A True Offering To Sathya Sai Baba

Sathya Sai Baba

A True Offering To Sathya Sai Baba

A few years ago at the time when preparations were being made to begin the construction of the Super Speciality Hospital, Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba seemingly had less time to devote to the students. Day and night He was busy with matters relating to the new hospital. Every evening immediately after darshan Bhagawan would call a group of doctors for an interview and He would discuss with them matters relating to the new hospital, even the most minute details, as this was to be a model hospital. Bhagawan would come out of the interview room only after the evening bhajans had commenced and thus the students did not have much of an opportunity to interact with Bhagawan during this period. Previously after the evening interview Bhagawan would come out and speak to the students and guide them, but this wasn’t possible at that time as Bhagawan was extremely busy. There was one very young student of Bhagawan who could no longer bear the pangs of separation from his mother Sai. He wrote a letter to Bhagawan one day and took it during evening darshan but unfortunately he was sitting a few rows back. When Bhagawan came to his side this boy got up and offered his letter to Bhagawan. Bhagawan stopped, leaned over and made a special effort to take this young boy’s letter.

To say the least this boy was ecstatic. Then the darshan continued and as usual Bhagawan called a group of doctors for an interview. All the students were depressed as they felt they had been deprived of the love of their mother Sai yet another day. Then, after about five minutes, to everyone’s utter amazement, the interview room door flew open and Bhagawan emerged in all His glory holding a small letter in His hand, the letter of the young boy. Bhagawan called that young boy to come near and asked him, “Boy, should I read aloud what you have written to me in this letter, so that everyone may listen.” The innocent boy replied. “Whatever you think or wish, Bhagawan” Bhagawan himself read the letter aloud so that all could hear. The letter was as follows:

Dear Bhagawan,

You have given so much to me and to every one here. You have provided free education for me and all my brothers and now I hear that you are constructing a BIG Hospital that will provide the most modern health care facilities to every section of the society totally free of cost. Bhagawan! I also want to be a part of your glorious mission but I am just a small boy and I don’t know how I can contribute. Bhagawan, my parents are extremely poor but in spite of that they send me a little extra pocket money every month. I know it’s due to their love and concern for me.

Bhagawan! For the last three months I have not given my clothes to the dhobi. While all other boys were sleeping in the night I washed my clothes and thus I managed to save a little money. Bhagawan! I have also resisted the temptation of toffees, chocolates and all other things and thus managed to save a little money. Bhagawan! I offer this 100 rupee note to you. I feel ashamed and small to give you so little but even if this money can be used to buy a small brick for the foundation of the new hospital, I will be the happiest child in the world.

Your loving Son.

You know the twinkle in the eye of a mother when her son does something that makes her feel extremely proud. Well, that twinkle was there in Bhagawan’s eye. Holding the 100 rupee note in His hand, Bhagawan said to that young boy. “My dear son, this is not just 100 rupees, this note is worth millions and millions of rupees for Me.”

What do we learn from this? In God’s kingdom power, wealth, position and status are of no importance whatsoever. God only looks to see whether our heart is pure. For, had God looked at the magnitude of one’s sacrifice, would Lord Rama accept the jungle fruits from the hands of Sabari and relish them, would Lord Krishna accept the banana peels instead of the bananas from the hands of Vidura and feast on them and would Bhagawan leave aside a group of highly educated doctors in the interview room and come and spend the time with this young boy? God only searches for our love and devotion.

Just before the war Arjuna was full of doubt but after receiving the message of Lord Krishna all his doubts vanished, his delusion was removed, he regained his memory and he told LORD KRISHNA: “KARISHYE VACHANAM TAVA” “I will do as you tell me”. The same principle holds good for our sports meet as well. Bhagawan guides us, inspires us, and mentions to us how the sports meet should be conducted. From then onwards all the students, right from primary to P.G. level, spare no efforts in fulfilling Bhagawan’s wish, even if it means foregoing sleep, food and comfort. The students don’t mind at all. The work done is thus transformed into worship because in everyone’s mind there is only one thought and that is to please Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba.

Reference

Children To Lead Walk For Values In Queen St

Otara Sathya Sai Preschool

Children To Lead ‘Walk For Values’ In Queen St
4:00AM Friday Mar 20, 2009
By Simon Collins

The Sathya Sai preschool in Otara is free. Otara preschoolers will get a taste of downtown Auckland tomorrow when they lead New Zealand’s first “walk for values” up Queen St.

The mostly Pacific Island and Maori children attend New Zealand’s only preschool run by the Institute of Sathya Sai Education founded by an 82-year-old Indian guru, Sathya Sai Baba.

Sai Baba followers in Canada held the world’s first “walk for values” in 2003 in response to gang violence.

