Small Teachings In a pond, along with the lotus flowers that bloom, there are blood sucking leeches that thrive. Like the lotus cannot survive without water, human life cannot survive without love. Don’t let the leeches of worry breed in your heart of love. Do not allow wicked thoughts to stick to you. Sanathana Sarathi, May 1998, p. 124 It is desire which haunts man that is responsible for making one item a boon or a bane. It is the mind that decides the desire and directs it. A sharp knife can be used for slicing food or for stabbing another. In the hands of a surgeon it can save a life rather than destroy one. The mind can liberate you from bondage or bind you more tightly with the objective world. Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 12, . 202

The Priest and the Thief Abrahman (priest), whose profession was singing the glories of the Lord, was once reciting Bhagavatham in the house of a pa­tron. A thief broke into the house where the recital was going on and hid himself in the attic. Perforce he had to listen to the Bhagavatham. The singer was describing the ornaments worn by Krishna. He described the various or­naments Yasoda (Krishna’s foster mother) put on Krishna before sending Him out with the cows. The thief thought he should kill the lad Krishna and rob all the ornaments at one stroke instead of struggling every day with petty stealing. He waited until the brahman finished the story, then left the place. Wanting to know where the boy was, the thief followed the brahman and waylaid him. The brahman, frightened that he would lose the small amount collected as dakshina (reverential offering given to guru/priest), told the thief, “I do not have anything with me.” The thief said, “I do not want any material from you. I only want some information. You were telling of a woman, Yasoda, who adorned a boy, Krishna, with ornaments before she sent him to graze the cows. I want to know where I can find him.” The brahman was in a fix. Cleverly, he told the thief, “There is a book in my house where I keep all these particulars. Come with me.” He took the thief to his house, looked in a book, and said, “In Brindavan, on the banks of River Yamuna, in a green meadow, two boys will come in the morning—one dark like the cloud with a flute, the other fair, clad in white silk. The dark one will have all the ornaments I described.” The thief believed the story and set out to Brindavan immediately. He located the place, climbed up a tree, and waited for the boys. The sun rose. The faint melody of the flute wafted on the morning breeze. When the enchanting music grew closer, the thief spotted two boys coming. He got down from the tree and went near them. The moment he saw them, he forgot himself, folded his hands and shed tears of joy. He wondered what wretched mother had sent these radiant boys—vigrahas (forms) chiseled to perfection and loaded with ornaments—to the river bank. Since the thief had listened carefully to the story of Krishna as told by the brahman, he noticed that Krishna was not wearing one specific ornament that had been described. He wanted to adorn Krishna with the missing ornament, which he wanted to get even it meant stealing, and enjoy the sight to his heart’s content. Just as a cloud covers the bright sun, wicked thoughts enveloped his mind again. He ap­proached the boys to kill them. Shouting, “Stop,” he held Krishna’s hand. The mo­ment he touched Krishna, all his previous karma was wiped clean and he inquired lovingly, “Who are you?” Krishna said, “Let go of My hands. I am frightened by your looks.” The thief said, “My evil mind is reflected in my face. If you are frightened, I will go away.” Krishna asked the thief, “Have you for­gotten the purpose for which you have come? Here, take my ornaments.” Confused, the thief said, “Will not your mother scold you if you give all your ornaments to me?” Krishna smiled and said, “Do not worry about that. I have plenty of them. I am a bigger thief than you are. But there is a difference between you and me. However much I steal, the owners do not complain. I am lovingly called chittachora (one who steals the heart). Though you are not aware of it, you have a precious ornament in your possession —the chitta (heart). I shall steal it now and take it with Me.” So saying, both boys vanished. To his surprise, the thief found a bag full of ornaments on his shoulder. He took it to the brahman’s house and told him what had happened. Frightened, the brahman took the thief inside and opened the bag. To his utter amazement he saw all the ornaments described as being worn by Krishna in Bhagavatham. Shedding tears of joy, the brahman asked the thief to take him to the place where he saw the dark boy. The thief obliged and both of them waited in the spot where the thief had accosted the boy on the previous day. Sud­denly the thief exclaimed, “Look. Here they come!” But the brahman could not see anyone. Stricken with remorse, he said, “Swami, when You can give darsan (sight of a holy person) to a thief, why not to me? If You do not give darshan to me, I shall end my life.” Krishna said, “You were reading Bhagavatham as just another story. The thief, on the other hand, believed what you told him. I manifest only for those who surrender to Me.” Sincere belief takes one nearer to God.

