White
Man's Burden
"At this
supremely dangerous moment in human history, the
only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian
way," says Arnold Toynbee, well nigh the wisest
of modern historians. This is the age of
frustration, fear, fixation and fantasy. The
sociological diseases - crime, delinquency,
divorce, suicide, gambling and drug-addiction -
are in the ascendant everywhere. The political
diseases of turncoatism, hypocrisy, faction,
corruption and jingoism are spreading from one
nation to another. The economic diseases of
poverty and luxury, exploitation and excessivism
are also becoming world-wide. The root cause for
all this chronic morbidity is, according to
Baba, man's lack of faith in himself.
"Man has lost faith in himself, he has put on
the cloak of weakness and vacillation, doubt and
dissatisfaction, and hidden from his own
cognition, the vast potentiality for goodness,
beauty, strength and content, lying dormant in
his nature."
[See
also: SB:
Canto 1, Ch. 17]
Ayn Rand says,
"In order to live, man must act; in order to
act, he must make choices; in order to make
choices, he must define a code of values
[see:
Human values];
in order to define a code of values, he must
know what he is and where he is - that is, he
needs metaphysics, epistemology and ethics,
which means, philosophy." And, Toynbee declares,
"Indian Philosophy." For, in India, philosophy
has never been entombed in tombs; it has ever
been the current coin of the business of living,
the very bloodstream of family, society,
community and nation. It is even termed as
Sathya Darshan,
that is, experience of wisdom. In other words,
it is more a way of life than a view of life. It
tends to emphasize
Dharma - moral
conduct,
based upon unchanging
Sathya-Metaphysics.
No wonder,
then, that Baba has become the solace and
strength of a multitude of forlorn
seekers-after-peace-and-bliss, arriving in His
Presence from lands beyond the seas like the
United States, Great Britain and other
countries, suffering from the glut of glitter
and gadgets. Baba told a group of 'foreigners'
(to Baba it is a misnomer to call them so;
instead, He calls them 'for-nears', because they
have come for somebody and something they can
clasp as 'near' and 'dear').
"You would not have come to Me unless I
called you; I know the past and the future of
every one of you, what you are yearning for at
present, and how and when your yearning will be
fulfilled." [see
also BG, 7-26]
John Hislop
writes, "Most of us hear of Sai Baba from
someone else. One starts to learn who Baba is,
hearing someone tell about Him. The first wave
of information here in California, came from Bob
Raymer and his friends. The second wave came
from Indra Devi and her associates. Indra Devi
heard from Mr. Murphet in Madras. Mr. Murphet
first heard from Bob Raymer. Bob heard from a
friend of his who later became his wife! She, in
turn, had heard about Baba from a friend. But
the first original link in this chain is Baba
Himself!"
Listen how
Elsie Cowan first contacted Baba: "Myself and my
husband have been searchers of truth during our
many years of marital life. We followed one
belief after another; each step gave some little
wisdom, but no security, no actual knowing how
to reach the goal. Like all truth-students, we
were also told that Christ is within us, and so
on. At last, when we heard of a Guru who could
help us, we followed him and his teachings. The
truth He taught us was the same that all the
Great Masters have taught. We learned meditation
and silence. But the spiritual revolt was still
going on within us.
Why can't we
know God? If we must have self-realization, why
don't we? We asked. He had no answer. We felt
discouraged. We talked it over and made an
important decision: pray loud and sincerely for
the Highest Living Master to come and take us to
our goal.
And the
Highest Living Master knew our plight and
answered our cry, for He has come for such as
we. The second day, a friend came to our house
and gave us a book. It was a book on the life of
Sathya Sai Baba! We read it, from cover to
cover; a great serene peace filled us. We knew
our prayers were answered!
Further steps
in Baba's 'Operation Salvage' followed fast. We
contacted the friend who had brought the book
and we found other books by Baba; we read them
and lost ourselves in His simple truths. The
following Sunday, we went to the temple where we
worship. A friend we hadn't seen for weeks came
and sat by us. She took from her purse a little
folder paper; we watched her unfold it; we were
surprised that it contained some ashes! She
said, a friend brought them from Sai Baba
(Baba's Grace!) and she said she had such a
compelling desire to give them to us (Baba's
Infinite Mercy!), and she had to seek us out for
the purpose. She said (Baba's words) that we
were to put some on our tongue each night. This
was the start of the Blessings and Miracles that
began to happen in our lives; although we were
unable to see Him with our eyes, He made Himself
known to us in various ways. Then, one day, we
suddenly had a desire to see Him physically, and
we journeyed to
Prasanthi
Nilayam.
John
Hislop's wife Magdalena was drawn towards Sai
Baba quite early in her life. Baba had to appear
in Havana, Cuba, years ago, concretely before
her, to imprint on the immaculate mind of the
child, just a year old, the shining splendor.
She was just learning to walk, says Hislop, when
she saw the Sai Baba of Shirdi (Baba assumes
that form too to bless and confer grace)
standing in the corner of the garden! She
started to toddle towards Him, saying, 'Dada!
Dada!'; then, confused, she stopped. For her
real daddy was standing at the entrance to the
house. "Wonder of Wonders," Hislop writes, "last
year while we were in India, Baba confirmed to
Magdalena her experience was a fact; He
described the costume He wore then and how He
was standing in the corner of that garden, 35
years ago!"
