A train whistling past in full speed over the rails drawn by a giant locomotive cannot be stopped by a million hands; but by merely pressing a button, the driver can bring it to a halt! Installing that button, that mechanism in your mind that rolls along behind the senses is the purpose of sadhana; installing and operating it. The knowledge that you are the architect of your fortune and that you can, by steady effort, rebuild it or foster it, that you are ever laying on or pulling down the structure of your career, will be a great inspiration, provided you welcome it. (SSS Vol. 11)
As the spark that causes the fire, as the driver in the engine drawing a long line of coaches along, as the designer and operator of a system of automatic lights, this Sai is here creating and fostering the world, and all its various communities, living and non-living. (SSS Vol. 11)
A car requires a trained driver to put its speed to beneficial purposes. This is the reason why we have rules and regulations to curb wantonness and pride to give exercises in self-control and humility. (SSS Vol.8)
Do not pay more attention to the outside world than necessary; but, concentrate more on the inner springs of joy. In a car, the wheels that are underneath are the outer wheels; pay more attention to the wheel inside; the wheel that guides and turns the outer wheels! The driver of the car is inside; you, too, must care more for the inner motivator. If you are master of your feelings and impulses, you can be anywhere, engaged in any profession. You will have peace. (SSS Vol.5)
The mind is the mischief-maker; it jumps from doubt to doubt; it puts obstacles in the way. It weaves a net and gets entangled in it. It is ever discontented; it runs after a hundred things and away from another hundred. It is like a driver who drives the car with the master in it, wherever his fancy takes him. So, take up the task of training it into an obedient servant; it is educable, if only you know how to do it. Place before it things more tasty and it will hanker only for those. Once it realises the value of Namasmarana, it will adhere to that method of getting peace and joy. So, start it now. That is My Aajna (command) to you to-day. (SSS Vol.2)
If anybody accosts a person and asks him, ‘Who are you?’ Out of his identification with the body he gives his name in reply. In answer to further questions he introduces himself as a doctor, a farmer, or student, or the like. When the enquiry goes further, he identifies himself with his nationality as an American, an Indian, a Pakistani or so on. When you examine these answers deeply, you will find that none of them gives the truth. He got his name from his parents. It did not belong to him at birth. His identification with one or other of his professions is not true because he is not the profession.
What, then, is the truth about him? ‘I am the atma. That is my true Self.’ That is the truth. But people identify themselves with their names, professions and nationality and do not base their lives on the Atma. No driver of a car identifies with the car. Likewise, the body is a car and the Atma is the driver. Forgetting one s true role as a driver, one is identifying one s self with the body, which is only a vehicle. (SSS Vol.28)
You trust your friend whom you have met only a few years ago, but not God who is with you, in you, around you, throughout your life. You believe in the dhobi and part with your valuable clothes. You are prepared to bend your head in front of the barber. You are prepared to put your life in the hands of the driver. But you do not believe in the omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient divinity. Why can’t you bend your head in front of God? There are some evil-minded persons who criticise people for bending their heads before God. Such people will never have the good fortune of bending their heads before God. (SSS Vol.32 Part 1)