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Posted on: June 20, 2016

Guru Poornima Special Offering
(Daily Episode)

Part - 12

In 2006, eager to start a service which will help everyone to connect with Bhagawan's teachings on a daily basis, Radio Sai began 'Sai Inspires'. All who subscribed to this service, received an email from us which had a concise message of Baba accompanied with His image. This daily offering was received well, and soon the subscriptions grew. Today nearly 100,000 people from all corners of the world wait for this message to help them tide over their day with peace and ease. The power inherent in these discourse capsules is indeed tremendous. How much we benefit from it and how best we harness this energy depends purely on how seriously we ruminate over these words and how sincerely we put our learning into action. To help us in this noble and elevating exercise, Prof. G. Venkataraman has taken time out to elaborate on these messages. His reflections will not only give us a deeper understanding into what the Lord is communicating to us but also give us tips to translate them into our daily practical life with more ease.

The best way to value the Master is to master His values. As we prepare to celebrate Guru Poornima (July 19), when we pay our respects and obeisance to the Divine Master, let us work to offer Him the tribute that the Lord loves the most from us - to make our lives His message, to make His love and wisdom shine in us. To aid us in this endeavour we have this series where Prof. Venkataraman for the next 26 days from June 9, 2016 shares his insights on select Sai Inspires messages. We hope this will help us to understand His teachings better and bolster our determination to walk on the sacred path.

Sai Inspires Message

LIVE FIRST LIKE A GOOD HUMAN AND THEN RISE TO THE LEVEL OF GOD

If we wish to understand the Divinity that transcends human understanding, we should seek to reach a level above the human. Till that is reached, we have to experience everything at the human level alone. Living as a human being, how can one recognize that which transcends human capacity? This can be done by developing the faith that though one has a form that is externally human, what is actually donning this human form is Divine. Once one develops faith in this fundamental truth, it would also dawn on the person that all actions must be performed in harmony with the attributes of the Divine spark within. In other words, the easiest and the best way to transcend the limitations of human thinking and actions is lead a life of dedicated service. This becomes possible only when one allows Pure Love to saturate one’s life, at which point one’s very nature becomes Love, allowing one to experience Bliss. In short, the best way to Love God is to Love All and Serve All.

Divine Discourse, April 26, 1993.

REFLECTIONS

Sai Ram. The Sai quote above is a very important one. Do you know why? Because it explains the essence of the oft-quoted statement: LOVE ALL, SERVE ALL. We all repeat it tirelessly, put it on greetings cards, banners and what not; but ask people what it exactly means and what Swami is trying to tell us via that most powerful phrase with just four words, and you would find that people start fumbling. Swami gives the answer we all think we know but do not, and so let's take a minute off to understand what exactly Swami expects of us when He tells us, 'Love All and Serve All'.

We start with human behaviour, which varies over a wide spectrum. Even in the case of a single individual, there can be a substantial variation, depending on the circumstances. At times the person may be kind, gentle and compassionate, while at other times that very same person may appear stone-hearted or even bawl like a bulldog. In other words, the same person can swing all the way from being an angel to a devil to an animal. Keeping this in mind, the scriptures of India place all people in three major behavioural characteristics or gunas as they are called. They are respectively, tamasic which essentially means beastly, rajasic which in the worst case means devilish, and sathwic which means the gentle type. These are the generic types, meaning that on the average, the person is of the tamasic, or rajasic, or sathwic type. In what follows, we keep this average behaviour in view rather than the occasional fluctuation. For example, even a cruel and ruthless dictator could at times be pleasant and gentle; that is an exception and a deviation from his norm rather than his regular behaviour. Thus, on the average, everyone except his cronies would consider him nothing but a devil; keep that in mind.

Now the first point Swami makes is this:

O humans! I call you humans because the body you are having is that of a human. Does it not follow that the behaviour expected of you is also that appropriate to a human? A clown must naturally act like a clown but can the King of a respected country act like a joker?

Translated into the guna language, it means: Do not be a person of the tamasic and rajasic type. Rise above them as quickly as you can and get to the sathwic stage. However, this is NOT the end of story. Swami now adds:

O humans! Do not think that you have achieved a great thing by rising to the level of a sathwic person. That is just the base camp and the peak of the Everest is way above. Remember, you have come to the base camp just in order to go to the summit!

So, that is it and this is where the ascent really begins. What does that mean for the spiritual seeker? Swami is hinting that having come to the base camp, we must never forget that we are here because we have come to climb the Everest. And to get there eventually, we must do a lot of preparations, including getting acclimatized to living in a rarefied atmosphere, conserving energy so that all of it would be available for the climb, etc. And all the while, our minds must be entirely focused on one thing and one thing only, namely, we have come to reach the summit and nothing else. That core objective must never be lost or forgotten even for a single second!

OK, how does all that translate into the journey and purpose of life? Becoming sathwic may be the equivalent of reaching the base camp. But what is the ‘Everest’ and what is the acclimatization drill? Swami explains that also, and let us now pay some attention to what He says in that context. Here is an extract from the Sai Quote, repeated for closer examination.

This can be done by developing the faith that though one has a form that is externally human, what is actually donning this human form is Divine. Once one develops faith in this fundamental truth, it would also dawn on the person that all actions must be performed in harmony with the attributes of the Divine spark within.

There are essentially two points Swami makes: Firstly, though you have a human form, verily you are God, like Rama and Krishna for example. Secondly, once you develop this faith, automatically, your actions would have the Divine fragrance than merely being those expected of even sathwic humans. Elsewhere, Swami has explained, as Krishna did earlier, that all gunas are like chains that bind. Even the highly desirable quality, sathwa is a chain, though of gold maybe. God grants the special blessing of human birth to rise ABOVE to the level of God.

It is to stress this that we have used the analogy of climbing the Everest, describing a sathwic individual as merely the equivalent of arriving at the base camp. Thereafter, one has to go through many drills and preparations before the climb itself starts, which is arduous, to say the least. Here is where Swami offers a beautiful and simple way of getting to the top, almost like going there by a helicopter, one might say.

Swami’s recipe is simple. In effect it is:

O man! Remember, that verily you are God within. That also means that everything around you is God and nothing but God. So why don’t you go through daily life serving God who is everywhere around you? Service does not mean wearing a scarf, going to a village and sweeping the roads. Say you are a teacher. In that case, enter the class smiling. Put your heart and soul into the teaching as if you were teaching Baby Krishna. If you find some student not paying attention, go to that child and find out what the problem is. Say a few kind words to boost that child’s confidence. Act in such a manner that you inspire every child to become a good person like you. Then you know what? You would be doing layers and layers of service. First you would be serving all the children, directly. Next, you would be serving your school by earning it a good reputation. Thirdly, you would be serving all the parents by moulding their children even better than they can, because they spend so many more hours with you. And lastly, you would be serving the country itself by helping the students to develop their character.

This can be done by people in all walks of life, be the individual a policeman, a doctor, a nurse, a judge, a hotel manager, or even a grandfather or grandmother. Swami compresses all these innumerable possibilities and gives it to us as a simple Message: LOVE ALL, SERVE ALL.

The message is brief, but when you unravel it, all the innumerable possibilities show up. However, they are all variations of just one theme which is -

First cognize the God within you. Then see God everywhere, and after that seize every opportunity to serve that God in whatever manner you can, all the time. That is the equivalent of the direct helicopter ride to the top of the Everest. Think about it!

Jai Sai Ram.

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Radio Sai Team