Aum Sri Sai Ram

As the World Education Conference is fast approaching, I have been pondering what Sri Sathya Sai Education in Human Values means to me and how it can specifically address the greatest threat to humanity: the gathering clouds of the effects of climate change and increasing alienation of society.

Educare, the process of eliciting the five human values of Sathya, Dharma, Prema, Santhi and Ahimsa is something which is much more than a program to help develop character through morality, thereby bringing about a more loving society.

The biggest issue facing humanity is the need for transformation of the mind. There is no point in trying to help ‘fix’ the problems of the world such as climate change, war, injustice and poverty without first transforming the mind and its egotistic desires which have warped man’s outlook with anger and hatred and kept him bound to the physical body to experience the results of his actions.

Educare is the path which leads to a complete transformation of mind; a shift from identification with form to that of consciousness. It is the most beautiful path to Self-Realisation that the Lord Himself, out of His infinite mercy has shared with us. If we really listen carefully and put into practise diligently this Veda for the époque of the Sai Yuga, we will experience the truth of ourselves as Divine Love.

For eons, mankind has worked his way up the evolutionary ladder from mineral to vegetable to animal and then to the human level. However, at the human level, we have become the slaves of our body and mind, and our true reality – pure consciousness – has remained hidden beneath the moss of impulses and tendencies and the threads of the three gunas of thamas, rajas and satwa guna.

Humans have lived bound to karma, reaping the fruits of their labour, good or bad, ensnared in the cocoon of the body that we have spun around ourselves in order to experience these fruits. Educare is the path that releases us from karma; that helps the butterfly that we are to break the bonds of body consciousness. It completely transforms the mind and through this transformation, the world itself gets transformed. For the world, the five elements of space, air, fire, water and earth are nothing other than a manifestation of mind. Educare marks the next leap in evolution through which the divinity that we are recognises itself as the consciousness of all that is. It is the revelation of the truth of the one light reflecting through the prism of the mind into the manifest colours of creation.

How will the butterfly of the spirit fly free from the cocoon of the body? Through practising the five human values in our thought, word and deed, and only taking in good impressions through our five senses, we identify more and more with our conscience. As our conscience gets cleansed of the impurities of the mind that cover it, it reflects more clearly the pure light of the Atma, the heart of who we are. As our conscience is cleansed of all impurities, like a mirror being cleansed of all dust, our true reality as the light of sath-chit-ananda (being, awareness, bliss) is revealed and this is reflected in the mirror of nature. We see God as both our soul and as our surroundings. Our conscience has expanded to become one with the cosmic pure consciousness that is above us, below us and all around us. Swami and we become One.

Bhagawan has told us that we become free from the bonds of Karma when we offer every act of ours to God, then the fruits are not born by us. When we truly realise that our Conscience is the voice of Swami within us, then one can see how offering every thought, word and deed to Him in the form of our Conscience frees us from the bondage of Karma. In other words, the dedication of our deeds to God is really listening to our conscience and following our inner directions rather than the whims of the mind and senses.

So what does the practise of Educare mean for the world and more specifically, for the issue of global warming? Swami has said to a devotee regarding the condition of His physical body that He has taken on the negativity of the world because it has reached breaking point. Time and time again in His Divine Discourses, He has said that it is only Divinity that is protecting the world. When the devotee asked what we, as His devotees, can do to Help our Beloved Bhagawan, Swami replied that we must do all we can to remove the negativity from within us. It is through Educare that we can achieve this purification.

In the context of global warming, if we pollute our body, heart and mind with impure thoughts, words and deeds we are actually manifesting this pollution in creation. How? Our senses become impure and this reflects in the 5 elements themselves becoming impure and imbalanced. As Swami says, creation is a reaction, reflection and resound of our own inner thoughts and feelings. Angry, jealous, lustful, greedy thoughts and feelings in our heart and mind are manifested in creation as a polluted environment and fragmented society.

When our thoughts, words and deeds are not in harmony, the balance of the five elements is upset. Our five senses are extremely powerful and have an intimate relationship with the five elements. In other words, when our mind is restless with the inner enemies of anger, greed jealousy, delusion, lust, pride and hatred, this restlessness is reflected in creation in the tempests of nature and violence of society that we perceive. Swami has said that war exists in our mind. How? It is the restless of the mind that reflects as the experience of the war. Swami has said that there is not one iota of evil anywhere in creation. It is only our vision that needs to be corrected to reveal the truth all is God, all is Bliss.

Thus if we feed our five senses, body, mind and heart with pure and sacred thoughts, feelings, words and deeds, we will manifest this in a vision of a pure and sacred world. Love, peace and joy will be reflected everywhere.

