If you realize the truth that you are not the body and mind, but are the True Self, you will be able to free yourself from ignorance. You will realize the truth that your "I" is one with God, you will be able to realize the truth that "I AM God." After you realize this, you will understand that everything in this universe is sacred.

(Sathya Sai Baba – “Lectures at Kodaikanal”, 1996)

Yes, truly everything in this world is sacred. The manifested world is a manifestation of divine energy. Divine energy is pure in nature, which means that everything in this world is initially pure, and only the distortion of perception can create the illusion that this world is polluted.

God is the Creator; man, created in the image and likeness of God, is also the Creator. In creativity, a person reveals his divine potentials and talents. You are actively creative in a universe of diversity. Your thoughts are wise, your words are true, and your deeds are perfect.

There is a great delusion that the allegedly manifested universe is a world of continuous suffering. Is it so? The cosmos is the manifestation of divine energy. This world is suffering to the extent that you perceive it as such. What if we perceive this world as a space of creativity and spiritual evolution, in which the True "I" is a contemplative observer of everything that happens in the universe, but also an active creator of everything that exists.

Each person is the Creator of his own cosmos. Your cosmos is the result of your "emotionally charged thought forms." The cosmos is a happy dream in which only you are the true author. Your cosmos is the space of truth, love, wisdom, happiness, joy, health, abundance, creativity, and fulfillment.

If sometimes it may seem to you that life is terrible and darkness has covered everything, know that darkness does not have self-existence, for darkness is not manifested Light. If at this stage of your life you are surrounded by evil and gloomy people, then know that anger does not have self-existence, for anger is not manifested Love.

If you feel the stupidity and absurdity of human life and cannot understand the meaning of your being, know that ignorance has no self-existence, for ignorance is Wisdom not manifested. You are the Creator of everything that happens to you.

10. "The work you do is the work of God"

Do not distance yourself from active social activities, for the work that you do is the work of God. If you do your work in a spirit of unity, that pleases God.

(Sathya Sai Baba – “Lectures at Kodaikanal”, 1996)

Sathya Sai Baba is the clearest example of an ideal life. It is quite obvious to me that Sathya Sai Baba is a divine Avatar who embodies the fullness of divine love and wisdom. He was born as a human and lived a wonderful human life. His life is the greatest example for each of us.

An Avatar born in the human world is always active in social activities. It may seem to us that society is a terrible and absurd space, but we see what we are ready to see. The manifested world is originally perfect, and everything happens in perfect accordance with the Divine plan.

Active work in human society is largely based on the correct alignment of one's relationship with money. If you use finances correctly, you will embody all your good ideas in the social space of human society. Money is a divine energy that God uses to develop and improve human culture.

In the Vedic tradition, the energy of money is personified by the Goddess Laxmi. Can the beautiful Goddess Laxmi be bad or sinful? Speaking in scientific terms, money is the universal equivalent of exchange. Goods and services are exchanged in human society, usually, for money.

Money is just a function in the exchange of goods and services, it cannot be sinful or righteous. With the help of money, scientific research is financed, universities are built, industry and agriculture develop, books are published, and films are made, medicine develops, new technologies are created, and much more. Think about how many good deeds are done with the help of money and with the help of the energy of the Goddess Laxmi.

Sathya Sai Baba was never engaged in business or commercial activities; he helped people, and therefore, in gratitude, many wealthy families considered it an honor to donate huge sums of money to him because they knew that he would correctly use those financial resources for the benefit of people. Sometimes people mistakenly believe that money is the cause of all evil, but in fact money is a form of divine energy.

There is a common misconception that active participation in social life interferes with spiritual practices; in particular, meditation. There is no sin in money. The cause of all problems is the selfish use of money, greed, lust for power, self-interest, and attachment to material objects. Ignorance gives rise to problems and suffering, whereas the realization of the True Self gives wisdom.

Sathya Sai Baba never married, but all his life he paid great attention to his family. He was very respectful toward his parents. When his father and mother passed away, he gave instructions to build a large tomb for them, around which there is a magnificent park. Sathya Sai Baba treated his brother and numerous relatives with care and respect. All of this is an example of how a perfect person should live and act.

