Sai Inspires - 23rd April 2006 from Prashanti Nilayam

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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 - 'CAN WE HAVE THE CAKE AND EAT IT TOO?'

What are the true indices of a good person? Swami tells us today.

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Sai Inspires - 23rd April 2006

Any task undertaken with self-confidence is assured of success. Self-confidence

is, therefore, absolutely necessary for everyone. Moreover, if you expect

others to respect and love you, you should respect and love them equally.

Without respecting and loving others, you cannot expect any reciprocal feeling

from them. In the same way, if you love God, God loves you. Life consists of

reaction, resound and reflection. You get back exactly what you do to others.

The true indices of a good person are these: keep your word, adhere to truth,

show gratitude where it is due, and stay firm in your self-confidence. If you

adhere to these tenets, you will overcome with ease any obstacles that may come

your way. Hold on to your self-confidence and self-respect, and be ready for

self-sacrifice.

- Divine Discourse, 23rd Nov 2000.

Where there is confidence there is love, where there is love, there is peace - Baba.

CAN WE HAVE THE CAKE AND EAT IT TOO?

Loving Sai Ram and greetings from Prashanti Nilayam. In recent centuries,

humanity has experimented with three major socio-economic systems. They are:

First the Capitalist System at one end and second the Communist System at the

other extreme. In between is the third system namely, hybrid Socialistic System

that India, for example, tried to operate for about forty years after its

Independence. Each system has its passionate advocates and every system claims

that it is the best option for Society, because it alone can provide good

economic and social security besides keeping its citizens happy. These are

claims. If, however, one looks carefully at the scorecard, one would find that

no system has emerged as the clear winner. The simple reason for this is that

no modern socio-economic system is explicitly based on Morality. No doubt,

implicit in every system is the idea that people would be honest, truthful and

ethical in their behaviour. However, the enemies of man lurking inside are so

powerful that they easily overcome the vague commitment to values that these

systems demand. That is THE fundamental reason why all modern systems are

doomed to fail; and the danger posed by such a failure can create grave crises

in the future, if some core issues, hitherto swept under the rug are not

frontally confronted. Experts say that for any economic system to operate four

major inputs are necessary: Trained human resource, financial capital,

infrastructure and raw material. Where raw material is concerned, mankind draws

from a “Bank” called Nature. All the renewable as well as the non-renewable

material resources that drive the engine called economy are drawn from Nature.

For thousands of years, everyone laboured under the impression that Nature is a

Bank with infinite resources and that one can draw as much as one wants, any

time. Lately we have discovered that this assumption is not true, and therein

lies a serious problem. Planet earth is finite, and it simply cannot provide

infinite resources, just because we want it to. Lately, this truth has begun to

sink in, though only in a limited fashion. For example, many have realised that

oil which is one of the principle movers in modern economy, can one day run

out. One can go to town on this subject of finite resources but we will not .

For the present it suffices to say that consumerism which is the engine of

modern economy, is very wasteful and is placing on planet earth a burden it

cannot carry for too long. What is the alternative? Swami has indicated this

but before we discuss that, it is pertinent to call attention to a report

published several decades ago, known popularly as the Club of Rome Report. In

effect, it warns mankind as follows: “The present consumption pattern is

UNSUSTAINABLE. Curtail consumption immediately and drastically; otherwise, one

day, the Bank called Nature would go broke and you would not be able to draw

from it.” This is the warning given not by religious or spiritual leaders but

by hard-nosed economists, based on cold reasoning, and pitiless statistics and

all that. What does Swami say? He of course has been telling us a long, long

time to practice CEILING ON DESIRES, not from the point of view of the Club of

Rome, but from much higher spiritual considerations. When we place a ceiling on

desires, it means we stop buying things we really do not need – and let’s be

honest, we can jolly well do without most of the gadgets of today. We get

sucked into buying them because of heavy advertisement. OK, suppose we stop

buying all sorts of video games, I-pods and so on; so what? Well, that would

immediately decrease the demand for mercury, cadmium, copper-beryllium, lead

etc., which go into all electronic gadgets. All these are deadly materials,

when they get into the environment. Take, for example, cell phones. There are

nearly a billion of them; and the models change so often. What happens to old

discarded phones? They end up in India, China, Vietnam and so on, where they

are dismantled by unskilled people, in the process spreading a lot of pollution

into the environment. There are so many of today’s evils that get automatically

eliminated, once we cap our desires. Of course, the more important thing is

that people who curb desires, develop detachment and get closer to God.Sceptics

would shake their heads and say, “This is stupid. Consumerism is the engine that

drives the modern world. If we curb desires, markets would collapse,

unemployment would shoot up, and there would be disaster everywhere. Ceiling on

desires may be nice to be talk about but it will not work; in any case, we

cannot give it up. In any event, what other alternative is there?” We will not

get into a debate here about the virtues of consumerism but focus instead on

the alternative. To appreciate the significance of that alternative, we must

realise that in a consumerist society, products are often created using

mass-production technology. Superficially this might make sense but it leads to

unemployment. In decades past, when the economy grew, it also meant increased

employment. But these days, economists are talking of “jobless growth of

economy”. In turn this leads to a huge gap between the haves and the have-nots,

as is being seen today not only in China and India, but even in the United

States. So what are we to do? We have to switch from mass production to

production by the masses, and anchor social life to sharing and caring rather

than competition and exploitation. This is where an important teaching of Swami

comes into the picture. Swami often says: “The proper study of mankind is man.”

