Which is the Real? … This or That?

Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba in this discourse speaks about the reality of man that is Brahmam, that resides in one and all whether living or non-living.

The beacon of the spirit is the lighthouse for the storm-tossed ships carrying humanity across the furious waves of the ocean of life. Instead of earning that light and saving himself from wreck, man is getting lost in travails, torrents of trouble, worry and agony, and vain voyages in search of attaining the absent treasure. Unless that light is ever present with man, unless efforts are made to have it shining clear in the heart, all the activities of life are shrouded in the darkness of ignorance. Man is wasting the great chance he has been awarded.

One wonders whether he has to appreciate or discard the charms of nature and the external world, whether to laugh or weep at their illusory attractions. Man prides himself on his capacity to know everything, but he has failed to know this truth about nature. Blind to the real characteristics of this world, man has become a pendulum between birth and death.

Of course, each person desires and devotes all his energies for securing shanti [peace] and santosha [contentment]. But they elude his grasp. He spins like a top, he is immersed in incessant effort; but what does he win? Nothing. For, what has to be sought first is spiritual progress. Through that alone can peace, joy, and happiness be won. Attached to the imperfect instrument called reason, man fails to earn these ends. He forgets the special mission of man, the mission for which he has been specially endowed, and rotates in fruitless adventure. Devoid of the principle of Godhead, no activity can be worthwhile.”

Brahmam, the Universal Absolute, is all this; it is the source, the substance, the sense. It is as cotton in the cloth, mud in the pot, wood in the chair, the basic substance. One must be established in the awareness of this fundamental unity, not simply be carried away by the apparent multiplicity of name and form. The multiplicity is unreal. It is temporary and evanescent. Is man a bundle of senses? Is He just the physical frame? Is He the mind? Or is He the consciousness, with all its levels? Where did all these come from? Where are they going? How far can one decide the shape of one’s journey? These are the questions to seek answers for. Now you run about asking everyone you meet, “Who are you?” But you seldom stop to ask yourself, “Who am I?” You are drawn by the news of the world, not by news of your own inner world. Of what avail is it if all the knowledge about yourself is absent?

The truth is: man has emanated from the atmatattwa [principle of the self], the Brahmam; and he has to rejoin It. As the waters of the sea evaporate and form clouds, to fall as rain and flow as streams and rivers, to rejoin the sea, so man, too, must reach the source after all this peregrination! Now, man is unaware of the “‘From address” and of the “To address”! He knows only the address of where he is. One can know the two addresses only by contact with the good and the godly. Attach yourself to the good and earn detachment; detachment will liberate you from illusions; that will make you steady in your faith in the principle and that faith will liberate you. So, certain disciplines have to be followed to realize the truth about oneself.

This is emphasized in Sanathana Dharma (the ancient wisdom). But due to political and cultural forces, Sanathana Dharma itself is being neglected. The goal of life should be to earn atmic faith. That alone confers great joy; that alone is true religion. People glibly say that religion, too, is a convention of man, fashioned for the moment. No, religion is much more useful than that, much more established. It is rooted in intelligence, individual discrimination. It insists on unity of all this in one basic principle, Brahmam. It does not advocate or preach difference and manifoldness.

Godhead is described in the Vedas [scriptures] as Sahsra Seersha, thousand-headed. It does not mean that God has a thousand heads. There are thousands present here before Me; the heads are thousands in number but the heartbeat is the same in all. So, too, God is activizing all the heads, as the same electric current activizes the fan, the stove, the bulb, the mike, the machine, the tube light, etc. The instrument is different, but the power is the same. The individual is different but the indwelling force is the same.

The question may arise, why then is all this distinction, this superiority and inferiority, activated by the same Brahman? That is a question dealing with the outer, the exterior aspects of man. In the basic substance, there is no high or low; the difference is caused by difference of the instrument, upadhi—the container. The current is the same, but the wattage of the bulb differs and causes the difference in light.

People say that the body is real, that it is permanent, that the senses give correct information, and that the emotions are real. The mind has to be fixed on any object so that it can be seen or heard or become the target for any sense. The eye for example is the bulb in the torch (body); the switch is concentration; if the mind does not concentrate, the eye cannot see. No object has any particular taste; the malarial tongue feels all sweet things bitter. The ajnana [consciousness that lacks perception of reality] afflicted mind will feel objects to be pleasurable and permanent. The ajnana has to be overcome by means of spiritual discipline. Sanathana Dharma teaches us the method; but we have started ridiculing our own culture and extolling other systems and faiths.

Really speaking, there is no other system or faith. All religions and all faiths are but phases or facets of the same universal faith and discipline. It is like the seven blind men who examined the elephant and described it to others. The man who held the tail in his hand saw it as a snake; the man who felt the leg said it was a pillar; the man who examined only the ear swore that the elephant was like a winnowing basket. This story has a deep inner meaning. The atma [soul] is one, but each one sees a fraction and judges it differently. It is the integrated sum of each of these facets of reality.

India is the home of many facets of the truth, the lovely garden that has many languages and many philosophies and faiths, all depicting the one Brahmam, in many a brilliant color. This garden was preserved safely by the sea on three sides and the Himalayas on the fourth. If such a safely guarded land is being eaten into, the fault lies only in us. We are invading each other in unarmed campaigns and pointing the finger of scorn at others. We have to desist from the attacks we lead against others, moved by envy, anger, pride, and similar passions. The internal struggles we wage against each other in the name of our own home, village, district, and state have to be stopped with strong will and determination. When we are engaged with so many internal foes like greed, anger, and pride, how can we stand up against others? He who conquers a country can be called a Raja (King); but He who conquers his senses is truly Chakravarti (Emperor).

