Your Image in His Eye
In 1973 Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba visited a remand home in Hyderabad in South India. He spoke to the inmates and advised them to not be disheartened and to follow the path that He showed.
Man prides himself in knowing everything, but when asked about himself he hangs his head in shame. Man knows the news of every land but he is ignorant of the nuisance that he is to himself and others. He is moving in darkness, but yearning for ananda (bliss). He does not know the means of securing ananda: prayer, seva (selfless service), study of spiritual texts, meditation, and silence. He has no faith that he is ananda and that ananda is his own nature. He is blown away by calamity for he has no strength to withstand the blow. Faith in the God within is the toughest shield against the thrusts of fate. Nests laboriously built by birds are torn away by storms; the fragrant petals of flowers are felled by rain. Defeat and victory are two sides of the same coin; when you welcome one, you must welcome the other, too. Forbearance, compassion, and incorruptible virtue are the three pillars of a happy life. Only such a life can be called civilized; the rest is a barbarian existence.
This meeting began with a prayer. Good. But one should not pray for some benefit or gain for it means that God waits until He is asked! Surrender to Him; He will deal with you as He feels best and as it would be best for you. God does not dole out grace in proportion to the praise He receives! When you pray for a thing from God, you run the risk of condemning Him if, for some reason, the prayer is not answered the way you wanted it to be, or as quickly as you wanted it to be. This contingency arises because you feel that God is an outsider, staying in some heaven, or holy spot, far away from you. God is in you, God is in every word of yours, every deed and thought. Speak, do, and think as befits Him. Do the duty that He has allotted to the best of your ability, and to the satisfaction of your conscience. That is the most rewarding puja (ritualistic worship).
Inner cleanliness is Godliness
When you stand before another, his image is in your eye, and your image is in his; haven’t you observed this? You are in Me. I am in you, that is the truth this phenomenon proclaims. When you have faith in this, and when you cultivate love, humility, reverence for life, and tolerance, you are on the right path. When you are not on this path, that is to say, when you are traveling left, you are certainly left out, when it is a question of sharing divine grace.
The body is the temple of God, isn’t it? Well, what does the priest do in the temple every day? First, he cleans the utensils and sacred vessels in the shrine. He sweeps the room and washes the altar. The senses are the utensils for the puja of the God within; they have to be cleaned and assiduously kept free from dirt. Inner cleanliness is Godliness. That is possible only through sense-control and mind-control, or what amounts to the same sadhana [spiritial practices]: dedication of all desires and activities to God.
There are various habits that can be learned in order to ensure equanimity. When some one insults you, defames you, or ignores you, accept it with a smile; this is the way of the world it is basically ungrateful and ill-mannered. ‘They are doing me a good turn,’ ‘my strength is under trial,’ ‘I should not yield to anger or resentment,’ tell yourself such invigorating things, and be quiet, with a smile of triumph on your lips.
There was a sanyasin (mendicant) who once was roundly abused by a gang of mischievous young men. He said, “Carry on! Enjoy yourselves! I see that you are very happy at the chance. This is exactly what I desire for you.” When you do not accept the insult someone casts on you, it goes back to the person who indulged in it first; a registered letter that is not accepted returns to the sender. Do not damage your mental peace by receiving the letter and reading the contents. Refuse to receive it. You have a chance of correcting the wrongdoers, too; accept and you join the gang of mischief-makers. So, be warned!
Perform duty as an act of worship
When God is recognized as dwelling within, every person will perform his duty as an act of worship. Children have to revere their parents, that is their duty. Parents have to bring up their children as bright and willing citizens capable of earning their own food and helping others in distress; if they shirk this duty, they have failed in their worship. They should also not spoil them by allowing them too much of freedom and catering to their fancies.
I know many parents who dote on their children and admire them when they learn the bad habits of gambling or drinking! They do not curb them when they swagger about in the bazaars, teasing and bullying those who pass by. They do not instill into the young minds the attitude of reverence toward property belonging to others. As a consequence, their children land themselves in trouble, and then the parents repent and curse themselves for their unpardonable foolishness.
Lean on your own strength and skill
There is also another responsibility that devolves upon the parent. He must live the householder’s life as laid down in the dharma sastras (scriptures on righteousness), so that a picture of a pure happy life may be imprinted on the young mind. If the parent is a drunkard, a gambler, and a cheat, no amount of textbook ethics can cure the son. I like children and the young innocents. I will not allow them to be blamed. The fault lies entirely on the shoulders of the elders, the parents, and the leaders who shape the norms that they imbibe. Dhritarashtra [from epic Mahabharata], the blind father, encouraged his 100 sons in their nefarious plots to bring about the destruction of the five Pandava cousins and thus paved the way for their own total annihilation. He did not teach them by precept and example the lessons of love, sacrifice, and contentment.
