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A Discourse
for Devotees, by Michael Goldstein.
M.D.
My dear Brothers and
sisters:
Sai Ram to you all.
I am happy to be with you and very
grateful to Swami for this opportunity to speak to you. We are in a good place
today, and in fact, we are here together on this planet Earth, living our human
lives given to us by God, for the purpose of loving and raising one another to
the experience of pure love.
Spiritual realisation is the
constant realisation of divine consciousness. That is the reason why we are here
together today and why we live these human lives which God has given
us.
As devotees of Bhagavan Sri Sathya
Sai Baba, as sincere spiritual aspirants, as people with common sense, we
recognise the importance of time, the time spent in this good place and the time
which we spend embodied in these human lives, given by God. This time is
limited.
Hence we focus on the most
important: “The nature of God and man, our spiritual purpose and our plan, and
time, time, time.
Now is the time to amplify our
perspective and contemplate the human passage from birth to realisation, from
the entrance into this world and its obstacles, to the transcendence which goes
beyond the illusions of maya! Now is the time to move towards becoming aware of
our innate divinity.
Today I am speaking to you about
these themes, but I must ask myself, “Am I prepared, and am I worthy?” What do
‘prepared’ and ‘worthy’ mean?
Recently, our beloved Swami gave me
a profound and poignant lesson on the significance of being prepared and being
worthy, a lesson which is applicable to all of us, in every moment and in
everything we do.
I was in Prasanthi immersed in a
conflict which was the result of my own attachments. I had serious differences
of opinion with my brothers of the organisation. Unresolved differences of
opinion breed conflicts.
Conflicts breed bitterness and
deception. Bitterness and deception breed anger. Anger is the antithesis of
spirituality.
This particular day, Swami had planed to give a discourse. He came out to give Darshan; he walked among the multitudes and exuded his Divine Love. We were all seated there, waiting to hear His discourse.
Generally, His discourses are a preceded by one or two orators pre-selected by Swami. That day, I did not have the privilege of being pre-selected. Swami came to me and to my great surprise he asked, “Goldstein, are you going to speak?” I answered, “Swami did not give me instructions to speak today, but if it is Your will, then I will do so.”
Swami then asked, “Are you prepared?” I replied, “If it is Your will, then, Swami, I am prepared.” He moved away and continued to give Darshan.
A little later He returned and once again he asked, “Are you prepared?” I repeated to Him, “If it is Your will, then I am prepared.”
He entered his room for some
moments, and came out again walking among the devotees. Before sitting in His
chair for the Divine Discourse, for a third time He came up to me and asked.
“Are you prepared?”
This time full of eagerness,
anticipating the happiness to have been selected by Swami to speak in His Divine
Presence, I said, “Yes Swami, I am prepared!”
Swami then leaned close to me and
said softly, “To be prepared… Is a state of the inner self.”
Instantly I knew the significance of
His words!!! “PREPARED AND WORTHY ARE ONE” I had thought I was prepared to
speak, but I was experiencing inner unrest. Your words must reflect what you
think, feel and do.
Then you will be prepared and you
will be worthy. I was feeling uneasiness and conflict with respect to matters of
the Sai Organisation and so was not prepared to speak of peace and love.
My interior world was not in peace
nor in harmony. “To be prepared is a state of the inner self” and obviously I
was not prepared, and I must tell you that I did not speak that day. For us, Sai
devotees, to be prepared and to be worthy are one and the same.
With a simple word or phrase, Swami
teaches us many lessons at many levels. That is the nature of Divinity. One of
the reasons for telling you this story in particular is that I know that many of
you have bad feelings about our Sathya Sai Organisation.
Now I beseech you to search deeply
within yourselves and ask your conscience, which is your master, if these
sentiments are noble, spiritual, free of all egoism and worthy. As always, we
want a spiritual experience! So let us look as the result of those meetings and
programmes offered by the Organisation, the true spiritual experience and not
only mundane achievements.
