The
Names We Know
"Bhagavân
Srî Sathya Sai Baba" is how Baba is
referred to by the millions that adore Him. He
announced Himself as Sai Baba when He spoke of
his identity at the age of 14, on 23rd May,
1940, when his father insisted on being told
what Baba meant by saying that He had His
disciples to look after and His unfinished work
to be completed [see
for this story 'The serpent
hill'].
"Sathya
Nârâyana"
was His Name and Raju was the family
appellation. This was shortened into
Sathya,
the name by which Baba was known at home,
village and school. To the name announced by
Baba Himself -
Sai Baba
- was added the word
'Sathya.'
Five or six years later after the announcement,
the devotee who desired to distinguish Him from
Sai Baba as He had manifested Himself at
Shirdi,
realized that Baba Himself was the Shirdi
manifestation. But they did not wish to confuse
the minds of those who loved to cling to the
memory of Shirdi 'Baba'.
Baba
is the word used in Marathi and in Hindi to
refer to saints. It means 'Father'. 'Sai'
is the name by which Baba had been spoken to by
the priest of the Khandoba temple near Shirdi,
when He arrived there as a youth.
'Sai'
means 'Master'. It is a derivate of the
Sanskrit word Swami.
The word 'Sai' has also been traced to the
Persian word Shah, Shahi, Sahi, Sai.
'Srî'
is an honorific prefixed to the names of
deities, sacred texts and eminent persons. It is
an auspicious word indicating good fortune. The
word also came to be used as an honorific for
each individual, universalizing or democratizing
good fortune as it were. This democratization
has itself led to another outburst of snobbery
on the part of the disciples of the heads of
Maths or monasteries. For example, the prefix -
Srî
108,
meaning that - spiritual eminence is indicated
by the fact that the name is to be preceded by a
string of 108 Srî's. [See
the 108 names of Sai
Baba]
The word
'Bhagavân'
means 'one
endowed with
Bhaga';
Bhaga
means according to ancient Sanskrit
lexicographers:
- Aiswarya
- authority derived from power;
- Virya
- heroism, bravery;
- Yasha
- fame;
- Sriyah
- prosperity;
- Jnana
- wisdom;
- Vairagya
- detachment.
Baba's
Aiswarya
or authority derived from power is self-evident.
Masters of special branches of study like
doctors, lawyers, engineers and artists
acknowledge Him as their master in their
respective fields. For He can correct them and
give them invaluable help. Fame and prosperity
follow Him wherever He goes, though He has never
cared for either. As for bravery, wisdom and
detachment, thousands who have known Him, know
Him as the embodiment of these
qualities.
Baba
declared at the World Conference held in Bombay
in 1968, "The
loyalty and devotion that the previous
Incarnations commanded arose partly through fear
and awe, and partly from superhuman power. The
Sathya Sai manifestation has none of these
appendages. Nevertheless it commands the
adoration of millions in this age of rampant
godlessness, materialism, cynical disregard of
higher values and aggressive
irreverence."
This is because He carries His message of love
to the very vortex of disbelief and nihilism,
like light penetrating into the very heart of
darkness. Himself an unfailing reservoir of
health, happiness and wisdom, He is, at the same
time, profoundly unattached, accepting devotion
and derision with equal unconcern. He wrote to
his elder brother even as a boy of twenty
[see
SSS-II - Resume]
that He had no particular name or native place
and that all names and places were His. A
supreme example of desirelessness, He has only
one desire: the desire which made Him descend
from the all-pervading Divine consciousness -
the desire to save the world from the
consequences of ignorance.
[Photo:
Sai Baba World Conference in Bombay, May
1968]
It is laid
down in the
Sastras
that only those who have mastered the six
primary mysteries can be referred to as
'Bhagavân'.
