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Posted on: June 28, 2016

Guru Poornima Special Offering
(Daily Episode)

Part - 20

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

YOU CANNOT BE HAPPY WHEN EVERYONE ELSE IS UNHAPPY!

Be assured that the Lord has come to save the world from calamity. Your duty is to keep calm, to pray for the happiness and prosperity of all. Do not pray for your own exclusive happiness and say, “Let the rest of the world go to pieces.” You cannot be happy when the rest of mankind is unhappy. You are an organic part of the human community. Share your prosperity with others; strive to alleviate the sufferings of others. That is your duty.

• Divine Discourse, March 17, 1961.

REFLECTIONS ON THE ABOVE

Sai Ram. The quote that you just read is short but tremendously full of meaning. Let us therefore take a few minutes off to absorb the profundity of Swami’s advice to us.

There are basically four key words in this short paragraph: 1) the individual 2) humanity 3) happiness and 4) prosperity. Swami not only links them all but also places them in a higher dimension to which He makes only a tangential reference. It is that placement which gives depth to this short paragraph and so much meaning to it. Our job is to unravel that hidden word and use it to explore further.

Let us start with happiness. The famous Declaration of Rights of America - shall refer to it as DORA - begins with a powerful reference to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Interestingly, those three words have a lot to do with what Swami is saying, but NOT in the way most people might imagine. The authors of the DORA were making an explicit reference to the rights of the individual. Swami, on the other hand, is telling us about the responsibility which the individual owes to humanity. Now why did DORA refer to the rights of the individual while Swami is telling us about his/her responsibilities? Ah, therein lies the whole mystery of life, liberty and happiness! Sounds confusing? Don’t bother; we shall sort it all out.

Let us start with happiness because it really is the key word to everything that both DORA and Swami have said. Almost everyone thinks of happiness entirely in terms of material objects and the feelings connected with them. As Swami emphatically points out, this is totally wrong; and what Swami says is not difficult to understand either.

Let us say a man has just become very rich. He is highly conscious of his new wealth and, wanting to show off, buys a shiny new BENZ. People gape in awe and wonder as he proudly drives around, and that makes the man very happy. Two years later, another man in the same neighbourhood becomes even richer and he buys a Rolls, say. Now a BENZ is a great status symbol no doubt, but a Rolls is a Rolls, and there is very little to beat it. All of a sudden, people stop admiring either this man or his BENZ which by now has also become two years old and been superseded by later models. But this new rich man has a Rolls which any day is superior to the BENZ. No wonder the man with the BENZ has stopped being a hero, and that hurts him a lot. The point Swami makes is this. If happiness is in the BENZ, why should the man suddenly become unhappy? He still has the BENZ, does he not? And yet he is feeling miserable. Why? Because, happiness is not in the object; rather, it is in the mind, and his mind has now been disturbed by another man becoming richer than him and buying a Rolls to show off his new status.

What we learn from all this is that the happiness that people seek and indeed DORA espouses is material happiness, which refers essentially to a state of mind connected with material well-being, material wealth, material possessions and so on. Almost everything about happiness as it is usually spoken about has a material connection. And that connection can never give permanent happiness, as we just saw in the example of a man who tried to become happy via a BENZ.

OK, now what does Swami say? Interestingly, Swami also refers to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He says, effectively that is:

O man! Life in human form is one of the most precious gifts you can get from God. The Lord knows you want to be happy. Further, He WANTS you to be happy. Do you know why? Because, True Happiness is your real nature. Now there is another word for this True Happiness; it is Ananda and it means Bliss. Worldly happiness has an opposite namely, sorrow. Bliss, on the other hand, has no opposite. Do you know why? Because, it is connected with God. God is Bliss and Bliss is God. God is Pure Oneness and there are no opposites associate with Him. So, what you should really be seeking is Ananda and not happiness as you people understand it. This Ananda which means Eternal Bliss can be attained when you become united with Me. That is why I always say: Happiness is Union with God! Do you follow?

Bearing in mind that True Happiness comes from union with God, let us now look at the other two words, namely, life and liberty. Consider first the question: “How does one find Ananda in life?” Swami has already given the hint; He says, try to seek union with Me; find ways of becoming one with Me.” Fortunately, Swami has already described in detail how that is to be done; in fact, He repeats that advice in the quote of the day, though only in a brief manner. Read once more this part, carefully please! Swami says:

You are an organic part of the human community. Share your prosperity with others; strive to alleviate the sufferings of others. That is your duty.

Why is Swami saying this? How does this help the individual to achieve union with God? How is it connected with the individual attaining Bliss or Ananda? Here is the answer. First and foremost, we must realise that God is within us. Remember how often Swami tells us, “I am in you?” Next, if Swami is in me, He is also in you, that fellow over there and indeed in all created objects, both living and inert. The story of Shirdi Baba coming as a dog was meant to teach the lesson that God is in all beings, which also means we must never torture or hurt any animal, something animal activists are very passionate about.

OK, God is in all; so what? Well, if I am happy and God is in all, then can one pray for one’s own exclusive happiness and say, “Let the rest be damned, I don’t care?” As Swami emphatically reminds us, “You cannot be happy when the rest of mankind is unhappy.” That’s because every entity is connected to every entity. Why? Because God is in all. It is precisely here that we must recall Swami’s famous saying

Bulbs are many but current is one!

People are many, but the same God resides in all. Once we truly grasp that, we would straight away change our attitude to others. If we get money, we would try to share it with others in ways appropriate; not necessarily by going out and distributing currency notes but by helping someone to buy medicine, pay school fees or whatever. So you see, this is how life and the pursuit of happiness get connected, happiness in this case meaning Bliss or Ananda. That still leaves the word liberty; where does that come in?

In a very beautiful manner, as Swami explains. He says,

O man, by seeking happiness and pleasure in material objects, you become bonded to the transient world. Thanks to this bondage, you would be born again and again and again, and every time you do, you would go through the same boring and miserable cycle of joy and sorrow. Therefore, why don’t you seek freedom from this material bondage and become truly liberated? That freedom is associated with giving up attachment to the world and becoming detached from it. That is true liberty! And that liberated state brings you the following:

• Union with God.

• Ananda or Bliss or permanent happiness since you are now always with God.

• Since you have lived your life in order to achieve union with God, your life becomes fulfilled!

So you see, DORA shows only the material side of life, liberty and happiness. But if you raise it to a spiritual dimension, then those same three words of DORA help us understand better the quote we started with.

Hope you have been able to follow all that I have said. Maybe not, in which case, please do not worry. Just think about it for some time, linking it to other Swami teachings. Slowly, all the doubts would unravel and everything would become clear.

Give it a try! All the best and Jai Sai Ram.

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Radio Sai Team