A pure life and a clean conscience are as bread and wine for the soul.

A pure life is the term used to express the effort of man to keep his spiritual being untainted by the false values of the worldly life. It is the constant search for the original self, the desire to reach it, and the means employed to recover it, which alone can truly be called purity of life. ... When this purity is reached man lives in virtue. Virtue is not a thing which he expresses or experiences from time to time; his life itself is virtue. Every moment that God is absent from the consciousness is considered by the sage to be a sin; for at that moment the purity of the heart is poisoned. It is lack of life which is sin: and it is purity of life which is virtue. It is of this purity that Jesus Christ spoke when he said, 'Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.'

Karl Renz teaching schedule in Canada : see Karl%20poster.doc.

Upcoming Yagnas



Sai - Siddhi - Buddhi - Ganesh Yagna. Ganesh has two wives. They
are Siddhi, or mystical power, and Buddhi, or mystical
intelligence. September 12- 20 Pandu will be performing this
yagna in India with Vedic students. This yagna imparts wisdom and
gives us the power to overcome the obstacles and disappointments
in our lives. The cost to sponsor for 9 days: $1,008; for one
day: $151.

On Ganesh Chaturthi -- Saturday, September 15, we'll be performing
special fire havan to Ganesh. This is a special day to worship
Ganesh. It will be from 2:00 - 5:00 pm at our Driftwood home
where we have a large homa kunda (firepit). Contact us if you'd
like to attend - special instructions are needed. For those who
can't attend, this is a good day to repeat the mantra AUM SRI
GANESHAYA NAMAHA 21 or 108 times. This yagna removes obstacles in
our lives and imparts wisdom.

Durga Saptasami Yagna. October 12 - 21. This yagna is during
Navaratri, the "Nine days of Mother Divine", the most auspicious
time to worship the Divine Mother during the year. It will bring
family harmony, marriages, internal balance, freedom from
delusions and success in all endeavors. The cost to sponsor all
days is $1,800, for one day it is $252.

Dasara, or Victory Day, will be celebrated on the evening of
Sunday, October 22 in Austin. This is the birth and Mahasamadhi
day of Shirdi Sai Baba. It is one of the most sacred days of the
year. Details will be forthcoming.

Donations for any of these yagnas can be sent to us here in Texas.

Aum Sai Ram,

Craig "Sastry" Edwards
Sri Shirdi Sai Baba Temple
19022 FM 150 W.
Driftwood, TX 78619
(512) 858-1008
(808) 938-0753 (cell)

A little practice will teach you to hold fast
to the feet of God while roaming about in the world, doing all
duties and carrying out all responsibilities dedicated to Him. Do
all work as actors in a play, keeping your identity separate and
not getting too attached to your role. Remember that the whole
thing is just a play and the Lord has assigned you a part; there
your duty ends. He has designed the play and enjoys it.

- Sathya Sai Baba

Commentary by Hazrat Inayat Khan:

The one thing to rely upon is God's favor. Do not build either on your study or on your meditation, although they both help you. But you are dependent on God, not even on your murshid. Seek Him, trust Him. In Him lies your life's purpose, and in Him is hidden the rest of your soul

Man's greatest privilege is to become a suitable instrument of God, and until he knows this he has not realized his true purpose in life. The whole tragedy in the life of man is his ignorance of this fact. From the moment a man realizes this, he lives the real life, the life of harmony between God and man. When Jesus Christ said, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God,' this teaching was an answer to the cry of humanity: some crying, 'I have no wealth,' others crying, 'I have no rest,' others crying, 'My situation in life is difficult,' My friends are troubling me,' or, 'I want a position, wealth.' The answer to them all is, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.

