Shadow of the Absolute

While proceeding along the road, you can watch your shadow falling on mud or dirt, hollow or mound, thorn or sand, and wet or dry patches of land. You are unaffected by the fate of your shadow, is it not? Nor is the shadow made dirty thereby. It does not worry in the least where it falls or what it wades through. We know that the shadow and its experiences are not eternal or true. Similarly, you must get convinced that ‘you’ are but the shadow of the Absolute and you are essentially not this ‘you’ [are] but the absolute itself. That is the remedy for sorrow, travail, and pain.

Of course, it is only at the end of a long and systematic process of spiritual practice that you will get fixed in this truth; until then, you are apt to identify yourself with this body and forget that the body that casts a shadow is itself a shadow. The first step in spiritual practice is the adherence to dharma (righteousness) in every individual and social act. The righteousness that is followed in relation to prakruti (objective world) will automatically lead on to righteousness in the spiritual field also; only you must stick to it through thick and thin.

Radio Sai, Heart to Heart—The Remedy for Sorrow and Pain

Be thankful to the Lord that He gave you time, as well as action to fill it with. He gave you food, as well as hunger to relish it. But that does not entitle you to engage yourself in action indiscriminately. When you build a house, you install a door in the front. What is the purpose of the door? To admit all those whom you welcome and to keep out all others whom you do not want. It has a double purpose; you do not keep the doors wide open, for all and sundry to come in as and when they like.

So, too, select the impulses, the motives, and the incentives that enter your mind; keep out the demeaning, the debasing, and the deleterious. Admit the highest wisdom of the scriptures, the wisdom culled out of the crucible of experience, called anubhavajnanam.

Radio Sai, Heart to Heart—Be Like the Lotus

Give up bad company and join good company. Do good day in and day out. This is the way to sanctify human life. Although numerous opportunities exist for following the correct path, people miss them all and instead waste their time….

Man is made up of the five elements, everyone of which is Divine in origin. They are all intrinsically sacred. If they are polluted today, man alone is responsible for that.

Enquire deeply into the meaning of the five elements, and realize that you yourself are made up of them. Make every possible effort to venerate and revere the elements in a suitable manner. Your breath must always resonate to the chant of God’s name. Always be singing His glory.

Radio Sai, Heart to Heart—Inner Purity Alone can Eliminate External Pollution