Masters and the Great Ideals

You are unnecessarily struggling and planning several schemes, thinking about them day and night. In spite of all your struggles, what has to go out of your hands will go. The body is like a water bubble. The mind is like a mad monkey. If you follow this mad monkey, you will get into trouble. In the same manner, if you believe in the body, you do not know when this body, which is like a water bubble, will burst. Nothing is permanent. Only the Atma (Self) is eternal and immortal. 'I', 'Self', 'God' are all different names by which the Atmaswarupa is called. God incarnated as Rama, Krishna, and the like, and underwent several difficulties to demonstrate great ideals. Finally, they too left the mortal coil. The physical bodies of the Avatars undergo changes, but the Divine Atma in their bodies remains the same. It is omnipresent, eternal and changeless. Divinity in all the human beings is one and the same.

In this quote Swami talks about things we plan and think about non-stop and what keeps us busy, and he is telling that everything that has to go will go. Even though we are fighting for it and even if we are day and night busy thinking about it, when the moment comes, we will have to let go. The body is perishable. It is like a water bubble and the mind compares Swami with a crazy monkey, which we can hardly control and if we follow the monkey mind, we will inevitably get into trouble. And the same with the body, which is like a water-bubble, when we believe in the body, one day it will burst, and it will be gone. In the relative world nothing is permanent.

Only the Self is eternal and immortal. We know it as' I ',' Self ', God', the different names we give to the Atmaswarupa, the embodied Atma. God incarnated as Rama and Krishna and others, and they had to face lots difficulties to demonstrate the great ideals, and they also left the mortal coils. The body is not lasting; there is no difference for an avatar. Also the bodies of the avatars change, but the divine Atma is always the same, it does not change and it is as well in every human being, we all have the same potential, the question is if we are able to realize it. It consists of omnipresent, eternal, and unchanging consciousness. The Divine is one and the same in all human beings.

We are One

You may install idols and worship them. But do not forget the inner significance of all that worship. All external activities are necessary only to help you to get the spirit of non-duality and experience unity in diversity. Love and sacrifice are very important. Where there is pure, unsullied, selfless, sacred and sublime love there is no fear at all. Giving and not getting is the underlying principle of spiritual sadhana. Your heart is full of love, but you are using it only for selfish purposes instead of diverting it towards God. God is in the heart and not in the head. The heart is full of love. Every day, remind yourself that God is one; all religions uphold the same principle of 'One God, who is omnipresent.' Do not have contempt for any religion, as each is a pathway to God. Fostering love towards your fellow-beings, receive the blessings of the Divine. This is the goal of life.

Swami mentions here the worship of idols, and it is a help to remember the divine, but he is as well telling us that it is only okay as long as we do not

forget the inner meaning. What is the difference, how do we know if the inner meaning is present and when it is not present? It is important for us to be able to make that difference. Swami mentions that external actions are necessary to make the experience of non-duality and to experience unity in diversity, therefore, no matter what; the goal is unity, the experience of non-duality.

Today is the day when Swami left the body. He is as well telling us that the highest and pure love does not know any fear, and it is the basic principle of giving and not taking as our spiritual exercise or sadhana and it is said that the heart is full of love, but we use it for selfish purposes instead of focus on God. The question is what is selfish and how do we know the difference?

He reminds us that God is in the heart and not in the head, with other words; he is inside and not outside or in our imagination. The head imagines things, but the heart feels love.

Whether it is an idol or based on our imagination in the mind or whether we pretend to see it, it is still a form. It is for us important to get aware of it, because there are people taking advantage of it, telling us that they see Swami as a light form.

The principle of the Divine is 'I am that'; it is alive in all of us and transcends the form, but it needs to be realized. How can we get aware of the difference?

Two Wings are Needed if we Want to Fly

Do not engage yourself in the cultivation of or the promotion of wants and desires. That is a never ending process of sowing and reaping; you will never reach contentment and one desire when satisfied, will fan the thirst for ten more. Do not run after devious desires or crooked satisfactions. All roads leading to the realm of the senses are tortuous and blind, only the road that leads to the path of the Lord is straight. Cultivate righteousness in every action, that will reveal the Divine Self. Straightforwardness will enable you to overcome the three gunas (qualities). No single Guna should dominate; all must be tamed to fill the lake of bliss. It is your internal bliss that matters, not the external, the sensory, the objective and the worldly. If the inner poise or inner equilibrium is undisturbed by external ups and downs, that is a sure sign of spiritual success.

