Swami teaches... Know the ancient scriptures and become stronger thereby

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Sai Ram Light and Love

Swami teaches...

Know the Ancient Scriptures and Become Stronger Thereby

The deity, Dakshinamurthi (primal divine teacher of eternal spiritual

wisdom) was walking along a wide seashore alone, immersed in deep meditation.

He turned towards the waves and watched the unending succession of breakers. He

saw a dry little twig on the crest of a wave in the distance; it was being

passed on from one wave to another, from trough to crest, from crest to trough,

until it was cast on the sands on the shore, near where He stood.

Dakshinamurthi was astounded at the egoism of the Ocean that would not give

asylum to even a tiny twig. Sensing His reaction, the Ocean declared, in words

that He could understand, "Mine is neither egoism nor anger; it is only the

duty of self- preservation. I should not allow the slightest blot to deface my

grandeur. If I allow this twig to mar my splendour, it will be the first step

in my downfall." Then, Dakshinamurthi smiled within Himself, admiring the

vigilance of the mighty Ocean. He pictured the incident as a great lesson in

spiritual endeavour.

The Ramayana too teaches that Sita had to suffer, separation from Rama as a

result of a tiny little desire: to own the golden-hued deer. If only she had

cast it off her mind, as the Ocean did.

Be free from the bondage of desire - this is the refrain in the Ramayana,

the Mahabharata, the Bhagavatha, the Bible, the Quoran, and all the scriptures

of mankind.

Each religion exhorts those who are attracted by it to meditate on God in

certain Form known by a certain Name; but, one who is aware that He is all

Names and all Forms will adopt a sound which is profoundly significant, which

summarises all Names, namely, the Pranava (OM) sound, the akshara (unchanging,

indestructible). Through the changing to the unchanging, that is the journey.

There are three steps or stages in this journey. "I am Yours," You are

Mine," and "I am You." Every sadhaka has to walk from one to the other, and

reach the journey's end. Move on, don't halt. Religion is three-fourths

character. No person can claim to be religious if he merely observes the

sacraments and rules, and fails to be upright and compassionate. Character

alone can harden one to the blows of pain and pleasure.

Grow and rescue yourselves from the limits and regulations, the doctrines

that fence your freedom of thought, the ceremonials and rites that restrict and

redirect. Reach the point where churches do not matter, where all roads end,

from where all roads run. There is no shortcut to attain Self-realisation.

Faith in God being within the heart, faith in His constant presence and

constant guidance - these will confer courage, virtue, and illumination. The

Sastras say, have faith in the doctor, so that you may get cured of illness;

have faith in the mantra with which the preceptor initiates you, for then alone

can your sadhana be fruitful; have faith in the sacredness of the temple, for

then alone is your pilgrimage profitable; have faith in the astrologer's

predictions, for, without it, why bother yourselves with him and his

abracadabra? Have faith in the Guru, for thenalone will your steps be steady

and firm, on the path to Self-realisation. Faith in the Guru should bring faith

in the Atma, the Self. The Guru extolled therein is the sage who has

transcended name and form and is beyond the effect of the three gunas or

attributes; guru is neither good nor bad; neither passionate nor dull; neither

enthusiastic nor uninterested. He is unaffected, calm, content. He is the Atma,

having realised that the Atma is the One and Only. He makes you cast off the

fear of death and birth, he renders you fit for the vision of the eternal

absolute Truth. If you do not come across such preceptors, do not get

downhearted; pray for guidance and from your own heart you will receive the

Gita that you need from the Charioteer who is there. The Gita says, "Pandits

(the learned) see Brahman in the scholar, the sage, the venerable and the

venerator, the cow, the elephant, the dog and the eater of canine flesh." (Such

Pandiths are very rare on the face of the earth; people claim to be Pandiths on

the basis of the scholarship they parade, not the vision they have won).

Veerabhadhra Sastra described very realistically the childhood pranks of

Krishna and explained their significance. There was the scene of Krishna's

dance on the head of the Kaliya a huge big serpent, full of poison, rolling in

death and destruction. Krishna saw the carcasses of animals which had died when

they inhaled the poisoned air, near the Kaliya pool; birds had fallen dead on

the ground. Nothing green could survive in the neighbourhood. As soon as

Krishna jumped into the pool to save the region from the serpent's havoc, his

companions ran horne to bring the parents, so that they could intercede and

stop the foolish pranks of their mischievous son. As He had no vishaya

(objective desires) and so visha (poison) could not affect Him.

