Om Sri Sai Ram

PEARLS OF SWAMI’S MESSAGES 3rd part

SWAMI ON WOMANHOOD

Women has been extolled in ancient Scriptures as well as classical poetry as Grihalakshmi the Goddess of prosperity in the home. She is Dharmapathni who accompanies the husband in the fulfillment of the duties and rights of wedded life s a householder.

The mother is the pillar of the home, of society, of the nature and so of humanity itself. Mothers must know the secret of mental peace, of inner silence, of spiritual courage, of contentment, which is the greatest wealth and of Adhyatmic discipline, which gives lasting joy!

Abala does not mean lack of physical or mental strength. The wife can veritably make the home of her husband a temple, a school, a Council-Chamber or a hermitage.

Maharanis watch the world from inner apartments of the palace through interstices in the walls or enclosure. They can see but they are safe from 'other eyes’. That is the highest Stridharma as laid down in the Sastras! You should not be seen or talked about. You must be away from public gaze. You must be silent invisible partners and inspires and teachers.

Women are the mothers of the coming generation. They are the teachers of that generation during the first five years of life! The mother is the first of the five Mathas (mothers) that the Indian child encounters!

1.       Deha Matha: The mother that gives birth to this body.

2.       Go-Matha: The cow that gives sustaining milk.

3.       Bhoo-Matha: The land that grows crops, which feed the body.

4.       Desa-Matha: The native Country motherland, that gives protection, love, rights and chances to serve and elevate oneself to one's full height.

5.       Veda-Matha:  The heritage of spiritual treasure, that reveals the aim and purpose of human life and takes one-step by step towards the goal of self-realisation.

Women are the makers of the home, the nation and the world. You are the mothers who shape the generation. So you must enshrine in your hearts the spiritual urge towards light and love, Wisdom and Bliss!    

Instruct the women of the village in the basic principles of child health, child-care and child training. When health fails, people become despondent and even desperate. When health prevails, vitality pervades both mind and body. By the process of loving service, you can become the promoters of much joy. Do not consider any act of service as demeaning! 

Modesty and devotion to God are real jewels for womankind. The feminine is the foundation on which a peaceful and happy world is to be raised. When women are true, brave, kind and compassionate the World can have an era of peace and joy!

Woman is not meant to surpass man nor to be trampled under foot. She should stand as his equal not merely to nurse him but also as his companion in his joys and sorrows in life! People call women weak. Do not believe it. Having all these strong points in your favour, intelligence, discipline, spiritual capacity, consciousness of others excellences, awareness of

Ones faults, eagerness to improve your self. How can you be called weak? You are the leaders!

A woman has to maintain her house; she is not only the housewife but on her, depends the glory of the whole Country! That is why we say, "This is our motherland". It is in this spirit we refer to our country as BHARATHA MATHA. We also find that women are given the first position when they are associated with their counter parts as in Sita Rama, Lakshmi Narayana, Radha Krishna, and Parvathi Parameswara!

Mother hood is the most precious gift of God. Mothers are the makers of a nation's fortune or misfortune, for they shape the sinews of its soul. Those sinews are toughened by two lessons, they should teach fear of sin and fondness for virtue. As the mother, so the progress of the nation., As the mother, so the sweetness of   culture !

India had many great women whose virtue and wisdom extolled through the centuries. Sita, Savitri, Gargi, Anasuya, Damayanti, are women who are installed in the hearts of millions of people who worship them; they draw inspiration from them when confronted with calamity and crisis. They were full of unsullied love towards all who suffered. They were ready to serve the poor and distressed; they were so steady in their faith in God that they put up with the direst misery in joyful submission to His will.

RESPECT FOR WOMEN IS A SIGN OF REAL CULTURE

"The centre of every home must be the shrine room!" the fragrance of flower and incense, emanating from this must pervade the home and purify it. The mother must set the example in holding out the shrine as the heart of the household! She must enforce discipline over the children in personal cleanliness in humility and hospitality, in good manners and acts of service.

Mothers of those days were women of great piety and noble character. They practiced virtue and set an example to the children! Only from the wombs of such noble women were born sons of high character! 

