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Thought for the Day
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As written at
Prasanthi Nilayam
Source: Radio Sai
Global Harmony
Thought for the Day Archive
October 2005
October 1, 2005
Live in the constant contemplation of your kinship with others
and with the Universe. Do good to others, treat all nature kindly,
speak soft and sweet words, become like a child devoid of envy, hate
and greed; when your love crosses the boundaries of your family or
community and expands to those beyond, you have taken the first step
to cross the threshold of Maya (delusion).
October 2, 2005
Man has been engaged in exploring the infinite, wonderful
secrets of nature in this marvellous creation in all possible ways.
But, due to the vagaries of his mind, intellect and ego, man has
failed to understand the true, eternal and spiritual basis
underlying everything in the Universe and has lost himself in the
pursuit of the external phenomenal world as if it were the only
reality. In the process, he has failed to realize his own true
nature and has totally perverted his mind. The simple truth that
everything is permeated by the One has been lost sight of.
October 3, 2005
It is always preferable to approach God for the fulfillment of
one's wants, rather than cringe before men, who themselves are mere
mortals. In his own silent way, God will transform the mind and turn
it towards Sadhana (spiritual endeavour) and ensure a successful
spiritual journey. He cannot allow his children to lose their way
and suffer in the wilderness of the material world. When you
approach God and seek his help and guidance, you have taken the
first step to save yourself. You are then led to accept His will as
your own. Thus, you achieve Shanti (Peace).
October 4, 2005
Love is inherent in man, but like a seed that has to be
nourished by water, love in man has to be fostered by dedicated
service. Love is a sacred quality. Love is like nectar. A man who
has tasted the sweetness of Divine Love will not desire anything
else in the world. Life must be a constant manifestation of love.
Nowadays, love is expressed in a constricted, selfish manner. It
needs to be expressed in the form of service to society. Thereby
love becomes a reciprocal, ever-widening experience.
October 5, 2005
Of what use are wealth and position if one has no peace of mind?
A quiet conscience is man's most precious possession. To achieve
inner peace, desires have to be subdued and all thoughts should be
centered on God. Engage yourselves in service activities in a spirit
of dedication. True service consists in helping the poor and the
forlorn in the society with humility and dedication. This is service
to the Divine. Practise the saying - "Dil me Ram, Hath me Kaam."
(Serve with you hands having installed God in the heart). Do not
hanker after power and pelf.
October 6, 2005
The Vedas teach that man should adore and worship God in
gratitude for His benedictions. The Bible teaches that he should
pray for peace and practise charity. The Koran would have man show
mercy to the suffering and to surrender his will to the Almighty.
All religions have taught what is good, and everyone should lead a
righteous life based on this knowledge. If the minds are pure, how
can any religion be bad? All the religions are different paths
leading to one and the same destination. All devotees should
experience this truth and live up to it in their daily lives. They
should lead righteous lives and thereby experience enduring bliss.
Only then will their spiritual effort be fruitful. Listen to the
words of the wise, purify your thoughts and concentrate your mind on
God. God can be installed only in a pure heart. The aim of all
Sadhana (spiritual practices) should be to purify the heart.
October 7, 2005
God has four qualities and it is only when you develop them that
you can understand Him. They are: Love, Beauty, Sweetness and
Splendour. The cultivation of Love is enough to add unto you the
other three. When you are full of Love for the Divine immanent in
all creation, that stage is Beauty; when you are immersed in the sea
of Universal Love, you reach the acme of Sweetness; when your mind
loses its identity and merges with the Universal Mind, then there is
Splendour indescribable.
October 8, 2005
Man can achieve Shanti (Peace) only through Love. Shanti is the
fruit of the tree of life without which the tree is a barren stump;
it has no value or validity. The fruit is encased in a bitter skin
so that the sweet juice may be preserved and guarded against
marauders. One has to remove the skin before tasting the sweetness
within. The thick rind is symbolic of the six evil qualities that
enshroud the loving heart of man: lust, anger, greed, attachment,
pride and hate. Those who can remove the rind and experience the
sweetness within through rigorous and consistent discipline, attain
everlasting peace that everyone aspires for.
