Life 46 (Aug 23 - May 24)

[winston]

What are a few critical lessons we must learn in this journey of life?

Education that does not confer modesty and wisdom, is a sheer waste of precious time.

Whatever else you learn or do not learn, equip yourself with the strength that’s necessary to be virtuous, to resist temptation and lures of the objective world.

Discrimination is not the cleverness that’s given inordinate value today but the capacity to see things in their proper proportion, to evaluate temporary and lasting, the particular and universal, the shallow and deep.

You must also have an attitude of reverence toward the past, toward elders who are repositories of the saintly spiritual wisdom and experience that you must acquire.

Have also faith — faith in your own essential divinity, faith in the higher values attainable by earnest practice and the exercise of detachment.

Life becomes sweeter with a little dose of denial, too; if you get all your desires, it begins to cloy.

Deny yourselves many of the things your mind runs after and you will find that you become tough enough, to bear both good fortune and bad!

- Divine Discourse, Sep 12, 1963.

The senses have to be rigorously controlled by discrimination and detachment, the twin talents given exclusively to humans.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Whoever we may be, whatever we do in our daily lives, how can we simplify our quest for peace and live in bliss?

Cultivate devotion steadily every day and derive joy therefrom.

Also, have a mind filled with a vision of equality (sama-rasa), the conviction that fundamentally all are the same.

Spiritual life is not a matter of meaningless talk; it is really life lived in the Atma (Inner-Self); it is the experience of pure bliss; it is just another name for the full life.

For a life of peace, you should keep your promises and never forget them; you should be courteous, well-mannered and impartial in your dealings.

You should be immersed in the ocean of devotion and as immovable as the Himalayas.

Remove from the garden of your heart the thorny bushes of greed and anger, jealousy and selfishness, the evil breed of “I” and “mine”.

Uproot them even when they emerge as seedlings. All this discipline is truly discipline for earning peace.

Be convinced that you are the universal, immortal Atma. That will make every subsequent spiritual discipline easy.

- Ch 12, Prasanthi Vahini.

The human heart can yield the crop of divine bliss only when all the evil thoughts in it are first weeded out and it is filled with pure love.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

How to ensure that the mind that constantly sways remains focused on the Divine?

Namasmarana ( remembrance of the name of the Divine) will make you stick to the thought of the Divine.

Now you are like a mouse caught inside a drum. When the player beats on the right, the mouse runs to the left; when the left side is beaten, it runs in terror to the right.

So too, you run from Paramatma (Supreme Self) to Prakriti (Objective World), reluctant to stick to the Divine and at the same time, retreating from the denials and disappointments of worldly activity.

You have come from the Divine. You are a spark of His Glory. You are a wave of that Ocean of bliss. You will get peace only when you again merge in Him.

Like a child who has lost his way, you can have joy only when you rejoin your mother. The ocean drop rose as vapour, joined the congregation called cloud, fell on the earth, flowed along the ravines and at last reached the ocean.

Reach like-wise the ocean you have lost. Start on that journey and travel quick and light!

- Divine Discourse, Oct 17, 1966.

There is no point in developing detachment for some time and getting attached to worldly things again. Having given up worldly desires once, give them up forever.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Why is it important to always follow the divine injunctions?

One may have immense faith in the Divine. But from time to time, the power of maya (illusion) may undermine this faith.

In the Scriptures, even staunch devotees displayed hesitancy in acting up to the advice of of the Divine and had to be taught their duty.

Faith in the Divine, should never waver. In no circumstance, should anyone go against the injunctions of the Divine because the Divine has no selfish objective or aim.

Whatever worship one may offer, however intensely one may meditate, if one transgresses the commands of the Divine, these devotional practices become futile.

It is out of small-minded selfish motives, that people act against the sacred commands of the Divine. Even small acts of transgression may in due course assume dangerous proportions.

- Divine Discourse, Sep 12, 1991.

The Divine is your true and eternal saviour. Develop strong determination to hold on to Him. Only then will your life be redeemed.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

What can discover and merge with the Divine, who is in reality our indweller?

A green gourd sinks in water but a dry one floats.

Become dry, rid yourselves of attachments, desires, anxieties and worries. Then you can float, unaffected on the waters of change and chance.

Even water, when it becomes steam, can rise into the sky. Become light, lose weight and bale out so that you may rise higher and higher.

Yoga is defined as the prevention of impulses that agitate the inner consciousness of man. These impulses add to the ballast.

Be free from desires that drag you down; have only the yearning to come face to face with the Truth. That Truth is shining inside you, waiting to be discovered.

Like the washerman in knee-deep water, dying of thirst, man too suffers even though the panacea is in easy grasp.

The Divine is the Indweller and so when He is sought in the outer world, He cannot be caught.

Love Him with no other thought; feel that without Him, nothing is worth anything; feel that He is all. Then you become His and He becomes yours.

- Divine Discourse, Oct 17, 1966.

Where is the need to go to the forest to discover the Divine within you and around you?

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Why is group prayer beneficial? What is the foundation of all religions that most followers fail to practice?