Since then walks have become annual events in Canada, the US and Australia, and the movement’s 1500 followers in this country hope the Queen St walk will help to spread their message of love and peace.

“If you look around you from broken families to family violence to the statistics that show our alcohol and drug abuse, it’s very apparent that our society does need to go back to the values that we essentially are,” said spokesman Manoj Nathoo.

“In promoting the walk, we have asked people who have shown interest to undertake to practise a certain value. If you pick love, we hope that from the time you register to the time you walk you will make a deliberate effort to be more loving and caring.”

New Zealand Herald Reference

Non Violence And Truth: Sai Baba’s Core Values

Sathya Sai Baba

Non Violence And Truth: Sai Baba’s Core Values
Sai Baba’s birthday tomorrow:
By: Dr. C. SRIDEVA

November 23rd is the birthday of our beloved Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, who was born in the village of Puttaparthi in the State of Andhra Pradesh, in India. Bhagavan has given innumerable discourses on spiritual topics, to His devotees, irrespective of caste, creed or religion. It is well worth to know what He had said about Human values. In His discourse Swami had said:

“Sai educational institutions are based on equal respect for all religions. They are wedded to unity and harmony.”

A society without values will cease to be human. The more human values are cherished, the better will be the growth of society, the nation, and the world. We cannot rest content with an educational system which is confined to academic achievement.

Human Virtues
It has to promote simultaneously human virtues. The main problem of our education is how to adapt the spiritual and cultural traditions that we have inherited from the past to the needs of daily life today.

The relationship between the individual and society has to be rightly understood. Why should the individual serve others? What claims has society on the individual? When we examine these issues, we realize that the individual can find fulfilment only in society. Born in society, growing up in society, living in society, man ends his life in society.

Society may be viewed as a many petalled flower. Every individual is like a petal. All the petals together make for the beauty of the flower. Without the petals there will be no flower. Likewise every individual is a petal making up the flower of society. Each one should manifest the glory of the Divine. Society may also be compared to a four-wheeled chariot. The four wheels are:Unity, Control, Knowledge, and Power.

Human Qualities
How are human qualities to be promoted in society? Living amidst fellow human beings, man has to sow the seeds of love, rear the plants of harmony, and offer the fruits of peace to society. Thereby his humanness is manifested. In the language of Vedanta, non-violence, truth, non-stealing, celibacy, and non-acquisitiveness, are the five human values to be cultivated.

Non-violence does not mean causing harm to others. It really means that one should not cause harm to any one in thought, word, or deed. Only when this is developed, one can experience Truth. Truth does not change with time. It must be spoken with complete purity of mind, speech and body.

Non-stealing means the thought of taking another’s property should not arise in the mind. Nor should one tell others to commit theft. The fourth is celibacy (Brahmacharya). This means what ever one thinks or says or does should be filled with thoughts of God (Brahman).

All thoughts, words, and deeds should be dedicated to the Divine. The Ego arises from the Atma. The thoughts are produced by the ego and give rise to speech. Hence all actions are based on the Atma. When all these (thoughts, desires, and speech) are sanctified by dedication to God, the consciousness of oneness with Brahman (God) ensues.

The next human value, non-acquisitiveness, means performing actions without expecting any reward or acquisitive motives and done in selfless spirit.

Insatiable Desires
Today man is afflicted with insatiable desires, unlike the birds and animals which have no desire to hoard or to exploit others. Man forgets his natural human qualities and behaves worse than animals. When these tendencies are given up, the inherent divinity in man will manifest itself.

Human virtues cannot be nourished by study of books or got readymade from teachers. They have to be cultivated by each person. The world sorely needs today human values. Without developing devotion to God no human quality can grow. The first requisite is faith in God. Only with this basic faith can one develop one’s human personality.

The Vedas declare “Speak the truth; adhere to Dharma and right conduct”. In practising Dharma, there should be no secret desires. Actions performed with such secret motives result in bondage.

A righteous life leads to peace. Love is to be experienced in the depths of peace. Where love prevails, there is no room for doing harm or violence to others. All these basic values have to be demonstrated in action and not limited to preaching.

The world cannot be changed by mere preaching. Only through action and practical example can the impulse for change be intensified. Only when human values are practised by teachers and elders, will students practice them. Educationists must note this fact. If transformation is to be effected in students, the process must start from a very early age.

To propagate human values, it is advisable to keep as far away as possible from the powers that be. It is not possible to promote sacred values through the help of governmental authorities.

It is essential to be self-relient and stand on out own legs. Educational institutions must promote the spiritual outlook among students. When students acquire spiritual values, human values will grow in them, of their own accord.

Encouragement
Human values are in every one. What we need are persons who will provide the stimulus and the encouragement to bring them out.

