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Date31:3/2008 Seva (selfless service) brings out all that is great in man. It
broadens the heart and widens one's vision. It fills one with joy. It promotes
unity. It proclaims the truth of the spirit. It drives out all the evil
qualities in man. It must be regarded as a great spiritual discipline. All
relationships of husband and wife, mother and child, employer and the employee
are based on mutual service. The world is progressing because of such mutual
service. If the principle of service did not operate, the world would come to a
halt. It is only when man is filled with the spirit of service that his divine
nature is recalled. He then experiences the peace the passeth all understanding.
- BABA |
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Date30:3/2008 To be born as a human being is a great fortune. For, man alone can
attain the status of the Divine by recognising the reality of his being. No
beast or bird can reach that height of realisation. But, it is tragic that
instead of valuing the chance and utilising it, man fritters his years away and
dies without attaining the goal. He is disgracing himself and denying his high
destiny. A minute's reflection will reveal to him how far he is from attaining
the stage of self-realisation. But, what a pity, he does not dedicate his life
to the Divine, instead he is caught up in the vain pursuit of comforts and cosy
living.
- BABA |
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Date29:3/2008 One’s body is derived from the flesh and blood of the mother. The
amount of sacrifice involved in giving birth to a child and rearing that child
with continuous care and love is beyond description. The food you eat, the
clothes you wear, the life you lead are all the gifts of your parents. If you do
not honour your parents who are verily the 'creators' in human form, how can you
learn to honour the Creator in Divine Form? One’s primary duty, therefore, is to
please one’s parents – only thus can one’s debt to them be discharged. Nor is
that all, the debt to one’s parents can also be fully discharged by rendering
service to society.
- BABA |
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Date28:3/2008 Seva (service) opens the eyes of man to the comprehensive unity of
creation. The easiest and most fruitful expression of Dharma (righteousness)
today consists in doing service as worship of the Divine around you. Dedicate
all your skills, talents, wealth and scholarship to the living embodiments of
Divinity around you. That is the Dharmashakthi (power of right activity) which
can draw grace upon you.
- BABA |
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Date27:3/2008 Spirit can only be awakened, realized through individual
discipline and the grace of God. These two can be won through love, purity and
service to others. Individual effort and divine grace are interdependent;
without effort, there will be no conferment of grace; without grace, there can
be no taste in the effort. To win that grace, you need only have faith and
virtue. You need not praise Him in order to win His favour. Faith in God is the
best reinforcement for spiritual victory. When you revel in the contemplation of
the splendour of the Lord, nothing material can attract you; all else will seem
inferior; the company of the godly alone will be relished.
- BABA |
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Date26:3/2008 Worry or grief there will always be, of one type or the other, in
the past, present or the future; while waking, dreaming, or sleeping. But place
faith in the Lord and do your tasks in dedication to Him and the dualities of
joy and sorrow will vanish. Grief is caused, as is joy, by the attachment of the
senses to the objects. Once you know that you are not the senses or the mind,
but He who operates the senses and wields the mind, you cross the bounds of
pleasure and pain.
- BABA |
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Date25:3/2008 Each of you must take up some spiritual effort in order to cleanse
the mind of evil qualities. Come out of the well of ego into the sea of the
Universal Spirit, of which you are a part. Contemplate on God and His Glory when
you repeat any one of His Names with every breath. Or, engage in some task where
you dedicate the fruit of Karma (action) to God, where you devote your time and
energy to share your joy or skill or knowledge with your fellowmen. Or, keep
yourself surrounded always by persons devoted to the higher life. By these
means, you can achieve Chitta Shuddhi (cleansing of the mind), so that the Truth
can be clearly reflected therein.
- BABA |
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Date24:3/2008 If you cannot pray for the welfare of the community around you in
whom God lives, how will it be possible for you to worship an invisible God? The
first thing you have to do is strive for the welfare of the community around
you. If the individual is deluded into believing that he is serving others, then
woe be unto him, for there is no 'other' at all. All are One; one man's sorrow
is everyone's sorrow. The fundamental flaw is the ignorance of man. If only he
were wise, he would have known that all individuals are waves on the Ocean of
the Self.
- BABA |
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Date23:3/2008 When a cloth is recognised as a mere arrangement of yarn or
basically as cotton, the warp and the woof disappear from the consciousness. The
mind is composed of the warp and woof of desire; when man is established in the
experience of the One, there is no desire, for who is to desire for whom or
what? Thus, Mano Layam or Mano Naashanam (dissolution or destruction of the
mind) is accomplished. So, man has to reduce his desires to become free from
delusion; desire comes of attachment; deliverance comes from detachment.
- BABA |
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Date22:3/2008 Spiritual health is preserved and promoted by attention to three
Gunas (inherent tendencies): Satwa, Rajas and Tamas. Physical health is
preserved and promoted by attention to three humours of the body; Vaata (wind),
Pitta (bile) and Kapha (phlegm). The three humours must not get vitiated or
unbalanced. A healthy body is the best container for a healthy mind. Illness
makes the mind agitated and anxious. The material and the spiritual are the two
pans of the balance. They have to be attended to, in equal measure, at least
until a certain stage of progress is attained in spiritual development.