Indra Devi,
'the First Lady of Yoga in America', is a
Russian born American citizen, with an Indian
name, having her Yoga Institute astride the
boundary between the United States and Mexico.
She learnt Yoga in Mysore (India) and taught it
in Shanghai, London and Moscow. She was in
Bombay, within an eye's throw from the Gwalior
Palace where Baba was surrounded by tens of
thousands of adoring aspirants for grace, for
over a week in 1966. She missed seeing Him then,
but she encountered the traffic jams in the
vicinity which the Bhajan sessions and Baba's
discourses brought about, while she was hurrying
to fulfill her engagements in the city!
Later, when she was on her way to Saigon (You
can never take Sai as gone I told her; it is
always 'Sai won') she peeped in at the
Theosophical Society Headquarters at Madras to
meet a friend, and ran into the Murphets. Mr.
Murphet and his wife were bubbling over with the
exhilarating news of Baba and his love, His
power and His wisdom. She came back from Saigon,
for, the call was clear and convincing. On her
way to the tiny village that has been
immortalized by the advent, she met the Hon'ble
Dr. Triguna Sen, Minister in the Government of
India, who was returning from the holy place,
after a long inspiring conversation with Baba.
Dr. Sen warned her that she might stay on at
Prasanthi Nilayam itself, feeling that she had
reached the destination. That was what
practically happened, for, her heart is invested
in Baba as a life deposit, while she is
breathing Sai, talking Sai, dreaming Sai, and
resting in Sai, wherever she may
wander!
Hilda Charlton
of New York spent many years in Ceylon, and
later moved on to Delhi, where she was initiated
in the worship of the Mother and in meditating
on Her. She chanced to visit Shirdi, where she
heard that Baba was living and available, 500
miles off, at Puttaparthi!
Another
'for-near' who was drawn by Baba from Shirdi,
the arena of His previous life, is Alf Tideman
Johanessan of Oslo, Norway. Head of a prosperous
company doing business at Bombay harbor as
shipping agents, His rivals attempted to ruin
his reputation and income, by every foul means
that could be devised, including black magic!
Some friends of his and a Parsi priest took him
to (of all places!) the shrine of Shirdi, to
invoke grace to ward off the
calamity.
During one of
his visits, in February 1966, while Alf was
sitting disconsolate before the tomb of the
'Previous Body', the present body took over his
problems in His inimitable way! A short man in a
blue shirt patted him on the back and asked,
"Have you ever met Sathya Sai Baba?" Alf had not
heard the name before. The short man whispered
in his ear, "If God ever came upon the earth,
this is He," and placed in his hand a small
locket studded with an enameled oval piece
containing a portrait of a person wearing a robe
and having a mop of hair. "This is Sathya Sai
Baba," the short man said, "You can see Him at
Bombay on March 14th," and then left.
Alf asked all
those he knew for more details about this 'God
on Earth', but none of them had heard about Him,
nor did they know where He could be found on
March 14th. In fact, as he came to know later,
it was only a week after the short man in blue
shirt announced the date at Shirdi did the
Sathya Sai Seva Samithi of Bombay receive
information about the date of Baba's arrival
with directions to look for and engage a
suitable place in any easily accessible part of
the city with plenty of open space around for
devotees to gather.
Let it be said
that Baba reached Bombay in the small hours of
the night on 13th March, and gave Alf the smile
of recognition on the 14th, during the Bhajan
session in the morning at Gwalior Palace! In the
very first interview that Alf gained, consequent
on this divinely arranged contact, Baba said to
him, "Do you remember the black magician? I
helped you then." Relating to him his triumphs
and trials, both in his business and in his
efforts at bridging the gap between despair and
delight in the realm of the spirit, Baba told
him, "From now on, I shall be your guide, in all
matters."
Arnold
Schulman, a screenwriter and playwright of
repute, favorite of Hollywood and New York, met
Baba once at Whitefield and returned to America.
"One-day," he says, "for no reason I could
discover, I realized that I had somehow
developed a compulsion of my own, which I could
not suppress or shake off or overcome or
rationalize; I wanted to write a book about
Baba!" Later, when he came to India and Baba
called him into His room, He told him, "When the
time comes, I call all those who need Me, to Me.
It was I who told you to write the book, because
I wanted you. Understand! I wanted you, not the
book."
Thus they
come, from all the quarters! Many like Hislop
have to their credit long years of Sadhana
guided by adepts in their own countries, in
Japan (Zen
teachers),
in Burma (Buddhist
monasteries),
in Nepal (Saivite
Gurus),
in Ceylon (Vihars),
and in India (Yoga
adepts).
In many cases, their appetite for spiritual
achievement had been whetted through contacts
with the
Ramakrishna
Mission,
the
Self-Realization
Fellowship,
the
Hare-Krishna
Movement,
the
Kriya-Yoga
Conference,
and various other inducements for
self-examination, self-mastery, and
self-realization. Others who feel the thirst for
Light come to Baba, mauled and maimed by quacks
and crooks who promise quick results against
tidy rewards. And some others come desperate and
sick of catering to pride and greed and the
hardy brood of impulses, in search of a way out,
in search of peace. And many have arrived, dazed
and confused by the conflicting dialectics of
those whose eloquence served at best to veil
their vanity and vapidity; now, at last, to hear
the Truth in straight and simple words, to see
the Truth in its unadorned beauty, and to know
it from Him who knows All.
