Volume Thirty one (1998)
Sathya Sai Speaks — Volume 31 is a rich collection of discourses by Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba from the year 1998, offering seekers timeless spiritual guidance focused on inner transformation, character, love, and service. The volume opens with talks such as “Promotion of Unity: Students’ Duty” (14 January 1998), where Baba exhorts students to first make themselves worthy before desiring anything, emphasizing character, generosity (dana), adherence to truth, and competence—these being the foundations of happiness and virtue. Throughout the volume, one notices repeated insistence on the need to transform oneself inwardly—a transformation that reflects outwardly in one’s conduct, relationships, and service to society. Themes such as “Potency of Rama’s Name”, “The Path of Nirvana”, “Man, Truth, Love, and God”, “Render Service With Divine Awareness”, “Love and Surrender”, “Faith, Love and Grace”, “Install Divinity in the Heart”, among many others listed, reveal the breadth of Baba’s counsel: it spans devotional practice, philosophical inquiry, moral integrity, and social duty.
A guiding thread through many discourses is that love is more than emotion; it is the essence of divine life. Baba describes love’s fragrance, motherly love, love that combines surrender and service, love united with faith and grace. He shows that true love not only elevates the devotee, but also purifies character—softening ego, increasing compassion, cultivating humility. Closely tied to love is the insistence on truth and dharma: truth shapes one’s duty (dharma), and love shaped by truth becomes unswerving. Another recurring teaching is that knowledge without application is worthless. Discourses such as “Knowledge Without Practice Is Meaningless” remind devotees that spiritual knowledge, reading sacred texts, or intellectual understanding must be lived—through self‑control, selflessness, ethical speech and action.
Volume 31 also emphasizes self‑realization and identity: chapters like “Know Your True Identity”, “Entire Universe is within You” draw attention to the idea that the divine is not distant—God is not somewhere “out there”—nor only in rituals or temples, but immanent, indwelling in every being. When one purifies one’s heart, controls desires, and turns within, one discovers that heart of divinity. Obedience to God’s commands, offering oneself to God, fusing spirituality with education, all reinforce this path of inner awakening.
Service to others is never far from these spiritual teachings in Volume 31. Baba makes clear that serving parents, serving God, serving society is a practical expression of love, truth, and surrender. “Serve parents, serve God” shows the intertwining of familial duty and divine duty; “Love of God with service to society” shows that devotion is validated by how one treats one’s fellow human beings. The volume also addresses education, urging that true education does not only build intellectual capacity but develops human values like compassion, integrity, humility.
Finally, Baba’s tone combines lofty ideals with practical steps: giving students specific duties, urging kindness in speech, gentleness in heart, surrender in mind, steadiness in faith. He reassures devotees of divine grace: sincere love and devotion will bring God’s presence, and one’s efforts in goodness are never wasted. In sum, Volume 31 is a spiritual handbook: teaching that inner purification, truth, love, service, knowledge lived by action, self‑surrender, and the recognition of one’s divine identity are the true path to peace, happiness, and union with God.
