Foreword
by N. Kasturi
This
Book!
The
Rama Story, Stream of Sacred Sweetness, has been for
millions of men, women and children, for many centuries
the perennial source of solace during sorrow, vitality
when floored by vacillation, illumination while
confounded, inspiration in moments of dejection and
guidance while caught in quandaries. It is an intensely
human drama, where God impersonates as man and gathers
around Him, on the vast world-stage, the perfect and the
imperfect, the human and the sub-human, the beast and the
demon, to confer on us, by precept and example, the boon
of Supreme Wisdom. It is a Story that plays its tender
fingers on the heart-strings of man, evoking lithe,
limpid responses of pathos, pity, exultation, adoration,
ecstasy and surrender, rendering us transformed, from the
animal and the human, into the Divine which is our
core.
No
other story in human history has had such profound impact
on the mind of man. It transcends the milestones of
history and the boundaries of geography. It has shaped
and sublimated the habits and attitudes of generations.
The Ramayana, the Story of Rama, has become a curative
corpuscle in the blood stream of mankind, over vast areas
of the globe. It has struck root in the conscience of
peoples, prodding and prompting them along the paths of
Truth, Righteousness, Peace and Love.
Through
legends and lullabies, myths and tales, dance and drama,
through sculpture, music and painting, through ritual,
poetry and symbol, Rama has become the Breath, the Bliss,
the Treasure of countless Seekers and Sadhakas. The
characters in the Rama Story have invited them to
emulation and to be elevated themselves. They have
provided shining examples of achievement and adventure;
they have warned the wavering against vice and violence,
pride and pettiness; they have encouraged them by their
fidelity and fortitude. To every language and dialect
that the tongue of man has devised for the expression of
his higher desires, the Story of Rama has added a unique,
sustaining sweetness.
Sai
(Isa, God), whose Thought is the Universe, whose Will is
Its History, is the Author, Director, Actor, Witness and
Appraiser of the Drama that is ever unfolding in Time and
Space. He has now deigned to tell us Himself the story of
this one epic Act in that Drama, wherein He took on the
Rama role. As Rama, Sai instructed, inspired and
invigorated, corrected, consoled and comforted His
contemporaries in the Treta Age. As Sai Rama, He is now
engaged in the same task. Therefore, most of what the
readers of Sanathana Sarathi perused, month
after month, (during these years) with ardour and
pleasure, as instalments of this narrative -- The
Ramakatharasavahini -- must have appeared to them
"contemporary events and experiences", and "direct
counsel to them in the context of contemporary problems
and difficulties". While reading these pages, readers
will often be pleasantly struck by the identity of the
Rama of this Story and the Sai Rama they are
witnessing.
"Science"
has moulded this earth into the compactness and
capsularity of a space-ship in which mankind has to live
out its destiny. "Sai-ence" is, we know, fast moulding
this space-ship into a happy home of Love. This book must
have been willed by Sai as a paramount panacea for the
removal of the ills that obstruct that Universal Love -
the morbid itch for sensual pleasure, the mounting
irreverence towards parents, teachers, elders, spiritual
leaders and guides, the disastrous frivolity and
flippancy in social, marital, and familial relationships,
the demonic reliance on violence as a means of achieving
immoral ends, the all-to-ready adoption of terror and
torture as means of gaining personal and group gains, and
many more evils besides.
Sai
Rama has recapitulated herein, in His own simple, sweet
and sustaining style, His own Divine Career, as Rama!
What great good fortune, this, to have in our hands, to
inscribe on our minds, to imprint on our hearts, this
Divine narrative! May we be processes by the study of
this Book into efficient and enthusiastic tools for
consummating His Mission of moulding mankind into One
Family, of making each one of us realise Sai Rama as the
Reality, the only Reality that IS.
Sai has
declared that He is the same Rama come again, and that He
is searching for His erstwhile associates and workers
(bantu, as He referred to them in Telugu) in
order to allot them roles in His present Mission of
resuscitating Righteousness and leading man into the
Haven of Peace. Let us pray, while ruminating over the
first half of this Story, that we too be allotted roles
and may He grant us, as reward, the Vision of that
Haven.
N.
KASTURI
Editor,
Sanathana Sarathi
Prasanthi Nilayam, India.
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