Reading is not Enough, Spiritual Effort

Mere reading of spiritual texts is not enough. You may master all the commentaries and you may be able to argue and discuss with great scholars about these texts; but without attempting to practice what they teach, it is a waste of time. I never approve of book-learning; practice is what I evaluate. When you come out of the examination hall you know whether you will pass or not, is it not? For you can yourself judge whether you have answered well or not. So too in sadhana (spiritual effort) or in conduct or in practice, each of you can judge and ascertain the success or failure that is in store. The moon is reflected in a pot, provided it has water; so too the Lord can be clearly seen in your heart, provided you have the water of Love (Prema). When you don't see the Lord reflected in your heart, do not say that there is no Lord; it only means that there is no Love within you.

(thought for the day)

What is Baba telling us with these words?

Mere reading of spiritual texts is not enough. You may master all the commentaries and you may be able to argue and discuss with great scholars about these texts; but without attempting to practice what they teach, it is a waste of time.

We have to practice and he takes care of it that we practice? 
If we just read his words it is not enough and mastering or learning by heart or discussing it is a waste of time. So what exactly are we doing, as he said, we close the external eyes and open up the inner eye to the inner vision and if we see it in the inner view it is different and as he said attachment will slide away.

There had been a beautiful pirate in the inner view and the big hand reaching in the sand on the shore and the ship sailing into the sunshine of the ocean and love is the wind in the sails. Our heart has to go out for that beautiful picture in the inner view, like a great adventure journey instead of being just in the external idea of it.

What is the conclusion of the pirates of the Caribbean? 

After all the path of the pirate seems better and more right action than living in a sick society of stupid conventions, where the dress has to be that tight that she faints because she doesn’t get enough air.

It is impossible that Baba talks about such culture, when he talks about culture …, but the mind understands it as it seems on that level and we get even more old-fashioned and stupid enforcing the establishment of society and culture to the extent that it is not possible to breath anymore and we look old and old fashioned and dusty and besides our shoes.

I never approve of book-learning; practice is what I evaluate. When you come out of the examination hall you know whether you will pass or not, is it not? For you can yourself judge whether you have answered well or not. So too in sadhana (spiritual effort) or in conduct or in practice, each of you can judge and ascertain the success or failure that is in store.

What is the result of the mind in the West? 
He is telling us, practice is what I evaluate and what he told us yesterday. Close the external eye and open up to the inner vision and if you see it in the light of the inner eye attachment will slide away. We think we should evaluate – culture. Yes, that is right, culture. 

We play old-fashioned Christmas plays and think it makes us real and probably devotees and when we talk about Sadhana and meditation we have only excuses.

That is not inner vision and we cannot develop inner vision with cultural values which are external values.

It is not enough to read it; we have to think it over to be able to get the inner vision and to be able to close the external eye and to open up to the inner vision. 

That is what we are doing, we think it over so that we are able to get an inner vision first and afterwards we think it over in the inner vision and go on no matter what obstacles are there.

When you come out of the examination hall you know whether you will pass or not, is it not? For you can yourself judge whether you have answered well or not. So too in sadhana (spiritual effort) or in conduct or in practice, each of you can judge and ascertain the success or failure that is in store.

Going on not understanding it or even worse, thinking it is understood in ‘culture’, Sadhana doesn’t sound familiar like ‘cultural values’, so instead of meditating we do theater once a year at Christmas and the rest of the year we prepare for it.

It is not even about scripture and learning it by heart, we don’t know any scriptures and avoid listening, probably because it is too painful to not be able to understand it and from time to time we notice that it doesn’t make sense. 

So we sing louder and with more passion. We have no notion about Sadhana and try to find other methods to get to it, like finding some other school. That is not Sai Baba … but some thinks they are enlightened.

The pirates in the insight is not negative. It seems rather that society and culture is that sick and far away from spirituality and freedom that the right path is like in the movie the pirates at least in the first part. It seems in the inner view it corresponds to that message that it is better to be on the path of a pirate than in such a sick society where we cannot breath anymore. 

 The moon is reflected in a pot, provided it has water; so too the Lord can be clearly seen in your heart, provided you have the water of Love (Prema). When you don't see the Lord reflected in your heart, do not say that there is no Lord; it only means that there is no Love within you.

If there is no Lord in our heart, we have no inner vision. We can only see him reflected in the mirror of the heart if we have inner vision and we know how to close the external eyes and by spiritual effort open upto our inner vision. 

And if we do not see it, there is no such thing as inner vision, as Baba tells us here; there is just no love within us. 

And we replace it outside with singing and passion and playing theater and arguing about it etc. It is all on the outside and not in the inside. 
Sometimes we seem to not even know the difference between outside and inside. But that entire theater thing is passion and that is why Baba said in the inner view, it is passion stay alone.

It just means we should not socialize and the theater is based on cultural values and socializing and seriously, how can we think that is it.

And since three years we do the study circle and every time we talk about Sadhana and going inside and every time we have excuses and we tell but it is all done by itself even if we are not aware of it, thinking that he will take care of it and that we have not do open up to the inner view and that we have not do to any effort in direction of it at all.

And that is not at all what Baba tells us here.

He doesn’t tell us do no effort it is all done and we should just relax and do nothing at all, enjoying sense-perception on the sense level and establishing more cultural values, even better if it is old-fashioned and we should prepare all year for a cultural meeting at Christmas. He doesn’t tell us such things ever, but we do nevertheless think that is it.

That is also why we suffer; we have also in that sense unreasonable desires thinking that Baba is doing the spiritual effort for us.

And our mind refuses to accept that it is not true and that is the problem and that we have to accept that it is not right action and not the path of peace and there is no ‘pure love’, it is all mind level and the real value got lost like in our church.

Sadhana is not equal to cultural values, but meditation and spiritual effort cultivates our mind.
But if we get free in the inner vision, we are like pirates, it is about truth and right action and the path of right action and freedom and not a culture which doesn't allow us no freedom to the extent that we cannot breath anymore. 

That truth is not right action and we have to accept the path of Dharma and right action and also the path of truth, if we want to get to an experience of 'pure love' and find the Lord in the mirror of the heart.
The idea of culture is based on too much objective world and what our mind thinks about culture and it has nothing at all to do with looking upon nature and all created objects with the insight derived from the inner vision. 

We get there by spiritual effort only and attachment will slide away and the effort will remain. We have to listen to Baba ...!

If you look upon Nature and all created objects with the insight derived from the Inner Vision, then attachment will slide away, though effort will remain; you will also see everything much clearer and with a glow suffused with Divinity and splendor. Close your external eyes and open your inner eyes.

We don't find the inner vision in our idea of cultural values. The idea of culture is also based on the objective world, the inner vision is seeing nature and created objects, that is the objective world in the insight we derived from the inner vision and that is what we are doing here, working on that inner vision with the insight we derived from that work with the inner vision and the effort remains, it is not just done, it grows in the inner vision. 

People suffer because they have all kinds of unreasonable desires and they pine to fulfill them and they fail. They attach too much value to the objective world. It is only when attachment increases that you suffer pain and grief. If you look upon Nature and all created objects with the insight derived from the Inner Vision, then attachment will slide away, though effort will remain; you will also see everything much clearer and with a glow suffused with Divinity and splendor. Close your external eyes and open your inner eyes - What a grand picture of essential unity you get? Attachment to Nature has limits, but the attachment you develop to the Lord when your inner eye opens, has no limit. Enjoy that reality, not this false picture.