Choose Your God

In the following discourse, Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba advises not to let the mind waver and distract you from following the devotional path. Choose one God and stay steady with Him through the good and bad times that come as waves in your life—only then can you gain wisdom.

The times have gone awry. Relationships between man and man; man and God; man and the human community; and, man and those entrusted to rule over groups of men are getting tainted by hatred and anger. The people of this land are accepting wrong as right, and discarding right as wrong. They are journeying blindly down the wrong roads. They are proud of this, too. They believe they are progressing.

Happiness and misery are the consequences of the attributes one cultivates and fosters—the three chief ones being satwic (selfless, tolerant), the rajasic (marked by activity, ambition, passion, emotion) and the tamasic (inactivity, sloth, dullness). When satwic predominates, one is happy. When rajasic predominates, one is discontented. When tamasic qualities are supreme, there can be no joy. When the attributes pursue the path of attachment and pleasure, man is bound to the wheels of pain/joy, death/life. If they seek liberation and simplicity, they lead him to love, light, and freedom from the birth/death wheel. Today man is caught in doubt and deviation. He does not know which road to follow, or with what preparation. He loses his precious heritage, degrades himself, and denies his nature, which is really divine.

Regulate and control the mind

People determine the nature of the Divine through the categories of logic and dialectics. But, intellect cannot grasp it, reason cannot delve into it. For both are shaped by one’s prejudices and predispositions. We appreciate only what we like; we see only what we would like to see. “When prayer is answered and one gets what one desires, God is real; when they are not answered, God is a fake, a figment of the imagination.” Arjuna acclaimed Krishna as the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God when the foe was defeated day after day. But when his son Abhimanyu was killed in the conflict, he raved in his grief that Krishna had not guided him properly and guarded him efficiently. His mind wavered with every wind of fortune. To many, the mind is master of the intellect also. One must be vigilant and preserve the impartiality of the instrument called reason. Clarify reason, and then it will reveal God everywhere, even within you. Once you accept God as the core of the universe and of yourself, keep that faith strong and steady.

Of course, it is difficult in the atmosphere of “faithlessness” to light the lamp in one’s heart and keep it burning without falter or flicker. Today, the wife has no faith in her husband; the husband has no faith in his wife. Sons doubt fathers; fathers suspect sons. Students have no faith in teachers; teachers cannot rely on their students. So how can faith grow in one single field, the field of religion? This calamity has happened since man has allowed his reasoning faculty to be blunted by passion and prejudice. Krishna says in the Gita, “I am buddhi (intellect) among the faculties.” To those devoted to Him, he says, “I shall confer the discipline of buddhi on you.” Reason is the instrument that regulates and controls the mind. It should not be subordinated to the whims of the mind.

Reasons for God’s incarnations

While speaking of the Gita, I will mention one problem that might confront you therein. Krishna declares, “I am equal in all beings. I behave equally with all. I have no love or hate, no partiality or prejudice. Joy and grief are brought upon you by yourselves, not by me, through attachment or want of it.” With such a declaration, a doubt may arise in your minds. Why did He also announce that He would incarnate in every age in order to foster the good and punish the wicked? How is it that He talks of good and bad men? Does it not mean that He likes some and dislikes others? Are not all people parts of Him? Are not the waves, parts of the ocean?

Yes. Everyone is part of Him. The hand is yours, the fingers are yours, and the nails are yours. Why then do you pare and trim the nails? Urine and feces are in you, but you must get rid of them to maintain health. Under certain circumstances, one has to cut off a limb in order to save the body. In fact, the Kauravas were dangerous viruses that caused a wound to spread. Krishna had to remove them through major surgery, with Arjuna acting as His assistant, in order to save the “body politic” of Bharath.

When one sinks in the slime of desire, one cannot distinguish with clarity between good and bad.  In order to achieve this, the intellect has to be pure and clear, sharp and straight. There can not be the slightest trace of egotism, envy, or greed in the make-up of man. These things drag awry the ability to make distinctions. Vacillating minds, wandering eyes—these cannot help the intellect to decide correctly.

Importance of tolerance and love

When one chooses a life-partner these days, the first consideration is of external beauty and charm. Next, the economic position is taken into account. How rich is he or she? How much does he or she earn? Such questions are asked as how much education they have, what the social status of the families is. Carried off by mere external frills, people enter into wedlock and become entangled in misery or in a destructive family life. The family cannot be stable if it is built on such slender foundations. Prime importance has to be paid to the fundamental requisites of good character, high ideals of tolerance and forbearance, love and service. If built on a weak foundation, the bond will loosen when beauty fades or wealth wanes.