We have twenty quotes to contemplate in this months as it is the time before Baba left the body. That means I am quite busy and it is a very good exercise in sharing it with others we get aware of it. 
Just today he mentioned the two wings we need to fly or the two wheels we need to be able of pulling the cart.
Getting aware of it and contemplating the words of Baba is the other wing, all we do in the Sai centers is the wing of practice, people are singing a lot and like to sing and are great singers and other are doing practice in some service activities, but what I notice often is that something seems missing and it is that basic wisdom. To make it more clear that with contemplation we are not talking about the same wing as we do with practice, I put the picture, I have already in my blog. 

Thinking it over is a great exercise to get aware of it. When we listen to his words, it is about real and unreal, it is about right action and being aware of the difference between what is right and what is not right action and as he is telling us we have to overcome to three gunas, but that means with other words, we have to know the difference between them and that is already challenging our mind to know what is sathva, purity and what is rajas, passion and what is tamas, ignorance. 

Sathva is the path, rajas, passion we have to transform and tamas, inertia we have to give up. He is telling us they must be tamed to be in bliss, but without wisdom it is just impossible to tame the gunas, we need to know the difference between them to be able to tame them and that means we usually start to live a sathvic life style to get aware of it when it is not sathva, but something else. 

18 Service

Jeder muss den Geist des Opfers (thyaga) entwickeln. Du musst den Leuten mit deinem Körper dienen. Du musst gute und edle Gedanken in deinem Geist schätzen. Sie müssen Ihren Reichtum für die Unterstützung von Bildungs-und anderen Institutionen, um die Menschen zu helfen. Gib dem Verhungern Essen. Dies ist der Weg, um ein zielgerichtetes und erhabenes Leben zu führen. Das Leben ist dir gegeben worden, um dich nicht selbst zu fetten. Der Körper ist das Grundinstrument für die Praxis der Gerechtigkeit (Dharma). Dedicated Ihre gesamte Zeit zum Service und für die ordnungsgemäße Entlastung Ihrer Aufgaben. Gott allein kann deine spirituellen Anstrengungen in eine transzendentale Erfahrung verwandeln. Gott ist allgegenwärtig; Er ist überall und in dir. Du bist göttlich! Stellen Sie sicher, dass Ihre spirituellen Praktiken (Sadhana) nicht für irgendeinen egoistischen Grund sind. Es muss das Gute der anderen fördern. Selbstsucht aufgeben, selbstlose Liebe für andere kultivieren und dein Leben heiligen Dann wirst du Sakshatkara erleben, die Vision des Göttlichen aus dir.

18. Everyone must develop the spirit of sacrifice (thyaga). You must serve the people with your body. You have to cherish good and noble thoughts in your mind. You must use your wealth for supporting educational and other institutions to help the people. Give food to the starving. This is the way to lead a purposeful and sublime life. Life has been given to you not to become fat yourself. The body is the basic instrument for the practice of righteousness (Dharma). Dedicate your entire time to service and for the proper discharge of your duties. God alone can transform your spiritual efforts into a transcendental experience. God is omnipresent; He is everywhere and within you. You are Divine! Ensure your spiritual practices (Sadhana) are not for any selfish reason. It must promote the good of others. Giving up selfishness, cultivating selfless love for others, and sanctify your lives. Then you will experience Sakshatkara, the vision of the Divine from within you. 

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Right Action, Dharma, the Code of Conduct and the Ideal

Dharma (Righteousness) is the code of conduct that will promote the ideals of each stage of a per­son: student, householder, earner, master, servant, spiritual aspirant, ascetic (sanyasi), etc. When the code is distorted and mankind undermines its earthly career, forgetting the high purpose for which one has come, the Lord incarnates and leads people along the correct path. Lord Rama was one such incarnation. He truly is the Embodiment of Virtue (Dharma-swarupam) shrouded in an illusory human form; He stuck to dharma in daily practice, even from His infancy. He is the personification of dharma. There is no trace of vice (a-dharma) in Him. His Divine Nature is revealed in His calm temperament and feeling of love and affection. Meditate on Him and you are filled with love for all beings; dwell on His story and you find all the agitations of your minds quietening in perfect calm.

We can ask ourselves, what is our position in life? This question gets us to the basic question, ‘who am I?’

We have to live in the West and we don’t have usually a feeling about Dharma. It is a code of conduct, therefore, how are we going to benefit from it and how do we understand it? How do we get in the West a feeling about it? Swami talks about the Atma and as he said shortly, listening and contemplation is a spiritual discipline in three steps, first we need to listen, second we have to think it over and we usually have to somehow see it in our life to be able to absorb that means to understand it enough to be able to practice. If we just read, we are in the mind as it is only hearing it, when we think it over to be able to absorb, only then we are able to even get close to the reality of the Atma. Therefore, it is a spiritual discipline in three steps; we never get there if we are only hearing it.

