Sri Sathya Sai Speaks

IT is the bounden duty of man in this life, as also in later lives, to know and experience the basic cause of the Universe and all the love and sweetness it evokes in him. When that is done, man can have uninhibited bliss. All his misery is due to separation from that Source of all. He is Sath- Chith-Anandha (Being, Awareness, Bliss Absolute)swaruupa (embodiment) and he must become aware of this fact so that he may be 'happy. If he believes that he is not Sath, but a lesser principle, subject to decline, decay and death, he will be haunted by fear and uncertainty. If he thinks that he is not Chith, he will be caught in doubt and dialectics and will wander on the devious paths of delusion. If he assumes that he is not Anandha, he will be struck by every passing gust of disappointment and be subject to sorrow on every trivial defeat. The basic cause of the Universe is Sath-Chith-Anandha, and since man too is a spark of the same first cause, he too is made of the same components. The Original Will wished all this to be manifested. He who is the embodiment of that Will has to be adored and remembered in gratitude, for we are all expressions of that same Will. He is the One that deserves our love and homage. The gopees (cowherd girls) and gopalas (cowherd boys), though they were not learned in spiritual lore or philosophic discipline, knew that Krishna was the visible embodiment of that Will and therefore poured their love at His Lotus Feet.

The bubble rises from the water, floats on water bursts and finally merges in the water itself. The bubble is a temporary phase of water with a temporary name and a temporary form. If it should feel that being light and bright, it is separate from water, the idea is a delusion born of ignorance. So, too, with man. Man is Atman (soul), lives as Atman (divine self) and merges in Atman (Infinite Self). Anything conceived besides Atman is false. The fear and anxiety, the grief and pain, the defeat and distress of man's earthly existence - these are the result of his identification with falsehood. Man is truth, his consciousness is truth. So he ought to proceed from one truth to another, from one facet of truth to another brighter and clearer one. No one really moves from untruth to truth. What is called untruth is only partial truth, or dulled truth or clouded truth. The ultimate goal is the uncovering of Truth. The mind is like a boulder which the intellect transforms into an image, even as a sculptor does. If the intellect allows the senses to dictate the design, the boulder will be shaped into a horrid idol. If, however, the senses are sublimated by the spirit, the image wrought by the intellect will be simply adorable. One must have the mind fully co-operating in the spiritual discipline and not obstructing its progress at every step. Liberation is the goal and the mind must help the pilgrim at every stage of his journey. Mind should not admit any activity that is contrary to dharma (righteousness) or injurious to spiritual progress.

The gopees had trained their minds to help and promote spiritual discipline and so their minds never wavered or strayed into wrong paths. They stuck to Krishna - Krishna the Friend, the Kinsman, the Comrade, the Companion, the Lover and the Loved One. When Krishna was told by His friends and companions that the food packets that they had brought from their homes did not suffice to allay their hunger, He advised them to go a little way into the forest and ask food of the Brahmana priests who were performing a huge yaga (sacrifice) there. But when they did so, the priests would not even speak to them for their ceremonial purity would be undone by conversing with people born of lower castes! Besides, the yaga was not yet finished and the valedictory offering to the fire had not been made, so how could they even think of handing out food to others before they had eaten themselves? When the boys returned with long faces indicating their failure to get food, Krishna asked them to go again, by-pass the men and ask the women instead. Krishna assured them that they would return happy and with large quantities of eatables. The boys found the women engaged in the kitchen. When they told them that Krishna had sent them to get some food, they left the kitchen and hurried to Krishna with huge quantities of the delicious food which had been prepared for the big feast ahead. Their hearts cried at the thought of Krishna in urgent need of food. They had heard of the Divine Leelas (miracles) of Krishna which revealed His Avatharhood (nature of Divine Incarnation), such as the destruction of the demonic force sent by His wicked uncle Kamsa to slay Him. The priests peeped into the kitchen when the yaga was over and found the vessels empty and the women gone to the presence of Krishna and His companions.

Women preserve the culture of this country with greater tenacity and faith. They keep men on the moral path and inspire them to follow spiritual discipline. Their hearts are tender and full of compassion for the hungry and the distressed. That is why in this land women are adored and revered. Elders quote the Shasthras (spiritual texts) which say that the home where the floor is soaked by the tears of a woman can never see peace or prosperity. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa took great care to see that Saradhamani Devi did not take his simple jokes and ridicules too much to heart, for then she might shed tears. We honour the land where we are born as our 'mother country,' the language we learn on our mother's lap as 'mother tongue' and the Universal ancient scripture that teaches us morality as VedaMatha (Mother-Veda). In this way every Indian has four mothers, including the mother who gave birth to him. According to Indian culture, all these have to be adored as Divine.

In order to live up to the high standards, of morality which Indian culture exhorts, you must cultivate love, non-violence, fortitude and equanimity. The last three guard and foster the first, the love that you go out to cultivate. Many people have succeeded, with the help of the latter three qualities, to get their minds established in Universal love, but a large number of sadhakas (spiritual aspirants) give up the ascent midway because they lose confidence in their true selves. They do not believe in God who is the Embodiment of Love and is their real sustenance. The first faint whisper of doubt disheartens them and they slide back into a life of sensual satisfactions. Sadhana alone can steel such people to forge ahead on the spiritual path. The wise are buoyed up by the bliss of their genuine awareness; the seekers and aspirants have their urges satisfied by the experiences of people in whom they have faith. The atheists hang on, by the slim thread of reason, to the beliefs they have once entertained. If they had faith in their own selves, they would have inferred that their selves derive strength and joy only from the Overself or God.

Those who deny God or the Supreme Will or the First Cause, can give no really satisfactory justification for their stand; nor can those who assert that there is God. Both have to rely on their own experience. After all how can sweetness be denied by one who refuses to taste sugar? How can one be convinced that sugar is sweet until one tastes it? We have to feel the great marvel of energy manipulating both the minutest atom and cell and the vastest, most distant star. How else can we understand this Omnipresence and Omnipotence except by accepting God as the Architect of the Cosmos?

You must have heard some people saying that no living person can be adored as God, even though the shruthis (revealed sacred texts) declare, 'Dhaivam manusha roopena' (God appears in the human form). Perhaps they can revere only a corpse! Not Shivam (God) but shavam (corpse) is what they wish to revere.

Many people fight shy of truth for they are afraid of facing the truth about themselves and others. The Vedas declare, 'sathyam vadha' (speak the truth), but these people have become so accustomed to expediency and temporary profit that they cannot stand the full dazzle of truth. Nor is the path of dharma (righteousness) pleasant to them. They are used to byelanes rather than the straight highway of dharma. The Vedas (ancient revealed sacred scriptures) say 'dharmam chara' (walk on the path of virtue), but for people used to crookedness, how can dharma be pleasant? Thus people repeat like parrots the two Vedhic dicta mentioned above, but they do not feel the need to observe them in actual life. In reality, Truth is God; Love is God; Dharma is God. The gopees and gopalas saw in Krishna the Embodiment of Truth, Love and Dharma. What He said was truth; what He was, was Love; what He did was dharma. They were so immersed in Krishna consciousness that they saw, everywhere and in everything, nothing but Krishna. Krishna for them did not exist as a separate entity in the home of Nandha; He was right in their own consciousness, at all levels of it. These gopees and gopalas were true bhakthas (devotees) indeed.