If mothers take care of the homes on right lines they will be protecting the nation. Mothers should foster in the children, love for truth, righteousness and tell them stories about the lives of great men and women. In old times elders used to tell the young children, all about the nation's great heroes and saints. Where are such elders today?

In this phenomenal world whatever pleasures and satisfactions one may derive elsewhere, if there is no joy at home, it becomes a veritable hell. The home is heaven itself. It is the duty of women to maintain it as such.

Cultivate a sweet temper and the sweet speech, which is its natural consequence. Speak without anger or spite without any artificiality or formality straight from the heart. Then you will be spreading joy and love among all.

THE GREATEST BEAUTY AID FOR WOMEN IS VIRTUE - SEELAM

Women have Satwa guna in ample measure; they are by nature helpful, tender, compassionate, humble and trustful. Next, they also have a good measure of Tamo guna. They are timid, shy and non enterprising. It is good that women are such. They have been endowed with only a small measure of Rajo guna! This is the general truth!

CULTIVATE LOVE IN YOUR HEART

One who cultivates the crop of love in the field of one's heart is a true Christian, a true Sikh, a true Hindu and a true Muslim. In fact, he is a true human being on earth who cultivates love in his heart.

Love is the life breath of man. It is the consciousness in all the beings. It is the goal of human life. Human life is suffused with love. Unable to comprehend the eternal principle of love, man is weighed down by the physical, worldly worries and anxieties.

Life devoid of Love is a Devil's life. God has not created creatures such as Devils and Evil spirits. These are the creations of man.

Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian should be the embodiment of love. For any caste, creed or religion love is the basis. Love is Sivam and Mangalam, which mean auspiciousness. Love does not hurt anyone. That which does not hurt is referred to as Sivam. Man bereft of love is Savam (corpse). The one with love is Sivaswarupa (embodiment of auspiciousness).

A person who is immersed in divinity completely will have no words to describe the glory of God. Immerse yourself completely in divine feelings and pure love. It is due to lack of love that there are today conflicts between individuals, villages, state and countries. In order to get positive results you should fill your heart with positive feelings. Love, peace, compassion, which originate from the heart are positive in nature. All the negative thoughts are the products of the head.

When you develop love in your heart, you are verily God. You become God of demon on the basis of your feelings.

Love is like a rose and lust is like a thorn. Cut the rose without touching the thorn and offer it to God. You should offer yourself to God. That is surrender. Love within you should be merged with the Divine Love. There lies the bliss.

TRUE HUMAN

Man today is not making an attempt to recognise the innumerable faults in him, instead he is magnifying the minutest faults in others. In fact, he is searching for mistakes in others with thousand eyes. This is the sad state of man today. Man is losing his true identity because he has allowed the evil qualities to enter his heart. People today are more interested in findings others faults rather than seeing their merits. He is a true human being who sees only good in others.

Even a millionaire has to be content with ordinary food; He cannot live on a diet of gold. When time is not favourable a stick may turn into a snake, while, when it is favourable, dust may turn into gold. The wheel of time can turn a scholar into a fool and a fool into a saint. A wealthy man may become a plaything of adversity at some time. Whatever your efforts may be, you cannot get what you are not destined to get. O man, don’t be over ambitious, Lead instead a noble life making proper use of the intellect.

AVATARS - EXAMPLES OF SELFLESS SERVICE

Avatars of God are engaged in service; that is why Avatars happen. Hence, when you offer service to mankind, the Avatar will naturally be pleased and you can win grace.

Service is the highest spiritual exercise (sadhana), for God Himself takes human form and comes down to serve mankind and lead it to the ideals it has ignored. Therefore, consider how delighted God will be when man serves man.

Human lives are now passing on and on, filth over filth, bent, broken, diseased, distressed, disheartened! To ennoble these lives and to make the human heritage worthwhile, I have come. I am evincing all this enthusiasm to teach you the proper attitude of service, for love expresses itself as service. Love grows through service; love is born in the womb of service. And God is love.

