Sri Sathya Sai International Organization

If you want real, lasting happiness, you can get it only by union with God. God is all-pervasive. Why should you search for God while the Lord is within you? The body is like a water bubble, and the mind is a mad monkey. Don't follow them. You should follow only your conscience, sathya, the principle of truth. If you have an unpolluted heart and engage in unblemished action, you will experience the manifestation of God.

Humans yearn for happiness in every act, in every kind of experience. Humanity pines for happiness. All actions are aimed at deriving happiness. Whether doing business or working in an office, the aim is to derive happiness. But does one find it? No. It is a temporary phase only as it is worldly happiness. One may be happy for a while, but permanent happiness is attained only by contemplating God. So, contemplate on the divine.

The believer should try to plant today the seed of Lord’s name in a well-prepared heart, devoid of the thorns of egoism. Water it with love, fence the sprout with faith, and feed it with the fertilizer of remembrance of the name. From the grown-up tree of the mantra (holy letters), pluck the fruit of bliss and relish the sweetness.

True happiness has no limits. How can it be attained? It cannot be attained from outside. It originates from the heart. The heart is the dwelling place of God. To experience true happiness, we should develop firm faith in God. Where there is faith, there is love. Only when one cultivates love can one practice righteousness. Righteousness leads to truth, which in turn leads to God.

One need not search for happiness elsewhere. It is always with you and in you. You are unable to experience it as you have not understood the true meaning of happiness. You are under the illusion that happiness lies in money, wealth, and material comforts. Once you have the taste of true happiness, you will not crave for worldly possessions. True happiness springs forth from the depths of one’s heart.

God can do anything and can go anywhere. The Lord can change anything. Do not give room for doubts. One who doubts divinity will certainly be doomed. Develop unwavering faith and follow the divine command. True dharma (righteousness) lies in following the divine command. When you follow God, you will be blessed with all goodness and auspiciousness.

God is all-knowing, all-pervasive, and all-powerful. The words God utters while embodied in the human form, the acts the Lord deigns to indulge in during the earthly sojourn are inscrutable and extraordinarily significant.

There is a difference between happiness and bliss. In common parlance, "happiness" is momentary. It comes and goes. Bliss is something that wells up from within. It emerges from the heart because of one's union with God. If one feels separate from God, one cannot experience bliss. Embodiments of Love! You must experience such bliss in abundance in the days to come. Let me remind you once again that neither age nor position nor for that matter anything in this physical environment can bring about such bliss. Only a pure and loving heart is the source of bliss.

The Gita is a boat that takes people from the self-imposed state of bondage to the freedom that is their nature. People are taken from darkness to light, from lusterlessness to splendor. The Gita ordains disciplines and duties free from the taints of tendencies and impulses that tie people to the relentless wheel of birth and death.

Some people develop faith when their desires are fulfilled. If their desires are not fulfilled, they lose faith. This type of attitude is not good. Keep your faith firm, irrespective of whether your desires are fulfilled. Preserve your faith carefully. Faith can work wonders. It can make a blind person see, and a dumb person speak. Do not at all doubt the power of faith.

A person who never swerves from their determination, even under trying circumstances, is called a dheera (a hero), and such a person wins the grace of the Lord. We should try to seek fulfillment in our day-to-day life by basing our mundane activities on spiritual values. As I have been telling you off and on, you must have your hands in society and head in the forest. Whatever the activities you are preoccupied with in society, you must be steadfast in holding on to the spiritual ideal. This alone is the true spiritual practice (sadhana) that will bestow lasting peace on you.

Each second is a fresh chance given to you to train the mind, refine the intellect, purify the emotions, and strengthen the will to get confirmed in the conviction that you are the deathless Self, the infinite consciousness (Atma).

When you build a house, you install a door in front. What is the purpose of the door? To admit all who you welcome and to keep out all that you do not want. It has a double purpose; you do not keep the doors wide open for all and sundry to come in as and when they like. So too, select the impulses, motives, and incentives that enter your mind; keep out the demeaning, debasing, and deleterious. Admit the highest wisdom of the scriptures; the wisdom culled out of the crucible of experience.

Time is the very form of God. Birth and death are encompassed by time. Everyone, therefore, should regard time as divine and utilize it for performing sacred actions. You should not waste a single moment.