Sai Inspires - 19th February 2006 from Prashanti Nilayam

[Guest guest]

SAIRAM.

 

MESSAGE FROM H2H, RADIO SAI E-JOURNAL TEAM, PRASANTHI NILAYAM BEING FORWARDED....

 

SWAMI BLESS US ALL

 

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Dear Reader,

 

Loving Sairam from the Heart2Heart Team.

 

Scroll down to read our Sunday special 'What Is Truth?'

 

How can we recognise the true voice of conscience? Swami tells us how today.

Did you read "Shivoham - The Essence of Shivarathri"?To read it now, go here.

 

Sai Inspires - 19th February 2006

 

Before you do anything, examine whether it is good or bad, right or wrong, and

act according to the dictates of your conscience. Yet, even in respect of the

conscience, certain facts should be born in mind: the promptings of

intellectual reasoning should not be mistaken for the dictates of the

conscience. The directives should come from the heart. When you dive deep

into a problem and inquire whether what you are thinking of doing is in the

interests of your friends and society in general, your conscience will give you

the right answer. You should not be guided by intellectual reasoning that has a

selfish element in it. You should be guided by a concern for the collective

interests of society at large. That alone is the true voice of conscience.

This kind of broad social conscience should be developed.

- Divine Discourse, 14th Jan 1992.

If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in character - Baba.

 

 

What Is Truth?

Loving Sai Ram and greetings from Prashanti Nilayam. We all think that we know

what exactly Truth means, but do we really? That is the question we wish to

comment upon this Sunday.

 

People normally tend to think of Truth in relation to certain facts and speaking

about them accurately. One cannot take serious exception to this perception. In

the Court, for example, one swears to speak the Truth, and one is expected to

do so. Failure to do this results in punishment by the Court; uttering lies in

a Court is seldom taken lightly by the presiding Judge. The public too does not

stand for witnesses speaking lies in the Court. And yet, the public which is so

fussy about the accuracy of the spoken word, does face a problem when

politician who swear to uphold rules and laws, to be fair, etc., merrily flout

every promise they made. Of course, in some extreme cases, even politicians

face punishment, but by and large most of them go scot-free, so much so, the

public have not only sort of got used to all this but have, in some countries,

even come to regard this as normal. Does not Truth have any meaning in this

case or it confined merely to “verbal accuracy”?

 

If this question is put to the public, it would almost unanimously say that

adhering to a pledge in terms of action is also a part of what is called Truth.

So we now have to agree that adhering to Truth means not only speaking the Truth

but also being TRUTHFUL. This word Truthful adds a new dimension to the whole

business and so, let us examine it a bit further.

 

Let us say there is a politician who violates his pledge and does something

crooked. If his action is detected and he is punished, the public would say

that the politician was untruthful. But suppose his foul action goes

undetected. Was he truthful or untruthful? Does his action remain without

qualification until foul play is actually detected? If this question is asked,

almost everyone would say that the action becomes untruthful even at the moment

the politician starts planning his crooked act.

 

OK, we agree to this but now ask: “When the politician starts plotting, no one

knows about it; how then does the act become untruthful? Who is there to say it

is truthful or not?” When the question is put this way, everyone would say that

even though the world may not know about it, the person who is planning the

foul act knows about it. The person knows that he is about to do something he

promised he would not; and that knowledge of the wrongdoing makes him

untruthful. In Spirituality we would say, the person is acting against his

Conscience.

 

Conscience is thus an Inner Auditor. Ever present within, it continuously

monitors all that is going on, right from the moment a thought first

originates. Conscience not only watches continuously but also speaks. It says,

“My dear fellow, what you want to do is good and so go ahead.” Or, if the

contemplated action is not good, it would warn, “Listen, what you are about to

do is bad; avoid it because it is not good for you.”

 

There is no human being who does not have Conscience within; this is because

Conscience is God and God is the Indweller of all. One might ask, “If that is

so, then why is there so much evil in the world? What is the Conscience in all

these evildoers doing? Has it gone to sleep?” No, Conscience never goes to

sleep. However, the person concerned might choose to ignore the voice of

Conscience and that is where all the problem starts.

 

All this brings home the fact, being Truthful means being truthful to one’s

Conscience. And that also is why Shakespeare says that above all one must be

true to one’s own self. This Self, by the way is not the lower self associated

with the gross body and the subtle Mind but the primordial Atma. In other

words, being Truthful means following the nature of the Atma.

 

Swami has pointed out many subtle nuances of Truth as only He can. Bhagavan

identifies what might be called three aspects of Truth. They are: Nijam,

Sathyam and Rutham. Let us try and understand what they mean. Before going into

that, let us first note that Nijam and Sathyam are relevant within the context

of Creation while Rutham applies even beyond.

 

Nijam applies to facts that have validity over a limited period of time. Let us

say yesterday was sunny while today is cloudy. If someone asks what is the

weather like, one would of course say it is cloudy; and that would be correct

as well as true. One cannot say it is sunny since that applies to something

that was a fact earlier but not now. Thus, Nijam is related to facts that have

temporary validity. Sathyam on the other hand represents Truth over the whole

of Creation, that is, it was valid in the past, is true now and will be true

also in the future. For example if one says, “God pervades the Universe,” that

is true always as long as there is something called Creation; hence this

statement belongs to the category of Sathyam.

 

What happens when Creation itself is dissolved? Is there something like Truth

even then? Swami says yes. Everything in the Universe must have a source and

the source of Sathyam is Rutham. In other words, Rutham is the seed from which

Sathyam springs. If for example one says, “God is Timeless and Eternal,” that

would be an example of Rutham.

 

Now for some practical rules – these too have been explained to us any number of

times by Bhagavan. He says: “Always speak the Truth. Always speak with Love.

However, don’t speak out when the facts are not pleasant, even if it the

Truth.” The last teaching of Swami is particularly relevant to the present time

when many people take pride in saying, “I tell it like it is.” This is wrong.

Sometimes doctors ask, “Should I tell the patient what his condition is?” We

are told that in the West there are all kinds of rules concerning this matter.

We do not know much about this but this we do know: A doctor wedded to Swami’s

teaching would, taking the view that life and death are in Swami’s hand say,

“Look my dear fellow, why do you worry? Have faith in God and leave everything

to Him. There is nothing He cannot do.” And if the doctor follows this up with

a lot of cheery talk, the patient does even rally from the brink of death. Our

doctors here do this all the time because they are fully conscious that life

and death are not in our hands but in that of God. All that humans, including

doctors, can do is to help the patient in every possible way.

 

We would like you to reflect on the last point about telling it as it is.

Consider the following: Let us say there is a young woman who has died, leaving

behind a two-year old child. The body of the woman is being taken away while the

child cries. A friend of the lady who has passed away picks up the kid and

consoles it by saying, “Don’t cry, your mummy has not gone away,” and things

like that. In terms of raw facts, she is lying, but according to Swami and

Vedanta, she is not. Do you agree or not? Think about it, and if you have any

views on the subject, you will write to us, would you not?

 

Jai Sai Ram

 

With Love and Regards,

"Heart2Heart"

RadioSai's e-Journal Team,

In Sai Service.

 

 

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Visit us at www.radiosai.org to know more about RadioSai and our e-Journal "Heart 2 Heart".

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