Lead an Ideal Life

God does not expect you to worship Him.
He expects you to lead an ideal and purposeful life.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Om Sai Ram!

This message has three purposes:

1. To give guidance to members on the focus of the Sathya Sai Organisation of Australia and Papua New Guinea into the immediate future;

2. To encourage members to address the particular issue of engaging with the wider Australian community;

3. To ask that creative ideas on enacting this focus come from the Centres and Groups.

The Status Quo

I would like to begin with a story about a consultant in Melbourne, who had been working with our company. A former test cricketer, who would spend his weekends with youngsters, teaching them the skills of cricket. Sometime last year, in a game of cricket, he was hit on the leg by a cricket ball, (he was not wearing pads) and a blood vessel was damaged in his leg. The leg became swollen, and the doctors' could not address the problem. He couldn't put his leg down and put pressure on it, he couldn't walk. A mutual friend told me this cricketer was in difficulty. He had golden staph infection in his leg. I had heard that honey was sometimes successful with golden staph infections and he tried it. He was open minded to try things. He was being prepared by his doctors for amputation.

When our mutual friend told me all this, I decided to send some 'grey ash' down to this fellow. He is not a spiritual fellow, does not know much about spirituality, nor does he know of Sai Baba. About ten days later, I connected with him and asked how he was going. He told me, 'It worked, the next morning it was much better. But then it wore of and the complaint returned. So I put it on again, and it worked again. It does not seem to be permanent. I told him to put the grey ash on every night, and to have some benevolent thoughts. Benevolent thoughts about the "Great Umpire" in the sky. You see, we cannot talk about God in Australian society, so we have to use metaphors to lead people gently, from where they are. Ten days later I heard that it had worked; his leg was completely healed; he was out power-walking, he had given up drinking, he had changed his diet. He had a new lease of life. I asked our mutual friend, "What does he think of this grey ash?" The reply was, "He doesn't know what to do with this information ..." That is the status quo; one day, he may ask.

Sai is for all, not just for divinity, Sai is for all, within. When we think of Swami, we look to what he has said:

• There is no thing which I do not know.



• There is nowhere I do not know who I am.



• There is nothing I cannot achieve.



• Picture me in any form and I will present myself to you.



• My sufficiency is inexplicable, unfathomable.



• I am beyond the reach of the most ardent enquiry; a thousand scholars studying for one thousand years will gain no more than a glimpse of my majesty.



• Seek me in the face of everyone you meet.



• I am in the heart of each one of you.



• And the five human values are embedded in every human heart.

When we live in connection with those values, we will more and more gain glimpses of the Divine.

80th Birthday Discourse

I would also like to add the following extracts from the 80th birthday discourse:

"God does not expect you to worship him; He expects you to lead an ideal life. Having being born a human being, you should strive for the welfare of society. You are a member of society, and your welfare depends on the welfare of society. Hence, undertake activities which are beneficial to society … God is in you, above you, below you, around you. You cannot realise this unless you give up negative feelings … "

Baba has said:

For society, the highest sadhana is living righteously in society.

Thus there is no need to talk about God in secular society; service is inspirational and speaks volumes to the community at large.

Taking Sai to Australian Society

For years, Swami has said, no publicity.

NOW, Baba is asking for promotion and publicity - NOT for the Organisation, NOT for Swami, but for his teachings.

He has told, "About me, there is no need to speak". For example, a devotee who delivers the Sai teachings to the business community remarked to me recently that he had asked Swami, 'How do I take spirituality to the business community?' Swami replied, 'Don't do it; take the five values!' This is a very important message for us.

Swami is asking for promotion of the five human values. We must use the language of values, devoid of the trappings of spirituality and the outer wrappings of religion. The directive is to spread the five values world wide. Currently we set an exemplary model through our selfless service and unity of faiths devotional activities. Australians do respond positively to selfless service and to the concept of one Divine entity.

Our organisation connects well with the community through our service activities. Sai Service, when given in line with Swami's directives, is highly inspirational. There have been so many occasions when I have received feedback from people who cannot believe the quality of the service that our members give. They have resonated with this because our service has a spiritual basis. Not just a compassionate basis, but also a work which is motivated by a deep spiritual conviction. This is what helps us to see the divinity in the other.

