Yes, Yes, Yes…
This article is based on a talk given by Dr. V.S. Sudarshanam in Atlantic city at the one-day conference of the Mid-Atlantic Region in September 1998.
Swami often says, “Sai is always positive, positive, positive—yes, yes, yes.” I see in Swami’s words a unique approach to positive thinking—and thinking in general—which is entirely different from the limited thought processes we are accustomed to. The following example illustrates Swami’s expansive notion of positive thinking. In this incident, Swami broadens the concept of positive thinking to include the most important element of selflessness.
Once a student sat at darshan (sight of a holy person) awaiting Swami’s permission for him to travel home for vacation. Swami finished darshan on the men’s side, and walked back towards the mandir (temple). The sand in front of the mandirand the tiles on the floor of the verandah were extremely hot and Swami wore no shoes. He walked straight toward the student who sat in the cool, shady area of the verandah. Swami stood on the hot floor and asked the student to take padanamskar (touching the feet of a holy person). After the student touched His feet, Swami remarked lovingly, “How much devotion you have in praying for padanamskar, but did you realize that Swami stood with His feet on a very hot floor as you took padanamskarr.” This incident shows how Swami commended the positive thinking behind the boy’s desire for padnamaskar yet elevated his thinking from its current level closer to the perfection of selflessness and love, which Swami himself embodies.
On a fundamental level, positive thinking involves contemplating who we really are and what the true purpose of human life is. Swami addressed this in His letter to Dr. John Hislop, published in the book “My Baba and I.” “My Dear! You will find it deep within yourself. Think it many times; ponder it. It tells you about your true nature. It gives you hope; it gives you new life. It points the way. It proves to you that God is within you and you are not man; man is God. It shows you that it is possible for you to realize God but you, and you alone, must ponder this work deeply. You will find that you will begin to know what is meant by the statement: the Self cannot be explained. The mind knows of its existence, the Self-God is within man. You are that Self. All else is illusion of the mind’s creation.…”
One may wonder how we could even remotely consider ourselves as embodiments of God when we have erred so much in the past. To maintain a positive focus, Swami advises us that past misdeeds are to be forgotten—but the lessons they teach us must be remembered. To remind ourselves of the past would be to re-live such events and that would take us away from positive thinking. Swami says, “Sin is not the real nature of man; it is acquired and can be shed. Man is pure, good, loving, wise…. Let the purity that you are get manifested; endeavor to express it in your activities. That is what pleases Me and wins My grace.”
As Swami says, man is innately pure. The question that follows is—how do we manifest this purity? The first thing to focus on is our thoughts and attitudes. These lie at the very root of our experiences. Swami often says, “Yad bhavam tad bhavathi (what you think, you are). As an example, once Krishna summoned both Dharmaja and Duryodhana into His presence. Krishna asked Duryodhana to scan his kingdom and find a good person. Concurrently, He asked Dharmaja to set out to his kingdom to find a bad person. Duryodhana returned after searching his kingdom to say that he could not find a good person. Dharmaja, too, returned and said he could not find a bad person in his kingdom. Our experiences are strongly affected by our thoughts. It is important for positive thinking to become so ingrained in our lives that it becomes a natural and effortless process of right thinking and living.
While exploring positive thinking, I looked at the popular meaning of those words given by contemporary thinkers. I anticipated that they might have linked worldly success to internal strength at some point in time. I did find that in the last chapter of one book, an author described the power of God and how people had drawn on that power within to succeed in their daily lives. The book claimed that readers would become more popular, esteemed, and well-liked individuals, that a new sense of well-being, a new and keen pleasure in living would result and that it would yield expanding influence.
However, the positive thinking propagated by these authors is far away from the notion of positive thinking that Swami embodies. Absolute selflessness is at the core of positive thinking in Swami’s life and teachings. In my view, it is this unique way of thinking that we must infuse into our daily lives. In a letter to students, Swami says, “Love must be completely selfless to be Godward, to be Divine. Its creation must be, ‘The beloved first.’ Its technique must be, ‘Your happiness, not mine’. This way to happiness is the forgetting of oneself and the remembering of God (Sai Krishna).”
Sixteen qualities elevate human efforts to the Divine realm, as Sri. N. Kasturi records His words in the book Prashanthi. These are: calm and brave suffering, detachment from the transient, eagerness to be at the Lord’s feet, discipline, unsullied reputation, an unblemished condition, contentment, virtuousness, success in tests, ripeness in scholarship, mastery of extensive wisdom, self-satisfaction, cultivation of rare virtues, happy humility in contentment, and full dedication to the Lords feet. Even if we cannot attain all sixteen qualities, we would do well to begin with following Swami’s simple teaching, “Be good, do good.” He provides a universal definition of what is meant by goodness in a letter to the students “Goodness is the virtue or conduct which does not violate the oneness of all life.” In this context, He asserts that Love is a reality, not an illusion, for those who have realized oneness in life.
True positive thinking leads to the kind of selfless service that is possible when we experience the oneness of all life. To quote Swami, “Seva, Seva, Seva. Never forget the duty to serve. For this you have to develop love. To develop love, you have to promote the spirit of sacrifice. Service will become meaningful when it manifests love that issues from sacrifice. Consider service as conducive to your own spiritual development. Be good, do good.” This quality of tyagam (sacrifice) can be nurtured and strengthened by elevating our individual self to the highest Self, through the medium of selflessness. Swami stresses the importance of moving closer to the Real Self, and thereby experiencing real joy which results from awakening our true, fine, and beautiful qualities.
I have read repeatedly a letter that Swami wrote the students. Each time it shows me how profound Swami’s words are. “The real Self is the selfless Self, the Self that has no thought of or for Itself. It is the Self that has forgotten Itself because somehow it remembers Itself only in others. It is the Self that seeks the truth without a thought of self because Truth is selfless wisdom. It is the Self in wordless meditation, because wordless meditation is the stopping of the mind through union with the Divine. It is the Self that does not judge, does not evaluate, does not compare, does not condemn, does not separate, does not seek security of any kind and does not even seek Itself. It is the Self that has completely abolished Itself and yet in a strange and mystical fashion is never more complete, never more real, never more Itself than it has ever been. This is the real Self. God is Love. Love is selflessness. Selflessness is the abolition of all sense of selfhood and separateness, all thoughts of you, all identification with the isolated life of the counterfeit being called self; self is separateness. Separateness is the denial of wholeness. Wholeness is God.”
Our gratitude to Swami for all He has done for us needs to take the form of service and love toward all. He compares love to a compass needle that always points in a single direction—toward Him. We have to be unswerving in our commitment to do selfless service. His life should become our message and our life should become His Message – one that embodies positive thinking in the deepest and most expansive sense possible.
