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MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES
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SUPER SAINT
SADGURU SAI NATH
BY DHARMA SAI
CONTENTS
Acknowledgement
Introduction
Little Advice
I. Mysteries of Mystery
ii. Mystery of Birth
iii. Mystery of Universe, Life and Death
iv. Mystery of Rebirth
v. Mystery behind Fire workship
vi. Saints and Their Miracles
vii. What part is played by Sai in the Miracle of Creation?
viii. Sai-The Supreme Saint
ix. How Sai Baba Helps us a Theosophical View
x. The Goal of Life, The Goal of Knowledge: What is it
xi. Life Divine (Realisation of self)
xii. Yoga for all
xiii. Bhakti, Bhagwan & Bagavats
xiv. The Reality Behind Prayer and its Benefits
xv. Spiritual Significance of "Dhuni"
xvi. "Self Research"
xvii. Peace of Mind
xviii The Significance of Udi and Dakshina to Human life
xix. The Allah Malikh of Shirdi
xx. Our Six Relatives
xxi. Mystery of Divine Incarnation
xxii. Mind-Hindrance in Self Realisation
xxiii God - Realisation (Ignorance or Reality)
xxiv. Paramahamsa Yogis
xxv. A Brief About The Author
.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTLet me express my full faith and my profuse indebtedness first to the Divine
Lord "Sadguru Sai Nath Maharaj” without whose inspiration this book would
never have been conceived. It is He who encouraged and guided me throughout
in writing this book.
I am also thankful to the editor and all writers of articles published in "Sai
Leela" magazine. This magazine is published by "Sri Sai Baba Sansthan, Shirdi".
My thanks are also due to Shri R. Seshadri, Editor "SAI PADANANDA"
published by "Sri Sai Spiritual Centre" Bangalore, for editing this book and his
valuable help in completion of this book.
I would also like to mention many thanks to Sai devotees who after reading
the articles written by me and also my previous book "Sai Baba Ki Da in - Atma
Gayan" in Hindi, encouraged and urged me to write this book.
Finally I express my sense of intense gratitude to the almighty Brahman for
choosing me, as His instrument, to unveil the mysteries of the universe and
Sanatan Mythology.
Dharam Sai
INTRODUCTIONTo you, who are devoid of the Carping spirit, I shall now unfold the most
scared knowledge
Of Nirguna Brahma along with the knowledge of manifest Divinity knowing
which you shall be Free from the evil of worldly Existence.
(Lord Krishna, Gita, Chapter 9, Text 1)
The world, Sun, Moon and other planets can be seen with naked eyes or
can be observed by instruments. But till date the universe and what it consists
remains a Mystery. The subject of universe is out of the scope of this book. In this
book we have tried to reason out the cause of manifestation of the world along with
living and non-living matters existing.
It is a well-known fact that this world has five most important elements i.e.,
Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth. Every living or non-living matter in this world has
all these five elements subject to the influence of its own nature.
In Bhagavat Gita, Lord Krishna told Arjuna "Just as the extensive air, which
is moving everywhere, (being born of ether) ever remains in ether, likewise know
that all things (who have originated from My Thought) abide in me". (Gita Chapter
9, Text 6). The meaning of "being born from ether" means cosmic energy.
The great Sages and Siddas of the inerrant past, by their strong intution and
through long range vision, had also found an inter-related celestial (terrestrial)
connected phenomena which are the cause of changes in cosmic order, which
controls and direct every happenings on earth (world), be it living or non-living.
They observed these happenings and recorded in Vedas. In the later days, the
Upanishads which form part the Vedas contain the records of spiritual truths, the
eternal teachings of religion. Further research was carved out, by great thinkers,
and they found several new truths and gave a new life to the Upanishads.
As the years passed by, till latter days thinkers were no match to the sages
of the yore and failed to interpret them properly for lack of guidance. Everyone,
even Sanskrit scholars, started giving their own interpretation without any rhyme or
reason. Naturally the Vedas and Upanishads became to be looked upon as
superstitions, as mysteries, a lie, a fatalistic subject and so on.
The universe and every thing in this universe, living or non-living, is a
mystery. Even the so-called Brahman or God (the creator) is a mystery. God is
not a finite corporeal being that is why it is said that He is all pervading,
omnipresent, absolute and formless. It is a Material Law that anything which is
physical is subject to change, birth, bloom, decay and destruction. God being
eternal is, however, beyond any change, He moves and acts without needing any
corporeal space or size or form a colour of any other property or matter. Some say
He is pure Mind but the Bible described Him as spirit! Atman)” God is spirit and
they that worship Him must worship Him as spirit (as Truth"). (Bible John 4:24).
What is spirit or Atman A mystery of which no clear definition is available?
This world is unreal. It is mere appearance. This Jiwa is identical with the
Sat-Chit Ananda a Brahman (God) as per Vedanta-Sarallopanishad (Mantra 1-a
part). It means that when ignorance is dispelled, one's Atman (essential-self)
shines of itself in its true state. Whatever you see is like a mirage in a desert. The
objects have a beginning and an end. This world is involved into its cause, the
casual matter or non-manifest state during cosmic pralaya. This self-effulgent
Atman which is distinct from the five sheaths, the silent witness of the three states,
which is unchanging, pure, eternal indivisible, all-full, self-contained, an
embodiment of peace, bliss and knowledge, is to be realized as one's own self.
That which is of the same nature is not affected by anything during the three
periods of time, is Sat Sat (absolute existence) only was prior to the evolution of
this universe. When darkness was rolling over darkness during the cosmic
Pralaya (dissolution), Sat alone was. Chit is that which knows itself and knows
others. It shines by itself and illumines (intellect, sun, moon, stars and other
objects), it is absolute consciousness. Ananda is pure bliss.
Though the sages were firm in declaring that the Brahman alone was true,
yet this world of duality which is a matter of experience to everyone had to be
explained. They had to recognize this fact and had to harmonise this world with
the one reality, the Brahman. This they attempted by saying that this world is
created out of Brahman, in it exists, and in it, it is at dissolved at the end. In other
words, Brahman is the essence of this world. This explanation, however, was
perfected by Shankara by propounding what is known as the Vivarta-Vada or
apparent manifestation of the world, giving the world a relative reality. Vivata-Vada
is undoubtedly the most cogent explanation of creation.
According to Shankara, God is the material cause of the universe but only
apparently and not in reality. The whole universe as it exists, is that beings in Suf
cult it is said that every thing in this universe is God in different forms. Yet it is
unchanged, and all the changes are caused by Nama and Rupa (Name and form),
which are the cause of all differentiation. When one is ignorance one sees the
phenomena and not the reality; where one realises the noumenon one does not
see the phenomena. It is either the snake or the rope but
never both simultaneously. Ignorance or Maya is the cause of all this duality,
the absolute being mistaken for the world. This Maya is not absolute nothing or
non-existent; for if it were, it could never produce the phenomena. It is not also
existent, because that can be truly said only of the Absolute. So it is something
which is neither; and in Vedanta it is called Anirvachaniya or inexpressible".
This Maya gives the name and form to what Brahman gives the material and the
latter seams transformed into all this". There is no place in reality for the individual
soul; the reality is one existent, Sat, and the duality is due to ignorance. All our
idea of fear, misery, and other evils are false and due to the idea of differentiation
and vanish with the knowledge of the Brahman or self. Where one hears another,
one sees another that is small; where one does not see another, is God. In that
greatest is perfect happiness. In small things there is no happiness.
The issue being of paramount importance, it merits deeper pondering over
what the body and wise have said in this regard.
The inferior devotee says, "God exists, but he is very far off up there in
heaven". The mediocre devotee says, "God exists in all being as life and
consciousness". The superior devotee says "It is God himself who has become
everything what ever I see is only a form of God. It is He alone who has become
Maya, the universe and all living beings. Nothing exists but God" (Shri Rama
Krishna)
The superior devotees who sees God in everything, be it living or non-
living, are called Turiashrama (the fourth order) Yogi or Paramahamsa yogi, which
they reach through the merits acquired by the strenuous exertion of many
previous births (Paramahamsopanishad Mantra 1). The Gnosis (merifah) Sufi
is also of the fourth order as per Sufi cult and is of the Paramahamsa stations.
Yogis or Sufis of fourth order seen not the self as individualized in himself or in
others, but in its true essence. Yogi, or Sufi, or Great Master, or Sadguru are
difficult to be found because there is always one at a time in any country (as per
Mantra 1 mentioned above) and their self (Atman) is self contained, and invisible,
unchanging, all full, eternal and pure, they enjoy pure bliss (The happiness), the
happiness enjoyed by the king of the Gods, or by the sovereign ruler of all men, is
nothing compared to with what belongs to such yogi who is devoid of attachment
and is steadfast in the knowledge of the self. One chapter on Paramahamsa Yogi
is included in this book. (as defined in Paramahamsopanishad).
(Gita ch 3, Text 7 and 8) Lord Krishna told Arjuna, "Whenever
righteousness is on the decline, the unrighteousness is in the ascendant, then I
body Myself forth for the protection of the virtuous, for the enterpation of evil doers,
and for establishing Dharma (right-consciousness) on a firm footings, I am born
from age to age.
The above statement declares that God takes birth in the form of prophet or
saint. The comparison between Sai Baba and any philosopher, Prophet and saint
can only be adious and none should even be attempted. Sai Baba being a
paramahamsa Yogi was also Gnoas (marifah) Sufi. He was a saint of very high
order (Para-Brahman) and had full control upon Parakirti and Maya, Though he
being uneducated he was found explaining the meaning of verses from all religious
literature of Gita, Kuran etc., Baba had no formal education but who so ever came
in contact with him, always, looked up to him as "Knowledge-incarnate", Sai Baba
spoke with the total assurance of one who had no doubts about the powerness he
could say like Christ, "Come into Me", have full faith in me and I assure you that
you will be freed of all miseries and attain the bliss.
For the saints, or sufi, or yogi of Sai Baba's caliber, Lord Krishna said "The
devotees, however, who loving no one else constantly think of Me, and worship Me
in a disinterested spirit, to those ever united in thought with Me bring full security
and personally attend to their needs." (Gita Ch9, Text 22).
The book in the life of Sadguru Sai Baba "Shri Sai Satcharita" by Shri
Govind R Darbhol Kar (Hemad Pant) is the only reliable book on Sai Baba. While
reading this book you will come across lots of miracles performed by Shri Sai, like
lighting lamps without oil and with water only, bringing down the flames of Dhuni by
use of wooden satka, stopping the rain, sleeping on a plank which was suspended
from the roof with the help of worn out cloth pieces etc., These miracles performed
by Sabi Baba was not to get fame or to show that he can and had powers to make
impossible into possible. Bu he wanted all human to realize that they have all the
powers, which are in universe, in them and there self (Atman) is Brahman, just as a
drop of sea water has the same properties as sea. These powers can only be
developed if they have full faith in Guru and confident in themselves to realize self
(Atman) capabilities. By these miracles Baba showed us the way to self-
realisation.
"Gems of Wisdom" are gathered in this book and are available for the more
asking. May the readers be reached of knowledge? May the grace of Sai Baba
embrace them in His loving embrace?
- Dharam Sai
.
LITTLE ADVICE
The Writers of such articles, Mysteries of Mystery, need necessarily to have
clear perception and enlightened idea what they have to achieve by such healthy,
spiritually enrich and enlivened writings to be read by all people who are either
social workers, students, curious observers, etc. so as to be goaded and guided to
set themselves on the right thinking lines. These writers have the responsibility to
write with an analytical mind, such articles to be read and properly understood by
people, specially of the lower strata so that they can be elevated to higher levels of
understanding.
In any literary work, deviate, seminar, expositions, preface is an important
part. It is the breath of what is contained in the book in the form of letters, words,
sentences, etc. Propounding as principles and the balance exposition thereof.
That breath shouldn't be unbalanced nor suffer from short breath, but should enjoy
the balanced proportions of "Maha Prana", that means the listeners, readers and
practitioners should also experience the
after effects of balanced (Samana Vayu and Prana Vayu) and simultaneously
issuing forth such vibrations to readers and everybody denoting the long breath of
pranayama, Or else it should be of the same caliber as the mysteries as the
subject of Mystery of Mysteries. Otherwise the effected patient will not receive the
high frequency vibrations but will only feel a tingling sensation of the bracing of
lower frequency of vibrations. Consequently the blemish imposed on mystery of
mysteries superstitious belief will persist forever.
Everybody doesn’t observe the facts of the colour of a rainbow. But it is
perceptive only from certain specific angles of the light. Certain colour patterns
alone are visible near the Polar Regions. It is the height of folly to say that a
certain colour pattern or combination doesn't exist in the region. We should not be
obstinate in denying the existence of anything merely because of their
invisibleness, in audibleness or incomprehensibility to our intellect. In the
learning of the mystical science there is an angle of understanding.
The gradual UN foldment of the wheel of the universe is a mystery. The
rotation of the earth round its axis is also a mystery. Life by itself too is a mystery,
vice a versa the death. But mysteries will ease to be mysteries or as mere
superstitious beliefs when once science begins to study and examine the
phenomenon in an unbiased and a detached way.
DHARAM SAI
MYSTERIES OF MYSTERYThe spiritual illustrations of Sai Nath are mysteries. Baba's miracles are a
mystery. Dream illustrations given by him to foreign devotees of Baba are also
mysteries. In short Baba himself is a mystery. While writing about the
experiences pertaining to Baba the question about miracle persists. After having
perfected himself of the science of mysteries Shri Sai Baba lighted the lamps using
water for oil. The miracle itself is classified as superstitious believes by the so-
called illogical intellectual and this attitude is day-by-day increasing. The time has
come for devotees like us to put a stop to this attempt by the crowd of growing non-
believers.
But, for that purpose, we, as writers of articles like "Mysteries of
Mystery" have to be continuous and careful to put down our experiences about
Baba.
People have to be enlightened and set on the proper logical thinking track
by writing about the mysteries of mysteries to relive them from the imbalanced
mind and body arising out of family quarrels, tensions, indisciplined food habits,
beneficial on contrary, lack of proper understanding, illogical thinking, vain
arguments, deep shuddering, imbalanced experiences of life's events, distorted,
diabolical desperadoes ruling the roost and to wean such persons from
quarrelsome, mentally and spiritually dissipating atmosphere and to set them to
enjoy the freedom of elevated thinking, such popular writings depicting the
correct version of Baba's deeds of mysteries must be encouraged.
A tired traveler in the sandy desert of an imbalanced life, need cold water to
quench the thirst of his parched throat which is his nectar. A patient on deathbed,
who is dying in depressed, dissipated spirit and mind arising out of disbelief, can
be given at leisure of Baba's mysteries through such enlightened writings as
these.
For example the epic Ramayana is not only people with hundreds of model
characters who make this tale immortal and inseparable from the constitution of
both our mind and body. Rama personifies the maryada purshottam of the ruler,
while Sita depicts the strength of famine virtues. When one takes this view, the
Ramayana ceases to be a "Story" of great people who did great deeds in the past.
In fact, it is about the fight between the good and evil that's deep within us. The
internal Ramayana ought to be observed before reading and comprehending the
actual epic.
Rama, in the internal Ramayana of this mortal body, stands for our
consciousness, which is turn is born when the ten senses are under perfect
tandem. Ten or Dash, and senses or Rath are personified in existence of
Dashrath of whom is born Rama.Consciousness thus rules when senses are under
control. But the regime of Dashrath comes to an end when one of the ten senses
goes beyond control. This one sense which fights the harmony of Ayodhya is lust,
personified by none other then the Queen, Kaikai.
Ravana or ego (also Dashmukh i.e. ten-headed is born to bring about the
destruction and the ultimate victory of good over evil. Here Dashmukh stands for
the ten senses gone totally out of control.
Meanwhile, Kaikai (symbolizing lust for power) brings about the premature
of death of Dashrath, which also leads the story of Ramayana to a 14-year tenure
(Vanvas) in the jungle. Rama, Sita and Laxman who go to live in the forest
personify the union of consciousness, body and mind. Sita the physical aspect of
consciousness, willfully sides with Rama (consciousness), while Laxman or union
of aim (laxhya=objective) and mind (mann-mind) is a guiding star and the third
force in the trinity.
But the mind is distracted by maya (Mareech, the deer). The body, too
takes leave of its consciousness and becomes a pawn in the hands of ego.
Symbolically this signifies the episode where Laxman is led astray by Mareech
while Sita is abducted by Ravana (Ego). Further, the story of the Ramayana
portrays the episodes interlinked with each other and which depict how
consciousness wins over ego1 or in the metaphorical sense how Rama wins over
Ravana. To kill the ego or Ravana, Rama has to take control of
he mind through pran vayu (Pavan Putra Hanuman).
The consciousness later has to be strengthened by intellect, which is
Sugreeva. Intellect is refereed to as Budhi, which one can find in the strategies of
Sugreeva. But to be one up over the intellect, lust needs to be curbed. This lust is
personified by Bali in the epic. Lust or greed can only be conquered by killing it
from behind, which Rama does. The final conquest of the senses occurs when
thoughts are in absolute symphony.
Thoughts, which often go haywire, are the Vanars of the Vanar Sena, which
assist the consciousness or Rama in his battle with By the virtue of this harmony,
our consciousness is able to kill in succession tamas (or Kumbhkaran), rajas
(Meghnath) and finally
the ego (Ravana). When ahankar or ego is killed, satva prevailsVibhishana
personified satva in Ramayana. (Tamas means sluggishness, rajas means
aggressiveness and satva means purity of mind).
Eventually Rama returns to Ayodhaya, and an inevitable satvic atmosphere
is restored. The Ramayana is mysteries of mystery and is not just an epic. It has
much more to give, which is incorporated and observed and leads to a life of bliss
and purity.
Like Ramayana the Mahabharata epic is also full of mysteries of mystery,
even the birth of Lord Krishna is full of mystery and his birth symbolizes a bigger
reality. Krishna represents Brahman or "God Consciousness” Being in touch
with your consciousness is what spiritual health is all about. Krishna Avtar is
synonymous with self-realisation.
Ignorance is symbolized by a poison, which represents darkness, narrow
mindness (small entry gate): limitedness (small room) or things that keep the
mind, body and the soul in prison like conditions. The chain in the prison means
the bondage of lust, greed, desires and the ego.
Birth of Krishna in prison means self-realisation born out of ignorance. Self-
realisation can be acquired only by adhering to the eight principles of Ashtanga
yoga with tapas (abhaya) of hard work. Shri Krishna, born, as the eighth child of
Devaki, represents tapas of eight limbs of yoga, Self-realisation i.e. the eight step,
can only occur after the first seven steps are successfully negotiated and the mind
is purified in the process.
In the state of Samadhi, there is spontaneous birth of the self. In this state
(Sama=Equal; Dhi=intelligence) of controls equality, you balance your self
between the good and the bad.
The symbolism is that as Krishna was born, the chains that bound his father
fell, the doors that had been bolted fleas open and the prison guards suddenly
went to sleep. While the father, Vasudeva took the child and went to Gokul.
Around the same time, Yashodha, the consort of Nanda, gave birth to a female
child.
The chains here imply the bondage to the eternal world and the five senses.
A self-realized person is free of these bondages. The opening of the gates means
control over lust, desires, greed and attachments. The sleeping guards stand for
all that's asleep in the self.
The thunderstorm, the rain and the fire represent the internal turmoil of the
uncontrolled desires and hatred. The moment Krishna’s feet are touched by the
turbulent waters, everything settles. The lesson is that by turning towards
your consciousness you can calm the self. Controlling the ego is depicted by the
snake sitting over the basket and guarding Krishna. The girl represents the
Mayashakti, that is killed by Kansa (the ego).
Controlling your desires and vasanas is easy but controlling your ego is the
most difficult thing. That is what is represented by the fact that at the time of Lord
Krishna's birth, Kansa still remained alive. It took many years for Krishna (self
realize state) to kill the ego (Kansa).
Thus, acquiring a state of self-realisation is not the ultimate goal in life. After
self-realisation if your ego controls you, you can misuse your spiritual powers. The
ultimate aim inlifeshould then be to kill the ego, which is what Krishna ultimately
did.
Health is not defined as the mere absence of disease but as a state of
Physical, Mental, Social, Spiritual and Environmentalwell being. Attaining mental
and spiritual health is one of the most important aims in maintaining good health.
The same can be achieved only by controlling the trials of mind, intellect and
ego on one side and fear, attachments and anger on the other. One of the ways is
to realize the scientific aspects of religion. Both the Ramayana and the
Mahabharatha have a scientific basis. The birth of Krishna similarly has a Vedantic
basis, which depicts the principles of acquiring spiritual health.
Ramayana and Mahabharata, the two epics are the citation (Darshan) of
how man is and how he ought to be, are the observations
on these two fundamentals of life's gradual unfoldment and development. The
later writings appear to have displayed this very attempt of unfoldment and
enlargement by persons, provinces, individuals and society later. Out of this
appearance the authors of and writers of mysteries have not escaped the clutches.
Writing on mysteries needs the inevitable embroideries, embellishments and
broaching of miracles in all their glitters. But if it is not introspective in the
appearance then there is a danger of it axing at the roots of knowledge that can
delve into the depths of mysteries creating thus more confusion, if not confounding
further only to feel the arrogant, idiotic and indolent beliefs. Consequently it
encourages social evils, meaningless mind-boggling rituals encouraging
unholy and unworthy social evils preventing the society from leading it along paths
beyond repair and of no return.
Solid forty years of one's life squeezed, nailed and hit grooved and carved
by events which made it oscillate, the spiritual man and individual entity or a
collective being who has done intense practice (Sadhana) cogitation, devote,
lecturing, repeated recitation, rendition culminating in the writing of epics and if
after all those when we study such individuals in the later half of their lives they
appear to be a constantly agitated, abrasive, discredited, dilapidated, decrepit,
dishonored, abandoned, dejected and appear to be running towards their own
spiritual annihilation. In the end having reached the abyss of no return and
frustrated recluses ruffian, they become addicts and terrorists and impotent
cowards. Such galaxy of people become the medium of intellectual idiocy and
according to their intellectual speculation religion is considered as the opium pills.
Such was the episode which happened in one of the by-gone days. In the later
period a near atmosphere of thoughts prevailed and a new society appeared on
the horizon and in such a frustrated condition and artificially recreated atmosphere,
the very thought of "Dharma Shastra" as made to disappear in the black hole of
nowhere and in the end it was branded as superstitious belief.
Why should it happen So some thought spiritualism as a misfit and not worth
loving and so the confusion prevailed. In the post Ramayana and Mahabharata
period the principles evolved in them appeared to be beyond comprehension so as
to become a part of life and thought and the result was there was a void and an
abyss created by these. Such an abyss turns out to be profound fear and such a
fear became a bridging ground between two poles in time to come. The wicks of
thoughts produced by discipline and culture become strong by the amount of twist
given to the two threads. The light of wisdom shines more and more by the use
of oil got from unmolested observations and unobstructed examination.
In the post Ramayana and Maharabharata period the twisted wick and the oil got
separated thus producing improper understanding and disillusionment. In
each compartment there came an unfilled gap. The traveller along the path
having to cross-insurmountable valleys of fear is lifted to the top in the wheel of
life. Having begun the journey with a misunderstood enlightenment but virtually
treading an unlighted path, finding his way about ultimately converted into regarded
metamorphosis. He got embroiled into the wheel of reincarnation without a guide.
