Our Duty to the Atma
To get at the core of God at His greatest, one must first get into the core of himself at his least, for no one can know God who has not known himself.
When man is entangled until the moment of death in stilling the clamor of the senses and catering to the needs of this illusory world, how can he thrill with ecstasy of the awareness of his own atmic core? From the monarch in the palace to the beggar in the streets, all are caught up in the game of extracting pleasure from the outer world. The illiterate man and the scholar are equally busy in the pursuit of this mirage. So, what are we to say of the superior capacities of scholarship? Earning money, guarding the earned money, increasing it by the surest and the safest methods, thus the struggle goes on… plus, plus, plus! The bondage to worldly things tightens faster and faster. No one pauses to enquire how deep and how real is the joy that these earnings can give. And what of the “fashions” that he enslaves himself to? They justify these aberrations as social obligation and duty.
But have people no duty toward the atma? Have they no obligation to recognize the atma? Should they not bind themselves fast to the atma that is the reality? It is sheer cowardice to avoid this duty, to ignore this obligation, and to escape from this bondage. Of course, you have to live on the earth and understand it. You have to study the universe and derive joy therefrom. But to believe that it is the be-all and end-all of life is a sign of insanity.
Analyze every object and discover the cheapness and hollowness of each. Then genuine vairagya (detachment) will be planted in your heart. So, utilize the priceless weapon, the perfect mirror, that God has given you, the buddhi (intellect), for the journey to God. Sometimes, the buddhi is enticed by the fake delight that the mind revels in, through the senses. Sadhana (spiritual discipline) has to be used at this moment to turn it away from serfdom to the mind. It must be restored to its status of regulator and controller of the vagaries of the mind.
Sadhana alone can help man to choose the right path and pursue it relentlessly. Every religion in every era and clime emphasizes the One and marks out the path to reach it. They warn us against too much attachment to the world, which is basically poisonous.
Sadhakas (Spiritual aspirants)! Embodiments of love!
Yearn always to be as close to your Divine core as possible. You need not desert your family and run away into loneliness. You have only to keep in mind the comparative triviality of the world. Death stalks every living being, disintegration waits on all created things. From a world so transient, so uncertain and unstable, one has to win the goal of eternal peace and eternal bliss. The eternal atma is associated with the ephemeral body. Discrimination alone can make this plain. Detachment alone can make the road clear.
Source: Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol XIV;
Discrimination and Detachment—Dasara Discourse, Sep 26, 1979
