Aum Sri Sai Ram

STUDY CIRCLE

The material published herein, formed the subject matter of a number of sessions of study circle held under the auspices of one of the units of Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organization. It was felt that the material may be of use to other devotees of Bhagavan, to understand some of His teachings. Each session has taken one statement of Swami, followed by a short explanatory note which may form the basis for further discussions.
All the discussions at the sessions were based on certain basic understanding of the creation of the Universe and the nature of avtarhood. That the whole universe with all its contents is a projection of the Supreme Consciousness, and not the creation of a Supreme Being called ‘God’, is described in many of our spiritual texts and is accepted by most of the modern scientists. In these discussions, the terms, ‘God’ and ‘Consciousness’ are used synonymously. The all-pervading Consciousness, automatically gets incorporated in all the created objects, as the Atman in them. This individualized Consciousness, though not different from that pervading the space outside the being, is the one which activates and constantly guides each living being, the Jivatma. When the Jivatmas ignore the continuous promptings from inside and a majority of them fail to respond, the formless Atman decides to take a special form and appear outside in front of man to teach and redeem him, by reminding him of the purpose of his life in the world and his final goal. This is the Avtar, and there is no need to accept the common man’s view that an Avtar is a descent, of some god-form from a place high up somewhere, on to the earth. So Sai is none other than a special manifestation of the Atman residing in each one of us.

Session 1

“My mission is to raise the consciousness of man to a level at which he neither rejoices nor mourns over anything. In that supreme state, one is going through re-birth and re-death every moment, for these acts are one and the same, emerging from the formless into form, merging from form into the formless.Then there is no success, adversity, no joy or pain. When the devotee attains this Oneness, his journey towards Me ceases. For he is with Me endlessly.”
--- Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai

Notes:

Here Bhagavan is revealing the purpose of His avtarhood. How is it possible for anyone to attain a state wherein one will not rejoice or mourn over any happenings in his life? When do such emotions arise in life? All are based on the way man’s mind is functioning. If we carefully analyse the activities of the human mind we can find that the mind always functions in two directions, namely in the past or future. Brooding on the past events, what he himself did or failed to do, what others had done to him or failed to do, he is subject to a variety of emotions like rejoicing or mourning, anger, disgust and many others. Thinking of the future he is subject to anxieties, fear, doubts and similar emotions. Thus man’s mind is always swinging from the thoughts of the past and of the future. It rarely functions in the present. Why is it so?
What is time? Everyone knows about time but no one can define it in words. Scientists say that time and space, as a continuum, was part of the condensed mass of energy (? inside Supreme Consciousness) before the Big Bang. Our scriptures say that God or Supreme Consciousness is beyond time, ‘Kalateeta’. Time in the universe is whole without divisions and our concept of the three divisions of it is only a product of the human mind and is applicable only to the earth and the solar universe. The present is only a thin dividing line between the so called past and the future. It is an imaginary line like the equator dividing the earth into two hemisphres.It lasts hardly for a very minute fraction of a second, and even a syllable of a word moves into the past before we utter the next syllable.Anything achieved in the past was done only when it was present then and anything to be achieved in the future can happen only when that moves into the present. So Jnanis say that all that exists is only the present.
For the human mind to function it needs time and space. Since that is not available in the present, the mind cannot function in the ‘present’ and keeps moving between the past and the future. This can be illustrated by the example of the pendulum of a wall clock which keeps constantly moving from left to right and when it is stopped in the middle, time as shown by the clock also ‘stops’. When, as mentioned above, thoughts about the past and the future diappear all the emotions are eliminated.Then what happens to the mind? Mind is a form of energy and, if it cannot function, it does not disappear, but like the other forms of energy, will remain in its source. When electricity is switched off it just stops activating the connected gadgets but does not disappear. It remains in its source. Its presence can be known only when it functions. Simiarly the presence of the mind can be known only when thoughts flow from it. This is why Jnanis defined the mind as a bundle of thoughts. So when thoughts of the past and of the future are stopped the mind stops functioning and returns to its source.The source of the mind is the Atman which is Itself formless. When a necessity arises to do some work with the physical body the mind comes out of its resting place and functions. The body has a form and hence Swami says that the mind moves from the formless state to a state with form. When a man dies he moves from a form to a formless state and when he is reborn he again assumes a form. This is what Swami means by saying that such person goes through re-birth and re-death every moment.
Man came from the Atman (Consciousness) and after he finishes the alloted work on earth he has to go back to the Atman. That is his final goal, a state known as ‘Atmasakshatkaram’. As mentioned in the introduction, Atman is the same Supreme Consciousness or Brahman pervading the Universe and hence the sadhak attains ‘Brahma nirvanam’. His journey ends there! Thereafter he resides with the Atman endlessly. Swami being the special manifestation of the Atman, such a sadhak finally merges with Him. That is Swami’s mission!
(To be continued)