Swami teaches... Part 2. Be like the lotus

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Light and Love Swami teaches... Part 2. Be Like the Lotus We live in an invisible sea of consciousness, an atmosphere of thoughts and their associated feelings. Years of scientific research has shown that brainwaves not only provide insight into an individual's mind and body, but they can be stimulated to actually change that person's current state. The brain is made up of billions of brain cells called neurons, which communicate with each other using electrical signals. All of these neurons sending signals at once produce a large amount of electrical activity commonly called a brainwave pattern. The more complex this structure is, the higher the level of person’s intellectual development is. There are two birds sitting on one tree, the Upanishad says: the jiviatma and theParamatma - the individual soul and the Supreme Soul - on the tree of this body, this World. One bird eats the fruits of that tree, while the other simply looks on, as a witness. Nevertheless, the wonder is the two birds are really one, though they appear as two; they cannot be separated, since they are two aspects of the same entity. Niraakaara and Saakaara (without form and with form), are just two ways in which the One manifests Itself. The minute hand of the dock is the individual soul the bird that eats the fruits. It goes round and round but, the hour hand moves silently and slowly, with a certain dignity. The hour hand can be said to be the Supreme Soul. Once an hour the two meet, but, the individual soul does not get that consummation fixed for ever. It loses the precious chance and so has to go round and round again and again. Liberation is when the two merge, and only one remains. Fix it in your inner consciousness. That is the path of liberation, which you muststart treading and, today is as good as any other day, for deciding to do so. When the obstacles in the path of truth are laid low, deliverance is achieved. That is why liberation (moksha) is something that can be won, here and now; one need not wait for the dissolution of the physical body for that. Action must not be felt as a burden, for that feeling is a sure sign, indicating that it is against the grain. No action, which helps your progress, will weigh heavily on you. It is only when you go counter to your innermost nature that you feel it a burden. A time comes when you look back on your achievement and sigh at the futility of it all. Entrust to the Lord, before it is too late, your mind and let Him shape it as He likes. Just as the clouds originate from the Sun, likewise, manas (mind), buddhi (intellect) and chitta (subconscious mind) are formed out of the Atma. Mind is responsible for all suffering, and even rebirth. Therefore, mind has to be diverted towards God in order to escape from the cycle of birth and death. You have meditated too long on riches, status, salary, children, relatives, fame and the standard of living. They are all of minor interest, momentary value, and dubious profit. Meditate; fix your urge on the Nithya, the Sathya, the Nirmala, the Nischala - the Eternal, the Real, the Pure, and the Immovable. The Lord had Maya (Illusion) as His consort, so to say, and He had a son, called Manas (Mind). This Manas, to continue the parable, had two wives: Pravritthi and Nivritthi - Attachment and Detachment. Of course, Attachment was his favorite wife, and she had a hundred children. Detachment was ill-treated and neglected and she had five children. That is the symbolism of the Kauravas (hundred sons) and the Pandavas (five sons) of Mahabharatha. Though the children all lived in the same kingdom, ate the same food, and learnt from the same teacher, their natures differed widely from one another. The Kauravas, children of wife Attachment were greedy, cruel, self-centeredand vain; the Pandavas, the five of them, each one represented a supreme virtue, so that they could be said to symbolize sathya, dharma, shanthi, prema and ahimsa (truth,righteousness, peace, love and non-injury). Since they were so pure and born of wife Detachment, the Lord became their guide. In fact, the Lord will be the Guide of whoever installs Him as his Sarathi (Charioteer). He is the Sanathana Sarathi (Eternal Charioteer) come to be the Charioteer of all. He is the Lord, for all who seek a Master, a support. By action, done with all this care, this vision gets clarified. Human is blinded by the objective world and he believes that world to be real, meaningful and worthy of pursuit. The cataract grows in the eye and robs it of its efficiency. Ignorance, the cataractof the inner eye, blinds the intellect and robs it of its efficiency. So, it