Resurrect Your Inner Divinity
Anil Kumar, Swami’s official translator, spoke to the devotees at the Los Angeles center last Easter. The following is a transcription of his talk, in which he compares the teachings of Jesus Christ with those of Sri Sathya Sai Baba.
Let me greet you all on this happy holy festival of Easter. May Bhagavan bless you all. This is the day of resurrection, realization and awareness. Resurrection has a message for all Sai devotees. We consider ourselves the product of dust and the five elements. That is not true. We must realize that we are the sparks of the Divine—that is what is meant by resurrection.
The Holy Bible says, “You shall know the truth and it shall set you free.” What is the truth? The truth is that we are immortal and we should not just think that dust we are and to dust we return. On Easter, we should remind ourselves that the Lord said, “Seek the kingdom of heaven and everything shall be added unto you.” For if we seek the blessing of the Lord, the rest will follow.
All the holy scriptures of the world say that human life is most precious. There is consciousness at various levels in mineral matter, in the plant world, and in the animal world, but humans have the highest level of consciousness. Having been gifted with mind, body and intellect, mankind has to know his own reality. When I say to Baba, “Swami, You are God of this computer age.” His reply is, “You are wrong. There is no God of the present, God of the past, or God of the Computer age. There is only one God—then, now and forever.” Swami always says that we should take every opportunity to know ourselves. That is awareness. The message of resurrection is, “Unless man is born once again, he shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” The message does not mean that having lived more than half our life, we should die and be born again. It means that we should realize our inherent divinity, that we are immortal and eternal.
Once at Prasanthi Nilayam, Swami asked a very elderly person, “What is your age?” The man replied, “I am ten years old.” Swami asked why he said that. The man replied, “Because I came to you ten years ago, Swami.” The time when we realize the Divine is our actual birthday.
Baba wants us to realize how precious our life is. We should not take our life as a burden or as a crucible of experiences. Life is liberation. Life is a song. Sing it. It is a challenge. We cannot run away from it; therefore, meet life. Life is a game holding the possibility of winning or losing. Let us have the satisfaction of playing it well. Life is a dream. Realize that. We consider the external world to be real, but when we go to sleep and dream, that, too, appears real. Only when we awaken do we realize we’ve had a dream. Similarly, Baba says that the external world is actually a daydream. Bhagavan says to pray, not for a long life, but for a divine life.
Though we don’t know the contemporaries of Jesus Christ, we learn His teachings from the Bible. The teachings of Baba and Christ are similar. Jesus stands for love and sacrifice. He said, “Judge not lest thou shalt be judged.” Baba too does not want us to judge anyone. He clarifies this idea further by saying that when you point a finger at someone, remember that three fingers are pointing back toward you. Thus, you are committing three times as many mistakes as the other person. People should be judged by their merits, not by their faults. Baba goes a step further and says that you should root out your own faults, but see the merits of others. Therein lies real self-assessment.
The Bible says that Jesus materialized food and wine at a wedding after all the vessels were empty. By the mere touch of His hands, the vessels filled with food. With my own eyes, I have seen Baba do the same thing. Once on Easwaramma Day in Kodaicanal, we were celebrating Children’s Day. Swami asked me to go to the kitchen to see if we had enough food. I found the containers mostly empty since the crowd that day had been four times as huge as expected. I quietly told Swami that the food had been exhausted. Swami replied, “Don’t say it is exhausted. Say there is enough.” He sent me back to the kitchen to look again. To my astonishment, all the containers were filled with food.
We have read in the Bible how Lazarus rose from the dead. Jesus Christ brought him back to life. Most of you have heard of Walter Cowan, a man Baba brought back to life after he died in front of his wife.