There arose a question that in the game of snake and ladder of the life and death
what was binding bridge that could be made available to the traveller expect the
constant dread, if not fear. The epic story of Ramayana and the Mahabharata
are not merely a mystifying story or history but a road leading an aspirant to the
goal of liberation and fulfillment. The thoughts embodied in them are mostly
allegorical and so difficult to understand. That which is allegorical or allergic in
belief and the toiler acquired this allergy of belief in course of time has lost his
balance. There arose a fear of misunderstanding. He loses his bearings and
mooring by the repetition of his misunderstanding what came in the road of
misunderstanding gets guideless. Having become direction less. We all grope in
darkness in search of a bearer of a torch to lead us ahead, but instead we only add
to the load of misunderstanding. Such a stage arose in the past in the life of the
society where Ramayana and Mahabharata were born and so for got how these
epics were created in such a state of affairs.
No wise counsel was given by Lord Krishna to Arjun when he asked about
the performance of 'Sradha and Tarpana' but only suggested to give up the chase.
Thus begins the first chapter of "Bhagawat Gita".
The periodic evolution of mankind had to be achieved and so Mahabharata
was written. For this a proper man was to be created. This was unavoidable
because there was a hermitage available in the mountains of Vindhyachala of
Acharya Sandipani where the code of conduct of Vaishnava Tantra evolved and
established by the Acharya, which aimed at homosapiens being elevated into the
position of a Superman continuously and incessantly. In the process of so
creating such a super personality the experiment in occult practices were utilized
involving various mystic knowledge and crafts.
Acharya Sandipani himself having evolved experimented going thorough the
mill of disciplines, found Sri Krishna the right sapling to be raised to the position of
a superman and to teach him imposed the bondage of the discipline and
discipleship in him. And the child prodigy Sri Krishna had to keep his flute as
Šmortgage to the vow of bondage of discipleship to Acharya Sandipani. Sri
Krishna became the ideal Superman to bridge the gap between Homo sapiens and
the superman and eventually he became only an honest observer of Mahabharata
and he fulfilled this mission.
In contrast the other heroes who are described as "Rati", "Atirati', 'Maharati'
and 'Yudha Visharad' (war lords), 'Veer', 'Dheer', have to be absorbed and found
out how Mahabharata had to be created and what were the other instruments
required to create the situation. The study of these objects becomes essential.
The mortal frame and the sword is a developed point (Bindhu) revolving its
own limited axis. The waves of thought vibration so created and in that process if
found its own bearing of a circle, which became his foundation seat of identity. But
in the process of creating a new edition of itself, it gave place to a thought Kala.
Having become aware, he became a social self. Now there arose a gap between
social self and the collective of, which was widening to become the
cause of belligerency. Out of this fear was born the 3rd circle of selfish notions of
worldly wealth and in their possession of it, the mine and yours also created. The
world began to manifest between these two poles of social self and collective self,
which became conscious of wealth. The action and reaction began
to oscillate between these two and the ever-increasing fear resulted in and it gave
the balm of this ointment. Consequently the self and the collective
self both became slaves and the victims of the oblation of the five virtual resulting
in the mortal man lose the transparency of his individuality and got transfixed which
produced in him the ever flowing tears of sorrow. And so his thought
process results in refining observations as a vision. The gross opaque, which
resulted in tension, constant moistening of the eyes, which may result in tearful
emotionality. All this he did and understood as to establish his social self and to
explain this social self the epic describes as follows: -
There are 18,000 chief parts and there are as many sub-divisions which give
and take, which creates a mental dialogue, feeds and several such qualitative
individual who are ever charging emotional and yet joined together is defined as
social self. This is also called as self-satisfaction and is also called as "Aswatha”
which is literally split up as ‘A’ meaning negation. 'SWA' means existence and
'THA' means today or at this moment.
The social self of man appears as below: -
'A' means up to a point, 'BHA' means light of soil and 'SA' means source
of emerging knowledge. Such appears the ASWATHA PRATISHTAS as such.
She is the handmade of the Goddess of destiny. She is also the queen and the
imminent form of Maya (illusion). This becomes the perfect form of (Prakriti).
This is how Veda Vyas who has defined (Prathishta) the social self as such
has to be meditated upon. There arose a clash in the collective self, which had
reached the zenity of progress of social self. Present technology era the answer to
this was given arising out of 'Newtons How and Aristotles Why’. Although Sri
Krishna, disciple of Santipini, was administratively ordained, but the period
thereafter had no organized administration as such. It was here the Vedanta and
thought from mystical science and thought arising out of that, which created the
flow and its directionless growth became ever able to become a demonic flow and
in the on coming future the individual and the collective self, maintained its identity
and individuality began to fabricate ever new dialogues and the product thereof.
The flow of thought ever became stronger in the quadrangular facets of self,
collective self, social self-wellbeing. This was a result of the question how to
think. The religious scriptures which taught how to think began to fabricate
mystical thought allegorical characters to undo knowledge. The ill omens of
thoughtless atmosphere began to blow about.
Out of this confusion the attitude of let the by gone be buried in the grave
and by taking shelter behind this with the process of how to think through 'Veda
Vidya, Gudha Vidya’ and the relative sciences became the target proposition and
that became the yard stick of behaviour, Really the sage's sayings, prophet's
preaching and religious scriptures became useless and they never came to the
rescue of humanity. Was it so and so arose a series of questions. Once more the
thought process reversed and it appeared that whatever the saints,
sages and well-meaning people thought and said became secretive in appearance
and hence unknown. The secretive composition of these people became the ideal
but why was it so
Physiologically man appears to breathe. Similarly any living object with a
figure which can be called a flexible electromagnetic system appears to
breathe. The breath is the medium by which an object exists which is called a
continuous process. This causes the brain to remain ever active, the bodily
nerves and arteries lose their tension and when proper breathing process is
adopted it is possible to prolong life. This breathing process or breath itself is
termed as life itself.
At the present time we are breathing less of 'Prana-Vayu’, which is clear
breath, and breathe more of the Avantra Vayu, i.e. polluted air. Because the intake
of Prana Vayu being not enough, the body metabolism begin to age quicker
then necessary and making us 'nirutsag', lethargic and dense. There is a certain
flow of vibration, speech, behaviour etc. in other words there is a proper flow of
music in it. And this flow denotes the individuality of that man's nature. It is also
a moving pictorial chart of his existence of his life force. They are called as
'Dheehi', vibrational inebriation in the language of mystical science. In the modern
technological science it is called attractant chemicals. When this flow of 'Dheehi'
is unbalanced it results in 'Vyadhi' (Vya+Aa+Dheehi) as it is called so. The
balanced flow of 'Deehi', vibration makes our brain the resultant memory and
thought become ever productive of thoughts and activities Further more, still
refined, the process of flow which is more balanced the super self ego begins to
experience a new awareness. This process is called 'Samadhi'
(Sam+Aa+Dheehi).
What is more is perfectly clear that all of us must practice and learn the
science of perfect breathing.
In all religious scriptures the political creations of saints and sages are set in
the meter and rhyme in the appropriate political science. In these creations there
is a peculiar collective combination of words mixed with a flow of music,
with rhyming words, similes, metaphors, etc. To solve the question of what the
saints and sages did for us we should direct the flow of breath in the poetic
creation of the sages. In other words our breath should flow in line with the
cadenzas of the musical meter of the poetic flow of our saints and sages. Our
inflow and outflow of breath should be musically aligned to the music flow of the
compositions. This breathing process becomes rhythmic properly lined and
poetical and get absorbed in it. The result is that all the bodily activities in the
nervous and the artery systems which depends on the pressure of the blood, and
such activities acquire a vibrational second wind which brings the blood to a normal
flow relaxing the nervous system resulting in a ‘laya’ of the music or 'Samadhi'.
The vibrational wave of ‘Dheehi’ get locked into Samadhi instead of getting blocked
in Vyadhi. As a result thereof we breathe the correct Prana Vayu; we become ever
young and our thinking gets pure, subtle and rarefied. Howsoever the atmosphere
may be polluted the existence of 'Prana Vayu' cannot be denied. Since we are
afflicted with a disease ridden body we are unable to breath the original 'Pran
Vayu'.
The poetical creations of saints and sages is a bridge among nature,
animals, the words and the surrounding visionary objects. There is a vivid rhythm
in the poetical creation of saints which depicts the visionary aspect of trees,
creepers, vegetation and the music arising out of this vision and vibrational effect
'Dheehi', which depicts the unifying force and the identifying medium resulting in
pure rhythm. Man, animal and vegetation are the trial of the wheel of total life on
this earth. The instrument that causes the union of these through which causes to
vibrate in union of rhymes, rhythm and beat is the music of flute. How to achieve
such an atmospheric union can be found, is only the answer, that is the poetical
creation of the saints and sages should become a part of our breath. This is called
"Sama Swasam” or rhythmic breathing as denoted by the esoteric sciences.
Now we the process of this "Sama Swasam" is a direct result of identifying of the
poetical creation. In other words, if we bodily identify ourselves inside out of a
poetical creation all our chemical voltage get converted and the complete
metabolism is born; the imbalance is replaced by the balance and the duality
between the life and death and we become our independent observer of this
duality.
Mysteries are known by personal experiences; experiences means the
resultant controlled action of sequences of events. Today in this world here are
133 procedures of religious beliefs out of which the Hindu, Bhoudha, Jain, Sikh,
Confusian, Tas, Shints, Islam, Yehudi, Sufi, Christian and the Parsi religious
beliefs, all such believers total nearly 314 of the world population. These
twelve and the remaining religious leaders, writers and composers have passed
most valuable part of their lives in the company of one or the other animal. Their
bondage with these animals appears to be the most evolutionary time span in their
lives. In the age-old ancient institutions of hermitage of India, animals have played
an important part because they are called "Yash" bestower of boons. All through
the Bhagawat Gita there is reference of them being near to the human being, even
nearer then the preceptors themselves. Today there are 380 languages with script
and about 10,000 or more dialects.
Bhagawat Gita appears to have been translated into almost all languages
with a script.
They know where there is evidence of knowledge about letters and words
denoting Shri Krishna. In India in all the languages the political works and the folk
tales with the memory Sri Krishna and Sri Rama appear to be imprinted.
The relationship between the saints and sages and their experiences with
Sri Rama and Sri Krishna are Vaishnava Tantra oriented and the answer to this is
found in all the Adhayayas of Bhagwat Gita.
Sri Krishna, disciple of Sandipani, was the last Sidda Purushottam of
Vaishnava Tantra Methodology of that period. The process of creating a perfect
man was available in the only and one individual like that of Sri Krishna who was
perfect in that art. He inherited the responsibility of the entire Mahabharat towards
himself. The period after Mahabharat, the process of creating the perfect man,
the pure thought, his religious responsibility was left to Sri Krishna, the one and
only super conscious creative intellect (Dhyana Brahman) becoming the cutelrtic
agent of converting imperfection to perfection. The period that followed got
ingrained in Krishna became the apitome as the embodiment of advice and
initiation in the form of Dhyana, Yog, and Tapa. He became the Lord of action
(Karma Yogi) and began to be worshipped so. The science of Tantra lays
emphasis on esoteric, mystery, rhyme, rhythm and coded aphorisms (Sutras). The
Tantra Shastra contains 18000 kinds of methodology based on the study of
the wisdom of alphelogy, estoteric sonology, rythomology, esfleric geometry and
mystic aphaoresomology. In acomposition, a verse is based on the rhythmic flow
of appropriate words in positive and their rhythms of composition become the wrap
and woof of the work fabric. The peculiar condition of mixing of these forces
creates a powerful electromagnetic field. The body in which this process is
continuously created gives birth to the optic beams (primal power in man) or
Kundalini, which is latent in the body. The adjoining atmosphere and the body
given to constant reincarnation in and the oscillating human body a kind of
unification is created which is the resultant resonance.
And so we must emotionally identify our breath in the rhythmic creation
of the great saints and then only we will begin to understand what kind of legacy
has been left by the great saints and sages.
The time has come to rectify the mistaken notion of branding the ancient
literature as superstitious beliefs. Before we began to write, broadcast and say at
great length about the mystic science before it is brought to lift, we ought to be alert
and astute, we have to put all our negative qualities of egoism and their allied
evil propensities to acid test in the cubicle. Otherwise it is improper and imperfect.
On the writing on this subject in the province of mystic territory, the life of
ordinary beings is not a garland of questionable existence. The man who has
undertaken the task of removing impediment and obstacles goes to the process of
becoming a magnets supersonic superman. Our life is a game of snake and
ladders. The casting of the dice is not according to the wish of the thrower. We
have to be alert in throwing the dice. The study of the Ancient Wisdom (Sanatan
Dharam) is dependent on developed and accomplished alertness.
Vedas, Upanishads and Dharma Shastras have taught the art of swimming
through the blissful life of the ocean. The accomplished path of discovering the
road of blissful existence to extricate ourselves from the ever-increasing vibrations
of the imbalance and allied states was created by voluminous writings on Tantra
Shastra.
We should not be obstinate in denying the existence of anything merely
because of their invisibleness, inaudible ness or incomprehensibility to our
intellect. In the learning of the mystic science there is an angle of understanding.
Once that angular entry is achieved the mystical science will expose what hither to
appeared to be a miracle because it is the truthful comprehension of our gained
therein. The gradual unfoldment of the wheels of the Universe is a mystery. The
rotation of the Earth round its axis is also a mystery. Life by itself too is a mystery.
Vise-a-versa the death. Since we do not possess the key to the realms of these
mysteries for a scientific investigation and understanding them, we continue to call
them as miraculous unknown entities. There is a science behind all these miracles
and the laws governing their certainty and uncertainty of happening.
The fundamental knowledge about all these as obtainable by the study of the
mystical science embodied (Tantra Shastra), methodically guided by an adept
(Guru) in the field.
Mysteries will cease to be mysteries or as mere superstitious beliefs when
once science begins to study and examines the phenomenon in an unbiased and
detached way.
The renowned governor of the inner domain and the Lord of the inside of all
insiders and composer of mystical sciences, Hajir-E-Imam, Haji Malang Baba and
through the profound inspirations of Shri Sai Nath this writing is being offered as
a humble effort to the three. Those who are devoted know thoroughly the
mystical science and the allied subjects.
To become a devoted disciple we should be alert and to be alert we must
know the art of submission and surrender. Let us all in one heart, in one breath, in
one-thought prostrate at the feets of Hajir-E-Imam and all others.
Let this writing be the pathfinder from the underdeveloped to the developed
condition in listening to the music of the flute of the mystical sciences. With this
act of determination let us all pray in front of Shri SAI BABA who is our nearest
abode in this life and on this land at this very spot. Let there be the cessation of
births and rebirths granting us the eternity forever and ever...
"SHIVAM! SHANTAM! ADVAITAM!"
. MYSTERY OF BIRTH
Shri Sai Baba of Shirdi helps those, who help themselves with faith in HIM
independently surrender, dedicate and meditate on HIM with purified devotion.
Everyone knows that a man or women, born or dropped into this universe, is
from an atom of Brahman, the CREATOR, but what for You should know it is only
to think of Him, meditate on HIM and surrender to HIM with purified devotion, so
that you can be back to HIM. Yes, to go back and rejoin HIM is the purpose, for
which you have come into this mundane world, to pray to HIM and reach
Him back, you should pray. To pray, you should possess sufficient
physical energy, strength and concentration to meditate and dedicate and thus
surrender at HIS LOTUS FEET. To obtain this strength, you should live but not
live to eat. To eat you should have food and to get food, you should earn. To
earn, you should toil hard honestly.
Thus, you have been given a test in the world to see how far you are firm
and faithful to Brahman and to see how to stand the vigours of test- an acid test -
indeed and how you can attain the goal by vanishing or killing temptation
for material benefit without any attachment to mundane objects. That is the cause
of your birth but not to forget this purpose and get lost in the mundane world,
manifest with the illusion shadowing around, with a veil, challenging you with all
wicked forces dragging and drifting you away from good. Thus, make a victim of
situation, circumstances an environments in the filthy atmosphere for worldly
desires an amusing ill-gotten wealth, power, pomp, false glory and lust with an ego,
which is transit, are manifest in man.
Man least realizes, though he is endowed with the power of realization and
desecration that the mundane objects and acquirements are an illusion and that
the body decays and dies (the Atom leaves) or Atom casts its Kavacha or covering
and takes a new form or creation according to its past Karma. Your possessions
and your self perish but not the INNER SOUL. THE ATMAN, which is ever
glowing sacred, sublime and supreme light, since the Atmam is from Brahman,
which is ever existing and never ending, and so, the Atmam seeks to go back and
join the Brahman, when its mission is finally over in the world, Like the water of the
sacred river, where much of impurity is mixed, but the water remains pure.
What is the mystery behind the man's birth-every one knows, but no one
realizes - just imagine that out of a drop of Dhatu Bindu, a liquid fluid drop-a figure
is carved out of a human feminine body as also other creatures in Universe with
different shapes description - all but a mass of flesh with bones and nerves, suiting
different climates, food and conditions of water, land and air. The figure of a man
is shaped and set with different organs, each to function its duty
independently with nine outlets. Each organ is endowed with separate exclusive
power to function its own without any inter-linking or inter-dependence between
them. What one organ does, the other cannot. The one of course connected to
each other by instinct to one central box-the Brain, which is endowed with the
power of thinking, discriminating and directing.
Who on Earth can tell, may not even latest advanced modern scientist, with
all his exhaustive research for space and atom, what this miracle is. Take the
organ "The Eye", which is also out of the same "Dhatu-Bindu" - has the power to
see - only good things - but not bad ones, so is the case with every other organ.
Could the modern advanced scientist, a Research Scholar, a Moon goer or
an atom blaster make a human form with the functioning of the organ from any
other material, chemical liquid or fluids He must be first born, created by God and
by accident of birth as ordained by the Lord, man can then become a scientist and
carry on research on the Moon, star or any planet or even go near the Sun, blast
an atom or a hydrogen bomb and destroy the world, but can he win over God
Become God Himself That is the Divine Supreme and Super-Power-The Creator-
The Brahman-mystery since one cannot see or know where and how it is.
A man of flesh developed into a body with bones, nerves, lungs, heart, etc,
with joints to facilitate movements as desired and this structure covered to shape
the body with skin with no fire or grinder inside, but the food, solid or liquid, you
take is ground and some part of it is changed into blood and marrow, to give
strength to the body and thus automatically permit with its own mysterious God
made mechanism-a wonder-but once it stops functioning, no one can revive it and
that is the end of the human being. Even the body does not retain any excess
food but rejects the same as excreta and water (urine).
The Supreme Power - the universal divine Power-God has not made the
human being only from sexual mating or by conjugal bliss, but has also made
several millions of creatures on the Earth, in different ways even under water and
air by his Supreme power creation, with conditions suited in their areas.
Now it should be accepted without dispute, by common sense, that God is
above man. It may be noted here, as you all know, that a frog lives within a solid
rock-how it breathes-where is the air, water and food for this creature - particularly
a creature mostly inclined to live in water. Can man make such creations is it
possible for our revered and learned scientists to do such a thing No it is
impossible. Apart from such living creatures, there are forests, vegetation, plants,
food products for human being and other creatures to exist, in addition to water, air
and heat the necessities, without which no living being can or will survive. If it is
not God-the Omnipotent, the Omnipresent – who can do these miracles
Here lies the hidden secret-the mystery-the miracle of man's birth, which we
should ponder over, since this cannot be realized, known or revealed by anyone. It
is only here, that one should realize the existence of God-The Unseen power. It is
sheer accident of birth ordained by the Lord according to one’s past Karma, that
we are born in different environments, society and status and as such are we not
bound to be indebted, to be grateful to realize and repay our gratitude to that
Almighty God Omnipotent and Omnipresent-the Brahman Should we not therefore
struggle, strain, exert and endeavour to get back to HIM - our father-from where
we came-humans endowed with sense organs with discretionary power as loyal
and dutiful children of God-The Universal Father
The law of evolution and revolution is a fundamental principle in anything
and everything. Any object, creature or man that moves from a particular place,
should in the natural routine course, go back, rejoin or reach the starting point or
place. That is the law of nature. To quote a simple example-a man goes out on
work from his house, a bird from its nest, a beast or an animal from its dwelling
place for food etc. will naturally return to its dwelling place by night. Even the
planets, the Sun, the Moon and the Stars appear according to their set times,
disappear or reappear. Similarly in our birth, we come from Brahman and we
should go to HIM. Unless and until one knows and realizes this theory, he cannot
understand the purpose of his existence or goal of his life and birth.
Granting that a man has acquired all, is he to enjoy, possess them eternally
and do they accompany him when he dies Why should they be acquired at all
How far and what for is this temporary desire It is on the contrary, the more
possesses, the more worries, anxiety, mental agony, bodily illness will haunt him.
So, that is not worth possessing, why should one possess that and what for Take
the case of a materialistic, great, big or rich man and a spiritually disposed great
saint or seer. Both are men, Both live-the former in a mansion with all luxuries, the
later all alone, solitary secluded and isolated in a hut-Ashram-with no luxuries or
man to attend on him-all by self-help, self served.
The former wades through in the storm of wicked world with all vicious
surroundings, thoughts, desires, deeds with no goal in sight for salvation or God
realization - for Moksham or Mukti, only this man’s name and fame will echo in
public, only for a temporary period so long as he is in limelight with some position
or status. The moment he is pulled down from position or status, none will
recognize or even look at him. He dies a miserable death with all wicked ideas,
thoughts and deeds of the past, surrounding him. Some may die in harness.
Although they might have lived a luxurious life with pomp and power and some
even a most exciting life style, what a contrast! The same man if he was saint, a
seer, spiritually devoted, dedicated, living and meditating in an Ashram (hermitage)
away and unconcerned with the wicked and vicious world, detached from the
mundane objects, surrendered to the LOTUS FEET OF THE ALMIGHTY for
God realization, salvation, Mukti or Moksha contended and satisfied, with his
hermitage, he is loved and revered and respected by all.
This saint or seer is enemy to none. He is striving to guide the people and steering
them to the path of divinity. This saint or seer has no anxieties, worries and
ambitious. His food is also restricted. His only aim in life is to reach Brahman from
where he came. To that place he seeks to go back. That should be the aim of
man, only such a soul finally reaches the goal by rejoining Brahman and gets rid of
the wretched birth in the world again, not to live a tempting, dodging, deceitful, purl
and vicious worldly life.
History repeats itself. Great men come and go. Their greatness is inscribed
on their epitaphs - none to read man, who conquered the world materially for
pomps and power and there is none among them, who conquered Him-the
Almighty, buy those saints and sages and seers with no pompous and powers, left
behind them, the Vedic rituals, Philosophy religious and scientific teaching for
people, to attain Moksha, Mukti or salvation to spread in the world are
remembered. A sacred task, for man's salvation is performed by them, for which
we have to express gratitude, feel grateful and bow to such sears in reverence.
Should everyone observe or follow this path or principle. This world will not
be as wicked as existing now. That depends on them-as a test by the creator-of
course all cannot acquire and pass in the school examination-some fail and some
pass.
CHAPTER - III
MYSTERY OF UNIVERSE LIFE AND DEATH
The earth is believed to have born some forty crores of years ago. The
earth was all surrounded by water. The first ever life to evolve in the turmoil of
churning of the water was protozoan life, more known as amoeba. Amoeba, which
evolved in the water, is unicellular life capable of multiplying by dividing themselves
into two. Thus they multiplied into many millions lives in the water, thy also began
to grow assuming bigger shapes. Slowly but steadily over a period of fifteen crores
of years, out of these evolved the fish with spines, from them further the amphibian
species, which can live both in water and on land came into existence. The first
fish to become an amphibian which had the front half-soft and pliable while the
hind portion so hard as would even break a stone. The animal could live for
almost a year without any food. But then the hard hinder part will begin to soften
becoming pliable. This is known by the name of MAZOPOTIS.