We must strive for this victory. People boast that they know much, but of what use is all that knowledge if they do not put into practice and win peace and contentment? Fundamentally, the inquiry that makes living worthwhile is, “Wherefrom have I arrived? Whither am I going?” King Janaka used to gather many Rishis [sages] in his palace and take delight in discussing with them about spiritual problems. He was very adept at sadhana [spiritual effort], and he attained the highest stage of samadhi [spiritual state of consciousness] through Raja Yoga [yoga to control the mind and emotions].

One day, while in the midst of the court with the Queen and the maids, even while he was conversing with them he fell asleep. He had a dream during that sleep. He dreamt that he was deprived of his kingdom, that he was roaming half-mad, hungry, and deserted in the jungle, begging for food from whoever he met, that he came upon some men washing dishes and vessels after a feast which they had shared, that he ran toward them seeking crumbs, that they gave him some little quantity of rice scraped from the vessels, that he was about to put it into his mouth when a big bird flew in and swooped it out of his grasp. So he yelled in pain and grief and the Queen heard him and woke him up.

Of course, when he woke up he knew that he was the King. He remembered that a second previously, he was a beggar. Which is real? This or that? He wondered. He questioned within himself, which is real, this or that? To everyone who enquired what the matter was, He put the same question, “Am I a King or a Beggar?” He wanted each one to tell Him which was real. The Queen and others were frightened at this behavior; they sent for ministers and with them came Ashtavakra, the preceptor. He discovered the situation as soon as He saw the King. So, to the question that the King put him, he answered, “Raja! This is unreal; that is unreal; you, who experienced this as well as that, you alone are real.

You, too, have spent this day in various activities and now you are listening to my words and feeling happy. How long is this real? Only until you go home, spread your beds, and sleep. The waking stage is real until the sleeping stage; the sleeping stage is real until the awakening stage. But both are unreal because one cancels the other. So, why take life so seriously, so frantically? All efforts, all talk, and all pleasures end with the graveyard. Every step takes man nearer to that, not farther. Then why revel while living, believing these to be real and lasting?

You must have heard elders say some warning words: ‘Practice two, give up two.’ The two things to be given up are all remembrance of (1) the evil that others do to you and (2) of the good that you do to others. The two to be practiced are (1) belief that death is certain and inevitable and (2) that God exists and yields to prayer and purity. But, usually, men do not forget the evil that others do or the good that is done by them; they forget the fact of death and the fact of the existence of God. If you seek profit in every act, of what use is it? Bank deposits, buildings, degrees, titles, and riches have all to be left behind. As soon as the last breath is drawn, the body becomes a thing of bad omen; it is moved out of the house one has built and loved.

Who, after all, is this I that you love so much? Are you the body? You say, my stomach, my head, my foot; who then are you? You are the breath, the swasm. So long as there is breath, you are shivam [auspicious]; when that leaves, you become shavam, or a corpse. So, treat the world as a two-day fair, treat life as a two-hour play, and treat the body as the two-second bubble. Develop love and devotion to the highest ideal, God.

The path is beset with hardships. They help and do not hinder your forward steps. They serve as the shears that trim a growing bush—no one can escape these ups and downs while on the journey. Fix attention on the goal, which is the means to be happy and peaceful. Whatever the obstacle, God’s grace can transform it into help for you. Educate your mind to view hardships as helps. The mind only binds or liberates. What is the mind ultimately? It is a web of desires and wishes. This handkerchief here is, if you ask Me, only apparently a handkerchief. Really speaking, it is just yarn. Remove the yarn, all the yarns in the warp and woof, and what remains? Why multiply desires and get bound by the mind? Use it for liberation instead.

Devotion implies faith in God. Without that faith, man lowers himself to the level of birds and beasts. He does not live up to the faculties that He is endowed with. A tiny bird that perches on a bough is not scared when the bough sways in the gale. Why? Because the bird relies on its wings and not on the bough. You, on the other hand, rely on the grip you have on the branch of samsara [world] and its ramifications; you do not rely on the atma or the God within who buoys you up. That is the reason why any little shake in the bough frightens you. Have faith in your divinity, in Divinity as such, and nothing can harm you. That is the crucial skill you must develop.

A man was crossing the Ganges [River] in a boat. He asked the boatman if he had a watch. The boatman said, “No.” He said, “Need or no need, whether you know how to consult a watch or not, unless you own a watch a quarter of your life is as good as having gone into the River Ganges.” Some time later, he asked the boatman whether he had a radio receiver, and when he learnt that the boatman did not possess one, he said that another quarter of his life can well be considered sunk in the River Ganges.

“You are not up-to-date at all; everyone worth anything has a barber’s box contrivance called transistor hanging round his neck at the end of a strap.” A few minutes later, he asked [the boatman] whether he read any newspapers, and when the boatman apologized for his illiteracy and his lack of interest in news, the man squarely said that another quarter of his life can be pronounced liquidated in the waters of the River Ganges!

Just then, the overcast sky became dark and furious and forks of lightening threatened a thunderstorm and a heavy downpour of rain; it was now the turn of the boatman to ask a question. He asked, “Do you know swimming?” When the man pleaded that he did not have the skill, the boatman replied, “In that case, your whole life is as good as liquidated.”

Learn the art of swimming across the sea of life, with its waves of success and failure. That is the real skill to acquire.

Source: Sanathana Sarathi, Jan. 1967