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The
Ten Commandments as VEDA |
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by Al Drucker |
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Prashanti Nilayam, Aug '88 |
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Sai Baba has said that in its original form, before priests enhanced it with their own embellishments, the Bible was sruti, a direct transmission from God. But, in the same way that diamonds don’t grow on trees and one has to dig deep to reach them, and even then you have to cut them and polish them to reveal their profound brilliance, so it is also with the Bible. If you wish to unearth its eternal verities you have to look deep to its words. With that in mind, let us look at the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai. In the Bible we are told that the Ten Commandments were considered so important that God Himself inscribed them with His finger on two tablets of stone. Here is a portion of the Bible passage: "In the morning there were peals of thunder and lightning, and a heavy cloud came over the mountain. Then there was a very loud trumpet blast so that all the people in the camp trembled. Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God, and stationed himself at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was all wrapped in smoke, for the Lord had come down upon it in fire. The trumpet blast grew louder and louder, and the whole mountain shook violently, while Moses was speaking and God was answering with thunder... Then God gave the commandments:" 1. I am the Lord, your
God. You shall have no other gods besides Me.
Let us consider this first commandment. What is the deeper meaning
of this direction given importance here, overshadowing every other
injunction regulating human life? It is the realization that for all our
lives and for all time, we are bathed in the continuous presence of the
One God, a God who has no second. He fills the whole Universe and all
other worlds that we could possibly conceive of, with his conscious,
magnificent presence, and at the same time resides as the indwelling
Spirit and motivator in all hearts. Baba said to Dr. Hislop, "It is
my direct experience that I live in the heart of every being." That
is the essence of this commandment... the Unity of God. When Jesus was
asked what is the first commandment, he answered that God is one, there is
no other, and therefore we must love Him with all our hearts and all our
minds. This is the essence of every major religion... speaking of the One
Divine life expressing itself in endless varieties of form; but all these
seemingly separate lives are just one in Him. It follows,
therefore, that we are all brothers in our Father's house, knit together as one family in God.
Therefore, the starting point for the journey is to know and
experience the Unity of God. We must reach the deep conviction that there
is no place on this Earth or anywhere in the Universe, or anywhere in the
highest heaven of our dreams or the worst hell of our fears, where we can
go and be outside of this all-embracing circle of Divine Unity. We cannot
hide from It. We cannot escape It. That Unity, the one God, is everywhere,
and there is nowhere and in no one where He is not. 2. You shall not take
the Name of the Lord, your God, in vain. To get to the essence meaning of the second commandment, let us
inquire into His Name; what truly is this Name that we must not use in
vain? Moses asked God directly, "What is Your Name, Lord? Please tell
me Your Name." And God answered him from out of the burning bush,
"I AM... that is My Name... I AM Who AM.
Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh " In 'I am' we find the
vital link between God and ourselves; it is these very words that we use
as subject to describe ourselves. If I were to say, "I am Drucker",
I would be calling out the name of God. The 'I am' of this statement is
about God, and the 'Drucker' is about some changing name and form.
'I am' is eternally unchanging, exquisitely potent and free from
all limitations... capable of being transformed into an infinity of
'others'. 'Drucker' or any other such appellation is finite, limited,
transient, and impotent, for it has no existence of its own. Without the
'I am' it is essentially nothing but a mirage. 'I am' or just 'I', is the
one divine essence in everyone and everything. In the evening, Baba says,
a thousand husbands return from work and knock on their respective house
doors. A thousand wives ask, "Who is it?" and all answer,
"It is I." Everyone uses the same 'I' to relate to himself.
Whatever state he is in, waking, dreaming, deep sleep, or the deepest
spiritual rapture, the 'I' remains, for it is changeless, universal and
eternal. Sai Baba has spoken of this 'I am' as the divine sweetness
that pervades everything in the Universe, being the unchanging substratum
that underlies all the changing names and forms...it is the 'I' that makes
up His shining existence and presence in all Creation; "I am the Self
in the heart of all beings". Krishna says in the Gita, "I am the
beginning, the middle, and the end." Every time we say 'I' or 'I am'
we are confirming that God exists; what's more, it proclaims that He
exists in us, for that is what we call ourselves. To say, "I am just a wretched sinner, a lowly, unimportant
nobody", has to be a falsehood and therefore is taking the name of
the Lord in vain. Here then is the deeper essence meaning of this
commandment. "Say, 'I am a child of immortality' or 'I am the
embodiment of love and peace and bliss.'
And not only say so, but live your life accordingly." says
Baba. That is the way to glorify the Name. "Let your life be your
message, just as My life is My message. Live in love, Live in God, for
truly That your are." In the Bible He says, "Be a holy people.
Be a light onto the nations. Be an example to all." So we must let
the 'I am' that we claim for ourselves, and that is always part of us, be
only associated with that which It truly is, namely the Divinity itself,
manifested through the goodness in us. . |
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