"Not all the
buds on a tree blossom," says Baba, "Nor do all
the blossoms turn into fruit, or later ripen and
enrich the world with sweetness." The shallow,
the supine, the scholastic, the supercilious -
these fall off from the race. There are
different levels of readiness among those who
come for the precious gifts that Baba grants.
But whatever their level, none can escape from
or deny the profoundly purifying effect the
heart receives from the contact.
Dr. Judith M.
Tyberg of the East West Cultural Centre, Los
Angeles, writes, "It is now almost three years
that I was in Puttaparthi, and had the Divine
Blessings of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. His help to me
on all planes of being is still evident, and I
am very grateful." Jack Hakimzadeh of Teheran
writes, "When my heart was quite heavy, and
retrievement of equipoise was well nigh
impossible, I did see Baba. As a result, my life
is no longer the same." Jnani Greene who has
been at Prasanthi Nilayam since ten months,
writes, "Baba has instructed me, 'No more
doctors, no more medicine; let go; give up; let
Me be your doctor!" And he has proven His
efficiency and readiness many times since. One
day, my foot was broken, caught in a narrow
ditch in the dark. I was carried to my room in
excruciating pain. Two hours passed and,
suddenly, sensation went dead; I attended
Bhajans at Whitefield, sitting in a
perambulator! Then, I noticed absent-mindedly
that my foot seemed rather warm; I put it on the
ground; it was entirely repaired! The
repercussion on me was even more dramatic. For,
it gradually dawned on me to turn to Him for
every form of pain, for all sense of limitation,
mental and physical alike; I discovered that His
recipe worked equally well for everything. I am
a slow student, and I still forget to ask! But,
in His boundless compassion, He keeps reminding
me."
Many seekers
have found solace and strength, help and
guidance, from the books written by Baba, from
the Discourses given by Him, from the Bhajans
sung by Him, and from the pictures and
photographs of Him which they use for worship or
meditation. John Eversole writes to me from
Santa Barbara on the Pacific Coast of America,
"Thank you for attracting my attention to Him,
so that His pictures might grace the wall in my
home, that the taste of His Vibhuti might
remain, for ever sweet, in my being; that my
family might have their feet set on the Path of
Truth that is Him; that my tears of joy might
wash His Feet from the other side of the
earth."
Hilda Charlton
wrote to a student of hers who came over to
India to be with Baba for some months. "Baba
wants us all to harmonize, for, to be out of
love for anyone is to be out of love with Him.
Of what use is it to love Him, if we can't be
kind and considerate with His many aspects in
the world? The best way to overcome reaction to
people and things is to think that Baba is
giving you a test, when someone is not properly
adjusted to you. In your travels you will find
many who cry 'Baba', and yet do not do what He
says and wants of them. Baba knows the inner
thoughts and feelings of all. Yes, Baba is God,
incarnate upon earth."
Hilda wrote to
me, once, "Baba's Presence is always felt in our
meditation classes. One new boy saw Baba filling
the room; a student experienced Him as the
Infinite. Some of them cannot contain the
Ananda;
they laugh with supreme joy during the
meditation. Baba comes to them in visions and
dreams, He cures many of their illnesses. The
young kids are turning away from drugs, and
recovering sanity and strength." In another
letter she wrote, "I look back on those glorious
days at Prasanthi Nilayam when I was in His
personal Presence, as days of opportunity. Yet I
now realize, more and more, since I returned to
the west, that He is omnipresent. I have
concrete proofs of this, over and over again.
When I left Prasanthi Nilayam Baba told me,
"Beyond Name! Beyond Form!"
Diane Marquier
of France saw someone having a portrait of Baba
in her room. Underneath the portrait were the
words "Why Fear When I am Here?" Her reaction
was an "Umph! What? Who does he think he is ?"
she exclaimed. But when she heard more about
Him, she developed curiosity, which turned into
inquiry, discovery and devotion. She writes,
"One day, I asked my husband for 300 dollars,
and when he pleaded inability, I ventured to
say, having faith in Baba, 'If you give me the
300, Baba will give you ten times more!' I got
the 300. That very evening, for the first time
after a year, in the Restaurant where we are
still, he made 3000 dollars, to the surprise of
everyone except me."
Murial J.
Engle of Santa Barbara, writes, 'Never have I
stood so close to God. Will you believe me if I
tell you this Man is Christ? He knows what we
are at a glance, and why we are seeking Him,
without a word from us; but in His great
kindness, He forbears from embarrassing us by
not revealing all He sees and knows!"
Howard Murphet
quotes a 'woman of Germany', a devout and
earnest seeker on the path, telling him, "Baba
is the incarnation of Purity and Love." She
wrote to him, "I get more and more convinced
from within that Jesus has come again, in the
fullness of Christ, as Sathya Sai
Baba."
June
Schuyler writes, "How can one who has lived 41
years with a good share of frustration describe
the joy of finding the Lord in human form -
utterly good, absolute Love itself? I had
experienced a great deal of love in my life
through all the normal human relationships -
parents, child, friends, marriage. Nothing could
compare to the purity of the Love which Baba
gave and evoked. This was Holy Love!"
