Swami teaches... Part 3. For the young generation

July 1, 2007

Light and Love Swami teaches... Part 3. For the Young Generation From Atmic aspect in this world, there is nothing like merit or sin, happiness or sorrow. Mantras, yajnas and yagas are mere rituals. God alone pervades everything. True humanness lies in understanding the significance of truth and righteousness and putting them into practice. Truth is referred to as neeti (morality), righteousness relates to reeti and sacrifice confers khyati (reputation). Manavajathi (human race) is the combination of neeti, reeti, and khyati. A small example from Ramayana. When Lava and Kusa asked Valmiki why he described Ravana as murkha (a senseless man), although he was the master of all the Vedas and Sastras, while describing Rama as a high-souled person, he said, "Ravana was a well-versed scholar, but did not practice what he knew. Rama was a jnani (a wise one) who lived up to what he had learnt. By controlling His senses, Rama led a life of truth an righteousness." Education should be used for promoting the welfare of others. Ravana sought only his own pleasure. Rama dedicated His life for the welfare of all. Unfortunately, righteousness, truth, and morality (all three) are rare in the present day world. Today human has become weak because he lacks sense control through the mind. Instead of ascending to Daivatwam (Divinity), he has degenerated to the state of Deenatwam (helplessness).

Spiritual outlook of discrimination should be exercised objectively to determine what is permanent and what is transient, what is good and what is bad. Only then can human discover the Sath-Chith-Ananda (reality of the Bliss) that is within him/her. The failure to realize this arises from defective vision. Swami has underlined in various contexts that the body comes alone and goes alone only. It is natural for the body to have birth, growth, and death. What is it that human has achieved during the course of life if he/she cries at birth, and also at death? Having been born crying, human should leave the world smiling. What is death? It is just the change of dress. Body is like a dress. After death, you change over to another dress. The body is made up of five elements and is bound to perish sooner or later, but the indweller has neither birth nor death. The indweller has no attachment whatsoever and is the eternal witness. Nobody should have body attachment as the main purpose of existence. It is inescapable destiny of every one to fulfill him/herself. Every living being has to attain fullness in the end. Each one is at present at a particular stage of this march, as a result of the activities engaged in during previous lives and the feelings he entertained in the past. The future is being built at present by the activities engaged in now and the feelings that urge and shape them. That is to say, what we do, feel or think about, at present - these are the basic reasons for the good fortune or bad fortune, which is in store. In this life you wading through joy and grief, person has sore need of some one to whom he/she can communicate the feelings. Person has sore need of some one, with whom he/she can share own discoveries and depressions, the moments of bliss and sorrow, to be by his/her side while trekking the hard road to truth and peace, encouraging and enthusing person towards the goal. Who is one's true friend? Who is one's false, fake friend? As understood today, friendship and friends are far of ideal. Friends who can confer real counsel, comfort and consolation are precious gifts, rarely found today. A friendship knit by monetary bonds is disrupted as soon as you ask the loan to be repaid. How can friendship be cemented by words or by coins? Heart must understand heart, heart must be drawn to heart, if friendship must last. Friendship must bind two hearts and affect both of them beneficially, whatever may happen to either - loss or gain, pain or pleasure, good fortune or bad.

The bond must survive all the blows of fate, and be unaffected by time, place and circumstance. Each must correct the other; for each knows that they come from sympathy and love. Each must be vigilant that the other does not slide from the ideal, cultivate habits that are deleterious, or hide thoughts and plans that are productive of evil. The honor of each is in the safe keeping of the other. Each trusts the other and places reliance on the other's watchful love. Only those deserve the name "friends" - who help in uplifting life, cleansing ideals, elevating emotions and strengthening resolves. Those who drag you into pomp, pedantry, paltry entertainment, and petty pranks are enemies, not friends. Friends cannot be got by social status, financial squander mania, outer scintillation and verbal assertions. See into the very soul, the inner motives and motivator, the deeper aspirations and achievements, and then, yield your loyalty to such. Friendship is the expression of unshakeable love, love that is noble, pure, and free from desire or egoism. Such was the friendship between Kuchela and his classmate Krishna. How could the friendship between these two survive the immense gap between their worldly positions and their spiritual status? Krishna was God incarnate. Kuchela was a man. Krishna was a ruler, a kingmaker, an unsurpassed hero, monarch, and preceptor. Kuchela was so poor that he was ever at his wit's end to procure his next meal. They had studied together for a few years at the hermitage of the sage Sandeepani. That had sown the seed of friendship. So, his wife sent him to Krishna, assuring him that he would not be turned from the door. Kuchela agreed to proceed but he hesitated long to send word that he had come, even when the guardsmen enquired why he had come and who he was. How could he, a broken, bent, befogged beggar dare stand before the Lord in His palatial Hall with its jeweled throne, and announce himself as a 'friend'? He was aghast at his own audacity.

However, all his fears melted away, when Krishna recognized him and came forward to receive him warmly and with evident joy. Krishna also blessed his wife with enormous wealth and comfort, peace, prosperity, in quantity much more than ever she hoped and or prayed. No one asked Hint for it; but His love took that shape, His Grace awarded them the happiness. However, Kuchela was ever content with the friendship of Krishna; he never desired anything other than that. He was overwhelmed with delight when he experienced the compassion and love of the Lord.