Dharma (Righteousness) is the code of conduct that will promote the ideals of each stage   of a per­son: student, householder, earner, master, servant, spiritual aspirant, ascetic (sanyasi), etc.

Blend Truth and Right Action and there will be Peace

Once, a person in great distress clamoured for a reservation at the booking office of a railway station, but the clerk there was helpless for the person did not know where he wanted to go. He was anxious only to get away, he had had enough of that place. How can anyone help him? All, sooner or later, behave like this. Life is no unmixed good. No one is happy by being immersed in worldly life. Every individual is tossed about by the waves of joy and grief; buffeted by fortune, good or bad; a target of brickbats and bouquets. The evil around affects one's peace and anxiety, and robs one of sleep and quiet. One therefore tries to escape from all this, but one is not sure to where! The spiritual teacher (Guru) can guide you where to go, which place to seek; but, even a Guru cannot make you reach it. You have to trudge along the road yourself.

Swami is telling us that we all get to that moment in life when we want to get away from that place, but we don't know where to go. 
That was a constant issue in my life, when I went for a visit to my parent's place, as soon as I arrived I wanted to leave again. It was that strong that I had a feeling of longing to travel and going somewhere else and what was the worst about it, I didn't know why. 

It was not clear what it was and why and that was kind of troublesome, because when we don't know the source, we cannot understand it. 

When listening to Swami's words we get aware that on one point or another everybody feels like that and that is kind of good getting aware of it. 

How can anyone help us when we just want to get away and we have enough, but we don't really know where to go? 

He explains to us that life is no unmixed good and no one can be happy only being immersed in worldly life, but the master can help, but even then we have to go the road by ourselves. 

The Inner Eye of Wisdom

Since I moved freely among people, talking and singing with them, even intellectuals were unable to grasp My truth, My power, My glory, or My real task as Avatar. I can solve any problem however knotty. I am beyond the reach of the most intensive enquiry and the most meticulous measurement. Only those who have recognised My love and experienced it can assert that they have glimpsed My reality. Do not attempt to know Me through the external eyes. When you go to a temple and stand before the image of God, you pray with closed eyes, don't you? Why? Because you feel that the inner eye of wisdom alone can reveal Him to you. Therefore, do not crave from Me trivial material objects; but, crave for Me from within, and you will be rewarded. The path of Love is the royal road that leads mankind to Me. My grace is ever available to devotees who have steady love and faith.

In this Swami quote he talks in the first person as Godhead and that reality we have to get the insight first and see it to get a feeling for it. We tend to think that he talks about him in the form, but he is not the form, he is the Atma. He is bigger than the biggest and smaller than the smallest. 

If we contemplate his words, we don't see with the external eyes we see with the inner eye. He was in the dream as  insight and as the following step and in the insight he was one night present as, 'I am the One'. In the dream that is totally different reality than in the waking state where we question everything. When it is in the dream we know it is him and we know it is God, if in the dream someone is telling, 'I am the One' there is no doubt that it is Swami and that there is only one and no second one. 

Become Divine - that is Your Destiny

In the past, Divine incarnations rid the world of evil by destroying the few fanatics and ogres who wrought it. But in the present times, fanaticism and felony reigns in every heart. The evil people are legion, no one is free from that taint, and all are wicked to some extent or the other. Therefore, everyone needs correction. Everyone must be educated and guided in the right path. Every being is a pilgrim destined to return to God and merge in Him. But most people have forgotten the path, they wander like lost children, wasting precious time in the by-lanes of the world. Human beings are the best amongst creation who can feel, think and experience their own journey across time! Armed with the sword of discrimination (Viveka) and the shield of renunciation (Vairagya), you must use this precious opportunity to transform yourself to become Divine - that is your destiny, the plan and purpose of your being.

Here we are in the past incarnations, we don't know much about the past, it is history and our life is too short to just get a feeling for it. We live in the present time and what he is telling us is that in the past fanatics and ogres had been destroyed in a different way than today, as it seems they were not living in the same body as today. We have it today in every heart. We have the choice between wicked tendencies in the mind. With meditation we take care of it and we purify the mind that is a reason I always went on with meditation to just make sure that the mind gets rid of some tendencies we don't want. 

Realize the Sweetness within

To reform one's tendencies and character is indeed an uphill task. One may have studied all the text-books of spiritual practice, also read all the scriptures, and may even have lectured for hours on them; but one slips into error when confronted by temptation. Like the land that is parched, the heart may appear to be free from any crop of evil, but when the first showers fall, the seeds and roots underneath the soil change the parched land into a carpet of green. You may have the best of vegetables, you may have the most capable chef in the world, but if the copper vessel in which you prepare the soup is not tinned, the dish you cook will be highly poisonous. Similarly, you must 'tin' your heart with truth, right conduct, peace and divine love. Only then will it become a vessel fit to repeat holy names, practice meditation, observe religious vows, do ritualistic worship, and so on.

