Very good message for spiritual seekers from Sathya Sai about egoistic attitude, perverted-mentality and ostentatious behaviour of present-day educated people
From divine discourse given by Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba on 6th May 2000 in Brindavan (Bangalore), http://www.sssbpt.info/ssspeaks/volume33/sss33-09.pdf :
Today we are celebrating Easwaramma Day. Who is Easwaramma? She is the mother of Easwara. This was not the name given to her by her parents. But after her marriage, Kondama Raju (Swami’s grandfather), being one of wisdom and blessed with a vision of the future, started calling her Easwaramma (mother of Easwara). She was christened as Namagiriamma at the time of her birth. But Kondama Raju told her that Easwaramma was the most appropriate name for her, as he knew that she was going to become the mother of Easwara.
Easwaramma was born in such a poor family that she did not even have proper food to eat. All that she had to eat was ragi sankati (gruel prepared from a coarse grain). Even I too eat ragi sankati only. Many people in Karnataka eat ragi sankati. I like it very much. I do not relish rice, kurma (curry), etc., ragi sankati with groundnut chutney is My favourite food. Both ragi and groundnut are available in our village. When I come here from Puttaparthi, I bring ragi flour with Me. Easwaramma was illiterate. When I see the egoistic attitude, perverted mentality and ostentatious behaviour of the present-day educated people, I feel it was better that Easwaramma did not have any schooling.
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Ravi: I have now lived an outside-ashram-system retired-from-commercial-work life in outside-ashram Puttaparthi from around mid 2012, which makes it around 7 years. I lead a rather reclusive physical life (though I am active on the Internet as a social media writer) and so have limited real-world interactions with people. And a large part of this limited real-world interactions in recent years has been with local people from Puttaparthi town and surrounding villages, some of whom are illiterate.
Yesterday, like I do every once in a while, I went to a small local eatery near the road bridge over Chitravathi that connects Puttaparthi to Karnatakanagapalli (which is where mother Easwaramma lived with her parents before marriage), and took Ragi mudda, Pappu and Chutney as parcel, which was my lunch. The eatery is frequented by locals. It is not a fancy restaurant but more like a shack.
Like most small shops in outside-ashram Puttaparthi, I think this is a family run business. I find the eatery owner family (my presumption; I have not asked them) who also run the business, to be simple but hard-working and good people. No egoism, no perverted mentality and no ostentatious behaviour at all! Anna (elder brother), akka (elder sister) or uncle (I usually get called uncle :-) ) is how both the eatery owners-workers and customers refer to each other.
I think I should also mention here that they do serve egg dishes too, which, of course, I do not take.
As a spiritual aspirant, I am so glad to have the privilege and pleasure of interacting with such hard-working and good people. I think it is hard work that builds noble character.
I must also say that not all such locals in Puttaparthi are hard-working and good people. Some, unfortunately, are out to make a quick buck in a quest to get rich quick, and may view non-locals as a good source of quick bucks :-(. So one has to spot and identify who are the hard-working and good people among the locals, and who are the try-to-get-rich-quick types.
I think for those who are spiritual seekers (as against material world accomplishment seekers), interacting with some hard-working and good locals in and around Puttaparthi who may not be well educated or not have any formal education at all, will be good for their spiritual uplift and for being anchored/rooted in simple "ceiling on (material) desires" life. Nowadays, IMHO, the "ceiling on (material) desires" teaching of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba does not seem to find much importance as material aspirations dominate life in our early 21st century world. But I think for those who desire spiritual uplift and not any transient worldly riches and fame-and-glory, "ceiling on (material) desires" is an absolutely vital teaching of Bhagavan to follow as that creates a simple and suitable environment for the spiritual seeker to engage in the spiritual quest.
The Avatar of the Age, Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, chose the hard-working, good and noble Easwaramma as his mother disregarding mother Easwaramma's poor and illiterate background! That itself is a vital message/teaching for spiritual seekers through the very life of the Avatar Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba about the value of satsang (companionship) with hard-working, good and noble villagers who are not egoistic, not of perverted-mentality and not ostentatious, even if they may be poor and not well educated or not educated at all.
