Correct Understanding and the Fish and the Water

Look at the fish! Living as it does perpetually in water, has it rid itself of its foul smell to any extent? No. Inclinations (vasanas)won't disappear as long as one's heart is full of the illusion of egotism, even if one is immersed in many heart-purifying spiritual disciplines. If you really want to get rid of the feeling of "I" and "mine", you must transform yourself and worship the Lord (Hari), without any likes and dislikes. Just as light and darkness can never coexist at the same place, love and hatred can't coexist in the same heart. You experience joy and misery through the ear. Therefore as a spiritual aspirant, avoid the cruel arrows of hard words. Instead use sweet, pleasant and soft words suffused with truth. Speaking softly by adding falsehood will bring you misery. You can recognise a true spiritual aspirant through their good qualities.

Direct perception is experience and in thinking it over we remember the experience and see it in our own life and no matter what comes up it takes shape and form just in remembering it and seeing it in our own life in the light of the words of a self-realized authority and that is what Sai Baba is a self-realized authority. 

Last night some family stuff came up after writing some Christmas greetings and how I got aware of the family patterns. Even if it is a different situation and a different time, that pattern is still alive and it is part of the experience, but here it is about the right answer or inference.

The Nine Modes of Devotion

Follow at least one of the nine modes of devotion (Sravanam, kirtanam, etc.). It doesn't matter how wealthy or learned you are; God is concerned only with the sincerity and purity of your mind and heart and the wholeheartedness and genuine nature of your love. Valmiki was a hunter. Nandanar was of a low caste. Kuchela was a poor man. Dhruva and Prahlada were five-year-old lads. Sabari was a tribal woman, illiterate and uncivilized. But all of them won God's Grace in abundance, because of their wholehearted devotion, love and surrender. Follow Sabari's example, who always thought of Sri Rama and His happiness, and dedicated all her thoughts, words, and deeds to Him alone, such that her every action was transformed and sublimated into the highest penance (tapas). Meditation does not mean sitting idle in a particular posture, like posing for a photograph. Like Sabari's life, your life must become a continuous meditation wherever you are, and whatever you do.

What do we get from thinking over Swami's words?

Nobody seems to do that really and why not? Probably because it is not possible, but he also tells us that contemplation is neglected. It feels somehow that far away actually and still that close.

Follow at least one of the nine modes of devotion (Sravanam, kirtanam, etc.).

The Lamp on the Tongue, Meet the Entire World

Temple worship, company of sages, adoration of the Lord and recital of His name - these are external sources of light. Meditation, austerity and reflection (dhyana, tapas and manana) — these are sources of inner illumination. Devoid of both, how can you experience the vision of divine glory? Once Tulsidas Goswami declared, "Do you require light inside the house as well as outside? If yes, then place the lamp on the doorstep!" So too, if you desire to experience the illumination of peace (shanti) within you and also spread it out, then place the name of the Lord on the tongue, which is the doorstep of your personality! The lamp on the tongue will not flicker, fade, or be put out by any storm. It will confer peace on you as well as on all whom you meet - in fact, the entire world." Therefore, for your salvation, evoke the vision of the form with the Lord's name on your tongue.

Yesterday we had our Sai Christmas celebration and it was just great, even if we were not as many people as planned. We had even a concert by our greatest singers and then we left and seven people on the way back we just experienced that. Two guys were making fun with everybody and also with the ticket controller in the train. One told him that we just had met God and he said, 'oh yes', of course he must have thought that it was a joke, but it was kind of nice one during Christmas time and he was nice man and he felt good in our group that we could see, he remind with us for a while before he went on with the rest of the people. 

That way it was a good experience to go by train and after we arrived at our destination, we got hugged and kissed and all laughed, we all felt a bit silly and one devotee said that we are in a kind of ecstasy, that is the result if too much sathva flowing, people get a bit like drunk and ecstatic and just in such a good humor that everybody would have liked to join our group and it was really joyful actually.

It was the result of love in the air and it was still afterwards when going to sleep and it was in the memory of that precious time with Sai Baba and kind of a rare state of mind. We would like to share more often and we just wonder why we didn't, we had experienced it as the Sai universe time ago when being with him in the darshan and in his presence, there was nothing left but love really, love everywhere, like the air saturated with that precious divine love, nothing existed but love. 

Temple worship, company of sages, adoration of the Lord and recital of His name - these are external sources of light. Meditation, austerity and reflection (dhyana, tapas and manana) — these are sources of inner illumination.

Omnipresence and the Lord of Death

Lord of Death (Yama) is as omnipresent as Lord Siva! Yama is associated with the body (deha); He cannot affect the individual soul (jiva). Siva is associated with the individual soul, but He won't allow the body to subsist for any length of time. The body is the essential vehicle for the individual soul to understand its real nature. Still who knows when the body may become the target for the attention of Yama? The individual soul, burdened with this destructible body, must grasp the above-mentioned caution and be all-eager to merge in Siva! No single moment that is passed by can be turned back. People usually delay doing some things; yesterday's till today and today's till tomorrow. For the tasks of spiritual discipline, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow. This very moment is the moment! The minute that just elapsed is beyond your grasp; so too, the approaching minute is not yours! Only those who have this understanding engraved in their heart can merge in Siva.

He is telling us here that the Lord of Death, Yama is as omnipresent as Lord Siva.

