Sai Inspires - 21st May 2006 from Prashanti Nilayam

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Untitled DocumentSAIRAM.

 

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

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SWAMI BLESS US ALL.

 

 

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Dear Reader,

Loving Sairam from the Heart2Heart Team.

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"THE GOD BEYOND THE HEAD"

Swami today tells us about the greatest joy in life.

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Sai Inspires - 21st May 2006

 

 

If you desire that others should honor you, you should honor them

too. If others must serve you, serve them first. As a matter of fact, no joy

can equal the joy of serving others. Be like the timepiece; it has no

dislikes. It shows the correct time to all who desire to know, irrespective

of the person who comes for the information.

 

- Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 3, pg. 65.

 

 

Love is Selflessness. - Baba

 

THE GOD BEYOND THE HEAD

 

Loving Sai Ram and greetings from Prashanti Nilayam. Here in

Prashanti, it is quite common to see many people sitting in the veranda

reading books, while waiting for Swami to come out for Darshan. These days,

many of the books that devotees are reading deal with Science and God. By

and large, these books appear to examine whether or not God exists, through

the “scientific route,” if we might call it that. Some of the books are by

theologians, while others are by scientists. Where the latter are concerned,

the question seems to be: “Looking at the physical Universe as it has

evolved and as it is today, is there any evidence to suggest that it was

created by a God beyond the Universe?”

 

The question as well as the approach of exploration is nothing

new. From very ancient times, people have repeatedly been asking: “Wherefrom

did the Universe come, and was there a Supreme Creator who actually willed

it and brought it into existence?” Given the intrinsic doubting nature of

humans, we suppose this question would remain for ever, at least as long the

human race exists.

 

Now why did we bring all this up? For a good reason; we wish to

discuss today the question: “How does one think of God, what does one

believe about God and how exactly must one relate to God?” Actually, we have

nothing original to say on the subject because all that needs to be said has

already said by Swami; what we intend to do is just to pull together the

various pieces and offer them as one integrated piece.

 

We would like to start by reminding ourselves that the human

being is actually a composite of three entities: The gross body, the subtle

Mind and the even subtler Heart. Of these, the Heart is the seat of feeling;

the Mind is the vehicle for generating thoughts while the body is the engine

of action. Generally speaking, action is preceded by thoughts, which are in

turn triggered by feelings – in other words, the hierarchy is, Heart first,

Mind next, the senses and the body last. Here is an example that illustrates

the point.

 

You are walking along the road and you see an old hungry lady

begging for food. That sight fills your Heart with sadness and compassion.

That feeling makes your Mind think: “I have with me here in a bag that I am

carrying, some bread. Why not I give this lady a part of that loaf?” That is

the thought that arises in your Mind. The thought then triggers action. You

go near the old woman, stop, smile, take out some bread, give it to her and

say, “Mother, please accept this food as a gift from God. Hope you would

like it,” or something like that.

 

You may say, “All this is fine but how does it relate to the

title of this Sunday Special?” Ah, that exactly is what we are coming to!

Let us go back to the example just given and ask: “What if the Heart did not

ooze with compassion, at the sight of the old and hungry lady?” You might

have just walked away without paying any attention.

 

The difference between actions shaped entirely by the “Head” and

those triggered by the “Heart” were beautifully brought out by Jesus a long

time ago, through his famous parable of the Good Samaritan. We have referred

to this story any number of times in the past but it is necessary to recall

it briefly one more time, in order to place it in the present context. In

that story, there is a man who has been waylaid by robbers, ripped of all

his possessions, beaten black and blue, and left helpless by the side of a

desert track. Two people pass by, one after the other, a Levite and a

priest. Both take a look at the man and pass on. Why? Was it not obvious to

them that the poor man needed urgent help? Perhaps in a vague way it was.

Even as they were possibly wondering what they ought to do, the Head, we are

sure, must have intervened and said, “Listen, you want to help that man? But

what’s there in it for you? Move on.”

 

If we analyse carefully we would find that most of the time when

people switch off when assistance or help is desperately needed is because

of the question: “What’s there in it for me?” Given human nature, this

question is inevitable; it would always arise. If that be the case, does it

mean that one would always come to the conclusion, “No, there is nothing in

it for me,” and walk away as the priest and the Levite did? How then does

one explain the behaviour of the Good Samaritan, whose example Jesus holds

out for us? What was there in it for him? That really is the point of our

discussion today.

 

You see, the question that we referred to does indeed arise

often. And every time the question is asked [the question, by the way, is

always asked by the “Head”], there sure is an answer. However, there are two

sources for the answer – the Head, and the Heart. In the case of the Levite

and the priest, it was the Head that answered. It simply said, “Move on

buddy, there is nothing in it for you.” In the case of the Good Samaritan,

the answer came from the Heart, which said, “Look at that poor fellow. He

desperately needs your help. Go and do something for him, whatever you can.”

