Talks in Prashanti Nilayam on the Bhagavad Gita (12th Chapter)
by Dr MNV Murthy
Om Sri Sai Ram
It is important to know Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's definition of a Sai devotee and what are the characteristics of such a devotee. Swami's guidelines on this question are very strict and very few of us would qualify under them. Baba writes in the Gita Vahini that all of us, of course, want to be called devotees and many of us believe ourselves to be devotees - based simply on the premise that since we are devoted to Sai, we become Sai devotees. Of course, this devotion to the Lord is also very doubtful.
We are very much devoted to him when we are in the darshan line hoping for the much-coveted interview. Some of us may not be sure of our devotion when we are not called for the interview. Moreover, we start doubting when Baba asks someone who is from Australia whether he comes from California. We start wondering whether this Baba could be the omnipresent, omniscient God, which everyone says He is.
So, we are not fully devotees all the time. This is especially the case for those who profess to be devotees. Swami says that it is important you believe you are a devotee of God. What is more important is that God must accept you as a devotee. Until God has accepted you as a devotee, you are a 'part-time' devotee. We are convinced that He is God, when, in the interview room, He reveals the most intimate of our secrets. However, as we come out of that room and He behaves as if we do not exist, we start wondering. Thus, we are part-time devotees.
The analogy lends itself well to the case of a flickering fluorescent light. When contact is made, the light switches on. But most of the time, it is off. Swami says that our devotion is like this light, flickering on and off depending upon the contact. Why does He say that?
If you go to any ashram, they will accept you as a devotee straightaway since their devotion is to your purse. Our devotion encompasses many things besides our purse, but does not include Him.
Sathya Sai Baba revealed this when He came in his previous incarnation as Lord Krishna. He explained to Arjuna the qualities of a true devotee.
This is very interesting since Swami also says the same thing now. Thus the message is clear - we must know who, according to Him, is a true devotee. This is as true now as it was during Lord Krishna's time and the Kurukshetra war. Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is the re-incarnation of the Divine principle, which had already come down to earth as Lord Rama and Lord Krishna.
In the Gita Vahini as well as in the twelfth Chapter of Bhagavad Gita, it is stated that genuine devotion to the Lord is not the only necessary criterion. This devotion connotes many other things.
The seeker should pay not so much attention to the devotion and love he or she has towards God, but to the Love and Grace the Lord bestows upon him.
We, as humans, bank only on the Lord's grace but neglect our dharma and karma, our obligations and virtuous conduct based on our stage in life.
Thus, we see it is more complicated than buying a garland every morning and putting it around Swami's picture or, on the day of our interview, we become so elated and delighted that we go and buy one more picture and place it in our shrine room.
Our devotion varies according to how much success we have or what we achieve. Therefore, when things go wrong - and things do go wrong even when He blesses you - we change gear. The real spiritual yearning is when we reach a stage where there is nothing really wrong or right. In other words, it is necessary to transcend the concept of what is right and wrong. It is almost like the changing attitudes one has with altering age. As a child, we believed that certain things were right while certain others were wrong. But, with age, these things change.
Thus, what is ultimately intended and where all this entire process of life leads us, is to arrive at a solution to cure all our problems.
Most people come to Prashanti Nilayam with problems, either physical or mental. Most problems are of the mind and our own creation. It is to eliminate these problems that the verses in the Bhagavad Gita were given and so it is very relevant that we study them. They define a devotee in Lord Krishna's words.
They are also the words of Sai. The relevant verses are in the beginning of Chapter Twelve, Verse 13.
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Adveshta Sarvabhutanam
Maitrah Karuna eva cha
Nirmamo Nirahamkarah
Samadukhasukhah Kshami
"He who has no hatred towards any being,
who is friendly, kind and compassionate.
He has no feeling that things belong to him and
he bears sorrow and joy with equanimity."
(XII-13)
He who no hatred towards any being. This includes both living and non-living. It is a very profound concept when you look at what difficulties we face in the present-day situations, for example, environmental pollution. He must have non-hatred. This is another way of stating that he must be loving. However, since in the Kali Yuga, hatred is more natural and normal to man, hatred has been mentioned. He is friendly to all beings, he is kind and compassionate. He has no feeling that things belong to him. This is very difficult to conceive when our entire approach is that of "I" and "mine".
Who is a devotee? A devotee is one who has no hatred for or towards anything. He has no sense of 'this is mine' and 'this is yours'. He has not even the sense of 'I'. This same small 'i' is the tainted ego and limits our personality into believing that we are the mind-body-intellect complex. We have to go for the expansive feeling. It is very difficult, but it is what we have to aim at.
He must bear both sorrow and joy with equanimity. How can we equate both sorrow and joy? Thus, we must not be extremely elated when Swami calls us for interview nor be dejected when He ignores us. The right attitude should be to feel neither joy nor sorrow. He is teaching us not to be elated or dejected by His responses to our questions.
This is very necessary since if you feel overjoyed, then there must come a time when you are down in the dumps.
It is not proper to look upon God as we look upon ourselves. We must, instead, look at God as we might look at our father in our living room. We do not expect our father to be looking at us daily and that too with a smile. And if he does not, we do not automatically think our father has no more love for us. We call Swami 'mother, father and intimate friend' and we sing these words during bhajans. Yet, do we question every occasion on which our father comes into the living room from the garden and he does not look at us and smile? Do we then doubt his love? No!
Then, why is it that we doubt His love for us when He passes us by without giving us a smile or even a look? If we doubt His love, then there is no point in singing 'mother, father and intimate friend.' It is thus apparent that we do not believe the words we sing. The line is coming out of our mouths only because it is a melodious song.
If we truly believe that Baba is all of these, then we must treat Him at least like our own physical father or mother - but we do not, because we doubt. We pretend, but actually we doubt and find it difficult to regard Him as our father, mother and intimate friend. That we should not have any doubts regarding His attitude towards us is what He is trying to teach us. If our love is conditional all the time upon His looking at us or smiling at us, then we will not be benefited. He has come to teach us but we must be willing students. More importantly, it goes deeper than the words that Krishna used or those that Sai uses. They want us to adopt an Attitude.