The Avatar is a Child to the children, a Boy to the boys, a Man among men, a Woman among women, so that the Avatar's message might reach each heart and receive enthusiastic response, as ananda. It is the compassion of the Avatar that prompts His every activity.

Birds, beasts and trees have not deviated from their nature; they are still holding it valid. Man alone has disfigured it, in his crude attempt to improve upon it. So, the Avatar has to come as Man among men and move as Friend, Well-Wisher, Kinsman, Guide, Teacher, Healer, and Participant among men. He has come to restore righteousness (dharma), and so, when man follows dharma, He is pleased and content.

You have to understand the power of good thoughts. Thoughts travel from one person to another. If you are thinking ill of another, that can harm the other person, but ten times more than harm will come to you. Never allow them to come near us. Always wish good of others. Love all.

The Principle of Love has no trace of ego or blemish. It is fully free from selfish attachments. Work done without the thought of self and eschewing the craving for name or power pleases God most.

GRACE OF GOD

God is the embodiment of compassion. He watches for a grain of goodness or humility so that He can reward it with tons of grace.

Deserve the grace of God by helping the weak and the poor, the diseased and the disabled, the distressed and the downtrodden. Cultivate the Divine qualities of love, compassion, humility, and reverence for all living beings, reverence towards the earth and all the other elements. You can thus drawn upon yourself the grace of God and render your life beneficial and fruitful. More than listening to a hundred lectures or delivering them to others, offering one act of genuine service attracts the grace of God.

I have no special brand of grace for those who are at My door, nor do I neglect the man at the gate. In fact, I have no geographical "far" and "near”; My "far" and "near" are not calculated in miles or yards. Nearness to Me is not acquired by physical nearness. You may be by My side, yet far; you may be far, far away, yet very near and dear. However far you are, if you but stick to truth, righteousness, peace and love, you are close to Me and I am close to you. Those are the milestones that mark the road to Me.

Endeavor to earn grace by observing the discipline that I am keen you should follow. Give up the old worldly ways of earning and spending, saving and accumulating, with greed, lust, malice and pride. So rearrange your lives that I will be pleased with you. Do not waste time in idle gossip; talk softly; talk as little as possible; talk sweet. Serve all as brothers and sisters, with adoration to the Sai in them. Engage in sadhana; move forward step by step as befits persons striving to realize their own liberation.

You should not pray to God seeking this favor or that. The reason is no one can know what immensely precious, Divine, and magnificent treasures lie in the treasure house of Divine grace. No one can no know what God intends or desires to give to a devotee. In such a situation, by asking for trivial and petty things, man is demanding his Divine estate.

No one can understand what valuable, sacred and Divine favor God chooses to confer on a deserving devotee. Hence man should not seek from God, nor desire, nor pray for some petty trifles. More precious and desirable than anything else is God's love.

When you recite the name of the Lord with love, when you carry out with your limbs the injunctions of the Lord and look upon the world as a manifestation of the Divine, you are bound to receive the grace of the Lord. Have this firm conviction. Do not labor under the misconception that mere chanting of God's name alone is necessary and adequate. Along with it you have to take part in sacred activities. You must not mind whatever obstacles you may encounter.

Devote every day at least five minutes to reciting the Lord's name and a few minutes to rendering some kind of service to the needy and the forlorn. Include in your daily prayers a prayer for the welfare of all people in the world. Do not be engrossed in your own well-being and salvation. Try to lead a life free from ill will and harm to others. Regard this as a type of spiritual discipline and redeem your lives.

Be simple and sincere. It is sheer waste of money to burden the pictures and idols in the shrines and altars of your homes with a weight of garlands and to parade costly utensils and vessels and offerings to show off your devotion. This is deception; it demands Divinity, imputing to it the desire for pomp and publicity. I ask only for purity of heart, to shower grace.

Do not posit distance between you and Me; do not interpose the formalities of the guru-sishya relationship, or even the altitudinal distinctions of the God-devotee relationship, between you and Me.

I am neither guru nor God; I am you; you are I; that is the truth. There is no distinction. That which appears so is the delusion. You are waves; I am the ocean. Know this and be free, be Divine.

