Sri Sathya Sai International Organization

On this New Year's Day, you should make a resolve that you will start every day with love, spend the day with love, fill the day with love, and end the day with love. There should be no difference in caste, creed, color, religion, or nationality. Love knows no distinction of any kind. You must wish everyone to be happy. Fill the heart with love. The country will prosper, and the world will prosper, and everyone will be happy.

Purity of mind is essential for enjoying divine bliss as purity of body is essential for bodily health. Higher than all the knowledge that can be acquired in the world is the knowledge of the Self (Atmajnana). There is nothing equal to the bliss that comes from Self-realization. It is attained only when the ego-sense is destroyed and there is prayerful submission to the divine. Prayers must arise not from the lips but from the heart.

One who constantly remembers God, with love and devotion, will ever be happy whether living in a village or a city, flying in the sky, or doing sadhana in a forest because God dances in their heart and confers delight.

After Joseph's passing, Jesus sought His mother's permission to embark on His divine mission. He got baptized by John the Baptist and spent forty days in penance in a forest. During the penance, He prayed to God for three things: 1) He should be blessed with the quality of loving everyone equally, 2) He should have the strength and forbearance to patiently suffer any indignity or persecution that He might be subjected to by anyone, and 3) He should be enabled to use His God-given body fully in the service of God.

Jesus resolved on three tasks: one, to be filled with divine love and to share it with others as the main purpose of His life; two, He should not succumb to praise or censure in carrying out His mission; three, to inspire in others the conviction that the divinity within is omnipresent. Jesus considered spreading the gospel of love as His foremost task. He encountered many ordeals in carrying out His mission, but He regarded them all as challenges to be overcome. He was determined to treat pleasure and pain, sickness, and failure with equanimity. He could not bear to see anyone suffer.

The ideals taught by Jesus should be put into practice. That is the right way to celebrate His birthday. Whomsoever you adore, you must try to live up to their teachings. What kind of devotion is it when the devotee does not practice what he or she professes? It is pseudo-devotion. Remember the Lord with love. Worship God with love. Sanctify your life with love.

Christ taught people to love all beings and serve all with compassion. It is only by practicing these ideals that one can truly celebrate His birthday. The divinity within should be reflected in every action.

"There is only one God, and He is omnipresent! There is only one religion, the religion of love. There is only one language, the language of the heart." This God has to be visualized by means of constant spiritual discipline.

Pure vision naturally begets purity in speech by the refinement of the heart. Pure words must come out of the depth of the heart, which is a fountain of compassion. Constant examination of the purity of one's vision, speech and action is a spiritual exercise. It is this that helps to refine the heart.

God is the embodiment of truth, righteousness, and nonviolence. That is why the scriptures teach: Speak truth, practice righteousness (Sathyam vada, dharmam chara). Truth, righteousness, and nonviolence are the real forms of God.

The divine is the basis for everything, objective as well as subjective. The eye cannot see, nor the ears hear unless the life-principle is active through the grace of the Atma or Brahman.

Develop love for God. All other forms of love are not love at all but only fleeting and impermanent attachments. One’s biggest folly is forgetting one’s divinity. All should realize that they come "from God." All are children of God. Everyone should seek to get nearer and nearer to God. That is spiritual practice.

One’s thoughts, words, and sights should be filled with love. This is divine love. One who is saturated with this love can never be subject to suffering. Human beings today are affected by praise or blame. But one who is filled with divine love transcends praise or censure. He or she is unaffected by criticism or flattery. That person treats joy and sorrow, profit and loss, victory, and defeat alike.

God is the entity closest to the human being, dearest to the human being. Your mother and father might be a little far, but God is right with you, in you. Even if you do not love Him, He will not depart from you or move afar. Smaller than the atom, say the Vedas. He expands beyond the cosmos and fills all with grace. In every cell, He will be in you. You can earn this awareness through intense love.