When do we get elated? When do we get joyful? We get depressed when something happens that shatters our hopes. We get depressed when what we anticipated does not materialize, when our calculations have gone wrong.
What is wrong is the attitude of expectation, of anticipation and of calculation? The reason is simple : our calculations may go wrong. Our calculations, anticipations and hopes are based on what we think we need; our own wishes and what we feel we deserve dictate our plans. We all feel we deserve something because we like ourselves. This liking or loving ourselves is very different from Self-love. We normally take 'Self' to mean that entity we think we are. This is the limitation we put on ourselves, narrowing us down to the body.
We equate the Self with the person in the mirror. We equate the Self with the person we like so much, in spite of or usually because of our idiosyncrasies. We are made that way. The way we walk or talk appeals to us. We seem to like everything about ourselves and we like our children because they are ours. We say, "Of course, the neighbor's children are naughty but mine are quiet and well-behaved. And my son is such a clever fellow! The neighbor's son? He is such a nuisance; his children are a terrible bunch!" The only logic is ours. The neighbor's logic? It is not ours and hence not superior.
It is this very limitation that makes us elated when we get what we want. When Swami calls us for an interview, we hit the roof. Of course, the many times when He does not, we hit the bottom. This is true of almost everything. For example, when we catch a plane and get a seat in it, we proclaim : 'by Swami's Grace'. When we miss the bus - is that not Swami's Grace? Therefore, for us, grace is conditional.
Thus, a devotee is one who looks at both pleasure and pain, also at happiness and sorrow with equanimity. Of course, in the beginning, these pairs of opposites will impinge upon him. However, with maturity, he is able to bear them with fortitude. A devotee is undisturbed. Initially, he may be disturbed, but he must recover soon. What matters is 'how soon', because that is what will help us to progress on the path.
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Samtustah Satatam Yogi
Yatatma Drdhanischayah
Mayyarpita Manobuddhir
Yo Madbhaktah sa me priyah
"The yogi who is ever content and self-controlled, is of firm conviction
and who has stabilized his mind and intellect in Me,
such a one is dear to Me."
(XII-14)
He is ever content. That devotee, that person I love the most is every happy. He is always joyful, delighted that another day has dawned. He is happy that he is fortunate enough to see the light of one more day. Here we see that it is an attitude of mind that will make this possible.
It is the very joy of being alive. A yogi is not one who sits in a yogic position but it means one who is yoked to God, to the Almighty, to the Highest Principle. He is yoked because he is in equilibrium. He is self-controlled. He is undisturbed irrespective of what happens.
Of course, the foremost qualification being stressed here is self-control. You have to be controlled by the Self, the higher Self. He is of firm conviction. His will is strong and he is not influenced by people in his determination. His mind and intellect are offered to - or stabilized in Me. He hears the inner voice, the still small voice that is trying to express itself amidst the clamour of desires. Arpitam does not mean offering to something outside. We will feel it within. Even the God we conjure is the projection of our own feelings or thoughts or concepts.
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Yasman nodvijate Loko
Lokan nodvijate cha Yah
Harsamarsa bhayodvegair
Mukto yah sa cha me priyah
"He who is not harassed by the world
and from whom the world does not shrink
and who is free from joy and anger, fear and agitation,
he too is dear to Me."
(XII-15)
This third verse is very crucial. It is also interesting that it is a corroboration of what has been already stated. It is easy to see that these verses are all complementary. You cannot isolate them from one another. They are more or less all elaborations of the one basic theme, but defined from different angles.
He, by whom the world is not harassed and who does not harass the world. A very important statement because both the facets are important. He who does not harass the world. When we say the world, we probably look at a globe and think that this is the world. The term world is very misleading. On careful consideration, for each of us it becomes apparent that our world is as small or as large as we are.
To start with, it is our parents, our family, our limited circle of friends and our workplace. So, that is all that our world is. For most of us, our world is limited to that circle within which we move, live and work. And, unfortunately, as we grow up, we seem to limit ourselves and we make our world very small and we erect a wall around ourselves. This wall is a barrier and we have built it ourselves. We pretend that there is nothing beyond it. We are great pretenders. Facade builders. These walls are the prejudices, which define us so very well.
When we look at people, we classify them according to whether they are Jews, Moslems, Brahmins and so on. We rarely realize that these walls make our world so small and this little world we have built ourselves, we seem to harass it. The father harasses the son, the son the father, the husband the wife and so on. There is continuous conflict and strife and this is more apparent in a family than anywhere else. The family is, after all, that which gives you stability. It is a place for you to let off steam and get away with it.
Then you have the larger world, which extends beyond the limited circle that we consider our world. That is the world of real harassment where all kinds of people infringe on us. He who is not harassed by the world. This is a profound psychological statement. When will you cease to be harassed by the world? If anyone believes that he is being harassed by the world, then there is something wrong with him. If you believe that someone is harassing you, then this feeling is based on your attitude. So, we come back to this theme of ATTITUDE. The more inferior you feel, the more you will find that everyone else will have a superiority complex. The only person who can decide whether you are inferior or superior to others is yourself.
Essentially, no one is superior or inferior to you in anything. This attitude of not being harassed by others is a very important process of growing up. It requires maturity to attune yourself to the stage where you will ACCEPT THE WORLD AS IT IS.
The first sign of you having matured to this stage is to be able to sympathize with others.
I have a nine-year-old grandson. He was born in America and his father returned to India with the intention of making India his home again. This grandson of mine has a rich American accent. I asked him : "Are you not going to be upset when your new class-mates will laugh at you because of your accent?" He replied : "Well, what they are doing is due to ignorance."
'Forgive them Lord for they do not know what they do'
is essentially important formula for daily living...
... otherwise, we would be making ourselves miserable. It will not come unless there is a feeling of understanding. This understanding is Spirituality. This understanding will not arise unless you have the impression, the general feeling that "Well, he does not know. It is due to his ignorance." How often do we take things seriously and feel miserable unnecessarily?
The prayer that Swami has given us highlights this very point :
Oh Lord! I am born now from the womb of sleep.
I am determined to carry out the task for this day
as offerings to Thee with Thee ever present
before my mind's eye.
Make my thoughts, words and deeds sacred and pure.
Let me not inflict pain on anyone.
Let no one inflict pain on me.