Now I must repeat my mantra for
today, the nature of God and man, our purpose and plan, and time, time,
time.
And God?
When the Lord allows himself to
manifest himself among Man, it is to ennoble him and allow him to understand the
Divine Essence and the purpose of human life. The Lord, to make Himself known,
allows Himself to manifest Himself to Man in many ways. God has created nature
for us, that we may find our own divinity. It is like playing ‘hide and seek’.
Being the omnipresent Lord, He hides everywhere. Candidly we look for Him
outside of ourselves, as we mature spiritually we look within, in our own
hearts. There we find our true self, our divine self, our self…. free of all
egoism.
The knowledge of God is immanent in
all the experiences of life.
In so many ways the Lord allows
himself to be recognised by man. Unquestionably, the greatest of all is when he
takes the form of man, embodies as Avatar, as God-man and walks amid us. The
Bhagavad Gita teaches us that this occurs when civilisation suffers a spiritual
and moral downfall, to the point that darkness befalls us. The Lord comes to the
world as a divine light, loving and enlightening, and he enables us to recognise
the outstanding characteristics of true humanity, of nobility, of character, of
excellence. He manifests himself in the universal human values; Sathya, Dharma,
Shanti, Prema, Ahimsa; truth, right conduct, peace, love and
non-violence.
Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai has embodied
for this purpose. Contemplate and rejoice! The lamb and the lion of God are
amidst us!!!!!
Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, our
Beloved Sai, is merciful and compassionate, peaceable and loving. He is the Lamb
of God.
Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, our
beloved Swami, is all powerful, omniscient, omnipotent. He is the lion of
God.
Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, our
beloved Swami, is the divine synthesis of sweetness and strength, of innocence
and of knowledge, of attainability and of invulnerability.
He is both the lamb and the lion of
God.
Frequently, through the years, many
people have asked why I travel to India, being so far away and so often. Before
answering the question, I contemplate my experiences with Swami in the last 25
years and I ask myself the same questions, which I have just
mentioned.
Who among men, knows all that we
have thought, felt, said, done and also dreamt?
Who among men, is not limited by the
law of time and space, nor matter nor energy, as our scarce knowledge allows us
to understand God’s creation?
Who among men can comfort the
ignorant, or the suffering, with a look, a smile, a simple touch and so many
other imperceptible ways?
Who among men has given his life for
the good of humanity so magnanimously, and so free of all egoism, always giving
and forgiving, never taking and forgetting?
Who among men spontaneously speaks
the eternal truth with fundamental authority?
Who among men can inspire the pure
and innocent love of a child in the hardest and most cynical of
hearts?
According to my experience,
Sathya Sai Baba does all of these things. For me, that confirms His Divinity.
Ironically, Swami
himself has said that only an idiot goes out into the world to look for
God, because God resides in the heart of every man and woman. So, perhaps I have
made so many journeys to India because of stubbornness and being
hardhearted.
But I feel a great unprecedented
love and rejoicing, when I am in the presence of Sathya Sai Baba.
The life of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai
Baba demonstrates Divinity and inspires our own spiritual
transformation.
The message of Bhagavan Sri Sathya
Sai Baba teaches us the nature and paths of Divinity and inspires us to look for
the spiritual purpose of life.
The work of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai
Baba exemplifies the omnipotence of Divinity and inspires us to emulate Him to
transcend our imagined limitations.
The nature of God and man, our
purpose and our plan and time, time, time.
What about time?
Bhagavan Baba has said, “Don’t waste
even one moment of the span of life which has been granted to you. Time is the
body of God”
Swami is like a divine clock. The
hands of the clock, whose movement we cannot see, represent the changes that He
is making in the world. The minute hand represents those movements that we can
almost see. They represent the changes that He is making in each and every one
of us. The second hand, whose movements are almost imperceptible, represent
those glorious occasions when Swami intervenes directly in our lives and we know
it without any doubt whatsoever.