Utpattincha
Vinasamcha
Bhuthanam Agathim Gathim
Vetti Vidyam Avidyam cha
Sa Vachya Bhagawan iti
"He who
knows the mystery of the origin and
dissolution of created beings,
the mystery of their doom and their
redemption and of their ignorance and wisdom,
is alone to be spoken of as
Bhagavân."
It is crystal
clear that this is what Baba stands for. As He
told Arnold Schulman, "I know your past, I know
your future. So I know why you suffer and how
you can escape suffering and when you finally
will. I know everything that has happened to
everybody in the past, everything that is
happening and everything that will happen in the
future. I know why a person has to suffer in
this life and what will happen to him the next
time he is born because of that suffering this
time." [*]
In His speech
to an enormous crowd at the Patel Stadium in
Bombay, He said,
"I
know all that happens to all because I am in
everyone. This current is in every bulb. I
illumine every consciousness. I am the inner
Motivator in each one of
you."
He declared at
Anantapur,
"Even
if the fourteen worlds in the upper and
nether regions of the universe unite in order
to delay or disrupt the work for which I have
come in this Body, it will not suffer or
falter."
He said at a
meeting in
Prasanthi Nilayam
in
1965,
"No
Avatâr has done like this before -
going among the masses in the villages,
seeking out the distressed, waking up the
sleeping, quickening the dull, showering
grace on millions and counselling, consoling,
guiding, uplifting them along the path of
Sathya (truth), Dharma (eternal principals),
Santhi (peace) and Prema (love). I am neither
Guru nor God. I am you! You are me! That is
the Truth and you will realize it when you
reach the goal. You are the waves and I am
the Ocean."
On Christmas
Day, 1970, at Dharmakshetra, Baba
said,
"There
is no mesmerism, miracle or magic in what I
do! Mine is genuine Divine power. Small minds
and limited intellects are too weak to
perceive the Divine. The Divine magnificence
is too much, and too overwhelming for their
maya-filled
eyes. And so they ridicule it and call it the
result of Yoga Siddhi,
mesmerism or magic. But the Divine can do
anything. He has all the power in the palm of
His Hand. His powers are not such as would
abide for a time and then fade
away."
He had said
already on the occasion of Dasara in
1963,
"The
man who dies prays to Me to receive him. The
relations who lament the loss pray to Me to
prolong his life! I know both sides of the
picture, the past and present, the crime and
the punishment, the achievement and the
reward. And so I am just, modifying the
sentence now and then with Grace. I am not
affected in the least by the birth of this
one or the death of the other. My nature is
unalloyed Bliss."
The word
'Bhagavân' also means
'blissful'. The
Vishnu
Purana
says that the syllable 'Bha' means
'the cherisher and supporter of the
universe,' 'Ga' means 'the leader,
the impeller or the guide' and 'Va'
means 'that elemental spirit in which all
beings exist and which exists in all
beings'. This 'Va' is also to be
found in the name of Vâsudeva
which was the name that Baba said was His own,
when He was at Shirdi. Gunaji says in his
biography of 'Shirdi Baba', page 103: "Baba said
that He was omnipresent - occupying light, air,
water, world, land and heaven - and that He was
not limited. He said,
'I
always live everywhere. I have no form. I
require no door to
enter.'
- page 155.
In his present
incarnation too, Baba entered Swami
Abhedananda's room in Ramanashram even when the
door was bolted in order to assure and illumine
the monk and accept him as a disciple. He also
entered an operation theatre in a surgical home
in Bangalore in spite of bolted doors, for
blessing the patient when a prostrate gland
operation was going on.
Sanskrit
classical text also give other definitions of
'Bhagavân.' The Saranagathi Gadya says,
"Bhagavân is He who is boundless Bliss,
Bliss that rewards every being in the universe.