Baba is the principle of the divine parents and it is based on oneness, the Atma reflects, reacts and resounds, if we observe and go on observing, after a certain time we will have the reflection in the dream stage, as he explains the dream stage has pictures, but there is no mind and therefore, it is possible that we experience the reflection of the Atma on the dream stage without the mind. It is a different reality from the waking stage where the mind is part of the experience and he said, he is the man coming in our dreams to awaken. 

Practice first, and then Preach!

An old year is gone by and a new year has come, and people joyfully celebrate the arrival of the new year. Do you know how many centuries have elapsed since the history of mankind? There is no use turning back and watching the road traversed – your duty is to watch the road ahead and march steadily towards your goal. It is lack of faith that causes you to lose temper and fly into fits of anger; it is lack of faith in yourself and in others. If you see yourself as truly the undefeatable Divine Self and everyone around you as your reflections, just as the scriptures declare them to be, you will never be provoked to get angry. What you must resolve today in the auspicious New Year is to march steadily on the spiritual path to manifest your Divinity. Resolve to do this one thing – Practice first, and then preach!

We can say that also after we just celebrated our birthday, the new year has come and we have joyfully started the arrival of the new year, only the year doesn't get older like we do in the body, celebrating the begin of a new year. 

Baba talks here about history, centuries have elapsed since the history of mankind. When we contemplate his words it is always a question how to see it in our own life, in thinking about our own birthday we somehow compare inside his words with our own life and that is how we can start to think it over seeing it in our own life, what is the main issue really to get a feeling for his words and what about our history?

If we see the centuries elapsed, the history of mankind and he mentions here that there is no turning back and watching the road in traverse, it is our duty to watch the road ahead of us marching steadily towards the goal.

We can ask ourselves, do we know the goal?

An old year is gone by and a new year has come, and people joyfully celebrate the arrival of the new year. Do you know how many centuries have elapsed since the history of mankind? There is no use turning back and watching the road traversed – your duty is to watch the road ahead and march steadily towards your goal.

The 'See-er' must not Attach Oneself to the 'Seen'

The contact of the senses with object arouses desire and attachment; this leads to effort and consequently, either elation or despair! Then, there is the fear of loss or grief at failure and the train of reactions elongates. The 'see-er' must not attach oneself to the 'seen'; that is the secret to living happily. With many doors and windows kept open to all the winds that blow, how can the flame of the lamp within survive? The lamp is your mind, which must burn steadily unaffected by the demands of the world outside. Complete surrender to the Lord (Saranagathi) is one way of closing the windows and doors. For, when you surrender completely to the Lord, you are bereft of 'ego' and so, you are not buffeted by joy or grief. Saranagathi, will enable you to draw upon the Lord's Grace for meeting all the crises that arise in your life and renders you heroic, steadfast and better prepared to face life's challenges. 

Here Swami is telling us that the 'see-er' must not attach oneself to the 'seen'; that is the secret to living happily. 

We can ask ourselves how we detach the 'see-er' from the 'seen' what is outside of us on the sense-level. If we keep the doors and windows of the senses open the wind can blowout the flame of the lamp. He compares the lamp with the mind, it should be unaffected by the world outside. 

In the next sentence he is telling us how, with complete surrender to the Lord, that way we close the windows and the doors. The question is still how that complete surrendering is possible. He talks in that sense of the ideal, but for me it was always a question how to reach that ideal. 

Let him Blossom in the Heart

Practice—that is the real thing that matters in spirituality! Scholarship is a burden, it is very often a handicap. So long as God is believed to be far away in temples and holy places, you will feel religion to be a burden and a hurdle. But plant him in your heart and you will feel light, burdenless and in fact, stronger! It is like the food basket – when you carry it on the shoulder, it feels heavy and you feel you are too weak to even carry it during a walk. But sit near a stream and eat it. Though the total weight has not decreased, the consequence of eating the food makes you feel lighter and in fact stronger! Similarly, apply this to the idea of God. Do not carry it on your shoulder, take 'Him' in! Let Him blossom within you! Keep the memory of the Lord and His Glory always with you!

When we do something regularly, we forget in time nearly that it is practice and in that sense it is not only writing and thinking it over, it is most of all regular meditation. It has turned into something we don't think about it, we just do it, it is part of the waking up ritual in the morning. 