October 9, 2005
The Upanishads have declared that immortality can be experienced
only through Thyaga (renunciation or sacrifice). This renunciation
does not mean giving up hearth and home, kith and kin. It means
giving up the transient and impermanent things of the world. This
calls for discrimination between what is permanent and what is
perishable. This kind of discrimination is absent among people
today. Instead, they discriminate between what is convenient and
what is unpleasant and choose the former. Discrimination should be
exercised objectively to determine what is permanent and what is
transient, what is good and what is bad. Only then can man discover
the Sat-Chit-Ananda (Being-Awareness-Bliss) that is within him.
October 10, 2005
All are children of God. He is the sole Lord of mankind. People
may seem to differ in their names and forms and in their beliefs and
practices. But the source is the One alone. Recognition of this
basic truth of oneness is Brahmajnana (Knowledge of the Absolute).
This knowledge cannot be gained by merely studying the scriptures
and holding metaphysical discussions. What has to be recognised is
the truth that every being in the universe is an embodiment of the
Supreme. Awareness of the unity that subsumes the diversity is the
highest knowledge.
October 11, 2005
In spite of his precious birth as a human being, man leads a
life worse than that of animals. Man should get rid of Ahamkara (the
feeling that he is the doer). As long as the ego is dominant, the
Atmic consciousness will not develop. The egoist cannot recognise
the Atma. It is egoism that is at the root of all man's troubles. It
is a delusion based on the misconceived notion that the body is real
and permanent. The truth is otherwise. From an early age, one should
recognise the evanescence of the body and the senses and control the
desires prompted by the sense organs. Desires are insatiable. The
pursuit of wealth, power and position can only end in misery.
Instead, one should take refuge in God and dedicate all actions to
the Divine.
October 12, 2005
Puja (ritual worship) and Yajna (sacrifice) are performed in
order to remind you of the inner yajna which every one of you has to
perform to save yourselves from fear, grief and anxiety. This is the
yajna of offering in oblation, the egoistic desires and emotions,
passions, impulses and acts into the flames of dedication and
devotion. In fact, that is the real yajna, of which these are
reflections and prompters. This yajna is only the visible symbolic
representation of the underlying abstract Truth. Just as a child is
taught to pronounce words by making it associate the sounds and the
letterforms with pictures of the objects so named, through this
kshara (temporary) symbol the Akshara thathwa (the Eternal
Principle) is brought before the consciousness.
October 13, 2005
You have a bird in your hand, but you are wasting your time and
energy conspiring to catch the bird hiding in the bush. The sounds
that make you believe there is a bird in the bush are, you do not
know, only the echoes of the notes from the throat of the bird in
your own hand! The Guru reveals the Truth and makes you free from
the trials and tribulations. In a flash, ignorance is dispelled and
you are immersed in the bliss of Knowledge. Why ignore the
'existent' and crave for the 'non-existent'? It is the pursuit for
the unreal that is the root of all the fear, the sorrow, the
sickness of humanity.
October 14, 2005
Propagation of Dharma (righteousness) means to promote the
practice of Dharma and not to spread knowledge about it. Only those
who practice Dharma are qualified to propagate it. It is because
Dharma and Sathya (truth) have not been propagated by persons
practising them that they have been eclipsed. It is only when they
are practised in daily life that their true nature and value will be
realized. Though Dharma is present everywhere, it is covered by
ignorance and pride, like fire that is covered by ashes or water by
moss. These elements that hide the true nature of Dharma have to be
removed so that it may be revealed to the world.
October 15, 2005
Love for the Divine is devotion. Devotion is not something
tangible; it is an inner experience which springs from the heart. As
you think, so you become. Hence, the heart must be filled with good
feelings. The senses must be engaged in good actions. When the eyes
are turned towards God, all creation appears Divine. When you wear
the right kind of spectacles, you see everything clearly. But if the
glasses are not correct, you get a distorted picture and your eyes
are spoilt. Likewise, if your heart is filled with love of God, all
your feelings are sanctified by that love. Other undesirable
thoughts drop away. Devotees should pray to the Lord to come and
reside in their pure and tranquil hearts. The devotee should look
upon pain and pleasure alike as designed for his good. He will not
then be affected by troubles. He will regard them as stages in the
evolution of his consciousness.
