This little book contains the articles written by Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba in the series Dharma Vahini for the Sanathana Sarathi, the monthly journal published from Prasanthi Nilayam. They are given here in English; but, it must be said that the original Telugu is simpler and sweeter. It is difficult to express in English the fundamental ideas of Indian culture, for English is strange to the translator and perhaps to many a reader; the English vocabulary does not offer satisfactory equivalents to many words that form the common currency of Indian languages. The reader will, therefore, pardon me for the alloy of abstruseness that might have come into the pure metal of Baba’s Telugu clarity.
This must be said of this book: It is the authentic Voice of the Divine Phenomenon, that is setting right the moral codes and behaviour of millions of men and women today. So, it merits careful and devoted study. The Lord has declared that when ethical standards fall and man forgets or ignores ...
This Book
Baba has clarified that the word vidya used for this vahini (stream), means “that which (ya) illumines (vidh)”.
It is this sense that is highlighted in expressions like Atma-vidya, Brahma-vidya, and even the name Vidyagiri (giri means hill or mountain) given to the campus of the Institute of Higher Learning at Prasanthi Nilayam.
Baba makes us aware of the comparatively less beneficial lower learning, which deals with theories, inferences, concepts, conjectures, and constructions. The higher learning hastens and expands the universal urge to know and become truth, goodness, and beauty (sathyam, sivam, sundaram). Baba has come as Man among men on a self-imposed mission to correct the wrongs inflicted on mankind through the fanatically blind pursuit of lower learning. The human race has to voyage on an even keel; it is leaning too alarmingly toward the briny grave; the lower learning is lowering it into the bottomless pit. Only spiritual knowledge - that which illumines (vid...
0. Dear Reader
Addressing a mammoth gathering at Gudur some years ago, Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba said, “You will not be wrong to call Me Premaswarupa (Embodiment of Love).” In fact, Baba showers love (prema), seeks love, and establishes love in the heart of the individual, the fabric of society, and the complex of nations. Humanity, which has lost its way and is shivering in terror, unable to control the evil that it has generated by its insane pranks, needs Baba’s grace and love to allay its neurosis and bring it back to the light. Baba said twenty-two years ago that He would inaugurate His task of recreating and reforming man on the true basis of dharma when He had completed thirty-two years of stay here upon the Earth. In 1958, when He reached that moment, He blessed the venture of a monthly magazine, and he named it Sanathana Sarathi, a name full of the fragrance of the Gita and the Lord’s role as the charioteer of whoever selects Him as the guide.
It is significant that...
1. Good character is spiritual power
More than all previous eras (yugas), the present one (the Kali-yuga) offers multifarious paths through which people can acquire discrimination (viveka). If it is education that is needed, there are many schools and institutions, and if it is wealth that one is after, there are various avenues by which, with effort, it can be honourably earned. In spite of this, however, we don’t find any increase in human happiness or peace. In fact, there is much more misery than in previous ages!
What is the reason? The reason lies in human behaviour, in the way people live. Human life is undoubtedly the highest in evolution, and to give it meaning, spiritual endeavour, endeavour that is pure and holy, is essential.
For this way of life, character is all important. Character makes life immortal; it survives even death. Some say that knowledge is power, but it is not true. Character is power. Even the acquisition of knowledge demands a good character. So, everyon...
11. Shed attachment to worldly pleasures, develop attachment to God
The heart’s blemishes have to be washed by a moral life and doing of one’s duty. A time may come when one becomes tired and weak, but one should then pray thus: Lord, things have gone beyond my capacity. I feel further effort is too great a strain. Give me strength, O Lord!
At first, God stands at a distance, watching one efforts, like the teacher who stands apart when the student writes out answers to questions. Then, when one sheds attachment to sensual pleasures (bhoga) and takes to good deeds and selfless service, God comes encouragingly near. Like the sungod (Surya-narayana), He waits outside the closed door. Like the manservant who knows their master’s rights and their own limitations, He doesn’t announce his presence or bang on the door but simply waits. And when the master opens the door just a little, the sun rushes in and promptly drives darkness out from within. When His help is requested, He is pres...
