Sri Sathya Sai Speaks

We can easily declare "Not this," "Not that." But who can declare of Brahman, "This is It?" For Brahman is Eternal Truth, Eternal Wisdom, Beyond the power of speech, To describe or communicate. Embodiments of Love! Sparks emanating from fire are neither different from it, nor identical with it. So, too the jeeva (individualised being) is neither different from Brahman, nor identical with it.

How many of those born are humans when born? How many grow into human status, after being born? How many who have lived as humans known the key to fight living and fight action? It is not by physical appearance that man is to be distinguished. The cotton tree bears long green fruits which resemble the mango; there are varieties of wild canes, but they are not all sugarcane; quartz may look like sugar candy but it is not edible. We should not be misled by form. The content is the important criterion, and the content is Divinity. Jeeva in the Body; God in the Heart, Both of them do sport some time, And then they part, each .from each. One there is, the puppeteer behind, And the puppets - Evil and Good. They play their pranks and go. Jeeva and Brahman become identical only when liberation is achieved. Until the sea is reached, the river remains as river. It has a different name and a distinct form. So too, the jeeva so long as it is involved with the physical case, the senses, the mind and the instruments of consciousness, it does not merge in God. It remains apart. The Atma is ever self-contained, self-sufficient. The material world exists on account of the other. The Atma is the basic Unity which assumes the appearance of diversity, the world. Its immanence is the unifying Truth, evident as the Divine in all beings. It is the duty of every one to live in the awareness of this Truth. He who lives on Earth must become Man at first. Then, he has to learn the way to God And discover the delight of the Spirit. This is the Rajayoga path that the Vedas teach.

The Atma illumines all objects; it needs no other source of illumination to shine. It is the seer of the Universe. For the Atma, the entire Cosmos is an object that is seen, even the eye that sees without the mind caring to see. And even the mind is an object, for the mind has to be prompted and kept alert by something else that wills and resolves. The warp and woof of the mind consist of "wills and wont's", of reaching out and drawing back." The reasoning faculty is itself a tool of the mind. The Atma has, as its apparent apparel, the body, the mind, reason, intellect and the inner tools of perception. Though it seems to be the centre of all activities and agitations, the Atma is unaffected. It is consciousness, pure and unsullied. The body and its accessories and equipment have birth and death, they develop and decline. But the Atma is free from change. The Eternal, with no birth and death, No beginning, no middle nor end; It does not die, it is not born, It can never be destroyed; It is the Witness, the Self, the Atma. The man who strives to attain the awareness of this Atma has indeed fulfilled the destiny of man. But, out of sheer ignorance, man today has no inclination towards it nor does he proceed in that direction. His march is not steady and straight. Shankaracharya once poured out his heart in prayer, to have three errors pardoned by God. "Lord", he said, "Knowing that you are beyond the intellect and even beyond imagination, I am committing the error of meditating on you. Knowing that you are indescribable by word, I am trying to describe your glory. Knowing that you are everywhere and I have been preaching so, yet I have come on pilgrimage to Kasi. My action belies my speech." Beware of this great error that is prevalent - saying one thing and endeavouring to achieve the opposite.

Man builds a frail nest on the sands, prompted by the delusion of certainty; a monstrous force upsets his hopes, without mercy. A sudden storm plucks the petals of a blossoming flower and scatters them on the dust beneath. Sunk in ignorance, man does not learn the lessons these disasters convey. He clings pathetically to his desires and designs. So the result he reaps is quite contrary to the plans he framed! He can get the success he planned for, only when his efforts and actions are in consonance with the results he seeks. The supremest result of spiritual effort is "beyond the reach of speech, thought and imagination," as the Vedas declare. The Vedas use two words to indicate that goal: Nithya and Swagatha. Nithya means that which undergoes no change, in the past, present and future. Swagatha means that which, from one unchanging position, illumines the awareness (jnana prakash) for all from everywhere. The One sun, from where it is, spreads His splendour in all directions. The lamp, though on one spot, sheds light on the entire home. The Atma, likewise, is only ONE; but it awakens all by the light of wisdom.

The sun has two properties: Light and Heat. The Atma too can be viewed in two aspects: Swaruupa and Swabhava - its "It-ness" and "the effect of Its Itness." The innate truth or swaruupa is known as dharmi and its effect or quality or swabhava is known as dharma. When one is aware of the dharma, he can be said to have attained the Dharma-bhootha-jnana (the transformation resulting from the knowledge of the Atma Swabhava or dharma). The sublimation resulting from the knowledge of the essence or Itness or swaruupa of the Atma is Dharmi-bhootha-jnana.

The swaruupa of the Atma is Anu or atomic. Its dharma or quality is splendour. The Atma is described as Vibhu.

Subtler than the subtle anu, Vaster than the vastest, Witnessing all everywhere, Atma is Brahma, Brahma is Atma. This subtlest anu, Atma, is in all things and its quality is therefore evident everywhere. It occupies all, but it cannot be occupied by any other. The Atma-principle, the Brahman principle, is immanent in all things in the Universe, but nothing can penetrate it. Since the anu or the Atma which has that form is in all things, it is clear that all things are Atma! There is nothing in the Universe devoid of this anu force. This quality of the anu is cognisable in all things as the dharma. So, the dharmi or atma is omnipresent. The human body too is no exception to this. The atom or anu is immanent in it and so, we are the embodiments of Atma, of Athmic energy.