We have also read that once Christ walked through a crowd and touched the eyes of a blind man and restored his vision. In Prasanthi Nilayam, I have seen the same miracle performed by Baba. An elderly man from a Sathya Sai Center lost the sight in both his eyes. One day Baba called him for an interview with a group of people. He made him sit on a chair while the others sat on the floor. Baba looked at the old man and said, “I know you cannot see.” Then He turned to the son of the old man and said, “You are very irresponsible. I performed your marriage, but since then you have grown so fat that you have no time to do your job. You are wasting your time. But if you promise to behave well, I will give your father back his sight.” The young man promised to follow Baba’s command. Bhagavan Baba slowly got up and touched the old man’s eyes. His sight was restored.
Once Bhagavan said, “Do you know why this body is given? Is it to go around the world? Is it for eating and drinking? No. It is given so that every man can serve others. Do you know why you are given intelligence? Is it to maneuver, to politicize, or to be jealous of each other? It is given so that we can realize that life is just a drama that eventually will end. The world is ephemeral; the pleasures that we enjoy are transient. Are the hands given so that you can play cards? No, we have the gift of hands so that we can fold them in prayer. Are the legs given so that man can wander? No, they are given so you can circumambulate the temple offering your prayers. Similarly, ears are to hear bhajans(devotional songs) and the divine leelas (play). The tongue is not given to enjoy food or to indulge in gossip, rather to chant the name of God. So the body is very precious. We must realize its purpose and make good use of it.”
We are very lucky to have taken birth at the same time the Lord is in human form. Bhagavan Baba does not speak of a separate religion. He wants us to follow our own individual religions and practice them to our best ability. He wants us to follow our chosen path with honesty and sincerity and to let spirituality flow in our daily activities. Every human activity should be considered a divine activity. By offering all your actions to God, your work becomes worship.
Sometimes people advertise that they can teach yoga in a month for a certain price. But yoga is not something that can be purchased in that way. If it were so easy, why would sages and seers spend lifetimes acquiring the knowledge of yoga? Yoga is not just a physical exercise. It is a discipline of life, an attitude toward life. It is the spirit of equanimity. A teacher who takes money to teach is not a true spiritual person. Remember, that which is free is divine and that which is costly is human. God gave us the five elements free of charge. Both the creator and the creation are free. Money and religion, God and mammon will never go together.
Sathya Sai is a divine teacher. He gives Himself to us without cost. There is no charge for talking to Him or meeting Him. He provides free education and free medical facilities. He established a project to provide free water to desert land.
What is wisdom? Is it scholarship or scriptural knowledge? Baba says the end of wisdom is freedom and the end of knowledge is love. The end of education is character; the end of culture is perfection. Freedom does not mean that we lead an animal’s life—that we do what we want and say what we want whenever we want. Freedom is leading a life based on discipline. In Sanskrit the meaning of freedom is swaichha, knowledge of the self and an absence of animal-like behavior. Freedom is given to know oneself, to inquire, and to find our true nature.
In an interview, Baba asked a visiting bishop where he was from? The man replied that he was from France. Swami said, “No, you are from God.” Then He asked, “Where do you go from here?” The bishop replied, “To France, Swami.” Swami said, “No, Bangaroo (golden one). You are from God and you will go back to God.” Finally Swami asked, “Where are you now?” The bishop replied that he was in the interview room. Swami said, “You are in God. You are neither in the interview room nor in Puttaparthi. You are in God.” Who are we? Baba says we are from God, we are in God and we will go back to God.
Swami compares human bodies to earthenware pots, which are all made of clay but are used for different purposes. When clay pots break, they return to being clay again. Humans are from God. Though we all take on different names and forms, eventually we go back to God. The same divinity is within all of us regardless of our form or name. The Bible says that the kingdom of heaven is within you. In the Gita, Krishna says to Arjuna, “Listen to me. God resides in the altar of your heart.”
Religion, Swami says, is travel from “I” to “we.” We make that connection if we have enough purity to realize the divinity within. Swami says that the body is a moving temple of God; therefore, everyone should be served alike. When you respect or disrespect anyone, you are respecting or disrespecting God Himself. When you love or deny anyone, you are loving or denying the Lord.
On this Easter Day, let us remind ourselves of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God. We need to remember that we are immortal and thus come out of darkness into light.
