Sathya Sai Baba The World-Avatar Teaching and Revelations

complishing many difficult things which increase your anxiety and
fear? If a man is wise he can choose to take up things which are more
worthwhile and bring him peace of mind. Freedom is your birthright,
but it is only when you guide your steps along the path illuminated by
the universal, unbound Divine law that you are really free. If you stray
away from the light you get bound and caught. Some may ask - how
can Divine law, which regulates and controls, and prescribes thoughts
and words make a person free? 'Freedom' is the name that you give
to a certain type of bondage. Genuine freedom can exist only in the absence
of illusion, when there is no identification with the body and the
senses, no servitude to the objective world. There are very few people
who have managed to escape from this servitude and achieve genuine
freedom. Bondage lies in every act performed with the consciousness
of the body as the self for man is then the plaything of the senses. Only
those who have escaped this fate are truly free. and that freedom is
the goal to which Divine law leads. If one engages in activity with this
goal in mind then liberation is possible.
It is only because you bind yourself that you become bound and stray
away from the Divine path. It is always so; no other person can bind
you; you do it yourself. If faith in God's omnipresence is deep-rooted,
then, you would be aware that he is your self and that you can never
be bound! For that faith to grow, you must grasp Divine law firmly. The
reality of the Atman is the bedrock, the wisdom that is incontrovertible.
Devoid of that foundation, one becomes the target of doubt, despair
and delusion. The maid of Divine law will not wed such.
Therefore, endeavour first to become free. That is to say, as a preliminary
to successful living, cultivate faith in the Atman as the core of
your personality and then learn and practice the discipline necessary
to reach down to that core. With that qualification acquired, you can
engage fully in worldly activities, following the right conduct prescribed
for their regulation. Then you become a moral individual. Those who
hold the physical objective world as the all of life and the body as the
self, lead but wasted lives, as meaningless as making God into stone.
Making the stone into God is the holier, more wholesome task. So, too,
seeing the Divine in every single act of yours transforms it into an act
of worship, elevates it and removes its binding characteristic. If the duties
of worldly life are done with no regard to genuine Divine truth, it is
as unholy as treating God as stone. Righteousness pursued apart
from Divine truth and Divine truth divorced from righteousness are
both barrens of results. They are both inextricably intertwined, and
should be treated as such. (...)
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