"This
Sivasakthi"
Readers must
have noticed that Baba declared Himself as
Bhavani,
who gave a sword to Shivaji and commissioned him
to save
Sanathana
Dharma
from forces inimical to it. He said, "This
Siva-sakthi
is doing the same, now. I am giving the
sword of Courage into the hands of these Pundits
and commissioning them to share their wisdom and
joy with all men, as Sanathana Dharma
dictates."
That word
"Siva-sakthi" bore the large gathering, who
heard it, on the wings of memory to the sixth
day of July, 1963 - the time about 7 pm - when a
miracle of miracles happened in the Prayer Hall
of
Prasanthi
Nilayam.
That was a seismic event which widened the
bounds of Faith and deepened the ardour of
Devotion. So, I shall describe it in some
detail.
It
all began on the evening of 28th June, when Baba
asked me to announce that He would not grant
interviews for a week. No one could guess why;
for, there was nothing out of the ordinary in
the events of the day. On Saturday, 29th June at
6.30 am, while moving into His room on the first
floor from the southern verandah, Baba spoke of
"reeling sensation" and suddenly fell on the
floor. I was with Him then; but though I held
Him with my hand, I could soften, only slightly,
the impact of the fall.
Even as He
fell, the left hand clenched its fist; the left
leg stiffened; the toes became taut. Evidently,
He had taken upon Himself in His Infinite Mercy,
the stroke of paralysis destined to incapacitate
or perhaps kill, some saintly person! Having
seen Him while taking on the typhoid fever, the
gastric pain, the bleeding ear, the mumps, and
even the stroke, I awaited with Raja Reddy the
moment of His coming-to, when we could get from
Him the name of the person and of the place to
confirm our surmise. The face twitched and
muscles drew the mouth to the left ... the
tongue lolled. The left eye appeared to have
lost its sight. We whispered to each other about
His postponement of interviews for one week!
Baba seemed to have known that some one had to
be rescued that morning.
As the clock
ticked the minutes away and the hour hand moved
relentlessly on, our anxiety thickened into
fear. Gloom filled the room and spread gradually
all round the Nilayam. Dr. B.G. Krishnamurthi
said that Baba was 'in coma', that Baba showed
symptoms of 'apoplexy'. The jaws were locked
tight; the pulse rate was ranging from 84 to
100. That Doctor while treating patients in the
Sathya Sai Hospital placed more reliance on the
curative value of the
Vibhuthi
blessed by Baba than on the efficacy of the
drugs the shelves contained. Now that He found
Baba stricken, he could only pray to Him to cure
Himself.
Meanwhile,
some one who feared that the illness was genuine
hastened by car to Bangalore (106 miles off) and
brought with him, late at night, Dr.
Prasannasimha Rao, the Assistant Director of
Medical Services, Mysore. Let the Doctor relate
what he saw. I shall quote from his letter. "It
was on the afternoon of the 29th of June that I
was summoned urgently to the feet of Sri Sathya
Sai Baba at Puttaparthy. I sped on, in the
company of my brother-in-law Sri Kesav Vittal,
to witness a spectacle of extreme pain and
suffering at Puttaparthy. We reached the
precincts of the holy place after midnight.
Anxious as I was to learn the full details of
the incident that caused the summons, it was His
Will that I should contain myself till the next
morning. Next morning, when I was taken into the
room on the first floor of the Nilayam, I saw
there lying prostrate the physical form and body
of Sri Sathya Sai Baba, in a posture assumed by
a patient, in coma. Respiration was hissing, at
times; the left side of the body, the upper and
lower limbs were rigidly held in a position of
extensor tone. There were gross twitchings of
the face, occasionally on the right side. The
head would be suddenly tossed to one side or the
other, with a groan of anguish and the utterance
of un-understandable syllables, which was the
result of an impairment of the faculty of
speech; in short, it was a sort of
jargon.
After an
analysis of the signs and symptoms and the
history of the case, I had to infer that the
semi-comatose conditions and the posture assumed
could only be due to a space-occupying condition
in the cranium with localizing signs of
predominance over the right half of the brain in
the frontal area. The differential diagnosis of
such conditions in a person of about thirty
years, after excluding remote possibilities,
pinned me down to that of 'tubercular
meningitis', with perhaps a tuberculoma, silent
for a long time.