We got to the conclusion yesterday that nobody is really going into it. 
Yama, the Lord of death is associated with the body (deha). If the words are not listened to and someone said it was too complicated and it is just because of that reason, we have to think it over, we have to listen, think it over and absorb. 
It needs an effort to think it over. It needs an effort to find the right answer, it needs an effort to be able to absorb.

If we feel it is too difficult, some seem to, it is neglected. And neglecting it, thinking it is not okay and just interpretation. If that would be so, contemplation would not be possible. The difference between interpretations or what our mind thinks is actually our projection and turns into interpretation and that is just the opposite way around. How can it be wrong if he tells us to think it over, but we have to get aware of it. He told us even in the interview room, translate, what means interpret it …

Again a type of person who is that convinced in his mind that he knows and gets to the right conclusion and in reality every second word he tells is not real and not what he tells, but delusion.

Lord of Death (Yama) is as omnipresent as Lord Siva! Yama is associated with the body (deha); He cannot affect the individual soul (jiva). 

Every Act should be Done with Great Care

 

 

People have taught the eye, ear, and tongue the luxury of constant novelty. Now do the opposite. Turn your mind towards the good and examine every minute's activities. Each deed is a chisel stroke shaping the rock of human personality. A wrong stroke may disfigure the rock. Therefore even the tiniest of acts must be done with great care and devotion. For a drowning person, even a reed is some support. So too to a person struggling in the sea of inborn desires (samskara), a few kind words might be of great help. No good deed is a waste; every bad deed has its consequence. So strive to avoid the slightest trace of evil activity. Keep your eyes pure. Fill your ears with stories of Divine; don't allow them to listen to calumny. Use your tongue for uttering good, kind, and true words. Let it always remind you of God. Such constant effort will grant you victory.

 

Actually I had a dream and in that dream we were swallowed by the earth, it didn't feel very good though. We have nothing to do anymore, no job and nobody cares really. It seems we belong to a movement, but there is really nobody. There are lots of people, but when we really are in need of someone there is nobody, but they ask us always to do something. They always want something and that had been in the dream with Baba when he left the body, he was on the stage with the country flags and all the people were at his feet and all wanted something from him and it was separated by height and there was great agony.

That is the reality of it; they always want something and more and expect us to not only do our best, but more than the best and it seems never enough and that has something to do with that outward devotion to the body as it seems and not inside in the self. We are all the same self, the same light, the same love; the only difference is if it is permanent or changing. If it is permanent and non-changing it is real and true and divine love, if it is not permanent and changing it is all different kinds of love and the best is 'pure love', but it is not established permanent and therefore, not yet divine love. It was all in the insight, it means the man who comes in our dream to awake us, but it was awful agony. And that is the reality of the movement, they always want something, but they don't give. If we need something there is nobody, but when they want something they are there with critics and blame and demands and that are the people talking about love and if we take it literally we just walk away.

We have to find the divine love in singing together, but in the action of the people we will not find it, we find only selfishness. If we wouldn't have the Indian devotees we would be nowhere really. They are the people understanding and living it and they take care of it silently in the background that it goes on and that we get food, that the meetings are half way acceptable without that we get into war and they are there every moment to serve and to share their love and care, because it seems that only they know what this is all about and how we have to understand it to live it.

People have taught the eye, ear, and tongue the luxury of constant novelty. Now do the opposite. Turn your mind towards the good and examine every minute's activities. Each deed is a chisel stroke shaping the rock of human personality. A wrong stroke may disfigure the rock. Therefore even the tiniest of acts must be done with great care and devotion.

Theoretical Knowlege is a Burden, we have to Practice

You have joined the study class at Dharmakshetra, and are engaged in poring over all types of books and gathering information and instruction. But, what have you gained? Knowledge about what this author says or that sage teaches is not what your study circle must aim to acquire. Not information, but transformation; not instruction, but construction should be the aim. Theoretical knowledge is a burden, unless it is practised, when it can be lightened into wisdom, and assimilated into daily, life. Knowledge that does not give harmony and wholeness to the process of living is not worth acquiring. Every activity must be rendered valid and worthwhile by its contribution to the discovery of Truth, both of the Self and of Nature. Of what use is it to know everything about nature, if you do not know anything of the Self? Nature is only a projection of the Self, and so, unless the Self is known, knowledge of nature is either distorted or deceptive. The Self is Atma, of which the entire Creation is composed, so knowledge of the Self alone can quench the thirst of man.

Sathyasai Study

How do we practice? 

We just got aware of the importance of the job we have to do. If we think it over and write our thoughts down there is a reflection going on in the mind. If the writer is a job and facilitating it in that way, in a study circle is more efficient, because we sit together and the participator has the job to participate. Why we call it a job, because there is a sense of duty involved, we always try to do a good job and our best and it is not a matter of arguing, but a matter of decision. We take a job and do it, that is the way we can make it experience and learn from it. 

He is telling us here that theoretical wisdom is a burden. And how do we make it practical knowledge? In practicing and in talking about it. We are practitioners and we have to put it into practice that is the main thing, otherwise, it remains theoretical wisdom and a burden. 

That is why we have study circles, it make it possible for everybody to participate and we tell our point of view and go around in the circle, all have to be able to share the thoughts, but it helps a lot if we are aware what we are doing. The facilitator is also a job that makes it possible for the participator, also a job and get in that sense aware of the value of duty and by participating we tell what we think and feel and together we get to the right conclusion and afterwards it is no more theoretical wisdom, it becomes practical experience - that is what we want, that is the main thing, it has to become experience.