Great scientists also could not comprehend the reality and understand the difference between truth and untruth, due to lack of the power of discrimination.

Today, modern man considers truth as untruth and vice versa.

Since ancient times, Bharat (India) has given utmost priority to truth, righteousness (dharma) and justice.

In spite of knowing what is truth and righteousness, modern man is not adhering to them, due to the perversion of his intellect.

Modern society is not able to protect righteousness and control injustice. Not merely that, man is forgetting the truth and distorting the meaning of righteousness itself.

He gives various contradictory definitions of truth and righteousness.

Does the fault lie with truth and righteousness? No. The mistake lies in the manner in which the intellect is utilised. That is why we pray to Him to illumine our intellectstated in the Scriptures.

- Divine Discourse Sep 13, 1999.

The intellect (buddhi) should be cleaned of the rust of the sensory world and made to shine in its own pristine effulgence.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

What is the goal of our life and what is real joy?

Recognition of one's innate divinity and regulation of daily life in accordance with that truth, are the guiding stars for those caught in the currents and cross currents of strife and struggle.

Without Atmajnana (knowledge of the Self), life becomes a meaningless farce, a mockery!

It's the acquisition of that awareness which makes life earnest, sweet and fruitful.

Man is not aware of the grand goal of his pilgrimage. He’s straying into wrong roads which lead him towards disaster.

He puts his faith in things outside himself and plans to derive joy, from and through them. He doesn’t know that all joys spring only from the spring that’s inside him;

He invests on outer things with his own joy drawn from inside himself; he envelopes outer things with his own joy and then, experiences it as though from that other thing!

When you prepare a meal, you may have with you all materials needed: rice, dal, salt, spices, and vegetables. But, unless you have fire in the hearth, you cannot get an edible meal!

So too with life, Knowledge of your own reality as just a wave of the ocean of divinity, is the fire which makes the experience of material world and external activities edible, tasty, assimilable, health-granting and joy-giving.

That joy is Anandam (bliss); it is uplifting, illuminating, and constructive!

- Divine Discourse, Mar 16, 1966.

Life 'here' is for the sake of reaching 'there'.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

How should we address our flaws and treat our bodily needs?

Do not try to cover up defects, tendencies and habits which drag you down.

When people go to a shop to purchase clothes to have dresses prepared for themselves, have you noticed that people prefer coloured materials to white?

The answer they will give when you question them why they choose colour materials is, "It will not reveal dirt"!

So, you see how anxious people are to hide their defects, instead of striving to remove them.

They are, so much attached to physical comfort and objective pleasure. Really speaking, the body must be treated as a wound that must be washed, bandaged and treated with medicated ointment, 3 or 4 times a day. That’s the real purpose of food and drink.

Thirst is the disease; water is the drug. Hunger is the disease; food is the medicine. Craving for pleasure is the disease for which detachment is the medicine!

- Divine Discourse, Mar 16, 1966.

As we look after our cycle or car and give it the necessary petrol and oil, we have to take care of the body so that it may take us through the journey of our life.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Why is it important to regularly reflect and keep ourselves on the Divine-ward path?

Most men spend their lifetime allotted or earned by them partaking rich, harmful food and drink and indulge in glamorous, more harmful pastimes. What a pathetic waste of precious life!

Though belonging to animal genus, man has much more than his fellow beings in physical, mental and moral equipment.

He has memory, language, conscience, reverence, awe, wonder and an inexplicable sense of discontent, which is a precursor of detachment.

He has the glorious chance of visualising his identity with the Mystery that’s manifested as Universe; but he’s so sunk in ignorance that he behaves like an animal and wallows in grief and vice.

It’s as if fire has forgotten its capacity to burn, or water its nature to wet; man has forgotten his nature to reach out into his Divinehood, his capacity to seek and secure the Truth of the Universe of which he is a part, his capacity to train himself by virtue, justice, love and empathy, to escape from the particular to the Universal.

- Divine Discourse, Feb 17, 1966.

Our overindulgence with the body, hampers our recognition of our true destination.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

What is the relationship between man and bliss?

Humanness originates from Ananda (bliss), grows in Ananda and merges in Ananda.

This bliss is the goal of man. Man is born in bliss. To manifest bliss is the duty of man. This is the secret of the human saga.

Every individual makes a variety of efforts to experience bliss. From infancy to old age, man dedicates every effort of his to secure bliss.

But this bliss is not to be found in the places he searches. When he is the very embodiment of bliss, to seek for it outside himself is sheer folly.

Does any man in the world, search for himself outside himself? If such a search is a sign of ignorance, equally the search for bliss outside one's self is a mark of ignorance.

Water can exist without fish but fish cannot exist out of water. A branch is part of a tree. A child is part of the mother.

A branch cannot survive apart from the tree. The child cannot live without the mother.

Likewise, the human existence is based on the Divine. Man is a spark of the Divine. Without the Divine, man cannot experience bliss.

- Divine Discourse, Apr 04, 1992.

Life is best spent and human effort best directed when awareness of the Atma (Inner-Self) principle is sought to be attained.

Source: radiosai.org