Bend Before Love And Truth

March 1963, Shivarathri, Prasanthi Nilayam

Professor Kasturi's English.

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Many grieve: “It is said that getting the audience of a holy person () is destruction of sin (). Well, I have had not once but many times, and yet, my evil fate has not left me and I am suffering even more than before.” True, they have come and had , they have sowed fresh seeds secured from this place - seeds of love, faith, devotion, good company, Godly thoughts, remembering God’s name, etc. - and they have learnt the art of intensive cultivation and soil preparation. They have now sown the seeds in well-prepared fields of cleansed hearts. Now, until the new harvest comes in, they have to consume the grain already stored in previous harvests. The troubles and anxieties are the crop collected in previous harvests, so do not grieve and lose heart.

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If anyone challenges you to show them one text where the principles of (Eternal Religion) are succinctly stated, tell them about the . It is the essence of the , the , and the . The is like a bottle of fruit juice obtained from a basket of fruit. It will not get dry or rot like the fruits, for the juice has been well extracted and preserved. Its taste and excellence will persist until the end of this age (the ), and then it will merge in the .

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In the forest of worldly life (), the body is a tree and the thoughts, feelings, and imaginations are the branches, twigs, and leaves. Worry, anxiety, and fear are the monkeys that frisk among the branches. Grief in its various forms represents the insect pests that destroy the blooms. The blossoms are smiles; the owls and crows that infest it are anger, hatred, sloth, and spite!

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The sun never rises or sets; it appears to rise and appears to set on account of the revolution of the earth! What happens when the sun rises is that the invisible becomes visible, that is all. This series of rising and setting of the sun exists only for those who feel it; it does not exist for those who deny it. The duality of appearance and non-appearance can be overcome by spiritual wisdom (); so also, when the Sun of Knowledge is known, it is experienced as shining always with undiminished lustre.

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means simply “the sign,” “the symbol”. It is just a mark that indicates merging (), that is to say, the passing away of the mind and all mental agitations and all mental pictures, which means this objective world. is the day on which the moon, the presiding deity of the mind, is as near merging as possible, so just a little extra effort that day leads to full success. The spiritual aspirant can thereby achieve complete destruction of the mind. The realisation is that everything is subsumed in this , which is the symbol of the formless.

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God is a huge fire, and the sparks that fly out from it are the individual souls (); the individual souls are infinitesimal fractions of the same effulgence, having the same splendorous essence as their base, but the wind of impressions left on the mind by past actions () sweeps upon the sparks, puts out the light, and destroys the heat. But the same wind cannot put out the fire, it can only feed it further and cause its splendour to shine forth in even greater measure, for the will of the Lord can only add to His glory.

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I will not bend before anyone for anything. I am therefore unafraid. I bend for love, I bend before truth, that is all. Do not worry about worldly comforts and ask Me about those things as if they are all-in-all. Do not waste your precious lifetime in distracting doubts about the existence of the Lord in human form, here and now. Cultivate love () toward all; that is the greatest service you can do to yourself, for all others are but you yourself. You too should bend only before love and truth, not before hatred and cruelty and falsehood.

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- Sparks from discourses delivered on the occasion of , 1963.