The Gadya goes on to say that a Bhagavân
must have an extraordinary knowledge of all the
mysteries of the world, dominion over all the
forces of nature, power, splendour, gracious
manners, affection as of a mother, softness and
compassion, rectitude and uprightness,
comradeship, impartiality, mercy, nobility,
generosity, skilfulness in strategy, heroism,
dash and enthusiasm, steadiness in truth, and
all other good qualities. Dr. Gokak [see
SSS-II
- 'Cities
Aflame']
is never tired of pointing out that Baba is,
more than anyone else, power, dominion, majesty
and splendor. It is this element of power that,
among other things, distinguishes an incarnation
from a saint. Baba's scholarship is
overwhelming. With hardly any formal education,
He has on the tip of His tongue, atomic
formulae, Vedic hymns, medical recipes, and
Tantric mantras.
Sri Aurobindo
has said, "Each incarnation holds before men His
own example and declares of Himself that He is
the way and the gate: he declares too the
oneness of His humanity with the Divine
Being."
Man, after
all, is nothing but the Divine, bound by the
three chains of time, space and causation. This
is why Baba says,
"You
become Bhagavân as soon as you express
the
Atma
principle. Each one of you can become
Bhagavân by merging your separate
individual
Jiva
or self in the ocean of universal
Atma."
The word
Avatâr means 'descent, coming down,
alighting'. This is the limitation that the
limitless imposes on itself, in order to lead
mankind. In a discourse on Shivarathri a few
years ago, Baba recited a verse, such as He is
used to composing and reciting at the
commencement of a discourse, in which He
recounted the aims and purposes of His own
Avatâr at
Puttaparthi.
"Vâsudeva,
who lives in all has come in this body at
Puttaparthi to show to the Kali age the path
of truth; to eliminate hate and greed; to
save the good and humble from pain and shame;
to reveal the significance that lies obscured
in ancient texts; to destroy the pomp and
pride of little men; and to redeem the pledge
of Grace given to mankind."
[**]
He has
declared that He is the Divine Essence that is
known and worshipped in many Names and Forms all
over the world.
In his 'Essays
on the Gîtâ,' Sri Aurobindo has
analyzed the role of an Avatâr;
"The Avatâr comes as the manifestation of
the Divine nature in the human nature, the
apocalypse of its Christhood, Krishnahood,
Buddhahood, in order that human nature may, by
moulding its thought, feelings and action, on
the lines of that Christhood, Krishnahood,
Buddhahood, transfigure itself into the Divine.
The Avatâr is always a dual phenomenon of
Divinity and humanity. The Divine takes upon
Himself human nature with all its outward
limitations... The object of the Avatâr's
descent is to show that human birth, with all
its limitations, can be made a means and an
instrument of the Divine birth and Divine
Works."
One has to
remember in this context what Baba said to
Schulman,
"If
I had come as Nârâyana with four
arms, they would have put me in a circus,
charging money for people to see Me. If I had
come only as man, like any other man, who
would listen to Me? So I had to come in this
human form but with more than the human power
and wisdom."
Baba also
explained the mystery of Avatârhood
in a simple way when he said on His Birthday
Festival, 1971:
"Everyone
of you is an Avatâr. You are the
Divine, encased like Me in human flesh and
bone! Only you are unaware of it! You have
come into this prison of incarnation through
the errors of many lives. But I have put on
this mortal body out of My own free Will. You
are bound to the body with the ropes of the
three Gunas,
I am free, untouched by them, for the Gunas
are but My playthings. I am not bound by
them, I use them to bind you. You are moved
this way and that by desire. I have no desire
except the one to make you
desireless."
Baba's call to
suffering humanity stands out in its directness
and simplicity:
"Why fear when I am here? Come unto Me all ye
who suffer!"
Baba assures us, if we take one step towards
Him, He takes ten towards us. He hears us when
we cry out in anguish. As the
Gîtâ declares, "the hand and
the feet, the eyes and the ears, and the head
and tongue of the Divine are everywhere to help
us and save us and lead us to the Divine, when
we have a sincere desire to ascend to the
Divine."