I remember an incident in which a
devotee, who had been behaving incorrectly was reprimanded by Swami. The
devotee, mortified by Swami’s reproach, said to Him: “Swami, I will stop my
incorrect actions from this moment on.” Swami responded, very severely, “ From
this moment on--no, but from right now!”
Without a doubt, Swami wants us to
understand that time is life and that no one knows what awaits us ahead. How can
we squander the most priceless which cannot be replaced, and which cannot even
be measured …? The time of our lives! Only Swami knows what is awaiting
us.
The presence of Bhagavan Baba amidst
us, here and now is the will and work of God. In fact, it is the Lord himself
that has come to keep us from the precipice of auto-destruction. That He is with
us here and now, in the human form of our beloved Swami-- that is the will and
work of God.
The advent of the millennium is the
will and work of man. Man has divided time into various units, according to the
movement of the celestial spheres, in order to be able to act and interact in an
orderly way in this world. Man has created the distinctions in time: second,
minute, hour, day, week, month, year, century and millennium.
An unfortunate consequence of our
useful classification of time in these divisions has been the development of the
possibility of the power to “postpone”, as a form of life, amidst humans.
Only man delays and postpones.
Animals, birds, ants and other forms of living beings do what they are meant to
do at any given moment, only we leave for tomorrow that which should be done
today.
We are punctual for the frivolous
divisions, but we are out of time to study and apply the Divine Teachings of
Bhagavan Baba in human nature.
The nature of God and man, our
purpose, our plan, and time, time, time.
And what of man?
Swami indicates that we should
repeat to ourselves, “I am a man, not an animal”. What does this
mean?
I am a man, not an
animal.
A great philosopher once said, “
Knowledge is not enough, we should apply it. Will is not enough, we must do
it”.
The will of God will be
done.
Our bodies are the tools which
fulfil the work of divinity.
Our minds are the artisans which use
the tools to fulfil the work of divinity.
Our conscience is the light of the Lord within us, which guides our minds, which are the artisans that use our bodies, which are the tools, to fulfil the works of Divinity.
Repeat slowly…… (repeat the above,
beginning with “Our conscience is the light of the Lord….)
Repeat slowly….. (repeat the above,
“The conscience gives….)
Through our conscience, our minds
and bodies become instruments for the demonstration and the preservation of the
glory of the Divine Conscience, which is Love, and Love is God. Love all, serve
all. These are the works of Divinity.
Will we adhere to the spiritual path of life?
Or will we succumb to the squandering of mundane life?
The choice is ours, truly it is!
I am a man, not an animal.
Swami has described the spiritual
anatomy of man, using the analogy of a carriage. He tells us that the horses
represent the indriyas or senses; the reigns represent the manas or the mind;
the carriage represents the body; the coachman represents the buddhi, or
intellect, and the passenger in the coach represents the atma, or
spirit.
Let us ask ourselves in this
context, if we journey through these lives as divine passengers, or will we be
driven through these lives as beasts of burden?
The choice is ours!
I am a man, not an
animal.
We should never allow our lack of
control to limit the Divinity within.
We aspire to experience Divinity
from the height of divine wisdom and the attitude of unconditional
love.
Our mind is a reservoir. We must
maintain the contents clean. Our conscience stirs up the dirt and the
detestable, and drowns the conscience of God. The torrent of purity draws the
cardinal enemies of man; lust, anger, greed, pride, attachment, and jealousy.
They submerge and then the clear waters of pure love, free of egoism, water the
ground of our humanity and allows our sprits to flourish.
We must have confidence in our
conscience and in the conscience of others, Then society will become a gracious
game, rejoiceful and of amorous interaction between the Lord, Our Beloved Baba,
and His creation, humanity. We are really brothers and sisters in the family of
humanity. Are we prepared to live in confidence of our own conscience and in the
conscience of others?
