Win his Grace and you will not Feel the Pain

Some might argue that the inheritance (Karma) of the previous births has to be suffered in this birth and that no amount of grace can save you from that. Evidently, someone has led you to believe so. 

The Grace of the Almighty knows no bounds or limits! I assure you, you need not suffer from Karma like that. When severe pain torments you, the doctor gives you a pain killer injection and you do not feel the pain, though it is there in the body. God's Grace is like the pain-killer. Nothing can stay in the way of the Grace of the Lord. If you win His Grace, you will not feel the pain, though you go through Karma. Just as medicines with expired dates are ineffective, so too, the effect of Karma is then rendered ineffective, or null and void!

Baba (thought for the day)

We will go through the Karma, but not feel the pain? 

We get sick, but we do not suffer as others do, but we nevertheless get sick. 

If we have the grace of the Almighty, we do not feel it, but we still have the Karma. 

Thinking about it seeing out of my experience. First we should listen and discriminate and that is what we do and then we should thinking it over and see it in our own life and Baba said, 'follow the master, fight to the end, finish the game'.

In the beginning I wondered how to follow the master, listening to him and using discrimination, it is about the Almighty only, because only he has no bounds and no limits, only he can make us not suffer from Karma.

How do we reach the Almighty? 

Following the inner master, he said in the inner view, that my brother does the worst he can do. 

I worried about it, thought that something was going to happen to him, but it was all different. And Baba said that he is the insight and the next step. He also said to take care of my brother. 

So that was the insight, what is the next step? The worry was not the next step. 

Prepare the Field to get to the right Conclusion

To realize the truth of an Advent (Avatar), the aspirant must culture the mind as the farmer prepares the field. The farmer clears thorny undergrowth, wild creepers and tenuous roots from the field. Then, he ploughs the land, waters it and the seeds are sown. The seedlings and tender plants are then guarded from pests. To prevent destructions by goats and cattle, he erects a fence. So too, the aspirant must remove egoism, pride and greed from the heart.

Truth, Repetition of the Lord's Name and Meditation refer to ploughing and levelling.

Love is the water that must flow into the field of your heart to make it fertile, soft and rich. Lord's Name is the seed and devotion is the sprout. Protect the seeds from the cattle of Kama and Krodha (desire and anger) with the fence of discipline. Then you will reap bliss as the harvest.

Baba (thought for the day)

 

We can compare it to culturing the mind as the farmer prepares the field. We follow insights, as Baba said he is the insight and the following step and in doing it, we get aware that everything looks quite different than we thought it was? We get aware that it looks different if we see our real parents as divine and we realize that we belong to the divine parents and in that sense we get a feeling for the truth of an Advent. 

How do we otherwise realize the truth of an Advent? 

We culture the mind as the farmer prepares the field, we plough the land, water it. My father was a gardener and it felt already like that years ago writing my dairy. It was like the cultivation of flowers in the heart and getting rid of the bad and egoistic tendencies, because they are like weeds taking over.

When I began with meditation I thought it was easy, because meditation took care of it and it was like that, it did take care of it.

It just didn't take care of the insights and the right understanding of it.

The insight was there since the beginning, focused on the observer in writing, watching feelings, thoughts, emotions.

TM didn't tell that the teaching is in dreams and in the inner view. And because it said that everything was stress only and mind, we concluded that it was possible to think a mantra and meditate to go beyond the mind and that took care of it.

The conclusion was not right, because we stopped thinking and it resulted in only meditating. We were not used to ask questions anymore, because we thought that all questions were answered by that meditation. It was a good experience, the mind did settle down, but it didn't tell us how to understand insights and how to see it in the light of meditation or wisdom and even less in the light of technique, it didn't make any sense. If the insights would have made sense, it would have been perfect, but they didn't make sense.

How to destroy the mind? - White Light I am

How to destroy the mind? It is easy once you know what it is. The mind is stuffed with desire, similar to a football filled with air. Puncture it and it will not move from place to place. In a square field filled with water from an irrigation canal, water appears in the form of a square. If the field is circular or triangular, then the sheet of water will match the geometric shape. The mind too takes on the form of one's desires. Take another example - the mind is like a piece of cloth, the warp and woof being the yarn of desire. The texture, the color, the durability, the feel, and the shine of the cloth will depend upon the desire that constitutes the warp and the woof. Remove the yarn strand by strand, and the cloth automatically disappears. This is the technique of destroying the mind (Mano Nasanam). A wise person will wipe out all traces of the mind.