We live by the hope of attainment -- without this one cannot exist -- be it spiritual or material, of a selfish nature or of an unselfish one. It is not necessary that all should have one and the same object for their attainment, nor is it possible. It is, however, desirable that we should hold in our thought the best and highest attainment possible for us. ... But if you yourself are in confusion whether to have this object or that object or no object, then there is no hope for you. For you must ever bear in mind that the light and the life that goes out from you to the object are quite as important as that light which comes to you from the object. Therein lies the great mystery of the trinity in all things: the knower, the thing to be known, and the power or light or knowledge which connects them. If the way seems closed, it will be opened. If the means are lacking, they will be given, they will be attained. If the object is far off and beyond your reach, it will be drawn t
o you, if only you can hold fast to the rein, the rope of hope, with complete faith and trust in God, the Giver of all things, the Possessor of all things.

What honor, what a spirit it brings when a man fixes his trust on Him who is almighty. Rumi says, 'Though fire, air, earth, and water all seem dead things and only elements, yet they are God's servants; they work for Him and they always obey Him!' And he goes on to say in another part of his Masnavi, 'Man, when he becomes intelligent, begins to see causes. But it is the superman who sees the cause of causes, the source of causes.' God is the Cause of causes, the primal cause. One who looks at the primal cause sees in Him the cause

There is a phrase in the Bible, "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you". The Message of God is an answer to the cry of humanity. Now, as to the instrument of the message -- in reality the whole universe is an instrument, and every object and every being in it is an instrument; through whichever instrument He chooses He gives His message. One sees in one's life, and especially at times when one is deep down in depression and sorrow, some answer coming to the difficulty of that situation. It may come from a friend, from a brother, from parents, from a beloved; even from one's enemy one may get what was necessary at the moment.

But you will say, "Why should a message come in the life of an individual in the time of pain, or after a great sorrow? Why should not a message come every day for one's guidance?" And there are two reasons for it: One reason is that there is constantly a guidance from above, but man, so absorbed in his life's activities, does not open his heart to listen to that message and to see where it comes from. And the other reason is that the deeper the sorrow the higher the voice of the heart rises, until it reaches the throne of God; and that is the time when the answer comes, when a person is drowned deep in the sorrow and grief. ... Plainly speaking, man's real being is his heart, and in pain the heart becomes living and without pain man seems to be living on the surface. You will often see in life that people with an intolerable nature and manner, after having gone through the agony of pain in life, develop in them a finer nature.

Those who have avoided love in life from fear of its pain have lost more than the lover, who by losing himself gains all. The loveless first lose all, until at last their self is also snatched away from their hands. The warmth of the lover's atmosphere, the piercing effect of his voice, the appeal of his words, all come from the pain of his heart. The heart is not living until it has experienced pain. Man has not lived if he has lived and worked with his body and mind without heart. The soul is all light, but all darkness is caused by the death of the heart. Pain makes it alive. The same heart that was once full of bitterness, when purified by love becomes the source of all goodness. All deeds of kindness spring from it.

There is not the slightest doubt that when man has had enough pain in his life he rises to this great consciousness. But it is not necessary that only pain should be the means. It is the readiness on the part of man to efface his part of consciousness and to efface his own personality, which lifts the veil that hides the spirit of God from the view of man.