Direct me and guide me this day.
This is a very comprehensive prayer. We are not asking for daily bread. We are asking, instead, that we may carry out all our tasks as offerings to Him. We are seeking to realize His constant Presence so that we will not stray from the path. His Presence will inspire us to do our tasks, all of them, so that they are worthy of being offered. Then, our work becomes worship. Our tasks are worthy of being offered because we have done our very best. We did our best with those very talents that He endowed us with.
The prayer continues : 'Make my thoughts, words and deeds sacred and pure'. They will be sacred and pure only if they are to be offered to Him! Then the Bhagavad Gita's statement : 'Let no-one inflict pain on me' is used. This means, give me the understanding, the maturity that will help me not to feel pain when somebody says anything to me, even those who are out to hurt me. Whether you are hurt or not, only you can decide.
Sai Baba has used the example of the registered letter. If you know that someone is trying to hurt you, and if his words can be likened to this letter, you have the choice of not accepting it. The letter then goes back to the sender. Thus, the abuses are made ineffective. Even psychologically, this is true. The person who tries to hurt is the one who is more hurt. The person who is angry is the one whose adrenalin and other body juices work into his bloodstream. He is the one affected since his earlobes get hot and his heart is beating at 120 beats a minute. Thus, whether you are affected or not is entirely up to you. You and you alone can decide. Swami once said, "They are only words. You get affected only if you let yourself get affected." But, if you say 'it is due to ignorance', like my little grandson said - nothing can affect you.
So, who is the devotee liked by Him? He is one who is unaffected and who does not knowingly hurt others.
Then, we have the third line in Chapter Twelve, Sloka 15, which refers to joy. What we understand by a word essentially depends on our understanding of things and emotions. Rapture is something beyond joy, which is, in turn, beyond happiness. Once, during a discourse of Swami, the interpreter translated Ananda as joy. Swami, who always addresses an audience in an Indian language, corrected the interpreter thus : "No. Bliss." Bliss, joy and happiness are all seemingly synonymous. However, they indicate different reactions to different situations, which impinge on us. These are grades of emotions ending up with Bliss. Bliss has to be understood as that, which transcends all things that relate to the satisfaction of the senses. So, when hunger is satisfied, we feel happy. However, we know that this happiness is not long lasting since we shall be feeling the pangs of hunger in a few hours time.
If you wish to get an idea of what Bliss is, it can only be described as an intense and profound feeling which liberates us from the limited personality that we are most of the time. This feeling takes us to sublime heights. A feeling akin to this is experienced when you see the sun rise. It is an ever-changing drama and we have the best seats in the house free of charge. Dawn is beautiful and in a place like Puttaparthi, where everyone is up very early, it is most apparent.
What makes you elevated and transfixed is the feeling of Bliss. When one is in a continuous state of Bliss, the transient emotions of joy, grief, pain and pleasure will be ineffectual.
In this third line, we also have the term Bhaya (fear). In the Hindu scriptures, an interesting connotation exists. It is interesting from an academic point of view. However, its relevance is not diminished thereby. All of us are victims of this Bhaya. All those familiar with the Hindu icons will not that a lot of them have the A-bhaya pose. This pose shows the deity with a raised arm and an up-turned palm. It means, 'Why fear when I am here?' This is something that Swami has been saying for many decades. Indeed, we feel blessed when He gives us the A-bhaya.
We are all afraid. The Upanishads declare that we shall be afraid as long as we believe that there is 'other'. As soon as the realization dawns on us that there is no other and that all is the Self, we are no longer subject to fear. Thus, fear comes in spurts and it is easy to trace its causes. Our greatest fear is that of death. We are also afraid of loss. We fear loss of our possessions like our children, family and house. When you realize that you cannot really possess anybody or anything, wisdom has sprouted in you.
So, where is all this discussion taking us? The answer is very simple. These verses, indeed all the scriptures of all the religions teach man one thing : to overcome the problems posed by the mind. These entire super psychological verses teach a way to mature and sensible living. We must inculcate a mature, balanced outlook on life. Then, this life will become one of harmony. What is the essence of what Swami and Lord Krishna say? It is the means to attaining a normal life.
After Bhaya, we have Vega, which means haste, rashness, sudden impulse or impetuosity. All of these arise because we react spontaneously or immediately. One of my habits is to read and re-read books several times. I have recently acquired a whole set of volumes on the Mahabharata. These are profound discourses and it is not surprising that the Bhagavad Gita is a part of the Mahabharata. There are other stories all of which are almost as good but not as famous.
One of the stories is about a sage getting angry with his wife because she got into trouble with someone else unknowingly, asks his son to chop off her head! So, here we see man's greatest enemy. No matter how long the period of austerity - to stifle anger is very difficult. All the scriptural texts of India deal with a very important aspect called tapas (austerity). Tapas is the concentrated effort to achieve an objective. People have gone on tapas to destroy their enemy. They got the powers because those whom they invoked had no choice but to yield. It is as if writing an examination, one must get marks for it. The examiner cannot refuse to look at your script.
Similarly, these deities, knowing well that the ultimate aim of the tapas is wrong, still come down and grant the powers. Only because of their overall wisdom, they make some provisos like : "You can have this power but you must not use it for such and such purpose." Their boons are conditional so that they do not get misused beyond repair. This business of concentrated effort is something we all like to do and we feel we will get the fruit of this effort. We, however, do not seem to get the desired result.
'A devotee I like is one who is free from all such turbulences'. We must be free from the turbulence of joy and grief or satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Swami looks at us and we are happy. He does not look at us and we are dejected and we make long faces.
Prashanti Nilayam is essentially a place of turbulence. It is however a place where one can acquire equanimity if one goes through the course! The course is this turbulence.
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Anapeksah Suchir Daksha
Udasino Gatavyathah
Sarvarambha parityagi
Yo Madbhaktah sa me priyah
'He who has no expectation, is pure,
competent, unconcerned and untroubled
and who has given up all initiative in action,
he, My devotee, is dear to Me.'
