Sathya Sai Baba The World-Avatar Teaching and Revelations

ody-consciousness and keep clear of self-centered actions. This
again involves the absence of attachment and hatred; desire is the enemy
of liberation, or moksha. Desire binds one to the wheel of birth and
death; it brings about endless worries and tribulations.
Through inquiry on these lines, knowledge is rendered clearer and
brighter, and liberation is achieved. Liberation is only another word for
independence, not depending on any outside thing or person.
If nicely controlled and trained, the mind can lead one on to liberation.
It must be saturated in the thought of God; that will help the inquiry into
the nature of reality. The consciousness of the ego itself will fade away
when the mind is free from pulls and when it is rendered pure, unaffected
in any way by the world; that is the path to self-realization; it cannot
be found in mount Kailasa.
The flame of desire cannot be put out without the conquest of the mind.
The mind cannot be overcome without the quenching of the flames of
desire. The mind is the seed, desire is the tree. Divine wisdom alone
can uproot that tree. These three are inter-dependent: mind, desire
and Atman-wisdom. (14-1/7)
The liberated person (jivanmukta) is firmly established in the knowledge
of the Atman, achieved by dwelling on the unreality of the world
and contemplating its failings and faults. He has gained insight into the
nature of pleasure and pain and developed equanimity in both. He
knows that wealth, wordly joy and pleasure are all worthless and even
poisonous. He takes praise, blame and even blows with a calm assurance,
unaffected by honour or dishonour. Of course, the liberated living
being reached that stage only after long years of systematic discipline
and unflagging zeal when distress and doubt assailed him.
Defeat only made him more rigorous in self-examination and more earnest
about following the prescribed discipline. The liberated man
(jivanmuktha) has no trace of the “will to live”; he is ever ready to drop
into the lap of death.
“Direct perception of the Divine Absolute, the Atman” is the name given
to the stage in which the aspirant is free from all doubt regarding
improbability or impossibility, and is certain that the two entities, living
being and Brahman, are one, and have been one, and will ever be one.
When this stage is attained, the aspirant will no longer suffer any confusion,
he will not mistake one thing for another, or superimpose one
thing on another. (...)
He will not (...) declare, as he did previously, that the effulgence of
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