November 8, 2009

Sai Satcharitra on Duty towards family


In Sri Sai Satcharita many instances have been recorded where SaiBaba has advised how a householder – male as well as female should conduct himself or herself. A few of them are as under:

1. First give bread to the hungry and then eat yourself. Do not make the habit of eating alone. Share it with those around you. Always remember God every time you take food. Before the senses, mind and intellect enjoy their objects, first God should be remembered. He who feeds the hungry, be it human or animal or bird or plant, serves God. See God in all beings. SaiBaba disapproved of fasting and said that God cannot be found on an empty stomach. He advised moderate eating i.e, neither starving nor over-eating.

2. Unless there is some relationship or connection, nobody goes anywhere. If any men or creatures come to you, do not discourteously drive them away but receive them well, and treat them with due respect. Give water to the thirsty, bread to the hungry, clothes to the naked and your verandah to strangers for resting. If anybody wants any money from you and you are not inclined to give, do not give but do not bark at him like a dog. It is on account of Rinanubandh (former relationship) that we have come together, let us love and serve each other and be happy.


3. Duty of feeding sanyasi is of householders due to Panchasoona – five sins and their atonement. In order to prepare food stuffs and meals the householders have to go through five actions or processes viz pounding, grinding, washing pots, sweeping and cleaning and lighting hearths. These processes involve destruction of a lot of small insects and creatures and thus the households incur an amount of sin. To atone of this these shastras prescribe 6 offerings viz - Offerings to Brahman, study of the Vedas, offerings to ancestors, offerings to Gods, offerings to beings, offerings to men or uninvited guests. If these are duly performed it leads to purification of mind and helps them in getting knowledge and self realization. Baba in going from house to house reminded the householders of their sacred duty.

4. No body should take the labour of others in vain. The worker should be paid his dues promptly and liberally.
5. For spiritual progress of householders, Baba advised that God is One- Ram and Rahim are one and the same, why should their devotees fall out and quarrel among themselves. It is not good to dispute and argue. So don’t argue, don’t emulate others. Always consider your interest and welfare. The lord will protect you. If anyone does any evil unto you do not retaliate. If you can do anything do some good unto others.

6. To reach God, surrender of self to Sadguru is a must. This surrender has to be combined with two virtues of Faith and Patience. We should turn all our attention towards Him and avoid the company of atheists, irreligious and wicked people.

In short, a householder – male or female - should always engage in good actions, do duties of their respective stations in life and surrender themselves, heart and soul to Him. This is enough to achieve the aim of taking a human body.



Vandana Ritik,
Heritage of Shirdi Sai
New Delhi

November 6, 2009

I am Soul not body


All along I’ve been thinking that I am a body and my tiny little soul is hidden somewhere inside my brain. Then the other day, I heard a very beautiful and deeply meaningful Buddhist quote: I am not in the body, the body is in me. This made me think and grasp its meaning. I wanted to understand its meaning, how I can put this knowledge to practice and how it is going to help me? I recalled all the information I had gathered so far through the study of various spiritual scriptures on the subject and following is what I understood:-


Here ‘I’ is referred to the ‘Soul’ or still higher ‘Spirit’. Soul is supposed to be the part of the wider Spirit – in the ultimate – all is Spirit. Water in river merges into wider ocean, in the ultimate - all is Ocean- Water. Similarly, soul is micro while spirit is macro just like water in river is micro and in ocean is macro (from where water evaporates and comes back as rain to fill up the river and then ocean again). From this I understand that all micro is part of that big macro - ONE. We call it principle of ONENESS or UNIVERSALITY. Everything emerges from ONE and merges back into that same ONE.


Now If I try to understand the function at the lower level it will be easy. The Soul is tiny spark of THE SPIRIT. Soul is energy and energy can never be destroyed. In itself, the Soul is said to be originally in the state Existence-Knowledge-Bliss. To express and experience itself and its powers, the soul takes up a body where it uses its aspects of thinking, intellect and emotions. However, in the body, the soul forgets its own existence, and gets entangled in the cycle of birth and death. Thus Soul gets separated from its source – the SPIRIT forever. The soul is given chance in form of a human body to recall its origin and merge back with the Source and return back to its original state of bliss forever.