Baba (thought for the day)

Over thirty years ago I began with a simple mantra and we didn't know the meaning, it was called a vehicle with the aim to carry our thoughts and attention, the mind, and to go inside. Later it was said that those mantras a special seed mantras and they are not used with the Pranava, the Om and used with the Patanjali sutras and they have to be given by a master and with puja, everything else was secret and we had the feeling to know nothing about it and most of all people thought that the OM was only for people who wanted to become monks. 

After I went to Baba one morning we meditated and after that meditation he took the whole group in the interview room. He talked about mantras and Soham and he said, 'all mantras are okay'. It was only that way I got aware that there was doubt about it, because we had not enough instruction with those Bija mantras we used with TM. 

It was by a TM-teacher we got initiated into that mantra and I had during that time, eight years of my life, about three or four advanced techniques and every time the mantra got longer. 

I liked it, because I noticed that it relaxed my mind. I saw myself as a watcher and I just observed and didn't change things, it means things should not change, but out of the inner self. And I noticed, when that inner self was there, it had to be done, there was no other way but to do it. 

Later Baba was in my dream and he was two Babas, one was the insight and one was the next step.

Source of Bliss and the Individual Experience

Just as underground water is the sustenance of all trees, the Atma is the underlying source of all the bliss that the individual experiences. The process of digging a borewell to bring the underground water to surface level involves steady hitting, digging, and thumping through a pipe which holds and directs the drill. The people who do the boring take a lot of care to ensure that air does not go into the pipe, for then the drilling process becomes unsuccessful. 

Finally through a lot of effort, you bring the subterranean water to the surface level for human consumption. So too, you must undertake the repetition of the Lord's Name (Japam) very intensely taking care that you do not allow the attachment to worldly objects (Vishaya vasana) to enter and interfere with the process.

Baba (thought for the day)

If we talk about inner view our 'mind' thinks that it is like seeing with the eyes. If it would be like with the eyes, we just could close the eyes and it would be inner view, but it is not like that.

Thinking about dreams, we know that our subconscious is awake in it and that we don't just understand it with the mind, but it needs lots of skill to know the meaning of our dreams. 

The inner view is our subconscious awakening, it is the inner master and we have to learn to understand it and for that reason we need discrimination. 

The process of digging a borewell to bring the underground water to surface level involves steady hitting, digging, and thumping through a pipe which holds and directs the drill. The people who do the boring take a lot of care to ensure that air does not go into the pipe, for then the drilling process becomes unsuccessful. Finally through a lot of effort, you bring the subterranean water to the surface level for human consumption.

Fit in the Divine Plan

Every one of you must fit in with the Divine Plan. 

Strive to know its main principles and be equipped for the tasks He allots to you. Give your heart completely to the duty assigned to you in life. Be ever vigilant of your own nature and duty (swadharma) and engage in the tasks that your role demands. To attain the Divine, you have to climb from the animal state to the human state and from human level to Divinity. This climb is hard given the several forces that are always around you, ready to pull you downward. The engine in the car if clogged and worn out, will whine and groan when it has to ascend a steep hill. On the other hand if it is well-maintained, free from the dust and dirt of sensory yearning, then it will ascend heights very easily. Baba (thought for the day)

 

How do we know the task that is allotted to us?

I have no idea, of course it is to my daughter, that is clear, but why her father doesn't get it? Why he doesn't ask that type of question? 

We were focus on knowing the main principles and I thought we did that together, until we left and at once we faced something else, as it seems he just said yes to it and took advantage of it as long as it lasted. 

At my birthday he sent greetings and said, just be happy. 

First I thought great, Baba's words, but in the mean time it has changed and remembering what it means really to him, he is telling me just think about your own self, as Baba tells, self gets and forgets and he had another dream where he said, give, give, give, I will not give, you lived a dream and that is your problem not mine. You need a psyche I will give. 

I don't think he ever reflected on the dream or tried to understand it, so what it means when he is telling me, 'just be happy', he is telling me that he is just thinking about himself and as he thinks he is happier that way, even if it is not true, he goes the path of least effort. 

Sathva begins bitter ends sweet and Rajas begins sweet ends bitter and Tamas is upside down. 

It makes out of a vice a virtue and vice versa. 

It means he goes for all that what seems sweet in the beginning and it will turn out bitter. And how often for my feeling we spoke about it that duty is that which is usually first bitter and ends sweet. 

 

He doesn't know what he is doing in going the path of least effort, therefore, when he tells me, just be happy, it feels like a joke or an insult, but now I got more distance to it and I see why that is so.

 

Give your heart completely to the duty assigned to you in life. Be ever vigilant of your own nature and duty (swadharma) and engage in the tasks that your role demands. To attain the Divine, you have to climb from the animal state to the human state and from human level to Divinity. This climb is hard given the several forces that are always around you, ready to pull you downward. 