(XII-16)
Who is the devotee I like? He has no expectations, no desires. He even does not desire a darshan let alone an interview. Not even the desire to hand over a letter. Why do we hand over a letter? We hand over letters because everybody else is doing it! More or less. When others do it, what is wrong with my doing it? Probably we feel that this is the way to get His attention. Otherwise, why does He accept letters? Very logical. Our mind is very logical when it suits us. When He is accepting letters, it must be because He likes them. He likes them or, as a lot of people believe, He is divine sometimes and at other times, He is not. When He is collecting letters, He is not divine. Probably, He has to sit down somewhere and read them.
The way I look at it is different. Writing a letter is a very useful exercise. Not only to Swami should we write letters, but under all circumstances, we must write. When one is angry, it is most important to write a letter. We must not go and give that person a tongue-lashing. We must write a letter and leave it overnight. We must read it in the morning. If it reads as if it is worth posting, we must leave it for another day. If on this day we feel it is worthy of posting, we must post the letter. Of course, we must be prepared to face the consequences. So when one writes, the mind gets clarified.
This may seem absurd, but our thoughts, when confronting us from a piece of paper, will appear very different compared to when they are only buzzing around in our brain. The whole exercise helps to clarify our thoughts. Clarifying thinking, especially thoughts relating to problems, is very important. The mind clarifies almost continuously and if we pin our thoughts down, we can see the clarity of our thoughts and then fix priorities. When we know that time is limited, we realize that what was priority three will now become priority one. Ultimately, we may get to the stage where all our problems have equal priority and we may then feel it is no longer worth bothering about.
Swami will know what is your most important priority because He will start talking to you about that first. Thus, writing a letter is a useful exercise since it clarifies your thoughts. Whether He needs to know or not, He will accept the letters, otherwise you will be disappointed. He encourages this because it fixes our priorities.
To illustrate a very common and practical way to deal with problems : Whenever someone comes into your office with a problem, you ask him to put this problem down on a piece of paper. This is the same way we deal with problems in seminars. If hardly any time is left for questions to be fielded from the floor, you simply say, "All those interested in asking questions, would you please write them down and hand the slips of paper in?" Most of the questions will disappear! This is because people just do not have the patience to sit down and write. If they do, many people will get clarification to their questions while in the process of writing. So, writing is useful until we learn that it is no longer necessary.
Suchir means he is pure. Purity is a term, which is comprehensive. As with the proceeding verses, this one just complements the others and gives further qualifications. To be pure, one must be pure in thought, word and deed. Now, what is so special about being pure? Something that is pure hurts no one. If it hurts someone, even you, it is impure. That which disturbs is impure. There is nothing impure unless you relate it to something that is pure. What is a pure thought? It is the one, which not only hurts no one, but is something that raises you above your humdrum life of wants and desires.
He who is competent. This is an important and sometimes forgotten quality of the devotee. A devotee is not one who is incompetent. One of the most difficult things of being in the presence of Swami is to be competent. He expects the highest competence in those around Him. He has no time for fools in terms of their functioning. A devotee is not a goody-goody man. He is good but not goody-goody. He is competent. He knows his job and he is somebody who also knows how to do a job. Moreover, he also knows when to do a job.
Not merely does he possess a skill but also the wisdom of when, where and how to apply that skill. All actions, ultimately, are related to time, place and circumstance. This is why things go wrong. The expected results do not materialize because time, place, circumstance were wrong. Competence, or rather Daksha, means doing a job so that it produces the best results in an overall manner. Thus, it means wisdom.
Wisdom is more than the ability to do a job with the skill at hand. It should form part of a symphony that comprises all small parts to make a whole, which is pleasing and enjoyable, taking you to sublime heights. So, a devotee is fit, he is suitable, he has the power and the strength of will. Thus, you cannot be competent unless you have the strength of will.
He is unconcerned. He is not bothered. The term to be bothered has degenerated to describe a lazy or a tamasic person. The meaning in the Bhagavad Gita is a little different. He is not bothered because he has transcended the struggle of struggling and achieving. This is a very necessary thing to transcend. There can be no mistake on this score. You will not get very far unless you transcend. This transcending is the challenge of daily life.
It is an essential part of understanding that, ultimately, in all this struggle, if He does not give us what we want, the ultimate wisdom lies in accepting things as they come. After all, they are the gifts of Grace. Thus, only a skillful person is competent and the one who is unconcerned is His devotee. Of course, such a devotee had to struggle at some stage in his development. He knows how it is, but it is through this struggle that he has realized the limitations of the nature of satisfaction that he derives through the senses. Then he becomes unconcerned. Unless you see through this whole game, you will never be able to rise above it.
One person who saw through this game was Nachiketa. His father was performing a special yagna (sacrifice) that required giving away all his possessions. Nachiketa, a young lad of more than nine years of age, looked at the performance as a facade. He saw his father giving away cows, which no longer were of use to anyone, or kitchen utensils that had seen better days and he understood that generally things were gifted, which were ready to be thrown out in any case.
The boy questioned his father about this. Obviously, the father was not pleased. Then Nachiketa asked him, "Father, to whom will you gift me?"
The father's angry reply was : "To Death!" Thus, Nachiketa left the house there and then and proceeded to the place of Yama, the King of Death. Yama had already departed on his tour around the world to catch hold of people. Returning three days later, Yama saw the boy having waited for three days and three nights. King Yama thought : 'I must have done something wrong, since I have kept a Brahmin boy waiting for three days and nights. I have been a poor host.' He then said : "Young man, ask for three boons."
This boy, Nachiketa, was very clever. He said : "When I go back..." a wonderful way to start his first boon! He has gone to the Abode of Death and he wants a ticket out of there and so he said : "When I go back, let my father not be angry." This is extreme cleverness. He assures himself that he will get out of there and he will go to a father who is pleased to see him return.
The second boon is related to the means to achieve higher levels of Awareness.
As a third boon, Nachiketa wanted to know the mysteries of life and death. This request elicits an interesting discussion between King Yama and the boy Nachiketa. The discussion between Nachiketa and Yama is vividly portrayed in the Kathopanishad.
It goes something like this : "No, no, no, Do not ask that question. I shall offer you a Kingdom. I shall offer you the most beautiful damsels in heaven. Wealth and cows in plenty will be yours. Anything that you wish will be granted. But do not ask this particular question."
