All conflicts arise from an ignorant and false sense of separation. When you develop harmoniously, then all the people around you naturally complement you and the work that you do. You complete everyone and everyone completes you because everyone is interconnected.
You cannot solve difficult situations in your life simply by coming to Sathya Sai Baba and demanding him to solve them while you sit and lazily wait for the outcome. Liberation from problems occurs only when you do deep work on your inner world.
Who am I? What am I? What is my mission in life? What are my talents? What is my purpose in life? Why are my circumstances the way they are? What do I want to do in life? What spiritual and intellectual legacy do I want to leave behind for future generations?
Even if it seems you don't have a chance to realize your creative ideas, try to take at least a few steps in the direction of your dreams. A person who tries to take steps in the right direction and embody their talents receives the unconditional support of the universe.
Change the paradigm of your life. Move from the selfish demands of focusing on what is good for yourself, personally, and ask questions of a different quality. What can I do for the people around me? How can I help and serve people? How can I help the society in which I live?
Sathya Sai Baba paid great attention to service. He preached ministry, but more importantly he demonstrated it in his life. It was difficult for me to understand his philosophy of service, as it seemed to me that the most important thing to do was the practice of deep meditation and mantra.
I perceived Sathya Sai Baba’s talks about serving in society as meaningless moralizing. Much later, I gradually understood the meaning of these wise instructions. It was difficult for me to grasp his instructions on the importance of service because I perceived the spiritual path as being one of only meditation and prayer.
True service arises from a sense of unity. Much later, truths began to open up to me about the spiritual process being the whole of life. Everything we think, say, and do is an aspect of divine evolution.
53. Love and compassion
Christianity and Buddhism place great emphasis on the motivation of love and compassion. For example, meditation instructions in Buddhism are not based on describing meditation techniques, but on awakening the right motivation for practice. Real love and compassion are shown in service, not just in beautiful words.
You practice meditation in order to know the true nature of your consciousness. Spiritual practice is carried out not only in order to gain enlightenment for oneself personally, but in order to, after gaining perfect wisdom, help other people embark on the path of spiritual research and also gain liberation from suffering.
Practicing meditation in the name of gaining spiritual benefits for yourself is absurd. In meditation, the personality, which at first seeks to practice meditation personally for itself, dissolves.
In Christianity, enlightenment is called salvation. What difference does it make what word we use to label higher wisdom? All of it is a play on words. The path of personal salvation ultimately leads to service, because in the path of salvation the separately existing human consciousness disappears – it dissolves in the universal Christ Consciousness.
The original true motivation for salvation is service. A person who has received the gifts of the Holy Spirit embarks on the path of preaching the
Change your train of thought. It is only the ignorant sense of a separate existence that creates ego, which creates all the problems. Stop trying to solve your selfish personal problems when the main problem is you, yourself – you, as a separate egoistic being. There are no problems around you. The main problem is you. No one is to blame for your suffering.
Sathya Sai Baba had a high regard for the Apostle Paul (Apostle of Love), which he spoke about in his lectures over the years. The Apostle Paul said in his Catholic Epistles that only love gives the greatest spiritual benefit and that only love is the greatest treasure. We do a lot of spiritual practices in life: prayers, meditations, charity and much more, but if there is no love in our hearts in the process of doing these practices, then there is no spiritual benefit for us.
We often tell stories where Sathya Sai Baba helped people in solving their life situations. We prefer not to tell the stories where Sathya Sai Baba did not seem to help. In fact, he helped absolutely everyone but his blessings manifested themselves in different ways and not always in the way people wanted.
For example, some were sick and not healed; some suffered because of family problems and did not overcome them; and some have been traveling for years, even decades, to Sathya Sai Baba, and there has been no obvious improvement or solution. Such cases are difficult to talk about it, but it’s all a part of the story – people came with problems that were not solved, even after many years. How to deal with such situations?
People expect quick help over deeply working out the subtle plan of their consciousness. Prayers and mantras are a superficial but very important level of practice. It is possible to repeat the Gayatri Mantra several thousand times a day. It is difficult, but possible. It is much more difficult to transform the style of your thinking.
Of course, it is very important to practice mantras, but this is not enough. The mantra generates the strongest energy, but the question is, where does this powerful energy go? In order to work with the circumstances of life, simple volitional efforts are not enough; there must be the subtlest reboot of the subconscious.
Sathya Sai Baba sometimes joked that if the number of repetitions of a mantra or a prayer were the main factor, then one could simply turn on the tape recorder and the tape recorder would be the first to get enlightenment.
It is naive to assume Sathya Sai Baba should solve all your difficult situations for you, which were formed as a result of your own actions in the past. Man's effort must meet with the blessing of God. It is also naive to assume that the simple mechanical repetition of a mantra or prayer can change life for the better.
Once again, I want to repeat the golden words: “a person attracts into his life not what he wants, but what he is.” First you need to change yourself by rethinking your attitude toward yourself. The circumstances of life are just a reflection of your inner world.
It is necessary, first of all, to have a clear perception of oneself and to analyze one's lifestyle, one's thoughts, one's reactions to the surrounding people and events. In order to transform your life, you must first change yourself, because you attract not what you want, but what you are.
You may be wondering why I bring in this great wisdom once again. Isn't it enough to say those golden words once? In order for the prayer to work, it is not enough to say it once. In the same way, it is not enough to voice the great truth about your life once; it must be repeated many times and reflected on deeper and deeper. Then these words will become the basis of life.
So, in essence, what happens to a person who is not what he wants, but what he is?
54. Vedic roots of Christianity
In his conversations with John Hislop, Sathya Sai Baba said that when Jesus Christ was a young man, he went to India, where he traveled through the Himalayas for several years. He also visited Iran and Central Asia. In those distant times, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism were practiced in this part of the world.
Zoroastrianism has survived to this day in Iran, but it is more prevalent in western India. At the time of Jesus Christ there were many different schools of Buddhism in Central Asia and Pakistan, including the ancient Vedic tradition.