“GOOD FRIDAY AND EASTER SUNDAY”
March 16, 2008
OM…OM…OM…
Sai Ram
With Pranams at the Lotus Feet of Bhagavan,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
God’s ways are mysterious. Today what I want to speak about to you is the occasion of this coming Friday. It is Good Friday on March 21st, followed by Easter Sunday on March 23rd. So today I would like to make a few points about Easter, about what it means to us as Sai devotees, and about what it means to non-Christians. When you identify with one particular religion, you may have one sort of interpretation, and when you examine it from a different perspective, you may have yet another interpretation. So today we want to come to understand these two perspectives.
Good Friday is the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, and Easter Sunday is when He rose from the cross. These two occasions have important significance for us as devotees and as non-Christians, and I would like to explain why.
My friends, I would like to draw your attention now to some of the statements made by Christ. My first point concerns Christ’s condition while on the cross and what He said then. He was nailed to the cross and was bleeding, so what did He say at that moment? He said, “Oh Father, why have You forsaken Me? Oh Father, have You forgotten Me?” This is the same Christ who later said, “I and my Father are one.”
These were his two statements. In one Christ pitifully asked, “Oh Father, why have You forgotten me, why have You forsaken me?” And the same Christ later declared, “I and my Father are one.” How are we to understand this? How are we to interpret it?
My friends, when Christ says, “Father, why have You forgotten me?” he is speaking from the perspective of a devotee. A devotee always prays to God for help, just as we all pray to Swami. We pray because we need God’s intervention. We need God’s help and so we pray. So Christ must have prayed as an expression of devotion as expected of any devotee when he asked, “Oh Lord, why have You forgotten me?”
Sometimes we say, “Oh Baba, what happened to You? Why don’t You look at me? Oh Sai, are You on vacation? Why don’t You answer me?” We question God. A devotee has the liberty to question God. A devotee takes the liberty to question God. “Why have You done this, Swami?”
But then it was the same Christ, who later said, “I and my Father are one.” What does this apparent contradiction mean? What is the difference in Christ’s perspective that causes him to make such a different statement on Easter Sunday?
The difference is that by Sunday, Christ has transformed from the state of being a devotee, a bhakta, to the state of a jnani, one of wisdom. A devotee questions because he takes that liberty. The relationship between God and his devotee is like that between a mother and child, and therefore a devotee can question God. Questions like “Why have You forgotten me?” and “What happened to You?” come out of love, out of their devotion.
The one of wisdom or Jnana, however, will never question God’s will. When Christ, the Jnani says, “I and my God are one; I and my Father are one,” he is a man of wisdom. He is realised, enlightened. An enlightened one will never question why because he has learned to accept God’s will. He says, “Oh God, I am happy that Your will is fulfilled because I have no will except Yours. I have no will. Let Your will prevail. Let Your will be fulfilled.” In other words, a jnani has the spirit of acceptance, which means that he has no preference, he has no choice; he doesn’t question because he accepts God’s will in the spirit of total surrender. The path from devotion to surrender is a journey. It is a spiritual journey.
Between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Jesus Christ made the spiritual journey from devotion to surrender. As a devotee, He felt badly about his condition and prayed to His Father for help. Once He reached enlightenment, the other end of the spectrum, the point of surrender, He no longer questioned.
So my friends, let this point be clear to us all. In Christ, we find two states: one, the state of devotion and the other, the state of realisation. In the state of devotion, he takes the liberty to question; whereas in the state of enlightenment, his is a spirit of total acceptance or surrender. Therefore ungrudgingly and uncomplainingly, even happily, He invites and even welcomes God’s will. Let me make clear, therefore, that one way we look upon Jesus Christ and Easter is as the journey from bhakthi, devotion, to jnana, wisdom.
My second point relates to when Jesus was crucified on the cross. Jesus died on the cross. What does this cross represent? We have several interpretations, as given to us by Baba. I gave three talks about Jesus and Christmas in the month of December. I love discussing the life of Christ. I love his mission and message, and I find many parallels between what Swami and Jesus said.
So what is the message of the crucifixion for us here today? What has to be crucified? What is it that you can crucify? What is it that you can kill? What is it that is going to be killed? What is it that is going to die?
