No bird casts the seed on land to grow food for itself, nor do beasts plough and enclose fields claiming - this is mine, this is for my children and children's children -. 'Nishkama-Karma' is the natural face of activity for the children of God, the progeny of Immortality. They sing and swim, they dance and drive, they talk and walk and they pray and pine, because they must; it is the nature too. They do not know what will happen, as a consequence, they do not care; they do not anticipate any result. They are just themselves when they do these things. It is Sahaja-Lakshana, their innate nature and their inborn characteristic.
Agriculture is for living; mind culture is for life. Skills are for shaping material things so that they cater more for the comfort of man; studies are for shaping attitudes, feelings, desires, emotions and impulses of man, so that they may confer more peace, more joy and more fortitude on man.
Egoism will be destroyed, if you constantly tell yourself, 'It is He, not I', 'He is the force, I am but the instrument'. Keep His name always on the tongue, and contemplate His glory whenever you see or hear anything beautiful or grand. See in everyone the Lord Himself moving in that form. Do not talk evil of others; see only good in them. Welcome every chance to help others, to console others and to encourage others along the spiritual path.
Man is suffering because he cannot rid himself of the greed for sense-objects, and sense pleasures, or Vishaya-Vasana. He knows that he has to give up whatever he earns and collects, sooner or later; but yet his attachment waxes instead of waning, as the years go by. If every man on Earth could take with him on death even a handful of mud from the Earth, there would have been nothing much left and mud would have been rationed at so many ounces per head !
You have read that the Lord, melted and moved when one performs acute Thapas, comes and asks softly and sweetly: "My dear child, What is it you need ?" He wants you to express in words what you have yearned for and ask the Lord whom you have brought before you through the exercise of silence. That is the little game He plays. And sometimes He wills that the questioner answers in the way His plan demands.
To cross safely the flood of "Birth-Death-Continuum", the bridge, called Nishta or discipline of an unflinching kind, is essential. It must be a sturdy, safe bridge: or else you will fall into the raging waters and be drawn into the sea, infested with the sharks: Lust and Anger. See how great heroes like Prahlada did not lose their hold on the Lord, in spite of heavy odds. Prahlada never gave up the repetition of the Name of the Lord, though he was tortured, twisted and burnt. One, must have that determination and faith.
Sorrows and disasters are like the clouds that flit across the sky; they cannot injure the blue depths of space. Your duty is just to strive on from this very moment. Do not vacillate or postpone. Who knows when death knocks ? May be, he may knock this very night, this very moment; therefore, do not delay. Do you postpone for tomorrow the dinner of this day ! Feed the spirit as scrupulously as you now feed the body.
You will find that you have craved only for paltry things and for momentary distinctions for fleeting fame; you should cry only for God, for your own cleansing and consummation. You should weep, wailing for the six cobras that have sheltered themselves in your mind, poisoning it with their venom: Lust, Anger, Greed, Attachment, Pride and Malice. Quieten them as the snake-charmer does with his swaying flute. The music, that can take them, is the singing aloud of the Name of God. And when they are too intoxicated to move and harm, catch them by the neck and pull out their fangs as the charmer does. Thereafter they can be your playthings; you can handle them as you please.
If you seek to fulfill low desires, why come here ? Come here only if you seek to earn Grace. Go to a hospital only when you are resolved to take the drug the physician prescribes and go through the regimen he lays down. So, obey the directions that I give, whatever others may say or however difficult they may appear to be. You have not come to Prasanthi Nilayam to please those others. You have to please Me.
Turn the key in the lock to the right, it opens; turn the same key to the left; it is locked. Turn your mind towards the objective World, it is locked, caught, entangled. Turn it to the right away from the objects of the senses; the lock is loosened, you are free and deliverance is at hand. How to turn right? Well, begin with Namasmarana, as the first step. That will itself take you through the second and the third...... to the very goal.
If Liberation means the stoppage of grief and the acquisition of joy, then it is easy. What you have to do is to place all your burdens on God; that makes you grief-free and care-free. Then, when you take everything as the Leela of Lord you love, you clap your hands in Ananda whatever may happen, for it is His Leela and you are as happy as He is, when His plans are going through !
