Sathya Sai Baba The World-Avatar Teaching and Revelations

present in everyone. The fact that Divinity is present in millions of people
has been conveyed to us by our Vedas in a slightly different manner
by stating that God has thousands of eyes, thousands of legs and
thousands of heads. It has also been said, that you will find him wherever
you look for him. This is why we say that God is always available
to you, is behind you, is with you whenever you are in trouble and pain.
To save you from trouble and pain, he is with you, behind you, in you
and is looking after you.
One individual, on being told that God is with him and behind him,
turned back and looked for God behind his back; found none and was
very much disappointed. This ignorant and foolish person, thinking
that God was behind him, turned round to find God. Alas! He did not
understand that when he turned round and looked, he was not looking
behind him and that what was behind him has now in front. When he
turns round, God is still behind his back.
It is in that context that you must first strengthen your faith that God is
behind everything. There are various steps to be taken. The first thing
is self-confidence, next comes self-satisfaction, then follows self-sacrifice
and self-realization. In everyone the principle of “I” is self-effulgent.
He is in the form of the self-effulgent Atman in every human being.
There may be millions of people in one place. In all of them, God
is only one. In this apparent diversity, you must make an attempt to
recognize unity. (37-180/181)
The sages have laid down three categories which comprise the knowable
world. God, nature and the I. God when seen through the mirror
of nature appears as I. Remove the mirror; there is only God; the image
merges in the original. Man is but the image of God. Even nature
is but on appearance of God; the reality is he alone. The principle of
appearance that deludes man as multiple manifestation is illusion. It is
not external to God, it is inherent in God just as all powers are inherent
in Him. When the I image is conceived as distinct, we have dualism.
When it is recognized as only on unreal image, but given some relevance
to the original, then it is qualified monism. When both the I image
and the mirror are recognized as illusions and dismissed as such,
only one remains, and this is the vision of the One, without a second.
The search for the One, without a second, is the search of India since
ages. The endeavour has always been to discover the One, which
when known all else can be known. The knowledge that is worthwhile
is the knowledge of unity, not diversity. Diversity means doubt, dissen-
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