Around ten crores year ago the Stone Age began to appear. In this way the
following species of reptiles which can live both in water and on land or either were
born as predecessors to snakes.
They were seventy feet long and their bodies were like snakes. Wonder of it
is that these earlier reptiles species had a pair of both front and hind limbs (legs).
They were not hands and legs! It is curious indeed that the difference in the
existence of snakes had come into being here itself. Actually as by the laws of
evolution serpents as reptiles should have hands and legs, but instead of that the
serpents have developed a different novel organ, namely wings.
How does a snake of higher order look like Agni Sarpa, flying snake, red
snake, golden snake and fire spitting snakes are there. They are called snakes
bird (Pakshi Sarpa). When their glow falls on white crystalline ice or snow it
transmits a blush reliance. The blush reliance on crystalline ice or snow is
produced by "VASUKI" snake. They are found to be of pure white and deep blue
color giving a fiery glow. They are said to belong to the class of "DEVA SARPA".
There are three divisions in serpents or otherwise Cobras. The first of them
is called "ANTRIKSH NAAG". The second one space is known by the name "BHU-
NAAG". The third one "SHAREERASTHA NAAG" or the bodily serpent.
Because serpents have no memory, it does not mean that they as a class
does not hold any desire. They do have desire even though they do not have
memory. That way this secret plays an important role in this great Universe. All
lives on the Earth have desires. It is by sowing ignorance that a life comes to
suffering because of their desires "VASNA" and Longing.
Desires are of three kinds viz SATWA (Spiritual), RAJASA (Activity) and
TAMAS (Sluggishness). Lord Mahadeva himself is also, SATYAM (Truth),
SHIVAM (Propitious) and SUNDARAM (Beauty).
This Universe itself is Shivam, Shantam and Adwaitam! In the language of
modern science it is being told that this universe is a creation of the interaction of
those electrons, protons and neutrons. Indian philosophy acclaims and accepts
Srusthi (Creation), Sthiti (Existence) and Vinash (Destruction). Mohammed
Prophet's teachings say "LAA ELAH ELLALAHA"the meaning of these is the same
as above (SATYAM, SHIVAM, SUNDRAM). The GODS OF Srusthi (Creation),
Sthiti (Existence) and Vinash (Destruction) are said to be the trios BRAHMA,
VISHNU and MAHESHA, respectively. It is the same desire of these trios to create
and maintain has trickled down to every life on this Earth and other planets as well.
The distinction and relationship among, "BHU NAAG", the Earth serpent,
"SHREERASTHA NAAG", the body serpent, and "ANTRIKSHA NAAG", the
cosmic serpent, are being spelt out more clearly.
"Bhu Naag" are beneath the earth in the form of air (in gaseous form), the
weight of the Earth remains spread out equally. This is the picture of the Earth
resting on the hood of Shesha. In between the Bhu Naag beneath the Earth and
"Antriksha-naag" are the entire life creations. In order to establish a relationship
between these two life creations of the Earth is considered as a dual link. Bhu
Naag and Antriksha Naag between them they create innumerable luminous spikes
and air belts. If in their bodies, in the air and animation, any disturbance occurs
they remain there and they become the cause of their destruction. The same
principle applies in connection with their "Bhu-Naag" and "Antriksha Naag" those
life being that arise in between through the medium of "Naags" in the body. If they
maintain a balance in that world and the being living in that world, they proceed in
the parallel journey and they proceed on the path or progress thereafter.
Let us see what "Shreerastha Naag" means. This Earth and the living
beings on it are product of the five elements (Panchamahabhutas), i.e. Earth,
Water, Fire, Air and Ether. The product of all these give elements is mind (Manu)
the sixth element (Mahabhuta). All these have their own independent vibration
power. Each one realizes in its own capacity its own waves of vibrations in the
atmosphere, in their specific period of time. In all they release 360 vibrations which
are as below: -
i. Earth - 56 vibrations ii) Water - 52 vibrations iii) Fire - 62 vibrations iv) Air - 52
vibrations v) Ether - 72 vibrations vi) Mind - 68 vibrations (Total 56 + 52 + 62 +
52
+ 52 + 72 + 68 = 360 vibrations).
All these vibration forces operate horizontally above the Earth and also
move in a circular manner. They all together are called a flock. Since they move
around in a circular manner a natural central focal point is created. This focal point
contains the entire power of waves and so it maintains control over all of them.
This central focal point is the lord of all flocks.
Therefore, he is known as "Ganapathy". Unless the living beings keep
contact with the central body of all flock viz Ganapathy, they cannot have access to
the cosmic forces. As per Hindu Dharma Shastra the worship of Ganapathy is
necessary before performing any Puja or any other act. This is the sum and
substance of the operation of the five elements (Panchamaha Bhutas) on this
earth.
Let us now see the map of inner stellar world. The universe and their
various divisions are a product out of the effulgent sphere. The words and their
constituents are made of high-energy complex system, so says the modern
scientific world. The high-energy focal point is known in the Hindu Shastra as
"Isham". From prajapati Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu and Minakshi are the self evolved
or born atmospheric layers out of this "Isham", out of these five layers is produced
a layer called "Swarga Lok" is called "Bhraspathi lok" or "Aaditya lok". This
"Aaditya Lok" consists of more than ten thousand suns and there are twelve such
Aadityas in this plane. Accordingly our present sun stands as a medium speed
range star, such is its magnitude as per the scientific opinion of famous American
astrophysicist Karl Sagan.
When this dispersment of the layers of the "Swarga Lok" takes place. The
thirty-three crores of brilliant wavelengths are produced. They, as per Hindu
Shastra are called thirty-three crores of Devas. These thirty-three crores of Devas
are centralized, bonding take place, and there forms a string of twenty-seven layer
which consists of Prajapati, Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu are produced and are
known as four "Padas" or feet of the twenty-seven "Nakshatras" (Stars). This is
called as "Ajaanja Lok". The very existence here is effulgent and transparent.
Based on memories and desires in one hundred and eight ways, visible and
gross forms of soul are scattered on this Earth in perambulation and combination
of the twenty-seven stars and their four feet (padas) by these Karma Deva. By a
predetermined action eighty four lakhs of embryos await to receive these scattered
souls. As per Hindu Shastra this is known as the sphere of "Vaishnava". This
is followed by "Pitur-Chitra Lok", "Dev Gandharva Lok", "Pishachya Lok" and
finally "Prithvi Lok" known as world of name (Nama Lok Rachna).
As already stated that the mind and the five Mahabhutas have produced
three hundred and sixty vibrational patterns in the atmosphere layer of the Earth.
They move horizontally and in a circular manner. Now on these layers, the band of
one hundred and eight luminous waves produced from twenty-seven nakshatras
and their four feet begin to mix in a circular manner. Pavitrakam as known in the
Hindu Dharam, is that flash points wherever these said circular luminous waves
cut or cross the continuously moving horizontal beams or rays, "Narayana Reshas"
(lines) or series of lines connecting the several flash points reaching unto "Isham"
Narayana Reshas is a controlling factor.
This Narayan Resha displays an "Aabha" or light particles. Because of this
"Aabha" Narayana Resha looks like a snake and therefore the formation is called
as "Antriksha Naag" or Cosmic Serpent. This Antriksha naag is of nine varieties.
"Anantam, Vasukim, Shesham, Padmanabham, Cakambalam, Shankhapalam,
Dhritarshtam, Cha, Takshakam and Kaliyam"it can penetrate any dimension.
How the relationship between Anriksha Nag and Earth is established
Just as Narayana Resha reaches "Isham" through points of "Pavitrakam", the
other end of this Reshu when it touches the Earth it is creator of a "Kshatrapal
Dev" (Demi Gods of Earth). Kshetrapal acts as a link between the "Bhu Naag" and
"Antriksha Naag" to help humanity. These sports were discovered by great sages
and preceptors like Vasishtha and Vamadev. There are three kinds of
vibrational wavelengths which are equal (Sama), unequal (Visdeva) and oblique
(Tiryak). Whenever Antriksha Naag touches the earth it produces equal
vibrations.
The two preceptors has anti-gravity forces in them so that they could walk
one and a half-foot above the surface of the earth and their feet were sensitive to
the vibrational effect because of this levitation act. Whenever they sense the
balanced vibrational forces there they establish the location of Kshetrapal. The
meaning of "Dev" is derived from "Dyu" which is light wave.
The Kshetrapal of the whole universe is "Kaal Purusha" or "Mahan Kaal" or
Maha Kaal. The one and only God of this Universal manifestation is called
"Jagatpita" or "Jagat Pitamah" (Father of the universe) and is known as Bhagwan
Shankar or Shiva or purity personified. The product of the entire Vishwa is from
Shiva and so he is known as the presiding deity of the universe. There are three
thoughts at the back of the process of creation, absolute purity, absolute
knowledge and absolute penance and they are found in Great God "MAHADEVA".
The spiritual sexual union of Lord Shiva and Shakti is the producer of
universal expoition. It is but natural the purity of Shiva's existence is maintained in
a sacred fire ritual of the endless creation of the universe. In the hereditary thought
process Sanatana Dharama, the Atma of Jiva proceeds from progress to progress
and achieves its objective. The Atma is also called Maha (great), Swa, Sharirik,
Hamasa, Dipa and Shiva.
The meaning of the word "DEV" is derived from the original word "DYU"
which means light. The first originator mother is Aditi and the first father is Eravan
(where 'Era' means water). Eravan is a cloud and this cloud is dependent on Sun,
Along with reference to Earth, Sun is the father and Earth is the embryo. This
embryo is like a molehill known as Santeri. The molehill is a representative of the
embryo of the Earth, while the serpents residing in the molehill are the
representative of the male sexual organ. Kshetra means Earth (Bhumi) and
whatsoever rules over this Earth is called Kshetrapal.
The Kshetrapal Dev of the whole universe is Shankara. In the neck of
Bhagwan Shankara there resides the snake called Vasuki. Vasuki produces a kind
of poison in Shiva, who is absolute knowledge and absolute attainment. The heat
of this poison is cooled by Shiva through Kalahala. Shiva dances in order to
reduce the heat and by this process he sheds the various layers from the cosmos
to the Earth and by this act he purifies them. Vasuki on the neck of Shiva also
dances and from Vasuki's dance innumerable crimson coloured sparks are
created which cause purity to create an ideal universe. According to the condition
of the atmosphere, the descendants of Vasuki, which were born from the crimson
sparks travel towards purity. Sage Pauganda and his spouse Vamalambuja Devi
did penance in Himalaya (Gulmarg) desiring for progeny. At that time from the
glow of the crimson sparks of Shiva's dance were born several 'Agni Sarpa'. The
Agni Sarpa blessed Pauganda Rishi and his wife Vamalambuja Devi to enable
them to beget a serpent progeny called Ravaleshwara. Since this birth took place
at Kedar, it is severally known as Kedar, Kedarnath, Kadareshwar, Kedarling,
Kedarjyoti, etc. This was known in the folklore as Jyotiba, Ravaleshwar or
Ravalnath, because of the sage known by the name of Jamadagni's fire of anger
which was also "Tandava". Killing of Renuka by Jamadagni was due to his
Tandava being a swarupa of Shiva. Jamadagni himself was Vayu and controller
of fire. The fire of anger abandoned by Jamadagni was dispersed and absorbed
by Parasuram, Navanarayana, Sumudra Aaranya, etc., which came to Narayana in
the form of five sparks and it became Jyotilinga or Jyotiba. Accordingly to this
"Deva Sarpa" which came into existence is called Ravaleshwar.
Guru Gorakhnath put on a woman's dress to bring his Guru from the
clutches of the matriarchal kingdom along with his son "Nivanath" and all this
were achieved to re-establish the cult of "Navanath'. This is very well deserved in
the cult of "Navathat" and the famous "Kimilyagar" written by Gorakshanath in the
language of the "Chuli Ka Paishachi". Guru Gorakhanath the immortal yogi was
known in his "Poorvashram" as Lama Vijra Satva Shuddha. He had left Himalayan
Luma hermitage to practice little known ritual and establish the Nath cult in the
South. Many priestly households became the followers of this cult and several
princesses of Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet gave patronage to it. The Navanath
appeared to have established a new cult of Sufi in Russia. Hereafter, many
celebrated Sufi Saints came from Uzbekistan. Kazhakistan. They migrated to
India and have settled down here. Their mausoleums were built here which
became a pilgrimage centre for all religious people. All these mausoleums of
several Sufi saints were established under the Nath cult. Thus began the ritual of
worship of naag depicting the Earth symbolizing the Purusha. For this very reason
the Nath Samprayada began the worship of Bhairav and Bhairavi. From this cult
was born the branch cult of Sufi Saints. The snake residing in the mole hill and
they are an interrelation between extraterrestrial naag and terrestrial naag. Both
of these are connected with Kshetrapal Dev. But the connecting link between
these two and the third one residing in the body is a medium of high nature. The
Nathas from the level of bodiless Antriksha-Naag and joining it with terrestrial
naag, traveled along the Narayana Resha originating from Antariksha Naag.
Even so while in the limited body faculties, they contained their performance
through their Samadhi. In the Hierarchy of discipleship these Sufi Saints
continued their task by their mortal frames in their mausoleums and maintained
their unity between the Antriksha Naag and the terrestrial naag. Meanwhile we
bow down before these mausoleums, we also continue to do the same task
and get encouraged to do so. For this reason we receive the guidance and
blessings of these great men. To that extent they are benevolent to us.
As already stated there are three varieties of naags. In the above paras
you have been acquainted with Antriksha Naag and Bhu-naag. Now let us see
what is meant by ShreerasthaNaag. As already stated the word Naag means air,
our body also consists of nine varieties of "Vayu", the tenth Vayu is called as
'MAHAPRAN". Among the nine vayus, which includes Pran there, are four
external Vayus. - i.e. Vayan, Apan, Saman and Udan. They remain within the
cavity of the body. Naag, Koorma, Krukala, Devadatta and Dhananjaya are the
names of internal vayus. They operate in the arteries and veins. "Apan Vaayu"
resides in the cavity below the naval point. Behind the naval center resides the
"Saman Vayu". Near the cavity next to the heart resides "Prana Vayu"."Udana
Vayu" resides in the cavity near the neck, while the "Vyana Vayu" pervades the
whole body and maintains the balance of the movements of other vayu.
How does a man die The 'Apan Vayu' below the naval center attacks the
'Saman Vayu' which lies behind the naval center. Consequently the 'Saman Vayu'
leaves its place and moves to a side. Now the 'Apan Vayu' attacks the 'Udana
Vayu' in turn throws the 'Apan Vayu' downwards. Due to this pull and push there
are two results taking place. There are peculiar noises in the throat, this is what is
called the last action of the vibratory sound before life departs from the body. The
second action is while the 'Apan Vayu' is being pressed down, the 'Pran Vayu'
moves upwards by the pressure and when this pressure becomes unbearable the
'Pran' leaves the body. After these external Vayus leave the body the five inner
Vayus begin to leave. But since they reside in the tanmatras they take time to
leave the body, that is why even when the 'Pran' has left the body, the body does
not become cold but maintain the heat till 'Naag', 'Kurma', 'Krukal' and 'Devadutta'
leave the body.
The 'Dhananjaya Vayu' does not leave the body until the body is burnt to
ashes or buried underneath the soil and gets mixed with the soil. Because
'Dhananjaya' resides in the cavity of the skull and the tanmatra, it does not leave
altogether and until the skull is burnt or disintegrated it remains there. The thing
that flat between the no man's land and the two planets, when they cross the
barrier of the gravitational force and get into some speed, they remain in that field
moving for ever. They cannot by themselves change their speed. For that reason
in that no-mans layer there has to be some kind of external thrust, then only these
floating things get speed for them. In the layer of no-mans land and the
'Dhananjaya Vayu' of a man, there are memories floating around various lives.
The same force, hence 'Pran' which is in the middle, suffers. Though a
disciplined yogic life the 'Dhanjaya Vayu' gets blown up and activated. The
memories in Dhananjaya get pushes about and they get activated and they collide
with other memories and the various broken memories get speed. All the
memories get awakened in this turmoil, we gradually get to know why are the
events taking place like this. Then we become aware of the act of discretion, how
events should take place, that is how they get churned. This awareness to accept
and reject memories according to our discretion is given to us by our Guru.
The body remains alive because of the movement of five internal vayus and
four external vayus, because of these nine vayus or naags of the universe and the
planetary bodies remain alive. Just as there is a Mahapranwhich is the tenth in the
body, there is also a similar Mahapran in the Universe which is called "Isham" or
"Ishwara". The movements of the nine naags in the Brahamanda are similar or
dependent upon the nine vayus in the body. It is absolutely necessary to be aware
of this phenomenon. We are an instrument and integral part of the Universe, the
Brahamananda, to maintain the purity of it. The word purity is used to mean
eternal existence, in other words, the purity means to be aware constantly of it.
The existence of God as purity is dependent on the purity of our awareness
thereof.
You should command the nine Naags residing in our body and not to forget
that your existence depends on the nine Naags of the universe. Oh! Antriksha
Naag Rajas, Kindly shower your grace upon us so that the Naags residing in our
bodies may ascend to the zenith of Narayana Resha, which is latent in you.
. CHAPTER - IV
MYSTERY OF REBIRTH
Is there any relation with the sudden death of a person and his good
behaviour and not wishing any ill will towards anybody Even so, while a person is
being ill treated in his lifetime and the moment he is dead they develop a personal
feeling for him, it is declared the greatness of the dead man for ulterior motives.
Science believes that if an intimate object is shifted from its original place then the
space occupied by it leaves a vacuum behind and it persists. If the object has
remained in a place for longer period the 'vacuum' so created and left behind is
called as its past or in other more familiar expression as a’ Ghost'. Well-known
Russian scientist through his invention called as 'Kurlian' photographic method has
very ably proved even an inanimate object possession and "Aura" and this. The
Aura of an inanimate object is dead which means that the light atoms are not alive
nor vibrant like those which exist in "Aura" of an animate object which are found to
be alive and vibrant and so in the former case they are found on a coma and
frozen state. In an astral aura changes take place according to time space and
distend chain of activities. If you hold a mirror in front of you and put it aside and
again hold the mirror in front of you and like this if you do it again and again there
comes a moment when there is no mirror in front of you but you still see your mirror
image of a fraction of a second even while there is no mirror in front of you. Our
whole atmosphere is like a xerox machine and whatever and whenever anything
happens, then its image is impressed upon the atmospheric "Xerox" (Zerox)
sphere.
In the atmospheric xerox band whatever and whenever anything that
happens is retained as an impression of all such activities are called the Ghostly
pasts, we can call such phenomena as the "Karmas" of their past.
What is the life principle of living instinct of an animate object Is it its body
But that too is mortal. Is it its memories But they too disappear behind a curtain
of time. Is it its civic behaviour pattern or fated disunity But they too are
changeable to relative reality according to time and space.
Then where does the immortal existence exist of all inmate beings If we
think of a man, as a reverberant thinking being then his existence lies buried in his
thoughts alone. Thoughts alone are even present and immortal while the body is
mortal. Ultimately man's existence lies in his thoughts and out of thoughts are born
his actions, memories, his destiny is carved out of such behaviour. Just as a
'vacuum' is created in the place of an object which is removed away. Similarly
immediately after the death of a person and even though the final funeral rites are
performed, a vacuum operates of all his activities and presence which depend
upon the intensity of his existence and behaviour. But since an's existence is
termed as a living organism the vacuum that he creates has an extra charge
existence of its own. Such a vacuum posses individually or collectively the three
fold envelope of physical form, meaning memory and motive oriented actions,
depending upon the affinity between the living and departed soul, one of the three
envelops established an invisible contact with the living person and a manifestation
of existence takes place.
The affinity between the dead and the departed ones are physically (form)
memory oriented may contain such divisions like cast, creed, religion, races and
such admixture of existence and the particular envelope that operated its existence
depends upon the memory pattern of the living and dead souls. Even after the
death of a person his thoughts and memories continue to operate and influence the
surrounding atmosphere. Whether it is organic or inorganic. How does memories
or thoughts of a dead person exist and if so where Year’s back there appeared a
news item in a local Bombay Daily, which described an experiment performed by a
German Scientists. He filled up ten glasses with acid. The acid had the quality of
burning to ashes any live tree or live molecule which is thrown in it. He puts one
life molecule (L. M) in one of the glass full of acid and it immediately got burnt to
ashes. He thereafter took a spoonful of the acid from the first glass and put it in
the second glass of acid. He examined the contents of the second glass and found
that the L.M. was as alive as ever. How was this possible Having known that the
L.M. put in the first glass got burnt up and after taking a spoonful from the first
glass and put in the second glass how was it possible for the L.M. to remain alive
in the second glass. Thereafter he took a spoonful of acid from the second glass
and put it in the third glass and continued this process until he reached the tenth
glass and he found to his astonishment that the L.M. was alive and kicking. The
scientist got flabbergasted. When according to known laws of science the L.M.
Should have perished forever, then how was it possible for the L.M. to display its
existence. But it proved its ever-present existence, why The scientist came to the
conclusion that the L.M. got burnt to ashes in the first glass still the
embryonic embedded "Life Memories" continued to exist forever, and so the
E.E.L.M. continued to impress upon the succeeded glasses their impression of
existence as real and made the scientist to feel that the L.M. continued to exist as
ever.
Just as the L.M. having got burnt to ashes continued to exist as E.E.L.M.
similarly when a person is dead and his body is burnt to ashes, his E.E.L.M.,
continues to exist and manifests in the form of a mortal being as a "Phantom".
This what we call as ghostly Phantom and such phantom impressions
are embedded in the atmospheric zerox band, and as life memories are a symbol
of once existing entity - God and so there is no such thing called soul as a separate
entity in the body of a normal human being. The awareness of this fact and its
actual manifestation takes place when a person realizes itself realization of the "I"
in him, and when this takes place it is called "Blissful self existence". Just as the
impression imprinted in the atmospheric "Zerox" are its memories, similarly the
entire living organism and even the individual living being is the symbol of
the ultimate supreme entity. The entire cosmic creation is the desire encrusted
"Memories egg" and is the crystallization of the cosmic thought of unknown
dimensions.
Many people are unaware that they are dead. Imagine that in your dream
you dreamt that you are dead and you do not wake up then what Even a dead
person dreams that he is dead, but this dream state does not last long. Even while
the body is burnt or buried his immediate memories of hunger and thirst are kept
lingering on in the collective life memories and after sometime on certain occasion
when the desire of dinner and lunch arises, such intense desire awakens and the
intensity increases. Now these lingering memories have no physical vehicle to
achieve the objective-hence begins to agonized existence. Desires remain
unfulfilled because of the absence of any physical vehicle. These are classified in
our religious scriptures as "Naruka-Yatana" (Kingdom of hell). Formally, when
alive, a man was bound by his bad thoughts of bad places and due to body
restrictions of family circumstances like status, culture etc. was prevented from
doing any unwanted deeds even though the desires were there but their such
actions were taboo and totally avoided by the process of reasoned actions, but
after death such a bonded existence did not prevail and the mathematics was that
desire alone became the mode of travel. It is therefore while alive man desires to
do a good act or visit an ideal place, then after his death he also operates on the
same approach and obtains heavenly bliss and this is called as "Heavenly
departure" for the dead soul. Therefore life after death depends upon desire
oriented before departure after death and there are no separate habitation domains
as such for hell or heaven. That is why those who are scared of life, they turn
towards spiritualism and experience the agony of jumping from fire into the frying
pan. Life after death is not any separate body of existence but a mirror image of
what you desire and your actions in your lifetime. Except that the subtlety of
vibrational frequencies, time factor and relativity are of fantastic nature and very
often of a frightening nature. There is a world of difference between the
manifestation of pain and pleasure into non-existing super fine state of existence
and that of cognizant worldly pain and pleasure of living being. It becomes difficult
to comprehend the magnitude of manifestation of a multidimensional vision and
here the state of and law of relativity operates, it being a separate reality with life
forms of its own, in a time and space concept of its own e.g. in the corporal life of a
man who can drive a car at 100 km. Per hour acquires a speed of 10,000 km. per
hour in the non-corporal world. One can imagine and comprehend the relative
happiness a man enjoys between the corporal and non-corporal existence. If a
man encounters an accident to his car while alive, he similarly encounters an
accident in his non-existence state of life but of a different magnitude of a
frightening nature.
