Thirty-six Gems for You

Excerpt from Discourse of Sathya Sai Baba, Prashanthi Nilayam, 21 October 1961
Published by Sri Sathya Sai Books and Publications Trust
Web posted at Sep 1, 2001

Speaking at Prashanthi Nilayam on 21 October 1961, announcement was made by Baaba to the world that He has entered upon the divine mission He has come down for, as man, in this Yuga, to revive Dharma, establish peace and fill the whole world with love so that all may now reach the goal anxiously striven for by them in the aeons that have gone by!

The following were offered by Baaba as the Thirty-sixth birthday message:

1. Rectitude is the royal road to the seat of God.
2. He who conquers the world is a hero; but the hero of heroes is He who conquers himself; He is mighty; He has prowess beyond compare.
3. Faith is the first step to the grace of God.
4. Truth will lead you to the deity; untruth will lead you to the devil.
5. The aspirant must bear with patience all circumstances; that is the most beneficial path.
6. Fill every deed of yours with the vision of the spirit, the outlook of the super-self.
7. To grasp the significance of the omnipresence of the Lord, believe that there is no name which is not His; no body or thing which is not His.
8. He who is steady in wisdom stands closest in the company of the Lord.
9. Release from bondage to inborn impulses is the real liberation.
10. When a person has renounced the fruit, whatever activity He engages in, that is Samaadhi (the last stage of yoga) itself.
11. When you try something above your capacity, that is conceit.
12. When you do something less than your capacity, remember, that is theft.
13. Full happiness consists of auspicious conversation, auspicious thoughts, auspicious deeds.
14. Recognise and accept your own faults and errors; do not attempt to unveil others' faults and errors; this discipline helps the aspirant a great deal.
15. Cool comforting conversation, that is most congenial to the aspirant, is the habit that will take him to the goal.
16. Whose property did the crow steal? Whom did the Kokil (cuckoo) crown? Understand this: if your tongue is sweet, your name gets honoured.
17. Achieve mastery over your tongue, you achieve thereby mastery over the world.
18. He who obeys the dictates of the Lord is indeed at ease, he is a Yogi; He who disobeys the dictates of the Lord, he is the dis-eased, the Rogi.
19. When heart is bound to heart, heat of argument finds no place.
20. Impure food makes the mind also impure; the sun of the inner glory of Dharma can never dawn within the impure mind.
21. If you give up the contemplation of the Lord who is the treasure of undiminishing bliss and spend yourself in the contemplation of the means of achieving the victory of the promptings of your heart, you can never get released.
22. If you drop the weight of argument, and unfold the twin wings of faith and action, you can float and fly happily in the deep blue sky of the almighty presence.
23. The craving for fruit will render all spiritual discipline fruitless.
24. Let the mind die, let Buddhi (intellect) be destroyed, let the body disintegrate, remember nothing can harm you, the indestructible Aathma.
25. Use a little common sense and you will know that the body is not your own self; it is liable to decline and death; that is the first step for Nara (man) to become Naaraayana (God). The 'I' to which reference is made is not the body, it is the Paramaathma (supreme self); trying to realise this is Thapas (penance).
26. Where the singing of the name of the Lord fills the air with its splendour and fragrance, that place indeed is Vaikuntha (the abode of Vishnu).
27. While the skin of cattle is useful for making footwear, the human skin is not worth a speck of dust. But yet, that very man can ascend to the height to divinity if only He carries out his holy task.
28. The world must be made the abode of love; first, cultivate love for yourself; then, fill the village were you are with love; later, spread the love to the district and thus, let it cover the entire world.
29. Whatever you feel is good if done by others to you, however you feel they should honour you; do unto those others also and honour them likewise yourselves.
30. When you do not know, confess that you do not know; if you pretend to know and try to cover up ignorance, it is very dangerous, especially to the spiritual aspirant.
31. The idea of Brahman is beyond the capacity of those who have no control over the agitations of the mind; the natural afflictions of the causative world will cease only when the idea of Brahman is well established in the mind; the delusion of the causative world must disappears if one must get the joy, Aathmic bliss.
32. However great a hero you might be, whatever your prowess and intellect, devoid of the grace of God, you degenerate into a slave.
33. Whoever loves and serves all, him, the Lord loves and honours.
34. The birds taking shelter for the night awake and fly away to the four quarters at sunrise; so too, the wife and children, the fortune and wealth, all fly away without as much as even a farewell notice. Establish yourselves firmly in this fact; make immediate efforts to achieve the eternal, the permanent, the unchanging.
35. Of what use is all the poring over tomes throughout the day and night, of what use is al the fame achieved by means of scholarship? What you have put into practice, that is the measure of your learning, your education. Without that, your are but a learned, titled fool.
36. Strive for the happiness, the joy of all others, as earnestly as you strive for your own; strive for the peace of the world, as diligently as you strive for your own. That is true divinity, that is true humanity.