What Are True Riches

[Guest guest]

WHAT ARE TRUE RICHES

 

Shri

Sai Baba is Sagun Brahman. There are many saints who

renounce the world and live in solitutde for their

own salvation. Shri Sai Baba was not such a type. He lived

in the society and taught all the people how to act and behave in the world. Shri Sai has said several times to His devotees to listen

carefully to His Stories, understand their significance, meditate ont hem and then only the devotee can assimilate their

spirit. Daily reading of Shri Sai Satcharita

with devotion is essential for Sai devotees to assimilate Baba’s

teaching.

Shri Sai Baba taught us to

cultivate the habit of eating food in a worshipful manner. Food is God.

Everything that keeps us going is God. Food is a manifestation of God

outwardly. Within us the vital force is God. All things that sustain life are

expressions of God. The great life force is God. Therefore, we must not treat

food in a contemptuous way, in an angry mood or in a mood of displeasure. So

food should not be eaten with disregard or in a huff or in a criticizing

manner. “What is this food you have put upon this plate?’. We must

not be in such temper when we eat food. We must eat food in a worshipful manner

and must not waste food. This is what Baba taught us by telling Shri Hemandpanth through his

Leela described in chapter 24 of Sri Sai Satcharita

to remember Him always before eating. Remembering the Sagun

form of Baba will bring in us the mood of worship before eating, and our mind

shall attain peace and happiness.

The Upanishadic

teaching that “Anna Brahma” was taught to us by Baba through his

stories for the quest for Guru described in chapter 32 of Sri Sai Satcharita. In this, Baba has stressed again that “Do

not discard offers of food. Offers of bread and food should be regarded as

auspicious sign of success”. How beautifully Baba taught us through the

purport of this story to accept and eat food in a worshipful manner and what

great results one can achieve thereby.

Let us now see how Baba

taught us what true riches are. If we begin to desire immediately we admit our

poverty. Desire is poverty. Desire is a feeling of inadequacy and when we begin

to desire we are a beggar already. The secret of prosperity is to affirm our true

nature. Be always contended and put a notice on the mind. “No admission

for desire”. The moment a desire arises just reject it and say

“Desire get out” and then we will being to experience that the

desired object comes by itself to us. As long as we run after a thing we cannot

get it. The moment you turn away from a thing it follows us by itself. This is

an eternal law. This is a law which has been proven in the lives of all those

who have discovered it and applied to themselves.

Baba has taught us this

great Brahma Sutra through the illustration of the story of the servant maid of

Shri Kaka Saheb Dixit in Chapter 20 of Shri Sai Satcharita. The happy temperament of the maid servant when

while wearing torn rags on her person and the expression of joy on getting a

new sari and the following day the contentment shown by her by wearing her old

sari reveal clearly to all of us that the secret of happiness is to assert our

true abundant nature.

Let me conclude this with

the saying of Sri Hemandpant in Chapter 2 of Sri Sai Satcharita that “The life if Sai Baba is as wide and

deep as the infinite ocean and all we can dive deep into the same and take out

precious gems of knowledge and Bhakti and distribute

them to all”

 

Col

G.N. Gopalkrishnan

Srinagar

Sai Leela October 1985.