Conversations with Sai .. (Part A)

Source: ‘Conversations with Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba’ book by John.S.Hislop.

HISLOP: We do not perceive life with absolute clarity, and yet we are acting all the time, and unclear action makes for a confused life. We are unhappy about that confusion, and in an effort to remove it we accumulate ideas of Truth, God and Reality. But those imaginings do not remove the confusion. Life is still confused. So, the question is: what is the big factor that prevents us from seeing the Truth of life clearly?

SAI: You say that Truth, God and Reality are imagination. Why do you think they are imagination? They are not. Time, work, reason and experience; these four in harmony together, that is Truth. When the four are found to be out of harmony, then you feel it is untruth.

An example: yesterday you came to Bangalore and from there to Puttaparti by car. Travel is work. It took you four hours to come from Bangalore. That is time. You came here to see Swami. That is the reason. Having seen Him you felt happy. This is the result.

On the other hand, last night you dreamed you were in America and were shopping. In this, the four factors were not involved. There was no work, there was no time expended, and where is the result? This is untruth. That experience was imagination, only mind work. This is the difference between truth and imagination.

H: But truth, that is, in terms of work, time, reason and result – you look around the world and you see those things in operation; and the world is in a mess. So, there must be more to it than that?

SAI: When you don’t have absolute faith in the result, then doubt arises. An example: now it is daylight and the objects in the room are seen very clearly, and there is no doubt in regard to them. At night when it is fully dark and you have to grope around and do not see any of the objects, there is no doubt about that situation. But at dusk, when it is half light and half dark, doubt can arise and you may see a rope and imagine it to be a snake and be frightened. Light is not full and vision is not clear. Full light is wisdom, and full darkness is ignorance. Doubt arises when there is half darkness and half light. The half light is wisdom and the half darkness is ignorance. When you have partial ignorance and partial wisdom then you have doubts. Now you are in the middle stage when you have this little bit of wisdom and also some ignorance, where ignorance and wisdom are mixed. You are not fully experienced. When you have proper experience, the doubt will vanish. Because you are not fully experienced you are having this doubt.

A small example: while suffering from malaria, you eat a sweet but feel it has a bitter taste. It was not that the sweet was bitter, but in your experience it was bitter. It is not the fault of the sweet. Ignorance is also a disease like malaria. And the cure for this disease of ignorance is Sadhana. Man has doubt only when he does not know the Truth.

Once you experience the Truth, doubt will vanish. Truth is one and for all time Truth is Truth. Whatever changes, know that as untruth. Once you were small and you grew bigger. That is also untruth. Where is the body of the ten-year-old? All has merged into the present body. First untruth; then, when we have the experience we know the Truth. Darkness and light are not different; they are one only.

A small example: last night you ate some fruit. In the morning it becomes stool and you pass it out. It was fruit yesterday, but the bad and the good are the same, only one. In one form it was fruit; in the other form it was stool.

It is the same with light and darkness. When the light comes, the darkness goes. But really, the darkness does not go to any place and the light does not go to any place. When one comes, the other is unknown; it does not go anywhere.

H: This mixture of light and darkness, of ignorance and wisdom which creates unhappiness, which creates trouble – Swami says that the mixture which creates confusion fades away with the right experience. The question is what is the basic factor that prevents us from having that right experience?

SAI: We don’t have the intensity that is required. How much effort is needed even to study books and come to the stage when we can read difficult books. How many years, how many hours of toil we put into it. If you have the same intensity in spiritual practise, you will surely know the Truth. But we are not as intense as we should be on the spiritual path. We do not apply concentration and one-pointedness. Full concentration is needed even in the world, in walking, talking and reading.

We cannot do anything without concentration. We must concentrate even in small worldly tasks. But when we try to think of God, we get restless, and the mind becomes unstable. Why do we do the things of the world with full concentration? Why? Because we are fully interested in it. And with God we have these doubts. We have full concentration in whatever work we love deeply. Concentration is not full when we do work that we don’t love deeply.

A small example: you are driving a car. At the same time you are talking to some passengers. The road becomes narrow and dangerous. You say, “Please let us not talk now, I must give full concentration to the driving.” Why do you say this? It is because you deeply love your life and you must concentrate thoroughly to avoid an accident. Because you have this love for your body, you concentrate on its safety. When you have profound love for God, then concentration on Him will come automatically.

H: But that is the point, there is the whole point.

SAI: …….When you have deep love for God, then concentration on Him will come automatically.

H: But that is the point, there is the whole point.

SAI: In all these experiences we must hold to the Truth, to life. You love life. We have all these experiences because of life. So we are clinging on to that sort of pillar which is life; for we know that without life we don’t have experiences. Life gives so many things externally but life does not change; life is the same. That life is Truth and that is God. The unchangeable is Truth.

H: Since we are that Truth, we would like to have love in our hearts and flow naturally with life and not according to our arbitrary wishes. Yet we don’t. Swami says we do not, because we lack the intensity. So we say to ourselves, “Well I must get that intensity.” So we strive towards that goal, and striving towards that goal makes the thing stronger – that prevents the desired intensity.

Translator: I don’t follow that.