It is the body that dies. Only the body dies. Crucifixion only causes the death of the perishable physical body. The body is born and dies. The body has a beginning and an end. The death of Christ on the cross is only the death of the transient, of the temporary, of the ephemeral. It is only the physical body that disappears, that is lost to us. The crucifixion on Good Friday teaches us that we are not going to have our bodies forever, even if we wish to; it is something that we shouldn’t even wish for. Why?
We find ourselves attached to and very comfortable in the body. We want to be immortal. Even if you want to be immortal and have your body forever, it is impossible. It is impossible to retain the body indefinitely. In China, the bodies of eminent leaders are embalmed and kept in cases to preserve for eternity. I see. What does it matter whether those bodies are embalmed or cremated or buried? The life has left them. There is no longer any life force there. There is no point in trying to preserve these bodies because they no longer house life. What do you want with a body without life? It is useless! The body inevitably dies because it was born.
The birth of Christ’s body was at Christmas and the death of His body was on Good Friday. So Christ’s leaving the body shows us that we are also going to leave our bodies. It is inevitable. Nobody can keep his or her body forever. Though death appears to be quite disheartening, even threatening, the body is but the dress of life. It is sure to vanish as it appeared. Christ rising from the cross, however, rising from the dead on the third day, Easter, what message does that have for us?
The lesson for us in Christ’s rising from the dead is that the soul is eternal, that our consciousness is eternal. The body is born and dies, but consciousness is eternal, permanent and immortal. So Christ’s rising from the dead, rising from the cross on the third day is resurrection and that is the message of Easter Sunday. Resurrection is the eternity of consciousness, the immortality of consciousness.
Therefore, my friends, Christ’s life here presents two different aspects of life – first, that the physical body is temporary or mortal, and secondly, that the causal body or consciousness is eternal or immortal. This is my second point regarding the meaning of the upcoming Easter weekend for us.
The third point regarding Easter is something that we always say in our prayers:
Mrityorma Amritamgamaya
Asatoma Sadgamaya
Tamasoma Jyothirgamaya
Mrityorma Amritamgamaya
Mruthi means ‘death’ and Amritha means ‘eternity’. God takes us from death to eternity. Can God take me physically to eternity? Is there anywhere on record where a man is simply transported to eternity in his body? Where is that eternity located? Eternity is not anything like JFK Airport! No. Eternity is here right now. Eternity is here RIGHT NOW. What do I mean?
The body goes on changing every second and every moment. Though we are very playful and happy, we are also always moving closer and closer to death. Every birthday also speaks of our death approaching. Yes! That death is fast approaching, even though we may not be noticing it.
Our consciousness, however, is part of the eternal. Consciousness is immortal because it never entertains the thought of death. Consciousness never entertains the thought of death because consciousness is beyond thought. Consciousness is beyond the mind, a thoughtless state. Consciousness is the witness, and that eternal witness, consciousness, is here right now. It is in every one of us. In each of us, there is consciousness, which is eternal, and there is the body, which is mundane, transitory and temporary.
Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus Christ speaks of eternity, of immortality, of that consciousness which is everlasting, as it has neither beginning nor end.
For our fourth point to be considered regarding Easter, I would like to draw your attention to something about which we are often preoccupied, and that is sin.
We often think to ourselves, ‘I am committing mistakes. I am committing sins. I have a sense of guilt. Will God pardon me? Will I be accepted into the kingdom of God? I commit mistakes. I commit sins. What am I to do? Is there a way out of it?’
Some of us feel that we are sinners, eternal sinners. Such people think, ‘I am a sinner. I am a sinner.’ They feel happy in condemning themselves. To call oneself a sinner is self-condemnation, self-denial, self-negativity, self-rejection and self-dejection. These people ask God, “For how many days do You want me to carry a board whose message says, ‘I am a sinner’?”
Let me say now to Mr. Sinner, “Okay, you are a sinner. You are a sinner. Shall I help you? How are you helping yourself?”
He will then answer me, “I pray. I pray to God.”
So a sinner prays for God’s forgiveness. I see. So then I can commit another sin and then perhaps another because my sin on the 24th of this month was forgiven, as was the one on the 25th. So on the 26th I can sin again and open a new account. It is with this kind of attitude that I pray for my sins to be forgiven. I pray from a sense of guilt that I learn to change my behavior.
