Sri Sathya Sai Speaks

People have known about everything else except death. Why should a person die? Of what benefit is it to die? Why does one die? The answer is in order that one may not die again. One is born so that one may not get born again. Having been born, a person earns and acquires land, riches, materials, grain, articles of comfort, and luxury, which they feel will give happiness and which therefore become the objects of the struggle. But the object of realising God is forgotten. You may ask, “Why should anyone seek good company, do good deeds, and direct the mind toward good thoughts?” You are listening to Me, and what do you get when you so listen? You agree that I am giving you bliss (anandam), is it not? Well, what do you give Me in return? Give Me the observation of what I am telling you; practise what I teach, that is enough. That is all I ask. A person should not die like a cat or a dog. One should leave the world better and happier than when one came into it. One must get away, full of gratitude for the chance given to see God in everything that one saw, heard, touched, smelt, and tasted. One must remember the Lord with the last breath.

To get that recollection, a lifetime of practice is needed. When you are at the steering wheel of the car, you may be hearing the talk going on inside the car and even join in it; you may be doing many other things, but your attention will always be on the road ahead. When the mother returns from the well with three pots, one over the other on her head, talking to her companions, her mind is concentrated on the baby in the cradle that she left at home. So too, when you are engaged in various duties and obligations of the world, never allow your attention to stray away from God, the Goal. Be always attentive to the signs of His glory and His mercy and His omnipresence. A soldier is the result of many years of intense training; his courage and coolness on the front line are the product of several years of calculated exercise and discipline. As Rani Narasimha Sastri said, it is only after years of intense study that one can appear for an examination, and the results are not announced immediately; you have to wait some more time for that. So, cultivate the habit of remembering the Lord with every breath; only then can you remember Him with the last breath. An old man was lying on his deathbed. I think he belonged to the Kannada country. While in his last moments, he could only blabber some word, which his children could not understand. They called in a doctor and asked him to give oxygen or something so that the words might become clear. They surmised that he was announcing to them exactly where he had kept the money he had earned, so they did everything to get the words correctly. They could distinguish only one sound, ka! So they asked whether he meant kanaka (gold), karu (calf), kanaja (granary), kasabarike (broom)! When the broom was shown, he nodded his head and died. So he had to take birth as a broom!

You should not die like that man; you must die like Bhishma. He lay on the bed of arrows while he taught the Santhi Parva to the Pandavas, and he died with Krishna before him and in his heart. Death is considered as something to be afraid of, as something that should not be spoken about in happy circumstances! But death is neither good nor bad. You have no choice in the matter. You can’t get it sooner if you welcome it, nor can you avoid it if you condemn it as bad. It is a consummation that is inevitable; from the moment of birth, the march to the cremation ground has started. Some reach the place quicker than others, some go by a round-about route and arrive late. That is the only difference between person and person. And yet, people walk about as if death is but a distant calamity. When some neighbour loses their child, you console him saying that it is all a dream, that children are born and die because they are creditors who have come to realise old debts incurred in previous births, etc. etc. But when you lose a child of your own, you do not console yourselves by the same arguments. They are only for the consumption of others.

Arjuna addresses Krishna as the Supreme Lord of all (Purushothama), for He is Supreme amongst the Supreme Spirits (Purushas). Purusha means He who is in this pura (fortified town), namely, this body. Each body has the Supreme Spirit in it, and the entire universe has the Purushothama immanent in it. So, after all, what dies is the body, not the occupant of the body, the Purusha. The faith that you have the Purusha in you will cleanse the mind of all evil and the senses of all evil propensities. The vessel must also be clean, not merely the drink. Without that, remembrance of the name or meditation, done for however long periods they may be, will not yield fruit. That is why the Vedas were entrusted to the Brahmins, along with rigorous rules of discipline. Without minds cleansed by that discipline, the study of the Vedas is a barren exercise. When a man was about to die, the wife asked, “What is to happen to me?” The parents asked the same question, and the children asked, “What is to happen to us?” Even the servants asked piteously, “What is to happen to us?” The dying man looked around helplessly and asked all of them “What is to happen to me?” He could have foreseen the event if he was wise and prepared himself with an answer to that question. Then he could have died in peace, and seeing him die so calmly, his children could also have benefited. Now, a fashion is spreading in conversation; “Oh! It is all God’s grace,” when something you consider good happens to you. If it happens to somebody you don’t like, it is not God’s grace evidently, for God is specially yours and not the other fellow’s. When something you dislike happens to you, why don’t you take that also to be a sign of God’s grace? Resign yourself into God’s hands; let Him give success or failure, what does it matter? He may be bent upon toughening you, or it may be for your good in the long run. How can you judge? Who are you to judge? Why judge? Do your best and keep mum. Fix your mind on this attitude.

You don’t know when the cameraman is going to click. Mathew, who takes photographs at the Nilayam, at least jumps about in front of you with the camera pointed at this place or that, but death will not give any advance intimation or say ‘Ready’ and wait until you are ready. Therefore, be ready always, so that you may produce a good impression with His name on your lips and His form in your cleansed heart. You do not now realise your good boon in getting Me as the Guide. I shall not rest until I reform all of you. The basement for My work has been completed; now, the structure will rise upon it. I go round the whole world alone, with no paraphernalia and no publicity, because I am established in My own glory, in My own truth. I have Atmic relationship with all, so I am always succeeding. To protect the crop, the weeds have to be removed and manure must be applied; that is the work of these pandits of the Vidwan Mahasabha (Society of Pandits), instruments that were long unused and neglected. Join this great work; it is the chance of a lifetime for you.