Life 49 (Nov 25 - Dec 27)

[winston]

What should we do to end all troubles and live happily and peacefully?

He is present within you only. He is the embodiment of love. He is present in you in the form of love. Do not waste or pollute this principle of divine love.

Channelise this love towards the sacred path. Do not put it on an unsacred and evil path. Do not direct it towards the mean desires of your body or wealth.

Love is for love’s sake. Treasure this divine principle of love in your heart and pray to Him.

If you attain His love, you will attain everything. You can achieve everything by His love.

There is nothing that is impossible to achieve by this. Your enemies will become your friends, and those who are distant from you will become your nears and dears by love.

Similarly, your love can bring you close to all those who have separated from you. Hence, you should develop more and more love which is sacred, sublime and precious.

- Divine Discourse, Jun 24, 1996

If the vessel of your heart is not coated with love, all that you do becomes unsacred.

Source. Radiosai.org

[winston]

Is the spiritual purpose of human life to be found outside the context of society?

What has sociology or the social sciences to do with the sciences of the spirit or the inquiry into the human spirit? This is a question that is commonly raised.

So too, many do ask: What has the spiritual student and sadhaka to do with society and its problems?

It must be said that both these attitudes are wrong. No society can find its fulfilment, and no social ideal can fructify without the blossoming of the spirit of man.

Mankind cannot realise the Divinity whose expression it is, without careful and constant attention being paid to the cultivation of the spirit.

How else can this Divinity express itself than in and through individuals? We can apprehend only the jagat (world), this moving and inconstant play; we cannot see or hear, smell or taste or touch the Director of the play, Him.

In the same manner, we can apprehend the individual, but not the entity named Society. For Society is no separate and distinct complex formed out of elemental components.

Society is the divine proliferation produced by the Will Supreme. Society cannot justify itself by planning to divide the spoils gained out of Nature either in equal shares or unequal shares.

The consummation that must inspire Society has to be the establishment and elaboration in every social act and resolution, of the knowledge of the One Universal Atma and the bliss that knowledge confers.

- Divine Discourse, Mar 01, 1974



Whomsoever you serve, think that you are serving Him. That is true penance and meditation.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

What are the three categories of love, and how should we journey in the cultivation of the highest form?

Man spends life in three types of spiritual endeavours. He loves Him through these paths.

The first category, Svartha Prema or selfish love, pertains to thinking only of their own happiness, comfort, and pleasure, not in the least caring about others.

The second category, Anyonya Prema or mutual love, pertains to one who thinks of his own family and seeks the welfare of those whom he considers as his own.

The third category, Parartha Prema or selfless love, pertains to one who wishes that everyone in the society should be happy. This is the supreme love.

The first category may be compared to the light in a single room, which will illumine only that room.

The second one is comparable to moonlight, which helps you to see things but not very clearly. It gives scope for doubt. For example, you may see a rope and mistake it for a snake or a stump for a person in the not-so-bright moonlight.

The third category is like sunlight, which helps you to see everything clearly without any scope for doubt. If you have a spiritual outlook, you will not have love restricted to yourself and your family alone.

- Divine Discourse, Apr 28, 1998

If you follow the principle of atma, you will consider all as yours since the same atma is effulgent in all beings.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Why is it important to foster our devotion in silence and solitude?

In a small incense stick, there’s fire. In smoking a cigarette, fire is there too. If there is a forest fire on a hill, we see a big fire in that as well. The fire we see on an incense stick, on a cigarette, and in the forest fire - all constitute fire.

In the feeling that all three constitute fire, if you bring logs of firewood and put them on a cigarette or on an incense stick, the fire will be extinguished, firewood will not catch fire.

On the other hand, if we take even tender green leaves and put them in a raging forest fire, they will catch fire and burn away!

In the same manner, if the fire of love in you is not broad enough, you will not be able to sustain the great fire of love of God. If you begin to talk of the all-pervading love and widespread prema of the Lord, then there is a danger of the feeble fire of love in you getting extinguished!

Before you experience this love in everyone, the first step is to promote love within yourself and raise it to a sufficiently high level.

For this, it is necessary for you to recognise a form and the appropriate time for this. If you do not take cognisance of the situation and the time around you, then you will not be able to promote prema in yourself.

- Divine Discourse, Jun 03, 1976

His love is like an infinite and endless ocean. What you carry depends on the size of your pot.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

What are the benefits of promoting pure love instead of hate and discord?

The Divine is love personified and the same love is immanent in the heart of all human beings.

Just as He loves all equally, likewise, man should share his love with all.

It is the foremost duty of man. One should not make use of the Divine-given love for selfish purposes but share it with everyone. Only then can one become the recipient of His grace.

Man derives two types of benefits from the principle of love. He can share his love with others and make them happy. God loves one who is loved by all.

He confers His love and grace on those who love their fellow beings.

If one wants to become the recipient of His love, one must necessarily recognise the principle of his innate love.

Wherever the compass is placed, its needle will always point to North! Similarly, man’s love should always be directed towards Him.

Such a person alone is a true human being. Man should transcend the feeling of I and mine, recognise the principle of unity in all beings and conduct oneself accordingly.

- Divine Discourse, Oct 22, 2001

What is meant by calling yourselves devotees of Him? You have to foster love and develop unity.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

How does He want us to deal with life and our duties?

