When we see the divinity everywhere,
installed as the indweller in every being, and we serve that omni-present
divinity in all we do, then karma yoga automatically
becomes bhakti yoga. Our work becomes worship. But in this there is
still some separation between ourselves and God; there is still some duality.
Baba is not satisfied with our spiritual progress until we become totally
immersed in non-duality and reach our highest truth, the realization of the
immortal self. That is the final stage.
Baba tells a little story of an old woman who
was sewing in her home at night. She was working on her tapestry when she lost
her needle. The light being very dim in her house, she went out to the street
lamp where the light was bright, to look for her needle. Baba ends the story
there. Whenever he tells this story he always seems a little amused by the
silliness of it.
We are like that old woman. We have also lost
our needle while working on the tapestry of our many lives. Our lost needle is
the knowledge of our truth, without which we cannot finish our work.
After groping through countless lives caught
up in illusion, we now know that there is something vital to our existence that
we have lost. We go to great teachers and to ashrams where the
spiritual light is intense, hoping to find there what we have lost.
We get great solace being in the light and we
gain deeper understanding of what we are looking for, but the final discovery
of what we have lost can only happen when we look inside our own heart of
hearts.
There within, deeper than the body and the
mind, deeper than our sense of I-ness which stands at the core
of our individual self, beyond all sheaths, subtle and causal, which cover our
truth, we find the brightest light of all, the light of atma. When the atma,
our true self is realized, the tapestry of our long journey in the world which
we have been working on for so many eons and so many lives, is finally complete.
Baba assures us that, just as was true in the
vision given to Arjuna showing the final outcome of the war, the outcome of our
long trek and our inner war has also already been determined by the divine
will. We are destined to return home.
Nevertheless, we must still tread the path
and fight the battles and win final victory over our inner enemies. We initiate
this process by making friends with the divinity in our hearts, keeping it as
our steady companion and allowing it to guide our inner journey.
As we proceed on our path the clouds of
illusion thin out and we become aware of a great mystery. We realize that the
spiritual journey we thought we were on is itself an illusion. We are not
individuals on the spiritual path following the direction of the divine
inner Guru. In truth, we are the totality.
We are the divinity itself. We are and always
have been the atma. Atma is neither born nor
reborn; nor does it ever die. As atma, we have not come from
somewhere nor are we going somewhere. We have never changed. Only the illusion
of individuality and separateness has changed. Ultimately that illusion disappears,
and we discover the glorious truth that we have always been one with God. Baba
tells us, "God if you think, God you are. Dust if you think, dust
you are. Think God. Be God. You are God. Realize it."
Some years ago, in a public discourse, Baba
directed us to repeat several times daily, "I am God, I am God, I am
no different from God. I am the infinite supreme. I am the one reality."
If we allow this declaration of truth to suffuse our lives and fill us with the
consummate love that is God, these powerful words will gradually become our
direct inner experience. More and more we will identify ourselves with the
divinity, our real self, and less and less with these ephemeral personalities
which are but shadow selves. Thus, we realize who we are, the immortal self,
the one divinity, which is love itself.
That is the inspiring message of this Gita.
(Source - Sai
Baba Gita, a compilation of Divine Discourse on Bhagwad Gita delivered by
Bhagwan in Aug / Sept 1984 in Prashanti Nilayam.)
Love.