"For 17 years
before I met Baba, life's problems had been so
intense that I had come to feel barren inside.
In Baba's Presence, the dry inner desert was
flooded with life-giving water. In His Presence,
the fragile tenderness which seemed totally
dehydrated, became fertile."
"On 9th
December, 1970, Annalisa Rajagopal, Indra Devi
and I went under His direction into the
magnificent Catholic Cathedral of Pom Jesus, the
burial place of St. Francis Xavier, at Goa,
India. As usual, in a place where Jesus is
worshipped, He touched me with His Love. I knelt
before His statue with mixed emotions. Here I
was a devout Christian unmistakably guided for
years by Jesus the Christ - now, with my heart
utterly captured by Sathya Sai Baba."
"Jesus! What
is this?" - I suddenly asked. "Am I trying to
serve two masters? You told us this cannot be
done. Baba too says the same. You know I love
you; yet, my heart is full of Baba. I am
absolutely determined to accept and follow His
guidance. Please, please help me!"
"In a flash I
remembered the day when Baba was speaking to a
group of overseas seekers. He used an
interpreter that day, although He very often
speaks directly in excellent English! When Baba
referred to Jesus during the lesson, the
interpreter started, "Your Jesus..." "No," Baba
came down upon him, and lovingly added, "Our
Jesus," emphasizing the word "Our"! The thought
flowed into my heart that it was Jesus who had
guided me to Baba. I felt that, although I was
too blind to see, Baba and Jesus weren't two
Masters, but One. Baba was teaching us the love,
the humility, the reverence, the charity, the
soul's exaltation that emanates from the breath
of all faiths. Intellectually I had agreed; the
understanding was slowly taking roots in my
heart."
"During some
of my earlier experiences with Baba my mind
tried to raise, at times, storms of doubt; but,
in each such mental turmoil, a deep inner Peace
asserted itself. I had long ago learnt to know
and trust this inflow of peace. It was the God
within saying, "All is well."
"Kneeling,
that day, before the statue of Jesus, I realized
that all is well. I am so richly blest. I left
the Cathedral feeling loved and
loving."
Howard
Murphet, too, speaks of a similar revealing
experience. Writing in his book, "Sai Baba - Man
of Miracles," he says, "Sai Baba has many
similarities to Christ, not only in the
miracles, but in the style of presentation of
the teaching. Baba is far beyond the measure of
man. Apart from the miracles, which show His
command of Nature, His power to be anywhere and
know what His devotees are thinking and doing
("I am a radio, and can tune in your wave," Baba
says), and His ability to bring protection and
help - apart from all these superhuman
qualities, there is the pure egoless Love. This,
above all, stands as a sign of Christ-like
Divinity."
I remember a
few evenings I spent with a group of seven
'foreigners' when they read between the lines of
the "Revelation of St. John the Divine." Some of
them had the intuitive perception of importance
to interpret and understand the Advent of Baba;
this was reinforced by their study of Edgar
Cayce's remarkable adventures into Biblical
realms. They read the description therein, of
New Jerusalem as a place where
"I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God
Almighty was the temple in it. And they shall
bring the glory and honor of the nations into
it. They shall in no way enter into it anything
that defileth, neither whatsoever that bringeth
abomination. Let him that is athirst come, and
whosoever will, let him drink the water of life
free."
They read this and wondered at the aptness. Then
they read of the Advent of the Master on a white
horse (Kalki?) with eyes like a flame of fire,
clothed in a robe of red, as if soaked in blood,
with the name 'King of Kings, Lord of Lords'
woven in it. (Baba wears red silken gowns: in
one, golden letters are woven indicating He is
Sai Baba, that is Lord-Father). His name is
Truth, they noted with surprise, as they read
the text, for Sathya means Truth! Christian
seekers who come to Baba find many such
parallels in the signs and signals of Divinity,
and they are grateful.
"Many of you
come to Me because you have not known a mother's
love," said Baba one day, addressing the
Americans with Him. One of them had written a
song which was in His hands at that time.
"Awaken us, to our oneness with You! Dear
Mother! Lead us home, into You!" Of course, all
who grope for the meaning of life, for
principles, ideals, values, self-understanding
and self-expression, are children, and whosoever
raises them up in loving sympathy, and guides
them through the faltering steps, the stuttering
tongues, the wondering eyes, the wavering minds,
is verily the Mother. A great Andhra Poet,
septuagenarian scholar, yogi and mystic, Velury
Sivarama Sastry, who spent years with Baba,
wrote, "Weigh on one scale the quantity of love
that all the mothers of the world offer to their
children, and on the other, place the Love that
Baba showers on fearsome, forlorn, feeble
beings; you will find that the scale with the
weight of Baba's Love will sink
lower!"
Christ said, "Allow the children to come up
to Me."
Baba moves amongst the children of all ages,
for, He alone can give each the Love they are
pining for.
The love of
Christ is so overpowering that He took upon
Himself the sins of others. Baba, in His Love,
takes upon Himself the illness of others. On
Christmas Day, 1970, referring to the travail
that He passed through gladly to relieve the
pain of a helpless devotee who could not survive
the agony of an inflamed appendix, Baba spoke to
a huge gathering at Bombay,
thus,
"To
take upon Myself the sufferings of those who
have surrendered to Me is My duty. I have no
suffering and you have no reason to suffer
too when I do this duty of Mine. The entire
give-and-take is the Play of Love. It is
taken over by Me in Love; so how can I
suffer? Christ sacrificed His life for the
sake of those who put their faith in Him. He
propagated the truth that service is God,
sacrifice is God."