cannot see the Divinity that is your real nature. Oh foolish mind, seeking the Vision of the Divine. Where do you wander in vain? What you seek is within you, know that truth. The rope is mistaken to be a snake and the perceiver flees in fear. The truth is, it is not the organ eye that sees. The eye sees because it is reflected by electromagnetic waves of visible light of the Sun. The scripture says: "Chakshos Suryo ajayatha": From the eye, Surya was born. The soul is the motive force of all the senses; the eye is but a window through which the soul peeps out at the external world. Of what use is the eye, when the vision is not correct? That is to say, when you have no Samadhrishti (Samam means Brahman, the Absolute Reality; Samadhrishti means, seeing only Brahman, the One), in all things at all times. This Ekathwam (Oneness) is the basic truth. Even great scientists could not comprehend the reality and understand the difference between truth and untruth due to lack of the power of discrimination. Today, modern person considers truth as untruth, dharma as adharma, and vice versa. In spite of knowing what is truth and righteousness, modern consumer-society is not able to protect dharma and control injustice. Not merely that, human is forgetting the truth and distorting the meaning of dharma itself. He gives various contradictory definitions of sathya and dharma. Does the fault lie with sathya and dharma? The mistake lies in the manner in which the buddhi (intelligence) is utilized (what has noted with many examples in previous part 1). Human can acquire wisdom only when he/she converts own intelligence into skill. But due to the effect of Kali Age, human, instead of converting intelligence into skill, kills it. As a result, human's buddhi is perverted and there is imbalance in life. Is it possible, oh man, to escape the consequences of your actions? You may be a great scholar, worship the family deity or even go to the forest and undertake severe penance; yet you are bound to face the consequences of your actions. Whether you dip the container in a small lake or a mighty ocean, the amount of water collected depends on the size of the container. Human has won unique qualities of head and heart through a series of effort-filled lives as members of inferior species. (However, that victory is now reduced to ashes, by this supine sloth). Be thankful to the Lord that He gave you Time, as well as action to fill it with conscious life. He gave you food, as well as hunger to relish it. Nevertheless, that does not entitle you to engage yourself in action indiscriminately. Diagnose yourself; discover your problem's root cause; apply the proper remedy: that is the way of the wise. Do not run after quacks or pseudo panaceas. After you become an observer of your personality then it is time to move on. Think back to the difference in your personality years ago beginning from childhood. You discovered that your personality is not constant, but it is worth to love and observe as the line of experiences of Atma what itself remains in the state of witness, always constant. Atma within is as sunlight what enables human to perform various actions. Yet, the Sun remains unaffected by what human does. It is just a witness. Likewise, God is the eternal witness. He is unaffected by what happens around. Clouds, which owe their existence to the Sun, cover the Sun itself. However, that does not diminish the brilliance of the Sun in any way. Similarly, God does not stand to lose anything if human being, who owes own existence to God, derides Him. Human being will certainly reap the consequences of own actions; God is not affected by them. For the performance of karma, the body is the primary instrument. It is through fight karma that one understands dharma. The Karma Kaanda (branch dealing with action and its reaction) of the Vedas indicates how the primary goals of life are to be realized by the performance of sacramental duties - Sandhyaa Vandanam (daily worship of Sun God), yagna (sacrificial rite) and yaga (ceremonial sacrifice). Even as birth is related to karma, karma to dharma, and dharma to Brahman, the mother, the father, guru (preceptor) and God are related to the individual. The mother indicates the father. The father leads one to the guru who shows the way to realize God. All the four are fundamental to one's life. The mother comes first because she bears the travail of carrying and giving birth to the child. Karma is the cause of everything that happens. The fruits of one's actions may not be evident immediately, but sooner or later, they are bound to appear. Hence, it is only by doing good deeds can one achieve desirable results. It is for this purpose thatthe Vedas have