[I thank sssbpt.info and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above small extract from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
Today we are celebrating Easwaramma Day. Who is Easwaramma? She is the mother of Easwara. This was not the name given to her by her parents. But after her marriage, Kondama Raju (Swami’s grandfather), being one of wisdom and blessed with a vision of the future, started calling her Easwaramma (mother of Easwara). She was christened as Namagiriamma at the time of her birth. But Kondama Raju told her that Easwaramma was the most appropriate name for her, as he knew that she was going to become the mother of Easwara.
Easwaramma was born in such a poor family that she did not even have proper food to eat. All that she had to eat was ragi sankati (gruel prepared from a coarse grain). Even I too eat ragi sankati only. Many people in Karnataka eat ragi sankati. I like it very much. I do not relish rice, kurma (curry), etc., ragi sankati with groundnut chutney is My favourite food. Both ragi and groundnut are available in our village. When I come here from Puttaparthi, I bring ragi flour with Me. Easwaramma was illiterate. When I see the egoistic attitude, perverted mentality and ostentatious behaviour of the present-day educated people, I feel it was better that Easwaramma did not have any schooling.
--- end extract ---
Ravi: I have now lived an outside-ashram-system retired-from-commercial-work life in outside-ashram Puttaparthi from around mid 2012, which makes it around 7 years. I lead a rather reclusive physical life (though I am active on the Internet as a social media writer) and so have limited real-world interactions with people. And a large part of this limited real-world interactions in recent years has been with local people from Puttaparthi town and surrounding villages, some of whom are illiterate.
Yesterday, like I do every once in a while, I went to a small local eatery near the road bridge over Chitravathi that connects Puttaparthi to Karnatakanagapalli (which is where mother Easwaramma lived with her parents before marriage), and took Ragi mudda, Pappu and Chutney as parcel, which was my lunch. The eatery is frequented by locals. It is not a fancy restaurant but more like a shack.
Like most small shops in outside-ashram Puttaparthi, I think this is a family run business. I find the eatery owner family (my presumption; I have not asked them) who also run the business, to be simple but hard-working and good people. No egoism, no perverted mentality and no ostentatious behaviour at all! Anna (elder brother), akka (elder sister) or uncle (I usually get called uncle :-) ) is how both the eatery owners-workers and customers refer to each other.
I think I should also mention here that they do serve egg dishes too, which, of course, I do not take.
As a spiritual aspirant, I am so glad to have the privilege and pleasure of interacting with such hard-working and good people. I think it is hard work that builds noble character.
I must also say that not all such locals in Puttaparthi are hard-working and good people. Some, unfortunately, are out to make a quick buck in a quest to get rich quick, and may view non-locals as a good source of quick bucks :-(. So one has to spot and identify who are the hard-working and good people among the locals, and who are the try-to-get-rich-quick types.
I think for those who are spiritual seekers (as against material world accomplishment seekers), interacting with some hard-working and good locals in and around Puttaparthi who may not be well educated or not have any formal education at all, will be good for their spiritual uplift and for being anchored/rooted in simple "ceiling on (material) desires" life. Nowadays, IMHO, the "ceiling on (material) desires" teaching of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba does not seem to find much importance as material aspirations dominate life in our early 21st century world. But I think for those who desire spiritual uplift and not any transient worldly riches and fame-and-glory, "ceiling on (material) desires" is an absolutely vital teaching of Bhagavan to follow as that creates a simple and suitable environment for the spiritual seeker to engage in the spiritual quest.
The Avatar of the Age, Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, chose the hard-working, good and noble Easwaramma as his mother disregarding mother Easwaramma's poor and illiterate background! That itself is a vital message/teaching for spiritual seekers through the very life of the Avatar Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba about the value of satsang (companionship) with hard-working, good and noble villagers who are not egoistic, not of perverted-mentality and not ostentatious, even if they may be poor and not well educated or not educated at all.
[I thank sssbpt.info and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above small extract from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
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