Dasara Prayer [A model prayer to Mother Sai given during Dasara by Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba.] Mother Sai, We are all children within thy womb. As the mother lovingly bears the hammering of the embryo, thou, too, in thy supreme patience and compassion, dost put up with the painful knocks we give thee by our misdeeds. Thou art the mother cheerfully doing everything only for our sake, thy children. As Mother Durga, thou dost drive away our difficulties and protect us; As Mother Saraswati, endowest us with wisdom; As Mother Lakshmi, givest us the treasure of wealth in correct measure; As Mother Annapoorna, fondly dost feed us. Even without our entreaties, children that we are, thou wilt bless us of thy own accord, with the right things at the right time. However, for our own satisfaction we pray. Pray, feed us with the dishes of devotion for the heart, and victuals of wisdom for the brain. Grant us the vision to realize that thou art the one power immanent everywhere in everything. Source: Prema Dhara, p. 18

Develop Divine Love Asupreme moral and spiritual crisis grips the world today. People everywhere feel frustrated and helpless, anxiously wondering what is in store for humanity. The hopes raised by the advances of science have overcome the barriers of time, distance, and nationality. They have, however, done little to promote better understanding between peoples and amongst nations. Never has there been so much distrust, hatred and violence as is witnessed today in almost every country. Men have forgotten their essentially divine nature and have even failed to develop basic human qualities which raise them above the level of animals. In the ceaseless pursuit of material acquisitions and sensuous pleasures, people have forgotten that the real source of happiness and bliss is the discovery of the Atma (soul) that is in each of us. There are, however, heartening signs that earnest people in many countries are turning to the way of the spirit as the answer to the crisis that faces humanity. There is a spiritual hunger that is growing in every country. Without the conquest of one’s passions and desires and without realizing the divinity that is inherent in every living thing, man cannot achieve bliss within and harmony with the world. The message of the “Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man” which Jesus Christ professed over 2,000 years ago should become a living motto for the achievement of real peace and the unity of mankind. The oneness of all creation affirmed by the ancient seers and sages must be expressed in a transcendental love, which embraces all people regardless of creed, community or language. This is Sai’s Message to you all. May you all develop this Divine Love and stand out as messengers of a new age that is free from selfishness, greed, hatred and violence. Let each of you be a light for himself or herself and thereby be a light for others. Source: Sanathana Sarathi, November 1991

Four-Fifths and One-Fifth What does Sai Baba mean by saying that the search for truth is four-fifths self-inquiry and one-fifth meditation? What does God’s light mean? And what is meant by “not doing anything” about your faults and weaknesses when you discover them? The response to these questions will be what Baba Himself explains in various dis-courses. You yourself can turn up these same answers, if you watch for them. Self-inquiry is vital to your attempt to get what you want—the truth about yourself. A good point for starting self-inquiry is to ask how much you are awake and how much asleep. You may awaken in the morning half-drowsy. But you must fully wake up to the world around you and to your status in that world to behave effectively. Have you noticed that in doing some task, day-dreaming or thought-fantasy gets mixed with your concentration, so you miss something essential, and as a consequence errors creep in? Almost everyone has this experience and thus understands the need to wake up before making a move or an effort. It is the same in spiritual life. An inquiry or a doubt must arise as to whether or not you are cognizing and experiencing yourself and the world in a way that fully accounts for the actual situation. From this self–inquiry, there follows the perception of the need to question yourself and the world more closely. The Buddha, all by himself, relying totally on himself, made this inquiry and finally, while seated quietly under a tree, saw the truth of himself and the world as it actually is. Baba says that this cool, direct path of knowledge is exceedingly difficult. The meaning of self-inquiry, then, is to make an intentional and volitional effort to settle the doubt that you may still be, more or less, dreaming and therefore not seeing things as they really are. When the questioning and observing yourself and the world get under way, you soon realize that the world, the perceived, is not wholly independent of the perceiver. Therefore, an absolutely essential aspect of self-inquiry is to expose and reject faulty and incomplete views about yourself, no matter how strongly entrenched