The
Avatâr, as Baba has declared,
shares the possession of the five senses with
the world of animals and human beings. He shares
with mankind the four attributes of mind,
reason, emotion and Ahamkara or the ego.
But the Avatâr possesses seven
characteristics which are unique. Four of these
can be enumerated as follows:
- Srshti
- or the power to create;
- Sthithi
- or the power to foster, guard and
protect;
- Laya
- or the power to destroy;
- Thirodhana
- or the power to make things
disappear.
The three
remaining attributes are such that only a full
fledged Avatâr has them:
- Anugraha
- or grace which may be of two kinds, grace
for the deserving and grace conferred
regardless of the recipient deserving it,
like a bolt from the blue.
- Again, He
is ever-present where His Name or
Nama
is uttered and where His
Rupa
or form is recognized. The
Vibhuti
that falls from Baba's portraits in different
parts of the world itself shows how His
Rupa
or form brings us into contact with Him if He
is remembered.
As an example
of a concrete presence where the Name and Form
are remembered I may quote from a letter written
by the Cowans of Orange Country, U.S.A: "In our
home, we have a small room filled with the
pictures of our great Lord Sathya Sai Baba. It
is here we meditate before retiring. Many times,
people of the Sai family drop in, and pray. Each
night, we watch for Vibhuti to manifest,
but so far, none has appeared. It was about a
month ago some friends who are devotees of
Sathya Sai Baba came to meditate with us in His
room. I wish to say that the fragrance of this
room has a beautiful odor, as if hundreds of
flowers were giving forth their blooms to us.
This is one of the gifts the great Swami bestows
on us. Our friends were amazed at the sweetness
of the room."
"We all sat
down around the small altar and gave admiration
to the picture! And, behold! Upon a large
colored picture of Bhagavân Srî
Sathya Sai Baba a sapphire star had appeared,
with eight rays, manifesting from it, as if it
was a necklace, with a gem, at His throat
centre! The word travelled fast and many of the
Sai family have come to see the miracle of the
Lord."
In many
thousands of homes and public prayer halls in
India, Africa, Ceylon and other countries, Baba
has willed the devotees to get the sacred
curative Vibhuti from the portraits hung
on the walls. There was Vibhuti at the
shrine in the home of the Cowans too. Here is an
account given by a sceptic of his visit to the
shrine in the home of Cowans. The visitor's name
is Joel Riordon, a hollywood writer of film
scripts: "My wife mentioned to me that a picture
in the house of the Cowans was producing ashes!
She immediately walked away. Now, she did it...
dangled a bit of curiosity in my path, curiosity
that I couldn't resist. Sunday morning I was
ready for the challenge... When we arrived at
the meeting after following Mr. and Mrs.
Hislop's car for over one hour, I thought there
is a church three miles from my house, and I
won't even take the time to go there. What am I
doing here?... At the meeting, voices rang out,
as they were clapping to the rhythm of a chant:
there was a speech by Jack Hislop about a letter
he received by mail from Sai Baba and the
mystery - how it arrived without a stamp! 'So
the stamp dropped off in the mail man's bag,' I
thought. I am certain there was more to the
story, but my mind was on the picture. Where is
it? Why can't I see it now?... Finally, the
moment came; we were allowed to go into another
room where a shrine had been set up, with Sai
Baba's picture - and it was producing
ashes!"
"I tried not
to be conspicuous, but I must have been because
as I approached the picture, looking at it from
all angles, from the front, top and back, (I
even pretended to tie my shoes, to see under the
table; to see if I could find out what trick
caused this ash-flow), I saw the hostess talking
to two young boys, and as the three of them
stared at me, I had the feeling they were
expecting me to steal the picture, or something
in the house. I immediately departed with a
guilty look."
There are
certain remarkable ancient astrological texts
called Nadis in South India and
Bhrgu Samhithas in Northern India. They
contain details of the lives of numerous
persons, even of people who lived beyond the
seas. The hereditary custodians of these
manuscripts read out the relevant portions of
the life of the person that comes to consult
them. The late Dr. K.M. Munshi wrote some years
ago in the Bhavan's Journal that the details
recorded regarding his life in some of these
manuscripts astounded him. The record mentions
the exact time and place where he was to propose
to Smt. Leelavathi Munshi, his future wife. Sri
Sharma, a former Chief Minister of Haryana
State, states that the predictions recorded
about him in Bhrgu Samhithas showed that
he would meet God in His human incarnation at
Prasanthi Nilayam. Sri Sharma says that
it was a job for him to find out where
Prasanthi Nilayam was. Baba received him
graciously and created for him a
Nataraja image which he could wear on his
person all the time. Whenever there is a
reference in these texts to Baba, He is referred
to as 'the Father of all worlds, the supreme
physician who cures at lightning speed and
founder of Patasalas, institutions of higher
learning and hospitals.'
Srî
Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medicine at
Bangalore
Sri J.P. Maroo
writes, "I have a family astrologer who belongs
to Nepal. He remembers and can recite and quote
from the 15.000 verses of the ancient
astrological cyclopedia, called Bhrgu
Samhitha! Last October, that is to say, in
1967 he came to see me before returning to
Nepal, and I requested him for information about
some outstanding event that may occur in the
near future. He consulted the Samhitha
and recited a verse, which said that on 4th
November, 1947, I will have Pratyaksha Deva
Darsana! (the Darsana of God in concrete
Form!) And, it happened as forecasted! Baba came
to Usha Kiran, to my home, and accepted my
worship on 4th November, 1967."
Speaking to a
group of seekers from San Francisco in the USA
and from Ceylon in June 1970, at Brindavan,
Whitefield, Baba said that the Divine is as
eager to be one with individual soul as the
individual is eager to merge with the Divine. He
said that this was a gradual process, very much
like what happens to stalactites and stalagmites
in limestone caves. One of these is formed in
the roof pointing downwards and the other on the
floor pointing upwards. The formation on the
floor is due to the deposit of something like
one drop in a thousand years from the stalactite
in the roof pointing downwards. Baba was
demonstrating how this happens with the use of
His fingers. He was a little dissatisfied with
this demonstration Himself. He then waved His
hand in a very long, flat and circular motion
and materialized a round black stone, the weight
of which made His hand vibrate like a
tuning-fork. The stone was round in shape,
slightly flat at the top and bottom and it bore
no marks on it. It was smooth and shiny. Baba
lifted it, held it a few inches away from His
mouth and blew a hole into it, with sovereign
ease and grace. This hole appeared like two
intersecting circles. The place of intersection
was wide open and the two circles were touching
each other with concentric rings that bore in
towards the centre, and were trying to merge
into each other. Baba used this stone to
illustrate His point and then gave it to a
sadhak in the group, named Gill. About a
year later Gill happened to show it to some
Indian friends in Juhu, Bombay. They told him,
to his utter astonishment, that the stone, with
the imprint blown on it was a fossil called
Saligram and that it was used by Hindus for
worship. Howard Melvin, a member who happened to
be one of this group told me about this
interesting incident.
Another fact
that sets us wondering regarding Baba, is the
many-facetedness of His personality. One sees in
Him a paragon upon which each one models
himself. The manager of a mighty manufacturing
concern sees in Him an ideal organizer and
manager. A doctor sees in Him the perfect master
of diagnostic and medical skill. An engineer or
architect finds in Him the master who humbles
their pride with a blue pencil and fills their
heads with ideas and designs, any one of which
can make a fortune for them through its beauty
and practicability. A musician finds in Baba the
primal source of melody and harmony. When
someone praised Baba for his musical talent and
compared Him favourably with Thyagaraja, Baba
asked him. "And
who do you think taught Thyagaraja
music?"
