Sai Inspires - 4th March 2007

Loving Sai Ram and greetings from Prashanti Nilayam.

For this Sunday, we have excerpts from Prof. K Anil Kumar's book "Satyopanishad".

Question) Swami! Kindly instruct us in the main principles making for progress in spheres such as Science, Politics, Ethics, Religion, and Spirituality.

Bhagawan: If you follow three main principles, all round progress is ensured. You will undoubtedly progress in all fields of activity, individual and collective. The first principle is daivapriti, Love of God. The second is papabhiti, Fear of Sin. The third is sanghaniti, Morality in Society.

Unless you love God immensely, you cannot fear sin. With fear of sin, morality gets automatically established in society. Thus, the three principles are interdependent and interrelated. I often tell my students, "Before you do anything, just put this question to yourself: Will Swami approve this action? Is this going to please Swami?" Your intense love for Swami will not allow you to do anything wrong. Evidently, love of God leads to fear of sin.

We find turbulent and raging waves in the sea dashing against boulders that stand steady and unshaken. In the same way your faith should be steady, strong, unshakeable, and unwavering, irrespective of losses, failures, defeats, troubles, difficulties, and problems. For instance, if anyone says to you, 'There is no God," what reply should you give? You should reply in this way, "All right, you don't have your God, but what right do you have to deny my God?" Never forget God, remember pancaksari, the five lettered mantra - 'devudunnadu ' - (1) de, (2) vu, (3) du, (4) nna, (5) du, (Telugu sentence with five letters meaning 'God exists'). In order to see that you don't doubt this, repeat astaksari, the eight lettered Sanskrit mantra, sams'ayatma vinas'yati, (1) sam, (2) sa, 3) ya, (4) tma, (5) vi, 6) na, 7) sya, 8) ti which means 'doubt is death'. Never doubt God.

In a sentence like this, "God is nowhere" reflects your pitiable plight of being denied His presence. Now, take out 'w' from the beginning of the fourth word 'where', and join it at the end of the third word 'no'. Then the sentence reads, 'God is now here'. Man most unfortunately commits sins but is not prepared to face their consequences. He expects punyam, merit, the result of good actions, but does not refrain from doing papam, sin. Nor would he do any meritorious deeds to get good results. Is there any logic or rationale for him to get good results? How foolish are such expectations? How do you expect one kind of result from an altogether different and opposite kind of action? Always bear in mind the whole thing comes back to you in the form of reaction, reflection, and resound. You cannot escape them. When you fully realise this, you will not commit sins or involve yourself in harmful deeds. So you should 'Love God' and 'Fear Sin'. With these two, there will be 'Morality in Society'.

Question) Swami! Many speak of culture? What is the value of culture?

Bhagawan: Culture is very important because your life and its value depend on it. Culture is a way of life. Culture enables you to experience divinity in your life. Culture helps one to know unity in diversity. Without culture, man becomes a demon. He falls down in stature and ultimately ruins himself.

You know that sea water is saline or salty. Human life is like a vast sea. God's grace is like sunlight that falls on the sea. The seawater because of the heat of the sun becomes vaporised. This is the vapour of bliss that settles as clouds in the sky to fall down to the earth as rain. It is the rain of love. The seawater is salty but the rainwater is sweet. Why? Where does the difference lie? Seawater is refined by sunlight. So also, our life must be cultured and refined. The value of life will then go up.

A piece of iron worth less than a rupee can be made into a beautiful costly watch after it is processed and refined. This is due to the culture it has undergone. So long as a boulder remains itself, it is bound to be neglected. But, once it is in the hands of a sculptor, chiseled and hammered, and shaped into a beautiful Krishna idol, it starts receiving respect and worship. Why? It is only culture that makes all the difference.

A boulder, once trodden by everyone underfoot and now in the form of an idol, occupies a place at the altar in a temple and is worshipped everyday. This is the value that culture confers. Without culture, one develops a foolish view of life finding diversity in unity. For example, take a needle. It stitches pieces of cloth into a garment. The needle stands for culture. But scissors cut the cloth into pieces. This is the condition in the absence of culture.

Jai Sai Ram.