The choice is ours!
Our lives are a crossing of the
illusion of reality, of the fears of the darkness to the light and to clarity,
from the poverty of ignorance, to the opulent treasure of the knowledge of
oneself.
To arrive at our divine destiny, we
must look at the map, which is engraved in our hearts, that is self-
inquiry.
To see the map within us, and to
know love free of all egoism and to navigate these lives in this exterior world
with wisdom, we need light, Divine Illumination.
The Lord provides the light of His
love to everyone. It is within us and around us. It is everywhere. Swami so
often tells us that He is in us, beside us and around us. Swami is the light of
the Lord that allows us to experience the unconditional love and see the map of
the self-knowledge inscribed in our hearts.
Swami is the light.
The light is the loving divine
consciousness.
The loving divine consciousness is
God.
The nature of God and man, our purpose and our plan, and time, time, time.
What is the purpose of our lives?
First is there is creation.
Then there is civilisation.
Then there is self-realisation.
First there is creation. God dedicates
himself to humanity.
Our past actions determine our genetic predisposition and the
circumstances of our birth. We are born in a situation that allows us to learn
the spiritual lessons we need, to obtain the spiritual recompense we deserve,
and to repair our past transgressions. This way we truly reap what we
sow.
Then there is civilisation. Men and women
recognise that the quality of life improves with peace and love. Men and women
search for a purpose in their lives. There is self-inquiry. Our character
determines our level and place in civilisation. If we are generous and
compassionate, sincere and unconditional, we are free and noble. If we are mean
and indifferent, false and egoistic, we are enslaved and we are ignoble men. The
ignoble person is enslaved by one’s ego and body. The desire of power over
others and sensual pleasures contaminate and enslave the ignoble
person.
Then there is
self-realisation. Men and women experience and become one with their innate divinity.
They live in constant and everlasting consciousness of their divine reality.
That is self-realisation. This is the divine purpose of our human lives.
First we are born and we see the light of day.
Then we learn and experience the light of love and
wisdom.
Then we identify ourselves with our consciousness and we become one
with the light of God.
We see!--------------we experience! -------------we become
light!
The purpose of these human lives, then, is to become constantly
conscious of the loving divine consciousness which saturates all creation. The
nature of this consciousness is unconditional love.
The nature of God and man, our purpose
and our plan, and time, time, time.
WHAT IS OUR PLAN TO ACHIEVE OUR
GOAL?
Heaven is a mental state, a state free of egoism. Heaven is a mental
state in which we experience and live So Ham: I am That. We become that. That is
divine consciousness which saturates all our experience of infinite bliss. The
absence of ego, being free of attachment is a state of infinite bliss. It is a
state of self-realisation. That is heaven. Swami assures us that we can reach
heaven in these human lives. We can live in heaven now. All we have to do is to
search within ourselves and find heaven.
From this it comes that hell is also a state of mind and we can
convert our lives into hell if that is what we choose. Hell is characterised by
incessant desires. As each desire is satisfied, this gives origin to another
desire to obtain more. Desires of power and of pleasure. Desires which can never
be satisfied in an everlasting manner. This gives origin to deception and
frustration, to pain and discouragement. We become frenetic and foolish, running
madly around the desert chasing every mirage which appears in the exterior
world.
Heaven or hell. The choice is ours.
Suppose we all choose heaven. We make a decision. We choose heaven
and we repel hell. What do we do next?
Spiritual transformation is the awakening of our latent divinity. Our
Lord, Bhagavan Baba, transforms us in many ways. The Lord is inscrutable and
mysterious. We cannot understand his way of working with our lean mental
capacities. We can understand, up to a point, through our intuitions, when He
inspires us. Then the attained knowledge is experienced knowledge, not knowledge
learnt by memory. This distinction between learnt knowledge and experienced
knowledge is very important.