Let alone the accident part. The remnant sum of the living memories of a
living being is blown to smithereens after an accident. What remains behind are
memories of an animal oriented nature and when the desire arises of being born
again then these animal oriented memories drag him towards similar animal
existence. The accident advice given by Sanatan Dharma to all mankind was that
"obtaining a human form is a divine blessing and one should be ever mindful of
one's mind and use intelligence judiciously". And as one grows old, one should
curb one's desires and wants and keep all action under control. If this is achieved
then the memories instead of blowing to smithereens with remain intact and it
would be possible to obtain a human form with divine grace.
As stated above many people are not aware of their death. To give
and revive this awareness, the Hindu Dharam prescribes a ritual of observing a
third, tenth and thirteenth day of remembrance and offering a ball of food to a crow
and to find out whether it touches it or not. If the desires of the dead person still
persist then the crow does not touch the food. What is the reason behind this A
crow possesses an "Infra-sight". In addition to what we see with our normal sight,
there are three more sights known as "Infra", "Gamma" and "Bita" sights. The
images that are within the range of these light frequencies are not available to our
normal sight. Since a crow possesses infra sight it sees the memory frames of a
dead person hovering over the food which is offered, the crow is frightened and
keeps away from the food and refuses to touch it. When the living relatives see
this they make a solemn offering to the dead person's desire, the departed soul
thereafter realizes that he is living in his memories alone and cannot touch the food
so offered and he recedes and the crow having seen the dead person depart it
immediately touches the offered ball of food. The crow is not learned enough like
man to see the soul, but that something, which was hovering over the food, has
gone so he pounces upon the ball of food. The ancient Hindu system having
studied the behaviour pattern of crow over a long time has established this
mode/laid down this ritual of the dead of posterity because they found out that the
crow is a symbol and representative of the domain of the dead and hence that
realm of the departed is turned as "Vayas Lok" because they consider crow as
Vayas or representative of the dead. It is not in our nature to know nature as
such and remain in an ever-bountiful nature behaviour, ever tolerant, forgiving
creates the seeds of human welfare. This awareness is provided in the past so
that the thought process is immortal and everlasting.
I have written enough and Heaven alone knows as to how much has been
grasped by you. At least the invisible infra waves of the galaxy of memories must
have read what I wrote and at least some of the living memories would obtain the
peace they had deserved.
CHAPTER - V
MYSTERY BEHIND FIRE WORSHIPHis Holiness Gajanan Maharaj of Akkalkote has said: -
"Short cut to progress is dubious and full of explosive potentialities. Science un-
tempered by this criterion may lead to slave test tube babies made in order,
domination of the technocrat over all the surveys, consequent pushbuttons
conflagration, lava of desires feeding on itself and enveloping the globe unmindful
of the wanton destruction, greed, anxiety, insecurity, chaos and disharmony it
brings in its train," "A single misdeed perpetrated in any corner of globe
will adversely affect the atmosphere, this in turn will have a deleterious effect on
the functioning of the human mind. So the circle perpetuates. That is why peace
like progress is indivisible. By conscious efforts we have to purify the space
dividing the Trilokas. Yajna is conscious effort made in this direction".
In a brochure entitled 'Sacrifice' published prior to the Somayag at Akkalkot
by Sadguru Seva Samiti says: -
"A time is approaching when science and religion will reunite and
harmonise. The fundamental unity of God in his essential attributes makes it
imperative that science and religion must harmonise. Science is nothing but the
investigation of physical laws while religion is realization of God and His laws in the
metaphysical realm. When God created universe he created the physical as well
as the metaphysical world. He projected his will into the physical world created
natural laws. There also exists a third world, which can be described as physical
and metaphysical divinities from where contribute towards the unity of the physical
and metaphysical world and strength the bond between them.
This new consciousness for need of spiritual values is arising in the world.
In order to achieve this aim in life, the world atmosphere needs to be charged with
the effect of harmonious musical notes and holy recitations. Harmony is an atomic
energy that keeps off evil of all kinds.
"The hermitages of Vedic seers in days immemorial were acting as
generating stations of Divine power solely with the object of enkindling humanity to
attain perpetual bliss. In the holy atmosphere these seers used to perform fire
worship continuously. Experimentation and minute observation of results
there from convinced humanity about the efficacy of such worship, whether
performed individually or collectively.
These are known as the ritual of Yajyna in Sanskriti and merely fire worship
in some other parts of the world. During this form of worship offering of various
items are made to be consumed by the fire along with the chant of Mantras.
Mantras are a combination of various syllables from the alphabets of Sanskrit.
By virtue of the peculiar and specific combinations mantras become potent
sound combined with the power of the thought also behind them. The word
Mantra also carries a thought and "meaning". Manah Trayata iti Mantrah also
holds good. This means the word or words which potentially vibrations - charged
can elevate the mind of the person who spells them repeatedly mentally or mildly
audible with due devotion. The power or the form of power it denotes, not only
that, the subtle sound vibrations of them penetrates through every cell, but
transforms them in due course to shining divinity. Again the air around also reified
the sound vibrations and particles of the air get altered and surcharged as to dispel
all the impurities therein and also neutralizing whatever pollution there about the
makes it clear and porous so as to allow more of the divine substance of "Prana" to
fill in. Thus helping only peace and Godly encircled thoughts prevail all over the
place. This, in turn, permit "Devas" and their agencies take their due and
legitimate place around so to shower on us their grace and promote plenty and
prosperity. That is what Bhagwan.Vedas describe the rituals for various types of
yagnas in typical details like the design, the mode of construction and the
directions the alter is posited. The solid and liquid offerings to fire and intervals
between the offerings are clearly prescribed. Fire is prepared from wood of a
particular set of trees only. They do not need tending by human hands. Different
mantras are to be chanted for, different yagnas and their sequences are stated.
The intonations and pauses in utterances are mentioned. The qualifications of the
priests and also of the performers are given.
Various types of yagnas are mentioned for the satisfaction of various types
of worldly desires, either for the individual or the community. There were different
yagnas prevalent in olden days performed for the fulfillment of specific desires.
Yagna lasting for a week or more is called 'SATRA'. In yajyna the offering of
animal flesh or blood has absolutely no place. Yajyna performed with a desire to
obtain rains, Parjanya Kameshti would attract water particles as a combined
result of specific offerings to fire among chants of certain mantras when at a
temperature of about 640oc there appears a thin film in the atmosphere due to
oxidation of organic substances leading to showers.
Rais bring down to Earth Prana from celestial atmosphere. There are
instances when Yajynas were performed with a desire to beget an offspring as in
the case of Shri Rama and Draupadi. These are known as Putrakameshti and
Kanyakameshti Yajynas. Yajyanas were also performed to avert great wars and
world disturbances when divinities were invoked.
Yagnas even bring to this day the potential for the above achievements.
With the advance of physical sciences and the consequent enlargement of human
knowledge present is the most opportune time for resuscitation of yajynas is
society. Frontiers of pure science are receding and the scientist is on the verge to
declare a new approach to problems of life, creation, time and infinity. It will be
easier now to acknowledge that the disappearance of yajyna from society has
robbed humanity of a potent weapon which is intrinsically an antidote to pollution
besides being capable of generating an atmosphere which imprints the human
mind with seeds of contentment and prosperity.
The purificatory effect of a properly conducted yajyna on the mind is the
biggest blessing to mankind and will enable man to climb up the stairs to
spirituality for "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall SEE GOD”.
CHAPTER - VI
SAINTS AND THEIR MIRACLES
A miracle is commonly considered to be an effect or event without law or beyond
law. But all events in our universe are lawfully wrought are lawfully explicable.
In India in the past there lived great saints, yogis and sagesy had
achieved great powers and could perform acts inexplicable on account of their
yogic prowess. They could command the whole universe with their powers
attained by yoga or penance.
Changdeo, a great yogi who lived in the thirteenth century, was a very great
authority on yoga. He could control wild animals like tigers and serpents. When
he went to see Dnyandeo he rode a tiger and had long serpent to be used as
whip. He could bring he dead to life through his yogic powers. He lived for
fourteen hundred years. Dnandeo, also a yogi, went forward to receive Changdeo
riding a wooden log, they could do this because they were both great yogis. The
yogis, on account of their yoga sadhana attain great power known as siddhi.
Siddhi is superhuman prowess on account of which the yogi can perform wonderful
acts.
Siddhis are eight. Anima, Mahima, Laghima, Prakamya, Prapti, Feshita,
Vashita and Kamvasayita. The Siddhis are a result of service, penance and
meditation.
Once Namdeo and Dyandeo went on a pilgrimage to the north. It was
summer and the sun was shining bright. The travel was on foot through the desert
of Rajasthan. Both felt very thirsty. But no water could be seen nearly.
Everywhere was a mirage. They saw a green spot at a distance. They walked to
the spot. There was a deep well. Water had reached the bottom of the well. There
was no open or a bucket at hand. Dnyandeo on account of his yogic powers
assumed a small form equal to a thumb went down the well and quenched his
thirst. Namdeo was not a yogi but he was a great devotee of Vitthal. He prayed to
God and expressed his desire to get water and drink and the well immediately
overflowed. He quenched his thirst. So Dnyandeo on account of his yogic powers
and Namdeo on account of his deep devotion attained the fulfillment of their
desire. This could be called a miracle.
The power attained by yoga can influence the whole world. Such a person
can rule over the animate and inanimate things in the universe, can see and
experience things from the past, present and future and all the beings carry out all
his orders.
Jesus Christ cured many sick persons only by his touch. Some persons
haunted by Ghosts approached him and he rid them of the influence of the ghost.
He even brought to life the dead. He did so many things which were inexplicable.
This is because he is a yogi and a saint.
Each person's soul is a part and parcel of Paramatman. The Paramatma
has no form. It i colourless, odorless and without any of the three Gunas Satva,
Rajas and Tamas. But just as water has no shape but assume a shape when
transformed into ice similarly the human soul assumes the shape size and form as
it is part and parcel of Paramatama.
The Yogi concentrates his attention on a thing and transforms the things into
another desired thing. Thus he becomes one with Brahman. When once he does
this he can control the animate and inanimate things in the universe. The Yogi as
also a devout devotee can see God everywhere and then he can perform any
miracle. *
CHAPTER - VII
WHAT PART IS PLAYED BY SAI IN THE MIRACLE OF CREATION
Is there anything conceivable, which can be called a miracle other than the
creation itself It suggests to me there is none.
Can we see birds flying in the sky, aquatic species existing in water and
creatures, that live in the vast expanse of world and firmament, are as miracles.
We cannot imagine our flying or be under water or reach the remote stars and
celestial bodies hanging in and around us in the normal way and so, we may
postulate these as miracles. We may also have to dismiss them as quite normal,
for they are their normal nature to be so, since they cannot exist in other
conditions.
However, from our standpoint, observations and capabilities, there are
several things that we do not know and their activities when observed, they indeed
strike us as miracles. More we are steeped in ignorance, the experiences of
miracles, by and large increase and sway our mind with awe. More and more
knowing and the knowledge increased in us, the myth and deception of miracles,
wonders and unique things happening, disappear from us and we only see the
Reality. That is, I mean the existence of God only.
It is my endeavor in this small essay to speak of the part played by God in
solving the puzzle of our existence. It is my ardent wish to establish that Shirdi
Sai's appearance in the drama of the world is to annihilate the pith and substance
of our misconception of the world, its existence and the myriad of things, that upset
us and keep us in different states of amazement and understanding.
Well, what existed in the beginning and what is going to be the end or in
other words, what survives the holocaust Different answers have sprung from
different quarters in answers to the above questions. Even the texts of religion of
various hue and colour, ancient and modern, gave some explanations to the
mystery of the creation. The Scientists, Geologists and others explaining the
very same question also attempted to answer it in their own inimitable style.
People of varied faith, who believe in this or that got satisfied with the explanations
offered by various cults and beliefs to which they are most drawn. In spite of all
this, the milliondollar question remained, with no one being absolutely satisfied with
the results of the probe, but still longing for a clear-cut, unwavering, true and real
answer for it.
Whatever be it and the beginning may be, we invariably, deduce that, if
there is anything before creation, it is none other than, say, call it God, Shakti
(Potential Power), capable of multiplying, changing into a mass of things endowed
with vast power and potential life (Jeevan Shakti). Life permeates and percolates
in the order of creation everywhere, that appears as many, but in essence this life
force (Jeevan Shakti) has its existence in only One, that is God. Therefore, the
common saying has arisen, "All is that only" and originated from it and ultimately
the force of God gets merged in its Being. We also, infer, there is nothing called
total destruction or resurrection. They are only changes in status, repeated in
successions, perhaps in infinite ways. Every destruction is for construction.
However, we have now to confine ourselves to the existing things of opposites, that
make the creation possible and that display the power and glory of God.
It is possible and meaningful only, if pairs of opposite exist, that shall make
the creation sustainable. Jillellamudi Mother 'Anusuya' says that the differentiation
alone makes the creation a reality. God wants this play to endlessly continue as a
sport of Him.
Well, then in this seemingly chaotic creation based on Karma (action and
reaction) theory, there is order and set laws, which undoubtedly govern it. Where
imbalances are noticed and the order and the law imposed on the creation, is
disturbed and threatened, the Avatars sprang from the energy of colossal
dimensions called God. Undoubtedly, Lord Sainath is the offspring direct from
the real power be, in the form of a Human being at a particular spot of the world in
India and that too in Maharashtra. Shri Sai Baba used to say that certain things
and talents are found only in certain places, So. Also India is a land of Holiness
and hence Holy ad avtaric Purushas abound in large number in this Indian Sub-
Continent, i.e. Bharat.
Maharashtra abounds in large number of Bhaktas and Saints and
especially the Godavari terrain produced remarkable Saints. There is indeed no
difference between God and Saint. Lord Krishna explicitly says in Gita that He
resides in Saints. Sai Baba is above the order of Saints and in fact, He
represents the Primordial Energy, God.
His advent saw a great transformation in the political horizon of India and in
the unification of our country. While He was living, many people contacted Him
and the silent work in their variant natures have planted tremendous change in
them, as is found in the Shri Sai Satcharitra authored by Rev. Annasaheb
Dadholkar and Rev. B. V. Narasimha Swamiji.
How Sai works is unique. He allows the creation to go on untrammeled and
bring in subtle changes in the relationship and minds of the beings. He helps
people in distress and woe, by cutting across the jargon of karma and gives them
ample scope to rectify and develop. Sai looks after minutes, needs to the
highest requirement of emancipation. The constant faith in Him and the prayers
to Him (Sai), wards off many dangers and isolation. The trust in Him slowly
develops to spirited love on Him and for everything one is made to depend on Him
only. Finally, He enriches His devotes to love everyone and the creation to serve
with steadfast faith. The advance devotee perceives only Sai Baba is everything.
Sai Maharaj trains his lovers to face several ordeals of life with ease and without
the desire of seeking anything at all. The greatest transformation He brings in His
devotees in desirelessness and slowly, but steadily march to the Summum Bonum
of life of the realization, that He is God.
When Sai Baba plays a miraculous part all over, the grip and influence of
Him are so expanding every nook and corner and all is blessed to see the world,
the creation fast moving to an ideal plane of Self Realisation and utmost
satisfaction.
This is a Golden Era, Let, all take to His Bhakti and directions and it is so
sure, all doubts of the creation will cease and everyone shall ultimately see the
creation as a play, which should be effectively and happily acted by all, while their
merging in the Totality of Sai is a definite certainty.
The part played by Sai Bhagawan is the miracle, which is far wider and
greater than all the miracles of the creation
CHAPTER - VIII
SAI-THE SUPREME SAINT
Saints and sages using their mission in this world have tried to enlighten the
human mind through their precious preachings. It is interesting to note that these
preachings last forever, as their validity is worth one's own life. Being a country
blessed with great saints, India has been praised for its spiritual strength by the
entire world. As an incarnation of LORD DATTATREYA, during His mission, Sai
Baba has spread the religion of love, compassion and endurance. Some of its
preachings, which have been cited in the present context, reflect the same.
When we consider the significance of "Dakshina", Baba asked for two
rupees, From this one would easily mistake this for monetary
values, But, Baba actually meant FAITH and PATIENCE. It is evident that
undaunted faith helps mankind to be relived of all problems. This term Faith as
used by Baba, reflects in the saying of Ramakrishna Paramahansa, who said,
"Faith is life and doubt is death".
The term patience has universal application. Here again, the present day
saying goes 'patience pays'. This is true, because one would be easily carried
away when confronted by troubles. It’s at that time patience would be required.
Keeping undaunted faith in Baba, and developing the trait of patience helps us to
live in peace.
When one goes through the assurance given by Baba, "Remember me,
believe in me, heart and soul and then you will be most benefited!" It shows the
concern of Baba for mankind. Again Baba assured that if one tried to go near Him
by one foot, He would advance towards the devotee by ten feet. This signifies the
fact, that every humble attempt by devotees to reach the fold of Baba would be
blessed in multiples by Him.
Sai Baba warned human beings, not to be carried away by worldly honour.
This is because these are momentary. It is ultimately the grace of God and
blessing that would come to one's rescue.
So, the main purpose of human life has to be an unending attempt to be honoured
in the court of Baba.
Baba's reference to Karma is the same as explained by Lord Krishna in the
"Gita". He has suggested to us, to endure whatever that came to us, as it reflects
the outcome of our Karma. The only means is to think of God and request for his
guidance. This would lessen the burden. Unconditional surrender at the "LOTUS
FEET" of God helps us in better living.
Baba has given the highest place of Guru. He suggested that love for one's
guru and surrendering to him would help one, to visualize the real light in life.
It is worthy to note that in Baba's presence, there would not be any kind of
difference between the rich and the poor. He is the only saint, who spread the
tendency of tolerance among various religions, saying "SABKA MALIK EK". This
is evident by the people belonging to various religions coming to Shirdi and
worshipping Baba.
Baba had the unique power of visualizing the same ATMA (or SOUL both in
human form and also in the form of animals. He suggested that a person before
taking food should necessarily satisfy any form of living being, that comes to the
door. Baba has personally proved this, by thanking a lady, who has fed a roti to a
black dog. Baba felt that satisfying the dog has satisfied Him personally, as the
same ATMA existed in both the forms.
From all the above references, we come to understand that faith and
patience are the prime requisites to reach the fold of Baba.Also it has been made
clear, that developing love for fellow beings and serving them satisfy Baba.
Finally an unconditional surrender at the LOTUS FEET OF SAI BABA would
make our lives worth living
CHAPTER - IX
HOW SAI BABA HELPS US A THEOSOPHICAL VIEW
Our worldly concern and worldly joys mean so much to us that the word
"Help" is often interpreted as some material gain as: profit in business, promotion
in office, suitable match for our children, recovery from illness or rescue from some
mishap and so on. Maya holds us all under Her powerful spell so much and for so
long. Little do we think how temporary pleasures fail to satisfy us and how as one
desire is fulfilled another follows and often these pleasures contain the seeds
of pain. Again so inordinate is our desire that we do not hesitate or scruple to
commit bad karma in pursuing our pleasure. Worse than that we develop for these
pleasures a carving, which goes with us life after life, even though we shall have
atoned for our sins by suffering. Temporal pleasures are in these ways transient
and they become breeding grounds for bad tendencies as: lust, greed, anger,
envy, etc. and bad karma. They infect our minds, dim clear thinking and check our
spiritual progress. These arguments are not intended to deprecate bodily
enjoyments altogether. Moderation should be observed in having them.
As against all these take spiritual joys called bliss. Bliss is unmixed without
even a touch of pain. It is pure, holy and it has a freshness, which cannot be found
in sensual leasures. Pooja, bhajan, satsangh, devotional reading, as: Shri Sai
Satcharitra, serious study, and meditation bring us joys that never go stale.
Engaging in some kind of yoga is rewarding. They delight us from day to day, and
are therefore, called nityanand. This is what Sai Baba likes to give us. He
complains: "People do not ask me, what I want to give." This joy is a tonic to us.
It purifies our minds, raises our efficiency and promotes our spiritual progress.
This is where Sai Baba "Helps us". Sai Baba also says "Life is spent in vain, if one
does not engage in yoga, or any other spiritual work."
The illusion that surrounds us in nature called phenomenal universe and the
three gunas: tamas, rajas and satwa that create tendencies in ourselves, impel us
to act. Our actions are good or bad according to our tendencies and we are
compelled to be reborn to undergo the results of our actions. While in the act of
expiating for our past Karma (actions), we are led by our tendencies to commit
more Karma, which entangle us in future rebirth. We are in this way caught up in
a whirlpool of Karma and rebirth, from which there seems to be no way to come
out.
Whatever good Karma we may have done leads us to a guide. One such
guide is God, has a grand plan and that plan is helping individual souls march step
by step to Perfection. This marching forward is called evolution. What a Sadguru
does is to cooperate with God in working out His grand plan. He is a Messenger of
God, and his mission is to lead humanity back to its source.
It is essential to understand that while the Sadguru shows the path, it is
entirely up to everyone to work for one's evolution. Just as faith of the patient in the
doctor, and the patient's cooperation with the doctor in following his directions are
necessary for recovery, so the faith of the aspirant in his Sadguru and his
scrupulously carrying out his Sadguru's instructions are necessary to progress in
spiritual life. The Sadguru knows two important points in his devotee. First, the
tendency or sanskara of the devotee and second, the stage of evolution attained
by the devotee. Accordingly he prescribes sadhanas suitable to a particular
devotee. Samartha Sadguru, Sai Baba bade Abdulla Bhai clean the streets in
Shirdi and fetch water, he asks Das Ganu Maharaj to do Harikatha. He asks other
devotees to go to Siva Mandir, or read the Pothi (scriptures like Bhagawata or the
Gita), other to recite Vishnu Sahasranama, others to go to other shrines, to join
satsangha or to meditate. The Sadhanas (spiritual practices) prescribed by Sri Sai
Baba varied from one individual to another according to their tendencies and
development of the individual concerned.
By these sadhanas the aspirants benefit in two ways. While they progress
spiritually, they also add to their store of good karma (punya) and at the same time
they are enabled by Sai Baba to pay our other Karmic debts. Here Sai Baba saves
them from having to reincarnate so often in the future. This He does by
intensifying their sufferings in the present life itself. We see some ardent devotees
exposed to enormous suffering. He has done this in the case of Dr Pillai of
Nagpore, Abdulla Bhai, Mhalsapati and Upasani Maharaj.
Even good Karma is regarded as golden fetters if the Karma is done with the
consciousness that one is the doer. In the declaration "I do this service in the
name of my Master" there is a ring of Rajas".
