Green Across the Door
Even in this very early divine discourse, Bhagavan Baba energetically affirms the truth He constantly urged us to seek and realize: we are divine.
Sages who designed the Hindu calendar have arranged the holy festivals to foster mental stamina and emotional purity. Makara Sankranti (the Summer Equinox), when the Sun enters the Capricorn, is laid down as the day when man dedicates his activities to attain divinity, by following the Uttarayana (the Northward path), the nobler path that the Sun Himself is seen to take from this day. This day marks the end of the month of Dhanus and the beginning of Makara. Dhanus refers to the bow and to the sugar cane, which is the bow of the God of love.
The harvest has come in now, and every family has cooked this day the gift of God that has been stored in the granary. The children have chewed the sweet cane and are running about in glee. The cattle that toiled in the fields as companion, helpmate, and slave of man are ruminating in the shade, enjoying their holiday from the yoke. The earth too is wearing a sari of yellow flowers, bedecked with spots of red, wherever ripe chillies cluster under green leaves. Nature is happy that man and all living beings can now turn Godward in thankfulness and intensive contemplation of His handiwork. For six months now, it is deva‑yana, the season of pilgrimage. It is also the uttama‑yana (the superior path).
The message of Sankranti
The [Bhagavad] Gita proclaims that he who dies in this half of the year dies in peace and plenty, and so, rises to purer levels of spiritual attainments. Bhishma [the grandsire of the Pandavas and the Kauravas of Mahabharata], who was stricken by mortal arrows on the field of Kurukshetra [in north India], waited for this day that ushers in the holier half of the year to give up his breath, and merge in the Super Soul.
This is a day of dedication. It’s not a day of diversion and dissipation. It is wrong to waste it in gambling, feasting, and catering to the lower instincts. It is not a holiday; it is in the strictest sense of the word, a holy day. Become whole through wholesome deeds and thoughts; that is the message of this holy day. Merely spinning like a top until you can spin no longer, and then falling helpless and inert is a dreary devastating existence. The top has no faith in itself; it has to be handled and twirled by another. Be self‑confident and have confidence in yourself as self is divine. It [the self] has in it all the strength, all the sweetness of the atman (true self) which is but a wave of the ocean of Paramatman (supreme reality).
In order to ensure happiness and peace, administrators contrive five‑year plans, and build bridges, dams, factories, and schools. But, without a clean spirit, strong detachment, and compassion and kinship, economic progress promotes only hatred, faction, and envy. Self‑confidence, self‑control, and self‑knowledge—these alone can lead man to peace and joy. “Na shreyo niyamam vinaa—No prosperity without control.” Sages teach that there can be no progress without discipline. On these holy days, man has to look back and forward, and follow his route along the correct markings.
Mind is desires and doubts
Belief in the Creator, the Designer, the Supporter, and the Disintegrator is mandatory for the pilgrim on earth. Fear of sin and love of God—these two endow man with peace and joy, save him from sorrow, and grant him ananda (bliss). During deep sleep, one is not aware of time, space, or causation. Only the “I” persists; the I that is sat‑chit‑ananda [existence, consciousness, and bliss]. But, during deep sleep, the I is not aware of its ananda, and not aware of itself. It is only after one awakens that one declares: I had a very pleasant sleep!
During the dream stage, the mind is activeeven though the intelligence and senses are dormant. The dream builds a bungalow in a few seconds, and you occupy and live happily in it until, in the dream, an earthquake brings it down on your heads, and you flee for sheer life! The entire story of construction, occupation, and destruction was the reflection of mental aberration, its sankalpa (resolve). It is the seat of the ego and the ego plays all sorts of pranks with the mind during sleep when the senses and reason are temporarily out of action. The mind is a bundle of resolutions and hesitations, of desires and doubts. When the basis of the ego is removed by heroic spiritual effort directed toward this end, then all the drama associated with name and form drifts away into nothingness.
The Sun draws the water up as steam, and endows it with the name and form of ‘cloud,’ ‘rain’ and then as ‘stream,’ ‘river,’ and ‘flood’ until it merges back again in the sea, losing all the manifoldness of name‑form caused by time, space, and causation. Each one of you is the basis of truth that is clouded by an unreal fog. This [drama] is to be discovered—each for himself and by himself.
Maya is the shadow in the well
The seed stuck in the soil sprouts and grows. It puts forth branches and leaves and adorns itself with blossoms that attract bees. It develops fruits which are really offerings of sweetness and strength, to those who serve the tree, carrying the seeds ensconced within them, to far distances and scatter them again in the soil so that they may get stuck and sprout in another cycle of life and death. The seed is not inert; it is conscious, alive, and active. The whole universe is suffused with Divinity, Divinity that is existence-consciousness‑bliss; Existence as “seed‑plant‑tree”; consciousness as that which strives for expression, manifestation, and unfoldment; and, finally, as bliss in that fulfilment.