October 16, 2005
When work is undertaken with an egotistic attitude, impelled by
selfish motives and inspired by hopes of self-advancement, it feeds
greed and pride, envy and hatred. Then, it fosters the feeling of
attachment to more and more profitable ventures. It promotes
ingratitude to those who lent their hands and brains and to God
Himself who endowed the person with the urge and the skill. "I did
it", one says when the work succeeds; or "Others spoiled it" one
says when it fails. Resentment, depression and despair follow when
the work results in failure. The more deeply one is attached to the
fruits, the more intense and painful is one's grief when one is
disappointed. The only means, therefore, to escape from both pride
and pain is to leave the result to the Will of God, while one is
happy in the thought that one has done one's duty with all the
dedication and care that one is capable of.
October 17, 2005
Despite aeons of evolution and considerable progress in
scientific knowledge, man is not able to make significant progress
towards the Divine because of absence of strenuous striving in the
spiritual sphere. Without spiritual practice, reading religious
books and listening to spiritual discourses have no value. Study of
the Upanishads and Shaasthras (spiritual sciences) and reciting
God's names may be good acts in themselves. But, if there is no
love, which is the basis of all Sadhana (spiritual discipline), they
are of no use. Love reinforces one's physical, mental and spiritual
energies. Devotional acts without love are of no avail.
October 18, 2005
God is the embodiment of love. If you wish to experience God,
you have to fill yourselves with love. Through love alone can you
experience the embodiment of love that is God. Man filled with
jealousy and hatred is like a blind man who cannot see the sun
however brightly it may shine. He cannot see God however near God
may be. Blinded by ignorance, a man filled with jealousy and hatred
cannot hope to see God, like a blind man groping for something that
is near him. The man filled with good qualities like truth, love,
absence of jealousy, ego and hatred, can see God without searching
for Him. He becomes a Jnaani (a man of spiritual wisdom).
October 19, 2005
Before undertaking any action, answers should be found for the
five questions - who, when, where, what and how. People today act
without concern for these considerations. Everyone must rely on his
own judgement using his powers of observation and discretion. There
is a divine power in every limb and organ of the body. This divine
potency is called Angirasa. The name is derived from the fact that
the Divine is present in every Anga (limb) as Rasa (life sustaining
essence). There is no need to search for the Divine outside
yourself. You are Divine. All your powers are Divine potencies.
October 20, 2005
Sai has come in order to achieve the Supreme task of uniting as
one family all mankind, through the bond of brotherhood; of
affirming and illumining the Atmic reality of each being in order to
reveal the Divine, which is the basis on which the entire Cosmos
rests; and of instructing all to recognize the common Divine
heritage that binds man to man, so that man can rid himself of the
animal in him and rise to the Divinity which is his goal. I am the
embodiment of Love; Love is My instrument. Those who have recognized
My Love and experienced that Love can assert that they have glimpsed
My reality, for the path of Love is the royal road that leads
mankind to Me.
October 21, 2005
When a sculptor transforms a piece of rock into a beautiful idol
to be worshipped in a shrine, what was inert and worthless became
sacred. In the same manner, everything which is petty and worldly
should be transformed in course of time into something sacred and
divine. That is the real transformation that every man must aspire
for.
October 22, 2005
The one effective way to conquer all sources of physical and
mental disease and debility is awareness of one's Atmic Reality.
That will bring about an upsurge of Love and Light, for, when one
recognizes that he is the Atma, he cognizes the same Atma in all; he
shares the joy and grief of all. When one yearns for the happiness
and prosperity of all mankind, one is blessed with the wisdom and
strength to mark out the way and lead men towards it. He sees God in
everyone and every act of his will be a pure, sincere and sacred
offering to God.
October 23, 2005
Youngsters take great pains to acquire degrees for securing good
jobs. But they hardly take any trouble to develop their character
and personality. Good conduct and character are the most essential
requisites for a man. They are the basis for spiritual life. If the
spiritual aspect is neglected, man becomes an artificial, mechanical
being with no genuine human quality in him. Many people today do not
understand what is meant by spirituality. It is the knowledge of
Divinity, which is the man's true nature. Spirituality reveals the
basic principle that is immanent in everything and sustains the
entire Cosmos.
