Tuesday, Apr 23 2024  

CIA IN PRACTICE - 26 FEB 2007

My Humble Pranams at the Lotus feet of Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba.

Sai Ram Respected Gurus, aunts, uncles, youths and my fellow SSEHV Brothers and Sisters.

Today I will be sharing with you on the topic of "CIA in Practice".

CIA... What does it stand for? What is it exactly? CIA is an acronym for Constant Integrated Awareness.

So, what’s this awareness here that we’re talking about? On a daily basis, a child is aware of his/her responsibilities such as going to school and preparing for exams. While for a father, it is the responsibility of working and providing for the family. But taking one step further, there is one "type" of awareness that will change the way we perceive and experience the world making us realize that everything and everyone in this world is divine and that everything that happens is really the will of God. This awareness is none other than "spiritual awareness" and this is what I'll be speaking about in my speech.

Now many people are under the impression that daily morning meditation and prayers are sufficient for spiritual awareness. But is it, really? Someone had posed this question to Bhagawan and Bhagawan replied that meditation should be practised 24hrs a day. Now, now, does this mean that we disregard our daily duties and retire to the forest and meditate throughout the day? Definitely not! What it really means is that we should perform all tasks throughout the day with the awareness that God is with us. We should experience divinity in whatever task that’s given to us, perform it as if it were meant for Swami and treat everyone with respect and that feeling that the same atma that dwells in me also dwells in the person I’m speaking with. When we are able to bring ourselves to practise this sort of awareness, we’re essentially practicing CIA (i.e. Constant Integrated awareness). Simply put, CIA is a state of being, where one has that awareness that God is above you, below you, around you and in you.

CIA is important to live prosperously and happily. It gives us inner peace, satisfaction and happiness. Without CIA there will only be emptiness. We do a lot of things just to claim that we want peace and happiness but what we forget that no one could give us all these. CIA is the unity in Action, Awareness and Being which makes for the fullness of human life.

I’m sure by now we all realize how important practicing CIA is; hopefully my marketing skills have been good. ? The question that arises now is; how do we practice CIA in our daily lives? Is it easy? Is there a simple solution to remind us on being aware like a software that will prompt in my computer everyday “hello, please pay your respects to me, I’m God!” Presently, everyone relies on their computer to take control of their lives. However, I’m going to give a better solution to this problem.

For starters, we should all have a spiritual diary and list out at least 5 items that we should be targeting on a daily basis. These items that we target could be as simple as “Speaking the truth”, “Love all, Serve All” or anything that we feel that we should monitor and improve ourselves on. Self-awareness is also improved with we attend spiritual satsangs such as bhajans and seva. And finally, the “Nine codes of Conduct” that are given by Swami is an excellent checklist which we should work towards fulfilling them.

Meditation or Silent Sitting is another way of achieving CIA. We have to detach ourselves from the world and go into our inner self and feel our Atma. As Swami has mentioned, “Hands in society, Head in the forest”. CIA can also be achieved through Yoga as it is the union with of the individual's consciousness.

I would like to thank everyone here for listening to this speech of mine and sincerely pray that we that we all strive to put CIA in practice.

JAI SAI RAM

Bro Shaun
Group 3