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The Lord is sweetness itself.
Sairam,
Prashaanthi Nilayam, 1962
Once Krishna was in a fix; it was the birthday of Rukmini and it was also the anniversary of his marriage with Sathyabhama! Both queens were awaiting his arrival in their palaces. But Krishna went to Rukmini and shared the feast with her. Later he entered the palace of Sathyabhaama. She was in an inconsolable mood of resentment. Though she did not offer anything, Krishna himself picked up a few jambu fruits from the garden and ate them, appreciating all the while the care with which the queen was looking after the garden and the extraordinarily fine taste of every fruit that grew in it! Sathyabhaama was thus encouraged to forget the sense of injury. The Lord is sweet in every one of his actions, movements, words and gestures. He is sweetness itself.
You have come into this lokha (world) to enter the presence of the Lokesha (Lord of the world). So do not tarry in wayside inns, mistaking them to be the goal. The Lord too will be longing for the arrival of the lost. He is like a cow yearning for its calf. The seven-walled fort---mamaakaara (feeling of mind and one's own) and the six evil tendencies, kaama (lust), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), moha (infatuation), madha (arrogance) and maathsarya (jealousy)---has a garden in the centre and a lake, where the hamsa (divine bird) plays. It is the image of your own true self.
A guru can only guide you but he cannot do anything to haul the load. The control of the senses, changing the mode of life, the habits of thought have to be done by you. One has to collect all the strength to carry a load up-hill. The gear and the accelerator have to operate together to haul a car up a steep. The senses say, "Why struggle? Eat, drink and be merry, while you can" but, the Guru says, "Death lands on you without notice; overcome its fear now, before he calls." Death stalks your footsteps like a tiger in the bush. Endeavour to give up sloth and anger, be tranquil amidst the storms and mix in tranquil company without waste of time.
We can get angry with the effort of a moment but to get peace and to become unaffected by the ups and downs of life, is the result of years of training. It can be well established only on the basis of the belief that all material things which fall within the range of sensuous experience are fundamentally non-existent. They are maaya (products of illusion) and they are seen as many where only One exists.
Each has his allotted task according to the status, taste, tendency and earned merit. Do it with the fear of God and of sin deep in your heart. Welcome pain and grief so that you take both success and failure as hammer strokes to shape you into a sturdy saadhaka. Inner content is more important than outer prosperity. Let the fragrant smoke of divine thoughts and love to all rise around you. The flame of jnaana (experiential knowledge of Supreme Reality) can reduce the impulses inherited through many births and many experiences to cinders. Dross is burnt and precious metal is isolated in the heat of that crucible.
God can only be realised by stages only through viveka, vairaagya and vichakshana (discrimination, non-attachment, clear-sightedness). Clean your vessel (heart) and demand for the nectar of grace. Draw the warmth of the name of the Lord closer round your mind like you draw the rug tighter around you when the night grows chill. Sometime either in this birth or next you have to realise that this is a dream which you took to be true. Both clarity of vision and courage of vision are needed to see the Truth as Truth and the Untruth as untruth. You cannot contain in your head the tremendously transforming idea of Adhwaitha i.e., of your being the Eternal Reality itself unless you have "muscles of iron and nerves of steel".
"Now is the true friend; yesterday has deceived you and gone; tomorrow is a doubtful visitor. Today is the fastest friend; hold fast to it."
--SATHY SAI
Omsai srisai jaijaisai