Reflections on Quotations from Swami’s Birthday Discourses
“I do not assign one particular date in the calendar as My birthday, for I consider the day when Divinity blossoms in your heart as My birthday in you.”
“It is only when you succeed in knowing yourselves that you can know Me. “
Two of Swami’s most significant teachings are the pursuit of self-knowledge and the manifestation of our own inner divinity. In our quest to reach self-understanding and to realize our inner divinity, Swami urges us to look within for guidance, “The best course is to pray to the God within for illumination and guidance. Then you will receive the guidance without fail.” In my personal experience, whenever I have taken the time to quiet my mind and look within, I have received His guidance without fail. With it always comes a deep peace. “Quieten your impulses and calmly meditate on your own inner reality. When you do so, the lotus of your heart will bloom and from its center will arise the flame of divine vision which guarantees infinite peace.”
Swami also advises us, “Seek the basis for the seen in the unseen. The tall skyscraper has a deep base reaching into the earth. This ‘seen’ world has, as its base, the unseen Paramatma; your body is but the vehicle through which you can search, investigate and discover that base.” At the times when I have looked within for guidance, three themes consistently arise; they concern what the “seen” world can teach me about the unseen basis—my truest self. I have found several things that help me on the journey to search for, investigate and discover that “base” within myself. Among the most important are to carefully observe the reactions that people evoke in me, to notice what I choose to focus on during the day, and to analyze situations that repeat themselves in my life.
As an example, when a circumstance arose in which a friend and I viewed a situation differently, I looked closely at the reaction she evoked in me. I am right; she is wrong, I thought. Then I noticed how often I chose to focus on that thought during the day. It occurred to me that I had responded many times before in exactly the same way when I disagreed with people. This time, instead of responding out of habit in the same way I had done so often in the past, I turned within and asked for guidance. I asked for understanding in what the situation could teach me about myself, and how I could better manifest my inner divinity in my approach to it. I came to feel that the world we see around us and the people we meet are, in a sense, not really so separate from ourselves. I saw that to get caught up in believing this illusion-and in believing that my friend and I were separate—would only keep me stuck in untruth.
The guidance I received prompted me to try to perceive the situation in an entirely new way—a way that recognizes the world as a unified manifestation and extension of the same divinity that is within all of us, rather than a place filled with separate individuals with differing opinions. Swami says, “The atma (soul) is the basic unity which assumes the appearance of diversity, the world. Its immanence is the unifying truth, evident as the divine in all beings. It is the duty of everyone to live in the awareness of this truth.” Though I did not receive direct, clear guidance about what to do in the situation with my friend, I did receive guidance that I should perceive the whole event differently, that mentally I should hold it in a different space. ln this case, it was all I needed for a clear lesson.
The more I look within for guidance—and receive it abundantly—the more I find myself wanting to learn in this way. Swami advises that, “The real purpose of human life will be achieved only when all our time and all our efforts are concentrated on realizing the divinity that is inherent in us.” Rather than just a directive from without, this teaching prompts me to follow its wisdom again and again because I experience such benefits and peace from doing so. I have found one particularly exhilarating aspect of practicing these teachings of Swami: No dilemma, no matter how complicated or weighty, has remained unresolved when I remember that the world is merely an extension and manifestation of the divinity within me, and when I look within for guidance on how to navigate it.
Though I do not always find direction for what to do, I find that I am consistently able to view dilemmas in new and deeper ways. In addition, I feel that there is strength within me to rise to whatever heights I must. As Swami says, “When you dive deep into yourselves, you can discover the source of all strength.” He also asserts, “If only he would stay in the consciousness of Shivoham—I am Shiva; I am immortal, I am the source and spring of bliss—he would be supremely content. But instead of this correct evaluation of himself, this recognition of his innate reality, man goes about weeping at his helplessness, his inadequacy, his poverty, his evanescence.”
Ultimately, when turning within becomes second nature and a constant process in our lives, our divinity will manifest continuously. Swami tells us to remember the illusory nature of the world and to keep ourselves fixated on looking within for guidance and self-awareness rather than following the direction of the senses, mind or ego. He reminds us that “The Gita says, ‘Keeping Me ever in memory, engage yourself in the battle of life.’ This ‘me’ to which Krishna refers is not something outside you or extraneous to you. It is your own Divine Reality which you can recognize in the silence of your own meditation when you shut out of your awareness the distraction of the senses, the mind, and the ego.’
Ironically, looking within for guidance on how to be in the outer world, on how to better know ourselves, and on how to realize our inner divinity provides us with a more accurate and complete way of perceiving the world than focusing solely on the external. As always, Swami’s teachings on love provide the guiding lens for how we are to perceive the world, and thus realize our own true nature: “It is only when one perceives with love that one realizes one’s true nature,” He says.
~Leslie Laud
New York, USA
Source: Quotations from birthday discourses in
Sathya Sai Speaks, Vols: 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11
