Throughout your life, you meet a huge number of teachers who help you learn a lot of important things, teach all kinds of necessary disciplines, and pass on the necessary skills. However, the highest teachers foster knowledge and practices related to the knowledge of the eternal and pure nature of the soul. A true teacher always remains transparent, striving to point out to the student the infinite potentials of his soul. The teacher reminds the student of his original freedom, for only a free person can realize his divinity. The delusions from which the teacher is freed are the false idea of his own weakness and infirmity.
The teacher guides the student to find his purpose in life and to realize his God-given talents. The teacher opens the soul of the student, just as a lotus flower opens at sunrise. You are incarnated with a special spiritual mission, but each person around you is unique, also incarnated with a special spiritual mission – no one is better or worse than you, all people are different, each person is unique – each person is an infinite spirit gaining experience of earthly existence.
Inspired wisdom not only comes from teachers, but also can be found in many books, particularly sacred, spiritual texts. Any scripture performs the functions of a teacher when talking about the inner divinity of a person and blessing the reader. In every tradition, sacred scriptures are respected and held in high regard. In Christianity, it is the Gospel; in Hinduism, it is the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads; in Judaism, it is the Torah. A careful and thoughtful reading of sacred texts clarifies perception and brings down blessings.
In fact, life itself is the greatest teacher. Everyone is able to recall well a number of situations that taught them significantly more than theoretical lectures. It is important to perceive the events of life not just as a series of random events, but as lessons to be learned that offer something useful to be learned from them.
Being a student is very difficult. The student is not the one who puts the portrait of the teacher on the home altar and burns candles and incense to it every day. A true student is one who embodies the wise instructions of his teacher in his daily life.
Sathya Sai Baba directed people to self-study, often repeating that the true teacher is in the Spiritual Heart. It is in the depths of the soul that the most profound answers to all questions can be found. Divinely, every person has a mysterious desire to explore the nature of his Self – this is the essence of the spiritual path.
54. Miraculous photos of Sathya Sai Baba
This is a story about a Japanese man I met at the ashram who told me an amazing story about his friend, who was also a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba.
Returning home from India to Japan, this friend hung a picture of Sathya Sai Baba in his room above his bed. In this part of Japan, where this devotee lived, earthquakes sometimes occurred. Unfortunately, shortly after his return from the ashram, a massive earthquake struck, causing several buildings to collapse. The earthquake occurred at night, which was especially dangerous.
The man woke to hear a roar and strange cracking noises. Three walls of the house in which he lived had collapsed. After the noises subsided, he got out of bed to inspect the damage. It was then he realized he’d been sitting unharmed on the bed. What was left of the house was a wall and part of the roof, but it was the very wall on which was hung the cheerful photo of Sathya Sai Baba.
The following story is similar, but it happened with one of my Russian friends. Alexander sat down in front of a photograph of Sathya Sai Baba late in the evening, lit a candle and began to practice mantras. He relaxed so much he did not notice how he fell asleep, yet in a dream he saw Sathya Sai Baba.
Waking in the morning, Alexander saw that during the night, while he was asleep, a fire broke out in his house. The candle fell igniting the tablecloth and as a result the photo of Sathya Sai Baba also caught fire. The fire strangely went out by itself. It is interesting that the photo of Sathya Sai Baba was burned exactly along the contour of his figure.
55. Bright thoughts, wise words, and perfect action
Someone can describe to you the sweet taste of a ripe mango beautifully and colorfully, but until you taste the mango directly for yourself, you will not be able to understand the wonderful taste and sweetness of the mango.
(Sathya Sai Baba – Sathya Sai Gita Chapter 24)
Mango is not just a sweet and tasty fruit, but a deep symbol meaning the fruits of human good deeds. To taste sweet mango, symbolically, means to gain the fruits of spiritual awareness, harmony, and peace. Meeting with Sathya Sai Baba, itself, is the result of many good deeds in past lives, but it is important not only to see the external form of Sathya Sai Baba, but with the help of his blessings to find peace in the soul and to open the endless space of possibilities and potentials in your heart. Sathya Sai Baba poured out mercy on everyone who came to see him and he brought down the divine energy, which brought people into amazing mystical states and helped them experience the infinity of consciousness.
Reading books can help you gain intellectual knowledge while the path of meditation allows you to gain the treasure of self-realization. In meditation, the delusion that you are a limited being disappears, just as darkness disappears when the sun rises in the morning. You are the master of your thoughts, words, and actions, which means only you create your reality. There are no accidents in life – everything is the result of cause and effect. In meditation the illusion of separation and conflict dissolves and the true reality of unity in diversity remains.
The mango is a symbol of the spiritual fruits you receive as a result of intensive and deep practice of meditation and service in society. In meditation all doubts and conflicts come to an end. Your bright thoughts, wise words, and perfect actions create a happy and joyful space.
If something does not make you happy or does not bring you joy, leave it with gratitude and move on with your wonderful life, for you consciously and freely choose only that which brings joy, happiness, contentment, bliss, and peace into your life.
56. Self-esteem and inner freedom
It is difficult for people to understand what spirituality is and what individual freedom is. If you analyze the divine principle more deeply, you will realize that true spirituality and individual freedom are one in essence.
(Sathya Sai Baba – "Summer Showers of Brindavan", 1990)
There are quite a lot of misconceptions that spirituality and individual freedom are allegedly in conflict. The essence of spirituality is in the realization of the Truth about the nature of one's Self. Personal freedom is the most important foundation of the spiritual process of self-knowledge. A free person trusts his intuition, while a person deprived of freedom is guided by domineering opinions. A free person is responsible for his actions, while a person deprived of inner freedom shifts responsibility to others.
A free-thinking person is able to reflect on the essence of his soul, while a person deprived of inner freedom can only memorize the thoughts of others. Whatever the great thoughts of the sages, they do not need to be thoughtlessly memorized, because then they become dogma. Personal freedom ultimately leads to the core of the Absolute Self, which only a truly free person can open.
True freedom is always associated with caring for everyone around you. If you realize your freedom to the detriment of other people, then this is ordinary selfishness, which has nothing to do with freedom. Many books have been written and many sermons delivered about the need to love and care for others, but all this has long become dogmas and beautiful words.
Only one who practices meditation begins to deeply feel the unity of all people. Feeling the unity of all that exists, a deep understanding of morality and ethics arise, but not as dry and lifeless book ideas, but as a natural need of a spiritual person.