 

This then tells us, that two voices can and do speak from

within, each with its own perspective. One voice is that of the “Head” and

the other is from the “Heart”. The question now arises: “What is the

difference, and how do we distinguish between the two?” The answer has been

given by Swami. He says the voice of the Head is really the voice of the

lower self or the ego. And the voice from the Heart? That is the Voice of

the True Higher Self, the Indweller, the Voice of God. As for the

difference, the Head will generally offer many options and argue: “Listen,

this option means these advantages for you. That option means those

advantages and disadvantages for you. Choose this one, because this means

least trouble for you and indeed a lot of gain.” In other words, the

language of the Head is the language of business, of profit and loss, of

advantages and disadvantages, in short, the language of selfishness. As for

the Heart, it never offers multiple choices. God the Resident of the Heart,

is One. He is Truth, and Truth as Swami often reminds us, is always one, not

two. In practical terms, the Heart will always give only one option, that

option being what God would like us to do.

 

To sum up this part of the discussion, we note the following

important points:

 

a.. The Head is not everything.

b.. The Head always offers many options and argues which is

most advantageous and so forth.

c.. The options of the Head are inevitably tinged with

selfishness, sometimes in the extreme.

d.. The options of the Head might seem very rational from a

worldly point of view but one must not be fooled.

e.. They all arise from the Ego, must be carefully avoided.

f.. As for the Heart, it never speaks with a “forked tongue”.

g.. It gives only one option, always, because Truth is one and

not two.

h.. The course of action indicated by the Heart is always free

from selfishness because its source is God.

 

In fact, “the selfishness test” is the best way of checking out

whether the voice we hear from within is from the Head or from the Heart.

 

Getting back to the point we started with, we would at this

point like to say that to us at least, it seems meaningless to discover God

through the route of Science. Such explorations might be intellectually very

challenging and even stimulating but at the end of the day, we wonder about

their utility. What we mean is the following: OK, through Science we “prove”

there is a God. What next? Do we raise yet another question, start yet

another inquiry and write more books?

 

In our view, all this is a complete waste of time. Gandhi told

the western world way back in 1931, “He is no God who merely satisfies the

intellect. God to be God must rule the Heart and transform the senses. He is

LOVE.” That is what we find in the case of the Good Samaritan. God ruled his

Heart and his actions bear testimony to that. This leads us to the important

point that it does not make sense to “discover” the existence of God via

Science. Such an exercise depends on the “Head” and, as Gandhi has pointed

out, this is a futile way of trying to find out whether God exists or not.

 

We must not try to “understand” God as some are trying to do but

EXPERIENCE God. How does one do that? Swami has given the answer. He says

Bliss is Union with God. This implies that experiencing Bliss is the best

way to experience God. The question now arises: “What is this Bliss? How is

it different from pleasure, that one gets say from gambling?” The answer is

simple and once again is available from Swami. When we talk of joy,

happiness etc., we invariably mean pleasure that we get out worldly

experiences, experiences that gratify the senses in some manner or the

other. These “joyful” experiences [like the “good feeling” one supposedly

gets by drinking alcohol say] belong to the dual world and therefore have an

opposite. As Swami reminds us so often, pleasure is an interval between two

pains. Further, let us say a person enjoys a cone of ice-cream. One year

later when he recalls that event, it remains a mere recollection. There is

no particular joy in the recollection. On the other hand, let us consider an

Interview that Swami has given us. During the Interview of course we are all

in a state of Bliss; it cannot be any other way. Ten years later when we

recall, we still feel a lot of exhilaration. That is an important quality of

Bliss. Also, it has no opposite, since Bliss belongs to the non-dual realm

of God.

 

So, experiencing Bliss is what experiencing God is all about.

There are many ways of experiencing such Bliss. Listening to stories of the

Lord is one; listening to songs in praise of the Lord is another; singing

Bhajans with feeling is yet another; and so on the list goes. We submit, as

Swami has often told us, serving others with Selfless Love is the simplest

and most practical way of experiencing Bliss. That is exactly how one can

understand the behaviour of the Good Samaritan. The Head asked the question:

“What is there in it for me?” And the Heart answered, “There is Bliss; don’t

miss the chance; experience Bliss through service and be with God at least

for some time.”

 

To wrap it all up, we submit that trying to reason out the

existence of God may be intellectually stimulating and satisfying but at the

end of the day, it merely amounts to what Swami refers to as Bookish

Knowledge. On the other hand, spontaneously responding to distress and

reaching out to help results in Bliss, and constitutes, in Swami’s language,

Practical Knowledge. If we are interested in joy, pleasure or “kicks” to use

a popular slang, the Head is the best agent. But if we want Bliss, then the

Heart is the unfailing guide.

 

In a sense thus, life is constantly offering us a choice between

pleasure and Bliss. If we want pleasure, the Head would show the way, but if

we prefer Bliss, then we must look beyond the Head, for that is where God

is.

 

Have you noticed that Spirituality is not something hairy-fairy

but very practical? That is why Swami refers to Spirituality as Practical

Knowledge. Swami does not want us to withdraw from or to run away from the

world into seclusion. He wants us to be very much in it, but conduct our

lives using the Heart as a compass rather than the Head.

 

There is a lot that needs to be said on this subject but we

shall deal with that later. For the moment, we take your leave. Till we get

together again.

 

Jai Sai Ram.

 

 

With Love and Regards,

"Heart2Heart" Team.

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