Purifying hearts and minds

Divine Discourse by Sathya Sai Baba, Apr 2, 1984

"Once a friend asked the famous sculptor from Italy, Michelangelo, "Why are you working so hard, chiselling this large piece of rock? Why don't you go home and take some rest?"

Michelangelo replied: "I am trying to release the Divine that is in the rock. I wish to bring out of this lifeless stone the living Divinity that is embedded in it."

If a sculptor could create from an inanimate stone a living Image of God, cannot human beings vibrant with life manifest the living Divinity that resides within them?

What is the reason for this incapacity to realise the Divinity within?

It is because we do not realise the soiled cover in which it is wrapped up.

If our clothes get dirty, we change them because we are ashamed to appear in unclean garments.
If our house is shabby, we try to clean it.
But when our minds and hearts are polluted, we do not feel a shamed!

To purify our hearts and minds, the first thing we have to do is to lead a righteous life.

Our actions must be based on morality."