Good and Bad Actions A Visitor: I see evil on all sides and am puzzled. Sai: Here is this banana. The skin is useless to us, so it is regarded as bad. But if there were no skin, the inside would not be protected. Do not regard anything as bad. If a person has done evil to you and you take it as evil and retaliate, then you also have become bad. But by remaining good and not regarding others as evil, you gain the right to reform them. If there is a bad smell in the room, and if incense is lighted, the fragrance changes the smell of the room. Bad actions should be met with good deeds and good viewpoint, and the evil will be changed. The difference between good and bad is a function of time. Food when eaten is good. In time that same food undergoes a change, is excreted, and is called bad. Whereas truth remains the same and does not change with the passage of time. Therefore, the time sequence is just imagination. Hislop: The thought arises that some persons are wholly bad, their crimes are so vicious. Sai: No person is wholly bad, for God is in every person’s heart. A mother and son may fight in court over property, but the relationship of mother and son remains. Two people who have come to hate each other live in two houses. Each has a picture of Baba over the door. The house represents the body, and Baba’s picture represents the God resident in the soul. The body may have to be corrected in its behavior, and the best way is to attract the person with love. There is absolute good, but there is no absolute bad. Bad changes, bad is a distorted aspect of good. But it is not possible when one has the ordinary physical vision to see good and bad as one. Only when one knows the divine spark in oneself and in others, only then one sees good and bad as the same. If one can adopt as an attitude the truth that good only is real, and that all one sees is essentially good even though distorted, one acquires a great strength if he can see the world this way. The learned might argue about the world and say that all this is illusion and despair, but they can never hope to live without loving the world. Love is not to be disregarded. The world might seem to be untruth from the material viewpoint, but the world is truth if looked at from the transcendental viewpoint. Hislop: We are asking Swami about the ‘bad’ people. How about the poor victim of vicious action? Sai: Everyone is good, but there are bad actions; action and reaction. In terms of the victims of bad action, everything was exactly right. We see only the present. Baba sees the past also. A four-year-old boy was attacked by robbers for the gold chain around his neck. The robbers blinded the boy so he could not identify them. The boy was crying bitterly that he could not see. The parents also were crying. They came to Baba. In the past life, the boy had been a cruel man who had blinded several people. The boy will continue to be blind, but as a man if he starts to consider, understanding that he is blind because of past dark deeds, and then sincerely repents for his bad tendencies, and makes a genuine effort to change himself, praying to God to forgive him, Baba may forgive the karma and restore the eyesight. Hislop: How should we relate to so-called ‘bad’ people? Sai: Keep the body separate from people who give bad food to the senses, even though all are brothers. Let souls be in God, but bodies apart. Hislop: Often it is very difficult to choose the right action. How may one acquire the ability to make this discrimination? Sai: Every man has the discrimination to know what right action is and what is wrong action. Wrong action develops guilt feelings. Whereas right action is free and without such fear. Source: Conversations with Bhagavan

Control Your Senses A Second Visitor: Swami, I have been away from business and I want to talk with Swami, but if I stay another month then there will be only one final talk with Swami. I want to talk with Swami now, and then stay a month. Sai: Tomorrow is Thursday. Swami will see each of you individually, then you can make your plans when you want to leave or whether you want to stay. With you, it is like this: You have a few doubts; now you want to clear those doubts immediately so as to leave room for new doubts (much merri­ment from the interview group). That is your plan. Sai (to a Visitor): You have some plan for poor people. What are the details? Visitor: The old Mandir. We should make a number of new homes for the poor people. Then those who are now staying in the old Mandir can move to the new houses and the old temple can be made like new. It is Swami’s first Mandir and it should be saved for history. If people continue to live there, it will tumble down in no time at all. To use it just for living looks like a lack of respect from the people who are in Puttaparthi. Sai: That can be discussed further at a later time. Now, Swami is troubled that all of you have come from so far and have spent so much, and your love is so touching. There is no price for that love even if measured in crores [millions] and crores. Swami wants your happiness. Swami will teach as quickly as possible. Visitor: But now is the time because there is the world conference in May and Swami’s devotees will come here. It does not matter whose plan it is to save the old Mandir; it should be as though it is everyone’s idea and all should work together to accomplish it. Sai: You draw up a plan and show it to Swami. How to do it. Visitor: And one other thing I must ask Swami because people say Swami must be asked. I want a little plot of land. On the opposite hill if I have a little place and then put a big shed, I have the plan, so that there is a big place where they can come and gather and do yoga or whatever it is. But then when I am so close, that is closer than from here to the old Mandir, but not just outside the gate so that people will be saying this or that about me, then I am outside, and then — you know… A visitor interrupts: … so that no control… A Second Visitor: No control… Sai: A faithless garden. (Much merriment from the inter­view group.) Visitor: Well, you know, nobody can come and say, ‘No cooking,’ and so on. Sai: It might be all right to start, but then you will have many more problems than you wish for. All the dogs from the villages and other problems. Visitor: The thing is what I have said at home, that I would like to have a little house outside the compound. Sai: With all the dogs together, you are going to have a great problem. Ten puppies each. Visitor: But, anyway, you… Sai: We will discuss it. You may start enthusiastically, but then the problems that will be coming [in the future] will not be good. (Swami now moves His hand, and a large mass of sugar-candy appears in His hand and is distributed. The group exclaims how sweet and delightful it tastes.) Sai: Complete sugar. Visitor: Not only sugar. It is flavored. Sai: Every day should be sweet like this, that Swami would again make sugar. Visitor: Someone told me that I should not let anybody touch these earrings that you gave me because they are sacred. But I don’t like to tell people not to touch. Sai: Nothing like that, about touching. Was everyone angry because Swami did not come this morning? Visitor: No, no, Baba. We were singing bhajans and talking about the gopis. Sai: Gopi means sense control, one who has controlled the senses. It is not a lady’s name. Source: Conversations with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai

Immortality Sai: (At the start of an interview with a group of Western­ers) Follow the master, the inside Atma, the super-conscious. Life is a challenge, fight to the end. Life is a song, sing it. Life is divine, realize it. Life is character. There is one path, complete life. Sai: (to a young Westerner about age 16) What do you want? Boy: Liberation. Sai: What is liberation? Boy: (after some hesitation) The end of the path. Sai: Immortality is the meaning. Removal of immorality is the only way to immortality. Who are you? Not the outside, not the body. Who are you? Inquire. Love is everything. Expansion love, not selfish love. Selfless love of the Self; not ego love. All are ladies. None are men. Lady is weakness, not strength. The Sanskrit word for lady has the meaning of weakness; no strength at all. All humans are so. Hate, anger, jealousy, sorrow. Men may better control these, but their inside feeling is the same. Only God is above feeling. All others are equally affected. God is the only male person. In a women’s college, in a play, men characters may appear on the stage, but the male cast are women dressed as men. The world is a women’s college. There are just male roles. Inside all are the same, all women. Life is a cosmic stage on which we are the actors. In one scene an actor may take one role, and in other scenes different roles. Creation means change. Nothing is unchanging. Every moment there is change. How can these changing things give bliss to persons who are also changing? Your bliss can be made permanent only by immortality, no change. Scientists experiment today; tomorrow their findings are outmoded. The world goes on overriding itself. That which science knows is microscopic compared to the immensity of that which is to be known. The atom: Without this, nothing is made. With atoms all things are produced. Atoms together also make the moon. Atoms are active and alert, never inert. How, therefore, can the moon be called inert? The entire universe is active because of atoms. From where does this energy come? Electrons, neutrons, protons—from where does this science arise? Scientists ask how is it that these things go on, but do not ask, ‘Why?’ The answer to ‘why’ leads you to the divine. Basic energy is shakthi. From this basic energy all is derived. Where from is this atom power? It is divine power. Hislop asked the question, ‘What is a study circle?’ It is not just reading books. ‘Circle, study circle’ means taking a point and each person discussing what is the meaning of the point to them. Like a round-table conference. Each person gives his point of view, and finally values are derived from this. If there is just reading, there is doubt. But if each one gives his view, doubts will be answered. The topic is viewed; the study circle looks at different facets. It is like a diamond with its different facets, but there is one facet that is flat, the top facet, and from this all can be viewed. To discover the top facet is the task of the study circle. Swami’s talks may be taken, or other scriptures. Take a point. Have everyone think about it and discuss it and come to the final point where doubt is decreased. If only one person reads, there will be only one meaning. All misunderstandings, all points of views-after these are brought out, the study circle members will get confidence. There is no doubt of this. If each one only reads, this may go on for a year or two, then an allergy to reading develops. Centers must have study circles in this way, and none will note the passage of time. Each one listens eagerly and many will give their point of view. The Bible, the Koran, the Gita, Swami’s books may be used. What is wanted is a study circle; rotating. Each one must be given a chance. A Scientist Visitor: (father of the 16-year-old boy earlier questioned by Swami) Many fools do not make one wise man. Sai: Only those who are intelligent will think to bother with a study circle. They may be fools in other matters, per­haps. But we have here the example of a big doctor who does operations, but who is a fool in bandaging, reliant upon his nurse to do a good job. Life means such a mixture. A man with a dual mind is half-blind. Everyone is half-blind in some matters. Only he who knows the divine is an expert, first class in one study. But in general, people have no common sense. But common sense is necessary in daily life, and that is what counts. Each subject is only one road; but mastery, the develop­ment of common sense is a spiritual effort. In a house an elder is not respected because junior studied some subjects, but common sense requires that junior’s attitude to the elder be respectful. Common sense is required. Humility and love are divine. If you become the master of a subject and develop anger and ego, these are enemies of the spiritual path. Scientist: But it is commonly agreed that science is of great value. Sai: Up to a certain level, science helps. It is of service to mankind. But Baba knows that which science does not know. Baba is at a level that is beyond reach of the senses. Not all that he knows can be brought to a lower level. Too much current burns out the bulb. Capacities must be known. Swami’s power is given according to capacity. Baba is the servant. He waits at the door of the shrine room to give you what you want. To be the servant of His devotees is Swami’s duty. There is no place for any ego. A small example: On a globe-map of the world, America is not very big. California is just a small place. Hislop’s house is just a dot; and Hislop himself is