If the feeling that the divinity that is present in everyone is one and the same, is promoted among all, human values will sprout naturally in every person. Students should not allow success or failure to ruffle their minds unduly. Courage and self – confidence must be instilled in the students.

There should be equal respect for all faiths and beliefs. There should be no hatred towards any faith. Other creeds and beliefs should not be condemned or derided. What ever studies you may pursue, do not give up your faith in God. To give up God is to give up life itself. Life is God. Truth is God. All that you do as an offering to God will be an expression of human values.

If faith in God is strengthened, all values will develop in due course. Sublimate your lives by remembering, worshipping and adoring God.

Sai Ram!

Reference

Ahimsa With A Side Of Bacon

Preface: I am not prejudiced against meat eaters. Nor do I care to preach to anyone about what they should or should not eat (just as I would not like to be preached to about what I should or should not eat). This article’s intent is to expose Tony O’Clery’s hypocrisy and double-standards when it comes to “ahimsa” (non-violence) and meat-eating.

Tony O’Clery (an ex-devotee of Sathya Sai Baba) often blathers about “ahimsa” (non-violence) and vegetarianism. As a matter of fact, Tony is so averse to eating meat and causing harm to animals that he has written a great deal about it on his own personal website and on the SSB2 Yahoo Group. For example, Tony cited (copied from another source) the following spiritual texts as authorities on the ills of eating meat and causing suffering to animals:

“Mahabharata” (18.113.8) says: One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma. Yielding to desire and acting differently, one becomes guilty of adharma.Atharva Veda Samhita 6.120.1. VE, 636 You must not use your God-given body for killing God’s creatures, whether they are human, animal or whatever. Yajur Veda Samhita 12.32. FS, 90

Nonviolence is all the offerings. Renunciation is the priestly honorarium. The final purification is death. Thus all the Divinities are established in this body. Krishna Yajur Veda, Prana Upanishad 46-8. VE, 413-14

To the heavens be peace, to the sky and the earth; to the waters be peace, to plants and all trees; to the Gods be peace, to Brahman be peace, to all men be peace, again and again-peace also to me! O earthen vessel, strengthen me. May all beings regard me with friendly eyes! May I look upon all creatures with friendly eyes! With a friend’s eye may we regard each other! Shukla Yajur Veda Samhita 36.17-18. VE, 306; 342

No pain should be caused to any created being or thing. Devikalottara agama, JAV 69-79. RM, 116

The Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita, Epic History The very name of the cows is aghnya, indicating that they should never be slaughtered. Who, then could slay them? Surely, one who kills a cow or a bull commits the most heinous crime. Mahabharata, Shantiparva 262.47. FS,pg. 94

He who desires to augment his own flesh by eating the flesh of other creatures lives in misery in whatever species he may take his birth. Mahabharata, Anu. 115.47. FS, pg. 90

One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma. Yielding to desire and acting differently, one becomes guilty of adharma. Mahabharata 18.113.8.

Those high-souled persons who desire beauty, faultlessness of limbs, long life, understanding, mental and physical strength and memory should abstain from acts of injury. Mahabharata 18.115.8.

Ahimsa is the highest dharma. Ahimsa is the best tapas. Ahimsa is the greatest gift. Ahimsa is the highest self-control. Ahimsa is the highest sacrifice. Ahimsa is the highest power. Ahimsa is the highest friend. Ahimsa is the highest truth. Ahimsa is the highest teaching. Mahabharata 18.116.37-41.

He who sees that the Lord of all is ever the same in all that is immortal in the field of mortality-he sees the truth. And when a man sees that the God in himself is the same God in all that is, he hurts not himself by hurting others. Then he goes, indeed, to the highest path. Bhagavad Gita 13. 27-28. BgM, pg. 101

Tirumantiram and other Scriptures Many are the lovely flowers of worship offered to the Guru, but none lovelier than non-killing. Respect for life is the highest worship, the bright lamp, the sweet garland and unwavering devotion. Tirumantiram 197

SPIRITUAL MERIT and sin are our own making. The killer of other lives is an outcast. Match your words with your conduct. Steal not, kill not, indulge not in self-praise, condemn not others to their face. Lingayat Vachanas

AHIMSA IS NOT CAUSING pain to any living being at any time through the actions of one’s mind, speech or body. Sandilya UpanishadWhen mindstuff is firmly based in waves of ahimsa, all living beings cease their enmity in the presence of such a person. Yoga Sutras 2.35. YP, pg. 205

Those who are ignorant of real dharma and, though wicked and haughty, account themselves virtuous, kill animals without any feeling of remorse or fear of punishment. Further, in their next lives, such sinful persons will be eaten by the same creatures they have killed in this world. Shrimad Bhagavatam 11.5.4. FS, pg, 90

