Passage 5

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In plain words

Time, karma, cause and duty must come together. Only then does karma bear fruit. For that we must wait. We must guard it as the time requires.

All the children (former students of the Śrī Sathya Sai educational institutions) are doing many good deeds. They go to many villages, do service and sing the Name together, and bring the people there joy. But above all, we must go on through life holding Prema in the mind. The good we do to others and the bhajans we sing are not what matters most. We must see that the feeling “I am serving others” is not in the mind. We must have the feeling “I am doing it for my own sake.” Others are not others: they are forms of the Paramātma. So whoever you serve, you must regard it as service to the Paramātma. It is to bring this feeling that we do so many kinds of good deeds. Only service done with such selfless Prema is true service. The best way to love God is to love all and serve all. It is with Prema that we must do this work. Only then does it take shape as true service. Without the ‘positive’ of Prema, however much service you do, it all turns ‘negative’. Without the current of Prema, however many bulbs of service you fit, they will not light. Only when the ‘main switch’ is turned on do the ‘bulbs’ light up. The heart is the ‘main switch’. Every act that springs from the heart must take shape full of Prema.

God is beyond every pramāṇa

No one can decide that the story of divinity is like this or like that. God's creation is utterly wondrous. Waves of light travel many thousands of miles in a moment. Yet the light of some stars in the sky has not reached the earth even to this day. That is to say, those stars are that far from the earth! If creation itself is so wondrous, who can understand the nature of God, the Creator?