Sri Sathya Sai International Organization

One who is attached to the body can never experience a formless, incorporeal God. One can recognize the transcendental divine only when one gets rid of the body consciousness. Hence, as long as one is attached to the body, one must adore God physically.

The Divine comes as Avatar to proclaim the pure, unsullied, and unselfish love of devotees toward God. People may consider that the Avatar's activities include punishment of the wicked, protection of the good, weeding out of unrighteousness and restoration of righteousness. This is how they may look at the Avatar's doings. But that is not the way the Lord sees things. There is nothing bad in God's view. Hence there should be no hatred or ill-will toward any being. It is only when you love all, that you can be said to love God.

The concept of total surrender is related to Self-realization (oneness with the divine). God, in fact, dwells in every human being as the Atma (Spirit). The body is the sacred abode of the Atma. Hence, the scriptures declare - "The body is the temple of God in which the individual Spirit dwells as the Ancient One."

With a mountain of desires in their heart, a devotee offers a petty coconut to the Lord! This is not the way to pray to the Lord. This is not devotion. This is not Love. To seek a favor is not prayer at all. Only a selfless person can engage in service to society. Only such a person is entitled to serve God. The first prerequisite is the spirit of sacrifice, which can be developed only through love. A person filled with love is ready to make any sacrifice.

It is essential to please God and win His grace by regarding Him as a friend and not indulging in excessive praise. For this, supreme love is the primary means. This love should be firm and unchanging, unaffected by trials and tribulations and the ups and downs

The supreme primal energy (Shakti) manifests as Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. Durga grants us energy - physical, mental, and spiritual. Lakshmi bestows on us all forms of wealth - not just money but intellectual wealth, the wealth of character, and others. Even health is a kind of wealth. She grants untold riches to us. And Saraswati bestows intelligence, the capacity for intellectual inquiry, and the power of discrimination on us. The festival of nine sacred nights (Navaratri) is celebrated to proclaim the power of the goddesses to the world. One's mother is the combination of all these divine beings. She provides us with energy, wealth, and intelligence. She constantly desires our advancement in life. So, she represents all the three goddesses we worship during the Navaratri festival.

Love should be free from feelings of expectation of any return or reward. Love which arises out of a desire for something in return is not true love. Utterly selfless and motiveless love should be developed. This is the duty of mankind. You should not pray to God seeking favors. No one can know what immensely precious and magnificent treasures lie in the treasure-house of divine grace.

Today, the food we eat, the water we drink, and even the air we breathe are all polluted. Hence, this widespread pollution has to be controlled, at least to a certain extent, by undertaking sacred activities. That is why the nine forms of devotion have been prescribed as sadhana (spiritual exercises): Sravanam (listening), Kirtanam (singing), Vishnusmaranam (contemplating on Vishnu), Padasevanam (serving His Lotus Feet), vandanam (salutation), Archanam (worship), Dasyam (servitude), Sneham (friendship), and Atmanivedanam (self-surrender). One must adopt any one of these sadhanas for pollution control.

You are now sitting in this hall. You do not know what will happen to you when you get up and take two steps. Once you depart from this world, who is related to whom? Who are your friends and relatives? No relationships at all! Hence, the physical body should not be given too much importance. Purify the body by undertaking good deeds. Since people develop many kinds of relationships with the external world, they are afflicted with several impurities. Only when such impurities are cleared to a certain extent will one keep good health.

All attachment arises at one stage - between mother and son, husband and wife, and so on - and drops away at another stage. Divine love (prema) is something completely different. God is eternal - existing before one's birth and continuing after one’s death. The divine is without a beginning or an end. True love means the love of God.

People today should seek the sovereignty of the Kingdom of the Spirit (Atmasamrajyam) within them. This calls for control over the senses and avoiding evil qualities like anger, greed, and jealousy. This spiritual practice (sadhana) must begin from now itself when you are young. Do not put it off for your old age.

What is the source of ignorance (Ajnana)? It is identification with the body, the delusion that you are the body. This can be removed only by the acquisition of the right knowledge. To remove darkness, light is needed. You cannot drive darkness away by prayer, petition, or protest. Unless the light is on, darkness will not disappear; however much you try. So, ignorance will not disappear by merely wishing for its disappearance.

The Upanishads proclaim that release from death can be achieved neither through entanglement in works, nor through one’s progeny, nor through the accumulation of riches. It can be gained only through acts of renunciation, detachment, or sacrifice (thyaga).

More than the knowledge you can get from reading scriptures, you should value the wisdom you can get from experience. By taking the knowledge from the scriptures, you can convert it into wisdom of experience by practicing it in your daily life.