There is yet another dimension or meaning. Let me ask you: who said you are a sinner? How do you know that you are a sinner?”
“Alright,” you might answer, “I have killed somebody. Am I not a sinner? I have robbed somebody. Is that not enough sin? I am sinner! I am guilty; therefore I feel guilty.”
No, my dear friend, no! You may have committed a sin, but you are not a sinner. Sin is different from being a sinner. Sin is committed out of ignorance. The so-called sin that you say you have done has been committed out of ignorance. It is not weakness. It is not to be condemned. It should not cause you to feel frustrated nor depressed. No, no, it is out of ignorance that you have committed this error, this sin. So what should you do now? This does not call for your carrying guilt. No. Understand that you must instead cultivate discipline, the discipline of self-inquiry.
As a sinner, prayer was your answer. Now you need to get away from that state of ignorance. You can only release yourself from that state of ignorance through self-inquiry. Nothing else helps. Then what happens? Then what happens? You will develop a spirit, a kind of Jnana or awareness. This discipline cultivates awareness. This awareness develops through discipline, and then you are awakened, enlightened, and you know the Truth. How do you get from here to there? Do you want now to change your behavior? It is not the behavior that is going to be changed now. It is not prayer that is going to help you now. It is meditation.
So, one understanding of sin is that guilt leads to prayer, in expectation of forgiveness, and that, by changing your behaviour, your mental health will improve. The other perspective on sins is that they are mistakes, errors born of ignorance. Therefore, you are not to be condemned or damned; you are not to be branded as a lifetime sinner. No!
Your errors are only born out of your ignorance. That is all! Once this ignorance leaves you, you are no longer a sinner. For the ignorance to go, prayer won’t help. For the ignorance to go, what is required is the discipline of self-inquiry! Self-inquiry! What will happen then?
Self-inquiry will take you to the state of meditation. In that state of meditation, you will go straight into the state of eternal consciousness, of being. When you function from that level, from that state of consciousness, nothing like condemnation, suppression or repression will exist. No, no, no! The meditation will help you move to a higher level of understanding, to that eternal consciousness, the being-ness. From that level of awareness, your mental health will improve. From that level of awareness, you will grow spiritually. This is spiritual growth.
Therefore, my friends, whatever sins we commit, we do so out of sheer ignorance and that can be detected and corrected by the art of self-inquiry, which will take you into meditation, empowering you to function from consciousness or being-ness. That is spiritual growth!
I am very particular about conveying this message so it makes us live a life of positivism. There are many people who lead a life of negativity! People in many temples and centres of prayer have long faces, and observe dead silence—the silence that prevails in a graveyard! Their faces are almost lifeless. Why? Self-condemnation, their own sense of guilt. So what do they do in this state? They condemn life itself and wait for death.
You don’t have to wait for death. No! It will come on its own. We don’t have to wait for it! It is not like waiting to board a train at a platform. It is not like that. We don’t have to wait for death. Death comes on its own terms.
The other approach: that of spiritual growth. What is spiritual growth? Is it having regular attendance in the Mandir, both morning and evening? Is it singing bhajans loudly and out of tune, disturbing everybody? Is it speaking constantly of one’s own experiences, blowing one’s own trumpet repeatedly?
What is spiritual growth? Spiritual growth is silence. Spiritual growth is silence. Some of my students tell me, “Sir, in Kulwant Hall, some do meditation and they don’t want anybody to touch them by mistake. They don’t want anybody to disturb them because they are in a state of meditation.”
I say to them, “That’s a fact. What is your problem? What is your problem?”
They say to me, “My problem is that I want to talk. I want to disturb.”
Ha! Good! “My problem is to push and be pushed,” to push people or allow himself to be pushed.
I say to my students, “You are wrong. I fully agree with those people who do not wish to be disturbed. Hats off to those people who spend time in deep meditation in Sai Kulwant Hall! I tell you, 99% of devotees who come from overseas are like that. They don’t move from their places. They don’t want anybody to disturb or touch them. They want to be in deep meditation. They will be very much annoyed if we shout, and they will be very angry if we ask them to move front or move back. They will say, “You go back! Don’t ask me to move!” They make the best use of their time by being in meditation.