This may lead reincarnation with chances of betrayal to indulge in pride and
hurting others' sentiments. But it is hard to get over this tendency. Nothing sort of
absolute self-denial and surrender to Sai Baba can help in destroying this feelings.
Then by the grace of the Master the aspirant realizes that his Lord is the
doer and he is only an instrument. This is the greatest upadesha of Bhagwan to
Arjuna. "Nimitya matram bhava, Sabyachi". (Be thou the instrument).
Selfless work can alone help us in receiving the grace of the Master.
Distributing food, medicines, clothes or affording shelter to the poor, giving
emotional comfort as: listening to the words of the distressed, the bereaved or the
convalescent, diverting the careworn by music or fine arts or entertainment's,
helping is studies and above all, disseminating spiritual culture.
It has been made sufficiently clear how Sai Baba helps us not only come out
of troubled existence but enter into a richer and more fruitful life. It is up to every
one of our readers to reflect on all that has been discussed above and meditate on
Baba. Then He will give the prompting from within as institution or send some one
or cause some circumstances to show the way to the devotee concerned. Out of
twenty-four hours in a day, do we set apart a twenty-four minutes in prayer,
devotional reading, meditation or any other spiritual work Even in those brief
moments how often do our minds skip over to the next programme or chew upon
what happened yesterday! We talk aloud about our understanding the spiritual
values, glorify the spiritual heritage of our Rishies and condemn the materialist
tendencies of the Westerners. Can our own hearts bear close scrutiny in this
regard Are we proof against temptations The modern man, whether he is Indian
or any other national gives first place to the satisfaction of his worldly carvings.
Aware of the preference of the modern man for temporal joys, Sai Baba
blesses him first by granting him a material favour. He does this for some time till
he binds the devotee by a tie of gratitude. By degrees Baba changes the man's
gratitude into devotion to God.
The degrees are that the devotee's love for Baba grows so strong that he
does not mind even if his prayer for more favours pass unheeded. In this way the
devotee is trained to accept cheerfully whatever comes to him as a result of his
past Karma. He regards even sufferings as gifts of God.
Next Baba knocks off the conceit of the devotee by making him realize
how he fails whenever he starts any work on his own account and how success
crowns his efforts when they are taken in the name of the Master.
In some rare cases Sai Baba enters the heart of the devotee and works from
within to change his bad tendencies. Once Nana Saheb Candorkar was smitten
with the charms of a woman as she came to pay her respect to Sai Baba. He was
taught by Baba to understand the body as temple of God. Getting distracted by
physical beauty is, therefore, like becoming lost in the architectural splendour of a
temple and forgetting the Murti (image of God) within. Since then Nana Saheb
grew in wisdom and purity and Baba was also working within him. One day as
Nana Saheb started his service in his prayer room, a naked women of captivating
beauty appeared before him. Nana Saheb threw his shawl upon her. She shook it
off, skipped and dashed out of the room. Nana Saheb chased her and threw the
fleece to cover her nakedness. She jumped into a bush and vanished.
Baba has said that he remained inside every one and had any thing that
occurred in any body's mind and could not escape his notice. Sai Baba has
assured Justice Rege that he would be by him and inside of him too. Baba had
also exposed erratic people by telling them what lay in the innermost recesses of
their heart.
We see in Sai Baba the fulfillment of the declaration: "Anthar bahir cha tat
sarvam vyapya Narayana stitaha" (Narayan exists pervading all inside and out).
Sai Baba bade Pandit Kashinath who accosted him for spiritual progress, sit
quiet in Khandoba temple eating roti and curry. Baba undertook to do the
necessary work for him. The Pandit obeyed the Master and became eventually
the famous Upasani Maharaj, founder of Sakori Ashram.
What is needed is to meditate on the Master for some brief moments, at
least, in the day and start the work of absolute surrender, a difficult task, of course.
There are instances to illustrate Baba's definite contribution to our evolution,
such as, how He settled a dispute between reptiles, sympathized with the lizards,
enabled a cow to attain through successive births to the stage of a Brahmin lady,
and how He deprived a black magician of his power leaving him only the ability to
perform simple feats in the service of Baba. To a Theosophist who suspected
whether Baba was a black magician, He declared that He was a White Magician
leading the people along "Shubhra Marg" (illuminated path) to the White Lodge.
A stage is reached when even the result of God actions proves as hindrance
to the ultimate liberation as it leads to rebirth to enjoy their fruits with chances of
being betrayed into lapses and regress. So, the Avtars warn their devotees to
dedicate the fruits of their labours at the feet of their master, which the devotees
readily follow because of their profound devotion to Him and by that means, the
way is paved for the individual souls to ensure their immunity from the Karmic
bondage. Any good act performed in this spirit ian act of dedication or selfless
service and the doer becomes automatically a replica of the Avatara itself, which is
nothing other than a dedicated life of the Supreme Being for the service of the
universe. In leading a selfless life in obedience to the Master as explained above
the individual souls are only assisting in the Mission for which the Avtar has come
among us.
Lord Sainath calls His devotees who are almost all of them highly
evolved souls to assist Him in the Mission for which He has incarnated. In order to
make them efficient instruments in his work. He ensures their protection from
Karmic commitments.
The peculiar feature of Sai Avtar is that it is taken to benefit individual
'jeevas' instead of the benefit being of a general nature as was the characteristic in
the previous avataras and a double effect is achieved in this Avtara, namely, of not
only benefiting the individuals but of helping others by these individuals being
used as fit instruments for the purpose
CHAPTER-XLORD SAIBABA'S SAYINGS AND TEACHINGS
THE GOAL OF LIFE, THE GOAL OF KNOWLEDGE: WHAT IS IT
This is one of the problems discussed by intellectual workers on purely
rationalistic lines. Tiruvalluvar, the author of 'Thirukkural', says that it is only
true knowledge, which enables you to see the reality behind the final outward
forms of things, which means the truth, which remains after the analysis of the
entire Triad, namely, Self, World, and God; that is Brahman. We need not enter
into questions of Dvaita or Advaita, though there are people, who way that to deny
the separate existence of a human soul, is to commit suicide, that on ultimate
analysis two things remain namely, the self undistorted and God, whom the self
reaches. There are also many other divergent views. The ultimate truth is
complex and not capable of a simple statement and thus the intellect also go on
contradicting and fighting, How does Baba deal with devotees, when they are
faced with this problem
Chandorkar and other graduates, who had studied philosophy, Sankara’s
commentary on the Gita, and other works, were confronted with these problems,
and sometimes they discussed these at the Wada at Shirdi. Baba did not
profess to be a University professor offering solutions for problems to be published
to the world, but dealt with each man individually as he approached Him as Guru.
Baba's solution was always on the lines of getting over theoretical difficulties by
adherence to practical methods. By sticking to Baba with full faith, these problems
could be solved. Unless there was the proper approach, there was no solution.
Baba indicated this view in the way, in which He dealt with a sceptic like the
Stationmaster of the Valambi Railway Station. The man had no belief in Baba. But
having persuaded by Das Ganu, that Baba was a great soul with wonderful
powers, he was just prepared to accept Das Ganu's invitation, so that he might go
and see Baba for himself before he judges about him. When the Valambi
Stationmaster and Das Ganu came to Shirdi, the all-knowing Baba was behaving
peculiarly. He took up a number of pots, washed them one after another, and
placed them mouth downwards, which seemed to be quite the reverse of what one
should do, and what one does usually. The Valambi Stationmaster was impatient
and asked Das Ganu, "What is the meaning of all this procedure of Baba" Das
Ganu asked Baba, and Baba’s reply was "This is the way in which people
approach Me, only when the vessel is placed with mouth upwards, it can receive
anything; but this is the way, in which people approach me, with mouth
downwards." The hit was not quite intelligible to the Valambi Stationmaster.
Receptivity meant some degree of faith and respect for the person approached, so
that the person approached, could pour into the approaching persons some
seeds of instruction, edification or other useful teaching. But, the Valambi
Stationmaster was quite innocent of any faith or regard for Baba, and could not
derive any benefit from Baba.
But Baba's point was quite clear, to solve any problem, connected with
one’s spiritual progress, one must be dead earnest and approach some person,
whom he has got regard for, or faith in, and then patiently wait for solution of his
intellectual or other problems. Baba occasionally used even accidental chances to
furnish further illumination on this matter. After 1910, Dixit and some other friends
wanted to leave Shirdi, and asked permission of Baba to go; Baba said 'You may
go'. Then a devotee asked, "Baba, where is one to go” Baba at once gave a new
turn to the talk, and made is educative. Baba's answer was, 'Up', that is 'Above
this', which obviously meant, 'Above the present worldly level, in which one is
grovelling with so many attachments and repulsions, sorrows and joys, and so
much of confusion. Guru was essential and useful to overcome obstacles, that
would otherwise hamper one's spiritual progress. The word 'Guide' here meant
'Guru'. Baba's reference to the deep yawning pit meant 'hell'. So, Baba drove
once again the much needed lesson, that unless one got a Guru, one would make
no progress at all, or in the language of Kabir, "Guru vin Kone Bhavave Vat" that is
'Unless there is Guru, who is to show the way” Baba again and again pointed out
that the solution to one's intellectual riddles, conundrums and mazes, lies in the
practical step of summoning up faith and reverence and love to a Guru, who will
himself thereafter solve all problems; remove all difficulties and drive off all tigers
and bears from the route, and save one or in any case had far reaching results.
Upasani Baba, who came to Shirdi in 1911, took Baba for his Guide and got his
help especially, by silent instruction through visions. In one of the visions, Upasini
found, that as he was passing on, there was a deep pit, which afterwards he learnt
was hell, and clutched at his feet, and tried to pull him down. He had sufficient
grace to remember his Guru and said, "Let go, let go. If you don't let go, I will tell
Sai Baba."
The remembrance of the Guru knocks off all Vasanas and tendencies,
which lead to hell. Thus, Upasani’s feet were released from the clutch of the
hands from hell. Upasani was then told that is was a mistake to go very near the
brink of that pit. It was the Guru's grace that saved him from that pit. This is
allegorical or symbolical, but, in point of fact, it was this same Guru Sai Baba's
grace, that saved Raobahadur H.V. Sathe from the brink of hell, the sin of
immorality with a lady of doubtful reputation at the Shala at Shirdi. On that
occasion Sathe felt like a thief caught red-handed. He repented immediately his
stupidity and he resolved never again to call at that woman’s place or to omit such
a sin. So, Baba did really save this devotee of His from falling into a yawning pit,
and thus showed that He was the Guru, who would take a man on to the goal of his
life. If a man commits such mortal sins as adultery or debauchery, he can never
be fit to receive the higher truths, which alone can take him on to purity,
detachment, and love of God that ensures salvation and liberation.
Thus, what Baba spoke to Dabholkar was illustrated in the case of Sathe.
But, this was not the only instance, in which Baba helped either Sathe or others. It
is not merely Kama that degrades the soul and takes it to hell. Krodha, anger or
hatred does the same. Baba in this case of Sathe, did another piece of signal
service. Sathe had purchased a plot of land at or near Shirdi, and wanted to go
and see the place. He brought a cart and wanted his wife to get into it, so that they
might go and see the place. But, Dada Kelkar, his father-in-law, who arranged the
sale, was anxious that claims to that land should not be put forward by
Sathe's Jnytis or next of kin, as they would claim, it if they came to know that the
land was purchased by him. So, he had told his daughter not to go with her
husband to see the land. So, when Sathe wanted his wife to get into the cart, she
would not come. Then, at once Sathe got angry, and took the horsewhip in his
hand, and wanted to whip his wife, for her impertinent refusal. He had lifted his
hand, when Sai Baba who was watching the whole scene, unseen, from his won
Mosque, sent up Megha to hurry up and bring Sathe to Baba. So, as the whip was
lifted, Megha said, "Baba wants you," and down fell the whip. Sathe went to Baba.
Baba there softened Sathe, and told him that there was no necessity for him to see
the land for the land was there all the time. Sathe found how Baba had saved him
once again from an act of gross cruelty to his wife, which would also be one of the
sins leading to hell. Conquest of temper is essential for one’s religious progress.
CHAPTER - XILIFE DIVINE (Realisation of self)
In Gita Lord Krishna said, “O Dhananjaya, Arjuna, I have shown you the
divine Cosmic Form, My diminutive forms, and the light of my devotion. Partha,
adore Me, surrender to Me, Merge in Me. The absolute dedication and surrender
will enjoin you to Atomic knowledge of realization. That body is the field of my
sport, where the five senses, mind, Prana and bodily intellect are playing a game of
lust and desire. The dream of the Jiva state abides in this field (Kshetra). The
relationship between Jiva and Shiva is forgotten”.
In the commentary on Gita, Dhyaneshwar has said that the mind is a link
between senses and the discriminative intellect. It is of the material of Vayu and is
fickle. The mind resides outside the intellect’s sphere and controls ego. It fans
the desire, inspires hope and follows up fear. It pushes the senses in sensory
pursuits. It feeds the Sankalpa to create a world of its own and vanishes its own
creations. It makes the Jiva to be extrovert and restless. It drives the senses after
objects. It covers the intellect with ignorance and fans the hope that one can
derive happiness from the vanishing objects.
The mind rejoices in multiplicity. In the knowledge for Yoga Sadhana effort
is made to put an end to the play of mind. However, this very mind has its own
divinity, because it can join the senses to the self. In the devotional path the
stream of mind is tended towards God. In the Dhyana way, taking resort to truth
and philosophy ends the fiction of mind. The intellect is made to prevail upon the
mind. In Yoga, the mind is made to vanish. The human mind is thus fickle but can
be controlled and steadied. It is divine in its substance and can join us to the
cosmic mind and can bring its qualities in the individual mind. When the mind
turns into itself, it has a magical effect. It abandons the sensory objects and
merges in the body. It crosses the portals of the waves of consciousness and
retires back in Self. When the mind vanishes, the Sansar or the external world
evaporates. The duality ends. The God oriented mind expands itself to its cosmic
shape. It embraces the universe and gives the realization, which God resides in
our inner being. But it takes the help of devotion, knowledge and yoga to reach
this type of experience or understanding. The working of body, mind and speech
come to a standstill. The mind with tendencies of senses merges in the heart. The
consciousness merges in self. The motions of breath also become slow. The
intellect merges into the being. This state of happiness, equilibrium and self-
based contentment is the state of bliss. The individual being transforms into
ecstasy and stabilizes in the proximity of cosmic consciousness.
Dhyaneshwar has classified devotees into three categories 1)
Sthitapradnya, 2) Dhyani Bhakta and 3) Gunateet Bhakta. The devotee called
“Sthitapradnya” (steady minded) reaches the inner knowledge (Sanvid) by the
force of actions without longing for fruit. The Dhyani devotee becomes bereft of all
desires, and lusts and reaches the knowledge (Sanvid) in Ananda form. The
Gunateet (who is beyond three Gunas) reaches renunciation and reaches
knowledge (truth). All these three types of experiences are of the same sort,
although viewed separately by us. Lord Krishna declares that he approves of the
Dhyani Bhakta, because he is ever engrossed in perpetual remembrance of God.
The real devotee is stuffed with love for God and incessantly thinks of nothing but
God. This kind of love is naturally moistened with intensity, sentiments and
affection. It is therefore desirable to be Dhyani Devotee. The aspirant of Yoga
Path lays stress on Naval, Heart and Eyebrows centers. The serpent power in him
inspires new life at the place of Parvani (i.e. Nabhichakra).
Their concentration on the heart center swings between the mediator and
object of meditation. The Kundalini makes a swing here like a cradle and
manifests as a flame. Near the eyebrow center, it endows the aspirants with divine
vision (Divya Drishti). The unbeaten drum sound in the heart leads the aspirant
onward and merges him in bliss through the corridor of the lustrous light of Adnya
Chakra. The external world lives in material sky (Bhutakasha), whereas the subtle
world of the mind lives in Chittakasha (Astral Sky). The Chidakasha or the higher
sky begins from the naval center. The Daharakasha blooms near the heart,
whereas the higher sky (Mahadakasha) begins above the neck center. Thus the
heart has its Daharakasha within, while the Kantha has the Mahadakasha starting
from its arcade. The material sky and the astral sky (Chittakasha) are common all
beings whether human or animal beings.
The astral sky (Chittakasha) is made up of desires and hence it is expansive
as the universe. It assumes the narrow shape of subtle body. This is the root
cause of creation of time space dimensions in the mind. The wrong knowledge
causes the illusory sights in the Chittakasha. We have to cross the Bhutakasha as
well as Chittakasha by constant Sadhana to rise up to the level of higher
Chidakasha. When the mind sublimates into Unmani state, it merges with cosmic
consciousness. It is therefore inevitable to cross the barriers of selfishness,
desires and lusts and follow the path of divine life.
There are two glands at the base of the brain 1) pituitary 2) hypothalamus,
which give a new current of life, when Sadhana activates them. This is the Amrit
oozing from “Satravi Kala”. When we reach this stage, the mind easily tends
inside and merges into the simple Samadhi (Sahaj Samadhi). The intellect is to
be made to stick up to the original support less principle to enable oneself to enter
into the field of cosmic mind. For this we have to surpass the limits of life of body
senses, and control ripples of mind. These processes of Yoga must be assisted by
devotion. Otherwise the mind will not be controlled along with the Prana (vital
breath). This is necessary to live the universal life of a Dhyani Bhakta. We
should not be a drab Dhyani or Yogi. We should be a Dhyani Bhakti Yogi
simultaneously.
The Yogi of Dattatreya cult, Shri Tembe Maharaj, has said in his “Datta
Mahatmya” that Pranayam control Pran but cannot still the mind. We have to
undergo the process of Pratyahara and withdraw our mind and senses from the
objective world just as the tortoise controls his limbs. The Pratyahara must be
followed by Dharana. This will engage the mind in love. The ripples of the mind
must merge with the help of recitation of name and concentration on the form of
the Godhead. Mind can be “no mind’ with the help of Pratyahara. The Dharana
and Dhyana will have to be fixed on the Saguna Form with the help of
Namasmaran, Manaspooja and devotional attachment. The four-armed beautiful
Vishnu Form is specially devised for meditation. The mind still with Prana under
the influence of concentration on the form of Narayana. When Prana is won along
with the mind and the mind is evaporated into nothingness, the aspirant enters in
Chidakasha (higher sky) and starts living the Divine Life.
The Nathas do not recognize the broad framework of Yadnya and Vedas.
They value Omkar, which is the mystic Veda in the compact form. Nathas adored
Nama in the form of Omkar Pranava. The sound in the word is divine. The Nada
can merge the jiva into self. Nathas withdraw the mind from sense life, rouse
Kundalini power and repeat Soham in the breath; they cross the six Chakras and
hear Anahata to enter Divine Life. The Natha way is influenced by the Guru
Mantra and the Guru Bhakti. Gorakshanath in his Siddhasiddhant Praddhati
describes the half-opened eyes stabilized breathing of Sadhaka who sees the still
lamp not fluttering by wind. The Manonmani stage downs together with the
Amanaska Mudra. The Atma manifest as a virtual flame. The Nada and
Amanaska Yoga is held by Nathas as supreme Sadhana. The Shiva coupled with
Shakti is the support of Universe. Goraksha admonishes reaching Nirutthan Pada
by Nadalaya, Sahajakumbhaka and Pratyahara. According to Nathas reaching
Shiva principles with duality-non-duality approach is the divine life leading to the
light, which is Ananda.
PURIFICATION OF BODY, MIND AND THOUGHTS
Sai Baba had emphasized that the body, mind, intellect and ego have to be
purified first for the success of all sadhana efforts. This is because we are
unclean due to the effect of past karmas. Moreover we are being taught every day
about the lure and desirability of money fame, power and enjoyment. This
produces a lasting impression on the subtle body which is beyond mind and
intellect and which survives physical existence. We have to think in different
directions and live a different way of life to smudge the impact of these
unwholesome effects. The different way of thought, action and life is the
“Sadhana”.
The body gets purified on account of selfless service and benevolent acts.
This helps in obliterating the impressions of past karmas on the mind. When the
mind is sublimated, the seeds of devotion can be sown and nurtured within. The
barren and stony soil of selfish deeds and thoughts is not fit for sowing the seeds
of intense love for God. The aspirants must properly understand this. Selfishness
is a road leading in altogether opposite directions more than the road to God or
liberation. A man approaches God step by step, when he removes the pains of
others, assists men in distress and knows the God inherent in others’ minds.
Similarly, it is essential to install the memory and the idols of God in the heart by
incessant recitation of name and meditation on the form. This enables the subtle
body (that outlives physical death) to wipe off the imprint of selfishness and to
replace it by the image of God.
A Sadhaka has to tune in his consciousness with the divine consciousness.
This means that he has to merge his consciousness in the cosmic consciousness.
This purges the ego (The ego is not pride here). The consciousness of an
individual when purified induces God element within from the universal level. The
still, tranquil and peaceful God oriented consciousness adjusts itself with Cosmic
Ego (God). The jiva is attracted to the divine Shiva. This is the path of Divine
Life. The string that leads into the light beyond time and space through the portals
of life and death is a string of Gunashakti. This string can be handled through
selfless life, harmonizing with God and merger of prana and mana in eternal
peace. The power of Guru intervenes here and takes charge of the aspirant’s life
and carries him towards the final goal of liberation.
The sadhana of freeing from the samsar is no tantamount to forsaking wife
and children. It means that we have to see the happiness and sorrows in life with
an eye of a witness. This has been said by Baba himself. We cannot see life like
an impartial witness because of our concepts of happiness and distress, which are
illusory in substance.
We shall be able to unchain ourselves from the shackles of Prarabdha only
when we can see the working of six vikaras (Shadripus) in the detached manner.
We must not be conceited when prosperity floods our lives. We must accept good
fortune modestly. We must not allow the wicked to exploit us due to our
weakness. Riches are transitory. We must honour the saints and saintly people.
We must feed the hungry, pity the animals, give alms to the poor. However, we
should not squander our money because nobody would support us, once the
money is frittered away. The money is an absolute essentiality in the prapancha.
If we are to spend, we should spend for the orphans, disabled, destitutes and for
public welfare. Our living should be simple and unostentatious. We should avoid
disputes and squabbles. We should not breed familiarity with the servants. We
should love our spouse, but should not be henpecked. All the world is a caravan
serai. We should love God alone. All is fleeting; hence we should do our duty and
leave the fruits to God.
The weal and woe, the prosperity and poverty are the effects of Birth-
Prarabdha (Deha-prarabdha). We have to consume it and exhaust all with the
attitude of faith and patience. If we commit a theft or a murder for the sake of
money, it would bring in Karma-prarabdha (i.e. fruit of karma). It is not Deha-
prarabdha. The destiny did not mean to gift it to us. We have ourselves brought
the karma by our greed. We have now to consume earlier Deha-prarabdha and
the new Karma prarabdha. If it cannot be exhausted in this birth, we have to take
another birth to repay it. It is for this, that we should have absolutely control over
the mind and action. We should not enable ourselves in the new web of karma
due to lust and greed. We should exhaust the original Deha-prarabdha with faith
and patience.
An aspirant must accomplish the “Four Sadhanas” (Sadhana-
Chatustaya). This is vivek, vairaga, shamadama and mumuksha. In other words,
it means renunciation, discrimination, control of mind and desire for liberation. We
must read on with these four instruments in our hand. All yogas, yadnyas,
penances are fruitless and futile for want of these four sadhanas. This is because
the human mind is not cleansed and made bereft of dirt if these four virtues are not
attained by aspirants. The love for God (i.e. Devotion) can be cultivated in a pure
body and heart.
