Undernourishment and the Cure

We hear many people lamenting the state of affairs and talking of the spread of injustice and falsehood, of cruelty and hatred in the world and in this country. This is like shouting for a drug after the illness has set in; prevention is more beneficial than cure. Sometimes, the cure is rendered more difficult on account of the complications due to long neglect.

The present decline in morality is due to the decreasing faith in the Vedas, Shastras, and Upanishads in our country. Some people are in the habit of condemning all those who do not believe in the Vedic dharma as atheists; but there are no atheists at all among men. An atheist, when he declares, “There is no God,” is first affirming. “There is,” and then, denying something that he has affirmed. Though he may deny God, he does not deny love, reverence, wonder, or awe; these are all expressions of theistic faith. The `atheists,’ too, yearn for a goal; they remember a place from where they came, though like all others they are unable to locate it. They know they are proceeding to a place where they get full happiness; they pine for it; they dream about it; they have their plans for reaching it. They have like all others the hunger, the pain, and the discontent.

Just as the doctor diagnoses the origin of the pain, the aspirant goes to a guru who is an expert in the different forms of mental yearning for the goal. Every one feels the urge to see and know unity where there is multiplicity. This knowledge is contained in the Brahmasutra, which like a string penetrates all the different beads of the same rosary.

Different approaches to God

All the thousands of individuals here before Me are the thousand flowers strung on that one thread, Brahman [the Absolute]. In Brahman, you all find unity, the unity you have missed because you were engrossed in your own separateness. That is the truth; all else is delusion. You have let this unity go unnoticed because the men who know it are neglected, their declarations are dismissed as depraved! There is no dearth of sustaining spiritual food in our country, yet we have this pitiable spectacle of people starving in the midst of plenty.

The ills of the country are due to under-nourishment, not so much under‑nourishment of the body, but undernourishment of the spirit, want of spiritual exercise, neglect of spiritual regimen. Allowing the malady the fullest scope, people are engaged in reciting the names of the drugs in the pharmacopoeia! They do not make any attempt to consume the drug. The means of conveying into every home and village the life‑giving waters of the spirit have all dried up or are choked up. That is the reason why undernourishment, with all its attendant symptoms of debility, nervous disorder, and mania is so rampant today.

`Mattam’ is a matter of mathi—religion is a matter of the intelligence. Unless you are able to equalize intelligence, you cannot equalize religions. There are different approaches to God for different mattis [intelligence], suited to the likes and dislikes of individual temperaments. Some are work-minded; some are contemplative; some are exterior‑oriented; some are prone to examine the inner consciousness more than the external.

There are disciplines suited for each of them in the Sanathana (ancient) scriptures: bhakti [devotion], jnana [knowledge], karma [action], upasana [worship], yoga, etc. The milk in which butter is immanent and implicit in every particle, in every molecule, is the One. The curd into which it is broken by fermentation has the butter separate, but yet as part; that is the One, with the second, as an integral part of it, visishta‑adwaita (qualified non‑dualism). The churning separates the butter clearly and it is rolled into a ball, it is kept floating in the liquid from which it has been taken. The two have become clearly distinguishable; they are spoken of as two, dwaita (dualism). These are but three names for three stages of the same substance.

Strengthen the hands of pundits

The One is the reality. It is not to be found exclusively in one place only, however hoary the place. Neither Arunachalam, nor Tirupathi nor Kedaram can claim to be the place where it is to be found. Its address is given in the 61st shloka [verse] of the 18th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita: “in the heart of all.”

Pundits who are well-versed in the sacred scriptures of this land are the real leaders of the people, for they can show the path of self‑realization, which is the highest duty of man. They must, as the sages and scholars of old used to do, counsel the rulers and guide them to the path of dharma [righteousness]. But now the rulers keep them afar, while the people shower ridicule on them! If they now cater to the low demands of the rulers, they will degrade the ideals that they must cherish and promote. It requires a great deal of integrity and courage for them to escape the temptations of the situation and stand firm on the principles laid down for them in the Shastras. Hence, there is not much hope of the pundits being used by the rulers. There is every chance of the pundits themselves losing their grip over fundamentals if they approach the rulers for patronage. So, the people themselves have to take up the task of strengthening the hands of the pundits and of deriving the utmost benefit out of these repositories of ancient learning.

Strongest foundation is faith

The pundits themselves are a divided lot; they have lost the capacity for united effort. I am speaking so plainly here, for this Kona Sima is the nursery of many learned pundits. My task is to bring together the pundits and make them aware of their noble heritage and their still nobler duty to develop contact with the rulers who will benefit by the impartial wisdom of the Shastras, the Upanishads, and the Vedas, seen and recorded by masters of detachment and thus establish peace and harmony in the world. I will certainly succeed, but, you have to be patient for some time.

The mansion called life must be built on strong foundations; the pursuit of artha and kama—of wealth and welfare, of all desirable objects—must be regulated by the standard of dharma. Dharma fosters those who foster it—”Dharmo rakshati rakshitah.” The strongest foundation is ever‑present faith in the Almighty. Some may ask, “If He is Almighty, why then is he not patent?” Well He reveals Himself only to the person who yearns for the answer, not the one who puts questions out of impudence or ignorance.

