Sathya Sai Baba The World-Avatar Teaching and Revelations

He propagated the truth that service is God, that sacrifice is God. Even
if you falter in the adoration of God, do not falter in the service of the
living God, who has assumed human shape and is moving all around
you in such large numbers and wearing such manifold costumes of apparel
and speech! Only those who can pour out compassion to fellowmen
can claim a place in the grace of God. This is also the highest spiritual
discipline; it impresses on you the unity of the human community
and the glory of God's immanence. (...)
May the world have peace and happiness, and loving trust. That is my
blessing. I want you to pray for the welfare and prosperity of all mankind.
25.12.70, (21-417)
The Avatar comes to reveal man to himself, to restore to him his birthright
of Divine bliss. He does not come to found a new creed, to breed
a new faction, to instil a new God. If such a thing happens, it is the consequence
of the evil in man. The Avatar comes as man in order to
demonstrate that man is Divine, in order to be within reach of man. The
human mind cannot grasp the absolute, attributeless principle; it is abstract
and beyond the reach of speech, mind and intellect.
Fire is inherent in the matchstick but it is only when it is struck as a
flame that you can benefit by it. The attributeless has to manifest with
qualities; the formless has to appear with form. Then only can man listen,
learn, understand, follow and be saved, through the bliss of that
experience. The Avatar lights the flame of realization in each; and the
Age-old ignorance is destroyed in on instant. 31.8.72, (22-129)
Avatars manifested in the Golden Age (kritayua) for preservation of
Veda tradition, in the Silver Age (tretayuga) for the protection of righteousness
and in the Copper Age (dvaparayuga) for the promulgation
of the right of property. In the Golden Age, the Avatar saved the Vedas
from neglect, in the Silver Age he saved women from dishonour, and
in the Copper Age he saved property from injustice.
Now, in this fourth Age, the Iron Age (kaliyuga), all these three are in
dire peril. The Vedas are ridiculed, women is tempted into unwomenly
lives, and property itself is condemned as theft! So, the Avatar has a
threefold task. Man has no purity in the heart, no sanctity in his emotions,
no love in his deeds, no God in his prayers.
Though the evil is thickest in this Iron Age, the remedy is the simplest.
In the Golden Age the spiritual discipline of escaping from ruin was
hard. Years of austerity and abstinence were often profitless. (...)
121