Yearn for the Guru
You must have sincere yearning for the guru and make earnest inquiry to reveal the best path for your spiritual progress. Here is what Swami says:
The guru warns and wakens. He reveals the truth and encourages you to progress towards it. Unless you have the yearning, the questioning heart, the seeking intelligence, you cannot do much. The hungry can be fed; he who has no hunger will discard food as an infliction. The guru is a gardener, who will tend the plant; but the sapling must have sprouted before he can take charge. He does not add anything new to the plant; he only helps it to grow according to its own destiny, quicker perhaps, fuller perhaps but not against its inner nature. He removes poverty by pointing to the treasure that lies buried in the very habitation of man; he advises the method of recovering it, the vigilance needed to use it to the best advantage.
Sadhana, The Inward Path, p. 200
Every one of you is a pilgrim on the road proceeding at your own pace, according to your qualification and the stage reached by its means. The advice that appeals to one of you or applies to one of you might not be appropriate to another who has traveled less distance or reached a more advanced state. When I tell one person to follow one line of sadhana, it is specifically for his benefit; do not take it as prescription for your benefit also, saying, “Swami told him thus; let me also adopt it.” Each has a different make-up, mental, physical and spiritual. The doctor directs one patient to drink curds and prohibits another from drinking it. When a man is obese, a doctor advises certain types of food; when a man is lean, he advises other types. Doctors who treat diseases of the body have to prescribe different remedies.
How much more specific and personal must be the remedies for the complex and varied conditions of mental situations and spiritual yearnings and aspirations. Unless you make earnest inquiry, you cannot discover the remedy applicable to your temperament and its problems….
“Full Circle Or Half Circle,” Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 9
Like the silk-worm that spins from out of itself the cocoon that proves to be its own tomb, man spins from out of his own mind the cage in which he gets trapped. But there is a way of escape, which the guru can teach you, or which the God in you will reveal to you. Take to sadhana which will bring relief. Away with the roles of clown and clout which you have acted all these ages. Take on the role of the hero, not that of a zero! Forget the past. Do not worry about possible errors or disappointments. Decide and do.
“Heroes, Not Zeroes,” Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 3
