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The Lord has come to liberate........
Sairam
Prashaanthi Nilayam, 1963
In the forest of samsaara (worldly life), the body is a tree and the thoughts, feelings and imaginations of man are the branches, twigs and leaves. Worry, anxiety and fear are the monkeys that frisk among the branches. Grief in its various forms represents the insect pests that destroy the blooms. The blossoms are smiles; the owls and crows that infest it are anger, hatred, sloth and spite.
Everyone should have an ideal to strive for and a goal to be reached otherwise life is reduced to aimless wandering. Man did not come here to sleep and eat. He has come endowed with this body and the intelligence needed to manifest, control and divert the divine shakthi (power i.e., the divine energy that motivates) to useful channels of activity. You must achieve this by Dharma-nishttha and Karmanishttha--steady pursuit of morality and good deeds. There is no use in simply repeating, "Delicious food, delicious food" a thousand times. You have to eat, digest and assimilate. Your saadhana should involve actual experiencing but not mere reading or writing. Ten heads of Raavana was full of four Vedhas and the six Shaasthras (spiritual sciences); but he had no shaanthi (peace) nor could he give shaanthi to his kith and kin.
The dreams you see are shaped by the experiences, cravings and disappointments of the waking stage; Similarly, the experiences of the waking stage are the results of your previous lives. While dreaming, you do not relate the incidents and emotions to the waking stage and you feel that they are un-related, unique, genuine experiences. So too, you do not realise that your joy and grief, your actions, and reactions in the waking stage are all based on your past lives. The Sun never rises or sets but the sun appears to rise and appears to set on account of the revolution of the earth. The duality of appearance and nonappearance can be overcome by jnaana. So also, when the jnaana-bhaaskara (Sun of Knowledge) is known, it is experienced as shining always with undiminished lustre.
You can see the lord through your daily avocations and activities in your midst if you remember ever the Name of the Lord with agony of unfulfilled search and remember ever the beauteous Form with the agony of being forced to be away. The name uttered with the sincere faith was the flower offering of the gopees. The gopees lost all attachment to the world and to the senses and to the manifold objective phenomenal things when they listened to the murali of Krishna. They yearned for the sublimest spiritual merging with the infinite that was always calling on the finite to realise its finiteness. If you have that yearning, the result is certain.
Develop the attitude of the onlooker, the witness (the dhrashta) to get the maximum joy out of this game of living even one has to get emboiled in the game. You should bend only before prema and sathya but not before hatred and cruelty and falsehood. Lord wants sincerity not imitation. By the purification of impulses one gets into the higher stage--the Saalokya (realm of spirituality). When the Mystery of the Divine is grasped, the Saameepya and the Saaruupya (proximity to the Divinity and likeness of the Form of Divinity) stages are won by contemplation of the Divine.
Success will be yours if you use it in way of Dharma (righteousness). If expected results do not materialise out of your sadhana, infer that something is wrong in you yourself, your habits of food, drink, sleep or conduct or behaviour or attitude to others. Victory is beyond reach if you do not adhere to a strict code of discipline. You must become master of the senses and attain the Mahaashthi (Supreme Energy) from this basic Maayashakthi (Deluding power). The body is assigned to you as a boat to cross the ocean to samsaara (worldly life) but you use it for storing things which give worldly joy and do not launch it on the waters.
You dare to issue cheques without having deposits in the bank of Bhagavaan's grace expecting his grace when in distress. Have deposits or at least have some property on hand (like service to others, prema (love) towards all and Ahimmsa i.e., non-violence etc) so that you can mortgage it and get help. Do not blame the bank (Bhagavaan's grace) if you have neither. The aeroplane has to land at certain places in order to take in those who have won the right to fly by the tickets they have purchased. So too, the Lord has come down so that those who have won the right to be liberated may be saved incidentally.
--SATHY SAI