Sri Sathya Sai Speaks

EMBODIMENTS of love! The dictum of Bharatheeya Culture is that all people should enjoy happiness and prosperity. Bharath is the birth-place of spirituality and the qualities of charity and righteousness. It is known for its devotion to peace and security. The adherence to truth practises in Bharath could not be found in any other country. This land gave birth to the immortal Seven Sages. It is the birth-place of the first among poets, Valmeeki, (author of the epic Ramayana), and the Sage Vyasa, who codified the Vedas.

Bharath is the land where Rama established the reign of Righteousness. Bharath is the sacred land where Krishna preached the Geetha. This is the land sanctified by the advent of Buddha. It has the glory of witnessing the many incarnations of the Lord.

Unfortunately Bharatheeyas are not recognizing the sacred greatness of their country. Bharath was the land where at one time there was no one who did not practise dhana (charity) or Dharma (virtue). These two qualities constituted the main wealth of the nation. Bharatheeyas used to utter a prayer before embarking on any act, however trivial.

The young boys and girls of today are the inheritors of this sacred wealth. Bharatheeyas of today, both young and old, should strive to preserve this heritage. Since ancient times Bharath has been the leader of spirituality and holding forth the message of peace and prosperity to the rest of the world. Then and now the Bharatheeya ideal has been: "Let all the people of all countries be happy."

Bharatheeyas today are letting slip this great, sacred and precious heritage. They are pursuing purely mundane and material gains.

Bharatheeyas should realise that just as the body can be healthy only so long as the blood is pure, they can have real bliss, only as long as their minds are filled with thoughts of God. Bliss is not something apart. As long as sublime thoughts, noble feelings fill their hearts, they will experience bliss. Every thought arises from the heart. When the heart is filled with love, every thought and feeling becomes loving.

Hence, what Bharatheeyas should seek is love-filled hearts. Every act stemming from the heart should be filled with love. Every effort should be made to foster this ancient culture of Bharath.

In the chanting of the Lord's name there is no specific regimen to be followed. It is not governed by differences of creed, caste and religion or by any age restriction.

It is not associated with any particular language. It is like a boat that can be used by one and all. It is by the constant chanting of the Lord's name that Bharath has been protected through the ages. No other country can lay claim to the kind of spiritual wealth possessed by Bharath.

One of the earliest scientific investigators in the west declared that there is a base for all knowledge, all science and all wisdom. "This is the Supreme Truth. Bharath is the original home of this Truth." Truth is God. This Truth should never be forgotten.

Investigators elsewhere enquired into the .source of all knowledge and wisdom and found that Bharath had found that Truth was the basis of all knowledge. Today people are not making such investigations. Crores of rupees are spent on trivial investigations and time and energy are wasted on them.

Divinity cannot be discovered by .experiments. The different methods of devotion may not directly reveal God, but they show the path to God-realisation. For instance, the sourness in the neem fruit and the sweetness in the sugarcane indicate the presence of the Divine. The basis for all the varied phenomena in Nature - the twinkling of the stars, the revolutions of the planets, the fire from the sun - is the Divine. Nature proclaims the immanence of God. You look with awe at a mountain. You feel ecstatic at the torrent of a mighty river. The sight of a green forest lights you. All these are manifestations of the Divine mystery. All the beauties in Nature testify to the basic presence of the Divine in all things.

What is the basis for man? It is the body. All the powers found outside are to be found in the human body. It was for this reason that the sages and the scriptures called upon man to discover his true nature.

What does "Knowing one's self mean? A man's real self is not known by finding his lineage, or his profession, his nationality or scholarship. These are all attributes employed in ordinary parlance to identify a person. A1 these are related to one's body. When a person declares that one is a Brahmin or a young man, or a woman, these terms relate to the body.

"Know thyself does not mean knowing all about the body. What is to be known is the Shareeri (indwelling Spirit). It is not enough to know about the Kshethra (the body). You must know the Kshethrajna (the Knower of the Field, the body). Krishna declared in the Geetha: "Know that I am the abode - Kshethra and the Knower of the abode - Kshethrajna." Humanness consists in the unity of the two. The body is essential for knowing the nature of the indwelling Spirit. It is only when the Kshethra (the body) is used properly that the nature of the Kshethrajna (the Indwelling Knower) can be understood.

How are the various divine potencies in man to be made known? What are the basic requirements for every person? A mind pure as butter, a heart cool and pleasing as the moon, speech sweet as honey - when these three qualities are developed, Divinity is experienced. When you examine the present state of things, you find the mind is polluted, the heart is filled with bitterness and the speech is marked by harshness. These are not the marks of true humanness. These are signs of a cruel nature.

Hence, everyone should cultivate nectarine sweetness of speech, a moon like pleasing heart and. an unsullied butter-like mind. These are the characteristics of the Divinity latent in man.

To realise this inherent divinity in man the royal path is spirituality. God can be realised by any path. The scriptures indicated the nine paths of devotion for God-realisation and showed that chanting the name of the Lord is the simplest. Whatever form of worship, penance or meditation one may adopt, the foundation is the Lord's name. The entire Rig Veda is replete with the Lord's name. The Yajur Veda is a compendium of manthras (sacred sound formulae). Sama Veda is filled with melody. The human heart is combination of music, manthra and name (of the Lord). The ancients regarded the human being as a combination of yanthra, manthra and thanthra.