The Subtle Effect of Mantras

The subtle effect of mantras (mystic formulae) mentioned in the Vedas cannot be seen or heard by the senses; they have to be experienced in and through the inner consciousness, the Anthahkarana.

The sound of these mantras has the power to transform the impulses and tendencies. The word mantra means 'that which saves when turned over in the mind'. Repeating the mantra constantly in the mind will keep off wild talk, purposeless conversation, aimless gossip and scandal. Talk only when the talk is most essential and talk only as little as is necessary. Talk sweetly and without any reservations or circumvention. I want all to be convinced of the excellence of these teachings of the Vedas and Shasthras(scriptures).

Baba (thought for the day)

 

We were initiated in a TM Bija mantra, seed mantra and they were not used with the Pranava, the OM and had to be given with Puja by a master. We had to memorize that Puja during the teacher's training.

It was beautiful, but afterwards I noticed that it was a program, which never changed. The teaching said with a mantra we will use more of the unlimited potential of the mind as life is progressing in direction of more and more, we will be more creative and find it easier to go on with the changing lessons of our life. It also said that life is always changing and we have to be able to go with those changes and as meditation makes us more creative, it is possible to Keep up with the changes of our time and to adapt easier to it. That sounded convincing until the inner view showed changes ahead and it didn't make sense and it was impossible with TM to realize it and to get right answers, we had to get it with another master.

Cleanliness of the Mind takes care of Bad Thoughts

External cleanliness, devoid of internal cleanliness is nothing short of deceitfulness. Internal cleanliness is more essential than external cleanliness. 

Though a cup may be clean and attractive outside, we cannot drink water from it, if it is unclean inside. Food cooked in copper vessels turns poisonous, if the vessel does not have a silver coating inside. Hence, observe internal cleanliness with meticulous care. Strive to remain free from the diseases of hatred, bad thoughts and vicious practices. God has gifted you this human body for achieving excellence in your daily life and attaining proximity with Divinity. Cultivate spirituality, acquire spiritual traits, attain proximity to the Divine and merge in Him. This must be your firm resolve. You can achieve this by sanctifying your body with sacred actions, until your last breath.Baba (thought for the day)

The best internal cleanliness we know is meditation, it takes care of the mind. If our mind is full of rubbish and past impressions and we cannot forget it or are tired because of that reason, we need to meditate. But also if we think we are in good shape and everything is okay, we should meditate to be able to get to know our mind and to develop discrimination.
If we have often headache, it mostly has to do with strain and stress in the mind, it is a sign of pressure, all of that we can get rid of with meditation, we deal with the source of psychosomatic diseases.

Meditation is like a clean bath for the mind, after the meditation, body and mind should be relaxed and past impressions in the mind should not load anymore on our present consciousness.
It is not possible in our thoughts to control those subtle processes and we don't know why past impressions stick to our mind, it is usually a sign that the mind is not relaxed enough. Therefore, cleanliness of the mind is the A and O of spirituality and mental health. In today fast living time it is even more important, because we cannot relax anymore only with sleep, not enough because the expectation of our time is high and therefore, it leads to burnout and constant tiredness. If we meditate regularly we have more strength and can deal with it on a better way. We have to go with the pace of our time and if it is fast changing, our health depends on how we are able to keep that pace. Time is constantly changing and we should be flexible enough to go along with it, if we are not, we get old and sick.

Actions done to the Satisfaction of our Conscience

For a person living in the materialistic world, the sensual pleasures are a source of extreme delight. However, the senses themselves are temporary, and hence grant only transitory joy. To a person suffering from jaundice, everything looks yellow and tastes bitter. So too senses fraught with illness cannot give true happiness.

As there is no person without desire, and it is difficult to live without desire in this world, Lord Krishna came out with an excellent solution. He said, "Perform all actions for the pleasure of the Lord without an eye on the fruits of the action." Pay your respect to duty and dedicate all actions to the Divine. Ensure you do all actions to the satisfaction of your conscience and then your heart is free from all blemishes.

Such an action qualifies to become an act of Anapeksha, not tainted by desire.

Baba (thought for the day)

 

If we live in a spiritual world all that seems to make somehow sense and it seems to be easy, because we are carried by that spiritual energy which is around a master, some call it a field, which is created when spiritual people live together on one place like an ashram.

But as we have to live in the world and around that materialistic world, which sees in sensual pleasure extreme delight, it is not that easy. Even if the senses are only temporary and grant only transitory joy, at least there is some joy and not only frustration.

