sai baba

Message for the Day…..” To eat and sleep is the fate of idlers and drones. “

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As your day progresses, as one enters the field of daily work and toil, you are infused with the passionate quality (rajoguna). Before you take your lunch, meditate on the Lord again and dedicate the work, and the fruit derived from it to the Lord Himself. Start eating only after this act of devotion and grateful remembrance. This is the meaning of the noon (maadhyannika) worship. By observing this ritual, passion is kept in check and is overpowered by the satwic nature. During the day, people are possessed by a third nature, tamas or dullness. When evening descends, one hurries home, eats one’s fill, and is overpowered by sleep. But a duty still remains. To eat and sleep is the fate of idlers and drones. When the worst of the qualities, tamas threatens to rule, one must make a special effort to escape its coils by resorting to prayer in the company of those who extol the Lord, reading about the glory of God, the cultivation of good virtues, and the purposeful nursing of good rules of conduct. This is the prescribed evening worship (sandhyavandana).

Sathya Sai Baba

Message for the Day….” When your mind dwells with the Lord always, you will be drawn automatically only toward good deeds”

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Twenty hammer strokes might not succeed in breaking a stone, but the twenty first might. Does this mean the first 20 blows were of no avail? No! Each stroke contributed its share to the final success which was the cumulative effect of all 21 strokes. So too, your mind is engaged in a struggle with the internal and external world. Needless to say, you may not always succeed. You can attain everlasting bliss by immersing yourself in good works and saturating your mind with the love of God. Infuse every moment of life with that love. Then evil tendencies will not obstruct you. When your mind dwells with the Lord always, you will be drawn automatically only toward good deeds. The objective of all spiritual practices is to destroy the mind, and some day, one good deed will succeed in destroying it, just like the 21st stroke. Hence no good deed is a waste – every little act counts!

Sathya Sai Baba

Message for the Day….” What is the First Duty of a Devotee…” ?

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To fix your mind on God, activities must be controlled. To successfully control them, you should overcome the handicaps of the gunas – satwa, rajas, and tamas. When these forces of natural impulse predominate and try to direct along their channels, you must pray to God to negate their pull. That is the first duty of a good devotee. The rule of nature is that the morning is the period of pure (satwic) quality, the noon of passionate (rajasic) quality, and the evening hour of dusk of dull (tamasic) quality. At dawn, the mind is calm and clear when awakened from the comfort of sleep liberated from agitations and depressions. In that mental condition, meditation on the Lord is very fruitful. This is the purpose of morning prayers (pratah-sandhya). But, ignoring the significance, people do rituals in a blind mechanical way. From now on perform the dawn worship after realising its inner and deeper meaning.

Sathya Sai Baba

Message for the Day…” Our Mental tendencies [samskaras] are like Flowing Water …”

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Have the Lord’s name within and the practice of your duty(swadharma) without. Even while engaging in selfless service, let your mind repeat the Lord’s Name. When rains pour on the mountain peaks and the water hurries down on all sides, no river emerges therefrom. However when the waters flow in a single direction, first a brook, then a stream, then a torrent, and finally a river is formed, and the rains reach the sea. Water that runs in one direction reaches the sea; water that flows in four directions soaks in and is lost. Mental tendencies (samskaras) are like this. Of what use are they if they merely come and go, this way today and that way tomorrow? The holy stream of good inborn desires must flow full and steady along the fields of holy thoughts and finally abide in the great ocean of bliss at the moment of death.

Sathya Sai Baba

Message for the Day…” Avoid evil deeds, hateful and harmful thoughts, and don’t get attached to the world”

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The net result of all this living and toiling is whatever comes to memory at the last moment of life. Therefore direct the entire current of life towards acquisition of the mental tendency (samskara) that you want to have during the last moment. The feeling that dominates the moment of death works with great force in the coming life. This truth must guide a person for the journey of this life too, for inborn desires are the wherewithal for this journey as well as for the journey after this. Therefore from tomorrow, always keep death, which is inevitable, before the eye of memory and engage yourself in the journey of life with good wishes for all, with strict adherence to truth, seeking always the company of the good, and with the mind always fixed on the Lord. Avoid evil deeds, hateful and harmful thoughts, and don’t get attached to the world. If you live thus, your last moment will be pure, sweet, and blessed.

