Thought for the Day

As written at Prasanthi Nilayam

Source: Radio Sai Global Harmony

Thought for the Day Archive

January 2003

01 January 2003

Steady faith alone can earn victory. You cannot be changing your allegiance as and when you please. Hold fast until the realization is awarded. Faith can work wonders. It can compel the Lord to manifest himself and give you what you believe he will give you. The Faith can come only slowly by association with the Godly, by reading the lives and experiences of godly persons and by gaining experience oneself.

An individual who has faith in God must put his faith into practice. By believe in in God and yet ignoring God's utterances and commands, you are contradicting yourselves. Faith is not a cloak that is worn outside for deceiving others. Do not waver or doubt once you are convinced. Seek to understand and satisfy yourself. After that, do not be mislead. When the sun is over your head, there will be no shadow; similarly when faith is steady in your head, it should not cast any shadow of doubt. Faith in God is the secure foundation on which hope has to be built. The faith has to be stable and strong. The feeling that God will come to our rescue has to be vivid and vital, motivating and activating all that we do or speak or think.

Rely on the Lord within and discover inexhaustible reinforcements of courage within each heart. The final victory is for those who have faith in the invincible atma, their reality. Whoever has the enthusiasm, the steadfastness and the determination to reach the goal will certainly succeed. Cultivate that faith in ultimate success. Never despair or fault or doubt. That is my advice to one and all.

Without self-confidence no achievement is possible. If you have confidence in your strength and skill, you can draw upon the inner springs of courage and raise yourselves to a higher level of joy and peace. For confidence in yourselves arises through the atma, which is your inner reality. The atma is peace it is joy, it is strength, it is wisdom, so it is from the atma (Soul) that you draw these equipments for spiritual progress. The first thing you have to do is develop self-confidence in people who have no confidence in their own self and who begin to wander about and to waver and to take to various different paths.

Don't deny the validity of your own experience. Stand on your strength, be unmoved either by adulation or denigration. Follow my lead. I am unaffected by either. I march on alone undeterred and of my own accord. I am my own guide and witness, have full faith in this. Self-confidence is the basis of faith in God also. People who do not know who they are and who have no confidence in their own strength and power assert that there is no God. But how can they declare that the God in whom you believe and who exists for you does not exist?

Everyone has the right to earn grace, but those like Ramakrishna who have faith in themselves, will earn it soon and plentifully. God loves those who have the self-confidence and the courage of conviction and who seize every opportunity to improve their spiritual status. Your self is God. You have faith in your judgment, your intelligence, your ability, because God within tells you not to falter and fear. That assurance from within, from your basic truth, which is otherwise called God. It does not matter if you do not call it God, it is enough if you believe in yourself. That is the real test of theism.

In order to cleanse and achieve the purification of yourself, you have to control your sight, your tongue and your senses to some extent. As a prelude to your doing something wrong or something unworthy, there will have been an initial action by which your eyes must have seen something bad, or you must have gone through an experience which will have made your mind wander and get excited. This is the way by which one becomes mad all through one's life. If you, the youth of today, take great care that your sight does not become impure, that your hearing does not become impure, that your words do not become impure, then you will be able to attain purity of mind and purity of thought.

Today we know that there is a material world in which there are all kinds of material attractions. We think that because of the existence of those attractions, we are having pleasure and happiness. It is not so. So long as these material desires and material attractions do no reach your eyes, do not reach your ears and you do not participate in them, they cannot affect you in the least. Faith is a plant of slow growth, its roots go deep into the heart. Silence is the best sadhana to guard faith.

No one has the right to advise others unless he is already practicing what he preaches. First, establish the reign of love between the various members of your own home. Let the family become a center of harmonious living, sympathetic understanding and mutual faith. The holy duty of man is to be ever aware of the Atman that is installed in every living being. This will make him conscious of the kinshiphe has with all. This is the basis of the brotherhood of man and fatherhood of God.

Whoever has the enthusiasm, the steadfastness and the determination to reach the goal will certainly succeed. Cultivate that faith in ultimate success; never despair or fault or doubt. That is my advice to one and all. Faith is very essential for the pilgrim on the spiritual path. Man is now caught up in temporary and trivial preoccupations in the too short interval between birth and death, and he deceives himself by placing faith in these rather than on truer and more lasting realities and experiences. He does not hold onto discrimination and deeper realities and is carried away by every gust of doubt or disappointment.

I come only where sincerity, faith and surrender are valued. So, spend the silent hours in meditation and Namasmarana (chanting the Name of the Lord) in your own homes and deepen your faith. When life flows merrily, people claim it is due to their own effort, and they forget God. When failure visits the 'smooth flow', they start cursing and lose faith. Just as you have to churn the milk to identify the butter in it, so too, you have to carry on certain processes of thoughts and actions in order to get the hard core of faith.

