Sai Baba Gita - To Reach the Permanent, Go Beyond the Impermanent

[Guest guest]

To Reach the Permanent, Go Beyond the Impermanent

Trying to know the Lord through the changing forms found in the gross physical

universe, is a type of delusion. The permanent unchanging entity cannot be

known through impermanent, changing forms. Whatever knowledge you get this way

will be impermanent. Whatever joy you may derive from trying to know him in

this way will only be temporary. The basic nature of these five elements is

that they are constantly undergoing change. To reach the state of the

permanent, you have to go beyond these five elements and their changing forms.

Suppose you go on a pilgrimage to a temple to have a vision of the Lord. Coming

there, you may have had to undergo a great many difficulties. Then, when you

finally arrive there and have a chance to go into the temple, you stand before

the likeness of the Lord with your heart filled with yearning. You look at the

sacred image, but immediately you find yourself closing your eyes as you

experience the intense feelings of being in the divine presence. Spontaneously,

you close your eyes and turn your vision inwards. Having gone to so much trouble

to get there to have a look at the holy image, why, once you are there, do you

close your eyes and look within yourself? What is the inner significance of

this? You turn your sight inward because you realize that in order for you to

get a permanent and true vision of the Lord, you have to look inside your

heart. You know intuitively that the pictures taken in through your eyes will

remain fleeting impressions, superimposed on impermanent

thoughts. After having registered these visual images in the thoughts, they must

be fixed so that they can become unchanging impressions in the heart.

Although you cannot get a direct experience of the divinity in the physical

universe, the indirect vision of the divinity that you can get there will give

you some sacred experiences. Just because the physical world is transient and

changing you should not renounce these feelings of connectedness with the

divinity, even though they may be short-lived. These feelings will give you

some temporary joy. First, you will have to secure this temporary joy and then

slowly and gradually make the journey towards permanent joy. This journey will

take you through the three worlds, the physical, the mental and the causal,

going from the grossest to the most subtle. It is only in the causal that you

will find the image of real truth. The causal arises from the transcendental

state, which interpenetrates these three worlds, and is beyond them. That

transcendental source which illuminates the causal is the unchanging light of

the atma.

http://www.atmapress.com/saibabagita/saigita219.html

Sai Baba Gita, Compiled and edited by Al Drucker - Published by Atma Press -

http://www.atmapress.com - ISBN: 0963844903Online Edition:

http://www.atmapress.com/saibabagita/index.html

 

Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at HotJobs