Primers of Spiritual Education

These discourses have now become a daily event, and so, perhaps, you may be developing a headache. A feast should come only rarely; it should not be frequent. If it is a daily affair, it loses its charm, its savor. If I speak to you every evening, at the end of the speeches by others, even though you may all like it, still I am afraid it may add up to a big burden. Mita (moderation) is desirable in food and drinks, and in exercise, both physical and spiritual; that is the best hita (cure); then only can you advance in gati (position).

However, as regards God, there is no question of overdose or underdose; any dose should be welcomed. But, I do not recommend such mixtures as Tirumalachari administered to you now! His speech was full of the family affairs of gods, their family quarrels and family problems. When even the bhakta (devotee) should get over the likes and dislikes of kith and kin, to deserve the grace of God, how can anyone talk of the gods themselves being entangled in these low knots? These only drag Divinity down to the dirt of your sensory minds. The only kith and kin the Lord has are the devotees, who have dedicated themselves to Him, those who have attuned their heart-strings to His melody. To ascribe the material relationships of the human family to Godhead is sheer nonsense. The Lord, who is beyond time and space, before the beginning and after the end, can never be described in terms of the mushroom memories of man, the temporary phenomena of the human family and human society. Such descriptions cannot make any sense to those who have experienced the glory that is God.

Do not make God modern to suit your fancy. He is neither ancient, nor modern; His countenance never changes, nor His glory. Present Him, if you must, in a modern manner, in a modern style, so that He might be understood today. If a child is reluctant to swallow a pill, insert it in a plantain and offer him the fruit; he will swallow both fruit and pill. But, do not change the pill itself to suit the whims and fancies of the child’s taste. Then, the illness cannot be cured!

Come with Empty Hands to Carry Away My Love

Take the Lord to be your father or mother, but only as the first step to your overstepping that relationship and merging in the absolute. Do not stop on the steps; enter the mansion, to which they lead. The aatma sambandham (connection with the soul) is the everlasting, unchanging sambandham (association). As a first step, you use the flower, the lamp, the incense, etc. to worship the saguna (attributeful) form. Soon, your bhakti moves on to newer forms of dedication, newer offerings, purer, more valuable, and worthier of your Lord. No one sticks to the slate for long; you feel that you should place before the Lord something more lasting than mere flowers and something more yours than incense. You feel like purifying yourselves and making your entire life one fragrant flame. That is real worship, real bhakti. Do not come to Me with your hands full of trash, for how can I fill them with grace when they are already full? Come with empty hands and carry away My treasure, My prema.

Human Impulses and Emotions Have to be Guided

Those who get their feet worshipped by their devotees and those who think that it is a great boon to worship them so, are both lacking in a sense. Paada puja (ritual worship of Guru’s feet) has an atmosphere of publicity, both for the Guru and the shishya; besides, why worship the body, which is decaying every moment? It is also very wrong to offer cash, gold, or other articles, whether they are from surplus wealth or the hard-earned property. For, after all, even these are trinkets that have no intrinsic value. Obey the Guru, follow his instructions, progress along the spiritual road; these are the best means of paada puja; when you achieve some success in these, the craving for paada puja itself will disappear, must disappear. Nowadays, the puja is done by people, who feel it is a cheap substitute for sincere devotion that the Guru too welcomes and prefers! Offer the heart, clean and pure, broadened by sadhana to include all living beings in its grasp. Offer this to the Guru and seek only such Gurus as do not indulge in declamations about themselves, or in derisive attacks on their rivals.

Worship is just a means of educating the emotions. Human impulses and emotions have to be guided and controlled. Just as the raging waters of the Godavari have to be curbed by bunds, halted by dams, tamed by canals, and led quietly to the ocean, which can swallow all floods without a trace, so too, the age-long instincts of man have to be trained and transmuted by contact with higher ideals and powers.

When the fruit is ripe, it will fall off the branch of its own accord. Similarly, when vairagya (renunciation) saturates your heart, you lose contact with the world and slip into the lap of the Lord.

Three Types of Approaches Towards the Lord

There are three types of approaches towards the Lord: the eagle type, which swoops down on the target with a greedy swiftness and suddenness, which, by its very impact, fails to secure the object coveted; the monkey type, which flits hither and thither, from one fruit to another, unable to decide which is tasty; and the ant type, which moves steadily, though slowly, towards the object, which it has decided is desirable. The ant does not hit the fruit hard and make it fall away; it does not pluck all the fruits it sees; it appropriates just as much as it can assimilate and no more. Do not fritter away the time allotted to you, for sojourning on Earth, in foolish foppery and fanciful foibles, which always keep you outdoors. When are you to walk indoors into the warmth and quiet of your own interior? Retire into solitude and silence, now and then; experience the joy derivable only from them.

Since you cannot swim across the flooded stream, you board a raft. So also, since you cannot master the nirguna (formless), you resort to the saguna (the form with attributes) and struggle to swim across to the nirguna, through aradhana and upasana (worship and contemplation). But, it is not advisable to remain ever on the raft, amidst the currents and whirlpools, is it not? You must discard this conventional aradhana someday and reach a higher stage. Patram, pushpam, phalam, toyam (leaf, flower, fruit, water) are all primers for the initial stages when children join schools.

Clean the mind of all the animal and primitive impulses, which have shaped it from birth to birth. Otherwise, just as milk, poured into a pot used for keeping buttermilk, curdles quickly, all the finer experiences of truth, beauty and goodness will get tarnished beyond recognition. Do not postpone this duty to yourself, especially now, when you have the chance of contacting Me. I do not find you offering Me the thing I look for; you bring things, which are unworthy and impure. I feel very much, when I find you so agitated and troubled with the cure so near at hand.

Reduce your wants; minimize your desires. All these material knick-knacks are short-lived. When death deprives you of resistance, your kith and kin take off the nose-stud, and in their haste, they may even cut the nose to retrieve it! If you go on heaping desire upon desire, it will be impossible to depart gladly, when the call comes. Become rich rather in virtue, in the spirit of service, in devotion to the higher power. That is what pleases Me and saves you.

Prasanthi Nilayam, 26-10-1961