When asked by
someone why he dined with sinners,
Christ said, "It is the sinner for whom I have
come; it is not the healthy that need a
physician!"
Baba has come for the erring child, the pilgrims
gone astray. He says,
"To say that you have to be pure in order to win
My grace, is as foolish as to say that you have
to be healthy to receive the ministrations of a
doctor! The pure do not need a Master! The tough
do not need a
doctor."
Christ said to his Apostles, "As lambs I send
you forth among wild beasts, but the sacred name
of God shall be your buckler and your shield,
and the air was filled with song and every
living creature seemed to say, Praise God!
Amen!"
Baba calls upon His devotees to act thus:
"Tell every one what you have experienced here.
Tell them that you have found that source and
spring of joy and peace. Tell them that not one
will be left out; all will be
saved."
When M.
Trudeau, the brother of the Prime Minister of
Canada, along with his wife, came to Puttaparthi
with the High Commissioner of Canada in India,
Baba gave him a cross with the figure of Christ
on it, materialized on the spot. At Ngorongoro
in Tanzania, He materialized for the British
pilot of the plane in which He went there, a
lovely little cross, but finding the recipient
not quite pleased, He asked him, "Why? Do you
want My portrait?" and, with another wave of the
hand, the portrait was created and given. Baba
does not divert or dilute the faith which
provides sustenance already. He does not insist
that people must revere His present Name alone,
or adore His present Form alone, No! Be true, be
just, be aware, be alert, be pure, be full of
love, that is enough 'religion', He declares.
[see
also: The crucifix, by John
Hislop]
John Moffitt
from New York (a member of the Ramakrishna
Monastic Order for over twenty years) sought out
Baba at Prasanthi Nilayam. After meeting Baba,
he wrote to me from Bangalore, 'I can never
forget that talk - infinitely profound,
infinitely playful, infinitely simple. I was
reminded of what it must have been like to sit
at Sri Ramakrishna's Feet... I just drank in His
sweet, loving, playful Self. When I asked for
His Blessings so that I could come there again,
He said spiritedly, "Why here? There's no need.
I am always with you. I will be in your heart."
If ever there was proof that Christ is working
outside Christianity, it is in Babaji, and,
before Him, Sri Ramakrishna. My mind is clear
now; my doubts are resolved; I want to do His
Will.'
Baba knows how
deeply each aspirant who comes to Him has
striven, whom he has served and adored, what he
has imbibed from each, and when and by which
path he will ultimately win his escape from this
absurd but attractive maze. To a young American
who was boasting too demonstratively of his
loyalty to Him, Baba said one day, "Your Guru is
in Bangalore. Go!" The exuberant admirer was
flabbergasted. He protested, "No! He is right
here!" but Baba insisted that He was right, and
then light dawned in the youth's head. He had
taken initiation in Transcendental Meditation
from the renowned Mahesh Yogi, and Baba was
telling him that the Yogi had then come to
Bangalore. Baba knew that the old roots were
green and could be vitalized, with no extra
effort.
"Sai Baba, Sai
Baba; so kind, so kind! You are father, mother,
sister, brother, every one" is the refrain of a
song on Him composed by a group of 'foreign'
devotees, and sung in chorus many times at
Prasanthi Nilayam and other places. Baba is the
multifaceted
Avatar
-
Rama, Krishna, Christ, Buddha, Sankara,
Gauranga,
Ramakrishna,
Zarathustra
- all in one.
Coming to
Puttaparthi presents its own problems,
especially to those who are accustomed to
comfort and conveniences; yet, they brave
vagaries of the weather, the idiosyncrasies of
food, the absence of apartments to stay in, the
confusion and complication of communication and
various other discomforts, and cling on,
snatching every chance to see Him, hear Him,
meet Him and stay with Him, as long as they can,
for His presence is so enchanting, so near, so
intimate, that discomforts and lack of
facilities recede beyond cognition.
Mrs. Michael
Schultz says, "What merit have we won, that You
call all of us so lovingly and sweetly?" Eddie
Fleur writes, "I have prayed, and do pray long
each day to have pure love for Him, and total
surrender to His Will. Also to be with Him, as
Hanuman
with Ram."
Gabriella Steyer writes, "His Love removed from
our minds all the disruptions and discomforts of
the place, all the unwelcome austerities forced
upon one by Nature." "I am a bubble; make me the
sea," is the prayer of Georgiana. Michele Melvin
says, "Here is a consciousness where love feels
no bounds; there is a space free from narrow
measurements. There is a truth beyond this
delusion where Myself is known. I pray to the
Divine Mother, Baba, May I come Home." For,
according to another of these earnest seekers,
Baba has come to take His children
home!
Another
Sadhaka,
who has named himself as Raman and wiped off his
past from attention, writes, "Most of us have
come hoping to accomplish something definite in
the way of self-improving, to take at least a
few steps up the spiritual pathway with Baba's
help. Baba helps us to progress in
Sadhana
by means of tests of which we alone are
cognizant! One of His ways is to ignore us
completely! Yes! For weeks on end. He will act
as if He was totally unaware of our existence.