they are in your experience and how much they meet with approval. Whatever cannot stand up under intense scrutiny is rejected, and the inquiry continues. For example, the lifelong belief that the body and you are one and the same is, at best, an incomplete idea and inquiry must continue past that idea. In a very concentrated mode, this self-inquiryis represented by the “Who am I?” question of Ramana Maharshi (he lived into this century, as you know). Baba says that by itself this intense self-inquiry is not enough. The successful way includes some meditation. Then there is the devotional way of searching for the truth about yourself and the world. Either by means of intelligence applied to the problem or because someone you believe tells you, you adopt the viewpoint that duality is relative and that the ultimate reality of both yourself and the world is the omnipresent divine principle. When you take this path, self-inquiry means looking through every phenomenon appearing as yourself or as the world and conceiving God as the essential reality thereof. All of the above is what Swami is talking about when He says that inquiry is four-fifths of searching for the actuality of yourself and the world. In this search, you may decide to rely wholly upon your own intelligence and your own experience and to learn through trial and error—a process that is certainly valid. There are many self-made persons in the spiritual world. But it is common knowledge that in many fields of endeavor, if you can find a master in one of those fields and become his student, you will reach the goal more quickly. From this fact arises the need for a guru—one who is master in his field and who is willing to guide you so you may reach the goal without undue delay and avoid mistakes. The problem with gurus, according to Baba, is that nowadays, competent gurus cannot be found. Today, the only competent guru is God Himself. Baba says that if the true seeker prays to God for guidance, God Himself will appear as guru. Those of us who believe that Sathya Sai Baba is no other than the omnipresent Divine Lord hold on to His teachings with great tenacity. An important part of our daily self-inquiry is to ask ourselves if we are, in fact, putting Swami’s instruction into daily practice with faith and enthusiasm. As you study yourself, faults and bad habits come into view. Swami says that dwelling on your “bad side” is a positive hindrance to discarding the unreal and to revealing the basic unchanging reality. It is not that you should live complacently with your faulty nature, your imperfect personality, but it is that once the truth comes into view, untruth must yield. Swami asks, “Where does darkness go?” It does not go any place. Where there is light, there is no darkness. Swami, the Lord, is Himself light and love. Within the field of that divine light, your bad qualities—creatures of darkness—cannot persist and thrive. By taking the omnipresent God as the focus of your mind, emotions, and behavior, you have Him in you, beside you, with you, every moment of your life. Hold on to His light. Dwell in His light. Let the darkness of the past and the shadows of the present fall away. That is the answer you will find Swami giving to the second part of the question. If you watch for this answer as you read Swami’s discourses, you will find that He does give it again and again. ~John HislopSource: Sanathana Sarathi, Oct./Nov. 1980

The Swing of the Pendulum Baba often uses the analogy of the swing of the pendulum to describe the state of our mind. In the interview room, He says with deep sympathy, “Your mind is like the pendulum; it swings from faith to doubt, and doubt to faith. At one time you have faith in Swami, and again this faith is followed by doubt! You vacillate! Learn to be steady in your heart,” smiles Baba. “Come, examine, experience, and then believe. But don’t lose faith merely because somebody says something. Don’t discount your own experience!” In the Gita Vahini, Swami says, “The weak will be agitated as peacock feathers; they are restless, with no fixity for a moment. They sway like the pendulum, this side and that, once toward joy, the next moment toward grief.” The pendulum is a very picturesque analogy of the human situation! It symbolizes the eternal problem of swinging from birth to death, the consequence of our attachment to desires. From birth we swing toward death gathering momentum from the cumulative effect of unfulfilled desires, only to swing back to another birth, back to where we started. Through our lives, we swing bet-ween grief and happiness, love and hate, heat and cold, anticipation and disappointment, peace and confusion, between the dualities of opposites. The Lord has said in the Gita about this swinging of the pendulum: “Sukha duhkhe same krutwa laabhaa laabhou jayaajayau…—Treat alike pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat.” Baba reminds us that happiness is only an interval between two moments of misery; misery is only an interval between two moments of happiness. Once the pendulum swings forward, it must come back to its original