JOIN USI have stayed up late to study the night skies, nearly inhaling the beauty of the stars. I have done this when I've been ecstatically happy-trying to stretch out the feeling, trying to keep it alive. And though the stars are equally beautiful during sad times, during calamitous personal crises, I have no interest in making the long day longer. I am not attached to pain!
Beloved Guru Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, whose very hair was a bright halo of dark mystery, taught, "All the joys you experience now are going to give you sorrow later on. These joys come and go; they are not permanent."
How could joy bring sorrow? I wondered. But I began to understand the truth of Sathya Sai's teachings. The children I loved, nurtured, and had so much fun with, grew into adults who were too busy to even think of their mother. The bliss of being a wife dissipated when my husband lost interest in me…. Yes, joy came; but it also left and was replaced by new joys.
These too melted like butterscotch ice-cream in the sun. I turned to spirituality for a deeper understanding of life. I wanted to know why I was born.
Puttaparthi Sai, Avatar of the Kali Age, he who has ushered in the Golden Age, said, "You should not get lost in the world aspiring for impermanent joys, impermanent wealth, impermanent position and luxuries.
So long as you are alive you can enjoy the joys which come your way. So long as you still have some body attachment, you will also have some attachment to a place or country.
So long as you still consider this world made up of the five elements as real, you will have to take care of your body which also consists of these five elements.
But, truly, you should not waste your time dwelling on these things. You should always remember the goal."
It was difficult to transform myself from a woman with many material goals to an aspirant those only goal was mergence with God.
There are days when I focus on that and other days when worldly desires seduce me. It's then that I must go within and review Swami Sai's words.
Happily, his teachings remain succinct and accessible. I still spend time studying the stars that sparkle light-years away from me.
Yet, looking up at them, I feel so close, so merged with the Divine Mystery. It is my kind of Oneness with God, my kind of letting go of the illusion of permanence.