- BABA |
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Date21:3/2008 The heart of Jesus was pure and calm. Hence, it is honoured as sacred.
We must also make our hearts sacred so that either we merge in Jesus or
Jesus merges in us. When we merge, it is called Bhakti (devotion); to have
Jesus awakened in us is the path of Jnana (wisdom). Jesus was a messenger
of God; but note this: all of you are also messengers of God. Jesus was
not the only Son of God; you all are His children. Jesus and His Father
are one. You and God are also one, become aware of it.
- BABA |
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Date20:3/2008 The sages of yore knew that the mind is an instrument which can
bind man or release him from bondage. One has to understand its ways, as well as
its potentialities. You must learn how to wield it, rather than yield to it. It
is the mind that weaves the pattern called the 'I'. It constructs notions of
pleasure and pain, of joy and grief, and a whole array of urges and impulses. It
resists all attempts to escape into the Eternal, the Universal, the Absolute. It
protests when the individual is eager to become conscious of his true identity;
but when it finds determined opposition to its tactics, it surrenders and
disappears.
- BABA |
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Date19:3/2008 God will not ask you, when and where you rendered service? He will
ask with what motive you did it. You may boast about the quantity, but God seeks
quality, the quality of the heart, the purity of the mind, the nobility of the
motive. The Lord is pleased only when you do the things He desires. How else can
you win His grace, but by nursing and nourishing His children. You must not
merely have the enthusiasm to serve, but also the intelligence and the skill;
only then can you be efficient and useful. Enthusiasm without efficiency is
often a source of loss and grief.
- BABA |
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Date18:3/2008 You are all the limbs of that One Cosmic Body, the Purusha, who is
far more expansive than the Universe, this Universe being but a small fraction
of His Splendour. Individuals may be deluded into the belief that they are
different from the rest. But the Atma in each is the same. In a garland, the
first to strike your eyes are the flowers, while the thread with which they are
strung has to be inferred; it is not so patent. But, without it, they will all
fall off. So too, without that bond in Brahman (Divinity), you will fall off as
unrelated entities; in fact, you are entities only due to the Divine spark
within!
- BABA |
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Date17:3/2008 True sacrifice consists in sharing with others, one's wealth,
strength, etc. that have been derived from society. Man becomes immortal by the
spirit of sacrifice and not by deeds, progeny or wealth. Man should therefore
make an effort to make his life meaningful by sacrificing personal comforts for
the sake of society and his fellow beings.
- BABA |
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Date16:3/2008 One can claim to be a devotee of the Lord only if the passions and
emotions are pure and the character virtuous. The tongue may utter the Name of
the Lord, the ear may hear the glory of the Lord, the hand may scatter flowers
on the image of God; but the tongue may not know or relish the taste, the ear
may not yearn, the hand may not hanker for God. These can happen only when the
heart is aware of the Supreme, when the mind is thrilled recollecting the glory
of God. Otherwise one is like the spoon which dips into sour and sweet with
equal alacrity and insensitivity. It does not refuse or relish any of the
tastes.
- BABA |
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Date15:3/2008 When you see a plane flying in the sky, would you refuse to
believe that it is flown by a pilot, just because you do not see him from where
you are? You must go into the plane to see the pilot; you cannot deny his
existence, standing on the ground below. You have to guess that the plane must
have a pilot. So too seeing the Universe, you have to guess the existence of
God, not deny Him because you are not able to see him. To see your own eyes, you
need a mirror; to see yourself in your native spiritual grandeur, you need a
Guru (preceptor).
- BABA |
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Date14:3/2008 Devotion is the most precious treasure, it is the truest path, the
only way to God. Man must live immersed in Bhakti (devotion) for the sake of
Bhakti alone. Bhakti is love of the purest and the noblest variety. Such love is
the breath that sustains life, that supports the soul in its effort to merge in
the Super-soul. The years of life spent without light of love are years wasted.
- BABA |
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Date13:3/2008 Cultivate faith and surrender; then Grace will flow through you
into every act of yours; for they are no longer your acts, they are His and you
have no concern about the consequences thereof. All acts and words and thoughts
will thereafter be pure, saturated with love, conducive to peace. Cleanse your
hearts so that the Lord may be reflected therein, in all His Splendour, in all
His myriad forms.
- BABA |
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Date12:3/2008 It is natural that man desires to reach the presence of the
Almighty, to see Him and be ever with Him, for deep within the human heart is
the urge to reach the place from which one has come, to attain the joy one has
lost, the glory which one has missed. Man is himself Divine and so it is a
matter of the deep calling unto the deep, of the part yearning for the whole.
- BABA |
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Date11:3/2008 You are afflicted with the disease which the Bhagavath Geetha can
cure, the disease of Moha (delusion), which warps your sense of values, fogs
your vision and distorts your outlook. But, to benefit from the drug of Geetha,
you must have the Vishaada (anguish) which Arjuna had, the Prapaththi
(dedication) he was capable of, the Vairaagya (detachment) he had developed and
the Ekaagratha (concentration) he evinced to assimilate the Great Message. Have
that keen yearning; then, the Bhagavath Geetha can destroy Moha and liberate
you.
