H (HISLOP): What did Baba mean about the spiritual rays that comprise a human being, being projected into the vastness, instead of the limited ego?

SAI: When the world melts away, when there is bliss or even when there is a temporary feeling of happiness, hold to that state and stay with it, and do not allow yourself to fall back into ego, emotions and thoughts. From man comes a series of spiritual rays whose quality is delight and bliss. All man need do is to manifest that bliss. The idea of search is an error. Everyone already knows the truth. All that is needed is to put that truth into practice and to manifest it. The humanity of man is just these spiritual rays of delight. It is very easy to crush a flower, or t owink an eye; Self-realization is as easy as that.

BE HAPPY

H: Swami said that it is man's duty to be happy.

SAI: Happiness is essential for God-realization. It is one of the major gates to divinity. It is not just a fault if a person is not happy; it is one of the most serious of all faults. It is a barrier to Realization. Mostly, people are unhappy because of worldly pursuits, attachments, enjoyments. Too much interested in the world. To get free of this fault, a person has to be told of the seriousness of the fault. He should realise that desire is never-ending, like the waves of the sea.

H: Swami says that pleasure or happiness is the interval between two sorrows. What is the implication?

THE CAUSE OF SORROW

SAI: Pleasure is an interval between two sorrows. Remove the sorrow and only pleasure, and delight remain. But nobody troubles to find the cause of sorrow. It is like the lady who went to look for a lost needle under the street lamp because there was no light in the house where she had lost the article. The house is lit by the light of wisdom. The lost item must be found where it was lost. Actually, sorrow and pain are caused by desire. The cure is to use that same desire and turn it to God, to desire God. Instantly, suffering will cease because the cause, turning from God to worldly desire, has been eliminated. The incidents that caused sorrow will cease to cause sorrow. If a person called 'my' suffers, there is a direct pain in oneself. But if one's desire is for God only, that pain will cease.

H: But one suffers also because of the pain he is aware of in another.

SAI: The suffering one feels for other people whom one sees suffering, is from imagination. That sympathetic suffering will leave, but the sympathy remains. Compassion is when love is mobile and flows. Personal love is when love is not mobile but remains fixed on husband, wife, child, etc. Devotion is that free mobile flow of love to God.

CAUTION WITH OVER FAMILIARITY

H: Last night, in speaking to the students, Swami said something very puzzling, that another person's sins would pass to oneself through the touch of that person's skin.

SAI: For that reason it is that some Swamis will not allow devotees to touch the feet. Since one cannot be sure who is bad and who is good, it is best to refrain from touching.

A Visitor: Is that why Indians greet people by that kind of salute, instead of by much handshaking as is done in the West?

SAI: No. That is not the reason.

H: Does Swami mean that if I touch a person, I then commit sin in the same way as he?

SAI: When the tender plant of devotion begins to grow, it must be protected. When a young tree is growing various animals will eat it and may kill it. For this reason a fence is placed around the young tree to protect it. When the tree is grown it needs no protection. The same animals which would have first destroyed it now seek and find shade and shelter beneath its branches. When devotion is grown strong and intense, it will burn all sins. Until then, the person whose devotion is just new must see bad as bad and good as good. The person grown strong in his devotion may see bad as good and see good only.

It is not just physical touch wherein lies the danger, but in mental intimacy also bad influences may flow from one person to the other. Your children are not your children, they are God's children. You should love them, but your thoughts should not pass to them. There is body relationship with mother, from whose body you came, and with grandmother from whose body mother came. Sisters and brothers are to be treated with respect. But with other people there is no body relationship.

H: I gave Swami a ring created by a yogi. I did not want wear it and I didn't know what to do with it. That is, I sent it up to Swami by a messenger with a note about it.

SAI: That was another attempt aimed at you by other interests. You are known as a devotee to Baba, and it was an attempt to interest you elsewhere. Like that western city matter. You should reject such attempts out-of-hand.

H: But that man from there said Swami stayed at his house.

SAI: Not true. That area is strongly Communist. At one time Baba did bring about genuine evidence of His Sankalpa there, but ego and money-making arose, so Baba stopped things. Again He allowed it, and now He has again stopped it. Those people, in fear of loss of reputation, are now doing things by tricks.

H: The man seemed a very nice fellow.

CHALLENGES WITH EVERY AVATAR

SAI: Not so. There is always good and bad in dualistic phenomena. When there is an Avatar, there must always be bad. Rama's foster-mother was his enemy. Krishna's uncle was his enemy even before he was born. Shirdi Baba was much abused.

