Sri Sathya Sai Speaks

People are bundles of impulses and intentions, and giving free rein to the impulses reduces their innate divinity and inner peace. The impulses are the fuel, the intentions are the fire. The fire can be put out only by placing the fuel aside. The dying down of the fire is the attainment of peace. Dive deep into the ocean of peace and earn the invaluable pearl, the bliss of the Atma (Atma-ananda). When that opportunity is seized, one becomes the personification of the effulgent, the holy state of peace. That is why the Vedas declare that people are the embodiment of peace. Therefore, don’t delude yourself by imagining that you are the seat of disquiet and untruth. Know that you are the embodiment of peace, that love is the blood that flows in your veins, and that your very nature is joy; realize this by actual practice and experience.

Without peace, it is impossible to see the truth. Just as the rays of the sun are necessary for the blossoming flower and the ripening fruit, so the rays of peace are necessary for the full development of humanity. Only with peace can one ripen into the realization of the true, the eternal, the blissful Brahman.

Brahman is a shoreless, bottomless ocean. That ocean is the basis for the ever-shifting waves, the evidence and result of its power. The wave emerges from the sea, leaps forth from it, falls back into it, and dissolves itself into it. Though the power of the sea is thus manifested in ups and downs, rise and fall, the sea is steady and fixed.

But the world is concerned more with the temporary and the shifting and thinks that the waves are very important.

So also, the aspirant is more concerned with attainments that are evanescent and changing than with the unchanging experience of the principle behind, the Brahman. All the senses, all the impulses rise up in overpowering strength like waves from the sea, roar in fury, and subside in the waters; they do not confer peace. The wise thing is to forget these waves and to direct attention toward the sea beneath, which is without change. Only then can you attain peace and swim about happily in the deep undisturbed waters.

Why are the denizens of the deep sea so happy? Because they have water all around them - above, below, on all sides. They cannot survive for even a second outside it. Even when they have perforce to come out of the water, they struggle frantically to reach it again, for the disaster will bring about death itself. So too, when one is immersed in peace, one will experience the joy and exhilaration of that state, in all ways. A person who has tasted that joy and exhilaration can never tolerate even for a second the state of peacelessness (a-santhi) and will never desert the peaceful stage. If it ever happens that one is forced into peacelessness, one will struggle furiously and desperately to return to the state of peace and might even die in the attempt.

But why should such a person ever be thrown on the shore of peacelessness and risk life in escaping back into peace? One can be ever in a state of bliss, immersed in the ocean of peace, can’t one? One should not float on the upper waves of impulses and intentions. One must dive deeper and try to revel at the calmer levels. This is the most urgent task. Then, one will not endanger oneself by being thrown out and beyond, upon the dry shore.

Only this type of pure and holy peace will remove the walls that now divide people. It will transform all the absurd hatreds, misunderstandings, disgusts, and prejudices that warp human behavior. Peace is the manifestation of the greatness of love. It will endow all who come under its authority with tremendous power for good. It can place God within your grasp and you within God’s grasp.

Spiritual discipline can confer no higher power. It is the very secret of the life principle in creation. It is the highest individualization of the glory of the Atma. It is the magic wand in the hands of the devotee, with which one can master the entire world. Besides, it confers the greatest degree of contentment.