When we really know, we do not accept the knowledge, we are the
knowledge. This is true knowledge. That is wisdom.
Swami has taught us that God is consciousness and that the nature of
consciousness is unconditional love. He advises us to dig deep into our hearts
and that this is how we can find this consciousness. How do we do
this?
We are all very different as individuals. But our differences are
superficial. We are brothers and sisters of the divine mother and father. That
is the unity of our essential nature in spite of the diversity of our
appearances and external circumstances. For each one of us the most efficient
method of moving us spiritually will be something different. Although, do
whatever we do, and however we do it, this must be compatible with the divine
teachings. I will explain a simple example. It is based on my own experience
with Swami and his teachings.
I have talked about this before. It is important to have a spiritual
plan. To make a plan for oneself which embraces Swami’s teachings, which
satisfies our needs and is befitting to our lives. Have a spiritual plan. Then
you can dedicate yourselves to your spiritual purpose.
This plan consists of 9 points. 3 points are about perspective, 3
points are about attitude, and 3 points are about actions. The perspective, the
attitude, the action. What we think about things, how we feel about them, what
we do with them.
It is necessary for each of us to determine his perspective, his
attitude and his actions. We must examine what we think, how we feel and what we
are doing to move in the right direction. I don’t want to give you the
impression that we can make a package deal of spirituality. But you can think
about this and put it into practice in an orderly manner. I will describe the
nine points. I will give you examples of experiences with Swami wherever
possible.
Firstly, the nine points are:
In the category of perspective:
·
· 1 - do not worry
about the past, but learn from the mistakes made.
·
· 2 - do not worry
about the future, but make appropriate plans to achieve one’s
objectives.
·
· 3 - do not worry
about what other people are thinking about you or about events in the world
around us. Consider everybody as divine brothers and sisters and all the events
as God-given opportunities to serve.
In the category of
attitude:
·
· 4 - Be loving
with all, always.
·
· 5 - Always be
happy within.
·
· 6 - Always be
silent and pacific within.
In the category of action:
·
· 7 - remove all
unworthy thoughts from the mind before they make an impression causing emotion
or action. Allow noble thoughts to mature till they become uplifted
actions.
·
· 8 - Follow the
conscience and act without delay with complete confidence upon the base of the
conscience.
·
· 9 - focus upon
Swami, His name, His form, His love, His words, His actions, in all of Him, for
He is all.
Now we examine each of these points with examples of Swami wherever
possible.
Point 1 is to
forget the past, we must live in the present.
We must learn from the past, but not be worried by it. We must learn
to live now, in this moment. We must not let sadness nor past errors contaminate
the present nor the future.
In my first journey to India I knew I would be a devotee of Swami for
the rest of my life. I knew that I had met the love of my life, the fountain of
the realisation of my life. This happened more than 26 years ago. I knew I would
always follow Swami.
What does `follow Swami’ mean? It means that one will follow a
spiritual path. What is the final result of following a spiritual path? It is
union with God, self-realisation.
I had lead a very mundane life and I worried that my past
transgressions could prevent my spiritual progress. The last day of my first
visit to India, I was sitting in the Mandir for morning Bhajans, just before
leaving the Ashram.
Whilst sitting in the Mandir listening to the Bhajans I started to
worry about my past errors. I felt useless and without hope because of my past.
I felt that although I knew I would always follow Swami, my past would not allow
me to reach the end of the spiritual path. I thought past – past – past, an
unsurpassable obstacle. Then suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was
Swami. He had entered the Mandir by the back door, coming up to me from behind.
He simply put his hand on my shoulder, looked at me in the eyes and said.
“Forget the past”, he then carried on walking. He left me and I cried. I felt
redeemed.
The Lord said, “Forget the past”. The heavy load of past errors, the
sadness and the guilt were removed.
That is the power of the Lord!
Point 2 is do not worry about the future, live in the present.
A long time ago there was a Sai devotee who had cancer. His doctors
had given him chemotherapy. Then his cancer regressed.
