Sai message for the day

[Guest guest]

Swami! We hear of purusarthas, the four goals of life. How are we to

achieve them?

 

Sai Baba: I tell my students quite often about the four `F's'. The

first `F' is `Follow the master'. Dharma, righteousness, is your

master. Follow dharma at all times. All your actions must be approved

by dharma, the ideal norms of life. If you hold on to dharma

throughout, the very same dharma will protect you, dharmo raks ati

raks itah. Manava, being human, should follow the dharma of a human

being, manavadharma, and never that of a demon danavadharma.

 

The second `F' is `Face the devil'. What is the devil here? While

dharma is the master, artha, wealth or money, is the devil. Most

people struggle a lot for money. They resort to all sorts of tactics,

do unrighteous unjustified, and wrong deeds only for money. You think

that the world goes by money, dhanamulamidam jagat. No, the world

relies on dharma, dharmamulamidam jagat. One should earn money

righteously and not unrighteously.

 

The third `F' is `Fight to the end'. What is the enemy you should

fight till the end? It is kama, desire. Until the last desire too

vanishes, you should continue to fight.

 

Once Sage Dakshinamurthy happened to walk along the shore of a sea.

He noticed the rising waves pushing a small blade of grass, towards

the shore. He felt bad. After all, it was a tiny grass blade and the

mighty sea sent forth its mounting waves to push it away on to the

shore. " How arrogant is the sea not to tolerate even a grass blade! "

thought the sage within himself. Then the Sea God, Samudra, appeared

before the sage with folded hands and said very humbly, " Oh! Great

sage! I am not at fault: Do not blame me and call me arrogant. I am

not arrogant. I cannot afford to have a single, simple blemish. I do

not want a blemish, not even a blade of grass in me. So my waves

pushed it away to the shore and not out of any hatred or enmity " .

This is what `fight to the end' means.

 

Then the fourth `F' is `Finish the game'. What is the game? It is the

game of life. When does the game of life finish? It finishes with the

attainment of moksha. So moksha is the final goal of the four

objectives of life.

 

Here you should remember one important point. Of the four

purusarthas, dharma is `Follow the master',

 

artha is `Face the devil', kama is `Fight to the end' and moksha is

`Finish the game'. The first one is dharma and the fourth is moksha,

with the second artha and the third kama in between. It implies that

artha should be earned with dharma: Then kama should be used only to

attain the fourth goal of life moksha.. So, the four `F's' stand for

these purusarthas of life. But now, I tell you there is another

purusartha, the fifth one which is the supreme goal of life. That is

`Love'

 

Love is God,

God is Love, hence,

Live in Love.

 

There is nothing that you cannot achieve without love.