WHAT ARE TRUE RICHES

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WHAT ARE TRUE RICHES

 

Shri Sai Baba is Sagun Brahman. There are many saints who renounce the

world and live in solitutde for their own salvation. Shri Sai Baba was

not such a type. He lived in the society and taught all the people how

to act and behave in the world. Shri Sai has said several times to His

devotees to listen carefully to His Stories, understand their

significance, meditate ont hem and then only the devotee can assimilate their

spirit. Daily reading of Shri Sai Satcharita with devotion is essential for Sai

devotees to assimilate Baba's teaching.

Shri Sai Baba taught us to cultivate the habit of eating food in a

worshipful manner. Food is God. Everything that keeps us going is God.

Food is a manifestation of God outwardly. Within us the vital force is

God. All things that sustain life are expressions of God. The great life force

is God. Therefore, we must not treat food in a contemptuous way, in an angry

mood or in a mood of displeasure. So food should not be eaten with disregard or

in a huff or in a criticizing manner. " What is this food you have put upon this

plate?'. We must not be in such temper when we eat food. We must eat food in a

worshipful manner and must not waste food. This is what Baba taught us by

telling Shri Hemandpanth through his Leela described in chapter 24 of Sri Sai

Satcharita to remember Him always before eating. Remembering the Sagun form of

Baba will bring in us the mood of worship before eating, and our mind shall

attain peace and happiness.

 

The Upanishadic teaching that " Anna Brahma " was taught to us by Baba

through his stories for the quest for Guru described in chapter 32 of

Sri Sai Satcharita. In this, Baba has stressed again that " Do not

discard offers of food. Offers of bread and food should be regarded as

auspicious sign of success " . How beautifully Baba taught us through the purport

of this story to accept and eat food in a worshipful manner and what great

results one can achieve thereby.

 

Let us now see how Baba taught us what true riches are. If we begin to

desire immediately we admit our poverty. Desire is poverty. Desire is a feeling

of inadequacy and when we begin to desire we are a beggar

already. The secret of prosperity is to affirm our true nature. Be

always contended and put a notice on the mind. " No admission for

desire " . The moment a desire arises just reject it and say " Desire get

out " and then we will being to experience that the desired object comes by

itself to us. As long as we run after a thing we cannot get it. The moment you

turn away from a thing it follows us by itself. This is an eternal law. This is

a law which has been proven in the lives of all those who have discovered it and

applied to themselves.

Baba has taught us this great Brahma Sutra through the illustration of

the story of the servant maid of Shri Kaka Saheb Dixit in Chapter 20 of Shri Sai

Satcharita. The happy temperament of the maid servant when

while wearing torn rags on her person and the expression of joy on

getting a new sari and the following day the contentment shown by her by wearing

her old sari reveal clearly to all of us that the secret of

happiness is to assert our true abundant nature.

 

Let me conclude this with the saying of Sri Hemandpant in Chapter 2 of

Sri Sai Satcharita that " The life if Sai Baba is as wide and deep as the

infinite ocean and all we can dive deep into the same and take out

precious gems of knowledge and Bhakti and distribute them to all "

 

Col G.N. Gopalkrishnan

Srinagar

Sai Leela October 1985.