21. Listen, contemplate, and sing God’s name
Vedas and Puranas deserve to be read and heard. God’s name is to be recited and listened to. For some ailments, medicines are prescribed for external application while for others, they are given for internal use. But for this universal ailment of the cycle of birth and death (bhava-roga), listening to spiritual discourses (sravana), singing God’s name (kirtana), and other medicines are prescribed for external and internal use. One has to utter as well as hear the Lord’s name. An aspirant might win God’s grace, the guru’s grace, and the grace of devotees of the Lord, but all this grace is of no avail if another grace is not secured, the grace of their own inner consciousness (anthah-karana). Without this grace, the aspirant falls into perdition, for all the rest are of no account whatsoever.
The grace of God is not easily attainable. The feeling of I-ness (ahamkara), which makes one say “I am the doer”, should be plucked by th...
31. Bharath is the home of the Eternal Universal Religion
The Vedic religion is the only religion to achieve and maintain the foremost position among all religions from earliest times and to be established permanently. The only people who have survived without being destroyed, throughout the historic age, are the Hindus. In this religion, more than in any other, people have practised lives of love, equality, and gratitude. The Hindus have earned their dharma through the discovery of philosophic principles and through the Vedas. They have drunk deeply the essence of the Vedas, which are without beginning and end. A land so holy is a veritable spiritual mine for the world. Just as the bowels of the earth reveal mines of different metals in each area, so in Bharath is found the mine of the Eternal Religion (Sanathana Dharma), of the essence of all the principles of all the scriptures (sastras), all the Vedas, and all the Upanishads.
As if by the good luck of the Bharathiyas (Indians), fro...
41. Seek the vision of the Divine, not death
Without assimilating this truth in the heart, the individual soul is immersed in the aims of today and tomorrow, based on the assumption that the body is all important. It thus lays the foundations for worldly attachment, so it is born again and again with body and continues to have the vision (darshan) of Yama!
It is the right of the aspirant (sadhaka) to have the vision of Siva and not the sight of death (Yama-darshan)!
The aspirant won’t wish for or even contemplate it. Only those who have this relationship of the body (deha) and the individual (jiva) are human. And those who have realised this principle won’t flag even to the slightest extent in their spiritual discipline.
These days, people are content to visualise and experience evanescent worldly joys. People have no rest.
Spending the nights in sleep and days in eating and drinking, they grow and grow, until, in old age, death pursues them. Then, they can’t decide where to go o...
51. Devotion is of two kinds: effortful devotion and self-surrender
Those who follow the above-said nine-fold path are of two kinds.
The followers of the hard path. The followers of the safe and easy path. These are sometimes referred to as (1) devotion with effort (bhakthi) and (2) self-surrender (prapatthi). That is to say, the practice of the young of the monkey is devotion and the practice of a kitten is self-surrender.
Devotion has to be continuous, uninterrupted, like the flow of oil from one vessel to another. Though the two kinds are basically the same, the practices are different. Without love (prema), nothing in this world can be acquired. Only when there is love does attachment (anuraga) in its turn produce the desire to protect and guard.
In both the above kinds of people, love is equal, no doubt, but in actual manifestation there is a difference. In the young-of-the-monkey path, the child has to rely on its own strength to protect itself - wherever the mother might jum...
61. The characteristics of the devotee and worldly person
People crave worldly happiness. Analysed properly, this itself is the disease, and sufferings are but the drugs we take. In the midst of these worldly pleasures, one rarely entertains the desire to attain the Lord. Besides, it is necessary to analyse and discriminate every act of a person, for the spirit of renunciation is born out of such analysis. Without it, renunciation is difficult to get. Miserliness is like the behaviour of a dog; it has to be transformed.
Anger is enemy Number 1 of the spiritual aspirant; it is like spittle and has to be treated as such. And untruth? It is even more disgusting - through untruth, the vital powers of all are destroyed. It should be treated as scavenging itself. Theft ruins life; it makes the priceless human life cheaper than a pie; it is like rotten foul smelling flesh.
Moderate food, moderate sleep, love (prema), and fortitude will help in the upkeep of the health of both body and mind. W...