He would smile at the person on our left, and
give a pat on the head of the person on our
right! His glance will pass high over you, and
He will behave as if he is completely oblivious
of your existence. As a result, your ego shrinks
to the size of a pea! When you are just about
the right size, He would all of a sudden give
you one of His looks and a big smile - and all
is well again, and even better."
"You have had
a shot in the arm that should keep you high for
several weeks. When He gives you one of those
look-cum-smiles, you feel the eternally close
bond; tears fill your eyes; you are left high up
in the clouds. You know in a flash that He had
been aware of you all the time, that He has
known every word you had whispered to yourself
in your despair, every thought you had,
everything you have done or left undone, and
best of all, that He understands all your
weaknesses, and has forgiven them already!"
Raman adds, "If I ever reach the desireless
state, I'm sure the desire to be on the
receiving end of one of Babaji's
looks-and-smiles will be the very last one to
go."
For
Westerners, the first chance usually to be close
to Baba, says John Hislop, is when He calls them
together, either at Prasanthi Nilayam or at
Whitefield:
"He
sits on the floor with us and invites us to
express our spiritual doubts. Then we see before
us what appears to be an Indian man (Baba told
Arnold Schulman: "I am not a man, I am not a
woman, I am not old, I am not young; I am all of
these."), of dark brown skin (Rama and Krishna
are described in the epics as having dark
(brown) skins), slight in build, with a mass of
brown hair with golden highlights framing His
face. We are, naturally, as observant as
possible when we meet this extraordinary being;
all our senses are alert. Our mind and
intelligence are wide awake. We note that His
features are sensitive, and reflect at once all
changes of mood and thought. He has a sweet and
loving smile, like that of an innocent and
affectionate child. His eyes are dark brown,
soft and melting, and sparkle with intelligence
and humor. His voice is sweet and tender, like
that of a mother, sometimes gay with laughter
and lilting wit like that of a companion, at
other times stern and serious like the voice of
a father. The movement of His body, as He sits,
arises and walks, is graceful, flowing and
extremely light. His hands are expressive. There
is a faint perfume in the air, which Magdalena
says is jasmine! On our way home from India in
March, I awoke in Honolulu to that same perfume
which lasted some 10 or 12 seconds. Another
time, in Bombay, at Dharmakshetra while Baba was
narrating a story to illustrate a point, I was
amazed to find a circular blaze of halo around
His head. Baba noticed my wondering eyes and
explained that I was indeed fortunate to have
that vision!"
Let us listen
to more of Hislop's intimate description of how
Baba presents Himself to those who seek
him:
"As
we sit close to Him, we quickly realize that He
is far more than an elegant and charming Indian
man! Our perception deepens beyond the senses;
we become aware of a subtle yet total beauty
that has quietly filled the room. At that subtle
level where we have awakened, we feel a current
of Compassion, Love and Light, and we know that
the source is Baba.
Suddenly
our mind is at peace and we sense an upflow of
happiness in the heart! All care drops away; our
ordinary world has fallen out of sight into the
past."
Arnold
Schulman describes the feelings which came upon
him thus: "In less than a minute, I had become a
displaced person!" "Only our happy blissful
state with Him in the present is real." This
experience is so genuine that tears fill the
eyes and some find themselves crying.
This ecstasy
felt in Baba's Presence is heightened when He
answers questions and speaks on spiritual
matters. The delight and depth of His words of
wisdom carry such a thrill of truth that it
almost seems that one cannot bear the joy that
fills the hearts.
Baba gathers
people from far and near and speaks to them, in
stories and parables, on the age-old remedies
for the disease of desire and distress, which He
has come again to re-install in the estimation
of the human community. Hislop
writes,
"Let
me glean a few sheaves from the harvest stored
in the memories of these brothers and sisters:
Don't waste time moaning over the past, dwelling
on the negative, injurious, tragic, morbid
experiences. Every fleeting moment of time can
be a lifetime for the spirit! Discard
trivialities. Be steady as the stars. Be on the
lookout to discover new ways to express your
love to all. Do not talk too much, to too many,
your real Friend and Companion is God. Act as
you perceive: when you see distinction between
rich and poor, healthy and sickly, act
accordingly; help the poor and the sickly.
Ridding the mind of impurities, delusions,
egotisms, vices, sensual impressions, karmic
imprints, is the same, in effect, as "Die-mind";
but, the more you do it, the brighter and
clearer becomes the effulgence of what remains;
it is like the diamond; you have to cut off bits
and flakes to make it really precious. "Baba"
means the Super-Soul which is
Existence-Knowledge-Bliss, Sath Chith Ananda.
'B' is Being Sath; 'A' is Awareness - Chith; 'B'
is Bliss - Ananda; and the final 'A' is Atma -
inner core of Reality. You can also become Me
when you throw off the coils of delusion and
desire."
Baba declares
that His Life is His Message. So, being in His
presence, observing His compassion, His
simplicity, His earnestness, His insight, His
love, is itself a valuable opportunity for the
aspirant to gain fullness and freedom. Every
word of His is fraught with significance to the
person He addresses. And He deals with each one
as a separate, special problem. He does not vend
cheap panaceas for the multifarious deficiencies
of man; the goal is within you; the cure is in
your hands; where the illness is, there the
remedy is provided. To achieve the goal is to
open the eye, to awake, to light a lamp, to deny
a nightmare. It is all so simple; seeing the
truth is as simple as speaking it, He says. Why
make the road long and then earn gratitude by
recommending shortcuts?
