Cultivate Mental Calm and Courage
Today we bid farewell to the year gone by and welcome the new year. We pray that the new spring should confer on all beings longevity, health, and goodness. Pleasant experiences and unpleasant memories of the previous year that linger in the mind contain many good lessons. When one reviews the past year within oneself, one can realize how much time was spent selfishly and how much in service. It is not good to keep quiet when there are people around in the society facing hardships. If need be, you should give up japa (repeating God’s name) and sadhana (spiritual practices) and uplift such people through service and sacrifice. You should feel that Jana Seva is Janaardhana Seva(service to people is service to God). Those who seek the joy of liberation should burn selfishness in the fire of jnana (spiritual wisdom).
Divine Discourse, Mar 28, 1979
Grief and joy, pain and pleasure alternate like the dark and bright fortnight by God’s decree to foster equanimity and to lead man toward reality beyond both. If you do not attempt to transform yourself but resort to blaming God for your sorrows, it is incorrect! You blame… God because you announce yourself as a devotee too soon and expect plentiful grace. Grace cannot be claimed as such; first God must accept you! Use your talent of discrimination to sift the trash and discard it in preference to the valuable. Engage in selfless service; flee from bad persons, and win the friendship of the good and noble, who will cleanse you and heal you. Man is consumed by time; God is the master of time. So take refuge in God. Let God be your Guru [teacher], your path, your Lord.
Divine Discourse, July 2, 1985
Today you are like a mouse caught inside a Mridanga (Indian percussion instrument). When the player beats on the right, the mouse runs to the left–if the left is beaten, it runs in terror to the right. So, too, you are running between God and the world, reluctant to stick to God and at the same time retreating from the denials and disappointments of worldly activity temporarily. Namasmarana (remembrance of the Lord’s name) will make you stick to God persistently. A lost child regains joy only when it finds its mother–so, too, you will attain joy only when you find God within you and merge in Him. The ocean drop that rose as vapor joins the congregation called cloud, falls on earth, flows along the ravines, and at last reaches the ocean. Reach, likewise, the ocean you have lost.
Divine Discourse, Oct 17, 1966
A hermit once met the Goddess of Cholera on the road returning from a village where she had thinned the population. He asked her how many she had taken into her lap. She replied, “Only ten.” But truly speaking, the casualties were a hundred. She explained, “I killed only ten; the rest died out of fear!” Man is atmaswarupa (self-embodied), that is, abhayaswarupa (fearlessness embodied). If only you know your real nature, you will give no room for weakness or cowardice. This is the main aim of culture–to cultivate mental calm and courage; to make everyone feel kinship with everyone else. You are born with the cry ‘koham‘ (who am I?), on your lips; when you depart, you must have the declaration ‘Soham‘ (I am He), on your smiling face.
Divine Discourse, Feb 17, 1964