This ground has to be prepared. The pathways leading to pure Chaitanya
and God realization spring from this base. The roads of light begin here only. This
is the interpretation of Baba’s
teachings.
PREPARATION OF MIND, BUDHI, BHAVA AND SANKALPA FOR REALISATION.
The readers have acquainted themselves with the bare truth that the
Sadhaka must imbibe in himself, a number of virtues, piety, moral behaviour,
compassion and service. The virtues are divine wealth. The Yamas and Niyamas
in yoga science, suggest virtuous and moderate life. If our daily life is selfish, self-
centred, and infested with wrath, lust, jealousy and hate, it will not be useful at all
Sadhana. On the contrary it is fully detrimental to the life of atomic progress and
attainment. It is a fact that a man does not change his nature, behaviour and
expression of his mind, intellect and ego in an easy way. His mind turns to God,
only when he is bitterly hit by dire disappointment, shocks or the battering at the
hands of distress. Only a few are the blessed ones who have an inborn tendency
of piety, devotion, love and unselfish attitude. This is an outcome of merits of past
births, which enjoin them to the Godly wealth of these virtues. God waits to see
and watch, when we would take to the new way of life by an inner change within
us. For this his test is made up of the incident of weal and woe to which he
exposes us from time to time. One who has honestly changed his ways and who is
endeavouring to reach God by sincere and honest efforts is not far away from
God. He cannot see God face to face because of the impurity of mind, buddhi and
ego. The light of realization would flood his life, when he is inspired into divine life
through the grace of Guru or God.
The mental, physical and intellectual preparation is an essential prerequisite
of Sadhana. We forget this simple truth and stick up to our old type of behaviour
and action. We forget the significance of the preparation or ignore its pressing
demand. It is because of this fact that we do not cross even the first step to reach
the arcade of Sadhana. We must change our previous selfish and lusty life. Then
alone the body and mind are reformed to suit the needs of Sadhana. We forget
this conveniently. This truth is echoed in Yama and Niyama in Astanga Yoga.
The truth, non-violence, non-stealing, celibacy and non- acceptance of anything
from others constitute “Yamas”. This discipline causes the senses to diminish
their attachment for the worldly things and purifies the mind and body. The body
becomes energetic and the luster of morality shines in the mind. The individual
selfishness based on attachment abates. The intensity of desires and longing for
outward things evaporates. The “Niyamas” constitute sacredness, love, pity
which tinge the body and mind in their divine colours. Niymam means assimilating
purity, satisfaction, penance, self-emancipation and trust in God which are virtues
leading to mental discipline. This includes some exercises of body; breathe
control, Asanas, penance, recitation of name, vows, etc. These help to achieve
external purification of the body. A man is self-contented because of Santosha.
Silence and peace free the consciousness from the external interruptions and
involvement and begins to think extrovertly. Truth, celibacy and silence are such
magic techniques, which open the doors of happiness. This type of the pure
aspirant (who observes silence, celibacy and truth) imbibes in his free
consciousness God’s love, universal compassion, service of humanity and such
other divine virtues, if he practices Tapa, Swadhyaya, Ishwar pranidhana
(Niyamas) japa or recitation of name concentrates the mind and intellect on God’s
name and form. The rays of His grace are attracted towards the mind of the
aspirant and illuminate his heart. Swadhyaya (or self study) is next stage in which
an aspirant coaches himself and turns his mind to God. The next stage is Ishwara
Pranidhana (Meditation on God), which joins the mind, buddhi and ego to God
directly. This consists of nine-fold devotion (Smarana, Chintana,Samkirtana,
Archana, Atmanivedana, etc.) This orients his consciousness towards God and
teaches him to love God deeply. If the love towards God is fixed and steadfast, the
divine wealth like purification of the body and mind, compassion, humanitarian
attitude is easily accessible to the Sadhaka. The simple meaning of Yama Niyama
is to make the senses and mind to leave their natural tendency towards worldly
things and to love God intensely and steadily. In short, this is the process to stop
the tendency of the mind to run after worldly things and tend it back to the Atman.
The mind that runs after the worldly things come back with the attachment for
things. The Sadhana aims at breaking his web of attachment between the worldly
things and the human mind by remaining aloof in water like the lotus leaf. We have
to gain detachment, satisfaction and contentment by the Sadhana. The door of
knowledge lies hidden behind the curtain of discontentment. The door for
entry into Anand opens through this Santosha or contentment. We have to block
one thought by another thought. When thought and sankalpa (will) are brought to
an end pure and sacred consciousness appears within us. The web of thoughts
and wishes create a mind. Mind is nothing but a bundle of desires and longings.
Peace abides in freedom from desire. The Sadhana gives this freedom. The
Sadhaka should keep the God’s name on his tongue, his form in the
eyes and turn the consciousness (mind, budhi and ego) into Godly awareness.
This Sadhana means merging one’s will in God’s will and turning the sorrow in the
form of desire into happiness or bliss. The senses will be controlled by the mind;
the mind by prana, prana by laya (merger) and laya by constantly hearing the and
the mind should not relish planning of desire (samkalpa) nor the bonds of
past memories. This emancipates the mind and makes it fit for Sadhana. This is
indeed the reason why the Sadhana of purification of the mind, buddhi, ego and
Samyama is inevitably essential. The steps of future exercises like Asana,
Pranayam, Pratyahar, Dhyana and Dharana are open to those who achieve this
preparatory success. This preparation means, in other words, to repulse the
attached mind from the sources of attachment like wealth, fame, power and lust
and fix it on God through concentration, moral life, selflessness, love and
compassion and benevolent acts. This creates true Ananda. Every good actor or
fair feeling leads us towards God and advances us to the goal of realization of the
self. The variety and indulgence are not real pleasure. The body is apart from the
inner consciousness is a truth realizable through Sadhana. Love is the means of
attaining Prashanti (Bliss). The unity of humanity and self-knowledge springs
from Prashanti. Prashanti is constantly flowing contentment and Ananda. It is
unselfish but faith bound life. It is truth, love, knowledge and Shanti (Peace). This
enables an aspirant to see his atma shining apart from the five sheaths of his
existence, body, mind and inner consciousness. This is a Sadhana leading to
original truth by casting each sheath by turn.
The Sadhana reveals that a man is God. This Godhood could be reached
by purifying the body, mind, rejoining the buddhi to God and by revealing the inner
pure “I” in our ego or consciousness. This Pure “I” is God. This pure “I” is a part of
the universal consciousness (God). The doers of Sadhana, love, realization and
bliss open through this pure “I”. It is therefore an unavoidable part of Sadhana to
refine the mind, buddhi and ego. It is not only refinement, but also a reforming and
purging process. The reason for insisting this factor again and again in this article
is that the man has gone for away from the purity of mind and buddhi in this life of
speed, selfishness and self-centred ego. He has to revert himself to the original
nature by honest and dynamic efforts. We can purchase an article from a shop
after payment of the cost but we cannot purchase divine life and realization in the
market. We must change ourselves internally, inwardly and be fact to face with the
divine life and its demands. One can very well understand the value of Sadhana
and its essentiality also on a mental plane. But he has to act positively by offering
the necessary sacrifice, inner change and surrender. The methods of money,
power, and organization will not be of any help there.
The main intention behind this preparation is that the mind and buddhi
should be clean, pure and capable of accommodating nobler and higher tenets.
The mind is to repent first to enable oneself not to mix up in sense objects even
when one is face to face with sensual enjoyment. When we pull the string of love
and devotion, the tensions of “I” consciousness relax. The heart is a sporting
playground of Saguna God. Navel is a place of dynamic action. Talusthan is
the entrance door to the crest center (Brahmarandhara) and the crest center
is the place of merger of Shiva and Shakti. We have to enter this preparatory
Sadhana so that we could step on the threshold of divine life. The consciousness,
which is marked by individuality at the navel and eyebrow center, gets expanded
when the consciousness is raised higher and higher from navel to the heart
center. The universality of cosmic elements made up of love, compassion,
devotion, humanitarian and kindness sprout up in the heart. When the Saguna
form of God is fixed with steady love in the heart, the ego crosses individuality and
enters into universality and merges in cosmos.
The process in the consciousness namely Saguna Nirguna
transformation, individuality-universality merges are vital in imparting perfection to
an advanced aspirant. The Sadhana of control described earlier together with
renunciation of the fruits of action help in the pooja of the universal God residing as
a spark in the heart. This discipline is of great significance and assistance to a
true aspirant. This orients a Sadhaka through his senses, mind, buddhi and ego
towards the Paramatma residing in the heart. When the senses together with
the mind turn into the heart and the waves of devotional love sentiments spring
out through the senses. The control and denouncement turns into love and higher
sentiments. This is a high and elevated stage of Samyama and Vairagya
(renunciation and detachment). This cannot be experienced at the very
outset when the exercise of Sadhana is at an infancy stage. This would demand a
constant and determined service and Sadhana for sometime. The Gudakesh
(Paramatma) lives in the heart. This is universal or cosmic God. He is the master
of the senses. He is to be invoked in the heart. Bhakti is the method of
invocation.
This takes us over Samyama and purification stage and dips us into the main
stream of devotional love. The devotion does the reverse action of pulling down
God into the mind, buddhi and ego. That is why Tukaram and Kabir call Bhakti
as superior to the plane of heart. This requires the process of Nama, love, control
of breath and such other techniques the Saguna form is a sportive aspect of God.
This leads to Nirguna. That is why Saguna is significant. The Saguna love
is also called “Shambhava Bhava” or “Viralodaya Bhava”. This is a sentiment of
positive assumption of cosmic ego. This sprouts through love for God. The divine
love is a rare gift of God. The love expands with equanimity sense. The
surrender melts it into fluid action. When the love assimilates in Chitta (inner mind)
it becomes the energy of Chitta. This is the descent of God in other words. The
devotee enters the heart of the universe through his own heart. The universe
becomes the heart of the devotee. The ocean of Samsara turns into the ocean of
love sentiments. The bhakti sentiment starts from the deep faith (Shraddha) but
mere faith is not bhakti. The steady and determined emotion of love is faith. It has
the basis of determination of buddhi and fixture of emotion. But bhakti is a
spontaneous flow of love. Action tinged by love devotion is the
easy denouncement or detachment (Sahaj Sanyas) love with faith, suffer
Prarabdha with courage (Saburi), surrender enjoyment to God and face the
senses. God can accept the offerings through a picture also. But the mind must
be cosmic oriented. God is indebted to love and a servant of Bhakti.
This article has dwelt upon the initial spiritual preparation consisting of purification
of the mind, intellect and ego and control of breath. It has also touched the
advanced stage of devotion flourishing in a pure and controlled mind. This article
has descanted the stage of sublime sentiments.
Tukaram describes the realization experience as follows: -
“The Pranas have been sluggish, drowsy and slumbering. The sign of
immorality is manifest. The eyes have dilated by light, throat is choked with
sentiment, the body is thrilled with ecstasy. The mind has been glued to the self
and is motionless. The blue light is lit like in the dawn. The seventeenth Kala is
exuding Amrit. The sun and moon are together. The Jiva is allying with Shiva.
The ecstasy is sprouting in the water of bliss. The Jiva is plunged in Ananda and
the mind is Unman. The awareness of space, direction and time has died down.
Atma has expanded into the universe. Aham has merged in Soham and the
external world has vanished. The Brahma has blazed out of the heart as a flame.
CHAPTER - XII
YOGA FOR All
There are millions of creatures in the universe. Among all, the form of
human being is the best, in the sense; it is nearer to the Creator.
The Creator creates the Universe with some thinking and analyzing.
Among all creatures man only can think and analyse. So the human form is the
best form to realize the ‘Supreme Being’ or to be one with the Universal one. If the
man tries, he can know the knower in him. He can realize the self. Once he
knows the self or life or Atma inside him, then all lives or selves inside all beings
are known to him. Then he becomes Brahmagnani or Brahman himself. He joins
with the Para Brahma or Universal God. Once he joins with Para Brahma, he
becomes God Himself. He realizes that he has no birth or death; he has no
pleasure or pain. He is Paramahamsa. The main aim of all human being should
be to become Paramahamsa. This can be achieved by Yoga.
To achieve Yoga, there are many more ways or processes. Among them
are by severe asanas, pranayams, following difficult as terites, by long-range
tapas, by Kriya yoga or Gnyan yoga or Karma yoga and Bhakti yoga, etc. But for
an ordinary worldly man all the above paths are very difficult. If this is so, then how
the worldly man can achieve Yoga and merge with God.
The worldly man can easily realize God and merge with him. If he realizes
what is “I”. “I” is this material jada body of blood, flesh, and bone or “I” is the self or
consciousness or life of this body. If I am not there, then this body of mine
becomes dead. This body cannot see, cannot speak, cannot move and cannot do
anything. So the doer, seer, hearer, knower is not this body, but it is “I” the self or
life inside this body. So “I” am is not this body but the life of this body.
As per the Gita, the life or Atma cannot be cut, cannot be burnt, cannot be
sunk in water. It has no birth or death. So “I” the life or self has no birth, no death
and no growth. It is separate from the jada body. It is the witness of all activities
of his body. I am the self or Atma, the part of Paramatma. Like the air inside the
body is not different from Universal Air, similarly the Atma inside this body is not
separate Universal Atma, or Paramatma. Parabrahama i.e. Paramatma is
permitted in everybody, everywhere. So “I” the self in my body is the same in the
self in everybody. The qualities and nature of self or Atma or Brahma is one and
the same in everybody including all avtars like Rama, Krishna, Sai Baba and
Shankaracharya. That is why Sai Baba says “I realize that I am God and you do
not realize that you are also God”. This is the difference between an Avtar and an
ordinary man.
The life or Brahma or Atma is the witness of all our activities. This witness
i.e. God is Sainath, can help us or put us in trouble, if we do good things or bad
things.
Once we realize that the self or life in everybody is the same or Atma, which
is in us, then we feel the universal self. We will hesitate to trouble or cheat or harm
any other creatures. All lives or atmas in others will be our own Atmas or lives.
Then we will feel “Vasudev Kutumbakam”. Then only we will feel complete Yoga,
with God or Paramatma. So to get complete merger with God severe austerities,
Sadhanas, asanas, pranayam or tapas is not required, except realizing the truth
that we are not this material jada body, but the life on Atma of our body. Once truly
we realize this, then our Yoga or merger with God is very easy. All worldly may
will vanish and we will become the true Human Beings or Paramahansa or Avtar
Purush.Realise this, then you can realize the real realization i.e. achieve the true
Yoga with Baba.
.
CHAPTER - XIII
BHAKTI, BHAGWAN & BAGAVATSBhakti is a real genuine search after the LORD, a search beginning,
continuing and ending in love. Even a single moment of this divine madness of
extreme love for God brings us eternal freedom. Bhakti is intense love for God.
When a devotee gets it he loves all and hates none. He becomes God-
intoxicated and satisfied forever. This love is perennial and cannot be reduced to
any earthly benefit, because so long as worldly desires last, that kind of love does
not come. Bhakti is greater than karma, greater than Yoga because these are
intended for an object or goal in view while Bhakti is its own friction, its own means
and its own end.
Bhakti has been one constant theme of our Sages, Saints and Mystics.
The supreme greatness and efficacy of Bhakti has been
expressed, written and sung by them and all of these have emphasized that one
great advantage of Bhakti is that it is the easiest and the most natural way to reach
the great divine end in view. The singleness of attachment (Nishtha) to a loved
object is the basis for genuine love for God.
The great danger that exists in various stages of Bhakti is fanaticism. Love
for one ideal does not result in hating another ideal. Here, in is the explanation of
why the same man who is so lovingly and steadfastly attached to his own ideal of
God becomes a violent fanatic when he sees or hears anything of any other ideal.
Herein comes the knowledge for discrimination, Jnana, Three things are
essential to fly to Godhead.
Jnana is one wing, Bhakti is another and yoga is the rudder. All of us
cannot pursue all the three forms of worship together in harmony and therefore,
Bhakti alone is the only easy way for, with intense love for God, to reach Godhead
in a throne’s path where the soul meets God face to face.
In this age of religious wrangles and fanaticism the value of Bhakti cannot be
deprecated. The aim of a true devotee is one, the union of his soul with God and
this is the highest achievement of human consciousness. Our Vedas, Upanishads,
our epics, the Bhagawat Gita, the countless writings and compositions of our
saints, seers and mystics have time and again, persistently, dinned into our
ears the need for Bhakti, punctuated with an intense love for God.
All Saints are worshippers of the Eternal in one form or another and it is
done with their intense love to God. Many of them are not merely content with a
spark of Divinity alone. Their ultimate goals was emancipation from suffering of
Sansara of rebirth forever and reaches Godhead. The emancipation they sought
not only for themselves but for all people as well. All the great Saints worked for
this goal with a lot of dynamism and determination carrying this message to one
and all.
SHRI SAI BABA of Shirdi is unique in this respect for “HE” preached neither
a specific religion nor cult but propagated among those who came to him, a
selfless Bhakti with intense love for God. Baba entreated of his devotees to bid
good-bye to worldly possessions, honour, offices and status and in an absolute
state of abdication and abandon ponder on the Divine. With this message to his
devotees, Baba remained a Fakir and transformed those who came to Him to
transcend the empirical and ethical levels and rise further to the spiritual. This is
the ultimate philosophy all religions teach and the Saint of Shirdi is a living
example. May HIS grace be upon all of us in a path divine to Godhead?
CHAPTER - XIV
THE REALITY BEHIND PRAYER AND ITS BENEFITS
Prayer is very much misunderstood by the modern people. In their view, prayer is
nothing but a travesty of universal material law, a fagade to deceive the Almighty
and a business of certain persons to fill their belly by misguiding others.
The materialistic modern man does not believe in awakening the spiritual
powers.
Young blood is naturally rebellious. Instead of having faith in
discrimination, it believes in being upset and excited. It desires a new
revolution, new transformation and new world in every direction. Its
approach is purely material. It has absolutely no interest in spiritual life. It
thinks itself to be so strong that is does not demand anything from God by
way of prayer.
This disregard is but a proud declaration of atheism. It is hypocrisy to
express doubt about the reality of divine power. It is egoism of the physical
powers, which, with its narrow selfishness, turns everything to dust. Some ordinary
people on the other hand, think that by way of praying, we can deceive the
Omniscient God to give us what we want, this view is also mistaken.
Prayer is not a mental entertainment. Prayer is a kind of spiritual
achievement. Dutifulness, awareness, hard work and prayer with deserving
devotion behind it alone bring about the bliss from the above as its fruit. The
imagined calculations for self-aggrandizement of those who demand more than
their service are however not fulfilled by prayers, it is generally observed.
God will not pay heed to the prostration and auspicious ceremonies of persons
who are lazy, daydreamers or who are deep in sense enjoyments.
Prayer is a Spiritual Exercise.
There can be three motives of prayers. They are: -
a) Prayer are offered for obtaining the material needs or for making good some
important lacunae in one’s life, such as food, clothing, service, money, wife, or
child, relief from disease, redress from some distress, tiding over calamity, to
obtain great fame, to pass in examination, to attain intelligence or in general
to be successful in all undertaking in worldly affairs.
b) Prayer is offered for spiritual evolution, to control the Kama and Krodha i.e. the
desires and anger, to understand what is soul, what is God, what is Death, what
are the conditions of Jiva after death and what is this creation, for mental and
intellectual development, and for knowing the real path of liberation.
c) Prayer has another facet. There are real devotees of God who have no
demand whatsoever. They only wish to be merged in the God Consciousness and
the love of God. The sole concern in God realization. This effort is the best kind of
prayer.
Benefits or Prayer
Prayer is a way to control the mind in the same manner as recitation of
name, rituals, repetition, sacrifice, etc. It is a necessary exercise to the mind as the
gymnasium material is necessary for physical culture. Prayer is a means of
cleansing the mind of the dross, which collects around it due to worldly thinking.
Prayer brings about internal order, balance in mind, sharpness of intellect,
clearness of perception and discernment. It opens up the psyche of man towards
heights of spiritual truths and comes as a great help towards self-ennoblement.
Prayer is useful instrument with its subtle influence, which makes everyday
of our life a day of balance, enthusiasm and peace. The subconscious mind of
man, which is said to be a very powerful force by psychologists, has a tremendous
effect on our behaviour. Prayer helps us to understand this hidden layer of our
mind and brings great hope of divine sassier By prayer are aroused and activated
thoughts and feelings of good emotion, successfulness, vigour and the mind
saturated with positive towards life in general. It creates a fertile soil for beat
thoughts in mind. It may be said even that a battle started with prayer is a battle
for a win.
Prayer is a way of Repentance
When a man really repents his bad actions, he feels anguish. He desires to
be free from his collected Karma and wash the sins off his inner being. Prayer is a
very forceful weapon to cut away all the sins. It washes away the worries,
anxieties, tensions, diseases and diseases forming wicked thoughts, and also does
away with false pride, which is a fearful enemy in the path of Enlightenment.
The spiritual current, which ensues due to the utterance of the sacred and
often repeated and pregnant words and phrases, purifies the atmosphere around
the reciter and fills it with peace and divine love.
Life starts with a blissful prayer and ends with a blissful prayer. Out life is but a
continuous prayer.
When the stars of great noble thoughts of purity and divinity shine forth one
by one in the sky of our consciousness, the darkness of the night also seems
pleasant. The blackest prospects seem to be springboards to the highest
revelations.
Many a times, a Sadhak feels great pangs of desire to see for himself the
divine source of his being, the source of all things, the prism or dial brilliancy of
God. While praying, one moment of dazzling vision clears away all the shadows of
doubt. The depression becomes itself the sunshine of happiness and within the
darkness a clear shaft of light touches our inner being, the white light of our faithful
prayer, the merit made perfect by the God, the divine response to our appeal. True
prayer fills our life with joy, inundates it with a subtle kind force.
The Place of Prayer in Spiritual LifeWithout Prayer, the life of man is as dry and dark as that of beasts. Our
worldly life often becomes poisonous with duality, malice, jealousy, deceit,
competition, envy and crookedness. We burn ourselves by the ambers of anger.
We run after thousand and one objects of quenching our thirst for pleasure.
We lose the sense of proportion and discrimination, lose sight of real inward
happiness and fall down as pray to the objects of senses. The mind that thinks of
mundane dross objects, itself becomes of their dross nature. It is necessary to
wipe away this cross. That is the beginning of spiritual life. Desire, pride, thirst for
joy and pleasure, lust are to be killed. The beautiful qualities of the Soul are to be
awakened and developed. Prayer is the best method, the best helpful instrument
for this purpose, When a man considers that God is always before him, and
accepts his actual faults and cries out for relieving him out of the dross, he starts
getting an equilibrium and a peace never tasted before, humility, pity, forgiveness,
compassion to take full possession of the mind.
To be free of egoism, one has to surrender his self to the Greater Self,
which is omnipotent. That Self is God, the Being- Moving-Joyful. The Sat-Chit-
Anand Ishwara. When in all humility, the mind surrenders its activities to this
Universal Action of God, it loses its pride of separateness and the dawn on divine
compassion in all its simplicity takes place.
In prayer, we remember the qualities of God, which are pity, love, charity,
control, good action, good conduct and the highest bliss. Contemplation over
these qualities manifesting in the Universe as attributes of God, creates in our mind
a steadfast faith in Him and the dirty thought trash is thrown out like dead leaves in
a great tempest.
Prayer is a system of conversation with our Beloved God. In prayer, the
one who prays speaks with his own heart and the Universal Heart listens. Prayer
is a way to be unified with the power of the Atma, which creates, sustains and
protects the entire Universe endlessly and ceaselessly. A real devoted prayer is
heard by him and full response comes from Him for it.