You are also sat‑chit-ananda. Do not condemn your majesty bewailing, “I am unfortunate; I am despicable; I am downhearted.” No. You are elated, you are enthroned, and you are exalted. You are all this, but you are not aware of this on account of maya (illusion). Maya is like your shadow in the well; if you do not peep into the well, it is not there. It is there only when you peep into it.
The primal ignorance and the primal wisdom are inherent, one in the other; the light of day darkens the stars so that we cannot see them, though they are up above our heads. The darkness of night reveals the specks of light, which indeed are the stars. Vibration, motion, light, and darkness—all are intertwined.
God knows what is good
To adore name and form is against the basic teaching of Vedanta [Hindu scriptures]; one has to educate oneself into ignoring the evanescent, temporary, and superficial. Unless one has discovered his identity with all, the identity of all with him, one cannot have the waveless calm, and the steady flame. Tyaagainaike amritattwam anashuh—give up, give up the fancy for the fantastic objective world, give up until you reach the stage when there is no “giver‑gift‑giving,” and when there is no “beginning‑continuing‑ending.”
Narada (a sage) learnt from sage Sanatkumara that he can acquire shanti [peace] only when he knows that he is shanti, and nothing else! A‑shanti (restlessness) is something that has possessed him like a phobia that has no footing. Shake it off; exorcise it; then, he is free. It is the role that is tragic, and not the actor. He has only to remind himself that it is a play, and that he is playing the role of a tragic hero. Narada learnt this lesson, and as a result, his equanimity was never again disturbed.
On this [Sankranti] day, every home is swept clean, the floors are polished, the walls whitewashed and painted, and before every house, women draw auspicious designs on the floor. They place in the middle of that design a lump of cow dung, and stick on that lump a big yellow sweet cucumber flower with a golden hue. What is the significance of the lump of cow dung? It symbolizes the cow, the Go that Go‑pala feeds and fends. Go (cow) also means beings, souls, and individuals. So, Gopala is He who tends the souls, keeps them away from harm, encourages them to graze in peace, and drives them back into the sheds when evening falls on earth. Individual beings too are under the loving care of God, who knows what is good for them, and saves them from ruin. Thus, each trivial detail of the festival rites has a meaning that can vibrate the participant at its proper time.
Satsang will be good for you
Again, this day, you are requested to eat sweet rice cooked in milk. That food is called satwic (pure), which promotes elevated thoughts, mildness, and humility. But, food does not end with what you take in through the mouth. What you take in through the eye, ear, nose, skin, through your greed and hunger for excitement, your thirst for variegated experience of the objective world—all that is food. And, every particle of it has to be satwic so that your progress toward self‑realization may be quick and fruitful.
You are really fortunate that you are able to drink through the ear the discourses on the glory of the Divine. Vedanta is the best and highest food that man can consume; it keeps your propensities pure, your body in perfect trim, your passions well controlled, your emotions clear and lucid, and your thoughts simple and sincere. Satsang (noble company) is more nutritious than fruits, nuts, milk, or honey. It will keep you young and fresh, full and free, beyond the disintegrating influence of time and space.
These holy days are reminders of the discipline that you have strayed away from. It is a grim world, from which you have to squeeze yourself out into freedom and fulfilment. A train whistling past at full speed over the rails drawn by a giant locomotive cannot be stopped by a million hands; but by merely pressing a button, the driver can bring it to a halt. Installing that button, that mechanism in your mind that rolls along behind the senses is the purpose of sadhana [spiritual effort]; install and operate it.
The knowledge that you are the architect of your fortune and that you can, by steady effort, rebuild it or foster it, that you are ever lying on or pulling down the structure of your career, will be a great inspiration, provided you welcome it.
Everything happens for a reason
It was the first night of exile in the thick jungle for Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita (from the epic Ramayana). Guha (the chieftain of the fisherman), who had rowed them across the River Ganges, was engaged in subdued conversation with Lakshmana while Rama and Sita were sleeping on the riverbed! Guha was sunk in sorrow that the inheritor of the empire should be cast on the sands under the sky; he cursed Queen Kaikeyi (Rama’s stepmother) and her wicked accomplices for contriving this heart‑breaking tragedy.
But Lakshmana prayed that he halt his tirade and said, “I too emitted fiery fury at the perpetrators of this tragedy. For, I did not then know the inner purpose of this chapter of Rama’s history. He has come in this human form to destroy the evil brood of demons, and so, He has himself contrived this exile, to be free from imperial responsibilities until that aim is accomplished. What do we know, dear Guha, of the mysteries of God or even of man who is but God in human attire? Or of any living being or non‑living matter, for they are all the inscrutable divine, appearing to our limited senses in the way they do. How can we ever know what their real nature is with inefficient instruments of knowledge?”
