Sri Sathya Sai International Organization

Bereft of love, humanness has no existence. We should love all, irrespective of the fact whether one is a pauper or rich. Money should not be the criterion to share your love with your fellow human beings. Money is not important. Money comes and goes; morality comes and grows. Do not hurt others. Help Ever, Hurt Never.

Steadfast faith and devotion are important. There is no gain without steadfast faith and devotion. Devotion is love, love is devotion. Wash in the water of love, applying the soap of steadfast faith, and wash it against the stone of renunciation. Then the true form of purity will come out. Thus, we should understand and recognize this truth. Therein lies wisdom. Truth is divine, wisdom is divine, infinity is divine. Everything is divine.

You may be a scholar or a wealthy person, or very clever and intelligent. But all these do not help you to secure God's grace. Saint Tukaram sang: "Oh Swami! I am not endowed with knowledge. I am incapable of performing Yajnas and Yagas (Vedic ritualistic sacrifices) or doing severe penance. Here is one easy path that I know to win your grace. That is the path of divine love. It is the royal road that will lead me to the presence of Rama." Tukaram declared emphatically that Rama cannot be realized by any other path except the path of love. This is the inner meaning of the statement: Love is God and God is Love.

You must discourage and control the emergence of bad qualities. When you are in a bad or an angry mood, keep silent. Do not exchange words, which cause the anger to multiply. That is why we say, “Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti” at the end of the bhajan. Why three times and not four times? It is to cover the three entities: body, mind, and spirit (Atma). You should have peace (shanti) in all the three levels.

It is better to earn a reputation for goodness than be known as a great person. All that you find in a great person is only selfishness. But in a good person, you find total selflessness. Therefore, all of you should strive to become good people. Revere your parents. Give them joy. Show your gratitude to them.

The present is very important. Don’t take it as ordinary present. It is omnipresent. The present contains the results of the past and the future. So, take care of the present and make it sacred.

I often tell the students about four F’s: follow the master (conscience), face the devil (that is, desire for money), fight to the end, and finish the game. Finishing the game is liberation (mukti). You have taken human birth and you have entered the sacred human life. You must attain divinity in your lifetime. There is nothing more valuable than this.

True love is the sweet fruit that grows out of the fragrant flower of good deeds. Love rules without recourse to the sword. It binds without laws. Only one who has such true love can be described as human.

Love is blissful and nectarine. The sweetness of nectar may have limits, but the sweetness of divine love has none. It is beyond all measure. It is beyond description too; it can only be experienced. Buddha discovered this love, experienced it, and became one with it. God and love are not different.

Today we are celebrating Easwaramma Day to propagate the glory of motherhood. The world is sustained by the prayers of mothers. A woman’s prayer is more powerful than a thousand prayers of men because women are pure and tender-hearted. Never cause displeasure to your mother. Never hurt her feelings. Then God will help you in all your endeavors.

For Buddha, everything had to be pure and sacred. If you throw a pebble into a well, ripples are created and travel up to the edge of the well. In the same way, if you throw a pebble called good thought into the well called the heart, the ripples generated travel throughout the body. When the ripple reaches the eye, it stimulates pure vision. When the ripple reaches the ear, it tunes the latter to sacred sounds. When the ripple reaches the hands, it swings them into good action. In this manner, when the ripples spread across the entire body, there is a symphony of sacred activity all round. Thus, good, and noble thoughts are fundamental to sacred activity. Such are the great teachings of Buddha.

Develop love toward everybody. Love gives but never takes. Love is a triangle. In this triangle, love gives and never receives. That is one angle. What is the second angle? Love is fearless. What is the third angle? Love is changeless.

Cultivate pure love; for, purity is unity, and that unity is divinity. Let your individual love be transformed into pure love for God. Sometimes, people have a doubt whether God’s love toward them had undergone a change. Never. God’s love will never undergo a change. For example, you have a log of wood. You can make any kind of furniture with it, like a chair or a bench. But the basic material, that is, wood remains the same. Similarly, God’s love always remains unchanged.

Truth (sathya) and righteousness (dharma) together will confer peace. One who adheres to truth and righteousness will always remain peaceful. One need not search for peace outside. Where there is truth, there is peace. Where there is peace, there is non-violence.