Roots into the Deep
Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, in His discourse on Guru Poornima [the day when the guru or teacher is venerated], said that recitation of the Lord’s name, penance, worship, and vows or disciplines all train and subdue the senses. They cleanse the mind so that God can be reflected therein.
God is Premaswarupa [embodiment of love]. God is in every being, so the fruit of every life is full of the sweetness of that prema [love]. Like the bitter skin of the fruit that is sweet casting the cover of ignorance over the precious juice within, so, too, the bitter skin of envy, egoism, hate, malice, greed, lust, and pomp does not allow the sweetness to be patent to all. Every being is entitled to partake of that prema, irrespective of nationality, color, creed, or status in society. When God and God’s prema are activating every atom, who dare say, `Stand out’ to anyone? “Isavasyamidam sarvam”… All this is God, is prema.
The lights that [guru] Vyasa lit to reveal this great reality have become dim; no one is pouring oil into the lamp and all are interested in pursuing false ideals and fleeting pleasures. Vyasa taught dharma [right action] in the Mahabharata [an epic], bhakti [devotion] in the Bhagavata [an epic on Krishna], and shanti [peace] and prema in the 18 Puranas [scriptures]. He taught the knowledge of “knowledge and knower and the known” in the Brahmasutra. He emphasized that harming others is the seed of sin and serving others the seed of merit. That is the lesson of prema, pure and simple. The person who has delved into his depths and discovered his inner reality is the embodiment of shanti.
Prema is the amritarasa (heavenly nectar) that fills the Upanishads [scriptures]. When man realizes the inefficiency of the senses, the mind, and the intellect to grapple with the reality and know the inner core of his truth, then he discovers he is the atma (real self) that is sathya [truth], dharma, shanti, and prema. Or, he realizes that there is God who is the basis of this entire superstructure, who has designed and contrived all this and he surrenders his ego to Him. “Let Your will prevail,” he proclaims and resigns himself fully to God’s plan. That moment is a supreme moment of joy, ananda.
Troubles, miseries, handicaps, griefs, and pains that were hitherto causes of distress suddenly take on a new and magnificent rol—they are His handiwork, His gifts, His grace. They are no longer unwelcome; they are as welcome as the successes, the pleasures, and the happinesses are. Both are His will. When you go to a new place, you seek out a friend and hand over to him all the money you have for safe keeping. If you start suspecting him later, you will have no peace. Have faith in him; you are free and you have no worry. So, too, give all your earnings to God; have faith in Him and be unconcerned forever. “Sarva dharmaan parithyajya” (giving up all your earnings through various codes and regulations), “maam ekam saranam vraja” (give everything to Me and have full faith in Me.)
If the matchstick is soaked in water, how can it ignite when struck? If the mind is soaked in vishaya [worldly objects], how can it be ignited into spiritual endeavor? The prema with which you are endowed must be directed toward God; then only can it expand, grow, deepen, and fertilize all your actions, benefit all those around you. If it is confined to the world by the sands of envy, greed, and malice it will be sucked up. Without that expansive prema that is divine, man is worse than a pashu [cow], he is a danava [beast]. The pashu or cow yields milk when its dead calf is stuffed and taken near its udder. That is the measure of its vatsalya [maternal love]!
The light of prema is absent in the heart, and so bats and nocturnal birds infest it and foul it. The bats are the evil qualities of hate, malice, and greed. The Mahabharata epic that Vyasa collected and composed teaches quite emphatically and clearly the evanescence of wealth, authority, power, physical prowess, and all that is considered desirable by man on earth. What did Duryodhana and Karna lack? Still, they fell and were eaten by dogs and jackals on the battlefield on which they had staked their all.
It is to develop this prema and use it for liberation that the four ideals have been placed before man—ideals that he is to strive for consistently, each one being sublimated and subordinated to the next—dharma, artha [wealth], kama [desire], and moksha [liberation]. Artha or material happiness to be won by dharma; moksha to be held as the only desirable kama or goal. These ideals are being repeated ad nauseum now, but no attempt is made to act. That is why human life everywhere has degenerated into a farce, a tragedy. It is like a wheel without a hub, milk without butter, ineffective and wasted.
Prema, too, is of three kinds, depending on the guna [quality] that predominates in the individual. Tamasic [dull, slothful] prema confines itself to “me” and “mine”; it does not flow beyond that little circle. The rajasic [passionate] prema flows only toward those in power, or who have wealth, or to those who will give it a spectacular effect. Satwic [pure] prema, on the other hand, always flows toward the good, the pure, the detached, toward awe and wonder, toward God. Pundalika was tending his parents when God appeared before him as Narayana. He was revering the God in them. So, he asked Narayana to wait a little. Pundalika threw a brick toward God to serve as a footstool on which He could stand, until he was ready to worship Him. If you do not revere the parents, how can you draw from your heart enough reverence to worship the Father who dwells in heaven.
Prema is the spring that feeds the roots of all the virtues. You must have seen paddy fields where the crop is drying, though the ground is wet and there is a thin sheet of water still under the plants. You must have seen also big trees, standing upon hard dry ground, but decked with a rich crown of green foliage. Have you paused to find out the reason for this contrast? The roots of the paddy plant do not go deep, whereas the roots of the trees go down unto the very springs of underground water that are perennial.
So, too, when each of your acts, the words that you utter, the thoughts that shape your desires and emotions, when all these draw sustenance from the roots that go deep into the inner springs of love, then you will be happy and fresh, you can give shelter and shade to many a weary mortal. Japam [recitation of the Lord’s name], tapas [penance], puja [worship], and vratams [vows or disciplines], all train and subdue the senses. They cleanse the mind so that God can be reflected therein. Just as the sugar that your eyes can see and your hands can put into water becomes so dissolved in it that neither eye nor hands can cognize it again, the senses and intelligence cannot cognize the immanent God. Chitta-shuddhi [cleansing the mind] alone can recognize God, just as the tongue alone can recognize the sugar that has dissolved in the water.
The gopikas [milkmaids] had that chitta-shuddhi, though inferior minds full of gross desires have fouled the clear springs of their prema with their ignorant comments. Narada, too, thought that the illiterate milkmaids could not have the highest form of devotion; but when he offered to teach them, he found them so immersed in God-consciousness that they had no sense of time or space or causation. They had no thought other than those of Krishna, no words unrelated to His glory, no act unconnected with His seva [service]. They had surrendered their all to the Lord who ruled them from within themselves.
It has become a fashion for the educated to ask, “Where is God?” “What is His task?” and not wait for answers. They can well believe that there must be someone who launches and regulates the highly complicated rockets that move around the earth and other artificial things in space, but they cannot believe that there must be some intelligence behind all this manifold galaxy of stars and planets revolving for eons and along millions of light years of space.
Believe in that supreme paramatma [supreme being] and engage yourselves in the practice of living. You will then find that you can manage to detach yourselves from the world, though you are in it. You will be like the lotus that grows in water but that floats on it and does not allow the water to wet it, like the tongue that is unaffected by grease though it may eat ghee [clarified butter] and oily articles. The chitta [mind] should not be contaminated by contact with the sensory objects, that is the means of sadhana [spiritual discipline].
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, Aug. 1967