laid down in the Karma Kaanda the good deeds by which beneficial results can be got. The Karma Kaanda reveals that the Law of Karma affects everything that has a body and not merely human beings alone. Even the Trinity - Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra (God of dissolution of the cosmos; named Shiva in his auspicious or benevolent form) - cannot avoid the consequences of karma. By their actions, they are demonstrating this truth to the world. By ancient scriptures, like a potter, Brahma is continuously creating things in this Cosmos. This is the unceasing work. Why is he involved in this? Because he has a distinct body. Assuming the body for performing karma and discharging his dharma (righteousness) through his karma, he is setting an example to the world. Vishnu comes down in human form whenever dharma declines on the Earth and is in danger of extinction. Facing the censure of the wicked, punishing evildoers and protecting the good and the innocent, and receiving the praise of the devotees, Vishnu is carrying out His duty of protecting dharma and reforming humanity. It may be asked, "Why should Vishnu go through this ordeal as the protector of dharma?" It is no ordeal. It is only a demonstration of the duties that are related to the assuming of a certain form. Eashwara (Shiva) covers Himself with vibhuthi, dwells in the burial ground, and subjects Himself to various rigorous disciplines. Thus, gods by their actions have been setting an example to humanity as to how to make human life purposeful. There are in human beings three aspects: mala, vikshepa and avarana. Mala is the cause of ashanthi (mental disquiet). It represents the fruit of actions done in previous births. As long as this is not eliminated, it will give rise to all kinds of trouble and sorrow. How can there be peace or joy when the fruit of past karma remains in us? To get rid of mala, we have to engage ourselves in sacred tasks. Vikshepa consists of worldly distractions to overcome which various sadhanas areundertaken for realizing the Divine. The sadhanas include meditation, concentration, and performance of good deeds for achieving purity of mind. When one succeeds in overcoming vikshepa, one is confronted with "avarana" (the thick covering in which one is enveloped). This covering is known as maya (delusion). It envelops everything in the Universe. The eyes with which one can see everything that is outside cannot see themselves. Because we are enveloped in maya, we seek worldly pleasures and do not seek our own Divine essence. We imagine you are the architect of our fate. Nevertheless, the author, the master and the enjoyer of everything is the Lord. By failing to grasp the nature of karma (action) and not seeking the path of dharma (virtue, righteousness), human is making him/herself remote from God (Brahman, Supreme Being). The Lord looks at your heart, not your wealth. The Lord judges you by the sincerity of your thoughts, not by the forms of your worship. The Lord sees your bhakthi (devotion) and not shakthi (power). He cares for your gunas (qualities) and not your kula (caste or lineage). He looks at your chiththam (heart) and not at your viththam (wealth). You must strive to purify your heart and engage yourself in righteous action, with devotion and integrity. Sow the seeds of Love, after preparing the soil of your heart, removing the weeds.Let the seed of Love grow, watered by faith, and yielded the blossoms of fortitude; later, you are assured of the fruit: shanthi (peace). This is the task; this is the duty; this has to be the vow.

 

"So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground. And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come" (Mark 4:26-29).

 

It is the seed of spiritual awareness sown in the fertile ground of our mind. Once the seed is sown it will grow if allowed to do so including nurturing it with faith and belief in the process. Even though we cannot see the seed growing under the ground, a gardener has faith that it is growing, and belief that it will soon sprout and grow into a plant. (Reet's compilation from, Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 4. "Heroes, not Zeros," Chapter 1; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 8. "The way of the wise," Chapter 23; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 16. "Karma, Dharmaja and Brahma," Chapter 7; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 16. "Karma, Dharmaja and Brahma," Chapter 7, Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 32. Part 2. "Truth emerges from Wisdom," Chapter 5 ; Sathya Sai Baba. Vidya Vahini. Chapter XI; http://www.sssbpt.org/Pages/Prasanthi_Nilayam/adilabad_discourse 2007.html). Namaste - Reet