position. “Grief and joy are the obverse and reverse of the same coin. It is like a printed page; you cannot have only one page without the reverse!” says Baba. The pendulum also signifies time. It is the movement of the pendulum that gives us a measure of time. God is described as kala-swarupa [embodiment of time]; He is also described as kalateeta, beyond time. What does this mean? Taking the analogy of the pendulum, it means that God is beyond dualities; beyond the swing of opposites; i.e. He is dwandwateeta! If we do not swing between the opposites, then we will not be subject to the bullying effects of time! So the only way to transcend the pull of dualities is to welcome neither happiness nor grief. In fact, Baba says, “Generally man seeks only happiness and joy; under no stress will he desire misery and grief! He treats happiness and joy as his closest well-wishers and misery and grief as his direst enemies. This is a great mistake. When one is happy, the risk of grief is great; fear of losing the happiness will haunt the man. Misery prompts inquiry, discrimination, self-examination and fear of worse things that might happen. It awakens you from sloth and conceit. Happiness makes one forget one’s obligation to oneself as a human being. It drags man into egoism and the sins that egoism leads one to commit. Grief renders man alert and watchful. So misery is a real friend… So, troubles and travails are to be treated as friends; at least not as enemies. Only it is best to regard both happiness and misery as gifts of God. That is the easiest path for one’s liberation.” The pendulum swings as long as the main spring is able to make it swing. Once we tighten the spring, it unwinds itself. The swing of the pendulum is a consequence of this unwinding process of the main spring. Thiscan be compared to human life. When we are born, the main spring is wound with the prarabdha karma,the karma that has to work itself out during the present life, which runs out as the spring unwinds itself! Most of the time, man does not realize that he is swinging because of the unwinding of the main spring of prarabdha karma. He even enjoys and grieves with the swinging of the pendulum. But man is not a mere clock, an unintelligent machine! The moment he realizes that the swing of the pendulum is the result of his prarabdha karma, then he can transcend the swing! He can swing but not take part in the joy and grief of the swinging. His problem is that he is not only swinging, but also identifying himself with the swing, thinking all the time that it is he who is responsible for the swinging. Themoment wisdom dawns on him, he can cultivate detachment. We may not be able to alter thecourse of events, butwe can certainly alter our attitudes to them. Paul Brunton, in his book, Message from Arunachala, says, “Even were we immutably preordained to undergo predicted disasters, our reaction to them is not preordained. Events may be fixed by unseen powers, but our attitudes toward them are not. This is the fire of wisdom that burns up karma!” We can take the analogy one step further if we think of an electric clock that we do not have to wind every week. We swing like the electric clock’s pendulum, thinking all the time that it is we who swing. We forget that we swing because there is a power that makes us swing. It is the divine power, which, like electricity, is unseen but active in and through us. Like puppets, we swing and dance so long as the sutradhara, the puppeteer, pulls the strings. “Surrender!” advised Krishna to Arjuna. “Surrender!” advises Sai Krishna to all of us swinging like the pendulum! “Man surrenders his dignity and status to other men for purposes in life like wealth, fame, possession, pomp, power, etc. But rarely does he get the chance to surrender to the Lord for the sake of the Lord! How can he get the urge as long as he craves for the aadheya [object] and not the aadhara [support/base]? How long can a base-less object satisfy? Manwants the gift, not the giver; the created not the creator; things from the hand, but not the hand! He is running after a non-existent thing. Can there be an object without

F. F. F. F. Bhagavan Baba says follow the four Fs, which are Follow the Master, Face the devil, Fight to the end, and Finish the game. The following article illustrates that this is true in Christianity and in other religions. The first commandment of Swami is: “Follow the Master.” It is much more than a command. It is an assurance, a guarantee, a guideline, and reinforcement. Following the Master is not simplistic either. There are enemies built into our lives—physical and mental illnesses, lack of proper understanding, want of constant vigilance and awareness. We must not and cannot follow the Master mechanically or unintelligently. It has to be deliberate, spontaneous, and joyous, with every step placed on His footprints, advancing along the direction marked out by Him. The second command is a corollary of the first, the very purpose of that prescription—Face the devil. One cannot follow the Master without facing the devil, who tries to block every