There were experiences with self-realization and the question was how I would stay in touch with it and I tried all kinds of things first and it seemed just to get further away and then we began with watching, what was a kind of an adventure as it included getting aware of the own limitations. It began to  load after a certain time as it was not possible to just stop it and get back to where it had been before, it was not really possible to change the mind and not doing it anymore and I didn't think about that before. Watching is not just an attitude of the mind, it becomes part of our life. It felt not possible to get back to the inner distance and just tell, I don't want that, it was a commitment and we had to go to the end and we didn't know the end. 
It was not really possible to explain what I did as we need the words of a self-realized authority. When reading about it all seemed clear in my own experience in a sense it was clear as well, but still it was not possible to talk about it in such a way that it made sense. 

Love is Divine

Love is Divine. Love all, impart your love even to those who lack love. Love is like a mariner's compass. Wherever you may keep it, it points the way to God. In every action in daily life manifest your love. Divinity will emerge from that love. This is the easiest path to God-realisation. But why aren't people taking to it? This is because they are obsessed with misconception relating to the means of experiencing God. They regard God as some remote entity attainable only by arduous spiritual practices. God is everywhere. There is no need to search for God. All that you see is a manifestation of the Divine. All the human beings you see are forms of the Divine. Correct your defective vision and you will experience God in all things. Speak lovingly, act lovingly, think with love and do every action with a love-filled heart. 

Love is the means to experience oneness, if we get to experience that pure love, he is telling us that the love of the divine for the devotee and the love of the devotee for the divine is the same quality of love and therefore, at that place we melt and there is only one. 

But we have to get the experience of pure love and he also said, if we want to make the experience of pure love, we need three things, we need truth, right action and peace. We have to accept truth and we have to accept right action and we have to understand peace and when we have those three things, we can make the experience of pure love. 

Truth is not merely describing what you have seen, expressing as is what you have heard or sharing honestly what you have experienced. Truth is beyond all this. It is a deep inner feeling and it must come from within. Truth must originate from your heart. Truth is permanent; it does not change with the passage of time. When you rely on Truth (Sathya), Righteousness (Dharma) arises out of it. It is Truth that teaches how one should conduct oneself and perform one’s duties. Righteousness is a reflection of Truth. You will experience peace when Sathya and Dharma co-exist. This is indeed peace, Shanti. It is foolishness to think that Peace exists elsewhere and is separate from you. If you separate truth and righteousness, you will find only pieces; on the other hand if you blend them you will experience Peace always.

Whatever Troubles You have, I give you Bliss!

God is not attracted by learning or scholarship, which does not lead anywhere except towards egoism and pride. God is drawn only by pure devotion. Bring to Me, whatever troubles you have, I shall take them on and give you bliss! You rush to the temple or Prasanthi Nilayam and crave to get a darshan! What greater sign of devotion is needed than this yearning? But, this love is not enough! In fact, it does not mean much at all! What is needed is the regulation of that Love, in the form of virtue and service. If you succeed in that, you truly achieve something. Renunciation and divine love should reverberate the atmosphere, and silence as the discipline should fill the place. Have the Name of the Lord on your tongue and the form of your chosen Lord before your eye. If you shape yourself this way, the place where you stand will become Kashi and your home will become Badri.

Swami is talking about God, but he is talking to man, people attracted by learning and scholarship, even thought we need to learn and if it is only for making a living, he is telling us that it leads not anywhere but to egoism and pride. 

We probably think we achieved something when we get a degree and we certainly do in the worldly sense, without it we don't go anywhere. 

God is a different reality and Swami is here the God knower, he knows what he is talking about and when we try to talk about it with our own words, it feels more like guessing or trying to understand it and when we use his words, it gets better, because at least we get aware that we think it over. 

God is drawn only by pure devotion and what is pure devotion? 

He it telling us here from the standpoint of God, what is always a challenge for the mind as long as we don't have the experience of it. 

When coming back here Swami was holding up a book and we began to write, all types of writing and trying to get it, no matter what reason and why and here in those words he is telling us why. After going through steps of thinking it over and getting aware of it, as he said, 'use my words', this thought for the day is a good example, and it is just enough text, not too much so that we are able to absorb it, but it is still enough that we have to think it over. 

Listen, think it over, absorb. 

Therefore, bring to me, whatever troubles you have, I shall take them and give you bliss. 

The Terminus Is Realization

Man is saved by Vedanta, which is like the roar of the lion; it gives courage and enterprise; it makes one a hero. It does not whine or howl or cry. It instils the highest types of self-confidence. It is the strongest armour against the arrows of fate, a waterproof against the hailstorms of sensual pleasure. It is a curtain keeping out the mosquitoes of worry, which would otherwise rob you of sleep. With a Vedanta-saturated heart, you are a rock on the shore, unaffected by the waves of temptation. Vedanta challenges your spirit of adventure, your own reality. Board the train of spiritual discipline now and you will reach the terminus which is jnana (absolute knowledge of you and of all this). In a train journey you do not get down in the middle when some station attracts you. So too, in the spiritual journey the stations are karma (action), upasana (contemplation), and so on. You have to pass through them, but remember they are not the terminus. The terminus is Realisation.