He was a devotee of Swami and he used to go to see Swami periodically
to ask for his divine intervention. The man lived many years more than the
doctors had given him. One day this man came to me and he said that he had just
arrived in India and he had refused to be treated with chemotherapy prescribed
by the doctors.
He pleaded that I ask Swami to intervene. As Swami had spoken to the
man on many occasions, I told Swami that this man was in the Ashram, and that he
was afraid of dying and I asked Swami to intervene and to save his
life.
Swami then said to me, “This man has had
cancer for twelve years. Each time that he came to Swami during the last twelve
years he has been thinking about the cancer and death. Swami has given him
twelve years of life, but he has not used this time that Swami has given him to
live. He has only been thinking about death during those twelve years”. None the
less, Swami received the man and he continued to live.
We must not worry so much about the future that it stops us
appreciating the present. Swami tells us to live in the present, the
omnipresent.
Point 3 is we must
not worry unduly about the events in the world or about other people’s reactions
towards us.
Swami teaches us that we are three people. The one we think we are,
which corresponds to our body; the one others think we are, which corresponds to
our mind; and the one we really are, which corresponds to our spirit. We are not
the body, we are not the mind, we are the spirit of God, enclosed in this human
form. So, our emotions and actions must not be based on other people or on
exterior facts. Our motivation, direction and destiny must be governed by the
owner, our conscience.
The three points 4,5 and 6, under attitude are: be loving, be happy,
and be silent and pacific within.
Point 4 is be loving
Bhagavan Sathya Sai Baba, our beloved Swami, has come to light the
lamp of love in the heart of humanity. The qualities of light are purity and the
absence of egoism. The powers of light are redemption and
transformation.
To love spiritually is to love without egoism. This means love
without desire. Love without the need to possess the object of love. That is
pure love, unconditional love, divine love. We learn to love as humans in our
diverse relationships to be able in time to love God as he loves us. This is the
most important of the nine points. If we are really loving, everything else will
be given to us.
All creation is like God’s thought and life is like God’s dream. Our
chosen form of God is the thinker that planned the universe and the dreamer that
conceived life. The Lord has all his creation and is immanent in all. But God is
bigger than the creation that has originated from Him. In the same way, divine
love contains and includes the feelings, which we are capable of harbouring as
human beings, such as affection, respect and veneration.
But as God is greater than his creation, in the same way divine love
transcends, and is greater than, our human family expressions and our experience
of love. The qualities of divine love are purity and the absence of egoism. The
powers of divine love are redemption and transformation.
As Sai devotees, how do we love Swami? How should we love
Swami?
Most of us have some hardness in our hearts. Some of us have enormous
blocks of granite and others, only grains of sand. We must open our hearts and
soften them.
On a superficial level, we are delighted with the beautiful form of
Bhagavan Baba, and fascinated by his divine personality. Is this not love? Yes,
it is, but it is not sufficient, On a deeper level, we feel inspired by the
noble words and actions of Bhagavan Baba, and we aspire to emulate his heroic
actions. Is this not love? Yes, it is, but it is not
sufficient.
Finally we recognise Swami as the Embodiment of the most uplifted,
noble and true aspect of ourselves. We turn our minds within, and we see the
divine light of truth and love. We understand that this, our spiritual heart, is
our true identity, and it is one with the Lord. We reach the absence of egoism.
The duality of God and us no longer exists. We fuse with the Lord. We must make
an effort to love God in this way.
To love God has a dramatic effect on our lives. To love God is like
diving into the ocean of the absence of egoism. When we dive into these waters
of absence of egoism we give origin to waves which expand and embrace
everything, concentric circles of
sacredness which eventually include all creation. When we dive into these waters
of the absence of egoism, we submerge ourselves profoundly in a purification
process which changes us forever and uplifts all who know us. Such is the nature
of unconditional love. It transforms.
