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The Ten Commandments as VEDA

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3. Remember and keep the holy Sabbath day. Six days you can labor but on the seventh day you must rest and keep the day holy.

As indicated in the previous section, our principal mission on Earth is to make our lives a message of purity and godliness, just as His life, when He incarnates as man, is a message of purity and perfection. By filling our lives with devotion and dedication, and by engaging in activities that create new order and harmony around us, we are naturally led step by step, to the realization of the Unity. Then as our exemplar spreads to others in the society we will find a steady gravitation towards that ideal universal condition which is called the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God. This is the Unity which becomes our personal and collective goal. But, this Unity cannot be realized as long as we know ourselves only as body and mind, rather than as Spirit.

 When man knows himself as Spirit, he realizes that sharing and giving is the condition of growth. Spiritual riches increase in the using; they don't perish. Even as they are given away they multiply in our hands. Even as they are shared they are more fully possessed. Therefore the feeling of Unity encompassing all life, must have its roots in Spirit. There are two laws for the Soul's evolution. One concerns its temporary clothing, the body and mind, and the other concerns the Spirit. The law for the material body is the law of action and reaction, or the Law of Karma, in which every action gives rise to a reaction. By these interactions the coarser part of our being evolves. Therefore, the body thrives by wisely-directed activity. In the same way the Spirit within these outer bodies and minds, lives and thrives by sacrifice. This is the second law, the law of renunciation. Sacrifice yourself and live. Give and you will receive.

 Being in step with the law of life means working hard and well in the world, creating order and harmony by our activity, serving life everywhere, and dedicating the fruit of our labors to God. Being in step with the law of Spirit is to renounce worldly activities and attachments and devote ourselves to holy communion with God. One foot in the world, the other in the Spirit; on the one hand hard work, on the other hand surrender and faith in God; the Bible teaches us this two-part path of the Soul's evolution towards perfection and Unity.

 We are enjoined to engage ourselves fully and meaningfully in hard work for six days, and then rest on the seventh day, devoting that day in thanksgiving to the Lord. It is not necessary to take the commandment literally, rather it is the underlying sentiment that counts... we are to spend most of our available time actively involved in the world and renounce the fruit of our actions and dedicate them to the Lord; but in addition to and separate from our work, we must also regularly set aside a given time when we completely withdraw from worldly activity and devote ourselves with full absorption in God alone. That is the meaning of this third commandment. It can refer to a daily spiritual practice consisting of meditation, prayer, devotional singing, or mantra, as well as a weekly day of rest and devotion as would be taken from the literal meaning.

  4. Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long and prosperous life.

This, of course, is directly in line with Sai Baba's directions and the ancient wisdom teachings, that mother and father are to be considered divine, and to be loved and honored and respected. This is but a token repayment in gratitude for the sacrifice they have undergone in bringing us into the world, and lovingly nurturing us and raising us, while denying themselves many of their own interests and comforts. Here is a straight-forward statement of the Law of Karma... love your parents and you will be loved as a parent... love your parents, and through your loving attention help them to achieve a long and fulfilling life, then you too will reach a long and prosperous life.

  In some ways we are our own parents. As a result of our actions in other bodies and in other lives we have come into birth again in these bodies. To pay our dues in suffering and enjoyment for these ancient actions we have chosen the circumstances for our incarnation, including our parents. They are our finest instruments for clearing our debts and reaching God. For us they are love itself. And when through thick and thin, through good times and bad, they become the embodiment of all that is loving within us, then the differences vanish... father becomes a dear older version of myself, mother becomes the sweet, divine, mothering, and giving aspect of myself... whatever the outer form, my love sees not the differences but the essential oneness, recognizing in them another manifestation of myself. In that way, we win the first victory on an expanding cycle traveling outwards from the little selfish self to the one selfless Self. Eventually this wave of self-recognition encompasses the whole Universe, as our self discovers itself in all, and thereby knows itself to be one with God. That is the great promise of this fourth commandment... divinity through Unity, reached through love and gratitude to all who have preceded us, sacrificed for us, cared for us and helped us on our way to realization of our divine heritage.

5. You shall not kill.

This is a short, simple statement, but this commandment may be responsible, more than any other pronouncement ever made, for the small but nevertheless significant changes in social attitudes that have come about in the Western world in the past 3500 years, and which have given rise to the slow but steady elevation of the world conscience. This is a social and ethical injunction. It commands us to adjudicate our quarrels and differences by turning to law rather than resorting to the sword.  In effect it says, 'Keep your anger and your passions in check. Be patient and cool and equanimous; think before you act.  Live as civilized, self-regulated and disciplined human beings. If you willfully, needlessly or wantonly destroy life, then you will darken your discrimination, heap sin upon yourself and thereby further separate yourself from yourself and God.  Even within your own being you will become a stranger in a strange land, remaining tightly bound-up by chains of your own making.' In its broadest context this is a statement of Ahimsa; it is a commandment to honor and respect all life. For the evolving soul the truth given in this commandment is to cherish all life, for all are manifestations of the One Divine Life.

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