Vedanta the meaning is the end of Veda. 

If we are not sure about what scripture it is, here Swami is very clear about it. It is Vedanta that makes us the rock on the shore, unaffected by the waves. 

He calls it even a Vedanta-saturated heart. 

And he mentions our spirit of adventure and our own reality. 

We should board the train of spiritual discipline now and reach the terminus which is Jnana and often we hear some people telling us that they are not into Jnana and it is misunderstood as intellectual and Bhakti is the heart, but there is no heart without the head, truth has to come from the heart.
If we think heart is feeling and love only and truth has to do with intellect, it is a misunderstanding. 
Truth is based on insights and therefore it has to be the heart and right action is the reflection of truth that comes up in the heart. 
If we have truth and right action blended, we have peace and that needs to be understood. And when we understand that we have to blend truth and right action to find peace, we don't imagine peace as a mind state, we know it has to do with realization and only when we have those three things, right action, truth and peace, we are able to get the experience of pure love. 
It is not what we imagine love is on the feeling level only, it is truth that comes from the heart the insight. 
If people separate in their mind Bhakti, devotion and Jnana, wisdom it is probably because they don't listen to Swami's words. 
And probably it is just as an excuse, but here Swami is clear beyond doubt, without knowledge it is impossible, without wisdom even if there is love, it will not be pure love. It is the wisdom that makes it pure. 

Courage and Spiritual Practice

Many discourage you from taking up spiritual practices and say that these can be taken up at a ripe old age, as if they are the prerogatives of, or special punishments for the aged! Enjoy the world while you can and then figure out the next - that seems to be the attitude of many! The child takes its first few steps in the safety of its home; it toddles about inside, until its steps become firm, until its balance is perfected, and then as it grows up steadily, it slowly ventures into the streets and the whole wide world. So too, every being must master the inner world first and become impervious to temptations. You should learn not to fall when the senses trip your steps; you should learn the balance of mind, which will not make you lean more to one side than to the other. After mastering this discriminatory wisdom, you can confidently move out into the outer world, without fear of accidents to your personality.

We can not really tell that we find the same situation in the West, we get always again aware that there is no knowledge about spiritual practice and no feeling about it. 
And that counts as well for those who went to India. 
If we are not really focused on it, it can be that it never really get clear as our way of life is very different. 
In our society is hat never been an issue about spiritual practice, in the opposite I remember that the common believe was that those who are spiritual are not taken really serious, because science tells us something else. 
Therefore, it has never been about spiritual practice and we don't have any wisdom about yoga or meditation in our culture integrated in our society and the church has become more and more empty and not full.  
Growing up in the West it was never about spiritual practices, when I mentioned years ago as a young adult the word self-realization I was surprised to get the answer, that doesn't exists. I had mentioned it to two class mates that I wanted self-realization and I had mentioned it once at the lunch table in my parent's house and got the response of my father that I was a communist. 
It was more a question if we believed in it or not and self-realization was out of question, the answer was it belonged in the times of the old Greek culture and not in our modern society and I still went in direction of self-realization, but I stopped talking about it. 

Even if that is true for everybody what Swami mentions here, we will not find it in our Western societies and even less in the young people, the wisdom about spiritual practices is nearly completely lost. And that is probably also a reason that even after years of singing Bhajans we still have people who seem to have no wisdom about meditation and self-control. 

Joy and Grief and getting to a Right Conclusion

Your child will give you great joy through its play and prattle, but when it interferes with your work or demands your attention when you are working on something important, you get very angry with it. Your child now becomes your source of joy as well as grief! Remember, there is nothing in the world which can give you unmixed joy. Even if there is one such thing, when it is lost, you will become very sad! This is in the very nature of this world. So try to correct the very source of joy and sorrow, the mind. Control your mind and train it to accept and see the real nature of this objective world, which attracts and repels you in turns. This is the real fruit of education!

Before reading this words I was in my morning meditation and it went through my head how many different situations I already had been in an out and meditation was always the same. If we meditate we just go on through joy and grief. 
There was a time I had been at the USA I went there to learn English and at that time I didn't meditate yet. It was a difficult time and not long ago I had a big old Buick in the insight and it was too big, it didn't have room in the small tunnel I had to pass and I was scared to get stuck. After I came back from the US at that time my life felt upside down. 