H: We are selfish and greedy naturally. If we substitute a spiritual goal for a physical goal, then we are still engaged in the same greed. One has just changed the physical greed to a spiritual greed. A further point. If one does not love, as indeed one does not, then one says, “I must get love”. Then love is over there and oneself is here.

SAI: Who are you? Who are you?

H: I am the accumulation of all my past, all my ideas.

SAI: Who is that ‘my’? Who is that ‘my’? Who is claiming? Between the love and yourself there is this claim. What is love and who are you?

H: I am that which I am, the accumulation of all these…

H’s Wife: The accumulation is the idea that you have, but according to Swami you [Atma] and the love are the same thing. You [ego] are the one who puts the separation.

H: Yes, I am the one who puts the separation between us. I am the ego.

SAI: Ego is untruth.

H: Ego is untruth, then I…

SAI: But you are not ego. You are Truth. Ego is not Truth. Any amount of arguments and discussions like this are just words. You will not get this without spiritual practice, without Sadhana. An example: someone asks us what sugar is. We say it is brownish and sort of sandy, because we know sugar. But the sweetness has no form. You can describe sugar like this, but you cannot picture the taste, because the taste has no form.

Even pertaining to the world there are so many things we do not know, and we don’t imagine or worry about. If we only feel intensely for God instead of much discussion and reading books. We must get into the field and try it out. Even if someone writes a book it is his spiritual experience.

You love your wife and she loves you. But if she is hungry you cannot eat for her. And if you are hungry she cannot eat for you despite the fact that you love each other dearly. Spiritual hunger is like that. Each man must seek and appease that hunger according to his faith. Even though
Swami tries to explain, you do not grasp it. It is only through experience that you can come to it.

When you start to learn to drive, you must have an open space for practice; but once you learn, then you can go confidently even on a narrow road. It is just like in a school. Gradually you go and you understand. If big words are used when the child is still learning ABC then the child does not understand.

In the beginning, we do not understand the things of the world, and do not even understand ourselves; so how can you understand that which is beyond you? So, first you try to understand yourself by doing spiritual practice, by doing Sadhana. First ‘I’ next ‘you’. ‘I’ plus ‘you’ equals ‘we’. Then ‘we’. Then ‘we’ plus ‘He’. Then only ‘He’.

H: No, I don’t understand that.

SAI: First ‘I’ then ‘you’. First ‘I’ that is life. Next ‘you’ that is the world. ‘I’ plus ‘you’ is ‘we’. ‘We’ plus ‘He’ is God. Only ‘He’. There is love, the person who loves and the person you love. And when all get together it is bliss.

You see there are three blades in the fan. The three Gunas are represented by the three blades. Only when the blades circulate together in harmony do you get the air. When they move in the same direction then they bring the cool air. The three Gunas within us are going in different directions. When you turn them in the same direction all going round together then you will have one-pointedness and you will be enabled to know.

A Visitor: Could it be like this? It is the experience of a number of people including myself that gradually one does Sadhana, but then comes such an experience that would have taken an immense time to gain, but through your Grace one has the sudden experience.

SAI: Another example: in a house, each one does a particular job and divides the work. In the evening when the family has finished the work nobody says, “Father, I did such and such a work and you must pay me.” It is one house. So you don’t ask for payment you just do the work. But when someone from outside comes you fix up the rate and pay accordingly. When you pay them that shows that they are outsiders. But when they become your own you don’t have to pay them. They work with interest and no pay is expected. Similarly with God. When you think God is the nearest and dearest to you, like one family, you don’t ask for pay. The one who surrenders like that, he is My own, he does not have to look for payment. But the one who says, “I have done so much Sadhana” and barters with God and says, “I have done so much Sadhana and you give me such and such a reward”, then that is the difference; he is the outsider.

The child who is so small does not ask the mother “I want milk. I want to be changed” and so on, but the mother looks after every need of the child without its asking. When you have surrendered yourself completely to God and become God’s child, you don’t have to tell God what you want. He will give even more than you have asked for. But it is only by love that He is your dearest. Do Sadhana and there is a closeness to God; then you don’t have to tell Him that you want this or that. Because you are like a little child, He will come and give you more than even what you ask for. Ego is what prevents us from becoming close to God. It is that ego, ‘I’ have to do this, ‘I’ have to get all this. You must see that ’I’ is only the instrument of the Lord. Like the fan is an instrument, you are an instrument of the Lord. Now is the fan making the fan rotate or is the current making the fan rotate?

H: The current is making the fan rotate.

SAI: The current is God; so you are only the instrument. Even the fact that we think that our eyes see things and that our ears hear things is not correct. My eyes are here but the mind is in Bangalore thinking of this or that. My eyes are seeing, but my mind is somewhere else. Mind is important. Body is like a torch; eye is like the bulb; mind is the battery cell; intelligence is the switch. Only when the four work together do you get the light. The body is only like a torch.

H: Surrender to God is everything of course but…

SAI: The word ‘surrender’ in English is not quite correct; it is not the right word. Because, when you say ‘surrender’, you are separate and God is separate. That is the meaning you get. But God is not separate.