It is the same with the God you choose, adore, and yearn to live with. You should not choose God for the benefits He can shower on you. Do not expect God to satisfy your worldly or material ambitions. If they are not realized, will you desert the path toward God? “Baba, appear in my dream tonight,” you demand. If it does not happen, you believe He is not Sai Baba, he is rai Baba (stone Baba). You then go in search of some other God who will be at your beck and call. You must hold onto your faith, whatever happens, whether success or failure, satisfaction or disappointment. When God is your very core, irrevocably fixed in your consciousness, there is no room for elation or dejection. God is bliss. When God is the undying spring in you, you will have bliss forever.

The two paths of devotion

Man has to engage in activity for his upkeep as well as for the sake of happiness. But he has to choose his activity intelligently and without over-involvement in its consequences. You must use the activity to earn what is really good. Seek something supreme, something of the highest value, something that is beyond diminution and decline—that is true bhakthi (devotion). Bhakthi is the love and longing directed to the attainment of such a goal. The means adopted for this are karma (activity). They are known as karma yoga for karma becomes karma yoga when activity is disciplined, dedicated, and demarcated with skill. True love directed toward God can reveal His reality and grant the highest jnana (wisdom).

A tree has a trunk and the trunk branches into boughs with leaves and flowers. Karma yoga is the trunk of the tree of life. The branches, leaves, and fragrant flowers symbolize the bhakthi yoga. The ripe fruit and its sweetness are the jnana yoga, the wisdom. If the tree yields no fruit or if the fruit is not sweet, then, it might just as well not have grown at all.

Bhakthi can flow along two paths—saguna bhakthi and nirguna bhakthi. When you feel that God is far away—far higher, far beyond—and when you plead for mercy, petition for grace, and pray for boons, that is saguna—you adore Him as Lord and master, as guardian and savior. You go through the ceremonies of praise, propitiation, prostration, submission, and service. But when you practice the discipline of seeing Him in all beings, as the core of every cell or atom, alive and aware, and experience unity with all creation (for creation is but His body and you are also in it and of it) then it is nirguna. The nirguna is the contemplation on the sugar. The saguna is the adoration of some sugar that has caught your fancy and attracted your love and loyalty. Among the ceremonies, we have the yajna (sacrificial rite), the chief feature described in the Vedas.

Meaning of sacrificial rites

An important rite in the Vedic yajna is called soma-pa. In order to grasp the significance of the Vedic or other ceremonies, one has to spend some thought on symbolism. For example, let us take this soma-pa itself. Pa means “drinking” and the rite is generally supposed to indicate the drinking of a juice called soma.

Soma means the moon. The moon cannot be swallowed or drunk by man. It also means the “mind”—“the changing mind that waxes and wanes, is never the same for long.” That is why the Vedas say that the mind was mothered by the moon. So, drinking the moon means the process by which the mind is controlled, made defunct, and harmless. That is the purpose of the yajna—the sacrifice of the whims of the mind for gaining the realm of the universal eternal truth. With the mind left intact, no yajna is fruitful, for [the mind] has a thousand tricks by which it can drag you into perdition.

Fix the mind on the name (the sound symbol) of the Lord. Then it cannot wander away. The divine is the flame of the lamp ever burning in the altar, namely the body. Keep the flame safe from the gusts of wind, namely the gusts of passion and desire, that blow from all quarters. Sit in a quiet place, away from crowded groups or sensations or thoughts that distract. When you have reached the stage when you can be wholly engrossed in the name and the form it represents, isolating yourself from distraction is not required. But that does not mean that you can parade your spiritual practices in the marketplace as some crazy people do. Do not yearn for approbation and appreciation from the public. Pray that God may approve, accept, and appreciate your toddle and your prattle.

Soak every moment in Love, in God

Cleanse your emotions, passions, impulses, attitudes, and reactions. That is the essence of spiritual discipline as laid down in all faiths. Examine your mind and your thoughts. Do not see a fault-ridden person. See only purity. Speak ill of none. And if you slip into slander, repent and resolve not to give vent to the habit again. Do not humiliate anyone. Respect persons for the good in them. Their grief at your behavior will haunt you during your last moments. Let every act of yours stand as your credential when you leave the world. Let no single act be a drag or a debit. Soak every moment in love, that is to say, in God. Of what avail is it to spend hours in dhyana (meditation), if, when you rise and move amongst people, you spread anger, inflict resentment by your words and deeds?

The Gita asks you to be sathatham yoginah—ever controlled, ever restrained, ever yoked with the divine. So be vigilant, be steady, and be earnest. The steady person earns wisdom. By the absence of careful tending, a spark can be nursed into a huge conflagration. By vigilant care, even a conflagration can be reduced to a splutter.

Source: Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. XII