Issue 254 - November 14, 2021 |
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Sairam Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The lalithā sahasranāmā extols the various names of the Divine Mother, Goddess Lalithā as the one who can be propitiated by an inward perception 'antar-mukha-samārādhya', and not by external means - 'bahir-mukha-sudurlabhā'.
Jesus was once asked when the kingdom of God would come. The kingdom of God, Jesus replied, is not something people will be able to see and point to. Then came these striking words: “Neither shall they say, lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21)
The path to be taken is truly the inward path. The effort is to gradually and slowly, get rid of the worldliness which obstructs our experience of our own divinity and allow ourselves to be what we truly are.
Sairam
Bhuvana Santhanam
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ātmano mokshārtam
(Emancipation of one’s self)
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Excerpt From Divine Discourse |
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Love and Sacrifice Are Two Sides of The Same Coin
We have to welcome, invite and give joy to everyone who comes to our doorstep. This is the quality of love. The love principle keeps expanding with only the motivation to love and to serve everyone. Expansion is life, contraction is death. True expansion of love is when we broaden our minds and feel that everybody in the world belongs to our family. That is how you traverse from an individual to the society and from the society to God. This is the travel from I to We to HE. Only mean-minded people think that certain people belong to them, and certain others do not. For broad-minded people, the whole world is one family. Such a person thinks that everybody belongs to him
Sacrifice is the natural quality of love. If there is no sacrifice, there is no love at all. A coin has two faces: on one side, its value is written and on the other side the symbol that represents that nation is imprinted. The coin will have value only if it has both sides embossed. Therefore, love without sacrifice is no love; sacrifice without love is no sacrifice. Only when both are there, human life will find value. If you have only one of them, there is no value. Therefore, human life is nothing but love filled with sacrifice and sacrifice filled with love.
Whenever you encounter poor people, help them in some way. Worship and sacrifices are not required for God. Helping others is a greater worship. All of you keep saying that you love Swami; just loving Swami is not enough. You should also develop a sense of sacrifice. You should help those who are suffering. Sacrifice and love add value to human life. Whichever place, whatever time, whatever may be the circumstances, when you see somebody suffering, help them. That is the worship you are offering Me. To the extent possible, help others. When you think of others, forgetting yourselves, God will think of you and look after you. All of you should transform yourselves into men and women of sacrifice.
An excerpt from the Divine Discourse delivered by Sri Sathya Sai Baba on May 08, 2016.
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Power of Satsang
By Gayatri M
Office administrator, Middle East
Swami had chosen me to be with him right from the age of five. Yearly visits to Puttaparthi and being part of sevā and bhajans were always the major forms of entertainment we had. Though my family had always kept us within the principles given by Swami, I failed to understand the expectations of Swami from us.
For my transformation as Swami says, He had created a situation in my life, just to put me back on the right track. Being the sole bread winner of the family, loss of job had affected my mental and emotional state. As always, I held on to Swami’s feet for rescue. Swami says - some thoughts are like dark clouds. We shouldn’t get swayed by them or pay heed to all of them as we may ruin ourselves. We should rise to the level of Divine and not degenerate to the level of demon. In order to rise to the level of Divine, satsang is very essential.
Though I had known Sai Hrudayam family, I was hardly in touch with them, and the reason which I always had for not attending the bhajans and sevā was, “I don’t have time”. Slowly, Swami held my hand and took me to the Sai Hrudayam family. As Swami knows, that I enjoy sevā more than bhajans, I was introduced to the loving family who did lot of it. More than the sevā, what I loved the most is the unconditional love and acceptance they have towards each other. This gave me confidence to get much more involved with the family and I started attending the bhajans without fail or to put in better words, Swami gave me an opportunity to attend the bhajans and sevā without fail.
The motive of the sevā, when I started, was only to spend my time in a better way. But I never knew I was getting into a highly spiritual path that would transform my quality of thoughts, actions and life at large. My thoughts revolved only around Swami and sevā, instead of getting stuck in mundane problems of my life. In a period of three months, Swami took me carefully through each and every spiritual practice i.e.,
In my life now, I keep Swami as my first and only priority, and I have surrendered totally at His lotus feet.
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To help reach Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s human values-based education to the world, and to resuscitate the humanness of humanity, the Sri Sathya Sai University for Human Excellence launched a unique, first-of-its-kind Institute of Human Values, to offer tailor-made courses totally free of any charges, curated by experts from around the world. The Vision of the Institute is to make better humans in their personal and professional spheres, by making them more sensitive towards society’s needs and exploring ways of their contribution to society in a meaningful and selfless manner, thereby creating a sense of global citizenship and responsibility.
The courses will help an individual balance the inside and outside, while progressively being a better human being, that will ultimately help him or her unravel the true meaning and purpose in life.
Learning from the heart is spiritual awakening, Baba would say. The Institute of Human Values is the first step to help lead the world into the beautiful awareness of its heart – a heart that operates from the universal human values of Sathya, Dharma, Shanti, Prema and Ahimsa.
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After observing the śraddhā of the little Nachiketā, who stood right at the gates of yamalokā (the realm of death) for three nights straight, without food or water, the lord of death – Lord Yamā, out of joy gave him three boons.
Nachiketā might have been a little kid but was extremely wise and observant of the various situations of life and the entire creation. The three boons asked by Nachiketā to Lord Yamā were:
- When I go back to my father, he should accept me happily.
- What is the way to heavens, where one can find no hunger, no thirst and incessant joy?
- Please explain to me as to what happens after death.
Lord Yamā granted him the first two boons but resisted to fulfil the final one. He tried his best to dissuade Nachiketā by offering him worldly trinkets. But Nachiketā remained undeterred and stuck to his goal proving his deservedness to attain the highest wisdom. After being satisfied with the śraddhā of Nachiketā, Lord Yama revealed the ultimate wisdom to him.
In episode 37, Sadguru Sri Madhusudan Sai reiterates and summarises the entire chapter one from the kaṭhopaniṣad in the simplest and most logical way possible!
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INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE FOR THE WEEK |
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“The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.”
– Socrates
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jagat hitāya
(Welfare of the World)
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Food ATM
With a motto of "No person should ever go hungry", the Sai youth have been sharing a meal through One Meal A Day (OMAD) programme in association with Food ATM to the needy blue-collar workers on a daily basis. With the blessings of Swami, a milestone of 100 days of this daily food distribution programme, serving close to 11,000 blue collar workers has been achieved since June. These individuals are people with low income or no income due to closure of companies or businesses from the impact of the pandemic.
They are being served delicious, healthy, vegetarian meals which include roti/poori, rice item, dal (lentils) with a sweet every day. This month, 1,860 meals were served.
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Distribution of Refreshments
The Sai youth joined hands, once again, to participate in the sevā for the needy. They arranged and distributed the snacks / refreshments to about 225 beneficiaries. This sevā brought together many enthusiastic youths and even young balvikās children participated at different locations. Biscuits, fruits, laban (buttermilk) were distributed.
The distribution especially coming from some of the young children brought a broad smile on the faces of the beneficiaries who were mostly hard-labour cleaning staff.
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