Prayer is essential for spiritual enhancement. The dualities of desire can be
discarded only through real prayer. True prayer relieves the mind of its burdens,
awakens the knowledge of the true and brings light in the darkened hearts.
Prayer is therefore a “Must” in our daily life. It is the bread of our spirit.
CHAPTER XV
SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF “DHUNI”
At Shirdi, we find a very important and conspicuous thing, called “Dhuni”,
just in front of Sai Baba’s seat, in Dwarakamai.
At a glance, we may have a doubt, what for Sai Baba has installed “Dhuni”,
the Holy fire, and does it bear any relevance to Sai Baba’s Life and Message
The answer is “Yes, there is relevance!” Sai Baba is not just the 51/2 feet
physical stature, as He appears to be. He is the personification of tremendous
Light, Power and Wisdom! “Dhuni”, which was installed by Sai Baba and which is
eternally burning, represent this glorious light of Atomic Excellence!
Sai Baba never preached any religion! But He engaged Himself throughout
His life, in re-linking Humanity with its original inner source of Divinity! This re-
linking is called “Religion” as per the Latin Origin of the word! Out of our
ignorance, we identify with our gross physical bodies! Religion is supposed to wipe
out this false identification with the external and to re- establish the rapport with our
internal divine nature! Hence, Swami Vivekananda also explained that religion
is the manifestation of divinity already within! Sai Baba uncovered this divinity in
us along with its spiritual dignity! In this noble and wider appreciation, “Dhuni” is a
great spiritual symbol, signifying several meanings and values for us! Baba always
used to sit in Dwarakamai, by the side of the Dhuni and looked at it deeply, self-
absorbed! He used to spend money for purchasing faggots of firewood to be fed
into the “Dhuni” meditating! What a bewitching picture we can imagine in our
minds! Meditation is Tapas! By Tapas, Gnana-Agni burns our past Karma
(Prarabdha) to ashes! It burns the Sanchita also into dust! By Gnana-Agni burns
our past Karma (Prarabdha) to ashes! It burns the Sanchita also into dust! By
Gnana Agni our present actions will not bear any fruits of good or bad in the future
(i.e. AGAMI)!
Sai Baba’s acts are the most valuable lessons and significant messages for
us! He used to sit meditating by the side of “Dhuni”! Let us also meditate on Sai
Baba, silently, with our mind still and steady, without fluttering! This is the curse of
Sadhana, we can infer from this picture of Sai Baba sitting by the side of the Dhuni
in meditation.
In the light of the above observations, let us know something about the
concept of “Agni” as understood from our Indian Cultural Heritage!
The entire creation is the modification of “Fire” as per “Agni Puranam”. Our
body consists of five fires! 1) Vaiswanara Agni (Fire in the digestive system) 2)
Kama Agni (Fire of Desire); 3) Krodha Agni (Fire of Anger) 4) Gnana Agni (Fire of
Wisdom) and 5) Yoga Agni (Fire of Yoga).
Fire of Anger and the Fire of Desire ruin the man’s spiritual prospects. We
should do Sadhana only to augment the Fire of Knowledge and Fire of Yoga, and
at the same time to reduce the Fires of Kama and Krodha to nothingness.
In our culture, there is no event, which does not associate with the
ceremonial fire, which commands high esteem:
“ Dhuni” is fed by firewood, contributed by the devotees! It symbolizes a
collective aspiration! Anything done with a collective objective is called “Yagna”
or “Yaga” in our culture! “Dhuni” is also called “Yaga Agni”, Yaga and Yagna are
one! Today “Dhuni”, which is eternally burning at Shirdi represents the Holy Fire
of “Yagna” for the sake of collective peace and prosperity of the entire Humanity!
Sai Baba is for the entire Humanity!
“Dhuni” also symbolizes the state of eternal vigilance and perpetual
awareness! Acquiring this spiritual state is called “Jagruti”, which dispels the
horrid dreams we see in the sleep of ignorance! This is “Tamasoma-Jyotir-
Gamaya”.
Let us cross over the darkness and enter into the light! Dhuni is burning at
Dwarakamai to give this message to the future generations of Humanity!
When we go to Shirdi and see the “Dhuni”, we generally offer a coconut into
the “Dhuni”. It is symbolic of our TRIGUNAS of SATWARAJAS and TAMAS to be
burnt in the fire of Wisdom, GNANMA AGNI! Our life is an eternal story of
modifications of these GUNAS! Sai Baba is GUNA-ATITA, beyond the realm of
‘GUNAS’, which are the attributes of Maya Shakti! Sai Baba is the Controller of
MAYA! Our adding fuel to the “Dhuni” is symbolic of burning down our sins to
ashes.
The real meaning of the word ‘BHARAT’ is the “One who is immersed in
Light”! “BHA” means Light and “RATA” is the person engaged! Sai
Baba has come in human form only to re-settle us in the “LIGHT” to make us truly
“BHA-RAT”!
“Dhuni” stands as an eternal symbol for the revival of this
ancient glory for which India stood for the thousand and thousands of years!
Today the “Dhuni” of Shirdi gives us the Light of Wisdom; it gives the heated-up
comfort of Self- awareness! It burns our sins to ashes for our Spiritual Upliftment.
CHAPTER - XVI
“SELF RESEARCH”Everybody likes to know “God” or the secret lying behind the universal truth. But
only those Saints who are simply Godly incarnations like Ramakrishna
Paramahansa or Lord of Shirdi (SAI NATH) are capable to show you that the truth
lies within you. They never claim, that they are inventing or discovering
something, which is outside, but they are helping us to find out our own ‘Swaroop’
or ‘Self’.
What is ‘Self’ It is something concrete, which can be shown by anybody to
everybody Which is the place one can search for It is always with you, which you
have totally forgotten! Someone (of course a highly spiritual realized personality)
has to remind you!! You have to search for it again to recognize or to know your
own ‘Self”. Once you got that knock by the grace of highest authorities, you don’t
need to do ‘research’, but ‘Be Thyself’ forever! Just as a radioactive isotope helps
in training the path of a particular physiological phenomenon in a life cycle of an
unknown plant, you yourself may see your own body (to which a common person
called as “I”) as a separate entity of matter in light of “Thyself” (‘Atma Swarop’).
One may find it a bit tough task, because since years together (rather births
of ‘Janmas’ after ‘Janmas’) we have a fine notion to call our body as ‘Self’. We are
not ready to accept that ‘Self’ is different from the body, to which we stamped as
“I” or “Myself” or “It’s me” or likewise. Only those, who follow their “Sai” (Sadguru)
enjoy the ‘Self’ just like ‘Hanskshirnyaya’; they can see their own body as a
separate entity functioning simultaneously in the light of ‘Self’.
Some people may study Bible, some may like to work on ’Chatur Vedas’,
some may take interest in Kuran, and some may like to know the underlying
principles of Zen Philosophy. However, none of the sacred Dharmagrantha under
the Sun, will reveal its secret to you, unless you develop a very high perceptual
level and it is only in the hands of those ‘Karan Purush’, who incarnated only and
only for the purpose, they just lit and make you see your own self in your own it for
granted, that you are luckiest person, like Vivekananda or Ramakrishna
Paramahansa or Upasini Baba of Shri Sainath or light. By any chance if you meet
such personalities, you can take a Path of Parth Sarahi. In fact, we are so much
involved outwardly, that we are unable to judge such unique personalities, even
though they are existing and staying among us. Sometimes it becomes too late to
know our own Sai (Sadguru), who may show us Sai (Atma) the self searching for
the Sai (Sadguru) outside the four walls may bring you to the stage of researching
our own Sai (‘Atma’) inside the four walls of the body. Once this ‘Self Research’ is
over, what remains is simply bliss and love. The real truth is that whatever the
words, that are written here is simple due to my Sai Gurudeo Dada Bhagwan
(Brahmibhut Sambalal Muljibhai Patel), whom I met by the grace of Shri Sai Baba.
Bhakti and Nishkama Karma are the Pioneer preparatory steps without which you
cannot approach even the door of the lift (Akarma Marg) or the path shown rather
indicated by ‘Karan Purush’ or we may term that personality as “Sai Darshi”
(Atmaswaroop or ‘Self’) who is instrumental to show ‘Sai’ (Atma Swaroop or Self)
within you. It is very difficult to state about the ’Self’ in particular, because one has
to take the help of relative terminologies just to explain the uniqueness. It is not
the matter to be seen or shown as such. However, your high perceptual level of
understanding may lead you to the self realization. The highest perceptual power
is the Divine gift in the case of Saints, who are born with it, while devotion with faith
may put you at that level. Once you attend that state nothing needs to be told or
said, but it remains just a matter of unique experience! What else can
one write in this ‘Self Research’ (True ‘Sai Darshan’) The thesis of
innumerable pages may not be sufficient either to discuss or to talk on this subject.
Simply silent salvation is the solution for the ‘Supreme Sai Darshan’. It is better
to enjoy, sometimes, researching the self (a step earlier) rather than realizing the
step. Because you cannot drink water, if you become water. As long as a drinker
and the drink are separate, there is a charm. And hence, Sai Baba never allowed
his devotees to be diverted from their duties. Because Sri Sai Himself was a
‘Dnyanaswaroop Self’. Simply His presence may make His devotees courageous
in doing their daily duties faithfully.
When say “I”, I represent my body as “I”, to be outside world. When we
say, I see or hear, and then I feel my body is seeing or hearing. But, when we are
in sound sleep or in coma, the so-called my body cannot hear the sound and
cannot see the things, appearing in front of this body. So, what is that “I”, which
sees, hears, talks, thinks Is it the body or something else inside the body, which
keeps this body alive, warm and fresh This is the life or Atma or consciousness.
This consciousness only sees, hears, thinks, talks and makes the body alive. That
consciousness is life or Atma, is “I”. So, “I am” not this material Jade Body, but the
life of this body. So, I am Atma or Brahma. Atma or Brahma is formless, limitless,
beginning less and endless. It is energy or life. So, “I”, that is consciousness
never dies. Only when I leave this body the body decays or dies. I am the rider or
master of this body. I only make this body to think, to see, talk, walk, act, etc., So, I
am Brahma or Aham Brahmasmi, that is I am GOD.
CHAPTER XVII
PEACE OF MINDUnlike the soul which is radiated from God and uncreated, the mind is made
of material substance. The soul, already a spark of the Divinity of God, its source,
is turned inward towards the spirit side of life. The mind conditioned by worldly life
goes upward, toward material objects, and seeks to derive enjoyment from objects
of the sense. The mind seeks satisfaction for itself, and is almost always
insatiable. Given satisfaction it demands more. It loves ease and relaxation to the
extent that it does not value spiritual disciplines, prayer and sacrifice, nor worship
of the God Purification can occur through God’s mercy. One must take the mind
and rid it of dust and dirt. The mind collects dust, like the surface of glass. As
soon as a surface is polished or cleaned, you can see dust forming immediately.
The dust that forms on a glass will not do the harm that dust on the mind does. “It
ought to be removed by virtue of the purificatory waters of discipline, introspection,
contemplation, recitation and cultivation of devotion.... And association and
devotees.” The mind is a reflector of light. When one removes the impurities of
wrong thinking, self-importance, egotism and ignorance from the mind then it will
be reflective of divine light.
The mind’s impurity should be destroyed because it contaminates the heart.
When that happens, the heart aspirations are not heard by the mind. “Can’t you
hear”, the heart says, “I do not want worldliness. I just want to dwell upon God.”
Or if heard, the heart’s prompting is dismissed as sentimental emotionalism or non-
importance. God has encased the heart chakra near the heart thereby causing
the human heart to be highly sensitive. The slightest finger on the heart causes
filibration. The heart organ is very close to the heart chakra, physical center. One
should listen to what the heart says, because it is the voice of one’s conscience
and of one’s soul. So many times the heart is conveying a truth to the individual
while he, unwilling to listen, is engaging in faulty reasoning, selfish acts, or lewd
conduct. D not let your mind make your heart impure.
Like a spoiled child, the human mentality resists discipline. This leads to
wrong thinking, which brings about wrongdoing. The restless mind always disturbs
one’s inner peace that is natural to the soul. Hence, there is a constant struggle
between the mind and soul. Many people lose the battle daily when they yield to
anger, deceits, ignorance and hatred. Because the uncontrolled mind is
dangerous like a lethal weapon in the hands of a child, it cannot be trusted. It must
be subdued and conquered. One must exert control over the mind lest it becomes
agitated and destructive like a run-away animal. The mind, with its mundane
worldly values above spiritual ones, must be re- trained to appreciate divine life.
The process of systematic redevelopment of the mind is not easy, yet not
impossible. For one seeking spiritual communication with God, it can and must be
done the earthly plane. No matter what challenges, test or trials have to be
faced, one must focus the mind on God. Since the purpose of Life is to attain God,
the mind needs to become one-pointed in concentration upon God.
Surrender the mind to God; it then will become one and at peace in the
Spirit and in the Blessedness of God.
CHAPTER - XVIII
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF UDI ANDDAKSHINA TO HUMAN LIFE
Lord Shirdi Baba always with his practical demonstration taught we human
beings the ways and means to reach the goal of self- realisation. It was the
practice of Baba to ask for Dakshina from the devotees and then confer His
Blessings by applying UDI on their foreheads at the time of their departure.
Let us first see the importance of Dakshina, which Baba practised. Baba
used to ask for Dakshina from the people, who went to see Him and seek His
blessings. Of course, He never used to take Dakshina from those devotees, who
were not willing to give with their pure heart. A question may be asked as to
why Baba, a fakir and perfectly non-attached, ask for Dakshina In the Veda, it
is said that pooja of God is not complete unless a golden coin is offered. So, if a
coin was necessary in the pooja of Gods, why should it not be offered in the pooja
of saints also So, our Hindu shastras has laid down, that when one goes to see
God, saints or Guru, one should not go empty handed. The Brihadaranaya
Upanishad says that Lord Prajapathi advised Gods, men and demons by one letter
“DA”. Gods understood by this letter that they should practise Dama i.e. self-
control; the Men, that they should practise Daya i.e. compassion. So, men were
recommended charity. Lord Prajapathi advised to give charity with faith, modestly
and liberally and with awe and sympathy. So, Lord Baba practised the precepts of
the Upanishad, by asking for charity from devotees in order to remove their
attachment to money, which is a must for attaining self-realisation. The peculiarity
of His charity was that he had to give back hundred times more of what He
received.
There are many instances (see Sai Satcharita) where Baba asked for
dakshina again and again, but in their later life such devotees never lacked
shortage of money and made them to lead a contented life.
Baba practised Dakshina (with a secondary meaning) but not in terms of
money. Like for example, He asked for Dakshina from a devotee, Prof. G.C.
Narke, who replied that he did not have even a pie. Baba knew that he did not
have money but at the same time Baba knew that he was reading the book “Yoga
Vasishta”. So, Baba meant to say, “Deriving lessons from the book and lodging
them in the heart, where Baba resides”. Sometimes Baba accepted the money
and after Blessing it, He returned some amount to the devotee, to guard it or keep
it in his shrine of worship. How did Baba utilize the Dakshina in the form of money
Out of the total amount collected, Baba spent very little for his own sake i.e. for
buying Chillim and fuel for his Dhuni and the rest He distributed as charity to
various persons. Here lies His greatness and concern for the poor people. So,
Baba by practising Dana in his day-to-day life taught the devotees to remain
unattached to money, which is one of the requirements for attaining self-
realisation. Our scriptures say that of all the charities, giving food is the best one.
He, who gives food to the poor and hungry, is the best charitable person. The
Taittiriya Upanishad says, “Food is Brahma, from food all the creatures are born
and having been born, by food they live and having departed into food again they
enter.” So, it is our duty to give food to attain an uninvited guest, when he comes
at our doorstep in the afternoon, particularly if he is crippled, lame and blind. Baba
says that the merit of feeding such a disabled person is much, more than feeding
the able bodied.
Now let us see, what is UDI or VIBHUTI and its significance. Udi or ash
means that the end result of all these animate and inanimate things, that is
left after it is burnt. It was the usual practise of Baba to buy fuel from a part of
the Dakshina amount collected from devotees. This fuel, he used to throw it in
the Dhuni, the sacred fire, which He ever kept burning. This ash from the fire was
called UDI or VIBHUTI and Baba used to freely distribute this Vibhuti to the
devotees at the time of their departure. Let us now see the significance of Udi
as taught to us in the scriptures and also bye Lord Baba. All the visible
phenomenon in the Universe are as transient as the ash. Our human body
composed of the five elements will fall down after fully enjoying them and is finally
reduced to ashes after the body leaves the mortal coil. Baba also taught us by
the Udi, that the Brahman is the only reality and the Universe is ephemeral
and no one in this world be he, a son, father or a wife is really ours. We come
alone into this world and we have to leave this world alone. Udi is conferred on
devotees with the cure of physical and mental maladies but Baba wanted to lay
stress on devotees’ ears the principle of discrimination between the real and
unreal, non-attachment to the unreal by His Udi and Dakshina. Udi taught us the
importance of non-attachment. Unless man acquires these two qualifications in
the course of his life, it will be impossible for him to cross over the sea of the
mundane existence. So, to lay emphasis on the principle of discrimination and
non attachment to the devotees Baba gave Udi as prashad and besmeared some
of the Udi on the Bhakt’s forehead and placed His Divine Hand on their head and
asked for Dakshina. Udi also had its material significance. Udi conferred health,
prosperity and many otherworldly gains. Baba cured many devotees’ serious
ailments, blessed them with wealth through Udi given by His Divine Hand.
Many devotees were blessed with happiness through Udi. Even now the
Sacred Udi obtained at Shirdi at the Dhuni has been curing diseases and
freeing people from mental tensions, etc., and given them spiritual happiness,
which is vital for him to attain Moksha. So, we can see that Baba actually put into
practise the teachings of Upanishad with His practical demonstration to His
devotees through the twin weapons of Udi and Dakshina, which taught us
discrimination and non-attachment. Herein lies the greatness of our SADGURU
SAI BABA who preached what He spoke in daily life.
BOW TO SHRI SAI. PEACE IS TO A LL.
CHAPTER - XIX
THE ALLAH MALIKH OF SHIRDIBaba always used to utter “ALLAH MALIKH” and says that He is slave to
God. My only intention is to prove with my little knowledge that Baba Himself is
“ALLAH MALIKH” i.e. God. A simple sample survey of Sai Satcharita proves the
same (from Shri Sai Satcharita of Sansthan and Sri Sai Leelamrutham of Acharya
Ekkilala Bhardwaja in Telugu).
It can be boldly and proudly said that Sai Baba of Shirdi is the most
Sampurna (complete) Avatara fof “DATTA”. Baba is quite a peculiar and
controversial personality. What everybody knows is that this unknown Fakir is
named and noted as ’SAI BABA of SHIRDI” only. No particulars of Baba and
biography are available till this moment. That is a speciality of this “Avtara”. It is a
judicial combination of Hindu, Muslim. His residence was a dilapidated Masjid
with the name of “DWARAKAMAI”. It is open for all always. Hindu rights and
Muslim customs are observed side by side without any hitch under the noble, able
guidance of this “SADGURU SAMRAT”. Sree Rama Navami and Urus, the
sandal procession, is continued till now in the ‘abode of this secular God’ with
Hindu, Muslims brotherhood.
Whoever enters into the “Darbar” of this “YOGIRAJA” with folded hands are
not permitted to go empty handed, unblessed even till this moment. This so called
mad old “FAKIR” is keeping up his promise that “DO NOT BE ANXIOUS THAT I
WOULD BE AWAY FROM YOU, YOU WILL HEAR MY BONES SPEAKING
AND DISCUSSING YOUR WELFARE”. So, ’our Father’ did not leave any ‘legal
heirs’, even though took ‘MAHASAMADHI’ in the year 1918. The only thing is that
‘our Care-Taker’ is not physically present. This is also not correct and
proves my foolishness to say that ‘our Guru God’ is not physically present as the
past and present experiences of so many Sai Bandhus are still proving that at the
hour of need ‘this Shirdi mother’ is running physically stretching His four hands to
save his ‘Bhaktas”.
Baba appears to be mad and bad through His external peculiar
behaviour and seems to be illiterate. His happy and pleasant moods
immediately followed by mad behaviour (in our view) scolding very badly in
unworthy language and beating with ‘Satka’ males and females are some
standings. But the multimillionaire of those days, Shri Booti, the well learned,
highly educated and better qualified Sarvashri G. G. Nakre, G. S. Khaparde, Rao
Bahadur, M. W. Pradhan etc, did not at all dare enough to open their mouth and
thus dumb found before Baba with folded hands, eagerly awaiting to carry out the
instructions and orders of this ‘Almighty’, know all the deeds of ‘Sai Saheb’ are for
the welfare of devotees and they are blessings in disguise.
Even though this ‘God’ amongst us played like a father, with His children, in
those days with Shama, Mahalsapathi etc., with the close intimacy Shama often
used to forget the Divinity of Baba. Only after the physical departure of Baba,
Shama could come to know actually what he lost and worried and started repenting
for his innocent behaviour towards “his God” with his close intimacy.
This kind Fakir led a royal life as a ‘true fakir’ with ’panch Bhiksha’ and
stood as an example. Nana Valli’s test is an example for this. There is no value
for wealth, pomp and show in the view of Baba. The King and pauper are equal to
Him. The most potent and effective weapon, the new invitation and patent
medicines of this Hakim “UDI” is the Sarva Roga Nivarini, Sanjeevini: all of us
know.
The premier servant of ‘this Doctor of doctors’ Bhagoji Shinde was a leper
naturally we hate. But no other devotee was affected. In 1910 pushing His arm
in the Dhuni, Sai Deva saved the life of a blacksmith’s child. It clearly shows that
‘the all persuasiveness and mercy of this ‘Shirdi God’. When Mrs. Khaparde
worried much about the plague of her child and approached Baba, Baba took his
suffering showing the same to Mrs Khaparde, saying, “See, how I have to suffer
for my devotees. Their difficulties are mine”. The whereabouts of the missing
mare of Chand Patil were informed and fire and water for chillim were created by
‘Sai Fakir’ from the same place. When the shopkeepers refused to give oil, for the
whole night, there were lights in the Masjid with water. When Das Ganu placed his
head on the feet of Baba, seeking permission to go to Prayag for holy bath, there
flowed streams of Ganga, Yamuna water from both the toes of this Sadguru
Samrat. So many persons were blessed with children; Gopala Rao Gund, Damu
Anna, Sapatnekar are some examples.
This ‘Magnet of Shirdi’ knew all yogic practices. Baba’s Dhavti and Khanda
yoga were quite unique and extraordinary. When there was an omission in the
‘Pooja’ of Mr. Tarkhad in Bandra, it was brought to the notice of Mrs Tarkhad at
Shirdi, I need not explain the wonderful yogic feat about the bedstead, the wooden
plank of Baba used to sleep. One evening, there was a terrible storm and all
flocked in the Masjid for shelter. No local deity at Shirdi came to his or her rescue.
So they prayed to Baba, their God. Then, Baba addressed the storm in a loud
thunderous voice, ‘Stop, stop your fury and be calm’. The nature obeyed His
command and the people went home well pleased. On another occasion at noon,
the fire in the Dhuni began to burn brightly. Its flames were seen to be reaching
the rafters above. The people dared not to ask Baba. But Baba soon came to
realize what was happening. He took up his ‘Satka’ and dashed against a pillar in
front, saying ‘Get down, Be Calm’. At each stroke of the strike, the flames began
to lower and slow down and in a few minutes, the Dhuni became calm and normal.
