Sathya Sai Baba The World-Avatar Teaching and Revelations

elieves that he is the body, the senses etc. They crave for objective
pleasures and he convinces himself that this is desirable and under
this mistaken notion, he seeks to fulfil their cravings. He deludes himself
that he can secure bliss by catering to the body and the senses.
However, he cannot earn bliss through such attempts. Instead, he is
rewarded with disillusionment, defeat and even disaster. He reaps sorrow,
and not joy.
Involvement in objective pleasure ultimately leads to grief. So, man
needs to be directed towards the right means to attain bliss. Wherefrom
can one gain bliss? It is not inherent in external objects. The
pleasure one can obtain from external objects brings with it grief also.
The Brahma Sutra, the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita - the three
source texts - clarify the truth that you are the very embodiment of
bliss. These three sources work together to help man attain the highest
wisdom. (...)
The awareness of Brahman cannot be won by the accumulation of
wealth or even by giving away riches. Nor can it be achieved by reading
texts, rising to acquiring power, or degrees and diplomas or by the
performance of scriptural sacrifices and rituals. (...)
Only the person who has faith and trust can secure wisdom, it means
steady faith in the statements laid down in scriptural texts. (6-3/6)
Among the preliminary qualifications for Brahman exploration, the first
is discrimination between the transitory and the eternal. In other
words, the discovery that the Atman alone is beyond time, and that all
objects perceivable by the senses of sight, etc., are only transitory. (...)
The second qualification is renunciation of the desire to enjoy here and
hereafter the fruits of one's actions. This is also known as “non-attachment.”
(...)
The third qualification is consistency (sama). Non-attachment (dama),
retraction (uparathi), equanimity (titiksha), faith (sraddha) and deep
meditation (samadhana) are the six virtues in this group. (...)
The mind has two characteristics. The first is that it runs after the senses,
helplessly, inviting disaster. When a pot of water becomes empty,
you need not infer that it has leaked away through ten holes; one hole
is enough to make it empty. So too, among the senses, even if one is
not under control, the result will be bondage. Therefore, every sense
has to be mastered.
The second characteristic of the mind is that the potential of the mind
can be promoted by good practices like meditation (dhyana), recitation
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