My dear blessed devotees, seekers and disciples. The month of May generally marks the birthday of my body. Every year the Ashramites have been asking me to give you a message on that day. This year also they have asked me to give you a message to mark the occasion. I don’t know what kind of thoughts are going to surge up in my mind.
I think, I entered into this life of renunciation – spiritual renunciation – embracing a fully ascetic and austere life, apart from other factors, also life long celibacy, at the age of 23. And this year, I shall be completing something like 56 long years. When I think that 56 years have passed, I feel extremely grateful to nature, grateful to the Supreme Lord almighty and equally so I fell grateful to a number of devotees, disciples and seekers. Some of whom I have not even met, living far and wide both inland and also outside.
Joy is an emotion generated by the mind alone. Whether it is related to sensory objects or not, joy is always a creation of the mind. Either the mind creates joy with the help of objects, or it does so without objects. That is why people prefer a virtuous life to a merely prosperous one.
You can learn to delight on values and inner enrichment. This is how ethics become supreme in making a civilization strong and lasting.
Although Krishna has been stressing the need for asakti(detachment) throughout (in Bhagavadgeta), he knows very well how hard it is for the human mind to give up sakti (attachment) or to rise above its attachmental notes. Right in the beginning he had denounced sanga,showing in an explicit manner how it leads to total downfall (Bhagavadgeeta 2.62-63). He also emphasized the need for expanding the mind by developing a non-attachmental vision, anabhisneha: (2.57). His cardinal position is: One given to detached activity is by far the excellent human model (3.7).