Nothing ever happens without proper reason, however accidental or mysterious it might appear. The roots go deep and are out of sight. I was telling [John] Hislop, [an American devotee], the same thing at Dharmakshetra (Baba’s residence) in Bombay, (India). The bridge toward [Sri] Lanka was being built over the straits so that Rama and His army could march across to the realm of the demon King Ravana, where Sita was interned. The valiant monkeys were plucking mountains and leaping vast distances in space with those peaks hoisted on their shoulders, so that they could be thrown into the sea to create a passage for Rama. The monkeys had formed a queue all the way from the Himalayas down to the southernmost point where the bridge was fast coming up. When the causeway was completed, word passed fast along the queue that no more hills were needed, and each monkey placed on the ground, wherever it stood, the hill it had on its shoulder at the time.
Inanimates have emotions too
One hill, however, did not sit quietly. It started bewailing its fate, “Why was I removed from where I was and why am I now refused? Alas! I was elated that I was destined to serve a Divine purpose; I was overjoyed that the armies of Rama, and Rama Himself would walk over me. Now, I am neither there, nor where I was!” It shed profuse tears. News reached Rama, and His compassion was great. He sent word that in His next Avatar, when He will come again upon His mission in human form, He will certainly bless the sorrowing hill. This was the Govardhana Peak that Rama (as the boy Krishna) lifted on His finger and held aloft for full seven days, in order to save the cowherds of Gokul [the place where Lord Krishna grew up] from the deluge of rain that Lord Indra [the Lord of rain] dared inflict upon them.
When I related this story to Hislop, he asked Me whether inanimate things too had emotions and feelings of disappointment and despair. The occasion at Dharmakshetra was: I asked that about a hundred saris be brought so that I could select some for distribution to the women workers at Anantapur [in South India] who were helping to build the Sathya Sai College. I selected 96 and asked them to return [the remaing] four to the shop. I kept the four aside and the 96 were placed in my room. Later, when I passed the table on which the four discarded saris were kept (Hislop was standing by the side of that table), I noticed that the cardboard box that contained the four [saris] was dripping with tears. The saris were weeping that they could not get appreciation from Me and were declared unfit. Yes! They had shed tears. You may ask whether this is ever possible. I answer, “there is nothing in this world that is devoid of a heart and is incapable of feeling joy or grief. Only, you must have the eyes to see, the ears to listen, and the heart to respond.”
Accept bravely whatever happens, fame or shame. This morning, when the Sun rose in the East, the Moon was just setting in the West so that both the orbs could be seen at the time. The Moon represents the mind and the Sun, the intellect. Both must be balanced in a disciplined way; it should not be one or the other, emotion or intelligence, but emotion held back by intelligence. Then, you will not be carried off your feet by gusts of fear or fury, fancy or frivolity. You will accept bravely whatever happens—fame or shame. Welcome every happening with a ‘Yes.’ I always say: Yes, Yes, Yes (S S S), whether it is praise or blame, ill or well.
You are in the see‑saw, in two moods, anger and exultation, pride and self‑condemnation, and alternating between joy and grief. Bhishma, whom one should remember on this Uttarayana day, felt the bed of arrows on which he lay to be as cosy as a bed of roses! He had accepted it of his own choice, and so, he felt no pain. I accepted the inflamed appendix of a devotee as a consequence of the love I bore him; and, so, though everyone, including the doctors said that I must have had excruciating pain, I did not feel it. Bhishma said Yes to all that happened. It was the will of the God within, the God without, and the God without whom nothing can ever happen.
The Sun takes the Northern path, the higher path, from today. So, the children too have to follow the footsteps of the parent. In the North, the Himalayas welcome you into ‘un‑affectedness’ (a‑chala), purity (hima—snow), immaculate‑ness (pure white, untarnished clarity), and coolness (perfect joy). Whenever the mind yearns for and pursues these four gains, it is on the Northern path leading to the Himalayas, the abode of the Gods; it is following the Sun, the splendor of the intelligence.
From this day, you must resolve to take the first step toward the indwelling God. That is the reason why people have hung mango leaves across their doors today, to welcome God into the home. But, your home is your heart, not the brick and mortar pile where your body dwells. Hang the streamer of green leaves across the door‑sill of your heart. Enthrone the Divine there, and adore Him with all sincerity, offering Him your deeds, words, and thoughts.
You celebrate Sankranti with a feast, where you prepare a dish out of green gram, rice, and jaggery [raw sugar]. The gram is Lord Vishnu, the rice is His consort (Sri or plenty and prosperity), and, the jaggery is the principle of Divine love. So, it is not that dish that marks the festival, it is the contemplation of the Divine that has to be established in the wayward mind.
Source: Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 11