The Soul contains all the information of the SPIRIT i.e., entire universe and its operations. However, when soul takes on this ‘garment’ of human body, most of this information becomes imperceptible because the human body has been bestowed with five senses(see, hear, touch, smell and taste) sufficient enough to comprehend the life it has to lead while dwelling on earth plane. These senses have a very limited range i.e., only earth and its surroundings like planets, solar system, galaxies etc. Accordingly human knowledge gets limited within this range.


However, in the human body, the Mind /Intellect aspect of the soul can be used to access the rest of the vast universal information. Mind has capability to go anywhere it wants to go. Sitting in my office chair, I can take my mind to foreign locales using my power of thoughts. A soul is capable of using its intellect/mind function to connect with the Source through knowledge and also through power of imagination and thoughts. The tricky part - It is the mind faculty of soul which makes it think that it is body and it is mind only which is to be used to correct the error and understand that I am soul not body. We have to learn to use our mind to control our body desires and not the other way round


The problem with most of us is that our mind has made us very busy with our body and its requirements – be it nourishment, relationships, profession, academic knowledge, attending functions etc. We start to believe that our life is to fulfil these material needs of the body only. We hardly think of the soul- its spiritual needs. We say we will think of it in old age or when we are free. When we forget the reality that I am Soul not Body, the Body starts to rule and control the Soul. Nature wants it other way round. Our Body should listen and function as per directions of our true inner self – Soul. When the body/ materialistic needs take priority and spiritual needs are neglected, the result is that when finally the body is discarded, the soul goes back empty handed. Soul did not experience or learn anything in that lifetime. Why? Because we accepted ourselves as body, then lived and died thinking of us as body. Only the body was enjoying and in the process the soul suffered. Thus the human life is wasted.


This is the reason why great saints and mystics have given so much importance to human body. A human body has been given this special faculty called mind which is to be used to access the universal knowledge, we refer to as God. Ancient Hindu scriptures state that God discovers himself through Us. HE makes HIMSELF known to HIM whom HE chooses. I have to understand and believe with utmost faith that HE has chosen ME. A human being has to aspire to understand these mysteries and understand the working of the Brahman (the Universe /God). It is said that the best way to get this knowledge is constant questioning of the self – Who am I, Why did I take Birth? What should I do to know my Source? How am I linked with others? When we are open to receive answers to these queries, the mysteries start to reveal themselves to us on their own. Actually, it is just ‘uncovering’ the layers of that exhaustive knowledge which is already contained in the Soul. As we ‘know’, we ‘grow’. We came to earth for this growth.


Normally people have an objective to lead a happy family life – grow up, work, get married, have children, get them married, think of God in old age and so on. However, a time comes when a human starts to wonder if he was actually born to do all this. If this thought persists longer than the human being starts to search for spiritual knowledge. In some human beings this thirst for knowledge does not come at all in the entire lifetime. The inner self could not be explored to remove the layers of ignorance and revelation of the vast divine knowledge. The life remained unfulfilled. All along we do not understood that purpose of this birth is not fulfillment of material desires only. It is much more. The materialistic world is to learn the art of giving and taking, unconditional loving, enjoying this journey of self exploration. We get so entangled and absorbed here that we do not want to move ahead and grow spiritually which will make us joyous for eternity. What we should today, we postpone it to old age. Sometimes it is too late.


I think that in simple terms, the best utilization of this human body is that a human being should lead a normal conscientious life and at the same time the human being should remember and stay connected with his Source / Creator/ God / Spirit. For some part of the day, take time aside to stop thinking of the outside world and introspect on Self only – Who am I? Try to feel and experience his own Being, his existence. A Believer in God is supposed to believe and trust in the unseen power even if it sounds illogical to his analytical and logical mind. Human being should always remember and be constantly aware that I am not in the body, the body is in me.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi