The Search for Quiet

The name "Sanatana" that you have adopted for your Workers Cooperative Industrial Institute is strange, even for the department over which the minister who is here presides. But it is that name which has brought Me here. You are all sanatana (eternal), though you appear nutana (new) on account of this new dress you are wearing. This you can discover only through vidya (learning) that instills discrimination and emphasizes basic values.

Your chief minister said this morning, when this society was formally inaugurated in Shriramapuram, that all our troubles arise out of ignorance and that the spread of education will automatically remove them. I had to correct him and say that all our troubles are due to the fact that the educated are not educated at all in the subjects that really matter. They have neither vivekam (discrimination), nor vinayam (humility), nor viswasam (trust). They do not honor or render gratitude to parents. They laugh at those who turn towards God and those who give the world a minor place in the scheme of things. They do not appreciate the simple pleasures of meditation, of the recital of the name of the Lord, of silence and service. Still, they are burdened with heavy degrees and titles, which proclaim that they are 'educated'. That is the tragedy.

The educated have no iota of the peace that the uneducated have! They live in greater discontent and misery and are tossed about without a rudder, in a sea of troubles. They do not know anything about the source of peace and ananda that they carry about within themselves; they allow the inner consciousness to go dry by neglect; they are not aware of the means to irrigate it with the waters of prema and grow therein the fruits of prashanti (tranquillity).

Without Faith in God, Man Is Blind

They read books but do not correct their modes of thinking and living. The shelves of the dispensary are full of drugs, but how can your illness be cured, if you simply learn the catalogue by heart or even the pharmacopoeia? You have to select the drug you need, drink it, imbibe it, assimilate it, and counteract the cause of illness.

For example, I have now been moving around this Bangalore and other places for more than twenty-two years, but though lakhs of people have seen Me, those who have understood My nature are very few. This is because the simple exercises of shravanam, mananam, and nidhi-dhyasana (listening, reflection, and concentration) are not practiced by people; they do not know how to recognize the divinity in themselves or others. They simply prod and exhort each other to serve all as God's own forms. This has become mere conventional talk, devoid of inspiration or meaning.

In India, from very ancient times, the glory, the divinity, the sanctity of man has been proclaimed and the way of recognizing it has been taught. Only those who have learned them deserve to be the sons and daughters of this land. Others are like the kokila birds, the cuckoos that are born in the nests of crows; their place of birth is India, no doubt, but they are basically aliens, of a different species altogether. Guru Nanak said that without faith in God, man is blind; without it, you are moving corpses. Your life might be as grand, as beautiful, as rich as the Taj Mahal, but remember, the Taj is but a tomb! Whatever the method of worship, whichever the name or form, it is faith that matters; it is that, which gives life and energy for higher things.

Do Ritual Worship for the Sake of Humanity

There is this panicky talk about the Ashtagraha kuta of the calamities that the conjunction of these eight planets will rain upon humankind. Like the tail of Hanuman with the flame at its tip, which lengthened on and on, setting all Lanka on fire, this panic is increasing every moment and setting everyone on edge. Believe Me; nothing will happen; no, there is no danger at all. Of course, in this terror, people are everywhere doing Yajnas and pujas, which are by themselves good. They give you some courage and peace of mind. So far, so good. Even among these, I like the puja that is done not for the sake of the individual, but for the sake of humanity. By all means, do puja to promote the happiness and peace of living beings. Develop that love for men everywhere. That is My mission too, My resolution, My Sankalpa (will), My Diksha (vow) - the planting of love in every human heart.

The Lord is prema; prema is Paramatma. If you fill your heart with prema, hatred, envy, greed, and egoism cannot enter it. There will be no pralaya (devastation) for a _prema_-filled Earth. The only chaos that may happen in February next is the chaos of failure for many candidates in the general elections! No one else needs to worry over the conjunction. Chaos or no chaos, your duty is to pray for the welfare of the world and to work for it as far as lies in your power. Pray for prashanti for all; do your bit for it by not adding to the ashanti (disturbance) that exists.

Everyone is basically God; that is to say, basically you. He is the inner motive in all. Every Indian knows this in the depths of his heart; he has imbibed it with the mother's milk; that knowledge and action according to that knowledge are the hallmarks of the Indian. That should make the genuine Indian fearless, for the atma, which he really is, cannot be affected by pain, death, joy, accident, or calamity.

What is the use of searching for quiet, it is available only in the silence of the inner awareness. It is like searching for something you have lost in your room, under the street lamp. Your 'self' you have lost; search for it in you; that is the path of wisdom.

Bangalore, 23-12-1961