Baba is the poet of poets. Not only is He
Himself an inspiring theme; His conversation and
charm release in the poet springs of inspiration
hidden away for a long time (see
'poets meet').
A philosopher can learn from Baba the art of
laying bare enigmatic thought-processes in a
simple and straightforward manner. A painter of
genius meets his challenge in the ever-varying
expressiveness of His face and eyes. An actor
learns from Him those subtle inflections and
intonations of the voice that best express the
soul. A trained teacher finds a master of
profoundly new methods in Baba. As the
Gîtâ says, "The Divine is the
best, the mightiest, the most charming, the
wisest, the highest and the most intricate
Being; an incarnation of the Divine bears this
stamp on its
personality."[***]
Baba asked Schulman; "How can a fish understand
the sky?" He also remarked elsewhere,
"I am all deities in one. You may endeavor your
best for thousands of years and have all mankind
with you in your search, but you cannot
understand My Reality."
In his book
entitled, 'Krishna, a study in the theory of the
Avatârs,' Bhagawandas speaks of the
circumstances that bring about the advent of an
Avatâr. "When false teachers arise
and elevate flesh above spirit, when the lower
passions and the six inner enemies or seven
deadly sins have mankind in their grip, when
ruthless ambition, selfishness and evil sway the
world, then it is that the Avatâr
appears. Each one of these three sets of
circumstances may bring about the advent of an
Avatâr. The predominance of false
teachers brings down the Avatâr who
re-illumines the science of spirit. When wrong
emotions prevail, there is the advent of the
Avatâr who is full of
love-compelling purity and self-effacement. When
evil rules the world, there is the advent of the
Avatâr who rights widespread wrongs
and is the adjuster of natural Karma."
[**]
We find in
Baba the integral manifestation that combines
these three roles. He is the great teacher,
far-famed for His simple and sweet exposition of
Vedanta
today. He is the great dispenser of love or
Prema.
Finally, He is the great restorer of the essence
of spirituality to mankind. We may say of Baba
what Prof. P. Shankaranarayanam says in his book
'Srî Râmacandra': "For man to
receive God's stimulus and to make the
responses, God must become a person in flesh and
blood, Human in His Divinity, and yet Divine in
His Humanity. To infinitise man, God has to
finitise Himself."
One
Word More
The
person who reads this book about Baba and the
two preceding parts in the series is sure to
experience an impact which will not allow him to
be the same again. He will have to take up the
challenge and prove it or disprove it to himself
for his own satisfaction, if he is in earnest
about the view of life presented in this book.
Baba can dismiss a cancerous growth by saying.
"The cancer is cancelled." He can extinguish
forest fires around the Kuchuma Mount on Mexican
border by a declaration made at His ashram in
India, "No more fires!". He can create a jar of
sacred ash which can never be exhausted by use,
and the gift of spiritual ecstasy by a simple
touch. He knows each one's past and future.
[Gîtâ
7.26]
He says that we are the same as He is. It is
simply our delusion that we feel we are
different.
The Publishers
Weekly wrote about Arnold Schulman's book,
'Baba': "Sathya Sai Baba calls Himself an
Avatâr, an Incarnation of God, His
followers who number over six millions, come to
His ashram at Puttaparthi in Southern India to
sit at His feet, sing their prayers and ask for
miracles. Baba answers their prayers: He cures
the incurable, materializes objects and holy
ashes, sustains the faithful and convinces the
doubtful."
We may
frequently fall into the error of deeming Baba
to be a mortal like ourselves, forgetting the
fact that He is the very Divine Essence that has
willed itself into each mortal body. Baba has
said that He as well as the Sai Baba of Shirdi
have been emanations of the same Essence. Baba
is one with all the Avatârs
[see also 'Bhagavân
on
Bhâgavatam']
that have descended so far and those that will
come hereafter.
