Life 29 (Nov 17 - Aug 18)

[winston]

How should we lead our lives to deserve to be called human beings?

True love is the sweet fruit that grows out of the fragrant flower of good deeds.

Today, when any difficulty arises or when some trouble crops up, love turns into hatred.

Whatever be the vicissitudes one may face, whatever be the personal sorrows and privations one may undergo, a person with true love should remain unaffected.

Love rules without recourse to the sword. It binds without laws.

Like the glow of the flame in a fire or the rays of the sun or the waves in the ocean, divine love is the basic quality of every true human being.

True Love is practising pure and unselfish love towards all living beings, who are all embodiments of the Divine, with no expectation of reward!

A genuine loving person will be free from dislike or hatred, and is friendly and compassionate towards all beings. Only those with this attitude are worthy of being called human beings!

- Divine Discourse, May 6, 1985.

It is only when you are filled with pure, unselfish love that you deserve to be called a human being.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

What is the duty we owe to ourselves?

There is no evil in money, scholarship, knowledge or intelligence. But evil arises from activities that one performs using them.

Pure water has no colour. Poured into a black bottle, it appears black. Poured into a red bottle, it appears red. Water has not become red or black; colour of the bottle makes the difference.

When money, scholarship, cleverness and intelligence are possessed by persons in whom rajas (passion, emotion, outgoing nature) is dominant, they promote hatred, ambition and lust.

When possessed by persons in whom tamas (sloth, dullness, conceit) is dominant, they promote miserliness, greed and envy.

When possessed by persons in whom Satwa (equanimity, balance, purity) is dominant, they promote love, compassion, urge to serve, the unity of all mankind and world peace.

The sublimation of your character to Satwa is the duty that everyone owes to themselves. This is the path, the real goal. You must ceaselessly tread the path and reach the goal.

- Divine Discourse, Nov 23, 1985.

When your heart is filled with good thoughts and feelings, all that comes out of your senses - your speech, your vision, your action - will all be pure.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

What is our bounden duty as a human being? How can we get help?

It is not enough if you are born a human being with all faculties working well - physical, mental and emotional.

You must bring it to perfection using the discriminating intellect, just as a sculptor does, after the stone is brought to a crude shape.

Everyone of you must be aware of your kinship with the Divine, the Divinity latent in you and your immense potentiality.

You can know this through the exercise of your discrimination and dispassion. Only a human being among all animal creation is capable of this.

The royal road to this awareness is shown by the Guru; not every one of the several lakh ‘gurus’ claiming their status are entitled to it. For, the word Gu-ru means, the one who has no darkness in him,

When you are earnest, the Divine Himself will guide you. Do not despair; march bravely on. Try to fill every moment with thoughts of Him, in some form or the other.

- Divine Discourse, May 22, 1965.

Love for the Divine will dispel the ignorance and conceit of every individual, just as the sun dispels the morning mist.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

What is it that we must never forget in the course of our life?

Forms of worship, or the phraseology of adoration, or the style of address may vary, but all religions are directed towards the same consummation.

The same bloodstream circulates in all the limbs of the body. The same divine stream activates the entire Universe.

Visualise that supreme Architect, that incomprehensible Designer, that unseen Lifegiver. This is spoken of as the realisation of the Fatherhood of the Divine and the Brotherhood of Man.

Do not get entangled in the business of living. In your struggle for survival and success, do not forget He has made life possible.

Sow the seeds of love, after preparing the soil of your heart by removing the weeds. Watered by faith, let them grow and yield the blossoms of fortitude. Then you are assured of the fruit - peace. This is the task, this is the duty - this has to be your vow!

- Divine Discourse, Jul 7, 1968.

To get angry is but the effort of a moment; but to get peace, to become unaffected by the
ups and downs of life, is the result of years of training in Spiritual activities.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Die every day

What is age? Is it the number of years you have lived? That is part of age; you were born in such and such a year, and now you are fifteen, forty or sixty years old.

Your body grows old—and so does your mind when it is burdened with all the experiences, miseries and weariness of life; and such a mind can never discover what is truth.

The mind can discover only when it is young, fresh, innocent; but innocence is not a matter of age. It is not only the child that is innocent—he may not be— but the mind that is capable of experiencing without accumulating the residue of experience.

The mind must experience, that is inevitable. It must respond to everything—to the river, to the diseased animal, to the dead body being carried away to be burnt, to the poor villagers carrying their burdens along the road, to the tortures and miseries of life— otherwise it is already dead; but it must be capable of responding without being held by the experience.