The treatment
was one of energetic antitubercular measures,
with symptomatic supportive treatment by
intravenous, substitution and replacement to
maintain ionic balance and nutrition. A
diagnostic lumbar puncture was an immediate
necessity, for the professional assessment of
the case. My attempts to administer glucose
solution intravenously was, by a gesture and
movement of the body, foiled completely by Baba,
leaving me utterly bewildered and helpless, in
the face of His Will. Having completely resigned
to His Will, I returned to Bangalore on Sunday
evening bereft of all hopes of having His
Darsan
again, in the physical form assumed by Him for
this Incarnation."
Baba was
'unconscious' all the time; He evinced only
faint gleams of awareness as when He pushed away
the Doctor's hand when the injection was
attempted. The body perspired a great deal but
He could be given only a few spoonfuls of water,
the spoon being inserted, after pressing the jaw
apart. He was apparently severely exhausted.
Moreover He suffered from what Dr. Krishnamurthi
named 'angina pectoris', paroxysms of intense
pain, originating at the breast bone and
radiating thence mainly to the left shoulder and
arm. The physical frame groaned. Inmates of the
Nilayam standing tip-toe under the window heard
and wept. To relieve the exhaustion, we could
give only occasional drops of glucose water of
lemon juice, forcing apart the tightly clenched
teeth.
On Monday,
Baba intensified the atmosphere of tragedy.
Summoning near His bed some residents of the
Colony, He gestured and lisped to make them
understand that the tasks allotted to them
should be carried out with undiminished ardour.
It was a heart-rending experience - to catch
those hazy sounds and interpret them, for the
words emerged from a mouth gone awry and a
tongue turned left. He warned us not to frighten
the other devotees with our fear. "Deal gently
with them. Talk sweetly to them", He seemed to
say. "Give them Vibhuthi,
ask them to leave for home and come some other
time".
He declined
medicine and nursing, brushing aside angrily the
spoon which had a few drops of coramine. He
insisted on the bathroom itself though He had to
be lifted or drawn over two door sills. The
pulse registered danger after each such
hazardous journey, we and the Doctor could only
wring our hands and pray.
The fact that
it was a stroke of paralysis could not be
announced and so, a variety of rumours
circulated in and around the Nilayam to explain
the ominous gloom. The wildest of these was that
Baba was under the maleficent influence of black
magic! Others surmised that He had gone into
Samadhi;
still others guessed that He had taken a vow of
silence and inaction. Perhaps the villagers of
Puttaparthi were more competent interpreters,
for they had known of His 'unconscious' days at
Uravakonda when He had 'gone out' of His Body to
save a devotee from calamity. They said, Baba
was about to enter a new chapter in His History,
as he had done after that incident at Uravakonda
while in His teens.
Tuesday
arrived. Baba showed signs of consciousness,
more often and for longer periods. Referring to
the visit of the Doctor, He said, "He can only
take Darsan and leave. Injections are
inadvisable in such cases. This will last five
days in all. Tomorrow, the pain will be less. I
had two heart attacks, these three days. You
must have heard the groans. No one else could
have survived". He gestured and
smiled.
Dr. B.
Sitharamayya, who was the Medical Officer in
charge of the Nilayam Hospital, had been
summoned by a telegram. He came on Tuesday
evening to the bedside. Tuesday night was filled
with fear, for Baba groaned causing us
excruciating agony.
Wednesday
dawned, dark and dismal. About 9 am, Baba, who
was extremely exhausted, showed signs of
sinking. He struggled for breath; hiccups
tormented Him. The 'parents' could not contain
their sorrow; the 'brothers' and 'sisters' were
wallowing in grief. Rooted in the faith that
Baba was Divine, we tottered and wept aloud like
panic-stricken babies. They could not decide
whether, at this awful hour, they could stoop to
the sacrilege of bringing to Prasanthi Nilayam a
Doctor from Anantapur or Bangalore. Was it
right? Was it pardonable? Was it not urgently
needed? Could any doctor be of use? What a
tremendous responsibility this ... on our aged
shoulders! We gathered under the mango trees
and, with tears streaming down our cheeks,
weighed the pros and cons.
Just then,
glad tidings arrived! Baba had regained
consciousness; the hiccups had lost their rigor
- two hours later, we had a tragic jolt. His
breathing worsened; He gasped and rolled. His
feet and palms became cold. We prayed to Him
amidst sobs; we got no sign to encourage us. The
Doctors sat on the floor and leaned against the
wall, resting on their hands their heavy heads.
For full four hours, Baba broiled us thus, in
mortal anguish. Then He opened His eyes looked
around, and smiled at us!
