Who is responsible for the sorrow?

1.God is not responsible for the sorrow and the pain that one experiences. The sins one commits are the cause of the grief one suffers. Joy and sorrow are the consequences of the good and the evil that one perpetrates. God is merely a witness. He does not punish, nor does He create grief. The jivi (individual soul) is without a beginning, that is to say, it has no birth; but it involves itself in incessant activity and so it has to go through the inevitable consequences of that activity. This is the unbreakable law of the objective world. Grief or joy is the image of the activity one engages in; it is the resound, the reflection, and the reaction. One can be the witness without concerning oneself with the good and the bad of the activity. When involvement happens, good will have to be experienced when good is done, similarly evil will have to be undergone when evil is done.

2.Dhyana (meditation) is the very basis of all sadhana (spiritual practice). Meditation gives you the first inkling of the Divine Bliss. With this Bliss as the ideal, you must carry on meditation and mental repetition of the Divine Name. The step immediately after meditation is samadhi (total absorption in the Self). Meditation is the seventh of the eight-fold path of Yoga. Do not give up this royal road that leads you on to that sacred goal!

3.We cannot think without words. Words are the essential material for thought. When the individual drops the body, the words enter the mind; the mind enters the Prana or the Life Force and the Prana merges in the Atma. When the Atma (individual soul) liberates itself it rushes to Surya Loka, the region of the Solar Principle. From there, it reaches Brahma Loka, the region of Brahma, the Supreme One. Having reached that region, the jivatma (individualized Atma) has no more concern with Prakriti, or the objective world. It will exist there till the end of time. It will experience boundless delight and have all powers except the powers of creation.

4.People are engaged in various forms of self-cultivation, but the most important of these is the cultivation of spiritual experiences. All refinement is based on spiritual development. It is the king of cultures. The king makes laws, but he is above and beyond them. So too, all rules and laws, all distinctions of right and wrong, of sin and virtue, of joy and sorrow affect only the jivi (individualized soul) that attaches importance to the inexperienced manas (mind) and buddhi (intellect) and not to the Atma. So, cultivation of the Atmic experience, which is pure, self-evident, and transcendental is essential for all. It is also easy, for the Atma is like the mother of all, and listening to the Atma is like the child listening to its mother. Everyone is competent to have that experience; in fa ct, it is everyone’s right to have it!

Bagavan Sri Sri Sri Sathya Sai Baba