Unfortunately, some use this time to gossip, to generate or spread rumors. “When is Swami going to Bangalore?” Is this a topic to be discussed? Will your talk keep Swami here for a few more days?
Some people may give the precise dates of His departure. “Swami will be leaving on 19th!”
“Oh, Oh! Did He tell you?”
“No, sir.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Rumor!”
This is not the way to spiritual growth.
Spiritual growth requires silence. What is silence? Silence is a no-mind state. Silence is a thoughtless (thought-free) state. Silence is the state of the witness. Silence is an undisturbed, peaceful, blissful state. Silence is a blissful state. Blissful is a man who observes silence; but it must be silence in the correct sense.
Some are silent, but their faces demonstrate that they are not really silent. How? You can see that they go on thinking inside. ‘This man did that. That man did this. I did this. He did that. What is for lunch today? What did I eat yesterday?’
Is that silence? No, of course not. Real silence is the end result of true meditation. True meditation results in silence, in silencing of one’s own thoughts. Real silence is that which awakens the inner being, the inner consciousness. That is silence. That leads to spiritual growth. A silent man grows spiritually, and that silence culminates in a meditative mind. How so?
Let’s look at a simple example. When you are here, you are my friend, and I love you and you love me. When you are not here, what happens? I lose love. I lose what I have. Your presence makes me love you, because I love you. So long as you are here, I love you. When you leave, my love leaves with you. It gets carried out in your pocket, like a parcel you collect and carry with you. This is not spiritual growth.
Love is independent of objects and individuals. Love is independent of time, space, gender, and nationality. When I love that which is near me, I am happy; but once it is gone, far away or with others, I am unhappy. That is not truly love. True love is independent of objects, independent of material wealth, and independent of physical possessions. Love is just love. A person of spiritual growth, who knows total love, is always blissful, whether or not the object or individual is in front of him. It is the state of love that continues forever and ever that represents spiritual growth.
My friends, our state of mind is very important. Our mind always wants to run after people. The mind is always, as Baba puts it, a mad monkey, running after one desire and then another, object after object. That is what the mind does.
A man of spiritual growth, however, enjoys a silence that is above the realm of the mind, and therefore he does not need any objects to make him happy, to make him blissful. He does not need any individual to make him blissful. That is spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is a state of mind. And what is that state of mind? It is one of witnessing.
I witness my hand picking up a watch and I also see my hand dropping the watch on the table. I witness how my hand is acting. I witness how my legs are moving. I see this. I see how I experience my senses. I see how the limbs of my body are working. What have I done? I have picked up the watch with my hands. I dropped the watch with my hands.
Just as I see what is happening physically, I should also see (witness) the functioning of my senses and my mind. I should be able to see the working of my mind just as I see the working of my hand, the working of my leg, or the working of the physiology of my eye. I should be able to see my mind! What do we mean by seeing the mind? Is it brown or black or pale or yellow? What do we mean by seeing the mind?
Seeing the mind means watching our thoughts, watching the flow of thoughts. Thoughts flow rapidly. Watch your thoughts. What thoughts are coming up in your mind? And then what happens? Your mind is no different than your hand. It is the same as your leg. Your mind is no different from your eye. These are all instruments.
Witnessing this all is true meditation. This is true meditation. Before, I thought that I was my mind because I always functioned at the level of the mind. I believed that I was my mind. I identified with my mind. But now I dis-identify from my mind, and regard my mind like any other part of my body. When the mind is seen and known as only an instrument, spiritual growth occurs. When we identify with our mind, the least inconvenience will disturb us; the smallest trouble will bother us; the simplest, tiniest recognition thrill us.
So understand that you are not the mind! You are not the mind! The more distance we create between the mind and the eternal witnessing consciousness, the more we expand the witness. The greater the distance we put between the mind and consciousness, the greater is our spiritual growth. That is true meditation.
So what are the signs that we are achieving this?
True meditation is thoughtlessness (thought-freeness). Let me be very clear about it because there are people who say, “I hear voices in meditation. I see colors in meditation. I see someone appear in front of me.”
