Passage 2

Tap any word for its meaning.

In plain words

If they are impure, then even while you are still alive, they will keep on reviling

What is foremost in the world? ‘There is no Dharma higher than Satya.’ This mansion called the world stands on the foundation called Satya, and on that alone. You are all members of the Sathya Sai organisations, so in your heart you must give the chief place to My name ‘Sathya’, which stands in theirs.

In a certain century there ruled over the earth a great king who cherished Satya alone, supremely sacred, as the dharma of his life and rejoiced in it (his very name was Satyavrata). One day he rose at Brahma-muhūrta; that day was some festival or other. Since it was a holy day, he was going out through the lion gate of his city to bathe in the sea, and as he went he noticed a woman, beautiful in every limb, going away out of the city. At once, “Who are you? Why are you leaving this city all alone at this untimely hour?” he asked. She set about answering it. “I am Dhanalakṣmī! I never like to stay in one place: I am leaving your palace and going away,” she said. Satyavrata gave her leave, saying, “By all means go,” and sent Dhanalakṣmī away. A little while later the king noticed a handsome man going out by the same gate, and he questioned that person too: “Who are you? For what reason are you leaving the city?” “My name is Dāna; with wealth itself gone, what use is there even in my staying here?” he replied. “Very well! Go,” said the king, and gave Dāna too his leave. Within a little while another handsome man set out. His name was Sadācāra! “Without wealth and without charity, how can good conduct find room?” he asked. In the same way another, Yaśas, “There is no place here for me either,” … and went out through that lion gate. “There is no …, there is no charity. Good conduct too … ; so what place is there for fame alone?” he argued. Then, when yet another great person too appeared at that gate, the king asked him, “What is your name?” “My name is Satya,” he replied. The king bowed at his feet and prayed, “You must stay in my kingdom, in my city, in my palace, steadily, for all time; you must not leave.” Granting that prayer, Satya did not set out, and went straight into the royal palace. Seeing this, Yaśas, Sadācāra, Dayā and Dhana, all of them, came into the city, saying, “Only when we are joined with Satya do all of us have any worth.” They stayed on happily in Satyavrata's kingdom itself.

Just as all of them joined with Satya, you too must join this Sathya Sai and, leading an ideal life, conduct yourselves always as befits the sacred aims of the organisations.

The name is ‘high class’; if you look at the conduct, it must not be low class. Vultures fly up and roam in the sky itself. Yet their gaze, for its part, stays a downward gaze all the same. You must not try to come down from above.