SPIRIT OF LOVE

Man can experience peace and security only when his heart is filled with love. Love is God, love is Nature, love is life and love is true human value. Bereft of love, man is equivalent to a corpse.

There are two things you have to forget - the help you have rendered to others and the harm others have done to you .If you remember the help you rendered, you will   always expect something in return. Remembrance of the harm done to you by others generates in you a sense of revenge.

Without Bharat there will be no trace of spirituality in this world. There is truth in the air of Bharat; there is Dharma in the dust of Bharat. The land of Bharat is suffused with love. The water of Bharat overflows with compassion.

The significance of a festival does not lie in wearing new clothes but in cultivating new and noble thoughts. The house should be decorated not merely with the buntings of green leaves, but with buntings of love. Share your love with everyone who visits your house. Only then we would be celebrating the festival in its true spirit.

Bliss cannot be achieved through spiritual practices, which confer only temporary mental satisfaction. It is attained only by the awareness of the Atma, which is true and eternal.

The embers can be seen only when the ash is blown away. Similarly, the Atma, which is inherent in man, can be seen only when chanting the name of the Lord blows the ash of ego, anger, desire and body attachment away.

Good and bad are the reflections of our mind; they do not exist in the persons around. Defect lies in vision, not in creation, so, purify your heart. Only then you can experience unity in diversity.

Those who speak from the heart speak the truth. Others, whose speech does not come from the heart, speak untruth to suit the occasion. Your words should emanate from the heart. This is possible only when there is complete confidence in the Self.

LAW OF KARMA AND SELFLESS SERVICE

There is a law of cause and effect; every karma has a consequence, whether you like it or not, whether you anticipate it or not. A good karma produces a good result; a bad one has to produce a bad result. Birth is the result of the karma done before death. If you are asked what happens to man after death, you can point to yourselves and declare,” This is what happens”; we are born again. This is no religion of despair; it is a religion of hope, of assurance, of encouragement to lead an active, useful, beneficent life.

 One meaning of karma that is popularly accepted is that it is one's destiny, or fate, the inescapable "writing" on the brow, which has to work itself out. There is no escaping it. But people forget that some other hand does not write it. It is all written by one's own hand, and the hand that wrote it can also wipe it off.

The status in the present life is decided on the basis of the activities in the previous lives. You are responsible for the nature of the certificate; if your conduct was good, you get a good certificate and a good job; if it was bad, you get a bad one and a poor job. It is you who write, you who wipe the writing on the head, or "destiny".

God is not involved in either rewards or punishments. He only reflects, resounds, and reacts! He is the Eternal Unaffected Witness! You decide your own fate. God has no will or won’t. He does not confer or withhold. He is the Eternal Witness. He is like the postman, who is unconcerned with the contents of the letters that he hands over to the addresses. A letter might communicate victory, another, defeat; you receive what you have worked for. Do good and have good in return; be bad and accept the bad that comes back to you. That is the law, and there is really no help or hindrance.

To say that God is the prime cause of everything is true to a certain extent; but he does not thrust you into an iron cage of destiny from which there is no escape. He has endowed you with the faculty of reasoning (Viveka) and detachment (Vairagya) and with a sense of awe and wonder, and you have to use these for attaining Him.

A seed will not germinate when it is covered with too much earth. In the same context, the seeds of wrong behaviour will not germinate and grow into painful events in our life if the seeds are covered deep with loving service to those who are in need of sustenance, courage, love and help. A lifetime of good deeds will cover a multitude of past sins. Constant work in loving service to others covers the seeds of past sinful and harmful actions, so they die away and do not grow into a new round of misery.

Loving service to those who are in need is the form of devotion most pleasing to the Divine. If, in truth, we love God, the He is directly before us as the inner reality of our fellow human beings. Loving service to those in distress is the excellent expression of devotion to God.