The feeling of friendship must activate every nerve, permeate every blood cell, and purify every emotional wave; it has no place for the slightest trace of egotism. You cannot elevate the companionship, which seeks to exploit or fleece for personal benefit into the noble quality of friendship. Perhaps, the only friend who can pass this rigorous test is God. (Parents, friends, relatives, house and wealth are all temporary. Be aware of this truth). So have above all, God, as your unfailing guide and friend. The heart of the Gopees had struck deep roots in the love of Krishna and when Akrura came to Gokul to take Krishna with him to Mathura, the Gopees struggled heroically, to keep Him with themselves. They held on to the steeds of the chariot; they gripped the wheels and sought to prevent them from moving. To understand and practice this noble emotion, the Bhagavad Gita is an invaluable guide. When Arjuna was dispirited and dejected, Krishna injected courage and a high sense of duty into him and helped him avoid disgraceful defeat. Moreover, Arjuna, too like a good friend, took the advice in good spirit, with the full confidence that Krishna meant well by him. We know how confident Arjuna was of the wisdom and power inherent in Krishna. Krishna gave Arjuna the choice, "To help you in battle, you can have either my entire army or me alone, unarmed and determined not to fight in spite of any provocation." Arjuna did not hesitate to decide which of these two he wanted. He chose the unarmed Krishna, and prayed that He might be his charioteer, during the days when he rode into the field.

How can you attain God’s grace? Affix the signature of Love on the check of sacrifice and surrender it to Him. God is the Manager of the Bank of Love. You have deposited your money in His bank. Here ‘money’ does not mean currency notes. It is the ‘money’ of the Truth, Wisdom, and Righteousness stored in the Bank of Love. There is no Divinity greater than Love. When you fill your heart with the Divine Love, your thoughts, vision, words, and deeds will be suffused with love. (Because you are not filling your heart with Love, many evil qualities are finding their way into it and destroying your very humanness). Below is (as an example) an episode in the great Indian epic Ramayana. It shows how deep was Rama's feeling of Rama's Righteousness, Truth, and Wisdom created from the endless source of the Divine Love within Rama.

Rama reveals the truth about Himself and His mission in answer to sage Vasishta. When Rama was staying in Chitrakuta (mountain on the banks of the Mandakini River, where Rama and Sita were some time in exile). Bharata and Satrughna, with all the royal paraphernalia, went to see Him and appeal to Him to return to Ayodhya (city where Rama was born) as He alone, as the eldest son and the pre-eminent amongst them, was competent to rule the kingdom. Bharata declared that Rama alone was fit to rule. In reply to Bharata's entreaties, Rama said: "Dear brother! The plighted word is most sacred. It is our very life. I will joyfully give up My life rather than go back on My word." The sage Jabali who was present there, was eager to persuade Rama to return to the kingdom even by using specious arguments and appearing as an atheist. He told Rama: "Ramachandra! You appear to me to be stubborn and irrational. Is there any meaning in your trying to act up to the words of an old king who was the victim of the selfish vile wishes of Kaikeyi (Rama's stepmother)? How can you say Dasaratha (Rama's father; the name means "ten chariot hero") was a good man? He parted with the son for the sake of the wife. This is highly improper. Dasaratha is gone. Why do you wish to adhere to words of one who is no more?" Rama replied to the sage, "The body is perishable and may go at any time. However, the promised word remains. Truth has no form. It is eternal and omnipresent. It stands unchanged in the past, the present, and the future. I cannot be a party to the destruction of that Truth," declared Rama. Jabali returned to the argument again. He said, "Is it foolish to let go of the bird in the hand in the hope of getting two in the bush? You are concerned about the promises made by a dead man. Your concern must be to protect the truth of the living." Realizing the difficulty of carrying on the argument with Rama in this way, sage Vasishta intervened with the object of somehow inducing Rama to return to the kingdom. He said, "Ramachandra! There are three teachers - the mother, the father, and the preceptor. You left for the forest on the words of your stepmother. I am your preceptor. Your preceptor is eminent because he practices what he teaches. You must: heed the words of the preceptor." To this Rama replied, "You have been the preceptor not only for my father, but for my ancestors and hence worthy of all honor and reverence. Nevertheless, the mother who bore me and nourished me and the father who reared me and made a man of me, take precedence over the preceptor, who comes later. If the mother had not given me my body and the father had not protected me, how could the preceptor figure in my life? Only after the mother and father have shaped the son can the preceptor illumine his mind with knowledge. At this stage, Jabali came forward and uttered the mantras: "Maathru deco bhava! Pitru deco bhava! Acharya deco bhava!" (Regard the mother as God, the father as God and the preceptor as God). At that moment, three deities appeared on the scene. Rama observed that the God who is present in all three is one and the same God and revealed His identity as the Divine in the human form. It was then that Vasishta declared, "Ramo Vigrahavaan Dharmah" (Rama is the very embodiment of Truth and Righteousness). (Reet's compilation from, Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 5. "The pleasant and the profitable," Chapter 5; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 12. "Love is the key," Chapter 15 and "Friends you need," Chapter 18; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 22. "Become ideal citizens," Chapter 3; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 33. "Attain God’s Grace," Chapter 9; http://www.sssbpt.org/Pages/Prasanthi_Nilayam/easwaramma_dd_2007.html).

Namaste - Reet