The mind must become the servant of the intellect, not the slave of the senses. It must discriminate and detach itself from the body. Like the ripe tamarind fruit, which, becomes loose inside the shell, it must be unattached to this shell, this casement called body.
Liberation is just the awareness of Truth, the falling off of the scales of delusion from the eye. It is not a suburb of select souls - it is not a closed monopoly of expert Sadhakas. Like the Godavari losing its form, its name and its taste in the sea, Liberation dissolves the name and form, aptitudes and attitudes. You are no more a separate, particular individual.
You are happy, that you have come on a pilgrimage here, but let Me tell you one thing: unless you control the stream of desire that springs in the mind, this is just a wasted opportunity. If your wish is fulfilled, you revere Me; if it is not, you revile Me. That is how Desire debases you. When one wish is fulfilled, ten rise in its place. For there is no dearth of want; the same person has come to Me seeking success at the examination, then a job, then a father-in-law, then a child, then a rise in the salary, a transfer in a cheaper place and a seat in the Medical College for his son - a never ending series of wants, until at last he comes seeking My Grace for an end to worldly pursuits and for initiation into the path of spirituality.
No one can liberate you, for no one has bound you; you hold on to the nettle of worldly pleasures and you weep for pain. The kite is pursued by the crows so long as it carries the fish in its beak, it twists and turns in the sky trying to last and it drops the fish. That moment it is free. So give up the attachment to the senses; then grief and worry can harass you no more.
When you know that thieves have broken into your neighbour's house, you become extra cautious and, every night, before you retire, you examine every lock and bolt in the house. When you know that death has carried away a victim from the house next door, why do you not examine yourselves, whether you are equipped to meet it when it comes for you ? Why do you immerse yourselves in distractions like building houses, piling bank-balances, celebrating picnics and contesting elections. Engage yourselves rather in things that will make you immortal and serve your best interests by service to the World ! Seek your own Reality, That is what a wise man should do.
Remove the vices of lust and hatred, and put out the raging flames of anger and greed, then the innate Santham and Soukhyam and the Swarupam and Sevabhavam of Man, will manifest themselves unhindered. Santham is the Swarupam; and Soukhyam; and is the Swabhavam of man.
The body can be clean if washed with water; speech can be clean if it is saturated in Truth; life can be purified if it is sanctified by Tapas; and the intellect can be cleared of blemish through Jnana. Above all, the conviction that you are not the body only a resident of the body has to grow in you. If you identify yourselves with the body that you carry about with you, you are inviting sorrow and suffering to overwhelm you instead of the joy and peace which are awaiting to bless you.
When the Gita directs you to give up all Dharmas (Set codes of morality), it does not ask you also to give up all Karma (activity): that is to say, you have to do Karma, and, when you do it for God, through God and by God, the Dharma of it does not matter; it has to be acceptable and it is bound to benefit you. The statement is not an invitation to licentiousness or complete inactivity; it is all for dedication and surrender to the highest in Man, viz. God.
Do not admit into your mind the demon of A-santhi. Direct all your cleverness and all your intelligence to the successful execution of the great Drama, in which all of you are taking part at present. It is His Drama. He is the Director, you play a role, an actor carrying out His Will, speaking the words that He put in your mouth and making movements as directed by Him.
The experience of this one life must be enough to show you that there is no joy unmixed with grief, that both grief and joy are short-lived and they both depend on the mind and its control. You do not require the experience of a series of lives to grasp this patent fact. This World is keeping you in bondage; it is a prison from which you must get released; and you should not plan to return to it again and again.
The eye which is scarce two inches long can see millions of miles into space, but is incapable of seeing itself ! Man too is as shrewd and as weak as the eye. He can analyze others' motives, count others' faults and map out others' skills and capacities, but he is powerless to analyze himself, his feelings and his emotions. Unwilling to discover his own faults, he cannot assess his innate skill and realize his inner reality ! But the power can be acquired if you keep company with Sadhakas (aspirants for spiritual progress), not otherwise.
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