SACRED ACTIVITIES

It is rather difficult to say how one gets merit or sin? In order to escape sin, one should take to the path of spirituality. Knowingly or unknowingly, you commit sin. Consequently, you are suffering. You are unable to trace the root cause of your deeds. Cultivate sacred feelings. Server your fellow beings. Taking to this path amounts to devotion. Devotion does not mean performing worship and offering flowers to God. Worship amounts to good actions alone. One should have good thoughts within. One will not be redeemed if one undertakes good actions with bad intentions. For instance, if someone offers a donation of 10 Lakh for a charitable cause, another person may come forward with a donation of 15 Lakh only to attract the public attention. In reality, he may not give even 10 rupees. Such people are heroes at platform and zeroes in practice. There should be unity in thought, word and deed. That is what is meant by the "the proper study of mankind is man”. This is true humanness.

Undertake service activities in villages and slum areas. Provide the basic necessities of life such as food, clothing to the poor and needy. It amounts to greatest service.

If you have total faith in God, you will be able to overcome all difficulties. There may be a few difficulties in your way, but do not be unduly perturbed. You should face all hardships with courage and conviction. Only then you will attain true happiness.

Self-confidence cannot be purchased or obtained through learning. It is based on deservedness. Develop the divine thoughts to attain deservedness.

Do not give scope for bad feelings and bad thoughts. Do not criticize anyone.

If you have total faith in this truth, you will never have difficulties. When your faith is defective, you find it difficult to achieve anything. Have faith in God and Love Him. Love is God. You are bound to be successful in all your endeavors if you have faith in God. Any task, however difficult it may be, can be accomplished with God's grace.

People may deny God, but none can deny Truth. You cannot fragment Truth by saying, this is Pakistani Truth, this is American truth, this is Indian Truth and so on. Truth is uniform for people of all nations and all religions in all periods of time. Truth is one, so God is one.

You need food, clothing, shelter and some money to purchase medicines if you were to fall sick. That is why I say "O man! Never be over ambitious, lead instead a noble life by making proper use of the intellect.” Happiness lies in contentment. Dissatisfaction will lead to misery. In order to experience peace, keep your desires under control. Misery is the birthplace of all desires. In this journey of life, desires can be compared to luggage. “Less luggage. More comfort. Makes travel a pleasure.” So, reduce your desires. This is called Vairagya (renunciation). As the desire for the world decreases, the desire for God increases.

REMOVE EGOISM

The fruits of the tree of human life are sweet, but they are encased in the bitter skin of egoism and ignorance and have hard inedible seeds of desire, anger, pride, etc. One has to exercise one's intelligence to peel off the outer skin of ignorance, throw off the seeds of vice and wickedness and partake of the sweet kernel of life.

To remove the evil of egoism, service is the most efficient instrument. Service will also impress on the person doing service the unity of all mankind. He who dedicates his time, skill, and strength to service can never meet defeat, distress, or disappointment, for service is its own reward, His word will be ever sweet and soft, his gestures ever revered and humble. He will have no foe, no fatigue, and no fear.

Man must get rid of the feeling that he is the doer. As long as the ego is dominating, the Atma, or God consciousness will not be realized. The egoist cannot recognise the Atma.Therefore, first crush your ego. It is egoism that is the root cause of all man's troubles. The main criterion for service is sacrifice. Egoism should be the first quality to be offered for sacrifice. Giving up bad feelings is, in itself, sacrifice and that sacrifice becomes a man's fortune. Sacrifice does not mean that one should renounce possessions and family and leave the comforts of home to lead and ascetic life in the forest.

Little acts of service can confer on you great spiritual benefit. Firstly, it will destroy your egoism. Pride will transform friends into enemies; it will keep even kinsmen afar; it will defeat all good schemes. Service will develop in you the quality of humility. Humility will enable you to work in happy unison with others.

Service is worship; each act of service is a flower placed at the Feet of the Lord, and if the act is tainted with ego, it is as if the flower is infested with slimy insect pests! Who will contaminate the Feet with such foul offering? Have no egotism while you serve the people.

Dreams are the reflection, reaction and resound of that which is within you. The same does not apply to the dreams in which Swami appears. Swami appears in dreams only when He wills it and not when you want.

FOLLOW THE MASTER, FACE THE DEVIL, FIGHT TO THE END, FINISH THE GAME.

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