We don’t deny these at all. Who am I to deny your experience? I have no authority to say ‘no’ to your experience. But I can say that we are all on a journey, just moving forward. Colors may appear; persons may appear; experiences may occur. But slowly nothing appears—neither your deity nor your guru. No colors. Nothing! You remain like steady, still water. That is the climax of meditation. All other individual experiences told by different people are different states in the process of meditation.
Suppose on your way to your destination, there are different stops along the way. You might stop at Frankfurt or Amsterdam and then catch the next flight. These are the intermediate stations on the way to your final destination. In meditation, the final destination is where you find that you are just the witness to your thoughts, the witness to your mind and not the mind itself. That is meditation.
Colours appearing indicate an ethereal experience. People appearing in a meditation indicate a mental experience. When I get sick, I have an experience that is physical. The physical plane, causal plane, astral plane, and ethereal plane are different planes of awareness that one goes through in the course of meditation. The man in the physical plane in meditation may have one experience, while the one in the ethereal level has a different experience. As we go through these different states of being into the astral plane, and still higher planes (depending upon the different levels of our awareness, of our consciousness), we are on the road toward becoming the witness, on the plane of eternal consciousness.
So there comes this final state where you do not exist, where you no longer exist. Then as Baba says, “I am I. Aham Aham. I do not say, Aham Brahmasmi. I am God. I do not say that. I say Aham Aham. I am I. This is the ultimate state in meditation, which signifies spiritual growth.”
My friends, we have to clearly understand what spiritual growth is. Once we clearly understand, our effort, our inquisitiveness, our depth of understanding will make God help us through the process. If I don’t make a beginning and go on reading, my accumulation of knowledge leads nowhere. It leads nowhere.
A simple example: What if everything that I read is only information? What if all the books that I consume are simply information? Where is this information or knowledge stored? It is stored in the computer that is my mind. My mind is a computer warehouse, a computer library.
This won’t help me because I am not the mind. I am beyond the mind. So the mind with this warehouse of knowledge and books won’t help me. So what should I do? I should watch my knowledge. When I begin to watch my knowledge, when I begin to feel myself a witness to all the information I have, it can be said that I am growing spiritually. That is spiritual growth. It doesn’t mean we should stop reading and throw our books away. No!
My friends, what happens now after you read a book or listen to a talk? What happens is that you do not remain as a reader or a listener or an ego. When you read and speak, you are not an ego. The flow of knowledge from egoless state to egoless state is uniform, continuous and freely transparent. This flow is translucent light, beautiful light.
If the flow of knowledge is from a state of ego to a state of ego, the listener is filled only with ego. So if the flow of knowledge is from ego to ego, the speaker tries to impress me with how much he knows, while the listener will go on comparing what he has heard in the past, what he has learned in the past, with what he is hearing now. ‘Is that good or is that bad? Is that better or much worse? Which one is correct?’ The ego-based listener lives in the past and the ego-based speaker is always cautious of his form, verbosity, knowledge, wisdom, skills, and articulation in his communication. Such reading and listening is not spiritual. It is just a classroom. As a teacher teaches in the classroom, the student helplessly listens to him (if he doesn’t fall asleep)!
But in satsang, what should happen? Both of us should be in a non-ego state. When I am in a place of non-ego, I am not an entity. When you are also in a non-ego state, you are also a non-entity. The air here and the air there merge together and everything is uniform, whole, and total. But when anything goes wrong, the ego comes in, and there cannot be a free flow of knowledge.
Spiritual growth involves good listening. Good listening. What do we mean by listening? We are used to hearing and not listening. Listening and hearing are different. Do you hear me? Yes. My sound. Do you listen to me? Have you accepted what I say? Are you going to try what I say? Do you think that I am correct? Do you think that it is possible to practice listening?
Listening is serious. While hearing, you can afford to forget. Good listening, however, requires rapt and total attention. When Swami speaks, we listen. When others speak, we hear. We open both ear canals and the channels are free. The sound comes in and goes out: entrada salida. That is what they say in Spanish: entrada or entrance, and salida or exit. All information comes in here and goes out there.
You may go on speaking, and I may keep looking at you; but if you ask what you are speaking to me about, I will say, “You are speaking. Yes, you are speaking. I am not denying it.” But I am not listening, in this case. This is hearing. Spiritual growth requires listening and not simply hearing.
