Think Of The Lord

Dear students: since ancient times as per the tradition and culture of Bharath, people have been worshipping Lord by various procedures (16 types of worship) and offering various types of food. Unfortunately these days, boys and girls neglect such rituals relating to worship of the Lord and satisfy themselves by merely chanting the name of God. Today's students have lost the power of discrimination and do not know what to take up first and what next, and thus forget their responsibility and duty.

As per the culture of Bharath, before partaking food, they would offer it to God repeating His name five times. The reason behind these rituals is, good behaviour, conduct, thought, feeling, emotions and good actions. They would bring clean, pure and broad leaf and serve on it all delicious items and offer it to God. It is possible that there may not be purity of the vessels, materials used and the process of preparation. It is difficult to know whether the cleanliness of the above three is ensured. When such food is offered to God it becomes sanctified. Before offering to God, the food was merely delicious but after offering it becomes sanctified food. There will be no defect in partaking such prasadam. But what type of prasadam is offered? The body is a plantain leaf, the good thoughts, feelings and behaviour is the food served on the leaf. But unfortunately it is offered first to demonic qualities such as ego, anger, jealousy, etc. This is the reason why we are in trouble, turmoil, difficulties and problems. You should drive away bad qualities and offer food first to God with good qualities. We should pray, "Oh! God You are the very embodiment of love, mercy and compassion; please accept the food".

Boys, this tender age of yours is very precious. The fruit of your mind and heart should be offered to God. If you want to think of God in old age when you have lost the strength of your body, mind and senses, it is impossible. Start early, drive slowly and reach safely. You should start praying to God right from this tender age, when you are physically, mentally and spiritually strong. When the senses become weak and you don't have any control what is the use? Would it be possible to chant Lord's name when death is knocking at your door and your family, friends and relatives are crying desperately? It is impossible. At this age when you are strong and the senses are under control, think of God, chant His name, dedicate yourself to Him fully and enjoy your life. Instead, when you grow old, have wrinkles on the face, hair grown gray and the youngster make fun of you as old monkey and you shout at your children, would it be possible to worship the Lord. Oh! man, start worshipping the Lord now itself. On the other hand, when you are physically strong, senses are powerful, mind full of faith, start your prayers and offer the flower of your heart to the Lord. This is the real offering to the Lord. But, that is not the way you do now. After the senses are used in enjoying life and the heart is filled with problems and doubts, you are offering to the Lord when you have thoroughly enjoyed the senses and the senses are awfully weak.

Today boys and girls waste lot of time in unnecessary gossip. They don't use time for something good. When you see the condition in the outside world, it is horrible. Only in Prasanthi Nilayam, you find bhajans, singing of Lord's name all the time. In the outside world they don't know what the bhajans are. They sing meaningless songs. Has God given us tongue for this purpose? Tongue is given to make the name of Lord dance on it. We misuse such tongue. Today we are using the tongue in unsacred ways. Every student should have a check on his talk. We should make use of the tongue to sing the glory of the Lord so as to make others blissful and happy. Once you start singing God's hymns whether one is atheist, theist, theistic atheist or atheistic theist he starts nodding his head. When once they say Krishna they find relief. In the song - "Krishna where are you? Why don't you come here? Don't you have compassion and mercy on me". The Gopikas in Brindavan, listening to the song forget themselves. "Oh! Krishna I don't have any shelter, I am still living for your sake. I am not able to control my mind, thinking of Thy face, can't you show yourself at least in dream. Krishna I cannot live without you. Please show yourself to me".

Community singing was started by Guru Nanak. All sing together the glory of the God in chorus, in full harmony. Bhajans were started to invoke unity in diversity. All who sing the glory of God sing together in praise of Him. We should keep the culture of Bharath, to certain extent at least. We should offer sacred feelings to God. God is the embodiment of love. Love needs love only. To see the shining moon you don't need a torch light or a lantern. You can see the moon with the help of moonlight itself. In order to experience embodiment of love, love is the only medium. There is no other light more powerful than love. That light is lit by tongue.

Bhagavatha describes the acts of God as very strange. They sanctify all the three worlds. They remove the sins committed in all three times. God's name is the son, grandson for all these sages, great souls and every one. Who are our parents? Who are our sons? Love is our mother, truth is our father, compassion is the sister and bliss is brother. When we have such brotherhood, why should you foster worldly brotherhood. How great it is to live in unity. The Pandava brothers achieved stupendous things united. Similarly, Rama and his brothers always demonstrated unity. Unity is always victorious. On the other hand, there was no unity between Vali and Sugreeva. Therefore powerful Vali was destroyed. Likewise there was no unity between Ravana and his brothers. Therefore with unity we can achieve anything. When five fingers of the hand come together you can achieve anything, but when separated, individually you can't achieve anything. First and foremost, all of you should live in unity. All of you grow in Sai's love. You learn in Sai's Institutions where you go express this love. You should carry with you, the discipline, behaviour and manners like your shadow wherever you go. Only the one who discharges the duty sincerely is a devotee. Can you call worshipping of a photo and neglecting one's duty as devotion. Treat duty as God. Work as worship. You should never be lazy. You should study your lessons regularly. In the remaining time you should play, sing bhajans and chant the name of the Lord and then enjoy bliss.

The food you partake is for the body. The bhajans you sing is the food for the mind. You are only decorating nicely, the chariot of your body. The mind is the horse. You are not feeding the mind properly. What is the use of mere decoration of the chariot? It would be fit to be kept in a museum. It is wrong. First you should feed the mind[horse] well with good qualities, virtues, thoughts, feeling and conduct. In the battlefield of Kurukshetra, Arjuna developed bad feelings. He was full of the feeling of 'I' and 'mine'. Therefore he was totally frustrated. Krishna chastised and made fun of Arjuna for his feelings of infatuation. It is feeling of attachment and ego that destroy man. The feeling of 'I' and 'mine' should be within the limits. Having been here, you should develop good conduct, behaviour, thoughts and feelings.