In plain words
You cured it by Your power beyond the human. As long as I had leprosy no one would come near me. Then I could not enjoy what the senses are. Now, because You gave me good health, I am living in this way.’ Jesus says, ‘Fie! Fie! Was curing this man's disease for him to enjoy such wickedness? With My own hands I am ruining this man's life.’ That is, life is not just enjoying the pleasures of the senses, nor drinking to excess and ending life in eating and roaming.
Hunger and thirst, the senses and their joy: even birds, beasts and animals enjoy these. For this, why should one be born a man? If a man, born a man, who has learnt many branches of learning, gone to universities, taken in high Satya and won the name of a well-educated man, lives like the beasts, then what is left of humanness? To what high school do beasts, birds and animals go, in what college do they study! Birds, beasts and animals look much better than we do. They have a season, a reason. But for man, no reason, no season. At such a time, what is the work we do, born as men? Today there are, in the human race, people of three kinds of feeling. One class is set on the sweet feeling of Bhakti. The second class are active. The third class are always immersed in inquiry. The first class find their joy in such works as dhyāna, thinking on God, bhajan and remembrance. Then the second class are absorbed in doing karma, in works of service. The third class, through the power of their intellect, are wholly immersed in inquiry into the truth. These three are the paths of Bhakti, karma and Jñāna. But today we give these words and these duties contrary meanings, and keep following contrary, perverse ways. The power of inquiry must be applied only to discerning the lasting from the passing. The power of inquiry must be applied with a resolve of Satya. But today they set our power of understanding going with a narrow view.
Today we are taking Bhakti into a selfish path. The three paths of Bhakti, Jñāna and karma are not separate. These three are inseparably bound together. One cannot be, leaving the other out. In the path of Bhakti the paths of karma and Jñāna are contained. In karma both Bhakti and Jñāna lie within. In Bhakti both karma and Jñāna lie within. A small example. Here before us is a small stool. It has three legs. If any one of these three legs is missing, it will not stand. The three legs here are Bhakti, Jñāna and karma. Bhakti, Jñāna and karma are three feet. On them they set a fine, smooth board. Without that seat we cannot sit. So only when we set the board of Prema, equal for all people, on the three feet called Bhakti, Jñāna and karma, have we given it its proper place. When we see the support as the legs and what it supports as the board, our life can take its rest on it. In these three Prema is needed. On these three, they have fixed the plate called Prema with a screw. This screw is faith. If this faith is missing, though there are three legs and though there is a board, there is no safety.
We experience Prema with a worldly outlook. This is the chief of the things that the members of the Sai Organisations especially must recognise well. In the Sathya Sai Organisations, Satya, Dharma, Śānti and Prema are the most important. But we must inquire whether these four belong to the guṇas or are made of the guṇas. What is Satya? To what does this Satya belong? To tell what was seen as it was seen, what was heard as it was heard, what was said as it was said, what was experienced as it was experienced: this is not Satya. The reason is that the eyes that saw are only like balls. When the eyes are in good health, white looks white, black black, yellow yellow and red red. But if jaundice comes, to that same eye everything looks yellow. The eyes tell what they saw as they saw it, but do not tell what is really so. So what the eyes see and tell is not Satya. Satya and the tongue are bound to each other. That is why satyaṃ vada, speak Satya. Telling belongs to the tongue alone. It has nothing to do with the eyes. Then Dharma. Dharma belongs to the body. It is what must be shown in action. There is no use in speaking of Dharma, saying ‘Dharma, Dharma’. Dharmaṃ cara: ‘do it and show it’, they say. Then Śānti. Śānti belongs to the Manas. Here these belong to the three, speech, body and Manas: Manas, speech and body. Satya is the sāttvic guṇa. To the body that practises Dharma belongs the rājasic guṇa. The Manas is tāmasic. Then what is Prema? Prema is beyond these three guṇas. That is why ‘love is God’, they have said. It is because this Prema is dragged to the guṇas, this Prema to the body, this Prema to the Manas, that this Prema is being soiled.