The hands of the clock keep on moving and we hear their ticking noise. This sound of the clock goes on continuously. Between one tick and another, there is an interval. Man's life is also like this interval. Through man's heart and through his blood vessels, his life stream is beating; this beat will come to an end at some time. Truly, birth is followed by death and death again by birth and so on.
We should try and understand the secret of this life. Like a man who is swimming and moving forward in a river, we should also forget the experiences through which we have gone in the past and swim forward. Only if the swimmer throws back the water which is ahead of him will he move forward. If he does not throw back the water that is ahead of him, he will stay where he is. As in this analogy, only if man attempts to throw back the experience which he has gone through, will he be able to move forward. If one follows such a path, one will find that in man's life, there is no place for anger, no place for jealousy and his life will move on pleasantly.
Because man wants to go through the same experience which he has already experienced in the past, he enters the region of hatred, because he accumulates around him many attachments. If man really makes an attempt to understand his own nature and the comparison between the clock and his heart, it will be possible for him to experience truth. Even after experiencing so many things, if man does not understand his true nature, he will feel very unhappy. He wants always to be happy, but not ask the question whether one can get happiness in this world?
Man has great faith in collecting, acquiring and amassing wealth, but he has not got the same faith in giving and sacrificing. When man can develop faith and recognizes the joy of giving away and of sharing things, he will enjoy his life. If man really wants peace and happiness, he must be prepared to sacrifice. The Vedas have told us that what cannot be acquired through hard work, through learning, through any other means can only be acquired through sacrifice. We should also understand the inner meaning of sacrifice.
If the food we eat is not excreted out and is not sacrificed, our health will be spoiled. If we do not exhale the air that we take in and send it out, our lungs will get spoiled. If the blood does not keep moving but stays at one place, then there will be a boil at that place.
It is necessary for us to recognize the happiness that is contained in the spirit of sacrifice. But man always wants to have the same experience again and again every day before he learns a lesson and because of such bad desires, man has become so unfortunate that he cannot even have a peaceful death not to talk of a peaceful life. If man wants to lead a peaceful life, he must realize the importance of sacrifice. The truth that is contained in the statement, that immortality can be obtained through sacrifice alone should be understood well.
(Summer Showers in Brindivan, 1977, pg 176)