The Avatar, performing His great divine mission on earth, was very active in society; for society itself is also part of divine creation. Sathya Sai Baba built a magnificent ashram where millions of people come from all over the world to study meditation and philosophy. He founded several universities, where he gathered the best teachers. Unique specialists were gathered and special programs for teaching various disciplines were developed.

In his village, He built two large modern hospitals and equipped them according to all modern standards. He founded charitable projects, including financing a drinking water supply system for a great number of villages in southern India.

There were millions and millions of people around Sathya Sai Baba who were spiritually transformed by his blessings. Numerous people from different countries were able to embark on the path of self-improvement and meditation. Of course, there were exceptions; sometimes he could bless people for the life of monasticism and the solitary practice of hermitage. However, he mainly preached on the active creative position of a person in society as being an important element of the spiritual path.

11. Spiritual Heart – the greatest secret of the universe

The wide heart realizes the Truth that the Divine is in everything. Realizing this, you will be able to experience the unchanging, eternal and ultimate reality.

(Sati Baba – "Collection of lectures", 1991)

One of the greatest discoveries of Vedic mysticism is the knowledge of the Spiritual Heart, which is located on the right side of the body. In Sanskrit, the Spiritual Heart is called Hrideyam. The Higher "I" is outside of time and space, and it manifests itself in the entire universe.

Everything that you see and feel is a manifestation of the Divine Self. There is no such place in the universe where there is no True Self – it is everywhere and in everything. However, it is the Spiritual Heart that is the door to the eternal and infinite Absolute Self, which, in fact, cannot be reduced to any point in the human body.

It is in the Spiritual Heart that the mystical experience takes place, which the Vedas call "I Am I" and the Bible describes as "I Am Who I Am."

By practicing meditation on this mysterious point, one gains the realization that the Divine is in everything. The Spiritual Heart is just a door, a pointer to the Divine Self, which is in everything. Sathya Sai Baba paid great attention to this key knowledge. Without knowledge of the Spiritual Heart, philosophy remains a mere set of concepts, and only meditation on the Spiritual Heart can help take a step toward inner mystical experience.

The feeling of separateness from existence leads to fears, which give rise to a feeling of hostility about the environment. A person who perceives himself as a separate being is always tense and aggressive, and such a person always suffers, even if he lives in a beautiful palace. Sathya Sai Baba demonstrates in each of his actions the breadth of his heart – his words and deeds were truth manifest. He was in the perfect state of the Absolute Self, and in his presence all people experienced "an unchanging, eternal and supreme reality."

12. Boy Sai told his parents that devotees were waiting for him

This story is one which happened to Sathya Sai Baba when he was very young. At the time, Sathya Sai Baba was only fourteen years old, and like all children he went to a regular school. It was early in the morning when he went to class and on his way turned suddenly and returned home. That morning he felt that the day had come to reveal a great secret.

Seeing their son come home unexpectedly, his parents looked at each other excitedly while trying to understand what was going on. Having quickly entered the house, the Sai boy said in a determined tone: “I no longer belong to you. The illusion of this world has left me. My many devotees are already waiting for me.”

The household did not know how to react to these strange words. Suddenly, a dazzling bright light shone around the head of the boy Sai. At that moment, the neighbors entered the house and also saw the majestic scene. The fourteen-year-old Baba stood calmly in the middle of the room, shining with a bright light. Recovering from their stupor, relatives and neighbors fell at his feet, asking for blessings. They could not understand the full depth of what was happening, but intuitively they felt the significance of what was unfolding before them.

After this amazing incident, boy Sai moved to a nearby abandoned Krishna temple. The temple was very ancient and, by that time, completely abandoned. The teenage Sai inspired the other boys in the village to rebuild the temple and soon several adults joined them. So, the ancient temple of Krishna was restored and became a new home for a wonderful young man. There, with friends, he sang traditional Bhajans daily, along with chants dedicated to the Vedic Gods.

Sai openly spoke of his past incarnation as Shirdi Sai Baba, a great teacher, miracle worker and sage who lived in India at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It is assumed that Shirdi Sai Baba was born in the ‘30s of the 19th century and left this world in 1918. At the end of his life, Shirdi Sai Baba predicted that in eight years he would be reincarnated again.

The Sai boy was born in 1926, that is exactly eight years later. His miraculous wisdom and supernatural abilities amazed all the locals and visitors, and soon the first devotees and visitors began to flock to him. In the beginning, people came from neighboring villages to look at the miracle worker boy, and everyone marveled at his knowledge and insight.