Do not lean upon others; lean on your own strength and skill. Live on your own earnings, your own resources. Self-reliance is the best food for growing young men. It is best to live with honor for just a day than with dishonor for many decades; better a short-lived hamsa (swan) than a century-lived crow. The hamsa is adored by all; the crow is detested and chased off. Do not crave for the property of others or for things that can be got by trickery or dishonorable means. Earn by the sweat of your brow, and then you can be proud and happy when you spend it.
Life is a mosaic of pleasure and pain
Then again, I will advise children not to read horror comics, books on crime and sex, and novels of vice and wickedness. Avoid also films, for though they may be advertised as very educative and inspiring, the producers, in their greed for profits, smuggle in low, vulgar, debasing scenes to please raw untrained minds. Don’t allow the virus of vice to infect your brains. If that happens you descend to levels worse than the beasts.
Do not imagine that it will be possible for you to live happily, without any anxiety or bother. Do not build castles in the air and hope to live in them. Life is a mosaic of pleasure and pain; grief is an interval between two moments of joy: peace is the interlude between two wars. You have no rose without a thorn; the diligent picker will avoid the pricks and gather the flower. There is no bee without the sting; cleverness consists in gathering the honey nevertheless. Troubles and travails will haunt you, but you must not allow them to deflect you from the path of duty and dedication.
After some years here, when you go backto your villages seek out the Sathya Sai Seva Samiti [service committe] or bhajana mandali [devotional singing group] in the place; join that satsang (good company). Share the ananda (bliss) of the seva (voluntary service) that they do visit patients in hospitals, read nice story books sitting beside of the patients in the beds, write letters for them, and generally be kind and friendly to them in their loneliness and pain. Go to the slum areas, move like lighted lamps full of love and sympathy, and help the people there to get things done that will improve their health, add to their income, and advance their education. When the sugar of divine thoughts is added to the routine tasteless water of daily life, it becomes sherbet, and delightful to drink. So, do so yourself and help others to do so.
Man is the image of God. When you injure His image, when you discard him, or dishonor him, or keep him at arm’s length, how can God confer grace on you? “Mine is mine, yours is ours” if you so declare, God too will keep you beyond the reach of His love. Annie Besant said once that more than man seeking God, it is truer to say that God is ever seeking man, a man who loves and serves His children, and treats them as endearingly as He does.
Look out for chances to serve others
Many are dispirited at their poverty or misfortune. They hang their heads and fold their arms, and they blame God for their plight. It is like the magnet and the piece of iron. The iron weeps that the magnet does not draw it. “I have no legs to walk, no wings to fly, no muscles to crawl or creep! How can I reach the magnet?” it wails. The magnet replies, “You are encrusted with rust, dust, and layers of mud; get rid of them and automatically, without any further ado, you can contact me and be with me for ever.” It is sheer audacity to say, with all the rust and dust on, that God has no power to grant grace; nor is it a sign of intelligence to say that God has no compassion in Him. Examine yourselves; purify the heart and fill it with love toward all men and God will be with you.
God is not somewhere away from you, some one distinct from you. He is in you, before you, behind you, beckoning, guiding, guarding, warning, prompting, the inner voice speaking ever within you. You need not seek Him: He is there ready to respond to the call from the heart. Call on Me and I am always by your side. Prizes were given today only to a few boys; I wish to give prizes to all of you when next I come. So, behave such that the grace is deserved. Look out for chances to serve others, speak soft and sweet, revere your teachers and all elders, study well to the best of your abilities, and do not waste a single moment in idle talk or pastimes. That is the message I leave with you today.
The world is a huge house of correction
Dear children, embodiments of purity and holiness, I am glad I am able to meet you again and spend some time with you. Bhagavantham [the previous speaker] said that this day is My birthday according to the Hindu Calendar, being the Monday of the [Hindu] month Kartik. Celebrations at Puttaparthi and elsewhere are done on the 23rd of November, since that is the date according to the English calendar. But, Bhagavantham said that you must congratulate yourselves on this coincidence.
Four days are said to be days of luck; man must be congratulated if he gets this luck. The first is the day on which brothers and sisters, kith and kin are sitting around and attending a domestic festival showering joy on all. The second is the day on which one gets the chance to feed the hungry, the distressed, and the defectives who cannot earn the wherewithal for livelihood. The third is the occasion when one gets the atmosphere and the opportunity to meditate on God. The fourth is the day on which a great person comes to us and instructs and inspires us toward the higher life of the spirit. They feed the mind with ananda (divine bliss) and teach us to overcome the obstacles toward God-realization. You have today the great good fortune of being in the Divine presence, a gift that is the most precious man can acquire.