Start with Courage, Faith, Joy and Steadiness

Life is a pilgrimage to God; the holy spot is there, afar. The road lies right before you; but unless you take the first step forward and follow that step with others, how can you reach it? Start with courage, faith, joy and steadiness. You are bound to succeed. Your mind and intellect are two bullocks tied to the cart of your 'inner self'. The bullocks are not used to the path of Truth, Righteousness, Non-violence, Peace and Love, and so they drag the cart to the road that is very familiar to them, namely falsehood, injustice, worry and hatred. As its master, you must train them to take the better road, so that they may not bring disaster to themselves, the cart they are yoked to and to the passengers in the cart.

The road lies right before us. Just start and don't stop until reached. If we start and don't stop we are bound to succeed.

He explains that the mind and intellect are like two bullocks tied to the cart of our inner self. They are not used to the path. The path are the human values, it is truth, sathya, right action, dharma, peace, shanti, love, prema and non-violence, ahmisa. 

This two the mind and the intellect drag the cart as they are used to it, what they see on that road are not the human values, but falsehood, injustice, worry and hatred.

 

We have to train them to take the better road and how do we do it? With one-pointed focus, watch and train the mind and the intellect to see instead of negativity the human values, if we focus on the divine or inner self in us, we might not know it yet, but if we start and hold on to it, one day the experience of it will be there. And it is for all of us the same reflection of light, there is no difference, and that is how we can realize the oneness of all. We start and we go on with steadiness, with faith and joy and with courage we to go on to the end, we are bound to succeed. 

Baba said to a devotee who asked about illusion, why the world is seen as Maya, delusion, he said if there is intent, if we have a purpose and there is work done and there is time past, there will be a result and it will be real and not an illusion. 

Concentration and Insights

Each and every one of you has a great deal of concentration. You know the art, for every task requires it and everyone benefits from good concentration. The carpenter, the weaver, the clerk, the boatman - all have it in a greater or lesser degree. Use that power of concentration for the task of directing the mind, towards its own goodness. Examine its working and train it to restrict itself to good company, good thoughts and good deeds. Practice meditation on any form of the Lord and repeat any name of the Lord with the awareness of its sweetness. That will teach your mind to be sharp and produce good music out of the joys as well as the griefs that are incidental to life. If the arena of life is entered just for getting sensory joy, you are in for all kinds of trouble. It is like sailing in a tiny boat on a storm-tossed sea without a rudder. So enter upon the path of spiritual discipline now itself.

One-pointedness and concentration what is that important, we know as well as dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi, (even intellect), the three together are samyama and that we need as advanced type of meditation with the Patanjali sutras for them to be there or as we could tell to manifest. 
But in listening to his words and thinking it over it can also happened that we get aware, but that was the reason there was the feeling of self-realization when I was only sixteen and a teenager and writing a diary, it had to do with focus. 
It was a kind of amazing experience and with that writing there was the insight self-realization and after that experience had ended, it was always kind of intriguing how I got to that feeling of self-realization and I tried to find it again, but it was not there anymore. And in listening to his words we get aware, it was the concentration and that was not only present in the diary, but as well in the parents. 
As a teenager writing a diary there were all types of insights. But there was a similar focus in my parents working together. It was a kind of dedicated concentration. As Swami is pointing out here, it is the same for an artist, it is as well for a mountaineer. It was there in their work. 

The Destroyer of Ignorance

Who is Lord Shiva, and where is He to be found? Many answers are given, including Kailash as His place of residence. The true answer is, 'Isavasyam Idam Sarvam' (All this is pervaded by Isa). He is omnipresent. There is no place, object or being where God is not present. Correct your outlook and recognise this unity in the apparent diversity around you. When God is omnipresent, what need is there to go in search of Him? The search is meaningless. If one gets rid of attachment and hatred, one will experience the Divinity inherent within. This is the sadhana (spiritual exercise) one has to do today - to get rid of desire and hatred which conceal the God within. Many people ask: "Swami! Show us the way." All you have to do is to go back to the source from which you came. Where is the need for seeking the way? The Bhagavatha has declared that it is the natural destiny of every living being to go back to where each one came from.

In this quote of Swami he explains Lord Shiva and how we should understand it. In the West we are anyhow not used to that, we prefer to see God everywhere and in the impersonal aspect and not in the form. We like the omnipresent aspect of the divine.

He is telling us that we should correct our outlook. That is important, because it is telling us that we can see the unity in diversity if we correct our outlook, we don't have it already in just thinking the divine is everywhere. Everywhere is a big thing and a concept, it is a place we go in the search for him and he tells us there is no need to do that.

