study circle

Session 5

“Bliss cannot be achieved through (so called) spiritual practices which confer only temporary mental satisfaction. It is attained only by awareness of the Atma, which is true and eternal.
While singing bhajans, you may sing various songs with different tunes and beats, but your mind should be constantly fixed on the Atma.
You can never attain peace by performing rituals. Peace is embodied in love. You can develop love only when you have faith in the Self.”
--- Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai

Notes:

Most of the common people ordinarily think that worshipping some form of divinity or performing various rituals is same as spirituality. Here Swami points out that they are wrong. Religious practices are not necessarily spiritual.It is wrong to hope that external practices like religious worship and rituals will automaitcally result in inner realization. Indulging in such activities, according to Him, can confer only temporary mental satifaction and not lasting happiness. Bliss is attained only by awareness of the Atman. So all these external practices should be understood as only steps in the direction of understanding the Atman and fixing one’s attention on It. When we are travelling along a road, we find at cross roads sign-posts indicating the direction we should proceed to reach our destination and at regular intervals are fixed milestones showing the name of the place the road leads to and the distance left to be covered. Just as it is foolish to hug the post or the mile-stone and think that we have reached our destination, it is sheer ignorance to think that we have attained Atmic realization by performing these worships and rituals.

What should be our attitude when we engage ourselves in such activities? For instance let us take bhajans, which we, as Sai devotees, regularly engage ourselves in. Swami says that if even we are singing various songs using different names of the Godhead, in different tunes, ragas and beats, our attention should be rooted in the Atman. Invariably our attention is on the words of the song or on the divine forms referred to therein. The formless Atman hardly ever becomes the point of attention. This applies to all the rituals and methods of worship we indulge in.At the most our attention is focussed on the form we are worshipping or on the names and mantras we are uttering.

Swami says that we can never attain peace by performing rituals.Temporary peace and some bliss may follow ritualistic practices. But these disappear when a person is confronted with adversities in life. A person in divine bliss is neither dejected nor overjoyed under any situation. Such a bliss can be attained only when a person developes constant awareness of the Atman, present inside him. Swami says that peace is embodied in love. What is the meaning of this statement? Earlier He said that bliss is attained only by the awareness of the Atman. How do we connect these two statements? Of all the forces acting in the Universe the most powerful is that of attraction. Just as all forms of energies are manifestations of the Supreme Consciousness this force is also an integral part of It. Everything, from the electron inside the atom to the galaxies of stars, attracts everything else, to merge with itself. That is real love and not the one we humans exhibit ordinarily because real divine love, unlike human love does not expect anything in return. All the beings in the Universe are the manifestations of the Supreme Consciousness. Talking about this process of manifestation, Swami once said, “In the beginning I was alone and I wanted to love Myself. So I separated Myself from Myself so that I could love Myself.” What is the Ultimate purpose of love? It is to make the loved one part of the lover, or merge with each other. What has been separated should go back to the source. The Atman inside us, which is identical with the Supreme Consciousness is the source of this divine love, and is constantly trying to attract us back to itself. There is a constant flow of love from It. It is equated with love itself. Shiva, the third aspect of the manifestation of Consciousness, the individualized mode, is identical with the Atman and hence Shiva is equated with love. ‘Anbe Sivam’, a saying in Tamil, corroborates this truth, that ‘God is love’. We, human beings, are in essence, physical manifestations of the formless Atman. That is why, Swami often addresses us, ‘atma swarupalara, prema swrupalara and prematma swarupalara’. Swami being the exclusive manifestation of the Atman in physical form, we also hail Him as ‘Prematman’. He has already selected the name ‘Prema Sai’ for his next Avtar! Does He not say often that when He sees His devotees, love swells out of Him! Has He not said that whatever gifts He gives to the devotees are manifestations of His love for them! When a human is established in the awareness of the Atman, he enjoys eternal bliss and love automatically flows out of such a person. He develops equanimity of mind and identifies himself with the entire creation.

It is this truth that Swami enunciated in the above staterment. Without understanding this direct path to lasting bliss, we are aimlessly wandering in the wilderness of religious rituals and observances. If all our religious efforts and observances do no ultimately lead us to this ultimate goal of Self-awareness, they will remain only as empty meaningless rituals. They should be regarded only as steps in the ladder to spirituality. Means and end are not the same. Sitting on one of the steps of the ladder and imaginning that we have climbed to the top is sheer ignorance. That is what is referred to as ‘samsara’, spiritual stagnation. A question may arise here: should a person who has attained Self-awareness give up all religious practices? Not necessarily. As Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa says, a person who has climbed to the upper floor of a house using a ladder, may if he likes, kick away the ladder or keep it in place, in case he desires now and then, to come down to meet others! Then he may be in a position to give a hand to others also to come up the ladder. (To be continued)