॥
In plain words
Not all that is past deserves to be condemned. Not all that is new is splendid. To preserve our culture, which gives human life the Ānanda that is eternal and true, and its happiness and Śānti, to preserve our customs and traditions, and to bring them into harmony: this alone is the right way through the problems of Bhārata. If you follow the ways of other peoples and go astray, you may fashion an artificial life for yourself. Through dress, speech, ornaments and the like people can resemble them, but they can by no means become people of their cast of mind.
Sādhakas must first of all settle on one form and one Name as their standard, their target and their sign, and then make their journey. They must not move from it. They must win it with one-pointed concentration. Once they reach that place, a higher place than it comes into view for them right there. Until then there is no escaping the journey, made with firmness, with courage, by the strength of sādhana. If you do not know where the journey is going, that is a mark of folly. You must attain divinity; you must experience Ānanda; you must merge in immortality. You must have Īśvara revealed before you. You must settle on some one of these and set out. If you begin sādhanas with words you do not understand and with endless hopes, darkness alone will be the fruit. Keep before you as your aim some one form, such as Rāma, Kṛṣṇa, Śiva, Viṣṇu or Durgā, or else the formless, such as the Ānanda of the Ātma, immortality or fearlessness, and to attain it you must keep the disciplines laid down to the very letter.
A great king was ruling his kingdom and passing his days in peace and plenty. In his court there were priests, pandits, ministers and singers. Among them there was a jester, always joking, with the bad habit of answering questions with counter-questions and cheeky questions. The king gave him the name ‘Crest-Jewel of Fools’, had it painted on a cap and set it on his head, and commanded that he must always wear it in court, so they say.
While things stood so, the great king was struck by a terrible illness. His last hour, too, drew near. So he called the ministers, the queens, his kinsmen and his vassal kings, all of them, to his side, told them all everything that had to be told, and said that he was going. Along with all the others he sent for the Crest-Jewel of Fools too. ‘Be kind with everyone, be gentle, give up your mischievous talk and live in harmony, my boy! I am going,’ said the king.
Then the fellow said, ‘Wait a little, my lord! I will bring a horse, so that you may travel in comfort.’ ‘A horse is no use,’ said the king. ‘Well then, I will bring an elephant,’ he said. ‘An elephant cannot go there,’ said the king. ‘In that case I will bring a palanquin; you can travel in it at your ease. I will carry it too, and I will bring three more men,’ said the fool. ‘No, my boy! A palanquin is no use. You cannot come. I must go all alone,’ said the king. ‘Why! Where is that? What place? A place no horse can enter, impossible for an elephant, that cannot be reached by travelling in a palanquin, where no one may come with you as companion and shadow: where is such a place, my lord?’ he asked. To that the king replied, ‘What it is like, where it is, I do not know myself, my boy.’ ‘You say you are going, you speak of a journey. You say you want nothing. You say you do not know where to, or what it is: from now on this Crest-Jewel of Fools cap suits you alone,’ he said, and as he spoke he took it off his own head and set it on the head of the dying king. Those who do sādhanas without knowing what the goal is, or where they are going, are Crest-Jewels of Fools too, every bit as much!
In sādhana, what matters most, and what brings its fruit swiftest, is nothing other than prayer, bhajan and nāmasaṅkīrtana. Through them the body and the mind gain a fine purity. A certain Dr. Thomas Hislop studied the changes that prayer brings about in body, mind and intellect, and found scientifically that health, sound sleep, peace of mind, the heart working well, the blood flowing at an even pace and the like come about. Through prayer the mind becomes sweet. Unity is seen in diversity. Through being wholly absorbed, Ānanda grows steady. Progress as great as this is not to be had in any other way.
For this very reason We have directed the Sathya Sai organisations in every village to hold nagarasaṅkīrtana every day at brahmamuhūrta, and bhajans morning and evening, full of Ānanda. By following these practices the atmosphere becomes holy. Whoever is immersed in that holy atmosphere and breathes that air, their hearts will be filled with divinity.
But you must by no means sing bhajans that upset the hearts of others just to obey the command, because Swami has told you to do bhajans. It must be singing that calms the hearts of others, awakens śraddhā and zeal in them, plunges them in Ānanda and awakens good feelings. The rāga, the tāla and the notes must be sweet. But in some places this is not happening. Somehow or other, as though holding a rehearsal right there, they sing new songs, one after another.