Point 5 is be happy.
Happiness is contagious. When we
smile, or show a happy gesture, we shine light in the minds and hearts of our
brothers and sisters. We make others happy. And so they make us happier than
ever. And so on successively. Happiness generates joyousness. The realisation of
our own divinity is perfect bliss.
Swami has a marvellous sense of
humour. When He smiles and laughs, this makes our hearts glow and one cannot
help but feel very happy. One day I found myself in the house in Kodaicanal with
Swami and a group of students. Swami was talking to them in Telugu. I could not
understand what he was saying. Then he looked at me and mentioned my name and
the boys laughed. I sensed the boys were laughing because Swami had made a joke
about my excess weight. I was
sitting facing Swami and Swami looked at me and laughed with all his heart.
I watched him laugh, I watched his
eyes and then I was filled with happiness and joy. I also started to laugh, even
though Swami’s happiness and laughing made me so happy that I also laughed. Then
suddenly Swami stopped laughing. He looked at me and asked, “”Why are you
laughing?” I answered, “I am laughing because Swami is so happy that it makes me
happy”. Then Swami became serious and said to the boys,
“Goldstein is happy because Swami is
happy. He is laughing because Swami is laughing. That is true
devotion.”
This apparently simple event which I
have related is the way in which Swami often teaches us important lessons. He
created this little drama in that which the joke was about me, but I was happy
because Swami was happy and I love him so much. In this incident Swami used me
to demonstrate devotion to the students. To be happy is very
important.
Point 6 be silent within.
To be silent within is to be in peace. Peace is the absence of turbulent emotion. To be silent within is essential to hear the interior voice of God. Respect and preserve the interior temple of silence.
The last 3 points, points 7, 8 &
9 are all about our actions.
Point 7 is to cleanse de mind of all unworthy thoughts.
Do not allow these to create an
impression which causes emotion or action. At the same time, always accommodate
noble thoughts and allow that these cause uplifted actions.
Swami teaches us that we should
consider bad thoughts as devils, which enter into our minds to sidetrack us from
our spiritual path. We should not let them enter. Bad thoughts generate emotions
and actions, which then cause bad tendencies and bad habits.
Our conscience must sift thoughts
and determine if a thought a worthy of entry into our mind. This results in a
good character and spiritual progress.
In one of my visits to Prashanti many
years ago, I played a little game with my thoughts, whist I was sitting in the
Mandir. Every time an unworthy or distracting thought entered my mind, I shook
my head lightly and threw out the unwanted thought. At first I shook my head so
often that I feared the brothers sitting near me would think that I had
developed a neurological affliction. While I practised this exercise, I
discovered that unwanted thoughts came less frequently. Since then I have
learned that physical gestures are not necessary to control the
mind.
Point 8 is to follow one’s own conscience. To act without delay and with complete confidence based on the dictates of the conscience.
One day another devotee and I were
sitting at Swami’s feet. Swami started to talk to me. He told me that this man
was a good devotee. Swami said that each time this man had to make a decision he
looked within and looked for an answer within his own conscience. The man never
doubted the answer which came. Swami said that this man asked, ‘Is this correct
or incorrect, is it good or bad, what would Swami do?’ And then the man acted
according to the answer he heard in his own conscience. Swami said that the
answer did not always come at once. But the man persisted in his enquiry until
he received an answer. Swami put great emphasis on the importance of this
process in spirituality and said that this man was a good devotee because he had
faith and always followed this process.
We must recognise that our
conscience represents God within us. The commanding morals which come from our
conscience must be respected.
Finally, point 9 is to focus oneself in Swami, to focus oneself in the Lord, His divine name, form, love, teachings and actions.
The constant focus on the spiritual
is essential to be able to reach our spiritual purpose. We can focus ourselves
in one of His names and forms, we can focus ourselves in the great spiritual
principles, in those on which all religions are based. We can focus ourselves on
the generosity and sacredness which we see around us. They are all expressions
of the loving universal consciousness which is God.