About an hour
later He beckoned us and told us in His
pathetically ineffective vocabulary,
supplemented by gestures with the palsied right
hand, the events of those four hours. We
understood Him to say. "The mind is a thousand
petalled lotus, each petal directing it outward
into some facet of the objective world. In the
very center of the lotus is the Flame of the I
principle. The flame is ever unsteady, veering
now towards one petal, now to another, but if
through the exercise of Will you keep it steady
and straight, the I is unaffected by the events
that happen to the body." Some one
quoted
Sruthi
(Vedas)
and said, "Neela thoyada madhya-sthaad,
vidyullekheva bhaaswaraa, thasyamadhye vahni
sikhaa" (In the center of the blue cloud,
shining like a streak of lightning, with the
tongue of fire in its center) Baba nodded
approval. "During those four hours, I held the
flame straight. I was away, apart. I was
watching the body from above, Myself
unconcerned, unaffected." (Even at Shirdi, in
1886, Sai Baba saved Himself for the world from
a critical illness, by deciding, to take 'His
prana
high').
About 7 pm,
Baba gestured: "All of you should sleep round
here, this night"! It betokened a crisis. "Will
there be a heart attack, this night?" Some one
dared to enquire. Baba replied 'yes'. That night
was the longest, the darkest and the most
dreadful in the lives of us, fifteen mortals.
The heart attack happened; we listened to the
groans. We prayed to Baba to assuage the pain
and assure us of victory in the
struggle.
At last, the
Day of Relief. Thursday, the sixth day, when as
He had told us, the pain 'will lose its
severity' and the attacks on the heart 'will
cease'! The Sun rose over the hills across the
Chithravathi. Baba announced that the pain as
well as the 'burning sensation in the chest had
gone'. The very first order He gave after this
declaration was: "Arrange now for all the
devotees to get Darsan;
they are broken by despair". We pleaded that the
Darsan be granted two days later, on Saturday
(Guru Pournima Day) when thousands gather at the
Nilayam from all the States of India to pay
homage to their Guru, Master and Teacher. We
hoped that He could recoup Himself more to bear
the strain that Darsan
involves.
Baba asked me
to announce at the Prayer Hall that Darsan will
be granted to all on Guru Pournima. I had to do
it after the morning
bhajan
sessions at 9 am., Thursday. Baba reprimanded
me, for I came away making a short statement,
without any detail about the illness. He
insisted on my giving the assembled
Bhakhtas
an accurate description of His physical
condition, so that they are saved from sharp and
sudden shock, at the sight. I announced the
condition of His leg, hand, eye, tongue, and
face in Telugu but I broke down when I saw the
agony on the faces that learnt for the first
time the awful truth. I had to repeat the
announcement in English, Kannada, Tamil and
Malayalam, but I could not.
That night,
Baba conveyed another bit of good news; "The
clot in the brain is dissolved." We prayed to
Him to 'will' to be His normal self: He was our
refuge in distress; so when the distress was
caused by His own play, that was the only prayer
we knew.
Throughout
Friday and even during the morning hours of
Saturday, we attempted to persuade Him to give
up the plan to give Darsan in the Prayer Hall on
the ground floor. Some one appealed to Him to
allow us to announce to the gathering that He
will render Himself hale and hearty before
Dasara, a hundred days ahead; another ventured
to pray that He should cure Himself fully by
Krishna Janmashtami (celebration of Krishna's
birthday), which was forty days later. Baba
seemed to resent the proposals; He only shook
His head.
The Prayer
Hall was packed, as never before. People from
many villages around Puttaparthi who had come to
know that Baba was being brought down came in
large numbers. The broad spaces around the
Nilayam were filled. Baba was carefully brought
down the circular steps (18 in all) to the
ground floor. Major Dr. M. Bhanu of the
Government Hospital, Palladam, writes, "I saw
Baba moving out with the help of three Bhakthas,
His left leg lifted gently over the doorstep by
one of them. He had a kerchief around His head
to bind the halo of hair that had gone awry and
to hide the twitching of the facial muscles,
from the eyes of devotees. His gait was the
characteristic hemiplegic one, the paralytic
left leg being dragged in a semi-circle, the
toes scraping the floor. Seeing Baba in that
condition, even the bravest wept aloud". The
wail was so sudden and so loud that we were
angrily blamed by many who inferred that it was
the end; they cursed our bravado in putting the
most precious Life on earth to this risk. "Why
did you bring Him down?" they
asked.