Of course, many were surprised that the boy could accurately tell of his previous birth. Rumor about him spread far beyond the native village, and people came from afar. The fact that the little Sai was the incarnation of the great Shirdi Sai Baba arose interest, surprise, skepticism, and curiosity among all who came to communicate with him.

The ‘40s went by and one day a photographer came to the boy Sai and tried to take a picture of him. Sai stood next to a large stone. The photographer asked the holy youth to move away from the stone so he could take a more beautiful composition, but Sai refused and asked to take the picture exactly where he was standing. Once the photo was printed, an image of Shirdi Sai Baba, his past incarnation, appeared in the picture in the place of the stone.

13. The free thinker is free

Only the mind is responsible for your ups and downs. Only the mind is responsible for your limitations and liberations. This mind is responsible for the fact that man has forgotten his true divine reality, it is the mind that has brought man to hell.

(Sathya Sai Baba – "Summer Showers in Brindavan", 1990)

Only your thoughts are responsible for all suffering, and this is good news! It means your thoughts only are also responsible for happiness and joy. Although you cannot influence the world around you, you are in complete control of your thoughts, which means that your happiness is also in your own hands. The cause of tension and suffering is often found somewhere between sensing a separateness of existence and relaxing into that source of happiness where you feel unity, contentment, and peace.

When you seek happiness for yourself, you always lose it, but when you give happiness to others, you always find it. Peace and harmony are the complete acceptance of what is happening in the here and now. All states, such as suffering, happiness, and peace take place in your inner world. How you feel at this point in your life depends entirely on your conscious decisions about what thoughts and emotions you allow to dominate your mind.

The mind creates artificial authorities and mental garbage that leads to delusions. A person can be very authoritative in one community, and completely unauthoritative in another. Of course, this does not mean that you need to become a nihilist and fight everyone just for the sake of showing your supposed love of freedom. Any person’s opinion should be thoughtfully and respectfully treated; however, do remember you have a right to your own independent position, regardless of the strength of outside influences.

A person deprived of the freedom of thought is doomed to become a cog in the system, dependent on the opinions of others and invariably becoming the victim of manipulation. A restless mind gives rise to false thoughts that make life hell. Your thoughts only create the hell in which you then have to live. A free-thinking person is free. Only a free person can contemplate and meditate on the truth.

The mind is an ordinary tool. There is nothing wrong with the mind because it is the mind that allows you to make the right decisions in many simple everyday situations. When you need to shop for clothes in the right size or find the right way, sign documents correctly, you use your mind perfectly.

The problem begins where the mind ceases to be a mere instrument but desires to become the master. The mind tends to take you back in time, making you worry endlessly about what can no longer be changed. The mind creates many fantasies like a nightmare. So it is, then, that the mind stops doing its simple technical functions and tries to be a master, and this creates problems.

The real task of the mind is to be the perfect tool for solving technical problems, such as making the right purchase or making the right financial calculations. A well-functioning mind can help you understand business documentation, understand a new computer program, and more. But don't let the mind try to impose answers to questions about the meaning of life on you. The mind cannot understand this, as it was created for something else.

Memory is the greatest function of the mind. If you had no memory, how could you learn a foreign language, drive a car, or use a computer? However, when the memory is stained with negative emotional moods, resentment, and claims, you instantly fall into the abyss that is created by the mind.

Every moment, the universe is re-created. Instead of regretting the past, bless the past and move on. Your past is perfect, and you have nothing to regret, you are born again every moment. You never have to prove anything to anyone – this is the restless mind – you do not need to take part in the games of the mind, as you are originally perfect and free.

You are what you think you are. This is one of the most important concepts on the spiritual path. If your self-esteem is more significant for you than what the world around you can dictate, then you will be able not only to understand your purpose in life, but to realize your talents.

There are numerous false self-identifications, such as: you are a body or a nationality, a gender, or a name. You use many things in your life, including a body, a name, a degree, and real estate, but you are above and beyond of all this. When one identifies with the mind, false identification occurs. You are not the mind, but you are using the mind. It sounds simple, but what about the actual implementation of this truth in everyday life?