It is the principle of the pure in heart never to injure others, even when they themselves have been hatefully injured. What is virtuous conduct? It is never destroying life, for killing leads to every other sin. 312; 321, TW

Harming others, even enemies who harmed you unprovoked, assures incessant sorrow. The supreme principle is this: never knowingly harm any one at any time in any way. 313; 317, TW

What is the good way? It is the path that reflects on how it may avoid killing any living creature. Refrain from taking precious life from any living being, even to save your own life. 324; 327, TW

How can he practice true compassion Who eats the flesh of an animal to fatten his own flesh? TK 251, TW

Riches cannot be found in the hands of the thriftless. Nor can compassion be found in the hearts of those who eat meat. TK 252, TW

Goodness is never one with the minds of these two: one who wields a weapon and one who feasts on a creature’s flesh. TK 253, TW

If you ask, “What is kindness and what is unkind?” it is not killing and killing. Thus, eating flesh is never virtuous. TK 254, TW

Life is perpetuated by not eating meat.The clenched jaws of hell hold those who do. TK 255, TW

If the world did not purchase and consume meat, there would be none to slaughter and offer meat for sale. TK 256, TW

When a man realizes that meat is the butchered flesh of another creature, he must abstain from eating it. TK 257, TW

Perceptive souls who have abandoned passion will not feed on flesh abandoned by life. TK 258, TW

Greater than a thousand ghee offerings consumed in sacrificial fires is to not sacrifice and consume any living creature. TK 259,TW

All that lives will press palms together in prayerful adoration of those who refuse to slaughter and savor meat. TK 260, TW

For those of us who are vegetarians (yes, I am vegetarian), this may sound all good and well. But for those who truly believe in non-violence, here is the clincher: Tony’s wife eats meat and he has no problem with her doing so because she is “not on a spiritual path” and allegedly doesn’t eat “red meat” (as if that makes the slaughter of fowl, fish and pigs any less violent)! Tony throws aside the very scriptures he cites to support his views on ahimsa and vegetarianism to defend his wife’s eating of meat. Because Tony O’Clery allows his wife to purchase (with their joint money) the flesh of slaughtered animals and allows her to bring those carcasses into his house, he is committing the offense of himsa (violence) through association (according to the scriptures he cites to support his views). Tony indulges in what I call “conditional ahimsa” (i.e., violence is bad, but if your wife is “not on a spiritual path” then violence doesn’t matter)! According To Tony Bologna O’Clery, Those who are not on the “spiritual path” are apparently perfectly entitled to indulge in violence and meat eating with impunity!

The funny thing about all of this is that O’Clery goes to great efforts to convince others about the ills of eating meat, yet obviously cannot convince those nearest and dearest to him on the ills of eating meat! Tony allows the bloody flesh of slaughtered animals to take shelter in his house, in his fridge and in your wifes body and has the audacity to rant about “ahimsa” and vegetarianism! Tony even posted the following verse on the SSB2 Yahoo Group:

The “meat-eater,” is poignantly described in the following passage from the obscure Mansahara Parihasajalpita Stotram: “Those who eat the flesh of other creatures are nothing less than gristle-grinders, blood-drinkers, muscle-munchers, sinew-chewers, carcass-crunchers, flesh-feeders-those who make their throat a garbage pit and their stomach a graveyard-mean, angry, loathsomely jealous, confused and beset by covetousness, who without restraint would lie, deceive, kill or steal to solve immediate problems. They are flesh-feeders, loathsome to the Gods, but friendly to the asuras, who become their Gods and Goddesses, the blood-sucking monsters who inhabit Naraka and deceptively have it decorated to look like the pitriloka, the world of the fathers. To such beings the deluded meat-eaters pay homage and prostrate while munching the succulent flesh off bones.”

Also, Tony O’Clery said:

“Namaste, I think meat eaters have a mental condition and a defective psyche, combined with cognitive dissonance carnalitas. They may have a nice personality and be loving even, but their levels of awareness have not evolved much beyond australopethicus..They haven’t caught up with the other vegetarian hominids the Gorilla and Oran Utan..Tony.” (Reference)

Those nearest and dearest to Tony O’Clery are “gristle-grinders”, “blood-drinkers”, “muscle-munchers”, “flesh-feeders”, “sinew-chewers”, and “carcass-crunchers” who are afflicted with “mental condition and a defective psyche, combined with cognitive dissonance carnalitas”. With his meat-eating wife and family at his side, O’Clery tries to take a peaceful stand for ahimsa and the ills of eating meat and miserably fails!

O’Clery preaches ahimsa, but is married to himsa.

Reference