Baba was
placed in the Silver Chair, propped up by
pillows. As soon as He was placed in position, a
pillow was placed over His chest and the limp
left hand was lifted by Raja Reddy and placed on
it. Seeing this, there arose a gasp from every
breast. Baba signaled to me and I knelt at His
side to catch what He was trying to tell me.
After repeating to Him what I had guessed to be
His Message and ascertaining that I had
understood Him aright, I announced to the
grief-stricken gathering of about 5000 people:
"Do not grieve! This is not My ailment. This is
an ailment I have taken over. I can never fall
ill; No, Never. Do not feel dispirited. If you
lose heart, it will pain me." Then, He signed to
me to speak to them for some length, and signed
that He will speak again, after me. Many felt
that He had exerted too much already: they
feared the consequence of a further adventure in
speaking with impaired
resources.
I called upon
every one to pray to Baba, (propped on pillows
on the Silver Chair) the only refuge we knew, to
cure Himself at least by the next New Moon ...
for "the Full Moon today is blocked out for us
by this unbearable sorrow. Let the next New moon
become a Full Moon for us all and for the
world."
Baba signed
that the mike be held near His lips. Slowly, He
whispered into it, in thick-tongued syllables,
"Vinupisthundaa?", but even we who had learnt to
decipher the mushy paralytic alphabet could not
make out what He was trying to say. He repeated
it twice. Then, some one caught it and repeated
it on the mike. Baba was asking them, "Can you
hear Me?" This raised another groan: He was
heard but, alas! it tore their hearts. It was
too indistinct. Evidently Baba was too tired by
that attempt to speak, for He gestured for water
to drink. It was brought soon by Krishtappa, in
a silver tumbler, and held to his lips by Raja
Reddy. His palsied right hand came towards it
... He tried to hold it ... His fingers slipped
into it ... the fingers dipped ... He sipped a
few drops ... He sprinkled, with the fingers of
the right hand, a little water on the limp left
hand on the pillow above His chest ... He
sprinkled the water, faintly shaking the
fingers, on the left leg too. He stroked the
left hand with the right. And WITH BOTH HANDS,
stroked the left leg. He rose; the pillow fell
off; we could hear His divine voice calling us,
as was ever His wont,
"Premaswaroopulaaraa!"
He had begun His Guru Pournima Discourse!! O, we
had our Baba back again, hale, hearty, holy,
healthy, heavenly .... .
People did not
believe their eyes and ears. But when they
realized that Baba was standing before them,
speaking, they jumped about in joy, they danced,
they shouted Jais, they wept; some were so
overcome with ecstatic gratitude that they
laughed hysterically and ran wild amongst the
crowds rushing in.
Oh! it was the
miracle of miracles. It shot us in an instant
from the deepest pit of gloom into the Seventh
Heaven of Delight. Major Bhanu writes, "The
Doctor of Doctors cured Himself in a trice,
leaving me aghast with wonder".
"Premaswaroopulaaraa"
(Embodiments of Love!) "Dikku lenivanikki Devude
Gathi", Baba's silver voice awakened all to
attention. (For him who has no refuge, God is
the refuge). That is the reason I had to take on
this disease that one forlorn
Bhaktha
was to suffer from. He would not have survived
it, nor could he come through the four heart
attacks I took on. My
Dharma
is Bhaktharakhana.
I had to rescue him. Of course, this is not the
first time I have taken on the illness of those
I want to save. Even in the previous Sariram at
Shirdi, I had this responsibility. This is My
leela;
My nature. It is part of the task for which I
have come, Sishtarakshana". (Had He not declared
at Shirdi as Sai Baba, "The sea may turn the
rivers back! But I will not neglect My
devotees").
He spoke for
over an hour with the same eloquence, the same
compassion, the same humour, and the same love
that He evinces always. Then, raising the voice
a little, He said, "I have been keeping back
from you all these years one secret about Me;
the time has come when I can reveal it to you.
This is a sacred day. I am Siva-Sakthi," He
declared, "born in the
gothra
of Bharadwaja, according to a boon won by that
sage from Siva and Sakthi [see:
RRV-15
and
RRV-17a].
Sakthi Herself was born in the gothra of that
sage as Sai Baba of Shirdi; Siva and Sakthi have
incarnated as Myself in his gothra now; Siva
alone will incarnate as the third Sai
(Prema
Sai Baba)
in the same gothra in Mysore
State."