by Hazrat Inayat Khan

First we must understand what the word divine means. Divine means: in a state of perfection. This state is experienced by God through man. In other words, when man has risen to the stage of development where he can be the perfect instrument of God, when nothing of his own being stands in the way of the direct impulse that comes from within -- that spirit may be called perfect. That which is most precious, that which is the purpose of man's life is to arrive at that state of perfection when he can be the perfect instrument of God.
It is in this stage that man begins to realize the truth of the whole being and he will think: 'The one whom I have called God, whose personality I have recognized, and whose pleasure or displeasure I have sought, has been seeing His life through my eyes, has been hearing through my ears. It was His breath that came through my breathing, His impulse which I felt, and therefore I know that this body which I had thought to be my own is really the true temple of God. I did not realize that this body was the shrine of God.' Not knowing that God experiences this life through man, one is seeking for Him somewhere else, in some person aloof and apart from the world, whereas all the time He is in oneself.
Why is God called the Creator? Because the creation itself is the evidence of some wisdom working. No mechanical creation could result in such perfection as that of nature. All the machines of the scientists are built on the model of nature's mechanism, and every inspiration that comes to the artist is received from nature. Nature is so perfect in itself that it needs no scientific or artistic improvement upon it; but to satisfy the limited human fancies man develops science and art. And yet it is still the creation of God which is expressed in art and science through man, as in man God is not absent. In some ways man is more able to finish His creation, which God completes through man.
Art is much more important than the average person realizes it to be -- despite the saying that 'art is what man makes, and nature is what God makes.' I would prefer to say that nature is what God makes as God, and art is what God makes as man. The artist who has arrived at some perfection in his art, whatever his art may be, will come to realize that it is not he who ever achieved anything; it is someone else who came forward every time. And when the artist produces a perfect thing, he finds it difficult to imagine that it has been produced by him. He can do nothing but bow his head in humility before that unseen power and wisdom which takes his body, his heart, his brain, and his eyes as its instrument. Whenever beauty is produced in art, be it music, or poetry, or painting, or writing, or anything else, one must never think that man produced it. It is through man that God completes His creation.

Commentary by Hazrat Inayat Khan:

It happens very often that we find that a person who has been successful in life goes on being successful, and that one who has once failed goes on failing. Looked at from a psychological point of view, the reason is that the first person was impressed by his success and so he continued to be successful, and the other, who was impressed with his failure, continued to have failures because that impression suggested failure to him. But it is not because of the displeasure of God that unfortunate souls continue to be unfortunate in everything they do. It is that the suggestion of misfortune, of misery, keeps them miserable throughout their lives.

Reasoning is a faculty which the mystic uses and which he may develop like any man of common sense, any practical man. The difference is only that the mystic does not stop at the first reason, but wishes to see the reason behind all reasons. Thus, in everything, whether right or wrong, the mystic seeks for the reason. The immediate answer, however, will be a reason that does not satisfy him, for he sees that behind that reason there is yet another reason. ... The nature of life is such that it easily excites the mind and makes man unhappy in an instant. It makes man so confused that he does not know where to take the next step. In contrast with this, the mystic stands still and inquires of life its secret; and from every experience, from every failure or success, the mystic learns a lesson. Thus, both failure and success are profitable to him.

The ideal of a mystic is never to think of disagreeable things. What one does not want to happen one should not think about. A mystic erases from his mind all the disagreeable things of the past. He collects and keeps his happy experiences, and out of them, he makes a paradise. Are there not many unhappy people who keep part of the past before them, causing them pain in their heart? Past is past; it is gone. There is eternity before us.

BUDDHA,

by

Deepak Chopra

Again and again
Some people in the crowd wake up.
They have no ground in the crowd
And they emerge according to broader laws.
They carry strange customs with them,
And demand room for bold gestures.

The future speaks ruthlessly through them.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell

We are pleased to announce the start of our new e-commerce site
www.sagarworld.com due to the tremendous response that we have received from
you all over the last couple of years through our website www.sagartv.com
inquiring for purchasing our Vcds and Dvds.

www.sagarworld.com is eventually going to be an entire portal on
Spiritualism, Hinduism, Yoga, Mythology and Indian Culture and heritage. It
is the online version of the chain of theme parks on Indian mythology which
are in the process of being created by the Sagar Group. Currently, we have
only started the shopping cart for the same where one can buy products like
DVDs, VCDs, Gemstones, Rudrakshas etc. The site is currently being updated
continuously with information so please check back after few days or weeks
or months for more information as it gets added.

Also, within a few months we will be starting the main site which will have
lot of information, pictures, videos from the television serials of Late Dr.
Ramanand Sagar like Ramayan, Shri Krishna, Alif Laila, Vikram aur Betal etc.
The site will be a one stop shop for all your needs on mythology,
spiritualism, yoga and Indian/Hindu Heritage.

There's a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn't change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.
You don't ever let go of the thread.

- William Stafford