Sathva begins bitter and ends sweet and Rajas begins sweet and ends bitter and Tamas turns it upside down, it makes out of that extreme sensual pleasure a delight and holds it high. 

And fact is, there is no person without desire and therefore, we got that excellent solution, perform all actions for the pleasure of the Lord, without an eye on the fruit of action'.

 

Pay your respect to duty and dedicate all actions to the Divine.

Installed in our Hearts, He will Redeem our Lives.

Mantra means that which saves, when meditated upon. The Name of God, any one of His countless ones, can serve the purpose. The Name is like the goad that can tame the elephant in rut, make it bend its knees and lift the log on to its tusks. 

Liberation (Moksha) is not a five-star hotel, or a deluxe tourist home. It is just the awareness of your reality and the rejection of all contrary conceptions. You can recognize your Self quickly and clearly, if you purify your heart with a mantra or by the singing of the glory of God. Both will grant you that boon. Sing from the heart, conscious of the layers of meaning that each word has. These are the surest ways to have God firmly installed in the throne of your hearts and it will redeem your lives. 

Baba (thought for the day) 

Being with TM thinking we got a so called personal mantra, but it was given by age and it said because we use it, it becomes personal and it was said that it should solve all problems. That made it that we were not careful, didn't know anymore how and when to finish things right, because we thought meditation would take care of it. We went into stuff and relationships, we probably would not have otherwise, because we would have thought it over twice before doing it. 

If we think that all problems can be solved by a method or technique, we are not very careful, go ahead, certain nothing can happen and our life gets in no time upside down. It was taught like that and inside we were convinced in doing TM we could do nothing wrong as long as we went on with meditation, which took care of everything, that means we didn't finish anything properly and if we noticed it was not as we would like it to be, we again thought meditation would take care of it. It was moving with the wind, no character and no idea what was done really. 

It was also a kind of take off, only it was about everything and just going beyond everything we would use common sense usually. 

It had to lead into troubles, if it didn't work and it was all based on the believe that it would work, but what if it didn't work and it doesn't work as we know in the mean time. It just lead to the blind believe people were evolved spiritually and better than others, they didn't see problems anymore and for everything it was the standard answer, TM will take care of it. 

Yesterday I went to Amma's Darshan. She is here until tomorrow. This morning I woke up and noticed it was great. And I wondered, what has happened? 

Merging in the Divine

The ascend to a human form has been made possible for you all; but you will truly be deserving of this high status among the animals, only by finally merging in the Divine.
That is the goal which the pilgrimage of evolution has in view since life began on earth as the amoeba on the waters. Faith in that goal and steady march towards it, are the signs of one being aware of the responsibility of being a human. The Call of the Divine echoes in every heart; it provokes the reaction of awe, reverence, affection, love and sacrifice - all ingredients of devotion (bhakti). It translates itself into acts of worship, of praise, of adoration and of rituals. The mind through these means gets saturated with divine thoughts and is recast in the divine mould, until the flow of bliss (Ananda) is unabated.
(Baba (thought for the day)

To reach that, we have to realize that we are the higher self and not the body. The higher self is beyond time and space, but somehow, even after seeing it in the inner view, it was very difficult to understand.
First the higher self was as a vision present during sleep state. It was just great, it was very white light und very beautiful, it was love and beauty and I felt totally amazed by it and somehow from inside transformed, but after waking up the situation outside was still the same.
But I knew 'that's it', it was love, yet the mind felt confused about it and I didn't know what to do with it, because it had not substance, it was a transcendental entity.

Shining in mental Health, Happiness and Wholesomeness

Prayer is the very breath of religion; for, it brings man and God nearer and nearer to each other. Meditation (dhyana) is the process of listening to the Song Celestial, the flute of Krishna, with the mental ears alert on the melody. Just as every day you engage in exercises and consume tonics, calculating the intake of calories and vitamins, paying meticulous attention to the nutritional value of the food, pay attention also to the intake of impressions into the mind, whether they debilitate or strengthen, whether they add to the power of resistance of the mind against the viruses - greed, envy, hatred, pride, malice, etc. 

Have a meal of good acts of service, divine thoughts, and drink the juice of Love (Prema rasa), so that they may be washed down, and digested well. Then, you can be shining in mental health, happiness and wholesomeness.

Baba (thought for the day)

 

If you meditate regularly you will find it that easy to understand why it brings us nearer to each other, even if it feels sometimes like the opposite. 

Meditation is a wonderful tool to calm down, to get rid of headache and mental stuff. We improve our health and get rid or all kinds of mind problems, before they become a problem for us. There are impressions in the mind they stick to the mind and why, we don't know usually, because it is just activity created by the restlessness of the mind. 

