Understand this clearly. Butter is very soft, but it does not melt unless you heat it a little. Similarly, God is very soft and sweet, but in order to experience Him, you need the fire of spiritual wisdom (jnana).
This can be illustrated by the life of a couple living in a forest during the recluse (vanaprastha) stage. The wife arranges three bricks in the form of a hearth and places a vessel on it. She pours rice and water in the pot and lights fire under the vessel.
Her husband, always immersed in the contemplation of Brahman, sees this and gives a spiritual interpretation to it. He compares the three bricks to the three qualities (gunas) of serenity, passion, and sloth (sathwa, rajas, thamas), the vessel to human body, rice to desires, water to love, and fire to the fire of wisdom.
The devotee who spoke first here now was, let me tell you, denying God for 25 years, and it is only since five years, after seeing Me, that he has changed. Of course, many people have had no experience that could change them, so they are not to be blamed for their want of faith. So too, this Seshagiri Rao here was finding fault with his son and daughters for coming to Puttaparthi, and himself for long refusing to come! One day at Bangalore, there was a function in the house opposite his, for I had gone there. During bhajans (group singing of devotional songs), this man hesitantly crossed the road and peeped into the hall, and I went forward and called him and made him sit near Me. I asked him to come to Puttaparthi and invited him to “examine” and “experience”. He has been with Me ever since; it is now 18 years since he first came here. This is just the reason I came to sow the seeds of faith, in religion and in God. You might have heard some people say that I became Sai Baba w...
Repetition of the Name and meditation are means by which you can compel even the concretisation of the divine Grace, in the Form and with the Name you yearn for. The Lord has to assume the Form you choose, the Name you fancy; in fact, you shape Him so. Therefore, do not change these two, but stick to the ones that please you most, whatever the delay or the difficulty. Do not get discouraged that you are not able to concentrate for long from the very beginning. When you learn to ride a bicycle, you do not get the skill of keeping the balance immediately. You push the cycle along to an open maidan and hop and skip, leaning now to one side and now to the other and even fall with the cycle upon you on many an attempt, before you are able to ride with skill and never again to worry about the balance. Automatically, you are able to make the necessary adjustments to correct the balance, is it not?
There is a widely prevalent habit now of judging others and labeling them as theists or atheists. What do you know, what can you know, of the inner working of another’s mind?
There was once a queen who was a great devotee of Rama. She felt so sad that her husband, the Raja, never even uttered the name of Rama and had no devotion. She had vowed that on the first occasion on which she got evidence of his devotion, or at least respect for repeating Rama’s name, she would conduct ritualistic worship in all the temples and feed the poor on a lavish scale.
Then, one night, while fast asleep, the Raja uttered Rama’s name thrice plaintively and prayerfully. She heard this repetition of the Name and was happy at the discovery of her husband’s devotion to Rama. She ordered general rejoicing throughout the kingdom and the feeding of the poor.