He will be patent only in the transparent heart, the heart that is not clouded by egoism or objective attachment. The string of the rosary is patent only in the sphatika or the crystal beads, not in the coral or rudraaksha beads. Though the string runs also through the latter, it can be seen only by splitting those beads; that is the meaning of the story of Hiranyakasipu who split the pillar. When he did that, he could see for himself the Lord who is the core of every object and being.

Coconut‑breaking destroys ego

Try to break a coconut as it comes from the tree; the shell is covered compactly by a coat of fiber. You cannot break the nut even by hitting with a crow‑bar. Take off the fibrous armor; breaking it is very easy. When you take a coconut to be offered in the temple, you take it after removing the fiber; then you offer it to God by breaking it into two halves. This symbolizes the destroying of the ego and surrendering to the Lord. So you have to remove the fiber of desire for sense‑objects and then go before the Lord devoid of kama and krodha (desire and anger). There you declare that you are ego‑less by breaking the coconut into two. You will be accepted then, not before.

This conquest of the ego is a very hard task; years of persistent effort are needed to succeed in this endeavor. For getting a degree you struggle in the university for a number of years, pouring over books night and day. How much more difficult is this examination, success which guarantees lasting happiness and escape from the weary circle of birth and death. Some people’s minds and senses are like cotton balls and a spark of jnana will set them ablaze and they achieve victory! While others have them like dried faggots; they take a longer time, but victory is certain. Most have mind and senses like green fuel and even the raging fire of jnana may be put out by the onslaught of the moisture contained in them.

Make your mind and senses like clean finely ginned cotton. How can you do this? By being in contact with scholars and those who have experience in spiritual practice like these pundits here. Listen to them; revolve their teachings in the depths of your memory; practice what they advise; yield gladly to their guidance. Start now. Scholarship starts with the alphabet, learn A and B, C, and D and go on until the end. The margosa fruit may taste bitter at first, but there are many who enjoy eating it, for steady practice makes it sweet to the tongue, especially when you are convinced that it are good for curing illness.

Success or failure is of your making 

For example, when you sing namavalis (songs containing Lord’s names), try to roll on your tongue the sweetness of the meaning also. On the basis of the material you can ascend to the spiritual, however, you must know that it is possible and develop the faith that removes all hesitation. When you sing of Radha, as you did just now, “Radha Madhava Nanda lala!” do not imagine that Radha is a woman and Krishna a man. You can become Radha, now, here, if only you know what Radha represents.

She is the basis (aadhara) that is worshipped (aaradh) as overflowing stream (dhara); she is the very basis of the world, which is another name for God Himself. Have it as a dhara (flowing from your tongue), the name of the Lord; avoid all lesser talk. On the Ocean of Milk (the Ksheerasagara) of the pure mind, plant the peak of Mandara, steady faith, in the unity of creation. Take the serpent, grace of the Lord (Ishwaranugraham), and use it as a rope to churn the ocean; churn it through meditation and spiritual discipline (dhyana and sadhana); then you are able to acquire the nectar—the essence of Veda, of spiritual knowledge, of spiritual experience.

The Lord is impartial; you punish yourself, you reward yourself. A young student who was nervous about the English language examination went to a temple and prayed to God for making the questions easy for him. He promised in exchange a thanks-giving feast. It happened so, and he could answer all the questions to his entire satisfaction in half the time allotted for the purpose. He did not give in the answer sheets immediately; he called for extra sheets and wrote down a list of articles he must purchase for offering the thanks-giving feast to God: jaggery [raw sugar], rice, cardamom, ghee, etc. He had many more minutes at his disposal; he noted down the cost and finding it beyond him, he revised the list and found many items that he could score off.

While busy with this flippant assignment, the bell rang and the supervisor ran up to him to collect the answer sheets. In the hurry of the moment, he handed over the sheets whereon he had written the list of articles and through sheer miserliness scored out most of the items! So the young man failed; it was all his doing. God is impartial; He is like the thermometer that cannot misinterpret, exaggerate, or falsify. Success or failure is your own making; you decide your destiny; the Lord has no share in deciding it.

Appetite for spiritual truth

It is already very late; you have to go to your places. There are many old people, women, and children among you. I can understand the trouble you have undergone out of your love for Me, coming long distances, walking or journeying by boat or bullock cart, denying yourselves food, sleep, and rest, struggling even for drinking water and a little shade under a tree. Seeing this vast ocean of humanity, one gets assured of the value, the continuing value of the heritage of Bharatvarsh [India]. You have moved enmasse from your villages like ants from ant‑hills. Why? It is because you have the hunger for God and the appetite for spiritual truth.

I must tell you one thing now, for this has grown into quite a sensation, especially in East Godavari, around Amalapuram! I am not blaming any one or laughing at anyone; but the truth must be made public. There are quite a few who declare that I am coming “upon them”, possessing them rather, and they sway, shake, and shiver and say all kinds of things, claiming that I am speaking through them or that they are under My influence. They answer questions and `foretell’ things and perform many tricks to collect money or things from people who do not know Me and My reality.

All this is sheer deceit; it is a disease that is spreading. Do not encourage it; nip it whenever you see cases of people suffering from it. Such people have agents and brokers; scotch them first and their puppets will disappear. They wear the dress of holiness, but their greed announces them as vile. People say `Baba appeared to me in a dream and commanded me to do this and that, to you, to collect so much from you’ etc, etc. Do not give heed to such cheats; punish them in the way they deserve. That is the advice I have to give you.

Source: Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 5