Atman
Life sustained by food is short; life sustained by the Atman (Divine Spirit) is eternal. Do not lay claim to long life but to divine life. Do not pine for more years on earth, but for more virtues in the heart. The Buddha knew and made known to the world the truths: everything is grief; everything is polluted. So the wise man has to do the duties cast upon him with discrimination, diligence, and detachment. Play the role, but keep your identity unaffected by the aimlessly rushing world. But it is your duty, a duty you cannot escape, to fully engage yourself in you work, unconcerned with loss or gain, failure or success, slander or praise. The Gita instills this very lesson in you: “Whoever does upaasana [worship] with no thought other than Me, him I shall have with Me; I shall bear his burden now and forever.” The Gita says, “Keeping Me ever in memory, engage yourself in the battle of Life.”
This “Me” to which Krishna refers is not something outside you or extraneous to you. It is your own divine reality that you can cognize in the silence of your own dhyana (meditation), when you shut out of your awareness the distraction of the senses, the mind, and the ego. You can take refuge in the calm coolness of your heart where He has installed Himself as the charioteer. You must only engage yourself in work that is purifying, with an attitude that sanctifies.
Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 13, P. 100
Through activity man attains purity of consciousness. In fact man has to welcome activity with this end in view. And why strive for a pure consciousness? Imagine a well with polluted and muddy water so that the bottom of the well cannot be seen. Similarly within man’s heart, deep down in his consciousness, we have the Atman. But it can be cognized only when the consciousness is clarified. Your imaginings, your inferences, your judgments and prejudices, your passions, emotions, and egoistic desires, muddy the consciousness and make it opaque. How, then, can you become aware of the Atman that is at the very base? Through seva (service) rendered without any desire to placate one’s ego and with only the well-being of others in view is it possible to cleanse the consciousness and have the Atman revealed.
Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 13, P. 166-167
On the royal road to spiritual realization, there are three stages as mentioned in the scriptures: Karmajijnasa, Dharmajijnasa, and Brahmajijnasa. Jijnasa means deep inquiry. A person becomes fit to inquire into Brahman and succeed in that inquiry only when his consciousness has been trained and shaped by inquiry into the modes of activity and mores of conduct—the karma (action) and the dharma (righteousness)—which clarify and purify. He who discriminates well before engaging in any activity will naturally be righteous in conduct and behavior.
Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 13, P. 172