In hearing, there may be some falsity—falsification or untruth peeping in. If you just hear, you may not hear properly. If the speaker says ‘there’, you may hear it as ‘where’. There, where…you see where there is room for some falsity here.
In listening, you should understand perfectly. You cannot say it could possibly be this, or it might have been that. No. It is accurate. Listening is accurate. Hearing has a chance of being inaccurate. In listening, you hear everything.
Some people may speak of politics. Others might speak about who is in charge of the verandah today or who is in charge of the security gate. People can go on saying anything that passes through their mind. But listen selectively; be selective about what you listen to. You should be selective about what you listen to. While hearing, let the words just flow like water through the pipes.
Spiritual growth is listening. In listening, we don’t question what is heard and we don’t think how to contradict what we hear. The past won’t come into the picture while listening. When Swami is speaking, I don’t think of the past. I don’t think of last Sivarathri and what Baba said then. This year, He is speaking about this Sivarathri. Why should I bother thinking now about the last Sivarathri? Live in the present. Live in the moment. Listening is in the moment. Listening is in the present. Hearing is past, present and future deafness. Therefore, spiritual growth calls for listening.
Spiritual growth also involves study. Studying is not reading, as reading is different from studying. I read the newspaper, but I study the scriptures. Reading a paper is different from studying the scriptures. Study, in the sense, has to be steady. You are steady to study, but when reading, you are ready and read. Here, you are steady and study, while there, you are ready and read any nonsense that comes your way.
Somebody gave me a letter yesterday and asked if I would arrange an interview with Swami? (Laughter) He went on praising me, saying ‘you are this and you are that’, and then he asked me to please arrange for an interview with Swami. There are two falsities here: I am not as great as he describes, and I also believe it is impossible for anybody to ‘arrange’ an interview with Swami.
So I said, “I have read your letter. Please tear up that letter! Never write such letters! And please understand that nobody can arrange an interview. Any who say they can are making a false claim! Interview only comes through the direct contact between you and Bhagavan.”
So, spiritual growth involves studying the scriptures, not merely reading the scriptures.
My friends, as I think of Good Friday and Easter, I happily share this information with you: Christ’s life has demonstrated different levels of consciousness—all three different stages of awareness. Christ had a physical body. Christ identified with his mind as an individual when he prayed, “Oh God, help me!” Finally, Christ rose to a higher level when he declared, “Oh God, you and I are one” in a total spirit of surrender and acceptance. That state is the non-dual state.
So Christ’s life represents a journey from the state of duality to the non-dual state. These facts are not contradictory, but rather they are complementary. Union is non-dualism; division is dualism. Let us not divide or bifurcate. Let us understand the totality, the unity behind this.
Besides this, I also shared with you the thought that the journey of Christ from the cross on Good Friday to rising from the dead on Easter Sunday demonstrates to us the distinctions between that which dies and that which is eternal.
The lessons of the life of Christ are universal and are not limited to any sect or any followers of any particular religion. The Truth of these teachings is universal. Once the body identification is gone, then you are nobody. You are somebody as long as your awareness is identified with the body. You are nobody once the body is gone and the name and form are gone; so you are everybody. To be everybody is we-ness, the cosmic universal consciousness. Being somebody, the body has a name and a form; this is individual consciousness, I-ness. So the spiritual journey should be from I-ness to We-ness.
I also made it clear, my friends, to feel ‘I am the consciousness’ is also limited. This I-ness, the individual consciousness, is one with universal consciousness. It is the same as universal consciousness. This individual consciousness is encased within the body; that is the reason for claiming to be ‘I’. Once name and form are gone, there is no identity. Everyone is universal!
Therefore, Easter represents Christ’s ‘second birth’, the resurrection. He was born at Christmas and again on Easter, when He rose from the dead. This was His second birth.
This should be the second birth for all of us. We should all be born again. When we are born, the date of birth is known. But the second birth comes on this day of enlightenment, this day of awareness, this day of spiritual growth, this day when we experience universal consciousness, this day when the body is crucified, this day when universal consciousness rises. That day is Easter.
May God bless you forever!
Om Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu
Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu
Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti