The Garden of God

Discourse of Sathya Sai Baba, Hyderabad, April 1973
Published by Sri Sathya Sai Books and Publications Trust
Web posted at Apr 25, 2002

Man has to recognise his indebtedness to society and his duty towards it; this is the best way to solve the troubles of the day. Attention is paid only to arguments and counter-arguments, propositions and oppositions, plans and programmes; the aim of the ego-centred is more to win a verbal victory than achieve a valid target. No attempt is made to foster the social virtues of honesty, tolerance and cordiality.

Society is the expression of divinity into manifold phases, with its love, its ardour, its eagerness to comfort and console. A chance conglomeration of humans does not become a society. It has to be welded into a unity by the consciousness of kinship of God, by the sharing of each other's joy and sorrows, and the cultivation of Samarasa (empathy). The individual has to manifest through word and deed, the Aanandha (divine bliss) inherent in him and in society.

Turning the beads of a rosary between the fingers or sitting erect contemplating the tip of the nose are the only harmless ways of spending time; active participation in society in a spirit of dedication and surrender, conceiving all acts as acts of worship, all men as embodiments of the supreme, is a more beneficial form of Saadhana (spiritual discipline). For, there is no spot where He is not, no object which is not He. For, as the Shruthi (holy scripture) declares, He willed that He become all this! Worship, adoration, and pilgrimage cannot be the end-all! The goal is the realisation of "I am He, He is I." That alone can fill the heart with bliss.

Dharma fosters those who foster it

When you separate yourself as an individual, envy, resentment, jealousy and pride start defiling you. Love alone can weld you into kinship with all. You are Shivashakthi - the latent-patent, positive-negative, inert-alert principle. Be ever cognisant of this secret truth about yourself.

Dhivaakarla Venkataavadhaani recited verses welcoming Me, in which he piled praise on praise. Of course, the style was sweet and the sentiment, sincere. When once you transcend the human scale, and reach out to the divine, the eagerness to adore will drop off. You can evoke the divine in you by adherence to Dharma (righteousness); that is the message of the Mahaabhaaratha. Weighed down by sorrow, Arjuna one day laid all the blame on his eldest brother Dharmaraaja. He said, "On account of you our dear mother is separated from us, our wife is disgraced in the open court, my only son is slaughtered by our wolfish cousins, our dynasty is forced into exile and our heritage is stolen before our very eyes." Dharmaraaja replied, "When you blame me, remember you are blaming Dharma; no one can ever suffer through Dharma. Dharma fosters those who foster it. The pain which Dharma inflicts is a blessing, it is a shower of joy. Since we have stuck to Dharma, God will fight our battle and win victory for us."

To attain God, Love is enough

God is the embodiment of compassion. He watches for a grain of goodness or humility so that He can reward it with tons of grace. In a certain temple for Shiva, the priest had a silver basin with a hole in its base for water to drip continuously. He filled it with water and hung it over the Lingam (the idol of Shiva) so that the God who swallowed the poison which would have destroyed the universe could be cooled and comforted! Even at night when the doors of the shrine were locked by the priest as he went home, the silver basin of water was in its position. So, a thief broke into the sacred apartment; his eyes were on the silver; he could not reach the rope that kept the basin in position, so, he climbed on the Lingam itself in order to take the costly booty down. Even as he was standing on the holy idol, Shiva manifested Himself in all His glory before him, saying, "Son! I appreciate your surrender; you have cast on me your entire burden!" The thief prayed that Shiva may help him to secure the silver; there was no ladder or bench or any other article on which he could climb. So, the Lingam was his only refuge.

Once a Guru sent a pupil for further guidance to a mendicant in a Shiva temple. When he reached the temple, he found the fellow reclining in the central shrine with both his legs resting on the sacred Lingam. The pupil was naturally enraged at the man's insolence; when he spoke angrily against the behaviour, the man said, "Please lift my legs and place them where the Lingam is not." When he did so, there was a Lingam under the feet in the new position. Wherever he deposited the man's legs, a Lingam rose to give them rest! That was the lesson the beggar taught him - God is everywhere; only win the vision to see Him so.

To attain God, feats of hard Saadhana are superfluous. Love is enough; avoid hating, envying or even disliking anyone. Put love into practice, through Seva (selfless service). When the loveliness of the seed blooms, you have the flower. And God is the loveliness which blooms as man! In the Geetha the Lord had announced, "I am the seed of all beings" - "Beejam Maam Sarva Bhoothaanaam." When the seed is immortality, the tree too is immortal, the flower and the fruit are immortal. When He is Rasa (juice), sweetness and love, all His manifestations are sweet and loving. When He is light, nothing can be dark. When He is Chaithanya, Chith (supreme, awareness), nothing can be Jada (insentient), without awareness or intelligence or consciousness.

The Universe is a pleasant Garden

You may pride yourselves on being God-minded and Godward-bound; but your pride proclaims that god is only on the circumference of your activity. You must be humble; you must not limit God to any particular name and form. How can you fix a label on God and compel Him to conform to your specifications? Study the emblem of the Sathya Sai Organisation; it declares that all faiths feed the heart with Aanandha, all faiths cleanse the mind of littleness, all faiths confer courage on the weak and the vacillating.

The universe around you is a pleasant garden full of charming patches of many-hued flowers filled with fragrance and nectarine elixir - each flower-bed being a religion, which attracts the loyalty of millions of seekers. The garden too is God; God dances in that garden at His own handiwork, gladdening the flowers with the magic melody of the flute. Be full of joy and love; share that joy and love with all. If you utter "God, God," and inflict pain on man, you will be spurned as a cheat. You need not cry out God, God! But, if you confer joy on brother man, God will respond with His presence, though uninvited. There are, however, many in positions of authority and influence who adore God and, at the same time, abhor man! They behave as if their God is a person of very limited intelligence who can be easily deceived, who will take their words at their face value and never look behind for the motive and the intention.

Believe that God resides in all beings; speak such words as would spread goodness, truth and beauty; do such acts as would promote the happiness and prosperity of all; pray that all worlds have peace. Expand yourselves; do not contract into your own tiny individuality. Expand into universal love, unshaken equanimity, and ever-active virtue. That is the path which will bring out the divinity in you to the fullest.