At a recent reflection and planning weekend in Adelaide, a group of us asked ourselves, 'How have we communicated with Australian society in the past? What must we do now?' To this end, speaking in a language that is acceptable to Australian society, we decided to produce a series of pamphlets. As a start, I have asked some of our officers to produce a pamphlet, which gives the concept of the 5 human values to all Australians in a common, simple and acceptable language.

When we are practicing these values and speak about the values, people sense an authenticity in our message. Swami tells us, that when we present these five values to people, they are magnetically evoked or drawn out from them. This is because these values already exist within one and all.

The task of promoting these values is also a unity of faiths task; we need to focus on the one omnipresent God, on the core values, which are common to each religion, and to promote the concept of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.

Change in Our Organisation and Task

Brothers and Sisters, it is Swami's directive to spread His message and teachings worldwide. To this end, I would like to share with you the words of some of the senior leaders in our organisation from around the world.

Dr Michael Goldstein,at the Singapore Pre-World Conference meeting, said, 'We must change, but not so fast as to cause injury and concern to our members.' So any change that is introduced should be slow. Dr Goldstein went on to say, 'We are a spiritual organisation. We are not a social organisation, a service organisation, nor a cultural organisation.' Thus we have been asked to define ourselves simply as a spiritual organisation. Dr Goldstein also shared with us that he had asked some questions of Swami. There had been some dispute about shoes. Swami replied, "Shoes, not important. Men and women separate, important. This is not Indian culture, this is spiritual culture."

Sri Indulal Shah, at the Albury Conference said, "The Sai Organisation in the West should not be an outpost of Indian Culture nor Hindu spirituality".

Prof. Anil Kumar, at the 8th World Conference, addressed a question, "Can we sing and pray in English?" Anil Kumar replied, "Of course you can". In typical Anil Kumar style, he rose to his full height, raised his hand, extended his finger and said, "God understands English".

Ryko Hira at the Mittagong Conference said, "We must package our message and our practices in the most suitable way for the culture of our country to understand. No matter how sweet the contents in the jar, if the packaging and presentation is not appropriate, it will not be taken from the shelf".

Sri Sathya Sai Baba, "You should understand what it is you are singing and praying; otherwise, it is dark mumbling which does not achieve anything."

I am asking each zone and centre to consider Swami's advice very carefully; we do not have to learn another language to come to God.

It is the responsibility of the Centres to make our organisation more relevant to Australian Society.

White Paper for Australia

Last year, the leadership of the Organisation asked each Central Coordinator around the world to prepare a White Paper, which would outline the future of the Organisation in their respective country. I prepared this, and subsequently, attended the Editors and Publishers Conference in Prashanti Nilayam, and also attended many other meetings around the time of the Birthday where the future of the organisation was discussed. I am pleased to say that our White Paper was well on target.

On the 25th of November I had the privilege of addressing a meeting of Australians in Prashanti Nilayam, and immediately afterwards I went to darshan and took my place on the verandah. Swami called me in for an interview.

"Where were you this afternoon", asked Swami. "And what were you doing?"

I replied, "Swami, I was speaking with Australians."

Swami replied, "Yes, Yes, I know, very happy."

I felt that was an endorsement of the things that I had been talking about, which are similar to the ideas in this message; I can only take it to be so.

The White Paper has since been presented to the National Conference in Melbourne, and may be read on this page.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We have all had, and continue to have, a wonderful life experience in coming to the Avatar. The Avatar has said that He will not fail. It is not in the nature of Avatars to fail.

Our role, on a personal level, is to discover our own inherent divinity. Our membership and participation in the activities offered by the organisation helps us in that regard. However, now, we have a directive to also look outwards and to take this message to the wider community. This is a challenge for us within our Organisation, particularly in regards to how do we interact with society at large. Being the exemplar of his teachings is our most powerful tool.

My dear brothers and sisters, believe in yourself and your inherent goodness. Believe in the inherent goodness of the other, for HE is residing in each one of us.

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