It is tradition, the accumulation of experience, the ashes of memory, that make the mind old.

The mind that dies every day to the memories of yesterday, to all the joys and sorrows of the past—such a mind is fresh, innocent, it has no age; and without that innocence, whether you are ten or sixty, you will not find God.

The Book of Life, November 10, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995

[winston]

Deliberate change is no change at all

In the very action of the individual changing, surely, the collective will also change.

They are not two separate things opposed to each other, the individual and the collective, though certain political groups try to separate the two and to force the individual to conform to the so-called collective.

If we could unravel together the whole problem of change, how to bring about a change in the individual and what that change implies, then perhaps, in the very act of listening, participating in the inquiry, there might come about a change which is without your volition.

For me, a deliberate change, a change which is compulsory, disciplinary, conformative, is no change at all.

Force, influence, some new invention, propaganda, a fear, a motive compels you to change—that is no change at all.

And though intellectually you may agree very easily with this, I assure you that to fathom the actual nature of change without a motive is quite extraordinary.

The Book of Life, October 26, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995

[winston]

Having secured this opportunity of knowing a holy man, what should we strive for?

Live with love, in love, for love. Then the Divine who is "Divine Love personified" will grant you all that you need in spite of your not asking for anything.

He knows; He is the Mother who does not wait to hear the moan of the child to feed it. His love is so vast and deep; He anticipates every need and rushes with the required help.

You are all waiting anxiously to know when he will restart granting you 'interviews', so that you can place before Him the long lists of wishes or desires, which you have brought. These wishes go on multiplying; they never end. The fulfilment of one leads to a new series.

Strive to arrive at the stage when His wish alone will count and you are an instrument in His Hands. When you fill yourselves with love for the Divine, you achieve likeness of form and absorption in the Divine.

Strive for that consummation, not for lesser victories.

- Divine Discourse, May 15, 1969.

Stay away from impure listening, impure acts, impure words and impure thoughts.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Passion without a cause

In the state of passion without a cause, there is intensity free of all attachment; but when passion has a cause, there is attachment, and attachment is the beginning of sorrow.

Most of us are attached, we cling to a person, to a country, to a belief to an idea, and when the object of our attachment is taken away or otherwise loses its significance, we find ourselves empty, insufficient.

This emptiness we try to fill by clinging to something else, which again becomes the object of our passion.

Examine your own heart and mind. I am merely a mirror in which you are looking at yourself. If you don’t want to look, that is quite all right; but if you do want to look, then look at yourself clearly, ruthlessly, with intensity—not in the hope of dissolving your miseries, your anxieties, your sense of guilt, but in order to understand this extraordinary passion which always leads to sorrow.

When passion has a cause it becomes lust. When there is a passion for something—for a person, for an idea, for some kind of fulfillment—then out of that passion there comes contradiction, conflict, effort.

You strive to achieve or maintain a particular state, or to recapture one that has been and is gone. But the passion of which I am speaking does not give rise to contradiction, conflict. It is totally unrelated to a cause, and therefore it is not an effect.

The Book of Life, April 30, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995

Source: JKrishnamurti.com

[winston]

What is the best remedy to overcome fear of all sorts?

You may be from many countries, and wedded to different cultures and traditions, languages and styles of dress, food, etc. But, this variety should not hide from our vision, the unity of Divinity inherent in all of you.

The world today is afflicted with formidable problems and fast-spreading fear - fear of war, famine, and of demonic terrorists, problems of racial, religious and regional conflicts, of economic recuperation and survival, of student indiscipline, of credal clashes, of frenzy and fanaticism, of power-grabbing and extreme egoism.

The only remedy for this creeping fear is an attitude of non-attachment. When one is attached to the body-mind complex and the I-and-Mine limitation, fear is inescapable.

The Advaitic (non-dual) awareness that what we witness is but a super-imposition of our own mind on Reality, is the best cure, and service is the most effective spiritual activity.

- Divine Discourse, Nov 21, 1985.

All that you are, you owe to society and you must show your gratitude to society by rendering service.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

A healthy, normal reaction

... I have to find out why desire has such potency in my life. It may be right or it may not be right. I have to find out. I see that.

Desire arises, which is a reaction, which is a healthy, normal reaction; otherwise, I would be dead.

I see a beautiful thing and I say, “By Jove, I want that.” If I didn’t, I’d be dead. But in the constant pursuit of it, there is pain. That’s my problem—there is pain as well as pleasure.


The Book of Life, April 6, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995

Source: JKrishnamurti.com