"The darkness of centuries will disappear when a
lamp is lit; you need no gun to shoot it off, no
book to argue it off, no tears to wash it off,
no pugilistic prowess to push it off," He
says.
For each, Baba
has the remedy most suited, in an easily
portable form, and He dispenses it with
affection and sympathy. "Baba makes each one
realize," says Hislop "that he is a reflection
of His Reality. It is our Dharma, our duty to
reflect and express His Nature, which is Truth
and Love, for, that is our real nature also. And
it is our primary duty to free ourselves from
the illusion of separateness from God, to merge
into God, just as the droplets of spray flung
into the air by wind and storm fall back and are
no longer separate from the sea."
Hilda
Charlton, in a letter to her pupils, delineates
the modus operandi for meditation in her own
way, thus:
"In the heart center, visualize a still lake of
water. See a lotus arising. See a flame in the
lotus. See Sai Baba in the flame. Install Sai
Baba in the heart. With each breath, feel you
are breathing in Baba's Divine Love through the
heart center. Let this Love spread to all parts
of the body and overflow all around into all
beings."
In another letter she advises,
"You ask, how can I merge in Baba? Well, just
keep loving Him. Think of Him as the whole world
and universe. His hair the sky, His body the
earth, and all of us little atoms in it. Baba is
God and God is in everything and in every one;
we have to be atone with all in our heart, and
then we are atone with
Baba." And
a pupil replied after a few months, "I feel like
talking to the trees and leaves, and the sands,
for He is in all these." Baba sometimes
transfers spiritual power by a touch or an
exercise of His Will, to aspirants who deserve
it. One young Sadhaka wrote to me, "...And then,
before I knew it, the Master reached over and
pinched me right between the eyes, in the region
of the 'third eye,' and I felt something nearing
Bliss, and immense ecstasy, that lasted nearly
five hours."
Other Sadhakas
were guided through dreams, which, to them, were
as real as lessons granted face to face. One
Sadhaka in bed with intestinal illness, came to
me asking what Visuddhi meant! It seems
Baba had told him in a dream to concentrate
there! I had to give him a long lesson on
Chakras. I found that
Visuddhichakra has profound curative
influences!
I have glanced
through the notes taken of 'dreams' such as
these, and found the directions concise and
precise, consistent with what Baba gives to
others in the wakeful stage. Look at this, for
example: Freedom or liberation is not gained by
the perfection of the small self, but by
indifference (Upeksha) to both perfection
and imperfection. If you are not ready to
relinquish the relative limited identity, then,
spend your energy well in perfecting it; that
way time will be best utilized. But that is not
the ultimate. In God, perfection or imperfection
do not exist. Vibhakthi or division, divergence,
confrontation of opposites, is not Bhakthi
(Union, Atonement). Again, let us listen to
this:
"Do not want to understand. Do not ask to
understand. Relinquish the imperative that
demands understanding. Silence is not a matter
of resolve! It is always there. Silence is the
endless flow of pure God into you, into the
world."
This type of
instruction, clear before the eye and resonant
in the ear, is given by Baba to many all over
the world. For, Baba is ever eager to solve
doubts and plant the seed of faith in the furrow
of inquiry. To get His lessons, across the
oceans, around the world, you don't have to be
someone special, or an expert in some unusual
Sadhana taken from a prestigious textbook.
Cherish the doubt sincerely. Pray intensely.
Call out from the heart for the Supreme
Preceptor; that is enough. Baba once asked
Charles Penn, "How many times, Charles, have you
called! And have I not answered, every
time?"
One day,
Charles Penn in Dhyana (meditation) sank into
the silent depths of Baba's Vahini (Stream),
asking Baba, "East is East, and West is West,
and Never the twain shall meet! Why twain, Baba?
If this saying be true, then, why do I yearn for
You, who are in the East? What of the wall that
stands between the West and the East - is it
unscalable?"
And Baba
answered,
"From
early childhood, the mind is filled with
half-truth (like, for example, this
misconception), seemingly sound ideas and
even deliberate fabrications. Babies are
sometimes isolated from the adults, to avoid
contact with adult suffering from contagious
diseases; I wish they were isolated from the
adults, for My sake, that they may get to
know Me better! The sun knows no East or
West. Tyrants prefer not to let the hot coals
in man's mind cool down; they fan them
white-hot and create easts and wests and put
them against each other for pride and profit.
Everyone must fight such truthlessness with
truthfulness, fight misconception with the
factual, hate with love, temper with
understanding. Man must fight with these
things in himself. When anger arises, quieten
down; when in fear and doubt, pray to Me.
Tune in to My mighty Power which, compared to
the power of the sun which I have placed in
the heavens, is what a baby's breathing is to
a typhoon. Tune in, Charles, to this
soothing, gentle breeze you are enjoying
now!"
The urge
within the seekers who come to Baba for guidance
and grace is an agonizing thirst, arising when
they traverse the waste land with an incipient
awareness, and not just blindly, as most people
do. As Norman Mailer writes, "They suffer from
that corrosive sensation in the chest and the
gut, so much of the time, that they sense the
body going empty within, the sensation of psyche
pierced by a wound whose dimensions keep
opening, that unendurable conviction that one is
hollow, displaced, without a single identity at
one's center."
