Develop Love and Realise the Atma

God is the embodiment of love, full of love. 
Love, in union with love, becomes a precept. 
So if love is strong, 
one is eligible to attain non-duality.

Words are tasteful words. 
Words are fragrant sounds. 
Words are the sweetest nectar. 
Words are the four Vedas.

Words are the words of the Shrutis and the Smritis (scriptures). 
These words are also the cause of bondage and liberation, pleasure and pain. 
The very principle of divinity is to teach love, to bring about equality and affection, and to impart the value of humanity.

Students, teachers and patrons of education, who are all embodiments of love!

Love transcends all qualities. Its nature is to expand and grow at every moment. It flows eternally, endlessly, and sweetly like nectar. The sages called it the ‘Atma.’ It springs forth from the heart. Love is like a compass. Wherever the compass is placed, its needle always points to the North. In the same way, love also directs the seeker’s mind towards God, no matter what the circumstances. Love does not differentiate between mine and others. There is no room for selfishness. The true nature of love is indescribable. Language, poetry or proficiency cannot describe it. This love is manifested in the world in two different ways. One is affection, and the other is love. Although love is one, depending upon the experiences, it takes on various forms. When it is applied in the transactional world, it is called affection.

In affection, pleasure and pain always come together. Both pleasure and pain may be experienced in affection. Attachment comes along with aversion as well. Therefore affection comprises pleasure and pain, attachment and aversion. Affection arises from the mind whereas love does not. Love is not affected by sorrow, pain, attachment or aversion, because it arises from the heart. Where there is sorrow, attachment and aversion, it cannot be true love. It can only be the influence of affection. There is absolutely no room for such foul vices such as attachment, aversion, jealousy, pride, or ego in the nature of true love. It can only be due to the worldly nature of affection. The equal match for love is love alone. The fruit of love is love alone. Love alone can recognise the sweetness of love. It cannot be recognised by other things. All the worldly bonds and relationships that people experience today are all related to affection, but not to pure love.

Worldly Affections Are Polluted By Selfishness

Today when man seeks an item, he is not seeking it for the object itself, but for himself. When he loves another person, he is not loving that person for the sake of the loved person, but for himself. In the case of mother and child relationship, a mother loves her child not for the child’s sake, but for herself. In the same way, neither the wife nor her husband loves the life-partner for the partner’s sake, but for one’s own selfishness only. This is the effect of worldly affection. Because of the effects of the age of Kali, people experience Divine love also in a similar way. They don’t love God for the sake of God, but for themselves. If they truly love God, there is no room for attachment, aversion, or sorrow. Because man’s goals are driven by selfishness and self-interest, his love is getting polluted by them. He is living like a puppet in the hands of selfishness, and without selfish goals, man is unable to take even a single step forward. He is not trying to recognise the existence of the divine Atma that is within everything.

The Reality of True Love

Where there is water, waves arise. Where there are waves, foam arises. There is no foam without waves, and there are no waves without water. If the water is the Paramarthika (absolute reality), the waves can be understood as the vyavaharika (empirical reality), and the foam is the pratibhasika (illusory reality). The foams of suprabhatam are formed from waves of vyavaharika arising out of the waters of Paramarthikam. Absolute reality is present in empirical reality and illusory reality just as water is present in waves and foam. Whatever qualities the water may have, such as sweetness, density or taste, they all exist in the waves and foam.

Sarvatah pani-padam tat sarvato’kshi-shiro-mukham

Everywhere are His hands and feet, eyes, heads, and faces.

Therefore only when we can experience His hands, feet, eyes, heads and faces in all three levels of reality equally, we can experience the essence of steady, eternal and boundless love within us.

Divinity, Humanity and Animality in Man

Students should think about the reasons behind the deplorable changes that have entered into the ethical dharmic and spiritual fields. What the world needs today is boys and girls of good conduct, and men and women with strong character. This can only be developed in the spiritual path but not in any other way. Unfortunately, there have been deplorable changes in the spiritual path that should have been moral and righteous. Malice, selfishness, narrow-mindedness have increased in man, much more than ever before. When we enquire into the reason, it appears that selfishness along with other animal qualities are the main reasons. Man has a combination of divinity, humanity and animality within him. But instead of rising higher from humanity to divinity, he is lowering himself to the qualities of an animal.