Kaliya is the representative of human, rolling in sensory objects, poison so

far as its effect on life is concerned. Vishaya (sensory object) is the most

deadly visha (poison). When Krishna danced on the head of Kaliya, the poison

was all vomitted. And the serpent was subdued. When God is revered, the

world and all its poisonous fumes recede and you are restored to original

health.

 

The Lord and lust cannot be together. How then could the gopees have any

body-consciousness, when they adored Krishna? Krishna had already announced

His Glory to the cowherd maidens by such divine miracles, as the uplifting of

the mountain Govardhanagiri. He had manifested the Universe in His mouth and

showed that He had come on a Divine Mission to destroy the wicked and save the

good. (Avatars choose the time and the mode of announcement of their advent and

their Glory).

The gopees knew the secret passage to the heart of the Lord and they

realised Him quick and fast. The Gita says that if you give up all Dharma and

take refuge in Him alone, then He will save you from sin and wipe your tears.

Giving up Dharma does not mean that you can bid farewell to virtue and

righteous action; it means, you have to give up the egoism that you are the

'doer,' be confirmed in the faith that He is the 'doer' of every deed.That is

the genuine 'giving up.'

You have heard that Krishna is Murali-Madhava,(Madhava - the Lord of the

Universe) and what exactly is the murali? You must be the murali (the flute).

Let the breath of Krishna pass through you, making delightful music that melts

the hearts. Surrender yourself to Him; become hollow, egoless, desireless;

then, He will Himself come and pick you up caressingly and apply you - the

flute - to His lips and blow His sweet breath through you. Allow Him to play

whatever song He likes. Even objective desires will be transmuted into higher

spheres of purity when one approaches the Lord. Nothing against Dharma can

stand the presence of the Lord. That fire will consume all impurities.

 

Sanctify every word and deed by filling it with Prema of Krishna or whatever

Name and Form you give to the Lord you love. The gold of which an anklet was

made, can become the gold for a crown on the head of a temple image; only it

has to be melted in the crucible and beaten into shape. The waters of the river

might be dirty; but, the bhaktha who sips it with a mantra or a sacred sound or

prayer on his lips, transmutes it into a sacred sanctified water. The body

becomes healthy by exercise and work; the mind becomes healthy by Upasana

(devout contemplation) and Namasmarana (remembrance of the Divine), by regular,

well-planned discipline, joyfully accepted and joyfully carried out.

All your life, you must be Love, with Love, for Love. That is to say, love

expressed through service to those that draw that love from you, and by

drawing, help to increase it and deepen it. Spiritual discipline is designed to

canalise that love, so that it may irrigate the heart, which will otherwise go

dry. Love must be many-stranded in order to be strong and tough. A single

strand, is too weak. Have it many-stranded, one towards the mother, another

towards the father, others strands towards husband, wife, friend, son,

daughter, etc. of course Love is all-embracing, it cannot be confined to one

item and denied to, another. It is a current that flows over all meditation on

the Lord and His Love will help you to tap it from the depths of your heart.

And, if there be righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the

character; if there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the

home; if there be harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation; if

there be order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.

(Injury inflicted on any being is sacrilege, self-injury. Love is

transformed into poison if hate contaminates it. Love some, but do not hate the

rest. Love comes automatically to the realised soul; but, the spiritual aspirant

has to cultivate it by means of service and inquiry into the unity of the Atma).

There is no living being without the spark of love; even a mad human loves

something or somebody intensely. But, you must-recognise this love as but a

reflection of the Premaswaruupa (the embodiment of Love), that is your reality,

of the God who is residing in your heart. Without that spring of Love that

bubbles inyour heart, you will not be prompted to love at all.

However superfine the paper, however artistic the envelope, however poetic

the composition of the letter, it will not reach the addressee by post when it

lacks the stamp! So too, the trappings, vestures, shawls, robes, and rosaries

are ineffective; they cannot reach the addressee, God. What will take their

prayers to the addressee is the 20 paise stamp - dedication or bhakthi.

The goal of life is the final merging in the God. Listen to all such things

which will draw you towards the principle of Godhead; then, think it over in

the silence; make it part of your consciousness. This process of manana

(reflection) makes you a human; that is the test of human.

Learn from the saints and sages who have realised the Truth about the path

you shall tread and the goal you have to attain. That Goal is God. He is beyond

all notions of good and bad, fight and wrong. These are earthly measures, by

which the temporary is weighed and judged. He has no form, no limbs, no

dualities, no preferences, no prejudices, no predilections.

