Sai on Sadhana

Devotee: In the West, sadhana [spiritual effort] is generally taken to be a process of self‑improvement. But does that imply identification with the changing personality?

Sri Sathya Sai: First, there may be the urge to self‑improvement. But the next stage is inquiry, the inquiry into the reality of `this’ and `that’. Seven-tenths of sadhana is inquiry.

Devotee: Sadhana as it is described seems wrong, because it is a conscious effort aimed at getting a reward. It seems to me that sadhana is real only when it is spontaneous. That is to say, when one naturally loves God, he cannot but help love God and he cannot help but make inquiry.

Sri Sathya Sai: It is as you say, but you have not experienced the spontaneous love for God. It is still just an idea. You have a conviction that love for God exists naturally in you. That conviction itself is the result of many lives spent in spiritual practice.

Devotee: I have the conviction so strong, that it is the very marrow of my bone that life is One, that others, Swami, and myself are One. The atma is that One and it is fully here at this moment, and I am constantly engaged in sadhana, so the question remains: Why do I not actually experience that unity as no other than myself?

Sri Sathya Sai: Your conviction of unity is an idea, a thought. It is not experience. For instance, when your wife has pain in the head, do you have it too? If not, where is the experience of the unity? The unity must be experienced, not just felt as an idea, or entertained as a thought.

Devotee: Swami! If sadhana and conviction do not bring the experience, how is one to get it?

Sri Sathya Sai: Through steady sadhana. Just as with ourselves now, in this car. We need concern ourselves only with the careful driving of the car; in due course, we will arrive at Anantapur [a city near Puttaparthi], won’t we? With correct and steady sadhana, the actual experience of the ONE will naturally come about.

Devotee: How does one really experience that he is the same as another? Because now one feels for another through compassion; compassion is an idea, understanding it is not a direct experience of unity. When some one hit a dog, Sai Baba of Shirdi received the bruises. That is the actual experience of unity.

Sri Sathya Sai: All is divine. When you are firmly established in the fact of your divinity, then you will directly know that others are divine. Compassion for others is felt as long as you consider yourself as a separate entity, as a consequence of the body‑consciousness. The story of Shirdi Sai Baba that you have heard about is not fully correct.

The facts are: a lady cooked and got a plate of sweets ready for Baba, and a dog ate them. The lady drove the dog away with blows. The lady then carried another plate of sweets to Baba, who refused them, saying that He had eaten the sweets she previously provided, and His hunger was satisfied. The lady pointed out that this was the first time she was offering the sweets, so how could He say to the contrary? Baba said, “No.” You offered them, and while I was eating them, you have also beaten Me.” Thus, He gave a lesson that He was omnipresent and that there was only One universal life.

Devotee: What does ‘omnipresent’ mean Swami?

Sri Sathya Sai: Omnipresent means everywhere at the same time all the time.

Devotee: Swami says that at a certain stage in sadhana, the exterior nature ceases. How is that?

Sri Sathya Sai: There are ten stages in sadhana, each cognized by sounds of various types, ranging through different vibrations—bell, flute, conch, Om, thunder, etc. The tenth stage is reached when the senses are transcended. Beyond the senses, it is the state of bliss.

Devotee: Is that state of bliss experienced only for a time? What happens in the daily round of life?

Sri Sathya Sai: That state remains always. Then, it is always bliss. He thinks God, eats God, drinks God, breathes God, and lives God.

Devotee: Does everyone pass through these ten stages?

Sri Sathya Sai: No. One may go direct to the tenth, the transcendental state, or to stage six, or seven. Or not progress at all. It is not uniform for all.

Devotee: What should be one’s attitude to these stages in sadhana as one encounters each stage one by one?

Sri Sathya Sai: The states change, but the `attitude’ should be unchanging.

Devotee: But what value should one give to the various states?

Sri Sathya Sai: The sadhaka [spiritual aspirant] will not be satisfied with any of the states, for complete union is the goal. Desire remains strong, until the transcendental bliss is realized, and then, desire ceases. At that state all is God. Thoughts, desires, all are God.

Devotee: These thoughts that stream through the mind, are they material?

Sri Sathya Sai: Yes. They are matter. All matter is impermanent.

Devotee: Where do thoughts come from?

Sri Sathya Sai: They come from food and environment. If you have satwic [pure] food and desire only for good things and atmosphere around you, good thoughts only will come.

Devotee: Where do thoughts go?

Sri Sathya Sai: They go no place, because thoughts do not flow through the mind. The mind goes out and grasps and gets engaged with thoughts. If the desire is for God, the mind does not go out. The best way is not to get involved in the problem, ‘How to get rid of thoughts?’ See all thoughts as God. Then only God‑thoughts will come. The entire mechanism of body, mind, and intelligence will work in a coordinated manner for the benefit of the higher goal.

Devotee: Then for whom should the entire mechanism be functioning?

Sri Sathya Sai: For the atma [soul]. A small example: The earth turns on its own axis, but at the same time it is revolving around the sun. The various faculties of man should do their own work, but the atma is the center of their universe.

Devotee: Swami! How can one bring these faculties under the control of the atma?

Sri Sathya Sai: When one realizes that the atma is the reality, the One, then everything will function smoothly. It is a question of surrendering all to the atma.

Devotee: But Swami has said, we should ask ourselves, “Who am I that I dare talk of surrendering my mind and intelligence to God? They do not belong to me. How can I surrender that which I do not own and cannot even control?”

Sri Sathya Sai: It is not a question of surrendering or giving to some other one. One surrenders to oneself. Recognition that the atma is one’s self is surrender.

Devotee: Then Swami means that surrender is really a putting aside of that which one perceives as incorrect or false.

Sri Sathya Sai: Yes.

Devotee: I now understand. “Surrender” implies a person offering himself or his possessions to another person. But really, it is more like the abandoning of ideas and concepts for which one has no further use, or which one sees as inadequate or wrong.

Sri Sathya Sai: Yes.

~From the Note Book of An American Devotee
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, March 1974