Inner Truth: Innate Joy

The recognition of one's innate Divinity and the regulation of one's daily life in accordance with that Truth are the guiding stars for those who are caught in the currents and cross currents of strife and struggle in populous cities like this. Without that Aatmajnaana, life becomes a meaningless farce, a mockery, a game of fools. It is the acquisition of that awareness that makes life earnest sweet and fruitful. 

Man is not aware of the grand goal of his pilgrimage. He is straying into wrong roads which lead him only towards disaster. He puts his faith in things outside himself and plans to derive joy, from and through them. He does not know that all joys spring only from the spring that is inside him; he only invests the outer things with his own joy drawn from inside himself; he envelopes the outer things with his own joy and then, experiences it as though from that other thing -- that is all!.

When you try to prepare a meal, you may have with you all the materials you need: rice, dal, salt, lime, spices, vegetables. But, unless you have the fire in the hearth, you cannot get an edible meal. So too with life Jnaana (of your own reality, as just a wave of the ocean of divinity) is the fire which makes the material world and the external activities and experience, edible and tasty, assimilable and health-granting and joy-giving. That joy is called Aanandam; it is uplifting, it is illuminating, it is constructive.

The author (1926-2011) was a revered spiritual guru to millions. www.srisathyasai.org.in 

Have a spiritual message? Mail it to us at inbox@dnaindia.net in less than 250 words.