step of ours. The devil dispatches his most insidious lieutenant, no doubt to prevent our progress. Possessed by doubt, we begin to doubt our own experience, our own conclusions and convictions of the Master. We see footsteps other then those of the Master and waver in hesitation. The devil is anxious to nip in the bud our attempts to follow the Master, since the Master Himself reinforces us once we turn our faces toward Him. Though the devil and his minions try to lead us away, the Master whom we follow is sure to lead us on. Facing the devil and foiling its strategies become easier with the Master’s grace. Sri Krishna, as the charioteer of Arjuna, emboldened him to take up arms on the battlefield. He counseled him on critical occasions to face the enemy and overcome them. The Lord had in his hands only one weapon—the whip. He used it seldom on the horses and never on Arjuna. But His ridicule, repartee, and reassurance served to awaken Arjuna’s heroism and self-confidence. Swami has declared that He has taken on the role of charioteer for every one of us so that He may awaken in us the awareness of our innate impregnability. Swami does not wield even the whip. He has come with a disconcerting smile, an all-conquering love, and a penetrating and probing eye. While following such a Master, we can confidently face the devil and his ubiquitous throng. But if the Master’s call is sought to be interpreted and bypassed through the devil’s dictionary and logic, we are heading for a fall with our eyes open. When we are tempted to ask, “Why did the Master advise me so?” We have immediately to condemn the thought and pray to the Master to help us to keep the tempter away. The story of the temptation as recorded in the second chapter of Genesis is a warning to every one of us. Adam and Eve could not “follow the Master”, the Lord God, and obey His injunction: “You may eat from every tree in the garden but not from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for, on the day that you eat it, you will certainly die.” The reason was the devil’s temptation. They had no strength to face the devil that came as a serpent and, as Eve confessed to God, tricked her. The devil has many tricks up his sleeve; and his words are soaked in sweet poison. But, the Master whom we follow will surely help us to escape his allurements. The Bhagavad-Gita describes  the nature of men who yield to the devil’s allurements and give up following the Master (XVI—8, 12, 14, 15, 16). The devil has succeeded in polluting their brains. According to the Gita: “They say that the world is without a presiding God, a basic overlord who adheres to truth. They ask, what else is there except lust? They are immersed in lust and anger and entangled in hopes and expectations. They are led away by pride to boast, ‘I am the Lord, I am powerful and happy. I am rich and well-born.’ The asura [demonic] qualities are judged as really beneficial and desirable by the victims. The Gita pictures their fate thus, “Maddened by many thought currents, caught within the snare of confusing values, addicted to lustful gratifications, such people fall into dirty hell.” No wonder Swami, in His infinite compassion, has given us the third Commandment: Fight to the end. Perpetual vigilance is the price for progress. The higher the climb, the greater the risk. The Master we follow appreciates single-pointed attention to the message He has condescended to give us. As the Bible advises, “Be alert! Be on the watch! Your enemy, the devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Be firm in your faith and resist him, because you know that your fellow believers in all the world are going through the same kind of sufferings.” [1st Peter 5:8-9] Again, “God is our shelter and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not be afraid, even if the earth is shaken and mountains fall into the ocean depths, even if the seas roam and rage and the hills are shaken by the violence.” (Psalms 46) “Fight to the end.” What exactly is the end that we have in mind through all the years of Following, Facing, and Fighting? Swami has denoted it by another F, the fourth: “Finish the game.” “Life is a game, play it,” says Swami. The world is the arena, the gymnasium, and the field for playing games. Every game has its own rules; respect them. Do not take to the game with fanatic frenzy. The victor in the game is rewarded by Him who sent you to play it and watched over your conduct until the final whistle. The reward is Himself. The ocean is the reward awaiting the river that does not stray into the Dead Sea but follows the call of the waves, faces rocky barriers, and leaps over precipices