And the boy answers, "I do not want any of those things because all these things are transient. They have no lasting value. Cows will yield milk for a while and then they become dry and after that they die. Wealth will disappear and beautiful girls will not remain beautiful for long. Give me the only thing that is timeless. The secret of life and death." In the end, Yama complies and the nine year old becomes a realized Being. Yama, the King of Death named the yagna that the father had performed the Nachiketa Yagna. Thus, we see that there are treasures to be found, if we see through the game as Nachiketa did.
This kind of wisdom is an essential part of an unconcerned attitude; you are not initiating a project to achieve anything, but you accept things as they come. You live your daily life fully - not through your senses or mind or intellect but by functioning. Things just flow out of you. That is your true nature. This unconcernedness does not mean "I do not care two hoots!" No, the unconcerned person is not bothered about initiating, but is in every way ready to take things as they come and then function fully and effectively. He functions fully and effectively because he is deriving an immense joy out of the very act of living. Therefore, his entire personality or his entire body-mind-intellect complex has lost the limitations that exist because of desires.
Of course, such a person has no sorrows. You will be sorry when you are disappointed, when you have not received what you had expected. But when you do not expect anything, you will not be subjected to any disappointments. Therefore, the devotee He likes best is the one who has no sorrow because he is unconcerned; but he is functioning in an effective way.
Swami describes Himself when he says :
"God is ever unselfish."
God does nothing for Himself. Whatever He does is for Loka Kalyana (for the betterment of the world). He, of course, does not mean the limited world we alluded to earlier. We must all start with that world but we must not stay in it for life. It has to expand. That is why Sai is forever saying, "Love is expansion."
He does not initiate anything. We initiate projects because of a thought process, because of a desire and because of a wish to achieve something. In the unconcerned person "I am going to do this, so that I will achieve this and that," disappears. He does not initiate something due to desire to achieve anything for himself. This is Aramba, which means 'the beginning'. Every project has a beginning and to initiate something requires some effort.
But what does the true devotee do? He awaits things as they flow. In everything that comes to him, he finds a unique opportunity. An opportunity, which will unfold before him from the beginning. This is the kind of attitude we should develop so that we might achieve the stage of unconcernedness. He does not initiate something specific, for, in everything that comes his way, he sees an opportunity in which he should function fully and normally. He breathes in and out as it were.
For one to breathe in and out, no special effort is required. You are yourself and the Infinite flows through you. You are in tune with the Cosmic Entity.
The limitations imposed by your mind-body-intellect complex do not insulate you. It is as if a current is flowing through you and you offer it no resistance. When a conductor offers resistance to a current, it becomes hot. The whole process of striving in life is to reduce resistance so that you become a channel-way for the Infinite to function through you. We usually start off something because we feel we are specially qualified to undertake this venture.
A true devotee does not becomes hysterical. Bhajan singing is hysteria. The regular bhajan attendance is the kindergarten stage in seeking after Truth. You are kept busy for half an hour or an hour so that you are kept out of mischief. At least for those few minutes, you are sitting in one place and do not get up.
The very reason He has arranged these lectures for foreigners - as if there were any 'foreigners' as far as He is concerned - is to keep you occupied for an hour here instead of your counting the number of beggars or stray dogs outside. Swami says that those people who come from abroad are very naive. The local folk believe that every person who comes from overseas is a millionaire and his pockets are full of dollars to be unloaded. Since Swami says 'Start the day with love', the foreigner goes outside and grabs the first person who has love for his dollars. He then very easily parts way with his money and wonders why the formula given by Sai did not work. Have you noticed how many times you say "I have come all the way"? He is often repeating this especially when he did not get an interview. "We have come all the way from 'Timbuktu', but Swami has not called us 'in' " - the person wails.
All the way, there is no other way. Even a resident of Puttaparthi has to come all the way. What you expect and what you get in terms of spiritual training are two different things.
When in the darshan line or in the Prayer hall or elsewhere, people try to show-off and display an excess of emotional feeling towards Swami, but He said that this is not devotion. It is hysteria. 'Hysteria' is a common word He uses to describe those people who apparently melt - who showingly melt.
Swami likes the heart to melt. He has come to melt even the stoniest of hearts. But, any kind of display or exhibitionism is something to be avoided. You can rest assured that an exuberance of what people consider as Bhakti or devotion, is anything but devotion. You could consider it as an emotional upsurge. But it is not devotion. It is mere show.
This word 'show' is another of those words Swami uses a lot. When one sits in the darshan-lines, one can see that a lot of people are giving various things for Him to bless. On one occasion, a person wanted a japamala (rosary) to be blessed. He held it up and Swami came along. Swami then said : 'Show, show, show'. He took it and placed it around his neck and said : 'Show'. So, a japamala can become a showpiece. You need not display it to others for other to see.
On another occasion, Swami materialized a locket for someone who came here. This man then placed it around his neck, outside his shirt and showed it all around. Later, when he was in darshan-line again, Swami went to him and, while speaking to him, very unobtrusively put it under his shirt. He never insults your intelligence. He expects you to learn your lesson well from the way He teaches. No 'show' or exhibitionism is needed, since Bhakti or devotion is an inner attitude. It is an attitude that must express itself in what we are and how we behave. These are very difficult things, which Lord Krishna said. Who is a devotee? Not the person we have just been describing.
A devotee is one who has no hatred towards anybody. To every being, both living and non-living, he is kind. This is because he believes that everything is an expression of the Divine. If every thing is an expression of the Divine, we have to treat everything with the same attitude, namely one of love, as we would treat Sai or any other form of Godhead we worship.
Sai Baba often states, "You cannot hate anybody since I am within him." Sai is everywhere. There is no place in this cosmos where He is not. God is in everything and everything is within God. Therefore, you cannot hate. You have to love. But, 'not hating' is the first step. You must be friendly and compassionate.
Then you must get rid of the feeling of 'mine'. How can anything belong to us? Everything is His. We cannot possess anything. However, for how many years do we try to acquire things? It is all to no avail. 'Even this body is not mine.' This is the attitude we must develop. Here is the key.