(Holding up a silver tumbler in His hand, Bhagavan said): To know this as a silver tumbler is knowledge of the dharma, knowledge of the effect; to know this is silver is knowledge of the dharmi. This handkerchief too has the anu characteristic. Burn it, it becomes ash; ash has atoms; the anu persists even when the substance takes another form. That is the reason why the Atma is announced as Eternal Truth by the Vedas.

The body is composed of many substances but every substance is essentially anu in structure. Appearance and nomenclature may change through childhood, boyhood, adolescence, youth, middle age and senescence, but the dharmi, the Brahman-reality, shines in native splendour without being affected in the least. Ignoring this one Reality, the Truth, man is fully involved in illusory tangles.

Things are not so important; the transcendental truth of the things is of value. You must visualise the spiritual in the material, the gold in the jewels, the Divine in the diversity of character and conduct. Seek to know the Atma. All are equal in birth and in death. Differences arise only during the interval. The Emperor and the beggar are both born naked; they sleep equally silently, they both bow out without even leaving their new address. Then how can their reality be different? There can be no doubt on this score. All are basically the same. Who belongs to whom? How long does kinship endure? This attitude must not prompt you to escape your duties. The allotted duties have to be fulfilled by each individual. Brahman has no duties, no involvement. Though the world rests in Brahman, it is not affected in the least. The snake has poison fangs but it is not poisoned by it, the scorpion has poison in its tail but it causes no harm to the scorpion. When you see your own image in a hundred mirrors, you neither fear nor doubt. God knows that everything is His Image; He is not affected thereby. The Vedas distinguish three entities - the sea, the wave and the foam. The sea is the Kootastha, the Unchanging Base, the Omniself, the Paramatma. The wave that emerges from it and merges in it is the jeevatma (the particularised, individualised form of the Paramatma). The foam that forms on the crest of the wave and dissolves in it is the dehatma (the bodyconsciousness, producing the illusion of distinction from both wave and sea, though essentially it too is the sea).

Since the Atma is in anu form in the body, body consciousness is termed dehatma consciousness. Jeevatma activates by its presence the individual consciousness. The Paramatma is the base on which everything rests. But, man believes he is the body and ignores the dehatma. He thinks he is a jeeva but ignores the jeevatma; he concludes that as an individual, he is separate; he ignores the Paramatma. Does the tree taste the sweetness of its fruit? Does the creeper inhale the fragrance of the flower? Does the book imbibe the inspiration of the poem? Does the pandit caught in activity experience the joy of detachment? But a guru who has the experience of Truth can direct you along the sadhanas. The guru can only inform and inspire; the disciple has to move and act. The mother speaks in order that the child might learn to speak. She cannot put her tongue into the child's mouth! It has to use its own. The scriptures can only inform and inspire. The wildness of the senses has to be controlled. Many try to do this by limiting the intake of the food, or inflicting, other types of punishment on oneself. But, these are perversions. The most effective means is the acquisition of Truth, the Truth of the Self. Since man is sunk in ignorance, the ignorance of the One Universal Eternal Atma that is the Truth in all beings, his love is narrow, restricted and centred in the ego. How then can he merge in Paramatma? Can an ant crawl over the waves of the sea? But, if he renounces his attachment to his 'narrowness' and resolves to join the sea, he gets the name and the taste of the sea itself. Seek to become vaster, the vastest, the sea, the Brahman.

Unite - in the One. That is your mission, your destiny. Do not isolate yourself - "I for me," "He for him." If you hope to be happy while isolated, take it from me, it is a frail dream. Know that you are the Atma, just as everything else is. The Atma is self-luminous; you do not need a lighted lamp to discover a lighted lamp! You need no candle or lantern to see the moon. You can see the moon through its own- rays. The Atma shines in all; you have only to open your eyes and know it. The scriptures declare, "All this is God," "God is in all." Mere repetition of these truths as slogans is of no benefit; experience the Truth, live in the light of the Truth. The guru initiated the disciple in the manthra "Shivoham" ("Shiva am I"). He continued repeating it constantly. Some one asked him what the manthra meant. He told him, "It means' I am Shiva" but he had still no faith in that fact. That questioner had heard of Shiva being wedded to Parvathi. So, he asked, "If you are Shiva, what of Parvathi?" The disciple was shocked. He had no courage to face the query and reply that Parvathi is the Shakthi-principle of the Shiva aspect of God. He had not become Shiva nor had he faith that he could become so. Embodiments of Love! The Divine has no special day, earmarked as Birthday. The day when you cultivate holy thoughts, attitudes and modes of behaviour in your hearts, the day when you decide upon some activity of pure unselfish service, that is the Day of Birth of the Divine for you. From that day, you can celebrate the Birthday as a festival.