PEACE THROUGH SENSE AND MIND CONTROL

You can experience Bliss only when you have learnt to control the Mind. To control the Mind, you have to engage in good deeds. As you go on performing good deeds, you will develop good thoughts and feelings; and when you have good thoughts, you will acquire true understanding of the Real.

Sanctify the time given to you with good thoughts and good actions. To achieve this, you have to cultivate the company of the good, and all of this, in due course, would lead to liberation. Filling your mind with thoughts of God and engaging in good actions is true Sadhana.

People claim to spend hours in meditation. But of what use is it if there is no concentration of the Mind? Far better it is to render social service or participate in Bhajans, and through such means subject the Mind to some discipline. This also is how work gets transformed into worship. When you dedicate all your thoughts and actions to God, your actions automatically get purified.

You can experience God through the performance of your duties and proper actions. The Bhagavad Gita says that the Kshetra (namely the body) and the Kshetrajna (namely the Atma) together constitute the human personality. Similarly, the scriptures refer to the human body as the temple and the Indwelling Spirit as the God residing in that temple. Even a mere intellectual understanding of this fact is enough to make you happy. But you would be happier still, when you put this understanding into practice in your daily life. You should try to seek continuous satisfaction and fulfilment by basing even your mundane activities on spiritual values. Whatever be the activity with which you are preoccupied in Society, you must be steadfast in holding on to the spiritual ideal. This alone will bestow lasting peace.

The sense organs should be sanctified by offering all the actions performed through them to God. You can surely achieve that sanctified state, provided you have strong determination. Unfortunately, man does not evince such a firm determination and tenacity of purpose in respect of spiritual matters, as he does for the sake of mundane things. Man is prepared to make any amount of effort to undertake a journey of millions of miles into outer space, but he hardly ever endeavours to go even an inch within, towards his Inner Self. What is the use of intelligence and worldly acquisitions when they cannot give Atma Shanthi (the untrammelled peace of the Atma or the Spirit)? God alone can confer such enduring peace on man.

As far as possible, avoid causing harm or pain to others. As you sow, so you reap. Whenever you feel disturbed by a sense of anger, envy, pride, jealousy and the like, become alert and resort to the contemplation of the Lord.

EXCERPTS FROM A DISCOURSE OF SRI SATHYA SAI BABA