Sathya Sai Vahini - Post 2

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.