Sathya Sai Baba

Message for the Day…” There is no such thing as woman alone being bound and men being free; both are equally bound by the rules of dharma…”

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Sathya Sai Baba

Just as the woman should consider one person and one person alone as her master and husband, the man too has to be faithful to one woman and one woman alone, as his mate, his wife. She has to consider the husband as Divine and worship him and minister to and follow his desires for the fulfilment of her duty of loyalty to the husband (pativrata);so too, man should honour his wife as the ‘mistress of the home’ and act in accordance with her wishes, for she is theGrihalakshmi (Goddess of prosperity of the home). Only then can he deserve the status of ‘man’. Name and fame, honour and dishonour, vice and wickedness, good and bad are all equal and uniform to both men and women. There is no such thing as woman alone being bound and men being free; both are equally bound by the rules of dharma. Both will fall into adharma if they conduct themselves without due consideration of the attributes mentioned above.

Message for the Day…”Keep your eyes pure. Fill your ears with stories of Divine; don’t allow them to listen to calumny. Use your tongue for uttering good, kind, and true words”

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Sathya Sai Baba

People have taught the eye, ear, and tongue the luxury of constant novelty. Now do the opposite. Turn your mind towards the good and examine every minute’s activities. Each deed is a chisel stroke shaping the rock of human personality. A wrong stroke may disfigure the rock. Therefore even the tiniest of acts must be done with great care and devotion. For a drowning person, even a reed is some support. So too to a person struggling in the sea of inborn desires (samskara), a few kind words might be of great help. No good deed is a waste; every bad deed has its consequence. So strive to avoid the slightest trace of evil activity. Keep your eyes pure. Fill your ears with stories of Divine; don’t allow them to listen to calumny. Use your tongue for uttering good, kind, and true words. Let it always remind you of God. Such constant effort will grant you victory.

Message for the Day…””You must spread the glory of dharma by making yourself a shining example of the peace and joy it gives.”

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In ancient times, people never gave up the practice of Dharma even when threatened with death at the point of the sword. Now without even the slightest pressure from others, people slide down and fall into unrighteousness (Adharma). Practicing Dharma is not an ordinary affair. The one who does not practice dharma is as bad as dead; one who practices it is of the divine nature. Presently there is an urgent need to turn people onto the dharmic path through the traditional methods of counselling with good advice, sharing with them the attractive consequences of following the path, threatening to dissociate from those who do not, and inflicting punishment as a last resort. You should derive the greatest possible benefit from dharma and while following it, avoid causing any injury to yourselves or others. You must spread the glory of dharma by making yourself a shining example of the peace and joy it gives.

Sathya Sai Baba

 

Message for the Day…” God has equal affection towards all HIS children…”

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Everyone, be they learned or illiterate, should feel an overwhelming urge to know God. God has equal affection toward all His children, for to illumine is the nature of light. Utilising that illumination, some choose to read good books while others do their daily tasks, whatever they are! Similarly uttering God’s name, one can progress in the realisation of God, another may choose to do wicked deeds! It all depends on how you choose to use the light. But the Lord’s name is without blemish, always and forever. God’s name must be recited and listened to. For some ailments medicines are prescribed for external application while for others, they are to be consumed. But for this universal ailment of the cycle of birth and death (bhava-roga), the medicines prescribed are listening to spiritual discourses (sravana), singing God’s name(kirtana), and the like.

Sathya Sai Baba

 

Message for the Day…” When the indications are that dharma is in danger, The Lord will come to protect dharma from harm.”

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The Lord descends now and then to uplift the downtrodden and to reestablish righteousness (dharma). Clearly grasp this truth. Many who read the Bhagavad Gita take it that the Lord incarnates when dharmais ‘destroyed’ and when the forces of unrighteousness (adharma)begin to prevail. This is incorrect; The Gita does not say nor is there any basis to draw the conclusion that dharma gets destroyed. The word used is ‘diminish’ (glaani); that is to say, when the indications are that dharma is in danger, “The Lord will come to protect dharma from harm.” Lord Krishna did not say that He will come down to protect and preserve it after dharma has been destroyed! Of what use is a doctor after life has left? So too, the Lord will rush when the practice is declining or weakening. The protection of dharma is the task of the Lord, for dharma is the very breath of every soul (jivi).

Sathya Sai Baba