Guru

Gururbrahma Gururvishnu Gurudevo Maheswarah. Guru is everything and also God. All people wearing saffron clothes are not Gurus. A true Guru keeps his thoughts, words and deeds synchronised. He talks and does only good deeds. Such people have their knowledge from enlightened vision. All our ancient Rishis got their blessings and enlightenment directly from God. What and who was Vyasa Bhagawan - did he go to school or learnt Sanskrit? All the tons of knowledge that He had was obtained by His direct enlightenment. The amount of work he did - like the classification and coding of all the four Vedas - cannot be seen anywhere else in this world. Apart from the Vedas, he has written Mahabhagavatham, Mahabharatham and 18 Puranas. There is a story about him saying that Vyasa was still restless in his mind, Narada advised him to write the story of Sri Krishna to give him peace of mind, and he wrote Mahabhagavatham.

Our Swami, Sathya Sai, was a world Guru in the true sense and people from all countries and all religions recognise Him as such. Is there anyone in this world of His caliber in spirituality? Every word He utters is based on Truth. His motto is Sathyam, Dharmam, Shanthi, Premam and Ahimsa and what He preaches is all universally accepted truths.

Let us see what Sai has to say about Guru in relation to Gurupoornima day this year. "The Guru is needed when you have the Guri (goal or aim in Telugu). If you do not have that urge, what can the teacher do? Strewing precious seeds on sand or rock is a sheer waste! Inner prompting to see light must send aspirants to the teacher or must draw the teacher to wherever the aspirant is. You must inquire and discriminate: Do objects grant happiness? Is anyone happy? How can one be happy through multiplications of desire and frantic efforts to feed the raging fire? At last, you will, by your own experience, discover that happiness is an inner gift, a spiritual treasure that can be won by equanimity. The moon is the presiding deity of the mind; it must shine, cool and comforting, eternally, in fullness, in the inner firmament of the heart (hriday-akasa). The external material moon waxes and wanes, but the internal mind should be trained to stand up against modifications and moods, and have no marks on it; it should always be a full moon for the victorious spiritual aspirant!"

- Divine Discourse, Jul 17, 1962. 

God is not someone sitting on a throne and ordering about. God is within you and every action you do has a reaction you reap. The harvest depends on the seeds you sow.

There are many so called Gurus, especially in western countries, whose minds are polluted and are acting as gurus for collecting money. No action anticipating profit is pure. Act without thinking about the return or advantage or profit - God will appreciate such action. Other religions advise you to do good deeds to go to Heaven and that bad deeds lead you to Hell. These two - hell and heaven - are within you only, and are not something high above the clouds. They are the reactions of your own actions. One's mind has to be clean if one wants to do only good. For cleaning your mind, there is no other good method than faith in God. Faith in God comes to people naturally if one does sadhana in the form of service, lovingly and unselfishly. Our Swami, Sathya Sai, always insists on doing service with love and kindness, and not for publicity. The Sathya Sai Seva organisation is doing great work all over the world by educating people about sadhana by service, and they do it in the true Sai spirit of Love.

Yoga is meant for both mind and body. The idea of some rationalists, that Yoga is only good for physical fitness, is wrong. The Mind becomes strong and health improves once you start Yoga. Once mind is strong, intelligence becomes sharp, which can lead to spiritual enlightenment.

Yoga can clean the mind and the self. Let's see what Sathya Sai says about this: "The discipline of the self is the basic foundation for successful living. Through that alone can one attain real and lasting peace. And, without peace, there can be no happiness. Peace is the very nature of the Atma. It coexists only with a pure heart; it is never associated with a greedy heart full of desires. Peace is the distinguishing mark of yogis, sages, and the wise. It will flee away from the selfish and the sensual. It hates the company of such persons. Peace is full of spiritual uplift and the wisdom that is the natural accompaniment of bliss. Genuine peace is won only by control of the senses. Then, it can be called supreme peace. The experience of that stage is the ‘Stream of Supreme Peace’ (Prasanthi Vahini). Peace is earned and maintained without disturbance by calming the mental agitation that surges like waves, and levelling the swirls and whirls of likes, dislikes, love, hate, sorrow, joy, hope, and despair."

Yoga is our cultural ambassador and is promoted all over the world - and thereby, India is the leader of the world.