If this body does not belong to me, what is mine? The whole universe belongs to us. It is ours. This is the expansive feeling we have to strive for. We also have to be unperturbed by those factors which would otherwise have caused us to grieve or to be elated. Anything that gives joy or grief has something to do with our expectations and our desires. Therefore, if we do not have any desires, how then can we be tossed between these feelings of joy and sorrow? We have to be ever content.
This contentment should come out of an inner attitude that whatever comes, that whatever happens to us is for our own good. Whatever we get is His Prasad (sacred gift). Then we have to be in harmony. We have to be yoked to God. How does this being yoked to God reflect on our attitude? This attitude is one of being yoked to the essence of God in each - and then our entire behavior towards everything is conditioned by this inner feeling that everything is Divine.
We have to be clear-headed. We have to have a firm conviction. We should put away our wavering habits and if somebody tells us something, we must not change our mind. And, this mind must be firmly stabilized in God. This is the type of devotee that is most beloved of the Lord.
Moreover, we must not cause pain to the world. We must not make the world unhappy and miserable by our show of power, by our - sometimes domineering attitude and worst of all, by our inflated ego. We must not only cause no pain to the world, we must also feel that the world is not after us to cause us any pain. We should not be perturbed by the world. This is not because the world is so anxious not to displease us and not to hurt us... it is because we have developed an inner attitude by which we are not hurt by anything or anybody.
We must feel that no one is intent on causing trouble for us. This is because the only person who can decide whether you will be hurt or not is only you. Therefore, it is within our power to decide whether we are going to be hurt, for example, by the words of someone else. We get hurt because of our ego. We always feel we are far better than what someone else thinks of us. Therefore, we seek friends who will praise us, because who likes to be chastised?
Our attitude to joy and sorrow must be the same. We should not be troubled by the turbulence of waves of joy and grief. We also have to be desireless. We must have no specific wishes and should not be anxious that 'so and so should happen' or 'such and such events should take place'. Our mind should be pure and we have to be competent. This does not imply that surrender means not knowing the best way of expressing the gifts of God.
We have to be indifferent. This word is slightly different to what a lot of people consider as being indifferent. In this context, indifference means taking everything as it comes. We flow with the events. We must not start any project out of a selfish motive. Most of our projects are initiated out of a selfish desire. Therefore, when they go well, we feel elated and when they do not, we feel depressed. So, if we did not embark upon something out of a selfish desire, then it matters little how the project will go. We measure our success and failure in terms of what we have achieved, which again depends on what premise we had started upon. Most of these premises are selfish in origin.
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Yo na Hrsyati na Dvesti
Na Socati no Kanksati
Subhasubha parityagi
Bhaktiman yah sa me priyah
'He who does not have sudden bursts of
joy or sorrow, neither regrets nor desires,
who has renounced auspicious and inauspicious,
is dear to Me."
(XII-17)
He who does not have sudden bursts of joy or sorry because he does not distinguish between them. Now why does one feel sorrow? Why does one say 'I am sorry'. You are sorrowing over a wrong you may have committed. But are you really sorry? Usually you are not and you say 'I am sorry' automatically.
The main problem in asking for other's forgiveness is to recognize that we can make mistakes. To do this, we must develop a certain sensitivity to realize that we might have hurt others. We are all more easily hurt by what others do instead of giving thought and analysis to what we might have said that could inflict pain on others.
It essentially means consideration and fellow-feeling. One should feel sorrow in the initial stages so that one recognizes that one can make mistakes. However, a stage will come when one no longer needs to feel sorrow since all that he does is good.
He has no sense of auspiciousness or inauspiciousness. Auspicious and inauspicious are akin to a stage in behavior. It is like good and bad. You must know what is good and you will divert your attention from the bad. This strengthens the mind. This strengthens our impulses so that they will not be attracted by what is bad. This is the same case with auspiciousness and inauspiciousness. For example, we would like to embark on a project at the correct time. These practices are all good since they teach us discipline. By these procedures, we learn what is meant by auspiciousness and also what is auspicious. They are lessons in moulding an attitude to life.
Now, when you reach the stage where you look upon everything as God's Will, then there can be nothing called as auspicious or inauspicious. However, you can reach that stage only after knowing what is auspicious and what is not. Some people, out of politeness, say : 'if there is anything that is good in what I am about to say, it is all Swami's'.
Someone mentioned this in Swami's presence and He continued :
'... and if there is anything wrong - it is Mine'.
In a discourse, Swami said : 'Whatever you do is Mine. When you are speaking, when you are thinking or when you are doing something, good as well as bad, it is Mine!' This is just one more of the Upanishadic statements made by Sai.
How can anyone attribute mistakes to Sai? Now, look again at the statement : 'if there is anything good, it is Swami's, if there is anything wrong, it is mine.' So, initially, you have started on the premise that something is yours while something else is Swami's. There is that feeling of separation between yourself and Swami. Of course, it is a good lesson on the elementary level that we do not want to attribute anything which is bad to Swami. Something that is bad or wrong can be attributed only to us or to our ego.
But, Swami says : 'All is Mine'. This means that we must cultivate the attitude of 'no separation'. That something is His and something is ours has to be forgotten. When we can develop such an attitude, then there will be no mistakes because their base, the ego, is not there. Whatever happens is His.
Lord Krishna told Arjuna : "You are only an instrument. Do not take all this responsibility on your head. Nothing is yours. Be an instrument." These words will remain as words until they activate and motivate our lives, our attitudes and feelings. Sai is teaching us every moment to realize that this inner attitude is what is so important.
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Samah Satrau cha Mitre cha
Tatha Manaapamanayoh
Sitosna sukhaduhkhesu
Samah Sangavivarjitah
'He who regards friend and foe, honor and dishonor alike
and who is alike in cold and heat, pleasure and pain -
and who is unattached.'
(XII-18)
You must view friends and enemies at the same time. At the kindergarten-stage, we recognize enemies as enemies and friends as friends. Now, at the advanced stage, we must treat enemies as friends. We cannot understand this concept unless we go to the very root of the problem. Who are our enemies? Those who do not like us we classify as enemies. They do not like us and we do not like them. We do not like them because there is a clash of interests. Something we like, they do not like. They actually have no respect for us. They do not say good things about us. They gossip about us. They even lie about us. The go so far as to attribute wrong motives to us. They do not like us and we do not like them.
This feeling arises out of a lack of personal equation. There is a sense of innate inferiority from which we develop a complex. We feel everyone is having a superiority complex. If somebody does not look at us, we feel he is arrogant and proud. We refuse to believe that he might have a problem. The attitude that 'everyone must be interested in me' is born out of ego. We usually do not wish to give someone else the benefit of doubt. We should like to have that benefit for ourselves.
Now, who are our friends? Our friends are those who like us. They like us because we like them. Here we see the beginning of a mutual admiration society. We always like to go to people who will say good things about us. Now, who would not like to hear good things about oneself? There are people who might tell us the truth but since they have the knack of putting it bluntly, we do not consider them our friends.
Sai often says that those people who say bad things to us are our true friends. You cannot improve from praise unless you want to improve. Very few want to improve. They want to improve the world but not themselves. Must people feel they have reached the acme of perfection. The inner voice keeps on talking but they do not want to listen. Therefore, we seek friends who will praise us. Sai says that those who point out our failings are our true friends. Praise does not improve us. We must come to the stage where we recognize no difference between friends and enemies. The only way you must look at other's reactions is in relation to how far what they say could help you to improve yourself?
A true devotee regards honor and dishonor alike. Honor and dishonor reflect attitudes and values which society has designed so that some people will be honored while others may not be honored. A criminal is not honored because he is a social menace. But a philanthropist is honored because he is sharing what he has earned. Anybody looking at history can see that the great men of this earth have been honored because they lived not for themselves. They lived for the sake of others.
This sharing need not be material wealth or possessions but they wanted to share their extraordinary capacity of empathy. They were able to put themselves in the other's shoes and feel where they pinch. They could reach out and touch the other person's heart. This is true compassion. It is what you have done that will make people recognize and honor you.
It will be apt to recall an incident here in this connection. My colleague, a metallurgist, took us out to dinner with a fellow metallurgist, an Italian. I joined them late. The Italian metallurgist was talking. I could see from across the table that he was exuding joy and love for the subject of metallurgy and about the peculiar problems of smelting. He was just brimming over with joy in what he was doing. Then my friend introduced the Italian saying : 'This is so-and-so. He is a very dedicated metallurgist."
Suddenly, this word dedication flashed across my mind. Here, I could see what the word meant. When do we call somebody dedicated? Dedication means giving heart and soul to what one is doing. When a person has put his heart and soul and is doing anything he has to do with a sense of such intense joy that it becomes his very breath, then it gets to a stage that others will call 'dedicated'. This is very important.
Others would describe this as 'dedication'. But, he is not doing it because he might have decided that 'from today I will be dedicated.' No. Nobody can be dedicated by saying 'I will be dedicated.' The essence of dedication is this overpowering, overflowing joy in doing whatever we are doing.
The artist, the artisan, the metallurgist or the geologist, like me before arriving here in Prashanti Nilayam, can be dedicated. Dedication means to experience this inner joy. That joy is dedication. Society values this kind of dedication. Nobody becomes dedicated by reading books. Either you have that inner joy or you do not. If you have been lucky, you might have come across a living example in your childhood.
This is what we should learn looking at Swami now. Of course, we would not call Swami dedicated, because He is not human in the sense we understand the word. But, have you not noticed this intense joy within Him? You can experience this intense inner joy when you look at Him looking at this vast throng of humanity who come to share all that they have with Him. He is ready to give them the things that really matter but they are not ready to receive them. If you haven't seen it, look at Him again.
Society says something is honorable while something else is dishonorable. Mana in Sanskrit means a measure. Saint Kalidasa said that the Himalayas are a measure, a yard-stick. A very powerful statement. The whole of the Himalayan range, which extends over one thousand kilometers, is only a yardstick! A yardstick of what? Of the universe!
Thus, society has this measure. It says this is good while that is bad. These ideas help the individual to grow. Initially, they may be irksome disciplines, but they help us to unfold ourselves. Therefore, we must overcome certain obstacles. We feel that we do not have to exert ourselves if we are receiving payment. However, for such things as hobbies we feel justified in exerting ourselves. We collect miseries, troubles, complaints and stamps. We say this work is Swami's but that other work is mine.
Sai asks : 'Who gave you this opportunity? Who gave you this talent?' There is nothing like secular and nothing like spiritual. Everything is His. He gave you this job. You might have gone to an interview and someone has selected you.
But, who is the Ultimate Motivator? It is He.
Once you have develop this inner attitude, everything changes. Your whole life becomes, as Swami says, "Nitya kalyanam, Puccha Thoranam". This means every day is a festival; everyday to be welcomed with green leaves. In this part of the country, whenever there is a festival, festoons are tied. You will see that whenever Swami is coming, the fresh mango leaves are tied across the thresholds. Why? The green leaves are an expression of joy. The joy of His coming is expressed through tying the leaves. Therefore, Swami says that everyday must be considered a festival and we must have this inner joy.
The devotee must treat heat and cold alike. Heat is heat and cold is cold. How can they be the same? What is heat and what is cold? These are measures on a thermometer. The terms heat and cold are in relation to the temperature of the body. When it is cold, our body feels it so in relation to our body temperature. Nature has provided animals with a defense for cold. Cats, for example, grow thick fur in winter. Man has been provided with intelligence to combat the elements. When we feel hot, there is not much of a problem. India is fortunate because especially here in the South, it is hot. But, what do we do when it gets cold? We wrap a rug around ourselves. We wear coats and we put on shawls. When we feel hot, we remove these. When we feel extremely hot, we wear wool. The Arab sheiks wear wool because it insulates. It keeps the inside temperature comfortable while outside it may be 120 degrees or more. Through experience, we have discovered that this is the best means of keeping off heat and also of keeping off the cold.
According to Bhagavad Gita, you cannot do anything about what is happening outside. The temperature is temperature. If something happens which you do not like - too bad. You cannot do anything about it. All that you can do under such circumstances is the same we would do in the face of a cold front : wear something warm. Of course, some people might say that we should heat or air-condition the house. When we have these, we have other problems. Moreover, how long can you stay in an air-conditioned house?
So, the Bhagavad Gita is very profound.
It says that we should not be elated
when something we like happens -
nor should we feel dejected
when something we do not like happens.