We have to go back where we came from. And we try to get a feeling for it as the deep feeling makes the difference. We look for it inside and we try to feel it how we can get rid of attachment and hatred. It helps to see it as a lesson, when we see it as a lesson we go ahead and don't bother to find faults with people around us and there is no hatred if it is a lesson, but we wait until the lesson will make sense and that is an insight and insight is the sight of truth. Truth is permanent and never changing, an insight can feel like a dream, but it is not a dream, it will be lasting and a dream we will forget.  

That is why he is telling us no need to search for him, he even tells us that it is meaningless, he is present, we just have to get rid of attachment and hatred. 

How do we go back to where we came from?

We had an interview and he told us, 'follow the master, fight to the end, finish the game'. It has to be experience, direct perception is experience and it means not a concept. Whatever we think is a concept.  

He is the man coming in our dreams to awaken. Dreams are insights and sometimes it can feel just like a dream, but when is an insight we will not forget it and in the inner view it will find its place and we will realize that it was not a dream, but an insight. 
To get to a right answer as he is the man coming in our dreams to awaken, we have to listen to his words, in his words is the same reality reflected we find in the dreams and when we think it over to be able to absorb, we get to the inner view. Insights and inner view is not the same, insights are more or less pictures, as Swami said in the dream, he was present as two Swamis, one was the insight and the other the following step, it can be an insight without that it makes sense and we have to go the following step and only then it will be inner view. When the insights make sense it becomes inner view. It is a mirror and we have to listen to his words. He is the man coming in our dreams to waken only in listening to his words the insights begin to make sense. 

I have come to Reform You

I have come to reform you. I will not leave you until I do that. Even if you get away before I do that, do not think you can escape Me, I will hold on to you. I am not worried if you leave Sai, for I am not anxious that there should be a huge gathering here and a big following around Me. Who invited all of you here? Without any printed invitation, thousands are coming to Sai. But, of one thing, be assured. Whether you come to Me or not, you are all Mine. This Sai Mata (Mother of all) has the love of a thousand mothers towards Her children; that is why I do so much lalana (fondling) and so much palana (protecting). If I appear to be angry, remember, it is only love in another form that I use to evince my disappointment when you do not shape up in line with my guidance.

He is talking about reformation and we know form listening to his words that Sathva is the path, Rajas needs to be transformed and Tamas has to be given up, if he tells that he came to refrom us we could conclude that our life is mostly in Rajas and not in Sathva. The transformation has to be there to get us into Sathva, purity, we are not on the spiritual path if our life is in Rajas mostly and not in Sathva, but who knows the difference? I wonder sometimes if everybody asked ever that question about the three Gunas, but we find it as well in the Gita, only sathva is the path. 

I have come to reform you. I will not leave you until I do that. 

It is the task of a spiritual master who is only in sathva guna, a sathva body to transform our life into sathva, if it is a spiritual master based on truth it is sathvic. 
As the path is sathic only, we have to be transformed, otherwise, we cannot be on the spiritual path. It has something to do with natural law and there is a basic difference between the three gunas, we have to understand. Activity is mostly based on Rajas, passion and we lack the calm silent insights of the sathva guna. As long as it is Rajas it can be transformed, when it is about Tamo Guna, we have to give it up and if we don't see it in our own life we don't know why we have to give it up as we cannot understand it so more or less we have to make the experience of it to be able to know that difference between Rajas, passion and Tamas, inertia.  

He is telling us that we cannot escape him, because we are with him and we are on the spiritual path if we want to escape, we have to stop being on the spiritual path. 

Even if you get away before I do that, do not think you can escape Me, I will hold on to you. I am not worried if you leave Sai, for I am not anxious that there should be a huge gathering here and a big following around Me. 

Giving up the little 'I' is Renunciation

Giving up the little 'I' is the true meaning of renunciation (Tyaga). Tyaga does not mean running away from the hearth and home into the jungle. It means sublimating every thought, word and deed as an offering to God and saturating all acts with Divine intent. This is the best spiritual practice to cultivate selfless love. Love gives for ever, it never asks another to give. Shower it, and you will be showered in return. Selfless love thrives on renunciation, they are inseparable. The essential reality of a human being rejects the ego as a blemish. When you sincerely investigate into the question, "Who am I", you will find that everyone is included in 'I', and your love will expand limitlessly. Ego should not be allowed to express itself freely, as it smothers the spring of love. God is love, so all things created by God are filled with love.

How do we give up the little I? Swami tells us here that giving up the little 'I' is the true meaning of renunciation. This is information, we know the little 'I' is the ego. It is as well body consciousness and in that sense natural, we get it without that we have to do something about it.

Swami corrects the meaning that we have to run away to the jungle to renounce. 

He gives the answer in the third sentence, it means sublimating every thought, word and deed as an offering to the divine and all acts with divine intent and it is about cultivating selfless love.