When a death occurs in the family of your neighbour, you console him by saying that it is no use weeping over worldly losses since weeping cannot bring the dead back. But when death occurs in your own family, you grieve just like your neighbour who has to repeat the same argument to console you. All this happens because neither has developed faith in the Atma and neither has the name of God on the tongue. Faith in yourself and faith in God are identical. You tap the strength of God within when you stand at attention against an enemy without. Faith is the basis for the experience of bliss. Faith is like our life breath. Grief or joy, whatever the Lord hands out, you must welcome with equal calmness.

In hospitals, doctors concentrate on the disease, not on the bank balance. Disease is the important thing. So too, in the case of those suffering from Bhavaroga, the worldly misery, they have a right for the care and consideration of the divine doctor who will prescribe the medicine and the regimen; both are supplementary. When you get a relapse of doubt, take the drug a greater number of times. Join Satsang, the company of the Godly, as the spiritually minded will bring the doubter around. When doubt enters through the front door, faith departs through the back door! Doubt comes upon a man like a heart attack; it overwhelms a man all of a sudden. Doubt is easy and faith difficult.

The form usually creates doubts, for when only the Name is there, you can build around it all your fancies, all that you want to complete the picture. Do not be misled by doubts when the form has come before you; make the opportunity useful, the life worthwhile. Doubting is truly a component of demonic nature, for it eats into the vitals of Bhakthi (Devotion). It clips the wings of joy; it dampens enthusiasm. It tarnishes the hope such men cannot attain the goal even at the end of a thousand births.

A mother holds the child that has soiled its shirt and dresses it with a new one; Death is the removal of the soiled shirt and birth is putting on a fresh one. Let the Mother do her will; be a child in her hands. Have full faith in her love and wisdom. Do not lose faith seeing people who have gone astray, for it will be like judging rainwater to be dirty on seeing a stagnant pond. Rainwater is pure; it is the soil that soils it.

When the heart is pure, the Lord is revealed. He is the Judge. He cannot be decided by trickery or flattery. The doctor may state that you have no fever to build your morale, but the thermometer cannot lie. God knows and God will deal with you as you deserve. Have that faith. As the carpenter shapes the wood, the blacksmith shapes iron, the goldsmith shapes gold, so the Lord shapes in His own way as the fancy suits Him, the Prakriti (created universe), the manifold woven of space and time and guna (trait). Know that the Lord is the basis and lose all fear.

Like the cold of the atmosphere that can freeze water, the compelling agony of the devotee's heart solidifies the Lord into the shape and the attributes that he yearned for. He bows to your will; He carries your burden, provided you have full faith in Him. The Lord fulfils your innermost aspiration in a flash if it is compelling enough. Only you should not allow your mind to waver due to doubt or disappointment. Leave all to Him and be at ease; it is the man with no faith that is tossed about on the sea like a ship caught in a storm with neither rudder nor anchor. The devotee bears the ups and downs of life, keeping the balance of his mind even.

Faith can grow only by long cultivation and careful attention. Have faith; faith will grant you all that you need. There is no task that I cannot accomplish. You have faith in Lord Rama and Krishna, since you have read books written about them. You have not demanded direct proofs of Divinity from them. Have you? Have faith first, then you will get proof enough. Take up the discipline of the recital of the Name. Why drag out your existence as a mere consumer of food? Eat, but transform food into good deeds, good thoughts, sweet speech. Move, but do not cause pain to others or add to their misery.

Guru Nanak said that without faith in God, man is blind; without it you are moving corpses. Your life might be as grand, as rich as the Taj Mahal, but the Taj is a tomb! Whatever the method of worship, whichever the name or form, it is faith that matters; it is that which gives life and energy for higher things.

At this critical hour in the history of the world, when the demoniac forces of fear and anxiety, injustice and inequity are raging in wild fury, it is the duty of every human being to be equipped with spiritual strength so that he may not be overwhelmed by the storm. This is an urgent and essential task and I must say that the women of India have a contribution to render service and a role to play. They must bring God into the hearts of the child and help it to keep Him there. For, Faith in God is the tonic that men needs to get back health and happiness.

Artha & Kama (Wealth and Passion) should not be sought after, in isolation. The fact that there is fear and anxiety in all sections of people and in all stages of Life shows that men are pursuing only Artha and Kama and neglecting Dharma and Moksha (Righteousness & Liberation). Man is perpetually in search of peace, which is to be first established with oneself, then it is extended to the family, society and the country. Santhi comes from within; contentment is a mental condition. Overcome by inner foes, how can man succeed in overwhelming the outer foes? Burdened with sloth and dullness, how can he achieve wisdom? Prompted by passion, how can he cultivate devotion? Balance and equanimity - these alone can confer peace and harmony.