This means that mankind must follow the same rules that Lord God has ordained

for the human body. In the human body, there is no organ that is selfish. All

organs perform their functions in a co-operative manner and in harmony with all

the other organs rather than competing with each other and in being selfish. As

Swami says, when a sweet is put in the mouth, the tongue tastes it but does not

keep it to itself; it sends the sweet to the stomach. The stomach digests and

send the digested matter to the intestines. The intestines allow the nutrition

to leak to the blood vessels, which carry the nutrients to the muscles all over

the body and so on. One can give any number of such illustrations. So the main

lesson that our body teaches us loud and clear is that individuals in society

must care for and co-operate with each other instead of being ruthlessly

competitive and selfish. Next, they must function in harmony for a common goal,

the welfare of Society as a whole or mankind, even as the organs of the body

function for the benefit of the body as a whole. This is where the concept of

Trusteeship comes into the picture. In essence, what it means is that

individuals as well as groups function as Trustees of God. Both individuals and

groups must take the following view: “Every skill and resource we have belongs

really to God and has been given to us to be used judiciously for and on His

behalf. In that sense, we are Trustees of God.” And this is how the Trusteeship

idea works. A doctor uses his medical knowledge to relieve suffering and NOT for

making money. This does not mean he should not charge fees. He could and should,

especially if he is engaged in private practice. However, he does not overcharge

and treats for free, those who cannot afford. Whatever he does, he offers to

God, as recognition of his role as a Trustee of God. Corporations too must

operate in the same spirit. Thus, drug companies would focus on saving lives

rather than maximizing profit as they do these days [with good PR to cover up

the anti-social behaviour]. One can develop the idea in extenso, and we shall

do so in Heart2Heart later. One might ask: “But what happens to jobs?”

Presently, globalisation-driven economy tends to “improve” the economy while

decreasing the number of jobs at the same time. In the Trusteeship regime, mass

production is replaced by production by the masses. Some might wonder: “Will

this work?” It does, and the Milk Revolution in Gujarat is proof of that. Here,

thousands of dairy farmers joined together to form a successful milk

co-operative. So successful has this co-operative movement been that India,

which once used to import milk powder from Denmark has now become the largest

producer of milk in the world; and the venture has given employment to

thousands and thousands of people.If we think carefully about it, mankind DOES

have an alternative to the present consumerist way of life, which is wasteful

and is leading us straight to disaster. That alternative of course demands the

price of simple living and a spirit of cooperation, with people caring for each

other and sharing with each other, exactly as the organs in a healthy body do.

Many dismiss such an idea with the comment: “All this is nice in theory but

will not work.” Well, it all depends on what people want. People go to great

extent to make money, to take care of their children, to be successful in life

and so on. That is because, they value the end objective. In every case,

sacrifice is involved and success represents the triumph of will power, which

is the key to discipline. If in the same way we attach great importance to the

real purpose of human birth and life, then there should really be no difficulty

in practicing a ceiling on desires and letting life be guided by the principle

of Trusteeship. This principle calls for detachment and actually, in many

things we do, we are detached without being aware of it. A cashier in a bank

handles everyday, huge sums of money; yet he does not ever imagine it is his

money. A taxi driver working for a cab company, does not think he owns the cab;

and so on, there are many examples one could think of. With effort, one could

extend this idea to things that one believes belongs to the person concerned.

In the trusteeship regime, a rich man would regard the wealth he has as given

to him by God for being used for Divine purposes. People today might be very

sceptical about such an attitude to life but you would be surprised to learn

that when late Prof. Kasturi (Baba’s biographer) was born, his parents took the

baby to the local Siva temple, placed the baby before the idol and prayed, “Oh

Lord, You have given this child of Yours to us for looking after and bringing

up. Please give us all that we need to do Your duty as best as we can.” If we

want, if we love God, if we want to avoid inflicting more wounds on Mother

Earth, then we can and ought to be able to change our mindset. If we fail to do

that, and want the present untenable life style then we must also get ready to

pay the price for it. Scientists are very much concerned by the rapid melting

of Arctic ice, and if the same happens with the ice in Antarctica also, then

terrible things can happen, like half of Bangladesh getting swallowed by the

sea. Experts say that even if humanity stops consuming oil today, it is not

possible to stop global warming. The process started will stabilise at best;

all that one can hope for is preventing of still further rises in the long

term. The bottom line is simply this: If we want to eat the cake, then it would

disappear and we cannot have it! The options are clear and the time to decide is

NOW. Tomorrow may be too late! What do you think? Do you agree?

With Love and Regards,

"Heart2Heart" Team.

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