The spiritual movement is that
movement which has the purpose of taking us to the realisation of our inherent
divinity. To move in the correct direction it is important that we consider our
own perspective, attitude and actions. I have given you a formula which consists
of 9 simple points.
Our perspective should also include
living in the present and not to be worried about the past nor the future, the
reactions of people nor the events of the world. Our attitude should be loving,
happy and silent within. Our actions should include discarding unworthy
thoughts, following our conscience and focussing on Swami.
I advise you from my heart to draw
up your own spiritual plan to reach your spiritual purpose. Your own plan will
be adequate for who you are and where you are in your spiritual
understanding.
Swami has given us another spiritual
tool. He has put his name to a spiritual movement, the Sathya Sai Baba
Organisation, so that we, His children, can learn to love one another and bring
unconditional love and service to the world.
Humanity has no life without
universal consciousness. Swami teaches us that universal consciousness is the
omnipresent divinity, it is divine love. This universal consciousness resides in
the heart of each man and woman and provides life to the mind and body.
Universal consciousness is realised and appreciated by each one of us by way of
our conscience.
The Sai Organisation, or any
spiritual organisation, has no life without the conscience of each man and woman
in that organisation. It is not spiritual, it is not of God, nor from God, if it
is not immersed in, and if it is not saturated by, the universal consciousness,
or unconditional love. This can only happen if the organisation is guided by the
conscience of each man and woman acting together in the spirit of unconditional
love. It is for this reason that Swami has given His name to the
organisation.
Swami repeatedly says that He is a
source, not a force. He is a spiritual source. The Sai Organisation should also
de a source, not a force. It should be a source of light and love. In everything
we do, people should feel an unconditional love and obtain spiritual benefit,
they should feel uplifted. That is the nature of a genuine spiritual
movement.
As members and co-ordinators of the
Sathya Sai Baba Organisation we should consider ourselves servants of the people
whom Swami has already called and of those he will call in the future. We should
have a solid faith in the divinity of our Lord, Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba,
and believe that he will motivate and touch the hearts of everybody that they
may commence the spiritual path.
The spiritual path of a particular
individual can include, or not, the name and the form of our beloved Bhagavan
Baba. That is between the Lord and every individual heart. But all the names and
forms of God are one. The eternal spiritual principles are one for all the
religions and everybody.
We in the organisation should
consider ourselves spiritual doorkeepers. What are the duties of a spiritual
doorkeeper? We greet with love those who come to the door. We open the door and
thus we provide access to Swami’s teachings and programmes. And what is more
important, we provide access to Swami’s love if the organisation is functioning
correctly. Finally, as spiritual doorkeepers, we protect the establishment. We
protect the sacred name of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. We do this assuring
that everything that happens within the Sai Organisation, under the name of
Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, is worthy of His Divinity.
We should remember that He is the
omnipresent witness and we should trust that all we do and everything that others do as
part of the organisation will obtain His approval.
My beloved brothers and
sisters,
In conclusion, we are all apparently
different. Different in names, forms, experiences, nationalities, races and
religions. These differences are the clothing that our spirits wear to act and
interact in this world, to be able to play the rôle in the divine drama of the
creation.
Although, having said our lines,
having sung our songs, having danced our dance, we take off our makeup and our
fancy dress. We return to our solitary beings. And here we discover that we are
all part of the one, of the loving universal consciousness, which is God! Our
beloved Bhagavan Baba is the incarnation of this divine universal consciousness. He is constantly
reminding us that we are all divine consciousness. We are all divine
love.
Today we have reflected upon the
nature of God and man, upon our spiritual purpose and our plan, and time, time,
time.
Now is the time for you and for me,
and for everyone everywhere, to advance towards the realisation of our innate
divinity!
Jai Sai Ram
Michael Goldstein, M.D.