Once I was not meditating regularly and I noticed that I woke up in the morning and had the impression of the past day at work and a person I don't like very much and just that was still on my mind. 

Not the person felt disturbing, because I have to work with her, but my mind and why in the heck was it still present, I wondered? After all I had past a good night sleep and didn't think of yesterday anymore, but the mind was not at rest as I thought. 

Dive Deep into the Sea to get the Pearls

You must dive deep into the sea to get the pearls. What good is it to dabble among the waves near the shore and swear that the sea has no pearls in it and all tales of its existence are false?

So too, if you are determined to get the full benefit from the Sathya Sai Avatar (or any form of the Divine), dive deep and get immersed in full. Half-heartedness, hesitation, doubt, cynicism, listening to tales, etc. is of no avail.

Concentrated complete faith alone can bring victory. This is true of any worldly activity, is it not? 

How much more true must it be in the spiritual field? A hundred people might come to your house and even treat you with affection, but you do not address them as, "Papa or Daddy!" So too, remain attached to the one Name and Form that is dear to you. Have your mind fixed on that form at all times.

Baba (thougth for the day)
 

How do we dive deep into the sea to get the pearls? 

Getting aware that 'I am light', 'we are light' and 'all are light' is diving deep into the see to get the pearls, if I am light there is also love. 

I know some who would like to dive deep into that sea to get those pearls, but they just don't know how? 

They are singing once a week and it feels not deep enough, not for them and there was a time it felt like that to me as well, there were many reasons why, but it has changed. 

I meditated twice a day and it kept me busy, but it didn't give me the answers I needed. 

Baba was in the dream holding up a book after we came back here, and we had to dive deep into that sea to just find about what to write, it was kind of difficult in the beginning, there were only lots of picture, but it was not possible to put the puzzle together. 

What exactly is Truth?

What exactly is Truth? Is it the description of a 'thing seen' as one has seen it, without exaggeration or under-statement? No. 

Or, the narration of an incident in the same word as one has heard it narrated? No. Truth elevates; it holds forth ideals; it inspires the individual and society. It is the Light that illumines one's path to God. A life inspired by Truth will enable man to live as man - not degrade oneself to the status of a lower species. There is God everywhere and there is no second entity. God is the Truth, the only Truth. God is in every article or thing, as the basis, as understanding and understandability, as the source of Divine light, as Atma. 

Truth is the One Awareness, the One Divine Energy that activates every living being, nay, every particle of matter.

Baba (thought for the day)

If I am reminding myself that 'I am light' or 'love', it is true, even if we have not yet realized it. 

What is truth? It is a non-changing, eternal, permanent value. For me it was easier to relate to 'light', because I had that experience. 

I still had to realize that it was not different from God and in the beginning it seems that far away, we could hardly grasp it, therefore, I always repeated the mantra in the hope to be somehow closer to him, because he said in my first interview, I should think about God only. But that made the question come up, how do we think about God? 

It is the Light that illumines one's path to God.

And he goes on explaining it to us. There is God everywhere and there is no second entity. God is the Truth, the only Truth.

It means if I think 'I am light' and not darkness and that is truth, I get in touch with the reality which alone is real. It is called truth and even the only truth. It is not a relative truth, as we know it from science, it is an absolute truth and therefore, there is only one and it is non-changing.

Truth elevates; it holds forth ideals; it inspires the individual and society. It is the Light that illumines one's path to God. A life inspired by Truth will enable man to live as man - not degrade oneself to the status of a lower species.

Develop Faith and Stand like a Rock

Develop faith in yourselves, so that you can stand like a rock braving the rushing waters of the flood of negation. 

That faith will make you overcome the changing circumstances of the outer world. Keep the flame of detachment (vairagya) burning with tiny sticks until it grows into a big bonfire; welcome all chances to develop discrimination (viveka). 

Take the Name of the Lord and repeat it always. Sing to the Lord with faith and enthusiasm. Let the whole environment reverberate with the devotion you put into every Name that you sing. The Lord's Name promotes comradeship and establishes concord; it stills all storms and grants peace. Become a blossom, exude the fragrance of seva (selfless service) and prema (love); then you will find a place in the garland that adorns the Lord.

Baba (thought for the day)

It is a good way to get aware of God as half awake and as a dream, he is both and in our dreams we get insights we never had before. 
And that God feels this universe, also that is a great way to get aware of it, because it is always about how we feel and if we are not used to watch feelings, we have to get used to it.

Out of watching my feelings I got aware that my family didn't do that and that it was challenging them beyond measures, when I began to express my feelings, actually they couldn't take it.