Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Dear All,

The entire MBCA posts deal with the essence of the above quote.

All miseries in this world start from this one single letter "I".

This "I" is the subtlest ego - Avidya and Asmita, the ignorance of one's divine nature which gives birth to the next ego - "Mine-ness and thine-ness".

From this "I"- Avidya and Asmita - desires or wants arise.

The desires or wants are the attachments which are explained as Raaga in the MBCA posts.

Once you get rid of your desires/attachments, then you are left with the subtler "I" ness which is explained as avidya in the MBCA theme.

Once this "I" or avidya is also transcended, then you discover the inner peace/inner joy/inner bliss/inner SELF.

Love.

Swami Vivekananda

Divyatman,

Even a mentally very week person, unable to start his spiritual journey due to fear of where he will reach, what will happen if he takes up sadhana etc. should wake up, keep aside all his fears, all his weaknesses, all his apprehensions and stand up and run towards the goal of God realization upon hearing to the roar of the fearless Lion, Saint Sri Vivekananda.

We have heard of the story where a lion was painted like a sheep and it moved along with a group of sheep merrily, totally forgetting its original identity until it was taken to a pool, it was made to see the reflection of its face on the pool and made to realize that it is in fact a lion.

We the human beings have not been painted by any one else but having born as Lion (king of kings), have painted ourselves as Sheep (week animal) and then we happily move around, eat, sleep and enjoy our lives as sheep amongst sheep (in this world full of beings with week mind and lot of desires).

After we have sufficiently suffered or enjoyed for all our karmas performed with our mistaken identity as sheep (man with desires), God enters our lives directly or through a preceptor (Guru). 

The Guru, instead of directly pointing out our mistaken identity, teaches us in the following sequence:-
- Purpose of our birth.
- About karmas, about desires, vasanas and all animal qualities of man on the other  side. 

After we have satisfactorily imbibed his teachings and instructions, he introduces us to what God and We and creation actually is - Sathyam, Jnanam, Anantham - Pure Existence, Pure Knowledge or Consciousness, Infinite or all pervading.

At the end of our spiritual journey under the watchful eyes of our Master, we ultimately stand up and roar, "I AM THAT, TAT TWAM ASI".

"Matter is your servant, you are not the servant of matter"-Your body, mind, intellect (BMI), senses which are matter, must be your servants, serving you to proceed towards your realization that you are lion. 

Whereas, unfortunately, man continues to be  servant  to his  BMI, his senses and continues birth after birth with the notion dictated by his  senses that he is a  sheep (Limited week man with unlimited desires).

Love.

Chinmayananda Saraswati

Dear All,

The quote is complete in itself and actually needs no elaboration.

It applies in our worldly pursuits as well as our spiritual sadhana.

Often, in our spiritual sadhana, we fail to reach the state of peace/bliss and somewhere in between, we slip and get carried away from the tempting call of the glittering world.

What Acharya says above is that, let our failure not make us our lose our focus on our ultimate goal in spiritual sadhana.

Let us introspect, let us understand where, during our journey, our ego (any of the kleshas/vasana) took charge and made us slave to them and we lost the race.

Let us pray to God to give us strength not to be slave to similar ego next time and get up and march again and again towards the ONLY goal - Merging with the Source and existing as Source.

Is it not true that when we look back at our past life, we are easily able to identify where all we were wrong? 

This capacity to introspect, to identify our mistakes, to correct them - all this point out towards one thing. Only we as human beings are bestowed with the power of discrimination and it is the divine power/energy/consciousness which we say as Antaratman, which illumines our intellect and then our intellect always points out what is / was right and what is/was wrong!

Love.