This illness
has to be borne by Sakthi (the consort of Siva),
for She incurred the ire of Her Lord by
neglecting to notice Bharadwaja for full eight
days at Kailas, their Home. As a consequence of
the neglect, Bharadwaja had suffered a stroke;
Siva sprinkled the restorative water and cured
him. Today, you saw the illness of Sakthi (the
left half) cured by Siva (the right half) by the
same means. These matters are beyond human ken;
so, I had kept it away from you so long, but now
that within the knowledge of so many, Sakthi
suffered and Siva saved, it is time you knew
this. The Bhaktha who was saved by My 'taking
over' is only the 'immediate' cause; the
'remote' cause is the boon and the retribution.
Baba declared.
After this
disclosure, Baba sang a few songs which He
wanted the congregation to repeat in chorus.
When He started off in double quick tempo the
lines, "Hara Hara Siva Siva Subrahmanyam,
Siva Siva Hara Hara Subrahmanyam, Siva
Saravanabhava Subrahmanyam, Guru Saravanabhava
Subrahmanyam". [Listen to this Bhajan:
MP3
& Text
] Dr. Bhanu rushed in but let him explain
why he did so. "I forgot I was a volunteer
posted outside to keep the crowd in check; I
rushed inside to fall at His feet and pray to
Him, not to continue that song, I was afraid if
His tongue performs the acrobatics, so soon
after it regained its normalcy, it might fail
and suffer a relapse. But at the very door, I
held myself. I remembered the Miracle I had seen
with my own eyes. I remembered the sweet voice
that was won back in a trice, I kept mum. Who
was I to check God? I controlled myself and
stayed outside."
Baba ascended
the steps to the first floor with His usual
agility. He announced from the verandah above to
the gathering that He would grant every one of
them the chance to touch His feet at Namaskaram
the next day at 6.30 am. He partook of normal
food that night. No one slept: the miracle they
witnessed kept them awake in ecstasy. O! within
a split second, Baba had given Himself back to
the world.
Next evening
too He gave a discourse. He pitied those who
revel in bad news and are eager to circulate it.
He declared, "From this day, nothing and no one
can stop or obstruct or delay the work for which
this
Avathar
has come. During a previous Advent, only one
mountain, the Govardhan, was lifted; this
Avathar will lift many ranges. This Ganga will
roll majestically on, feeding the roots of all
mankind."
Referring
to this mighty miracle, Baba said, a few weeks
later, "Rescuing a true Bhaktha is My Dharma. My
Very Nature. Some one asked me whether it was
right on My part to plunge thousands into grief,
in order to rescue one. Such numerical
calculations cannot apply to acts of Grace. I
act My Dharma, regardless of how it affects you
or him. Rama obeyed His father's desire; He did
not desist though all
Ayodhya
was bathed in tears. The father who had acceded
to his mother's wicked desire to exile Him and
the very brother who was to benefit by the exile
urged Him to stay on. But, He did dot turn back.
(See: RRV-10a)
The illness that I took on had to execute its
Dharma, according to its nature. I allowed it to
behave so; for, it is only then that you can
observe and imbibe the Glory of the Victory.
Krishna could have waved off the rains that
Indra threatened to pour on the region of
Brindavan, but, He permitted the God of Rains to
carry on His Dharma. And, He utilized the
occasion, to let the
Gopis
and Gopas have a glimpse of His Glory! He lifted
the Govardhan Mount on His little finger to save
them from the devastating downpour. (See:
BV-38)
He, observed His Dharma, the Dharma of
Bhaktharakshana (Granting succor of Devotees).
Now too, as in that Age, the Purpose is the
Proclamation of Divinity."
"You must
count another benefit too, though you may not be
aware of it. I know to what depths your devotion
to Me reached, as a result of this 'illness'
during those eight days. You would not have
achieved that single pointed meditation on Me,
even during years of Tapas."
He knew that all those that knew of the illness
were spending those awful days in prayer,
penance and penitence. They prayed that He may
rise from the sick-bed with more resplendent
glory, that they be pardoned for their errors
which may affect His Majesty, and that their
suffering be accepted in lieu of what He was
'ailing' from.
The Darsan of
Baba is a creative chance to transmute the base
metal in us into gold. To listen His words is to
be charged with the current of spiritual
regeneration. To read His writings is to feed
your intellect with wholesome sustenance and
purge it of egoistic dross. This Heavenly Ganga
vitalizes, fertilizes and purifies all who dive
into it.
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