The body is a yanthra (a machine). The life-breath is a manthra. The heart is thanthra. What is the manthra contained in the life-breath? It is "So-Ham". The manthra "So-Ham" (I am He) is chanted by each breathing. 'So' (He) is the sound that arises when air is breathed in. 'Aham...'(I am) is the sound that emanates when the air is breathed out. This sacred mantra is proclaimed by the heart with each breath. To pronounce this manthra the body is essential. If any minute part of the body is affected, the entire system will be affected, just as a defective bolt or nut can make a rocket functionless.

All organs in the human body should be kept functioning properly. Only then it would be possible to rise from the human to the divine level. How is this to be accomplished? By dedicating every action to the Lord. When every action is done with the consciousness that it is done for the pleasure of the Lord, life gets divinised. There is no need for anyone to give up any of his duties or actions in daily life. All that is needed is to perform everyone of them in a spirit of dedication to the Lord.

Embodiments of love! For anything that you want to accomplish, faith or self-confidence is vital. Faith is as basic for spiritual progress as breathing is essential for life. Today what we witness is devotion without faith. There is a familiar saying that a bull without a yoke, a horse without curbs, a car without brakes and mind without sense-control are. dangerous and useless.

Chanting the Lord's name is essential for crossing the turbulent ocean of life. It is a boat that can carry you across the deeper ocean. In chanting the Lord's name, one should be tranquil, utterly selfless and pure at heart. Ostentation and egoism should be eschewed.

One can follow any of the nine forms of devotion (from listening to total surrender) with purity of mind and in an unselfish spirit. In singing bhajans, there should be no spirit of competition and no cavilling of others. The entire concentration should be on the name and form in the present Kali Yuga the chanting of the Lord's name is the panacea. In Kritha was Dhyana (meditation). In Thretha Yuga it was Yajna (ritual sacrifice). In Dhvapara Yuga it was Archana (worship of icons). In the Kali Yuga, there is no other means needed for human redemption except the mere chanting of the name of Hari.

The Lord's name can be chanted while you are travelling or before you go to sleep, or while you are doing any of your daily chores. This easy, sacred path has been laid down for people in the Kali Yuga.

Today you have every kind of amenity. You have hospitals, schools and other institutions to serve you. The only thing people lack is faith in God. What is the use of having everything else? Develop faith in God.

It is the duty of students, boys and. girls, to foster ,the ancient culture that has come down to us as a precious heritage. You are the inheritors of this culture. You must enter every walk of life in the world and infuse spirituality in it. Young people are sacrificing their lives in meaningless conflicts. Humanness is at a low level. Demonic tendencies have reared their heads. Young people should counter these forces and uphold the culture and human values of Bharath.

If you develop the sense of spiritual oneness of all mankind the conflicts of today will vanish. Discord has become ubiquitous. At the root of all this is the loss of faith in God. Get rid of jealousy and egoism. Then you will experience the Divine.

Sarva namadharam Shivam Sath-chith-anandha ruupam Adhvaitham Sathyam Shivam Sundharam.

All forms of the Lord are peaceful. By whatever name the Divine is cherished in one's heart, that is Shivam - the one without a second, whose form is Being-Awareness-Bliss. When the changeless Sath combines with Chith (total awareness), you have Anandha (bliss). It is like the union of sugar and water which produces syrup.

The Geetha has declared that the one Divine is present in all beings as consciousness like the current that illumines a variety of bulbs. To be conscious of this oneness is the highest manifestation of love.

Embodiments of Love! You can have no idea of the greatness of Bharath as the land of wisdom, of yoga, of merit and noble deeds. Many foreigners desired to take birth and pass away in this sacred land. The great savant, Max Mueller, wished to be reborn in Bharath. He was such a great seeker that he was named 'Moksha Muula' (one who is rooted in liberation). He made a thorough study of the Vedas. He regarded every clod of earth in Bharath as sacred. He regarded everything in Bharath as Divine. In Bharath unfortunately Bharatheeyas do not have the same feeling regarding their motherland. Foreigners are having this blissful experience and are undergoing a great transformation.

The process of change is going on continuously everywhere. A seed grows into a tree, an egg becomes a chicken. But man is failing to grow into the Divine. Instead he is falling into the demonic state.

This is not proper. Mankind should go forward from the human to the Divine. Evolving from the animal, becoming human, mankind should ascend to Divinity.

Embodiments of love! Whatever situation you may confront, never give room for religious differences. Whether it is Allah or Krishna or Jesus, God is one. The one Lord has a myriad names. The goal is one. Don't entertain the idea of "my religion" and "his religion." Consider ideas of creed and nationality. Foster the feeling of oneness of all mankind. This is what you should develop on the sacred occasion of Shivarathri.

Shivarathri comes once a year. But the auspicious qualities in you are always there. Constant repetition of the Lord's name at all times and at all places is the message of Shivarathri. I bless you all that you should realise God by devotion to God and by adherence to righteous thoughts and actions.