One of the
Westerners described a few of his compatriots to
me thus: "Kerry has spent a year of exile in the
Canadian woods, and another in a little island
in the Aegean Sea. Janet has been a clairvoyant,
telepathic to a great extent, but consistently
keeping it a secret under every conceivable
circumstance - which is an amazing thing indeed!
When they saw Baba, Janet cried, "He is God; I
know it." Her sister got sick of the
civilization of the West, and has come over.
Martin Stamp, this boy here in his teens, denied
Himself both Oxford and Cambridge, although
representatives from both tried to bag him, for
even while he was in the preparatory school, he
proved a precocious mathematician; he is
hankering after God so that he may immerse
himself in Him. Raman was a teacher of Yoga,
carrying the message of the East into the
prisons of America. He receives letters from his
'pupils' behind the walls."
Like Indra
Devi, whose Yoga Classes always center around
the teaching and glories of Baba, Raman too has
given Baba to these temporary misfits, along
with his lessons on Yoga. One of them, Steve
Win, writes from Lomfoc in gratitude, "The
vibrations here seem to be strongly negative.
Without a strong positive guide to help me and
the others along, we just sort of flow along and
pray for the best. When I do get out, I am going
to discipline myself more rigorously and work
towards self-awareness. It seems to me that Sri
Sai Baba is laughing at the cosmic joke we are
all seriously living, and He is patiently
waiting to guide us. I am really hoping and
praying that, very soon, I shall be able to meet
Baba and learn of life at His blessed Feet! I am
convinced, He will take me through the hazy
veils of worldly thoughts, to the pure light of
Samadhi and Brahma-Consciousness. I am spending
hours, looking at Sai Baba's picture, so that I
may be released from the real imprisonment I
suffer, at the hands of worldly thoughts,
desires and senses."
Baba is
announcing His Advent through signs and wonders
all over the world. When Penn was high up in the
sky encountering inexplicable problems in the
petrol tank of his plane, Baba appeared by his
side in the cockpit and directed him to the
defect spot with instructions for the repair!
When terrible forest fires broke out in the
Chunchuma Ranch, Tecate (Mexico) where Indra
Devi has her Yoga Institute and a place of
retreat called 'Sai Nilayam,' Baba responded to
her prayer and turned the flaming conflagration
back, right on itself, in a trice and saved the
men and property! The Cowans were disappointed
because they could not get, while in India, a
copy of a particular photograph of His. It had
on it the impression of the symbolic clock at
Dharmakshetra, the 'hands' moving from one
spiritual discipline to another until "12" is
indicated by "Total Surrender" at the Lotus
Feet. When a photographer casually clicked, he
got the picture of Baba, with the picture of
this clock, as if He wore a badge. When asked
the meaning of the appearance of this
impression, Baba said, it meant that "I shall
press on My Heart in Love the Sadhaka who
accomplishes the steps indicated on this clock!"
Moved by their genuine disappointment, Baba
placed one under the clock in their room at
Santa Ana California, behind the chest of
drawers. As the Cowans didn't notice it, the
clock in their room banged itself on the wall to
draw their attention to His gift, lying below it
unclaimed: They prayed that Vibhuti might appear
from His picture in their shrine; instead a Star
Sapphire with eight rays formed itself on the
picture, looking as if Baba was wearing a
necklace with the gem at His throat center! To
Indra Devi, He created a rosary of pearls, with
the assurance that she can heal, in extreme
cases, the sickness of sufferers by prayers,
with its help. He has given her also a jar of
Vibhuti which could be given as a curative for
sick people and the jar has been blessed by Him
so that it will never be rendered empty. And
thus, the cures, the healings, the cleansing of
hearts, the refining of character, the
amelioration of habits, the rescue from
drug-addiction, the winning of internal peace
through the discipline of
Japa
and Dhyana,
and other Acts of Divine Grace go on, minute
after minute, from the minute to the manifold;
for Baba is determined to lift up all Sadhakas,
into the Supreme Bliss.
I shall
conclude this array of outpourings of the heart,
with the first fruits of that teaching and
guidance as garnered by Jerry, one of the many
sharers of His Grace: "I have been with Sai Baba
for one year now. During this time, I have seen
many with little faith, much disease and
discomfort, come to Him. By the time they leave,
they have more faith, ease and comfort and peace
of mind. For me, Baba has worked His miracles.
As I stay longer and longer, I face, as in a
mirror, all my Samskars.
They strike me as intangible and unreal. The
mental impressions fade into powerlessness,
first the more recent ones, and then gradually
those that stretch back to early childhood. Then
as they tend to finish, there are increasingly
long periods of entering into the Eternal Bliss
of living in the Present! Baba burns the ego,
with its innumerable potencies for mischief.
Being in the Presence, the present is
experienced by me as living in the Bliss of
Love, when the mind is at complete rest, free
from all thoughts of the past and future. The
only impressions coming across the screen of the
mind are the overtones of God, or the
outpourings of Love and Peace to all. With some
efforts, we can still the mind and empty our
cups, so that Baba may pour into them the nectar
of His Grace!"
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