He directs you to recognise the atma as your closest kin, closer than the members of your family, your blood relations and your dearest descendants.

When this is done, you will never stray from the path of right, which alone can maintain that kinship.

Familial attachment operates even against the performance of one’s legitimate duties. But attachment to the Divine fills that duty with a new dedication which ensures both joy and success.

It activates man as nothing else can: it confers on him during the process of doing his duty the highest wisdom. Hence the advice: Do not enter the prakriti (objective world) in the hope of realising the Atma; enter the objective world, after becoming aware of the Atma; for then you see Nature in a new light, and your very life becomes a long festival of love.

There are many who use their scholarship and intelligence, even Vedic scholarship, for dreary debate and competitive contests.

They are enamoured of their petty triumphs. They declare that society is an arena for winning such triumphs.

But, He calls on you to seek and strengthen another type of society, where there is no room for such trivial desires.

- Divine Discourse, Mar 01, 1974

There is nothing greater than having love for Him. Love is divine and through love alone can you merge in Him.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

How should we approach this journey of life? What is it we must strive for?

The body is prakriti (Nature). We should not submit ourselves to the body.

We have to control it. If you control the body, the mind will also be controlled and you will have the vision of the Atma (the true Self).

You have all three natures - human, animal and demonic, present in the human heart. Hence, to lead a life of a human, you must unify all three.

Gradually, retaining the principles of the Atma and the mind, you should give up attachment to the body. Then the animal nature will leave you.

Then, giving up the body and the mind, you must foster only the principle of the Atma. Then our nature will become divine.

You must have full faith that everything is Divine Will, Divine Command and Divine Order.

You must resist all challenges and play the game of life and come out victorious.

Life is a challenge, meet it; life is a game, play it; life is love, enjoy it; life is a dream, realise it.

Do not be discouraged by obstacles. Never give up your efforts, nor even slacken.

When you resist all the challenges of life, you will attain Divinity. Never give scope for doubts.

If doubts come, it will lead to confusion. Once there is confusion, the heart’s fuse will go! So don't give scope for that.

- Divine Discourse, Apr 28, 1998.

That which destroys man’s animal nature, nurtures humanness and finally transforms him into a Divine being, is spirituality.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

What is the conviction with which we must pray to the Divine?

Jesus taught, “All are the children of the Divine”.

When you have such firm conviction, you can accomplish any task. You need not read voluminous books.

Fill your heart with love and leave everything to His Will. You will certainly achieve success in all your endeavours.

Love is the quintessence of His teachings. His power is the power of love. There is nothing greater than love.

When you develop love, you can attain everything, reach places not reached before, easily face the challenges of life and emerge victorious.

He will always be with you, in you, and around you and will take care of you.

Any mighty task can be accomplished through prayer. However, your prayer should be the same within and without.

The prayer that you make within you, will be heard by the Divine inside. So say what is there in your mind. Whatever you aspire for, achieve it through love; let love itself be your primary prayer.

- Divine Discourse, Dec 25, 2004

Prayers must emanate from the heart, where He resides, and not from the head, where doctrines and doubts clash.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

How and where should we look for mental peace?

Ambition to earn fame in the world, to gain some position of authority over fellow men, to lead a luxurious life — this can never ensure shanti (mental peace).

Shanti is the result of quite different attainments. Wealth cannot command it, nor authority commandeer it! It must be won through the hard way - meditation, namasmarana and the nine steps to the presence of the Divine.

It must be won on the earth, to which man rightfully belongs; and, not on any other heavenly realm towards which he may dare navigate.

You multiply grief by recollecting the past and picturing a vivid, unpleasant future.

You fill the present moment with dread, recapitulating the past and reflecting on coming events!

The needle runs over the gramophone record and causes the music to play. The record is inert matter. When the mind (the needle) concerns itself with nature and contacts nature, the song of joy-grief is heard.

The fault lies not in nature nor in the mind but in the contact!

Keep aloof, be detached — then, there is no reaction at all. That is the path to earn mental peace.

- Divine Discourse, Nov 21, 1969

The wind gathers clouds and equally swiftly, scatters them. So too the mind can create conditions of bondage or of liberation.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Many pride themselves on being intellectuals. But what knowledge makes an intellect truly great?

A Sage, as a student, had spoken to his classmates thus, “There is neither sanctity nor divine glory in it; Why this misery of birth, death and rebirth? A great intellect seeks the path of no birth and death.”

We have been watching all along. People are dying. People are taking birth. What is the goal?

“Seek the path”, he said.

What is this path? The real path is the same path by which we had come.

We are searching because we forgot the route and the root. We forgot the origin because of the delusion of worldly pleasures.

You are aware that the child, as soon as it is born, cries, “Kva Kva”, meaning ‘what is my origin?’

This quest stays only until the child comes in contact with this external atmosphere. Thereafter, the child takes this world as everything and gets fully immersed in it.

In regard to this delusion or forgetfulness, the Scriptures cautions us, “A great intellect must seek the path”.

It pleads, “How long do you want to camp in this place?” The animal intellect forgets, while a reformed intellect seeks the right path.

- Divine Discourse, Dec 30, 1987

Just as the minerals became the tree, the trees gave rise to animate life, and the lower animals evolved into man, man too should evolve further and become Divine.

Source: radiosai.org