Q & A with Bhagavan
A Visitor: Swami’s gifts are beautiful, but what if one only wants peace of mind?
Sai: Only thoughts of God and intense love for Him bring peace. As worldly thoughts diminish, thoughts of God increase. Normally, the mind desires these worldly things all the time. As the desires are cut out one by one, the peace becomes stronger. You weave the threads and there is the cloth. If the threads are removed, cloth is no longer there. When there are Godly thoughts, there is peace of mind. Swami cannot give peace of mind. One has to work for it. We do meditation and spiritual practices in this temporary body. Though this body is temporary, you have to use temporary things to realize the truth.
Visitor: But I wanted to know about peace.
Sai: Yes. If the desires are cut off one by one, then there is peace. When the desires go one by one, then there is die-mind. Then there is peace of mind. Swami cannot give peace of mind; you must work for it yourselves. First, stop the questioning and ask, ‘Who am I?’ This is my body, my mind, and my intelligence. But who is this ‘my’? Who is it that claims the ownership of that which is declared to be ‘mine’? ‘My,’ ‘My’ indicates ownership.
That ‘my’ is the life. As long as the life is in the body, there is this connection between the ‘my’ and the intellect—’my’ body, ‘my’ house, ‘my’ land. But the moment you remove the life from the body, there is no ‘my’ or sense of possession. Life is God. ‘Who am I?’ The answer is ‘I am God.’ The body comes and goes, but the atma [soul] is permanent. The body has birth and death, but the spirit does not have any of these. You reach the stage where you say, ‘I am God,’ but even in that there is duality, ‘God and I.’ That is not the full truth.
When we breathe, the breath makes the sound of ‘So-hum,’ ‘He am I.’ There is still the body consciousness, the ‘I.’ But in deep sleep, the declaration of ‘He’ and ‘I’ falls away and only ‘O’ and ‘M’ remain, ‘Om.’ There is only the One.
Hislop: One understands this and has for some time, but when does intellectual comprehension change to reality?
Sai: It will become reality only when you practice it intensely. You read so much. You do not have to practice all that you read. Take one or two things to practice and then it will become a reality to you.
When you go to the hospital, there are so many medicines. You do not have to take all the medicines, just the ones that are needed for your malady. You do not have to eat all the medicines. Whatever kind of spiritual practices you sincerely want to do, you just take that medicine; do not collect all the other things. Because too much of this book knowledge just leads to doubts and confusion. You get too many doubts asking what is this and what is that, and you waste a lot of time in this conflict.
Hislop: What does the supreme spiritual Doctor say is the correct medicine for me?
Sai: Meditation. For in meditation you first get sense control. And yoga will help you with the body. And when the mind is steady, concentration will come automatically. When you get such concentration, then you get peace of mind.
Source: Conversations with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