There is no
inner circle or outer with regard to Baba's
devotees. All mankind is His fold. Numberless
persons have been drawn by Him, away from low
desires and passions, from fanatical and cynical
attitudes. The Name
'Sai'
will soon be embellished in every
heart.
Prasanthi
Nilayam is His Ashram at Puttaparthi, the
village which He has immortalized by deciding to
be born there. As He always says,
"My
residence is in your hearts. My Prasanthi
Nilayam is in
you."
Baba's Bhajans
have penetrated into numberless homes and led to
the itinerant singing in cities, waking up the
hearts of men to the glory of God. Baba can be
adored in all forms, and addressed by all the
names that God bears.
One sees in
Him the power that works as the effulgence of
the transcendent ray that beams beyond cosmic
laws. He calls us near and wipes our tears of
sorrow in spite of our faults and failures. He
declared in 1962 that the Chinese menace would
not be there at the time of the Birthday
Celebrations on November 23. It is a fact that
the Chinese retreated beyond the Himalayas on
the night of the 22nd November. In 1965, when
every one thought that the Dasara celebrations
should be postponed in view of the Pakistan
invasion, Baba declared that the Dassara
celebrations should be postponed in view of the
Pakistan invasion, Baba declared that the Dasara
celebrations should be held as usual. As a
matter of a fact, a cease-fire was ordered and
accepted three days earlier than Dasara. The
Fifth All India Conference of the Sathya Sai
Seva Samithis had been fixed in Madras to take
place on 22nd and 23rd December, 1971. There
were frantic telegrams whether the Conference
was postponed, for Pakistan bombed Indian
airfields on 3rd December. The events that
followed seemed to predict that there might soon
be a global war. Baba said that there would be
no war and that the Conference should be held as
planned. The war came to an end of the 17th
December,1971.
Baba is the
indweller in each human heart. He gathers people
around Him day after day and deals with them in
love and compassion. Physical illness, mental
worry, psychic disorder, economic want, family
discord, intellectual deficiency, professional
setback; He handles each problem as it comes
with unfailing skill.
He gives holy
ashes because that is the ultimate form that
things take - Alexanders, Napoleons, Hitlers
their ambitions and their empires. That is how
He teaches us the lesson of detachment. He cures
us of greed and hatred by reminding us of the
ultimate fate that awaits all earthly pomp and
glory.
That He is all
knowing, even a sceptic like Schulman was
compelled to admit when Baba mentioned to
Schulman his visit to Japan to study Zen
Buddhism and other details. Schulman thought
that Baba was parading information that He had
collected from Dr. Gokak about him. Sensing this
the very minute, Baba told Schulman that Gokak
had given Him no information. He proceeded to
refer to a certain ailment of his wife which no
one else had known. He told him that it was Baba
who had brought about the disappearance of this
ailment a week before he boarded the plane for
India so that he could come to India in time.
Baba is an open book for all to read. He is the
Guide as well as the Goal.
Shirdi
Sai Baba discussing Bhagavad Gîtâ in
Sanskrit
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Bhajans
[*]
Bhagavad
Gîtâ: Chapter 7, verse
26:
'I
know all of the past, the present and, O Arjuna,
the future as well of all living beings, but Me
nobody [really] knows'.
Bhagavad
Gîtâ: Chapter 9, verse
11:
'The
foolish look down upon My having assumed the
human form, not knowing of My transcendental
nature and that I am the Great Lord of
all'.
[**] Bhagavad
Gîtâ: Chapter 4, verse
7:
'Whenever
and wherever it is sure that one weakens in
righteousness and a predominance of injustice
does manifest, o descendant of Bharata, at that
time I do manifest Myself'.
Bhagavad
Gîtâ: Chapter 4, verse
9:
'Anyone
who knows as such of my divine birth(s) and
activities will never, after leaving his body,
take birth again, but will attain Me, O
Arjuna'.
[***] See Chapter 10
of the Bhagavad
Gîtâ