Do not lend your ears to people who swear there is no God. God is too vast,

too far above the reach of reason or imagination. You can only get glimpses of

the Bliss derivable from the contemplation of His Magnificence.

God wears Truth; the good seek Truth; the bad are rescued by Truth. Truth

liberates; Truth is power; Truth is freedom. It is the lamp that illumines the

heart and dispels doubt and darkness. The effulgence of God is Truth. Welcome

God in your heart. Install Him there as a result of Yearning. Be always

concerned with Brahman; then, you are entitled to be known as a Brahmin.

You are the noblest being yet created, and so, you have to develop a sight

that sees no high or low, that sees all as suffused with divinity, and

therefore, not different one from another. Shankara declared, "Make your

dhrishti (view) charged with jnana (wisdom, spiritual knowledge); then, the

'seen' will appear in its true light as Brahman."

Such sight is called divine, supernatural, supersensual and auspicious. Each

body that you see before you is a mirror in which if only you open your eyes you

can see the image of God. Do not imagine the others to be distinct, they are

only you, in so many mirrors. The world is filled with your kith and kin; all

are sparks from the same flame.

There is an invisible Divine power in the body which imparts life and energy

to all these organs, and when that power leaves the body, they cannot function.

In ordinary terminology, this power is called Prana (Life Principle). But

wherefrom does this Prana come, where does it go and at whose bidding? These

are the questions raised by the Kenopanishad, which undertook to investigate

whether this Divine energy, which animates the several instruments in the body,

is inherent in Prana (Life Principle) or whether it belongs to a power superior

to Prana. The Life Principle (also called Jiva Tatwa) is only the Atmic

Principle (Atma Tatwa). It is an all-pervading (omnipresent) power that

permeates the body, senses, antahkarana or the inner instruments, and the

individual soul or spirit.

So the Upanishads designate the Divine power as the Brahma* Tatwa or

Atma*Tatwa (Principle of the Supreme Absolute Reality or Chit Sakti or Constant

Integrated Awareness/Consciousness). The Upanishads further declare that it is

due to the effulgence of Brahman that the world shines and that there is no

effulgence in the Universe which can illuminate Brahman. It is the light of

Brahman that enables the eyes to see all things except Brahman. The mind is

able to function because of the light of Brahman, but it cannot grasp or

describe Brahman i.e. Atma. This all-powerful Atmic Principle resides in every

human being in subtle form. (Human is not able to recognise this Divine power

because human is preoccupied with utilizing the physical and mental faculties

for the acquisition of wealth and worldly goods).

The Kenopanishad deals with this question and points out that this Divine

power is the life of our life, the mind of our mind, the eye of our eye, the

ear of our ear, the speech of our speech, because it is the motivating,

coordinating and illuminating principle underlying all such organs of the human

personality. All the organs of our body are animated or motivated by the divine

Atmic power inside, thereby enabling them to discharge their respective

functions.

 

Bear in mind what the Kenopanishad also taught to the celestial beings, the

sages and other human beings. It taught them about the inexorable, immutable

and inescapable law of Karma, duly stressing the fact that the results of good

or bad actions are not like the milk that you get immediately as you draw it

from the udder of a milch cow, but they are like the fruits that you get from a

tree long after the seed is planted. Therefore, don't feel elated just because

your bad actions have not given you the bad results immediately; you are sure

to experience them in due course.

One meaning of Karma which is popularly accepted as one's destiny, or fate,

the inescapable "writing" on the brow, which has to work itself out. There is

no escaping from it. But people forget that it is not written by some other

hand. It is all written by one's own hand. And the hand that wrote it can also

wipe it off.

The husk, with which the paddy is born, can be removed by effort; the Maya

(worldly illusory power) which persuaded you to write all that destiny can be

conquered in an instant and then, the entire page can be wiped away.

The Upanishadic Rishis (sages) undertook more intelligent, more intensive,

and selfless research into life's most fundamental problems, in shining

contrast to the researches of the scientists of today. Do not underrate these

ancient Rishis whose invaluable findings have been enshrined in the Upanishads

which serve as guideposts that lead mankind to the fulfilment of the purpose of

human life. (Reet's compilation from, Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 3. "Vishaya, the

visha," Chapter 21 and "Loka Kalyaanam," Chapter 29; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 9.

"The voice of the ocean," Chapter 14 and "Beauty and duty," Chapter 30; Sathya

Sai Speaks. Vol. 24. "The inner motivator," Chapter 11).

 

* For the aspirants of Swami's Teaching who are not Indians. Here is namely

used different words and expressions as underlining that they all have the same

essence.

 

Namaste - Reet