Golden words of Bhagavan Sathya Sai Baba - 64.

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64. Cultivate discipline

 

The physical is subordinate to the spiritual. The body is the cart and the

spirit, the horse. To not follow the disciplines imposed for betterment, is as

absurd as putting the cart before the horse. Of course, the cart should be kept

in good condition. Vice ruins the body and makes it unfit for the journey of

life. The mind is the horse. It is starved, neglected and not groomed for the

journey. Achieve lasting joy and do not throw way precious years of life in

silly adventures. Develop faith and do not be turned away by your egoism or

other's cynicism. With wisdom and detachment, your hearts will bloom with

fragrant beauty.

 

Accept the ideal of a disciplined life. Do not set bad examples for your own

children. Animal instincts and impulses have persisted in human nature as

vestiges and only when their upsurge is controlled and gradually eliminated, the

springs of Divinity can manifest. Nature can be modified by nurture. Open

yourself gladly to the influence of the Satsang (holy company) to help you to

accomplish this goal. A disciplined life is the best offering you can make to

the country or to the Divine in you.

 

Human beings have passed through many animal lives before they have come to

earth in human form. Strains of animal nature such as cruelty, anger, greed and

hatred still persist in many people. Sometimes, one exhibits the tendency of

many animals present in one being. When you indulge in needless and useless

controversy of matters beyond your understanding, you announce yourself as a

sheep; when you jump from one idea to another, from one ideal to another, from

one project to another, without fully involving yourself in any, you exhibit the

nature of a monkey. You must cast off these traits from your composition.