We cannot change events, but certainly, we can change our attitude to them. For example, let us consider that we wanted something to happen and it did not happen. We then have this deep sense of disappointment. But time does two things. The first is that this state of disappointment wears off with the passage of time. Then secondly, in retrospect, we see that events were not so bad after all. We were actually banking on those factors that interested us at that time, but once we have the possibility to look back, we notice that there were many more important factors involved and the sum of what happened was very beneficial indeed.
It is like looking at a painting from very close. The eye catches those things that are in front of it. But when we step back, the entire picture becomes clear. Therefore, wisdom is when we are able to see the picture in its manifoldness. This is best done by considering that whatever happens is Prasadam or Holy Blessings.
He is unattached. All that we have been saying can only come if you are unattached. The words attachment and detachment have been given new meaning by this Avatar. In the interview room, there is no one who is more attached to you than Sai - it is this, which causes problems. He speaks to you with such intimacy and such knowledge and pours such love; a love, which we take for granted. But once we come out of that room and we are sitting in the darshan-lines the next day, He behaves as if you were a stranger and as if He did not know you. Does He know you? Of course, He knows you, otherwise how could He reveal your innermost thoughts to you?
How could He do that? He is exhibiting complete attachment and complete detachment. But, Swami uses a word that is very important : 'Unattached'. Unattached does not mean detached in the way we take it. Unattached means attached yet detached. It means that when it is necessary, you get attached, then after that, you are detached. This is the attitude that Krishna is teaching us. We must get attached when it is necessary. But, we must not become a prisoner of the attachment. Look at the case of female dogs in nature. They are most attached to their offspring but as soon as it is necessary, they will lead independent lives. To develop this attitude of being attached yet being unattached is the reason for which the Avatar has come. 'Sanga vivarjitah' means not to be enslaved by attachment.
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Tulyanindastutir Mauni
Samtusto yena kenachit
Aniketah Stiramatir
Bhaktiman me priyo narah
'Praise and blame does not affect him.
He is silent, content, and has no fixed abode
and is firm in mind, it is he who is dear to Me.
(XII-19)
Praise and calumny do not affect a devotee. Swami is the supreme example of the reaction to both. On the one hand, you have people who write books about a side of Swami's life, which we are unaware of.
They would like us to believe these, of course. He is the most public of lives. Can you imagine anyone walking around with 80,000 pairs of eyes on Him? If somebody stares at you, you feel uncomfortable. Here is a person whose every movement is carefully watched, filmed and contemplated upon. You can always calculate where He is standing, if you connect the lines of sight from different people. He is at the intersection.
Then, he is reviled. We recently had in India a certain university vice-chancellor, who calls himself a scientist because he has a Ph. D. He stated that Swami is a magician and that the 'tricks' he performs are by sleight of hand. He further stated that the real proof will come if Swami created in public a pumpkin. Others echoed the challenge. Of course, convincing one person does not mean others are convinced. Tomorrow, another person will get up and say that the real proof will be if Sai were to create a buffalo. Therefore, they missed the point.
Here is One who is reviled and praised. If we had to listen and receive one millionth of the praise that we heap on Him, we would go mad. Who can stand this adoration? How many of us can stand the adoration of millions? Adoration is a bigger burden than being reviled.
What does Sai say about Himself? 'Whatever may happen, nothing can come in the way of My smile.' Of course, He does not smile when we do not measure up. Incidentally, one day, He asked the children of the primary school some questions. He asked : 'What is love?' Then He supplied the answer, saying : 'Love is an ice-cream.' Sai has given us a down-to-earth definition of love. He continued : 'Love is an ice-cream, because ice-cream is pure, it is white and it is cool. Moreover, it wants only that others enjoy it.'
Then, a few days later, He asked them, 'What is devotion?' This is the question that we have been seeking from the Bhagavad Gita.
A child answered : 'Swami, for our age obeying whatever You say is devotion.'
This is humility. This is the most profound definition that can be given. It summarizes all that we have been discussing. Now, that is the kind of devotion that Swami expects. We must obey in the belief that whatever He does is for our good. He has come for our good and not His.
Swami adds, 'I never exult when I am extolled...' This explains His equanimity. He is able to remain calm amidst all this adoration. He adds : '...nor shrink when I am reviled'. This is a very important line for us to remember. "When things that are in Me are mentioned, why should I exult?"
This is a very profound statement and it comes out of the profoundest knowledge. It comes out of profound self-confidence arising out of self-knowledge, which does not require certificates from others. We all want certificates from others. Somehow, we do not possess the knowledge that will give us the supreme self-confidence in our own Self, because our self is the small self.
He is silent. This does not mean that he keeps his mouth shut. This keeping your mouth shut does help in the initial stages. It means to keep silent in the face of all the intake of impressions. We start off by only selectively taking impressions in and rejecting those, which disturb the mind.
He is ever content. He is happy with whatever comes his way.
He has no fixed abode. Does this mean that he is a wanderer? Does a Sanyasi (renunciate) become homeless? Sanyas means that he should have no possessions considering as his. He must feel that he belongs everywhere and not just between the four walls. A home is not made of four walls and a roof. It is an attitude. We use a home as a first step in making sure that what we earn is properly used. The trouble comes when we believe that this alone is our home. The feeling that we are all one must make us believe that this world is our home. So, our attitude should expand to include all beings. That is why one more of the Upanishadic phrases Sai uses is : 'Love is Expansion'.
His mind must be firm. It cannot be disturbed especially by what people may say.
"It is such a one who is dear to Me."
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Ye tu Dharmyamrtam idam.
yathoktam paryupasate
Sraddadhana Mataparama
Bhaktas tetiva me priyah
'But those, who with Faith holding Me as
their supreme goal and follow this immortal wisdom
those devotees are exceedingly dear to Me.'
(XII-20)
This verse states that we must do all that preceded, if we are to come close to Him.
Way back in 1947, Sai wrote : 'I have My definition of the devotee I expect.
Those devoted to Me have to treat joy and grief, gain and loss, with equal fortitude.'
This is the definition of devotion. But, for our purpose, the little child at the primary school aptly paraphrased these words of Sai when she said :
'Swami, for our age, obeying whatever you say is devotion.'
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