There is no need to fight with the mind – it is a beautiful and perfect instrument, unless it becomes the master and then it rules you. The mind is really a great tool. It can count and analyze, and it needs to be loved like everything else given by God. The mind is also a gift of God, so it needs to be taken care of, educated, trained, and taught. My advice is to leave all doubts and internal conflicts behind and live in the present. Be simpler. The mind only creates enormous difficulties.

14. Sathya Sai Baba helps before a person knows about the danger

This story I was told by Mr. Subba Rao. It shows how Sathya Sai Baba sometimes knew of people’s troubles before they even did. Sathya Sai Baba did not get ill very often, but when he did, his illnesses had a deep meaning associated with complex energy processes. Once, he had a very high temperature and everyone in the ashram got scared and urgently called the doctors. I was always surprised and even amused when Sathya Sai Baba's assistants called doctors for him. It was strange to watch how these excited assistants invited doctors to treat the one who treated everyone else. On this particular occasion, he listened to the advice of his doctors but refused to take their medicine. A few minutes after the doctors left, his temperature returned to normal.

In the evening of that same day, Sathya Sai Baba had a meeting with a group of devotees. This meeting was organized as a small open-air dinner. A beautiful starry sky shone overhead, and the atmosphere was relaxed. Everyone was happily talking with Sathya Sai Baba when suddenly he turned to one of those present and in a serious voice said, “tomorrow I will warn my mother to be more careful with fire.”

Hearing these strange words, the people asked Him to clarify.

He said, “today this woman was practicing prayer and meditation in her room and did not notice how the candle set fire to her clothes … the woman could have suffered because she was in a deep meditative state. I felt this and sent her my blessings – this is why my temperature rose for a short time.”

The next day, it was discovered that his mother really had practiced meditation so deeply that she did not notice her clothes catch fire and the flame suddenly go out. She was left with only a slightly charred sari.

I know of quite a lot of cases where Sathya Sai Baba came to help before people could realize the danger. Similar situations happen to me as well. This was another amazing ability of Sathya Sai Baba – his absolute clairvoyance and powerful energy allows him still to carefully follow the fate of his devotees.

15. The True Self shines like the sun

Your True Self is different from your name and body. Try to understand what this "I" means. The true "I" is in the spiritual heart, it is the Higher "I" of the entire cosmos, it is the Absolute Consciousness.

(Sathya Sai Baba – "Collection of lectures", 1991)

Everything in this world is impermanent and is in the cycle of change. Cities, empires, and entire civilizations rise and fall. In the history of mankind, even the strongest and most invincible empires crumbled to dust. What may seem stable and eternal may disappear tomorrow without leaving even a memory of itself. Yes, indeed, everything is impermanent in the universe, except for the True Self.

The True Self shines like the sun, even if temporarily obscured by clouds. Every living being, not only man, but also animals, feel their "I". This amazing experience is the basis of everything that happens to each of us in every moment of life. It is impossible to imagine your non-existence. Even if you try to fantasize about your non-existence, there must still be an “I” that will stubbornly fantasize about its alleged non-existence.

For various reasons, people may lose awareness of their self-existence, just as people do not notice the heartbeat and breathing process.

In the ancient philosophical text "Avadhuta Gita", the sage Dattatreya speaks about the reality of the Higher Self:

"I am unborn, although I live in this world, how can there be life or death for me? One who gains clear awareness reaches the serene state of the true Self, and then many people praise his name, for he becomes a teacher. Self is completely free from passion and dispassion. Self is flawless, perfect, and pure, truly "I Am" the Divine Consciousness and the highest Truth.”

Why is the Spiritual Heart on the right? We have already talked about the Spiritual Heart in previous chapters, and we will discuss this important topic in the future, because this is one of the most important secrets and treasures that came to us from ancient times. The Spiritual Heart is located on the right side of the body. In Sanskrit, the Spiritual Heart is called Hrideyam. It is in the Spiritual Heart that the actual experience of the unity of the “I” and God takes place.

Why is the Spiritual Heart on the right, why not in the center or on the left? I don't know… ask God…

The only thing we know is this most important point is located on the right, in the region of the liver. Meditation, concentration, and contemplation of this point opens the gate to the eternity of the Divine Consciousness, which is your True Self. At this point, the self-realization of your higher nature takes place, having opened this mystical point, a person is born again as a divine being.