The Search for Fulfillment
From the point of view of spiritual progress, persons can be grouped under three heads: pushthi (the full-filled or complete), maryaada (the part-filled or limited), and thepravaaha (empty or heedless).
The first group, the pusthi people, win the grace of God through adherence to good conduct, good work, and good faith. They are loved by God and are thereby blessed with unbroken ananda (bliss). Love is the effect of love only. Love can be earned only by love. The ordinary men do not hanker after the love of God; they yearn after material goods and the satisfaction they can confer. They are prompted by the lower self to cater to the senses. But the pushthi persons have the higher love that is free from selfishness. Their thoughts, aspirations, and deeds are all saturated with love.
The Gopis [milk maidens] prayed to Krishna, “Lord! Play on the flute the song that can plant the seeds of love in the loveless desert of our hearts; shower thereon the rain of love and let the plantings grow and yield the rich harvest of love. The pushthi group of devotees might be undistinguished in appearance but they can be recognized by the spiritual glow of inner bliss. To be blessed by the Lord with divine love, one must have passed through many lives of sadhana (spiritual discipline), the sadhana of love.
The maryaada people have attained limited achievement through spiritual effort, but even that is a noteworthy accomplishment. They have learnt about the glory of God through ardent scriptural studies, and after deep meditation on that glory, they have cultivated lasting love for God. But you may dial the correct number in order to contact another on the telephone, and if the other does not lift the receiver, you have not benefited at all. It is not enough if you calculate the amount of your sadhana, or the hours you spend in study and sadhana. God cares more for the transformation achieved through shravana (listening), manana (revolving in the mind what is heard), and nidhidhyasa (actual experience of the lesson that was heard). He does not count the recitations and adorations you offer as more valuable.
Next, the pravaaha category, the heedless individuals who do not resist the pulls of the senses or of the ways by which they can cross the sea of samsara (worldly life and perpetual change). They fall into the whirlpools of misery. They do not have any knowledge of the Savior. So, they are caught in the wheel of birth and death. The flood is in a state of motion and it does not allow them to get established anywhere. They are born to die and they die only to be born again. But this is not the true destination of human life. How then can man escape from this wheel?
The tree originates from the seed. Desire is the seed from which man appears on earth. If man has no desire and no resolution to satisfy them, then man need not be born to realize the unfulfilled desire. And he need not die. So, man has to minimize desires and give up seeking the fulfillment of desire. Desire is what makes man feeble and fearful. He cannot rise to his full of stature when burdened with desire.
The heart filled with compassion is the temple in which God likes to install Himself…. Purity of the heart has to be the goal of sadhana…. Divinity is his own nature. He is himself God. His Divine nature must express itself in daily living.
In order to elevate oneself to the full filled pushthi category, one must learn self-confidence and self-satisfaction, to be content with one’s self, to derive joy from the atma (Divine Self) that one is.
Source: Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. XIV, “The Search for Fulfilment”