Not long ago, there was a man who challenged Swami to some tests. Stories appeared over a broad area, even in other countries. This man had some foreign people in his camp. Some of Swami's devotees urged Him to reply. But to reply would have been shameful. This yogi was eating nails and glass and so on. He created a special tank for a test of water walking. Why a special tank? Something crooked. He sold tickets to spectators for up to 100 rupees and more per ticket. On the appointed day he stepped on the water and sank in the water. The police had to put him in a cell to protect him from abuse, and all the money was refunded. Now, people said, what a fool he had been to challenge Swami. His disaster was a result of the foolish challenge. Later, the man wrote to Swami disclaiming any serious intent to challenge, and confessed that he had used Swami's name just to increase ticket sales. The man is gone and now nothing is heard about him.

H: But Swami, why would the man be so foolish as to try to walk on water without practice beforehand?

SAI: The man was walking on water. But ego and greed arose, and that finished it. Thought, word, and deed must be the same.

H: In the car en route to Anantapur, an American who was teaching at the Sathya Sai College at Brindavan said, ‘Swami, I feel guilty at leaving my classes.’

SAI: Duty in the world carries no force or weight when God calls. God is the goal of life. When in His company, there is no duty. When He is absent on tour, etc., then duty comes into full play, because duty is God.

THE COMPOSITION OF MAN

H: When I am absent from Swami's physical person and far away in America, I know of His actual Presence by the jasmine perfume. Someone said it was smelled by the smell-sense of the subtle body, is this correct?

SAI: No. Senses are in the physical body. Subtle body does not have senses. The perfume is known by the physical senses.

H: Does man have three bodies?

SAI: Yes. Body, Mind and Soul. Physical body, subtle body and causal body. On death, the physical and subtle bodies disintegrate, but the causal body remains.

H: How about the five kosas, the five sheaths?

SAI: The food sheath, life sheath and mind sheath are impermanent. The intelligence sheath and bliss sheath remain. The body is mud. Out of the mud everything grows. Only the body dies. Life and all the senses merge into mind. Mind merges into wisdom. Wisdom merges into bliss, into God. Thus there are five sheaths.

H: What are the 14 lokas, the 14 worlds?

SAI: They are really thoughts. There are seven levels of thought ascending upward and seven downward.

H: Swami, some people claim to travel on the astral plane by projecting their minds.

SAI: It is like dreams or visions; it is not real. However, if vision appears in meditation, it is of something real.

OUR LOOKS AND SWAMI’S LOOK

H: Time is set by the clock, and on the clock each minute is the same as the next. But in one's life, time goes slow in one experience and extremely fast in the next.

SAI: Hislop goes to sleep in Bombay. He dreams that he is born in California, and he lives through 65 years of life. Yet this entire 65 years takes only two minutes of clock time. Hislop has gone to sleep in Bombay, but, the Bombay body is left behind. This is proof that Hislop is not that body. To the jnani (Wise man), who has wakened to wisdom, 65 years of 'waking life' is just a moment-like the dream to Hislop.

H: What is this present moment?

SAI: God is omnipresent. He is the ever present. This moment is God. There is only God. Truth is the same in the past, in the present, and it will remain the same in the future.Therefore, the time sequence of past, present, future is just imagination. But 'I' am timeless, beyond time. 'I' look at past, present, future; they are not me.

Of course, past, present and future must be taken into account in daily affairs. These two aspects of time must be mixed and in operation at the same time. The perception that the time sequence is only imagination that 'I' am timeless and beyond time, both should be there at the very moment that one is using the time sequence in his daily affairs.

H: In terms of the unreality of time, how are we to experience past, present, future?

SAI: They are unreal. But at the same time the Atma is real. Hold to that central reality. There need be no confusion. The inward intelligence may harmonize the experience of the relative time and the permanent self. Even now you are hearing and seeing, yet the inward intelligence co-ordinates the two.

H: At this moment we seem to be as we are at this moment. When Swami looks at us with His eyes, what is it that He sees?

SAI: Man has two eyes; he sees only past and present. God has three eyes. God's eyes are spiritual. He sees in front, behind, above and below. Like the garland pulled over the finger – the finger is the present and it is in touch with past and future. God is the present. He is omnipresent. As Baba looks at people, he sees the past, the present moment, and the future, and everywhere in every direction.

(To be continued)....

- Heart2Heart Team