Sayings of Sathya Sai Baba

Sathya Sai Baba
SANDEHA NIVARINI: CLEARANCE OF SPIRITUAL DOUBTS

I am the Sai Baba of Shirdi come again; then, I was mostly engaged in preparing the meal; now I have come to feed you all with the strengthening, purifying repast! … Meditate on the Paramatman as the Guru!…

If you consider Paramatman as the Guru and do Sadhana with unshakable love, the Lord Himself will appear before you and give Upadesa just as a Guru. Or, He may so bless you that as a result of the Sadhana, you may meet a sadguru (true guru).

… It is not the sign of a sadguru to grant Upadesa to any and every person who comes to him with praise, without considering the past and the future, without discovering the qualifications of the pupil and testing whether he is fit.

Those who find fault with the Lord are of four types:

1. Persons who have no interest at all in matters related to God.

2. Persons who on account of individual spite cannot endure another's greatness.

3. Those who have neither personal experience nor contact nor knowledge of anything and so merely manufacture stories based on hearsay to which they have become enslaved.

4. Persons who come with some worldly desire, and who accuse the Lord, as an excuse for the failure caused by their own destiny.

* * *

The Lord alone should be loved!... Love Him!... Meditate on Him! Finally, resolve that you be merged in Him. That type of acute desire alone one should have!

When the Ganga or the Godavari reach the sea, their separate names, forms, tastes and limits all disappear, and they acquire the name, form, taste and limit of the sea itself.

… One must destroy completely the awareness of the separate 'I'!... When you are firmly established in that feeling of One, you know that there is nothing separate at all.

It is only when you have so many 'I's that you need someone's support, is it not?

When all is One, why seek another?

For deeds done in ignorance, repentance is the way to make amends and to earn pardon. Not to repeat the same deed is the sign of the morally strong!

Sathya Sai Baba
PREMA VAHINI: STREAM OF DIVINE LOVE

Every aspirant who seeks the eternal through the path of Bhakti (love-devotion to God) should strive to acquire the following characteristics: he must keep away from the turmoils, the cruelties and the falsehoods of this world and practise Truth, Righteousness, Love and Peace! This is indeed the path of Bhakti! Those who seek union with God, those who seek the welfare of the world should discard as worthless both praise and blame, appreciation and derision, prosperity and adversity!

Everyone, be he learned or illiterate, should feel an overwhelming urge to know God!

While struggling in the spiritual field, you should take Paramiswara (God-the-Father) Himself as your Protector.

… Those who aspire to attain the holy Presence of the Lord must acquire certain habits, disciplines and qualities. The usual, accustomed ways of life will not lead to God!

Sathya Sai Baba
JNANA VAHINI: STREAM OF ETERNAL WISDOM

Ten million suns cannot equal the Splendour of the Paramatman!

By special discipline, the turbulence of the mind can be calmed; as a result of this, it becomes possible to taste the bliss of the Atman, free from its pulls.

… Wise people know earthly joy to be fleeting. For them the Atman is enough to fulfil all desire for happiness — complete and permanent.

The jnani will acquire some special powers too, through his beneficent resolutions, his beneficent promptings and purposes. Through these, he can attain whatever he wishes.

The jnani will have no trace of hatred in him, he will love all beings; he will not be contaminated by the ego, he will act as he speaks.

The gem (of wisdom) entitles you to the status and dignity of Brahman, which you assume immediately.

Fevers originate because of your actions; they flourish on wrong modes of life and diet; they grow with the growth of such wrong conduct.

* * *

Before death, position, pride, and power, all vanish.

Death will not leave off any one, whatever he may be. It continues to threaten all; if it is another's turn today, it is yours tomorrow.

* * *

The body must be preserved as a vehicle… But remember, you are not the body; the body cannot be you.

The body is but an instrument, an implement given by God. Let it serve its purpose.

Many an aspirant and recluse, many a sadhaka and sanyasi has allowed all excellences won by long years of struggle and sacrifice to slip away through this attachment to the self.

Sathya Sai Baba
PRASHANTHI VAHINI: SUPREME BLISS OF DIVINE

In spite of everything, the body is evanescent… but through the body, the Atman who is within can be realised. That is the main task of man!
Conscious of this, try always to keep watch over the body and protect it.

The end and the consequence of each and every act is and must be jnana (wisdom)! The progress of the individual consists in activity, done with discrimination.

First, man must be trained in the technique of shanti and santhosha: peace and happiness. These do not depend on the outer, the external, the visible objective world.

* * *

You must take refuge in the Atman and the contemplation of the nature of the Atman, that is to say, in the real I.