Chance circumstances have brought you into this remand home but do not get disheartened. The others who consider themselves free are also in jail, for the world is a huge house of correction. When a prisoner is transferred from one place of confinement to another, say, from Rajamundry to Warangal [in southern India], he will have a police constable on each side of him, won’t he? Whenever he moves about, these two will be with him. When he can journey without these two, all alone, then he is free. All men have two constables ever with them; they are the symbols of his sentence of imprisonment. They are abhiman and mamakara egoistic feeling and pride of possession.
You can be free from worries and fears
Man is a prisoner of his senses so long as these two keep him under guard. Man strays away into misery and pain because he loses his sense of value, and he runs after the temporary and the trivial. He ignores the voice of God that warns and guides from within, and pays the penalty for the transgression.
Life is to be dedicated not for mere food and drink, or mere catering to the cravings of the senses. It has to be devoted to the attainment of the ananda that God alone can confer. Of course, worries and fears there always will be along the road that you take from birth to death. But you can be free from both, provided you have as the ‘giver of light’ the name, ‘Sai Ram.’ At least from now on recite the name and, dear children, you will have joy and peace. Never care for the obstacles that may come your way; the name will clear the path.
The gopis (milk maidens) of Brindavan were chastised and punished by their parents, parents-in-law, and even husbands for taking the name of Krishna. But, they had the name printed on their hearts, just like the pictures in the books you read. They could not remove the name, just as you would find it impossible to remove the picture from the paper! When you have the name in your heart and on your tongue, you will never go astray, your hands will be clean, your eyes will be bright, and your face will beam with courage and self-confidence.
Man has been endowed with jnana (spiritual knowledge), the capacity to distinguish what is good and bad for himself, for the family into which he is born and to which he is indebted for bringing him up to adulthood when he was a helpless dependent stripling, for the village where he first saw light, for the country that gave him the rich heritage of culture, and for humanity of whom he is a valuable, significant member.
God will never desert His obligation
Every culture has a body of customs and conventions laid down by the sages to maintain peace and prosperity in the community. They are tested in the crucible of experience, and they are often grouped under the word dharma (duties). Or they are known as neeti (ethics). To go against them is to break the rule that binds man to man and man to God. When you have not grown enough and understood how hard it is to work and earn its fruits, it strikes you as easy to take someone else’s book or pencil or money and derive satisfaction thereby. This tendency leads you to trouble and to this place. Resist that temptation; be bold; tell yourselves that it is wrong; it will disgrace your parents, the reputation of your family, of your village, of your country and its ancient culture.
If you feel you must have something to be happy, pray to God; “God! You have the responsibility to keep me healthy, happy, good, and intelligent; give me this thing, which I believe is necessary for my happiness; but if you think I am wrong, give me whatever you think is best.” God will never desert His obligation; He will feed you and foster you.
Once a sanyasin (ascetic) was proceeding to the forest to practice austerities to win the grace of God. He saw a cow being led by a villager; drops of milk were shedding from its udder! He asked the villager, why? The reply was, “She is about to calve; this is the indication; the milk is already flowing so that the calf may have its milk as soon as it is born.” The sanyasin then realized that God will give him, too, wherever he was, the thing most needed for his progress; He knows best, He is all-knowing, He is compassion itself, he felt; so, he turned back and contented himself with prayers and the constant contemplation of God as providence.
Food got by foul means will injure you
Have patience; do not in your hurry to enjoy cheap joys fall into error and unrighteous deeds. Have faith that God will add unto you all joys that you desire and deserve. People ask men for favors; they extend their hands toward others and plead dehi (give). But dehi also means, “He who dwells in the deha (body), that is to say, God!” So don’t humiliate that Dehi by calling out dehi before others. Ask Him; say dehi to the Dehi; He will respond generously and graciously.
Food got by foul means and clothing procured through falsehood, these will only injure you. Do not think that ease and comfort are the main things in life. Disappointment, disease, distress are the lot of all, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, young and old. They are the common lot of all. Let not your pure, immaculate hearts be rendered dirty by falsehood and wrong. Do not soil your tongue using it for uttering dirty words.
Utter the name of God; it acts like a spark that can burn into ash a big hill of cotton! All evil thoughts and wicked plans and plots will disappear like fog before the sun when the name of God is remembered sincerely. As soon as you are back in your villages, join the nearest seva samiti and share in their seva sadhana (effort of service) and spend your days in satsang , so that you become good and useful sons of the land.
God is the refuge of the forlorn. This day, some devotees came to Me and impressed Me to spend some time with them. But it is your call that I answered. I have spent more than an hour and half with you, but I am not satisfied. I am sorry a good deal of time that could well have been spent with you was spent in reaching this place. You are fortunate to keep Me so long with you. Remember the directions given to you, and start the sadhana of namasmarana (spiritual discipline of remembering God’s name) this very moment.
Source: Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 12
