Sri Sathya Sai Speaks

I AM happy to meet you and talk to you on this occasion - the very first gathering of the members of the Council of Management of all the State Trusts and of the Education and Publication Foundation. The aims and objectives of the Trusts are themselves your guides; they can certainly inspire you in your dedicated task. They can help canalise your skills and devotion into activities that can help your spiritual realisation, as well as the welfare and prosperity of your countrymen of all creeds and conditions. I am aware of this. But, yet, since we are working within the framework of the legal and administrative system, we have to pay attention' also to strict accounting and sincere adherence to the requirements of law. There are many Trusts operating in this country and in others beyond the seas. I wish to emphasise that the Sathya Sai Trusts have to shine forth among them all by their special characteristics. They must be based on mutual trust and cooperation, built on the actual experience of the One-ness of all. There is no room here for egoistic poses, compulsory tactics, greed for power, recrimination, and jealousy.

Of course, wherever money is dealt with, these evils are common; there are Trusts that are compelled to enter into the process of litigation even as far as the Supreme Court, against their own members for breach of trust. Remember that Trusts are built firmly on the foundation of trust; if you do not trust yourselves and your own reality, you can never trust another. Ultimately, trust depends on faith in God, as expressed in your own actions and in the actions of others. Virtue can grow only in an atmosphere of theism; you must have faith in the omnipresence of God, that God is the witness, the guide, and the guardian. Self-confidence, confidence that you are the pure unlimited self, is the great reinforcement that religion can endow you with. When you establish this in your hearts, you can be entrusted with any type of responsibility, and any type of work.

The Vedas lay down four goals before men: Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. But they have. to be pursued in pairs. Dharma and Artha (virtue and wealth) together and Kama and Moksha (desire and liberation) together. That is to say, wealth has to be earned through righteousness, and desire has to be for liberation. But, man takes these four separately, and loses all.

He puts them into separate compartments and adopts distinct plans to achieve them. So, his personality is not integrated; he leads a broken life. He gives up dharma and moksha as beyond him and wastes his life pursuing sheer artha and kama. They lead him into ruin. You have to practise righteousness in the management of wealth, especially when the wealth is to be used for human uplift and human betterment as here. Udhyogam purusha lakshanam, it is said. Udh-yoga means, as is commonly understood, employment in some job, something that is worth doing. No, it means udh (higher) yoga (spiritual discipline), a sadhana which has assumed the status of a job. All. jobs which you take up are udh-yogas (higher disciplines), which "mark out the man" (Purusha lakshanam). When artha is sought through dharma, the purushartha deserves the name 'parama-purushartha' for it is parama or oriented towards the para (the higher eternal values).

Tiffs is a chance for service for which you must feel extremely delighted, for, here you can. transmute your devotion and faith into positive acts of service for the benefit of your brothers and sisters. And, since I am with you in all that you do, you have no worry about the success of the undertakings. You have only to be 'instruments;' you need not devise devious ways or roundabout tactics. Doing your duties as members, you have the need to preserve and develop trust in Sai, too.

This is Sai work, which you are invited to enjoy. This is elevating work that brings you nearer to the heart of the Divine. When Narayana hastened to save the elephant front the jaws of the crocodile, the Bhagavatha says, He did not take with Him the weapons - wheel or even the Lotus or the Conch. He went empty handed, as far as eye could discern. The conscious hand must have the inert pickaxe in order to break the hard sod; so too, the Divine Consciousness must have the Prakrithi (objective world or objective instrument) to carry out His plan. You have the chance to contribute to the happiness and beatitude of thousands. In order to carry out this duty, you have yourselves to lead exemplary lives. Your nithya jeevitha (daily living) must be transformed into live prayers and live sadhana. How much struggle are you now going through for ensuring physical comfort! You have to struggle much more for ensuring mental peace and spiritual progress, for sathya jeevitha (life in truth). Calculate within yourselves the benefit that would accrue to you from this sadhana into which you are initiated now, and prepare for shouldering the task assigned to you - to be instruments dedicated for advancing the mission on which the Divine has come.