It is an ancient observation, but it is true even today, that man spends his childhood in pranks and play, his boyhood in sports and games, his youth in pleasure and pastimes, his middle age in plans and schemes to pile up fortune and his old age in hospitals and nursing homes trying to bolster up failing health by means of failing wealth. He has no time for anything else, his hands are too full. He has no peace, no spare time for sitting quiet in one place.

Today man ignores the principle of immortality that is his core, the principle of love that is his lifehood. He denies himself the boon of peace and is rushing towards destruction, destroying others in the process. In creation in the objective world, no one article is like any other. No two humans are similar in every respect. Each has his own peculiar experiences. Immense diversity prevails. Yet unity must be achieved. Nor is the individual the same for any length of time. Infant to child to boy, an adult, and soon middle-aged, then old and finally senile. So man must seek refuge in the changeless, the Paramatman (God), from which all variety emerges and into which it merges. Then only can man secure peace and contentment.

Peace comes from within; Contentment is a mental condition. Do not feed the roots of attachment to worldly comforts more than is absolutely necessary. They lead only to anxiety and fear, they can never satisfy the innermost craving of man. Earning and spending, man fills his time with work. He has no peace. However, he is busy trying to earn happiness, but the success is not much. Man does not realise the panacea for all his ills, the effort that will result in total victory lies in the control of Mind.

The primary reason for the lack of peace in the world today is that thoughts and conduct have gone astray. The first step, therefore, is to make our thoughts pure. We need not bother about the past and the future. Concentrate your attention on your duty in the present. Contentment is heaven; grief is hell; anger is the foe; calmness is the armour; and compassion is the comrade. You repeat shanti three times, don't you? It is to encourage peace in the human, spiritual and natural milieu in which you have to live; also to develop peace, to the body, mind and intellect. Peace cannot be gotten through science. In fact, science and technology are leading man away from peace. Wisdom cannot be had without a pure mind.

The restless mind has to be calmed. There are three ways of calming the mercurial mind: regulated breathing, social work and sadhana (spiritual exercise). Inhale and exhale in a measured manner, watching its symmetry and balance; this will diminish the eagerness of the inner tongue to wander into conversation. Eventually it will give up the tendency for good. Serve the diseased, sick and distressed. Undertake to teach a few children who have no one else to care for them. Let your thoughts and activities be selfless and sincere. The itch to communicate to the mind will be healed thereby. You will find that your energies are better utilized in serving your fellowmen than in talking with one's wavering mind. Sadhana is to be resorted to in real earnest and with regularity. It can be the repetition of the Name of the Lord, recitation of mantras chanting hymns, or practice of some selected yogic postures.

Shanthi (Peace) denotes the capacity to bear success and failure, joy and misery, defeat and victory with perfect equanimity. So too, the man who is at peace with himself will perceive peace all around him. Nature is beauty, truth, peace. Man sees it ugly, false and violent...that is all. To lead a happy life, man needs peace of mind. The mind of man is like a turbulent ganga. It has to be restrained by applying brakes such as dhyaana(meditation). Dhyaana means one-pointed concentration. Agitations in the mind are the cause of all misery of the mankind. To lead a calm, healthy life, man has to cultivate mental peace.

When man thinks, speaks and acts along virtuous lines, his conscience will be clean and he will have inner peace. Knowledge is power, it is said, but virtue is peace. What exactly is Peace? It is the stage in which the senses are mastered and held in balance. There is some small confusion of terms, for there is not mind as such. Mind is a web of desires. Peace of mind is no desires and in that state there is no mind. Mind is destroyed, so to speak. Peace of mind really means purity, complete purity of consciousness.

29 January 2003

Once you enter the depths of the sea, it is all calm, it is all peace. Agitation, noise and confusion - all are only on the outer layers. So also in the innermost recesses of the heart, there is a reservoir of shanthi (peace) where you must take refuge. Peace and joy can be secured only by realizing that they are one's own nature. So real shanthi is to be had only in the depths of the spirit, the discipline of the mind, in faith in the one base of all this seeming multiplicity. When that is secured it is like having gold. You can have any variety of ornaments made from it.

30 January 2003

Shanthi (Peace) is essential for sharpness of intellect. Shanthi develops all the beneficial characteristics of man. Even farsightedness grows through Shanthi. Through that, obstacles and dangers can be anticipated and averted. But you cannot easily detach yourself from activity. The mind clings to something or the other. Make it cling to God, let it do all things for God, the loss and profit, the elation and dejection. Then you have the secret of shanthi and contentment.
 

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