So how do we improve the situation? As Swami always says, inner transformation is the key to outer transformation. We must purify ourselves to purify the environment and heal the world. One leads to the other. Creation is a reflection of the purity or otherwise of man. In order to transform the negativity in the world – the violence that we see on our streets, we must first realise that this merely a reflection of the anger and fear within us. Rather than focusing on the negative, we simply focus and replace it with positive thoughts and feelings. As is the thought, so is the feeling. As we feel, so we become.

Thus when we remember to constantly refer to our Conscience and live in accordance with the five human values in our thought, word and deed, our heart becomes purified and this cleansing is reflected in the environment automatically becoming purified. God is not any particular form; God is manifest as the creation all around us. We need to act with the understanding that the man in front of us is God; the tree in front of us is God as is the river and the birds. Most important of all is the need to love ourselves - our real Self, which is our Conscience, which is Divine. When we love and recognise the God that we are, then we are able to love and respect the same God in each other.

We need to also apply Swami’s Ceiling on Desires Programme to transform ourselves and through this, transform our environment. We need to re-educate ourselves on what Reduce, Recycle and Reuse mean in the context of Swami's teachings. We must Reduce our desires through Swami's Ceiling on Desires programme. This means not wasting time, money, energy and food but also reducing our negative thoughts and feelings of anger, fear and jealousy. Ultimately it is reducing our body attachment.

Finally reusing is the ability to find contentment in the basic necessities of life: friendship with God, devotion to God and the constant love of God. This exchange of love between us and God is the happiness that our desires really seek. It is the realisation of the Oneness of all life the constant exchange and flow of love that guides both the automatic pumping of our heart and the birth of galaxies.

If we therefore on an individual level WATCH our worlds, actions, thoughts, character and heart to see where negative feelings arise and then immediately ask Swami as our Conscience to send His love to recycle and transform that energy into positive unconditional love for ourselves and Him, then we can begin to reduce our toxic emissions. On a community level, if a Sai centre or group identifies an area of pollution/litter/deprivation in their local neighbourhood and then organises a group of devotees to help clear it up, then this would be the physical aspect of healing the area. But more importantly is the manner in which the task is performed. The task needs to be done whilst constantly singing and remembering the glory of God. Thus this brings about a spiritual healing of the person and the environment. This is what Swami did when He was a child and He went around the villages with His friends singing Bhajans and driving away the diseases. It is exactly what Nagaarsankirtan does.

We achieve this by recycling the negative in exchange for the positive. Thus we should recycle with good thoughts, good feelings, good sights, good deeds and good behaviour through all the five senses - this is the way to realise the Divine through recycling the negative. On a physical level, by breathing deeply from our heart rather than from our mind, when we encounter negative thoughts such as anger, we are able to recycle and transform anger into love.

When we reduce our desires by not wasting time, money, energy and food - this leads to a physical saving to people in developing countries because we are not exploiting the world's resources for our own consumer satisfaction. We can then rededicate the savings made to sacred activities, such as humanitarian work. Savings could be used to help fund Educare projects to help poor, disadvantaged families, mentally ill and sick in our local communities as well as educating young people move away from crime towards a more loving life.

We need to positively reduce our own toxic thoughts and feelings. This will leads to a purification of our hearts to reveal God’s love. This Divine love can then finally flow unhindered into the world to bring about a transformation of the environment and the earth.

Ultimately, what this will lead to is a manifestation of the human values across all of creation. Even inanimate objects have feelings as demonstrated when the saris wept when they rejected by Swami. The inherent Divinity of all the five elements is revealed when our own senses are regulated by the five human values and the mind is transformed from reflecting our inner restlessness to the reflecting the one light of Divine Love within all our hearts.

At the present moment, the increasingly alarming effects of climate change, such as devastating cyclones is mirrored by the increasing level of violence that we perceive in society. Man is a limb of society. Society is a limb of nature. Nature is a limb in the body of God. In other words, the solution to climate change is intrinsically tied to the solution to society’s feelings of alienation and the consequential lack of love that is manifested in increasing violence that we see around us.

Thus, when we work individually and collectively to remover the negativity within our own nature through the practise of the human values in harmony of our thought, word and deed, sense control and ceiling on desires, we will not only see a transformation in the effects of climate change but also in society. As we become more unconditionally loving, this is reflected, reacted and resounded in love being experienced all around us.

With our own two hands we can selflessly serve society by transforming our negativity into positivity through unconditional love for ourselves, each other and the environment. When we love God with all our heart by loving and serving all, helping ever and hurting never, then we can bring about Global Harmony on an individual, societal and environmental level. Through the sacrifice of selflessly serving each other and by adhering to the truth of our conscience, we realise the Divinity at the heart of creation - which is our own heart - and we can heal ourselves and through this, the world. Thus we can bring about the brotherhood of man under the Fatherhood of God and the creation of heaven on earth becomes a reality.

As Swami says, the proper study of mankind is man. When the mind is healed, so is the world.

With Sai Light & Love,
Neil Bisarya

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