Sri Sathya Sai Speaks

Many people consider all acts of worship as “His” and all acts of earning and spending as “Mine”. But this is a mistake. All acts are “His”. There is no such distinction between actions of a person and God; all karma leads you toward God (Madhava) or away from Him. For example, you say that you fall ill, that you are in good health, etc. That is because you feel that the body is “you”, whereas you are really only the Atma, with the five sheaths that you have superimposed on it. This is the result of the system of education now prevalent, which teaches that the bliss (ananda) one derives from the senses is all the bliss that one can get. It does not disclose to the individual the eternal source of bliss that one has within oneself. There is no training in the art of acquiring mental peace. No one is told the secret of attaining the state of equanimity amidst the confusion of modern civilisation. Everyone is induced to float with the current that drags humanity down to fear, anxiety, and despair. Life today is similar to the situation when the master of the house is restricted to a tasteless regimen while the members of the family revel in a banquet. The senses revel without limit, but the Atma is ignored.

Modern education produces only “learned fools”; it does not produce wise people who can meet life calmly and bravely. Its products know how to fill themselves with information, devise tools or handle them for the destruction of fellow people, or cater to the whims of the senses, but they are helpless to meet the crisis of death, a crisis that is inevitable. Hanumantha Rao of the I.A.S., who is the President of this meeting, said that during the last 14 years, when he had not visited this place, many great developments have taken place, including this hospital. Some of you may ask why there should be a hospital at all, here! Why should not Baba cure diseases by an exercise of His will? That is the question. Well, for one thing, this hospital is not My only hospital. Hanumantha Rao has a hospital in Madras, where disabled children are treated and trained to be useful and self-respecting individuals. That too is My hospital. In fact, all hospitals everywhere are Mine. I visit them all. Why, all those who call out from their hearts for succour, in whatever language, from whatever clime, whether from hospitals or homes, are Mine. Do not confine Me to these few acres around Prasanthi Nilayam. Wherever a person craving perfect peace (prasanthi) lives and prays, there a Prasanthi Nilayam exists.

You should remember another point. The hospital serves to increase faith, to demonstrate Divinity, and to remove doubt. That is also necessary. Besides, you have to mark time in consonance with the song that is sung. Many are hungry for medical treatment, and they are satisfied only if drugs are given and injections administered. Their faith in grace is not yet strong. So a hospital is required for such grace, that is the crucial gain. The hospitals can be closed, especially if the spiritual practices used for gaining grace results in simple lives spent in contentment and undisturbed calm. The King of Death does not bring a noose when he comes to drag people to his abode. The noose is made by the victims themselves, and they have it already round their necks, awaiting the arrival of the end. It is the noose resulting from action that each manufactures and winds round the victim that ultimately drags the victim away. Become aware of your reality, and you will lose the sense of identification with the body. That will make you disease-free. You will have perfect ease. This is quite easy, understanding that you are not the body. For you are practising this truth every day for at least six hours ever since birth! If that cannot teach you, I wonder what can. Every day when you sleep, where are you? Who are you? Your senses are inoperative, your intelligence is in abeyance, your mind creates a world of its own and, after playing in it for sometime, lapses into inactivity. That is sleep, the nearest you reach in your journey to samadhi (super-conscious state).

Live in the true nature of Self (Atma thathwam); that will ensure peace (santhi). With the poison of attachment and hatred inside you, how can you be pronounced healthy? If you experience the true nature of Self, you become Bhagavan (Divinity) Himself. That is why I do not address you as devotees! You are not devotees; you are more than that - you ought to become Bhagavan. Each one of you can become Bhagavan by merging your separate individual soul (jiva) in the Ocean of the Universal Atma. Death comes swooping like the falcon on chicken feeding on the ground. The man who dies prays to Me to receive him; the people who weep at his departure pray to Me to keep him alive. I know both sides of the picture, the past and the present, the crime and the punishment, the achievement and the reward, so I carry out what is just, though modified by My grace. I am not affected one way or the other by the arrival into the world of some or the departure from it of some others. My nature is Eternal Bliss. You can share in that Bliss by following My instructions and practising what I say.