"Just as the sun only gives light, which all the stars put together cannot do, so the Sadguru alone imparts spiritual wisdom, which all the sacred books and sermons cannot do".

"His movements and simple talks give us 'silent' advice. The virtues of forgiveness, calmness, disinterestedness, charity, benevolence, control of mind and body, egolessness etc are observed by the disciples, as they are being practiced in such pure and holy company.".

"Who so ever devoutly offers to me a leaf, a flower, or fruit or water, of that pure hearted man, I accept that pious offering".

"Eating that lovely bread I am heartily contended and I am still belching. The dog which you saw before meals and to which you gave the piece of bread, is one with me, so also other creatures (cats, pigs, flies, crows etc.) are one with me. I am roaming in their forms".

Why Fear? Is Baba not near?

We should not worry. We should have implicit faith in Baba, in our Inner Pilot and our spiritual Master. We have to feel that not only does Baba know what is best for us, but He will do what is best for us. We worry because we do not know what is going to happen to us tomorrow, or even the next minute. We feel that if we do not do something for ourselves, then who is going to do it? But if we can feel that there is someone who thinks of us infinitely more than we think of ourselves, and if we can consciously offer our responsibility to Him, saying, "You be responsible. Eternal Father, Eternal Mother, You be responsible for what I do and say and grow into," then our past, our present and our future become His problem. As long as we try to be responsible for our own life, we will be miserable. We will not be able to properly utilize even two minutes out of every twenty-four hours we have. When we can feel that we are Baba's conscious instruments and He is the Doer, then we will not worry about our destiny; we will not be afraid of our destiny, for we will know and feel that it is in the all-loving Hands of Baba, who will do everything in us, through us and for us.

Let us consciously offer our very existence - what we have and what we are - to Baba. What we have is aspiration to grow into the very image of Baba, into infinite peace, Light and bliss. And what we are right now is just ignorance, the ignorance-sea. If we can offer our aspiration-cry and our ignorance-sea to Baba, then our problem is solved. We should not and we need not ever worry about destiny. On the strength of our surrender, we become inseparably one with Sai's cosmic Will.

Inner Peace

No price is too great to pay for inner peace. Peace is the harmonious control of life. It is vibrant with life-energy. It is a power that easily transcends all our worldly knowledge. Yet it is not separate from our earthly existence. If we open the right avenues within, this peace can be felt here and now.

Peace is eternal. It is never too late to have peace. Time is always ripe for that. We can make our life truly fruitful if we are not cut off from our Source, which is the peace of eternity. The greatest misfortune that can come to a human being is to lose his inner peace. No outer force can rob him of it. It is his own thoughts, his own actions, that rob him of it.

Peace is life. Peace is bliss eternal. Worries mental, vital and physical do exist. But it is up to us whether to accept them or reject them. To be sure, they are not inevitable facts of life. Since our Almighty Father is All-Peace, our common heritage is peace. It is a Himalayan blunder to widen the broad way of future repentance by misusing and neglecting the golden opportunities that are presented to us. We must resolve here and now, amidst all our daily activities, to throw ourselves, heart and soul, into the sea of peace. He is mistaken who thinks that peace will, on its own, enter into him near the end of his life's journey. To hope to achieve peace without spirituality or meditation is to expect water in the desert.

What is Religion?

Religion is an act of vision that guides and leads us to the Beyond. Religion is intuitive. Religion is so near and dear to each of us, so familiar to our soul and so intimate to our heart, that it requires no definition. Religion is not fanaticism. Religion, in the purest form, is a feeling of the universal oneness of Truth. A fanatic never sees the Truth in its totality, even in his wildest imagination. A fanatic has nothing to offer the world precisely because he has not kept his heart's door open wide, and because he lacks the capacity to commune with his soul.

Forgiveness, compassion, tolerance, brotherhood and the feeling of oneness are the signs of a true religion. If you live in your oneness-heart, you will feel the essence of all religions, which is the love of God. 

Overcoming the fear of failure

We have to know what failure is and what failure can do. Fear is bound to go when we know that failure is not something shameful, damaging, destructive or painful. Feel that failure is something natural. When a child starts to walk, he often stumbles and falls down. But he does not feel that stumbling is a failure. He thinks that it is a natural process to stand up for a moment and then fall again.

If we think of failure in that light, not as something that is against or totally distant from reality but as something that is forming, shaping, molding and becoming reality, then there cannot be any fear. We take failure as something contrary to our expectation and our realization of Baba. But failure is not contrary to our realization. Failure is something that is urging us towards our realization. What we call failure, in Baba's Eye, is only an experience.

Always take failure as an experience. Do not take it as a finished product or as the culmination of an experience, but rather as the process of an experience. If we think that failure is the end of our experience, then we are mistaken. In a long race, one may start very slowly, but then gradually he increases his speed and eventually he reaches his goal. If he thinks that since his start was slow, he will not be able to reach the destination, then he is making a deplorable mistake. If there is no failure, naturally we will run the fastest. But if there is failure, take it as an experience that is just beginning. The end will be success. And then who can say that we have failed?

Question:  Many children are seen begging outside the temples. Should we not stop them from doing this?