- BABA |
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Date10:3/2008 God is beyond all notions of good and bad, right and wrong. These
are only earthly measures by which the temporary objects are weighed and judged.
He has no Form, no dualities, no preferences, no prejudices and no
predilections. To say that He is Sathyaswaroopa, Jnanaswaroopa or Anandaswaroopa
(embodiment of Truth, Wisdom and Bliss) is also not correct. For He has no
'Swaroopa' (Form) or 'Swabhava' (characteristics). He is Sathya (Truth), Jnana
(Wisdom) and Ananda (Bliss). That is the experience of those who have tasted
Ananda.
- BABA |
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Date9:3/2008 Those who deny God are denying themselves and their glory. All
have Love in their hearts, in some form or other, either towards children or the
poor or their work or goal. That Love is God. They experience Ananda (bliss),
however small or temporary, and that is a spark of God in them. They have peace,
detachment and sympathy, which are reflections of the Divine in the mirror of
their minds. These are all mental excellences, revealed through an appreciation
of the merits of virtue.
- BABA |
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Date8:3/2008 The desires that cling to the mind are the blemishes that tarnish
man's inner consciousness. Control the senses; do not yield to their insistent
demands for satisfaction. When the senses are negated, the mind too disappears.
When the mind disappears, delusion dies and liberation is achieved. All the joy
you crave for is in fact within you; but you suffer like a man who has vast
riches in the iron chest, but, who has no idea where the key is. With proper
directions, dwelling upon them in the silence of meditation, it is possible to
secure the key, open the chest and be rich in joy.
- BABA |
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Date7:3/2008 See Him in all, worship Him through all, for He is all. Engage in
activity, but, fill the activity with devotion: it is the devotion that
sanctifies. It is the Bhaava (intention) that matters, not the Baahya (outward
pomp); the feeling, not the activity per se that is being performed. In all the
temples, you find only a stone shaped as an idol. As stone, it is of little
value. But, when feeling permeates it, when devotion transmutes it, the stone
becomes the supreme-most treasure to the human mind. Man does not know this
secret of transmuting every act of his into sacred worship and so, he suffers
from disappointment and grief.
- BABA |
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Date6:3/2008 Rely on Shiva (Divinity) in you, not on the Shava (corpse) that
the body becomes when bereft of Him. With every breath, draw His Glory in; with
every breath, exhale all that reduces His Glory. Saturate your thought, word and
deed with Divinity. Then, you can conquer death, and become immortal. Recite the
Name of Shiva and save yourself. You are the embodiment of truth, goodness and
beauty. But you have misplaced the key which helps you to tap the springs. That
key is in the realm of your inner consciousness. So, give up searching for it in
the region of material objects in the outer world.
- BABA |
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Date5:3/2008 You cannot find peace outside. It is within your heart, so search
within. The heart is always filled with peace, love and bliss. It is the basis
of all the sacred qualities, such as compassion, love, tolerance etc. All that
emanates from your heart is sacred. It is attachment to the body that is the
cause of all the evil qualities, such as desire, anger, greed, pride, and
jealousy. People undertake many spiritual practices in an attempt to sanctify
their lives but, without purity of heart, these will be of no avail. First,
purify your heart. Do not give any scope for wicked feelings such as desire,
anger and greed. In the spiritual path, these three are the worst enemies.
- BABA |
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Date4:3/2008 Discover for yourself your stage of spiritual development, to
which class in the school you would fit in. Then determine to proceed from that
class to the next higher one. Strive your best and you will win the Grace of
God. Do not bargain or despair. One step at a time is enough, provided it is
towards the goal, not away from it. Beware of the pride of wealth, scholarship,
status, that drag you into egoism. Do not seek the faults of others; seek your
own. Be happy when you see others prosper; share your joy with others.
- BABA |
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Date3:3/2008 Man can be happy with much less than he seems to think essential.
When some article is with you for some time, you feel it is indispensable and
you do not know how to live without it. Like the silkworm, you weave a cocoon
for yourself, out of your fancy. Do not allow costly habits to grow, costly from
the monetary as well as the spiritual point of view. Watch your likes and
dislikes with a vigilant eye and discard anything that threatens to encumber
your path.
- BABA |
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Date2:3/2008 The Lord has endowed man with the body and so, every limb and
every sense organ is worthy of reverent attention. Each must be used for His
Glory. The ear must exult when it gets a chance to hear the wonderful glories of
God. The tongue must exult when it can praise Him. The human body has been given
to you for the grand purpose of realising the Lord within. If you have a fully
equipped car in good running condition, would you keep it unused in the garage?
The car is primarily for going on a journey; get into it and go! Only then is it
worthwhile to own it. So too, with the body. Proceed towards the goal. Learn how
to use the faculties of the body, senses, intellect and mind for achieving the
goal, and march on.
- BABA |
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