Farewell to the current year and welcoming a New Year!

We are now bidding farewell to the current year and welcoming a New Year! There is an intimate relationship between the two. We give a send-off to one while we welcome the other. In the same token, should we not bid farewell to our bad qualities and welcome good and divine qualities? You may offer all your bad qualities to God. There is nothing wrong in this. Indeed, it is only God who can take them and bestow His grace on you to foster good qualities. For example, suppose you have a soiled, torn and mutilated hundred rupee currency note, no one will accept it. But if the number is intact, the Reserve Bank of India will accept it and give a good note of the same value in return. Similarly God alone can and will accept the bad qualities, provided you offer them with sincere devotion and repentance, and in return He will shower His abundant Grace on you!

Bagavan Sri Sri Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Thought for the Day

Plant the seed of devotion of remembering Lord's name (namasmarana) in your mind. That will grow into a tree with branches of virtue, service, sacrifice, love, equanimity, fortitude and courage. You swallow food, without being aware of how it is transformed into energy, intelligence, emotion and health. Similarly, swallow the food for the spirit, this remembrance of Lord's name, and watch how it gets transmuted into virtues without you being aware of it. Ravana discovered that Rama and kama (desire) cannot coexist in the mind. Develop steadiness in the recitation of the Name of God and in the worth of that Name. Then, even if the whole world says, "Do evil," you will refuse to obey; your system itself will revolt against it. And even if the whole world asks you to desist, you will insist on doing right.

Bagavan Sri Sri Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Thought for the Day

Happiness and sorrow have to be experienced in the worldly life as they are inevitable like the sunset and sunrise. You think new year will give better experiences; this is not correct. It is the mind that is responsible for pleasure and pain. If your mind is good, you will find anything good. You are embodiments of the Divine which is nothing but bliss. While being so, is it not folly on your part to say that you are suffering from pain and grieve over this? Some want to have uninterrupted happiness. When you eat at 10 a.m. you do not go on eating every hour thereafter without break. So also when you experience pleasure it has to be digested before you meet with another bout of such experience. Just as you have to do some exercise for helping the food to digest, you have to go through the exercise of confrontation of pain after experiencing pleasure. Therefore, you must take whatever is given by God as good for you.

Bagavan Sri Sri Sri Sathya Sai Baba