Nature of the Self

Dear Boys, 

The world of today is so full of people who are selfish, unloving and unloved. The brand of atheism has become almost a religion.

What is the Self? It is the Self that says ‘not I’ for, if it says ‘I’ then it is the unreal self, since the real Self has no thought of itself. The real Self is the selfless Self, the Self that has no thought either of or for itself. It is the Self that has forgotten itself because, somehow, it remembers itself only in others.

It is the Self that loves without the thought of Self, because Love is Self as affection. It is the Self that seeks the Truth without thought of Self, because quiet is the cessation of Self from all worldliness. It is the Self that is in wordless meditation because ‘wordless meditation’ is the stopping of the mind through union with the Divine. 

It is the Self that does not judge, but evaluates; it does not compare, does not seek security of any kind, does not even see Itself. It is the Self that has completely absorbed Itself, and yet in a strange and mystical fashion, it is ever more Itself, more complete and more real than It has ever been. This is the Real Self.

God is Love. Love is selflessness. Selflessness is the abolition of all sense of selfhood and separativeness—all spurious identification with the isolative life of the counterfeit thing called ‘self’; self is the separativeness; separativeness is the denial of wholeness, holiness, God.

The denial of God is Godlessness, atheism. As can now be understood, atheism is not the denial of this or that religion or the denial of this or that concept of God. It is rather the denial of the life of love, which is the nature of the God. It is the assertion of the life of the little self, which is the negation of the being of God. In short, real atheism is the denial of Love, the assertion of selfishness. 

The Godward process called ‘self-sacrifice’ is, in its inmost essence, Love. For, God is Love and Love alone can lead to Him. So, the most Godly act is the act of Love and the most Godless act is the act of non-Love or hate.

But hate, which is separativeness, can arise only when there is selfishness or self-fulness. Thus it comes to pass that the most Godless, loveless, atheistic act is the act of selfishness or self-fulness.

Love must be completely selfless to be Godward, to be Divine. Its criterion must be “the Beloved, first.” Its technique must be “Your happiness, not mine.” The way to happiness is the forgetting of oneself and the remembering of God. Your Sai Krishna.

With blessings and Love,

Sri Sathya Sai