed and go off to sleep. You

have a dream. In the dream you find yourself

wandering on a boulevard in Paris. When did you leave the hostel to travel to

Paris, and how long did it take you to get there? That question cannot be

answered. There is no specific time involved here. How did you travel there?

Was it by ship or by plane? That also cannot be answered. There is no specific

activity involved in getting there. Why did you go to Paris? You do not know;

there is no apparent reason for being there. What is it that you have enjoyed

there? What is the result of your going? Even that you cannot answer. There is

no specific result accruing from your action that can be discerned there. So,

in the dream state, there is neither time, action, purpose, nor enjoyment of

the results; none of these are there. Now, assume that soon after you fell

asleep, some

one came and woke you up. You got up and realized that you had been asleep for

only five minutes. During the course of those five minutes you had your dream

and you went to Paris. How is that possible? It is not possible. It was only a

mental experience. You have not performed this action, either with your body or

with your senses. That mental experience is associated with your subtle form.

But it is the gross body which has these four factors of time, action,

causation and circumstance. You have seen that none of these occur in the

subtle or mental experience associated with the dream state. Only because of

the tricks of the mind have you been able to create a new world there. The

mind created so many people on that busy boulevard in Paris, so much traffic,

so many objects.

The mind has this exceptional power. It has an extraordinary capacity to create

anything, or destroy anything, not only in dream, but also in the waking state.

For all your actions, it is the thoughts in your mind which are responsible.

When you offer such a powerful mind to the Lord, then not only the mind but all

your actions, everything you do, will have been offered to him. When you use

your mind to think of the Lord, all your actions become sacred. Turn Desire

towards Wisdom to Gain the Divine Light

FONT-SIZE: 10pt">A great sage used to say, "If you sing hymns of praise to the

Lord and offer a light to him, then the entire world will shine with the

effulgence of that light." In your worship you take a flaming lamp, and offer

the light to the Lord. Your mind, which is made up of many desires, can be

likened to the oil, the wick can be likened to the sacred wisdom you have

gathered. When you join these two together, using your wisdom to turn your

desires to God, then you get the effulgence of divine light blazing forth from

their union. For this oil and wick there must be some holder. The body can be

thought of as the container which holds this oil of desires and the wick of

wisdom. The blissful joy that you feel is the effulgence of the light coming

from this sacred

lamp. If there is only a wick and you try to light it, it will not burn. Or, if

you want to light the oil itself, you will not be able to do it. But when the

wick is associated with the oil, then it will be able to burn, and you will

have light. Another way of seeing this oil and the wick, is to think of

action or work, which is associated with the mind and its desires, as the oil.

The buddhi, or the intuitive intellect, which is associated with wisdom, can be

thought of as the wick. When you combine these two, namely, action and buddhi,

in other words, when you make all your actions sacred, following the dictates

of your highest inner motivator, then the light will shine forth. This light is

the eternal light of the atma. When all your actions become

sacred, you will come into awareness of your eternal truth, you will be basked

in the light of the one immortal self. Now, the flame in the lamp has a

number of individual characteristics. When there is a breeze, the flame will

flicker. When water comes on it, it will sputter, making some sound. If there

are impurities in the oil, it will give forth smoke. It also gives off heat; if

you touch it, it will burn you. And, depending on the type of oil and the flow

of air there will be different colors to the light emerging from the flame.

These various characteristics belong to the flame, but they are not associated

with the radiance that emerges from the light of that flame.

10pt"> There is only one characteristic to that radiance; that is, it envelops

all it touches in the splendor of its effulgence. The flame has a number of

different attributes, but the effulgence of the atma has only the one attribute

of illuminating and removing darkness. That immortal inner light of the atma is

given equally to all people. That is its one all-encompassing quality. But, for

the flame of life, there will be many individual characteristics. Many changes

and problems will come into it. TO BE CONTINUED

white; TEXT-ALIGN: right">With Sai love from Sai brothers –

‘’ Source: http://laluni.helloyou.ws/askbaba/saibabagita/

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