On the one hand, man is making great progress in the worldly, physical realm. From the perspective of science, man has come up with wonderful inventions such as plastic, electronics and computers. Whether it is in atomic science, or space travel, man has achieved great success. But on the other hand, the world is being taken over by political and economic turmoil, enmity between nations, differences of caste and religion, regional prejudices and student unrests. Restlessness is ruling the world. When we enquire into the reason for the increase in these areas, man’s animal qualities can be clearly seen as the source. This is the reason why there have been more than fifteen hundred wars in the last five thousand years. Man is still hounded by the terrible consequences of those wars because he is forgetting the divinity within him and fostering the animal qualities instead. Students must try to curb their feelings of selfishness and self-interest.

Aspire to Live a Divine Life

Man is born in society, grows in society, and lives in society. Therefore he must keep the welfare of the society in perspective. He must first enhance peace within his own family. A man who has no peace within his family cannot attain peace in society either. In order to enhance peace within his family, he must first attain peace for himself, personally. For that purpose, he must suppress his bad thoughts, bad feelings and bad conduct, and foster the divine qualities within him. But today’s man is only aspiring for a longer life, not a divine life. What is the use of a longer life if he is not striving for a divine life? Even in our education systems today, we are focusing on physical, worldly and secular studies, rather than spiritual, moral and ethical studies.

Life Is Love, Enjoy It

Man lies not only on the sheath of Annam (food). He lies also on the sheath of Pranam (life energy), and Vijnana (wisdom). The food sheath and the energy sheath are related to the body. Manomaya (sheath of the mind) and Vijnanamaya (sheath of wisdom) are related to the mind. Anandamaya (sheath of bliss) is related to the Atma. Unfortunately, man today is only moving through the sheaths of food, energy, and mind, but not the wisdom and bliss sheaths. Wisdom does not include knowledge through books alone, which is worldly knowledge that comes from the mind. True wisdom is supreme knowledge which is related to knowledge about the Atma, which arises from the heart, and out of pure love. Therefore it is important to enquire into the nature of pure love, from the moment we wake up in the morning until the moment we go to sleep at night.

Start the day with Love.
Fill the day with Love.
Spend the day with Love.
End the day with Love.

Only when we can expand this kind of love within us, can we fight against worldly affection and curb it to some extent. What we need to fight against and win is the game of life.

Life is a game, play it.
Life is a dream, realise it.
Life is love, enjoy it.

One Who Cannot Love His Mother Cannot Love God

What we imagine today as love is not true love, it is only a feeling. If it is pure love springing forth from the heart, there is absolutely no room for unhappiness, sorrow, attachment or aversion. Where there is attachment, aversion and sorrow, we can ascertain for ourselves that it is not pure love. This is the reason God is not easy to attain. You are only experiencing worldly affection, but not trying to enhance pure love in your heart. It must start from the parents. Students must first love their mother. They must strive to love her with pure love from the heart, rather than with worldly affection. Then they must love their father. Only when they can love them both at home, they can aspire to love God with true love. One who cannot love his own mother and father cannot love God.

If one cannot experience love for his own parents who are directly visible in front of his eyes, how can he experience the reality of Atma? Therefore it is said that Mother is verily God, and father is verily God. But today’s students and men are unable to experience this with broadmindedness. Only when we please our parents will our children learn to please us. Our entire life revolves around reaction, resound and reflection. If you neglect your parents today, then your children will definitely neglect you. It is inevitable.

Nara Is the Bubble and Narayana, the Water

Students!

Therefore, you must show gratitude towards your parents who fostered you, helped you grow, and supported your advancement in studies and conduct. We should not concentrate only on worldly education which is temporary like the foam. There is no essence in it. Where did the foam come from? You must realise that it only came out of the waves of worldly transactions (vyavaharika), which in turn came from the water of absolute reality (Paramarthika).

Born in water, growing in water
The bubble dissolves in water only
Man is a transient bubble, while the Lord is water
Don’t ever forget these wise words.