Men deluded by the attraction of prakrithi (matter) grope about in their ignorance of the Atman, and wallow in the unreal manifold world shaped by the three gunas. On the other hand, the learned man, who seeks the true Reality, gives up glittering falsehood and revels in the Atman, deriving shanti therefrom.

You cannot exult in anything else except the Ocean of the Bliss of the Indivisible Undivided Atman!… You have to dedicate your life to win that Bliss and experience it and enter upon the discipline needed to acquire it!

* * *

Avoid in your behaviour, your actions, and your speech all traces of the desire to pain others, to insult others, or to cause loss or misery to others.

When some one whose ways you do not appreciate comes near you, there is no need to find fault with him; there is no need either to laugh at him or show him your contempt. It is enough if you continue to do your work, unaffected by his arrival. Let those whose behaviour you do not appreciate follow their path, leave them alone.

That is the attitude of unaffectedness.

After the dawn of love to the Absolute, the aspirant gets this attitude towards all worldly things!

* * *

The path of jnana is possible only for one in a million…

The unattached has real love towards all.

Their love is not only pure, it is Divine as well.

One can attain the Lord without doubt, if one becomes devoid of all raga (passion or attachment) and if he engages himself in the actions detailed above.

Renounciation, of course, does not mean the giving up of hearth and home, or of high estate and even kingdoms. It means (switching oneself to) the understanding of the Divinity!…

Consider the One Indivisible Ocean as the Goal!

The wise thing is to forget these waves, and to direct attention towards the sea beneath, which is without change. Then only can you attain shanti, swim about happily in the deep undisturbed waters.

Mere inactivity announced by the gerua cloth and the shaved head is no sanyasa at all!

But shanti does not mean inactivity, the mere inert life of eating and squatting. You should not spend your time in eating and sleeping saying to yourself that the Lord will come to your help, when the need arises. No! You must arise and work!

God helps those who help themselves!…

Give up everything that is outside the service of the Lord!

Sathya Sai Baba

SUTRA VAHINI

(You should achieve) the attitude of forbearance, which refuses to be affected or pained when afflicted with sorrow and loss, and the ingratitude and wickedness of others. In fact, one is happy and calm, for one knows that these are the results of one's own actions now recoiling on him, and one looks upon those who caused the misery as friends and well-wishers. One does not retaliate nor does he wish ill for them. One bears all the blows patiently, and gladly.

The natural reactions of a person, whoever he may be, when someone injures him is to injure in return, when someone causes harm to do harm and when someone insults him to insult back by some means or other.

Those who seek the inner path of sublimation and purification… have to avoid such reactions. Returning injury for injury, harm for harm or insult for insult only adds to the karmic burden, which has to be endured and eliminated in future lives.

Paying evil for evil can never lighten the weight of karma; it will only become heavier.

Therefore… (you should) do good to the person who injures you!

* * *

Next, we shall consider the longing for Moksha (liberation from grief and acquisition of Higher Bliss).

This longing cannot arise from either riches or from the scholarship that may be won at great expense of money. Nor can it emerge from wealth or progeny, or rites and rituals recommended in the scriptures or acts of charity, for Moksha can come only from the conquest of ajnana (ignorance).

Success in the path of knowledge alone can confer Liberation!

If it is declared that one can attain Liberation if he bathes in the waters of sacred rivers, what shall we say of the fish and other aquatic species that spend all their lives in the rivers?

If it is believed that spending years in mountain caves will lead to Liberation, what do mice, what do wild beasts attain?

If, by means of ascetic practices like eating roots and tubers and chewing leaves for sustenance of the body, one can attain Liberation, must goats who feed on leaves and pigs that dig out tubers also attain Liberation?

When plastering the entire body with ash is hailed as asceticism, can dogs and donkeys which roll on ash heaps claim Liberation?

These beliefs and practices are signs of poor understanding.

One must concentrate on achieving Atma-jnana — cognition of the eternal universal Atmic Reality!

* * *

The individual, believing that he is divided from the whole, the Universal, is subject to desire and despair, love and hate, grief and joy. He is attracted by the world of names and forms. Such a person is characterised as 'bound'...

Hence his need for liberation is urgent.

And, to be liberated he must give up his dependence on and attachment to prakriti.

Man must gradually and steadily endeavour to acquire that victory. He must proceed progressively from the gross to the subtle.

The inner world is not as easily accessible to man as the outer world is. Perhaps, only one among many, one in a million, does contact and win this inner Atmic Reality.

That is the supreme attainment that renders life valid, meaningful and worthwhile.

Men, generally speaking, consider wealth, power and fame as most essential and pursue these goals through every possible means. In this struggle man is wasting invaluable human qualities with which he is endowed! Besides this waste of allotted years of life, he plunges deeper and deeper into the darkness of ignorance! He ignores and loses the awareness of his real nature!...