October 24, 2005
The teacher is like a water storage tank. If there is clean and
good water in the tank, good water will flow through the taps.
Students are like the taps and will prove to be good only when the
teachers are good. Teachers should have lofty ideals so that these
can be reflected in their students, who are the future citizens and
leaders. Teachers should first practise what they want to teach to
the students. They should have a feeling of Thyaga (sacrifice) for
the sake of the well-being of the nation, so that the students too
will cultivate a similar ideal. Before they try to correct the
students, the teachers should first correct the.
October 25, 2005
The mind is subject to unsteadiness because of desires. Desires
arise due to the impressions received by the senses from outside.
The only way to avoid these external impressions is to turn the
senses inwards. To effect this change in the use of the senses, the
power of discrimination derived from the intellect should be
employed. The intellect should be used to determine what impressions
should be kept out and what should be let in. The intellect should
determine what kind of company we should keep, what kind of food we
should eat, what are desirable practices and what are undesirable.
It is by the right use of their intellectual judgement that the
ancient sages achieved spiritual eminence.
October 26, 2005
Man does not become fully human until he progresses on the
spiritual path. Body, mind and spirit - these three together
constitute the man. An animal is concerned primarily with looking
after its bodily needs. Man is a superior being, since he has been
bestowed with a mind. Cultivation of the spirit will elevate him to
the Divine. The body, mind and spirit are intertwined and
interdependent. Mind and body have to subserve the spirit in
achieving awareness of the Divine Atma.
October 27, 2005
Some persons consider small defects in others as serious
shortcomings and criticize them, while they ignore even great
drawbacks in themselves. The right attitude is to magnify your own
shortcomings, while considering other's lacunae as being of no
consequence. With this attitude, you will be able to realize the
Divine. Human love is selfish, while Divine love is spiritual and
selfless; it is pure love. The ancients described the Divine as
eternal, immortal, pure and unsullied. In order to experience the
love of God, you should give up petty-mindedness and selfishness and
expand your love.
October 28, 2005
The body must be regarded as the basis for spiritual activity.
The body is not meant merely to be pampered and kept in comfort. Our
mental abilities and talents should not be used only for worldly
achievements. Only by seeking Jnana (spiritual wisdom) can man rise
above the level of the animal. The animal is concerned only with the
present. Man alone can realize that the present is the product of
the past and that the future will be determined by what he does in
the present. Only if you act rightly in the present can the future
be good. This requires steadfastness and determination to adhere to
the path of righteousness whatever may be the difficulties.
October 29, 2005
Every being in the world has a name and form. But the Divinity
within has no name or form. The individual with name and form is
filled with egoism and possessiveness. These qualities are the cause
of one's pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow. Hence, everyone
must strive to curb these two tendencies. The knowledge of the
Supreme Self is associated with total freedom from Ahamkara
(egoism). Those who have no taint of ego in them are totally free
from the consequences of actions, regardless of the actions they
perform.
October 30, 2005
Man suffers from numerous ills because he has not understood the
purpose of life. The first thing he has to realize is that God is
one, by whatever name and in whatever form the Divine is worshipped.
The One chose to become the many. The Vedas declare, "God is one;
the wise hail Him by many names". It is the imagination of the
observers which accounts for the apparent multiplicity of the
Divine. The sun is only one, but its reflection appears in many
vessels. Likewise, God is present in the hearts of different beings
in varied forms and natures.
October 31, 2005
Is it the body that derives joy from looking at a thing of
beauty, or is it the Atma (soul)? What is it that relishes the good
food that is consumed - the body or the spirit? What is it that
enjoys fragrance or is moved by beautiful music? On enquiry, it will
be found that it is the Atma that is the enjoyer, and not the
physical body. The body by itself is gross and incapable of
experiencing joy. It must be realized that the spirit transcends the
mind and the intellect, and pervades the entire cosmos. The spirit
is the basis for the cognition of the external world and
experiencing the inner world.
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