Sports and Songs Are for Health and Happiness

The sports you play and the songs you sing have been around since ancient times. The intention behind these sports is to bring about unity among the players who may come from different religions, having different personalities, different thoughts, and different opinions. Therefore, we must not exhibit any kind of differences of nation, age and class while playing sports. These sports have been established for the sake of health and happiness, not for the sake of money. By playing sports, our bodies can become healthy, strong and content. But sports today seem to be played for the sake of money alone. During prize distribution, I noticed the names of football and cricket repeated often. The rules of these games can help us develop discipline. But no one seems to be following any discipline. They only seek victory. Sports must be played to improve discipline, rules, happiness, health, and contentment. Students today have goals of victory in cricket. They want to be better than another person. The reason for this is because sports are becoming commercial. Their goals revolve around in which sport and in which country they can earn maximum money.

Singing has become a similar business. Singing originally began in order to give happiness. Students may notice that when they are happy, they tend to sing. So these songs originated for the sake of happiness. No one sings when they are in sorrow. When we are happy, we sing in the bathroom to the tune of running water. Many people like singing in the bathroom because they are happy while bathing. In ancient times, whenever there were any sacred rituals or weddings going on, everyone gathered together and sang. They sang songs during the bathing rituals, during Arati or during farewell. But these days, if anyone is invited to sing at a wedding, they ask for money. Even singing has become a business.

Students!

Recognise that sports should be played and songs sung for the sake of your heart, not for the sake of money. When the question arises as to what we have achieved in life through these sports and songs, there is nothing that comes up. All we have achieved in life is a zero. This is not an ideal life for man. He should find victory in developing good qualities. If man wants to be strong, happy and have good character, he should develop his divine qualities. The six qualities of character, pity, non-violence, control of mind, love and truth make “Sai” supreme among human beings. These virtues slowly started deteriorating into six vices such as desire, anger, greed, lust, pride and envy. If we give space to these six vices by welcoming them, it means that we must send off the other six divine virtues.

High Aim, High Achievement

Students!

This age is a sacred period in life. From this age itself, we must start developing divine qualities. Only if we fill the pond when it rains we can use that water in the summer. In the same way, only when we fill our life with sacred thoughts from this age, we can benefit from sacred living later in life. Don’t compare yourselves with what is going on in the world out there. 'Looking up' must always be your vision. Not having an aim (in life) is a crime. Do not look down. Have big goals in life. Only then will you be able to achieve something useful and beneficial. Don’t crave for cheap education, cheap luxuries and cheap pleasures. There is a Telugu idiom that says, “It is better to aim at a tiger and miss, rather than chasing a lame dog.” Therefore your aim should always be to achieve 100%. If you only aim for 35% to pass, you might only get 30% and fail. Our students must achieve 100/100. Even if you only get 80/100, that means you failed by 20 marks. If I give you 100 tasks to do, and if you do 20 of them wrong, how is that laudable? You must aim to perform all 100 tasks well.

Seeing Atma in Everyone is Realisation

Vedanta also teaches about three different levels of persons: atheist, seeker, and the self-realised. These can be equated to student, officer and pensioner. Only when the student follows a good path and passes all his examinations well can he obtain a good job. If his studies are not that good, then he won’t get a good job. When he gets a good job, if he performs it with honesty and integrity, only then can he obtain a good pension when he retires. If you don’t perform well in your job, then you may get dismissed and not get any pension at all. A student must be interested in studying. An officer must be a good practitioner. When he becomes eligible, he can become a pensioner. Therefore, learn the knowledge that grants wisdom, earn authority by following the path of discipline, and attain the pension of realisation. Realisation need not be considered as some obstacle or special sadhana. Seeing Atma in everyone is realisation. Seeing that the Atma in everyone is the same, is realisation. Therefore, we need not strive for it specifically. We can experience this realisation at every moment in our life.

Students!

You must become ideal students of our institutions by developing the ideal qualities of truth, love, and other such divine virtues. Once you develop love, everything else becomes sweet in turn. If you don’t develop love, not even your own mother can love you. So in addition to bodily affection, learn to develop love that is related to the Atma.

Prema Mudita Mana Se Kaho Ram, Ram, Ram

Discourse on 20-1-1991.