The Prayer that Baba Gave At one of the sessions at the recent convention in Taupo, New Zealand, we were asked to discover the inner meaning of the words of a beautiful prayer that Baba gave us many years ago. To the great surprise of some of us, it was discovered that hardly anybody knew it. Nearly all Westerners know the ‘Our Father’ prayer, given by Jesus some 2,000 years ago. Even non-Westerners seem to have at least a nodding acquaintance with it. But even among Baba’s staunch devotees, few seem to know the prayers our present Avatar has given us. Of all the prayers He has given, this one is probably the most beautiful. As several people wanted me to put it in the newsletter, I give it here: Oh Lord! Take my love and let it flow in fullness of devotion to Thee.Oh Lord! Take my hands and let them work incessantly for Thee.Oh Lord! Take my heart and let it be filled with overflowing love for Thee.Oh Lord! Take my soul and let it be merged in one with Thee.Oh Lord! Take my mind and thoughts and let them be in tune with Thee.Oh Lord! Take my everything and let me be an instrument to work for Thee. There is a feeling among some people that prayer is inferior to meditation as a means of contacting God, because most prayers are an ‘asking’, whereas meditation is seeking to experience God in oneness. There is certainly some truth in this if all one’s prayers are requests for worldly benefits; but prayers like the above one are in a very different category. This prayer is the expression of our desire to reach total surrender. It is also a statement of the ideal to which we aspire, and a promise of the way in which we want to live our lives. There is also another important aspect to such prayers. If said every day, with full devotion and awareness of their meaning, they imprint themselves on our inner consciousness—our soul—and they slowly transform us. They can become an inner light that guides our life. They draw us, gently, into becoming an example of the true devotion expressed in the prayer. But, for that to happen, we have to be diligent in using the prayers as a tool for self-transformation. We must dwell mentally on the ideals expressed therein, and search for the inner implications of the words. Every word uttered by Baba has profound meaning, indeed, many levels of meaning; and we need to discover those meanings for ourselves, and allow them to work like a leaven in our inner consciousness. Here are just a few of the meanings brought out during the break-out session at the convention. Oh Lord! Take my love and let it flow in fullness of devotion to Thee. We must ask ourselves what we mean by “fullness of devotion”. Do we mean joining our hands together in our prayer room and contemplating on Baba’s photo? Swami says, “Only by contemplating on God can one become God”,but He doesn’t mean just the outer form of God. This is obvious from His insistence on the importance of the Gayatri mantra. In that prayer, He wants us to contemplate on the fullness of God in His concretized form as creation (bhur),God as the vibration that sustains that creation (bhuva),andGod as the infinite radiance (suvaha), the Paramatma [super soul], of which our own atma is an indissoluble part. Our contemplation should, therefore, result in our radiating the love that He is to all around us. Oh Lord! Take my hands and let them work incessantly for Thee. The word ‘incessantly’ is very revealing. He evidently doesn’t want us to take time off! If God is in everything and in everybody, working for Him obviously means being ever ready to serve—to serve Him in our family members, in the community at large and, indeed, in all living beings and creation itself. Service is love expressed in action. Oh Lord! Take my heart and let it be filled with overflowing love for Thee. ‘Overflowing’—that, too, is a key to the inner meaning. God, who is love, keeps telling us that we are also embodiments of love, and He wants our love to overflow toward one and all. Bhagavan constantly reminds us that “Expansion is life; contraction is death”. Resentment, dislike, anger, hatred—these negative reactions to situations and people have a contracting effort on our souls. They strangle the life out of the divine spark of love in us. As the song says, we must ‘expand our hearts to encompass all.’ Oh Lord! Take my soul and let it be merged in one with Thee. We often think that we can only merge with God once we are no longer in the body, but this is not so. We need to leave our attachment to the body, but that does not prevent us from walking around in it. If we can train ourselves to live in the moment, not constantly in the past or in the future, we will feel the constant presence of God. Baba says, “the present is omnipresent,”it is the Divine presence. If we walk always in that presence of God, our soul will be merged in that Divine presence. He wants us to aim at experiencing unity with Him, not just in the hereafter, but in the here and now. Indeed, unless we can achieve that oneness while still in the body, we are not yet ready to merge when we leave the body. As He says, “only like can merge with like.”It is a very high ideal that this prayer holds before our souls! Oh Lord! Take my mind and thoughts and let them be in tune with Thee. Yes—that wayward mind! We need to constantly ask ourselves, “Are my thoughts in tune with Baba’s teachings? Are they based on truth? Are they loving? Do they promote peace?” If we are mentally criticizing the actions of another, our thoughts are promoting discord, not peace. Even if we do not actually