Sadhakas,
We
commence “Sathya Sai Vahini” with today’s post. Previous post was preface to
this sacred Vahini given to us by
Bhagawan.
Please note that the
effort would be to take up the most important essence from each chapter, rather
than covering the entire text as it is.
Chapter 1 - The Supreme Reality
“The
process of living has the attainment of the Supreme as its purpose and meaning.
By the Supreme is meant the Atma. All
those who have grown up in the Bharathiya
(Indian) culture know that the Atma
is everywhere.
But
when asked how they have come to know of this, some assert that the Vedas (most
ancient spiritual revelations) have taught them so, others quote spiritual
texts (sastras), and others rely on
the experiential testimony of the great sages. Each of them bases their
conclusion and proves its correctness according to the sharpness of their
intellect.
Many
great people have directed their intelligence toward the discovery of the
omnipresent Atma and succeeded in
visualizing that Divine Principle.
In
this country, Bharath (India), those
who have tried earnestly to pursue these goals have had evidence of their
successful realization placed before them by preachers, pundits or scholars,
aspirants, and ascetics.
However,
among millions of people, we can count only a few who have been able to
visualize the Universal Atma or the
Self in All.
No
living being, except the human, has been endowed with intelligence and
discriminative faculty, heightened to this degree, in order to enable it to
visualize Atma.
This
is why humanity is acclaimed as the crown of creation and why the scriptures (sastras) proclaim that the chance of
being born as a person is a very rare piece of good fortune.
People
have the qualifications needed to seek the cause of creation; they have in them
the urge and the capacity. They are utilizing the created universe for
promoting their peace, prosperity, and safety; they are using the forces and
things in nature for promoting this happiness and pleasure. This is approved by
the Vedas.”
Introspection
In
this commencing portion of 1st chapter, following points are given by the
avatar
1) Human
beings resort to shrutis/shastra/example of masters who have realized SELF, to
emphasize the existence of “SELF”.
2) Many
may take up the spiritual path to realize SELF but it is only very few, who
ultimately end up realizing SELF.
3) Human birth is the rarest gift of God to we human beings. This is so because
only human beings have been bestowed with Discriminative intellect which can
engage in Self inquiry, take up sadhana
and realize SELF.
This
takes us to the very first chapter taken up in this blog - Purpose of Human
birth. In fact, all the posts in the theme “purpose of Human birth” may be
refreshed by those who have not read them before or have not attended the satsangh, one to one, on “Purpose of
Human birth”.
Adi
Sankara writes in vivekachudamani,
Of all births,
that as a human being is rare to obtain. rarer still is to be born as a male;
Rarer than that
is to be born a Brahmana.
More difficult
than that is to be inclined towards the path of dharma declared by the
Vedas.
Successively
more difficult than this are:
-scholarships
(in the revealed texts),
-discrimination
between the Atman and anatman,
-perfect
experience following profound meditation,
-the state of
being established in Brahman
and
lastly,
-mukti or
liberation.
These cannot be
obtained without merit acquired in hundreds of crores of lives.
This
one verse gives us the essence of what Swami has written in today’s post, in as
easy, simpler expression.
Love.