This is our Sai, an incarnation of God. He will bless any man, who will prostrate
and surrender Himself to Him. This proves Baba’s control over the elements.
Baba had all the ‘Ashta Siddhis’ (Eight Powers) at his command. He never
practised nor craved for this. They came to him naturally, as a result of His
perfection. This Divine Doctor cured His devotees’ diseases with forbidden diet in
His own way. Bhimaji Patil’s severe chronic chest disease, Bala Ganpat
Shimpi’s malignant type of malaria, Booty’s dysentery and vomiting, Alandi
Swamiji’s severe ear pain, Kaka Mahajani’s diarrhoea, fourteen year stomachache
of Dattopant of Harda, Shama’s piles complaint, Gangadharpant’s (Kaka
Mahajani’s elder brother) many years stomach pain, Nana Saheb Chandorkar’s
intense stomach pain are a few example. It goes without saying in the delivery
case of ‘Mainatai’, how Baba suffers in attending to the needs and wants, in
serving and saving His devotees. In this case Baba manifested Himself as tonga,
tonga driver and horses also to save “Mainatai” moved by her unshaken faith.
Shama was a schoolmaster staying in the school, observing Baba without
faith in the early days. At night he used to hear somebody speaking in English,
Hindi and in other foreign languages in the Masjid. At that time nobody could be
found except Baba. So it was the sincere opinion of Shama that Baba knows so
many languages. Nobody believed that Baba knew Sanskrit. One day our
Unpadh (illiterate) Baba surprised all by giving a good interpretation of verse from
Gita to Nana Saheb Chandorkar. All the Sai Bandhus know that in 1886 Baba
made an attempt to cross the border line (i.e. Seemollanghana) and took 72 hour’s
Samadhi. Is it humanly possible certainly not? Very much pleased with the
brilliant services of Bayajabai, Baba promised to look after and protect her son up
to the last. Thus keeping up His promise Baba accepted the “Death invitation” of
Tatya Kote and took Mahasamadhi in 1918. Can anybody deny this fact Once
Nana Saheb Dengale, a great Astrologer told Booty “Today is an inauspicious day
for you. There is danger to your life”. This made Booty restless and when he
came to the Masjid, Baba said “What does this Nana say He foretells death for
you. Well, you need not be afraid to tell him boldly. Let us see how death kills.”
By the grace of Baba he was safe. Except Baba can anybody give such a
guarantee to life
Devidas, Jankidas, Gangagir Maharaj, Ananda Swami, disciple of Akkalkot
Maharaj, praised Baba as “GEM”. Mehar Baba considered our Sadguru Samrat as
“Kohinoor”. Once during a casual talk at the Masjid, Baba touched the water pot
with satka. When asked about this deed, it was made clear by Sai Deva that He
was putting off the fire engulfing to the cottage of his brother Tajuddin Baba of
Nagpur. On enquiry, it was proved to be true. Once Baba did not go to Lendi
Bagh even though that was the time and was in the dust by the side of the wall of
the Masjid. When questioned by Sathe, he was told by Baba “My brother,
Gajanan left us”. By that time Ganajan Maharaj took Mahasamadhi at Shegaon.
In 1917. Baba told other devotees, “My devotees, responsibility is mine. I do
not allow the downfall of my devotee. In such cases, I will stretch my four hands in
saving him”.
So many incidents in Sai Sat Chatrita proved that Sai is “Sakala Devata
Swarupi”, “Sakal Sadhu Swarupi” and “Sakala Jeeva Swarupi”. He is “Para
Brahma”. Now let us hear Sai Baba’s words, guaranteeing the welfare of the
Bhaktas, ‘there will never be any dearth or scarcity regarding food and clothes in
my devotees home. It is my special characteristic that I look always to and
provide for the welfare of those devotees, who worship me wholeheartedly with
their minds ever fixed on me”. Lord Krishna has also said the same in the Gita.
If we think that Baba was a Mohammedan, the best Brahmins, and
Agnihotries leaving aside their orthodox ways tell prostrate at His feet. Those who
made enquiries about His nationality were dumbfounded and were captured by His
Darshan. So none could definitely decide, whether Sai Baba was a Hindu or a
Mohammedan. He was always calm and controlled. He knew the inner most
secrets of all and when he gave expression to them, all were surprised.
Though He had a human body, his deeds were Godly. All people considered Him
as Lord God in Shirdi.
Even before taking Mahasamadhi, Baba gave nine rupees to Lakshmi Bai
Shinde for the selfless service rendered by her. After leaving the body, Nana
Saheb brought some water and poured it in Baba’s mouth. It came out. Then he
cried out loudly ‘Oh Deva’. Baba seemed just to open His eyes and say “AH” in a
low tone. But it soon became evident that Baba had left His body for good.
It may be noted here that as observed by Professor Narke, Baba’s body did
not get ‘stiff’, though it was exposed for thirty-six hours and that all the limbs were
elastic and that His Kafni could be taken out without being torn into pieces.
Baba appeared in Lakshman Mama Joshi’s dream and drawing him by His
hand, said ‘Get up soon. Bapu Saheb thinks that I am dead and so he won’t
come. You do the worship and the Kakad Arti (morning arti)”. Lakshman Mama
was the village astrologer and was the maternal uncle of Shama. He was an
orthodox Brahmin and daily worshipped Baba in the morning and then all village
deities. He had full faith in Baba. After the vision, he came with all the pooja
materials and not minding the protest of the Moulvis, did the pooja and Kakad Arti
with all due formalities and went away. Then at noon Bapu Saheb Job came with
all others, and went through the noon Arti as usual.
This is my humble submission with my very limited knowledge with Bhakti
only, not with Shakti to say once again about our Allah Malik of Shirdi, that total
and unbroken was his love for Bhaktas. He was the mine of storehouse for self-
knowledge and full of divine bliss. Such was the Divine form of Sai Baba,
boundless, endless and undifferentiated.
.
CHAPTER - XX
OUR SIX RELATIVESTRUTH IS OUR MOTHER:
The mother always keeps a watchful eye over the child and takes care of it.
She protects it from all dangers and accidents. The mother bird too spreads her
wings and brings the little ones under their shade. She protects them from sun and
shower and from any foul play. So does Truth protects man from all troubles in life!
Plenty are instances to show from literature, where the vow of Truth brought
final victory to man. In recent times, we saw how Gandhiji waged a peaceful war
with truth and non-violence as weapons and brought freedom to our country.
Truth, like a loving Mother, is the shield, which protects us from all dangers
in the battle of life and brings us final peace and victory.
KNOWLEDGE IS OUR FATHER:A wise father always tells the boy what is good and what is bad. The boy’s
future depends on the training, which the father gives him in the early days of his
life. The boy is what the father makes him.
So, does wisdom or knowledge prevent man from falling into bad company
and vices. It helps him to keep the company of the wise and the pious and trains
him in right conduct of life.
It is indeed, the father, which initiates the son to Gayatri, as the primary
Guru. Knowledge, like the father, with its power of discrimination, helps us to keep
away from petty pleasures of the senses and to realize the eternal truth and bliss.
DHARMA IS OUR BROTHER:The elder brother stands by the younger one and guides him, with his
example, in the performance of duty-duty to the parents, duty to the family and duty
to the society. He leads the younger one through the thick and thin to final victory.
Yudhishtra never deviated from the righteous path nor did he allow his wife
and brothers to deviate from it. He led them to the ultimate victory.
The sense of Dharma or righteous is an unfailing support to us in troubles
and doubt and leads us to prosperity in this life and in life hereafter.
Dharma, like the elder brother, saves us from falling into pitfalls and helps us
to reach the goal.
A friend is an unfailing companion in every walk of our life. He is very helpful
to us with his sound advice. A true friend comes to our help in times of need.
But, such a friend is not easy to find in society. It is only love and kindness
on our part that can make friends of others.
Kindness begets kindness and makes friends of strangers and enemies
too. Even wild and cruel animals become tame and friendly to a loving and
sympathetic person. If we love others, others love us in return. A kind and loving
person is never in want of friends. By extending love and sympathy to a person is
distress; we derive all the benefits, that a friend may extend to us.
So, a sweet and loving word on our tongue is spoken of as a friend in any
walk of life.
CALMNESS IS OUR WIFE:A loving wife stands by her husband in the times of adversity and helps him.
She does all the service with soft and pleasing words. She is not perturbed by the
harsh words of her husband, but with calmness brings him round.
She is herself always calm and composed and she keeps her husband also
in perfect peace by her sweet words and service.
A calm and peaceful mind, like a loving and devoted wife, always serves to
overcome troubles in our life and brings happiness.
FORBEARANCE IS OUR SON:When our limbs are weak and feeble in old age, it is the son, that comes to
our help and serves us.
As another safeguards the ship in troubled waters, so does a son safeguard
the interest of his parents with patience in their old age.
If we endure the troubles in the dark days of our life with patience, bright
days will dawn upon us in course of time.
The power of forbearance of endurance, like a true son, is the only refuge to
us in adverse circumstances. It enables us to sustain ourselves in troublesome
days till we see sunny days ahead.
Adherence to these gifted qualities is a great virtue, practised by a few, but
respected by many. It protects man from all troubles and difficulties in life and
ultimately brings the crown of success and glory to him.
We may lose earthly relatives, but these Godly qualities are spoken of as
the six never failing relatives in our life.
BOW TO SHRI SAI, PEACE BE TO ALL
CHAPTER XXI
MYSTERY OF DIVINE INCARNATIONThe divine Incarnation is a mystery, because the infinite and the omnipotent
being is, according to this doctrine, born as a man, a limited being. This is
unaccountable and mysterious, yet a little thought will make it clear that the
mystery in it is not more than what is involved in the Supreme Being manifesting
Himself as the universe. The first and the primeval incarnation is the Purusa, the
Cosmic whole ensouled by Him, and out of Purusa all the sportive descants have
come.
How the incarnation takes place is indicated by two expressions Atma-
mayaya and Prakrtin svam adhisthaya. Atam-maya is His inherent power or will.
No limited being can set any limitation to that power. It is what makes the
impossible possible. It implies that manifestation in any limited or imperfect form
does not affect His infinitude and perfection. In the incarnation this infinitude and
perfection are present, in spite of the human form through which these manifest.
The worship of the incarnation is therefore equal to the worship of the Supreme
Being Himself.
Prakruti is His material Nature, constituted of three Gunas of Sattva, Rajas
and Tamas. The body and mind of all beings are the combinations of their
evolutes. But in their case these combinations are formed subject to Karma. But
the body of the incarnation is not subject to Karma, but is formed by Divine will for
the purpose of world-redemption. He is born not as a slave but as the master of
nature out of his free will and his body informed of pure Sattva. The individuals, on
the other hand, is born as the slave of Karma for attaining the individual ends of
Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksa. His body is formed mostly of Tamas and Rajas
and as he advances spiritually, a little of Sattva also enters into its make up. Thus
the embodiment of the incarnation is vastly different from that of the individual.
The individual is action of the Absolute being, which is called an incarnation, is an
expression of self-mastery and is meant to serve a cosmic and not an individual
purpose.
It is said that the life of a Divine incarnation and his relation with His various
associates and devotees leave behind a very rich tradition of holy acts and ways of
living which form the subject- matter of devotional texts, and these become
Themes for pious contemplation by generations of their followers and devotees.
The trans-physical importance of the Divine incarnation is more after His
lifetime than when He is alive, that an incarnation receives wide recognition. After
the incarnation disappears, He is worshipped as the deity by his followers, and his
personality, deeds and teachings become the centre of a cult. A person may not
understand philosophies and theologies, but through faith and devoted worship of
the incarnation, even a man of little learning can attain salvation. An incarnation is
always hypostative with Brahman, and even after his physical body passes away,
he is available for worship to those with faith. The faith consists in the capacity to
grasp the identity of the incarnation with the deity himself. The Divine incarnate is
always linked with the infinite and Absolute Brahman. He is an expression of the
Anugraha-Sakti or Grace of Brahman, and not a mere individual center of power.
So he is one with the eternal Godhead. The worship of any personalized
conception becomes object for practising Bhakti and Jnana, and a means for
salvation, only if this faith is dominantly present in the mind of the worshipper.
Bhakti, Jnana and Mukti can be given only by the Supreme Being, and the
incarnation is essentially this supreme being - His Redeeming Power or His
Anugraha-Sakti.
“According to the Stages of human evolution, there will be different
conceptions of the Deity, and the followers of one, even if they think that theirs is
more refined, need not look down upon others as heathens or coffins worshipping
false deities and consider themselves alone as the followers of the true Deity - For
whatever the path, God approaches man through that path, and if the faith of the
votary is genuine, he will be led to higher and higher forms of worship. So the
followers of every religion must have respect for, and acceptance of, the faith and
form of worship of other religions in spite of the differences that are sure to prevail
in their ideologies and practices. For, it is the same God that is worshipped by
them all just as all rivers, in spite of their divergent courses, led to the same
ocean, so do all faiths lead to Him i.e., take one to the same God who inspires
them all”. So said Shirdi Sai Baba.
Fundamental tenet of universal religion, wherever worship is done, only the
one Supreme Being is worshipped. No one, except the perfected sage, can
worship Him in His fullness, since the human mind can grasp only limited aspects
of Him. The more an individual or a community is evolved, the more noble and
comprehensive will be their conception of the Deity. But the less evolved men too
are adorning the same Deity, grasping such aspects of His, as his undeveloped
mind would allow.
Deities are the power aspects of the Divine worshipped in separation from
Him, the infinite and the Absolute Being. They are expressions of His power, but
manifesting under limitations. Devotees, who want boons, or divine favours,
worship them according to the ritualistic code with offerings and Mantras and
prayer for the fulfillment of their particular wants. But it is only He, the one God,
who fulfils even these wants. It is only the Supreme Lord who fulfils such prayers
to the Deities. There Deities are like the vassals and high officers of an emperor,
and the powers are only the reflection of the power of the Supreme Being. So
even the fulfillments that came through the worship of the Deities come from Him,
the Supreme Being only, as He alone is the sat-chit-Ananda, the Absolute
existence - knowledge - Bliss. But the ordinary votaries do not know the
metaphysical truth and worship Deities as separate centres of high power. They
may get their favours, but they do not gain any spiritual elevation by such
adoration. Spiritual elevation means the attainment of Bhakti, Jnana and Mukti.
Only the Supreme Being, the Parabrahman, can grant these; no Deity as such
can. But if any Deity is recognized by the worshipper as an expression of Sat-
Chit-Ananda Parabrahman, the Supreme Being, the worship becomes the
adoration of the Supreme Being Himself But then the devotees outlook has to
change from a seeker after petty worldly fulfillment to the seek after Bhakt-Jnana
and Mukti. Spiritual excellences like Bhakti-Jnana and Mukti are the only gifts to
be sought of Him, and he is the only one that can grant these. The incarnation too
is one with the Supreme Being and can bestow the highest spiritual blessings.
Thus to seek one’s daily bread of parabrahman is too silly for words according to
the devotional system of thought.
All the manifestations etc., as Deities are according to the attitude of the
devotee. Tamasika devotees are interested in such achievements as killing one’s
enemies, wrecking vengeance etc. They adore evil deities or psychic forces like
spirits and goblins. The Rajasika devotees who seek worldly prosperity,
success etc., adore Deities according to the Agamas with elaborate rituals
and offering The Moksa-seekers, who are Sattvika in nature, do their duties as
offerings to him without claiming the fruits for themselves and adore Him in a
philosophical spirit. Superior to them are Nirgunabhakts, who have transcended
the three Gunas, as they abjure even liberation or Mukti, as a desire, and seek the
Lord for the sake of pure and one word love merely to serve Him with their whole
being without the expectation of any returns. Such devotees are above Gunas and
they apprehend the Sat-Chit-Ananda Parabrahman as such, without association of
the Gunas. To all the others the Sat-Chit-Ananda Parabrahman presents as
Deities i.e., accounted with the Gunas of Prakrti-Tamas, Rajas and Sattva or their
combinations.
It must be clearly understood that this doctrine of the Deities is not
polytheism. God is only one and the Deities are only His power manifestations in
subtle dimensions, just as there are many power manifestations in Nature when
there is the recognition of this truth their worship becomes the worship of the
Supreme being Himself.
A man should diligently seek for that supreme state, viz; God,
having attained to which they return no more to this World; and having fully
resolved that he stands dedicated to that Primeval Being (God Narayana) Himself,
from whom the flow of this beginning less creation has progressed, he should dwell
and meditate on Supreme Being Himself. Those wise men who are free from pride
and delusion, who have conquered the evil of attachment, who are in eternal
union with God, whose cravings have altogether ceased and who are completely
immune from all pairs of opposites going by the names of pleasure and pain, reach
that supreme immortal state, which neither the sun nor the moon nor even fire can
illumine.
Those who have attained that supreme self-effulgent state, they never return
to this world and they become one with the Supreme Being himself.
CHAPTER XXII
MIND-HINDRANCE IN SELF REALISATION
Ignorant people identify themselves with the body, mind and the vrittis of
mind. The mind and the body are instruments only. The real man is behind the
mind. If you become one with the mind, body and Vritti, you get various sorts of
miseries and sufferings.
Mind is known as Parinama. When milk is changed into curd, it is also
Parinama. Even so the mind gets modified into a Kritti by assuming the form of the
object it perceives. Knowledge of perception is a kind of transformation
(Parinama) of the mind.
Some people sleep with their eyes open. The object is there. The centre of
vision is there and yet they cannot see the object. Why because the mind is not
there. Therefore three things are necessary for perception of an object, viz., the
physical instrument, the external flashy eyes which act as windows to the soul; the
centre of the vision in the brain and the mind. It is the mind that really sees. It is
the commander of the five indriyas. The Indriyas carry the vibrations from outside
to the mind. They are avenues of sense-knowledge.
It is the Purusha or soul that is the real perceiver of an object. The sense
transmits the sense-vibrations to the mind, and the mind in its turn presents the
vibrations to the head of the Soul, the Buddhi or intellect, the discriminative faculty,
which is very close to the Soul. Now, reaction comes in. With the reaction of the
Buddhi manifests egoism side by side. Then the whole thing is presented to
Purusha, who really perceives all objects.
The Indriyas cannot do anything by themselves. They need the help of their
master, the mind at every moment. It is the mind that sees, hears, tastes, smells
and feels. Indriyas simply transmit the sense-vibrations from outside to the mind.
That which exists outside is unknown with unknowable. Mind reacts to external
vibrations and you see the external universe. If there is no mind there is no
universe. Where is the world for you during deep sleep Hence this world is termed
as Manomatra Jagat (mind only) or ManahKalpita Jagat (mental creation). This
mind is the universe. There is no world apart from the mind. What you perceive as
a big mountain outside is only the mental image plus some external unknowable
something.
If you say ‘there is nothing outside’ why do you run after food and water
when you are hungry and thirsty If everything is within, you should get satisfaction
from hunger and thirst from within only. But it is not the case. There is something
outside, call it a Vivarta (appearance) of Brahman, Vilasa of Maya, Chamatkara of
Avidya, Perinama of Vishnu, electrical waves of scientists, combination of Anus of
Kanada or Tattva Vilasa. It does not matter much.
The thinking principle includes Manas (mind), Buddhi (intellect), Chitta
(Subconscious-mind) and Ahankara (Egoism or self-asserting principle). The
mind assumes the three other forms, Buddhi, Chitta and Ahankara according to the
different functions it performs (Vrittibheda). Manas is a Sankalpa-
Vikalpatmaka (willing and doubting). “It thinks whether to go to a place or not,
whether to do this or not, and whether this is good or bad”. The mind is of a
doubting nature.
Buddhi or intellect is Nischayatmaka (certitude) or
Adhyavasyatmaka. It is the determining faculty. It is that light of Buddhi that
determines one way or the other.
Chitta does the function of Anusandhana (enquiry) and Dharma
(Concentration). The function of memory also belongs to Chitta. According to
Yoga philosophy, Chitta is the mind-stuff or the mental substance, and the mind,
intellect, and egoism are various processes in the mind-stuff.
Ahankara is the self-arrogating principle. It does the function of Abhimana
(egoism). It creates ‘Mamata’ (mineness). This is root cause of all human
sufferings. All Vrittis hang upon this one “Aham Vritti”, ‘I’ thought. It is the root
cause of human ignorance.
It should be distinctly borne in mind that the thinking principal, mind, is not
the Atman who is the fountain-source of all consciousness or knowledge. Just as a
mirror borrows its light from the Sun, so also the mind borrows its light from the
Atman, the Supreme Being.
‘Vritti’ means literally a ‘whirlpool’. It is a thought wave in the Lake of Chitta.
Chitta is the mind-stuff or mental substance. It takes various forms. These
forms constitute Vrittis. It gets transformed or modified (Parinama). These
transformations and modifications are the thought-waves. Whirlpools of Vritti
of an orange is formed in the lake of Chitta. This will subside and another Vritti will
be formed when it thinks of milk (milk-Vritta) countless Vrittis are rising and
subsiding in the ocean of Chitta. These Vritties cause restlessness of mind.
Why do Vritties arise from Chitta Because of Sanskaras (Latent impressions) and
Vasanas (subtle desires). If you annihilate all desires, all Vritties will subside by
themselves. When a Vritti subsides it leaves a definite impression in the
subconscious mind. It is known as Samskara or latent impression. The sum total
of all Samskaras is known as “Karmasaya” or receptacle of works. This is
Sanchita Karma or accumulated work. When a man leaves the physical body, he
carries with him his astral body of 17 Tattvas (five senses, five organs of action,
five vitalairs, mind and intellect) and the Karmasaya as well to the mental plane.
This Karmasaya is burnt by highest knowledge obtained through Asamprajnata
Samadhi (Absolute Super conscious state).
Modification is Vritti in the mind. When the Vritti subsides it assumes the
subtle state of potency or Samskara in the Chitta or subconscious mind. This
potency again becomes a Vritti under suitable conditions, when the mind comes in
contact with sensual objects or through memory of objects from stimulus within.
There are degrees in the Vrittis or modifications that arise from mind. You can
check or control the lower Vrittis with the help of higher Vritties or transformations.
You can become a Yagarudha (one who is established in Yoga) by controlling all
the Vritties of the mind.
Although the mind is one, it passes into many conditions or states, as it is
made up of three qualities or Gunas-Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. Sattva is purity or
light or knowledge. Rajas is passion or activity. Tamas is inertia or darkness. By
checking Rajas and Tamas you can increase the Sattva. When the Sattva is
increased the mind becomes steady like the flame of a lamp in a windless
place. He who is Sattva can do real concentration and meditation and can enter
into Samadhi easily. A Rajasi man loves power and objects of sense. A Tamasic
man does vicious actions on account of ignorance. Sattva cannot stand by itself.
It is missed with disturbing Rajas and Tamas. When there is preponderances of
Sattva, Rajas and Tamas get controlled. They work themselves.
Where there is increase of Sattva, there is brightness, lightness, joy,
purity, strength, peace and illumination. Man’s important duty is to increase Sattva
and control the senses and the mind. Other duties are secondary (Gunas) only. A
sensible man only can understand this point.
The mind is wondering (Kshipta) and unsteady through the disturbing
energy of Rajas (passion), which makes the mind run towards various sensual
objects. The mind becomes forgetful (Mudha) when it is filled with Tamas
(enertia). Deep sleep supervenes on account of excess of Tamas.
By destroying the Vritti one by one, you gain more and more mental strength
(Manasic Bala) and spiritual strength (Atma Bala). Do the practice and feel the
strength yourself.
Thought is caused by the vibrations of psychic Prana or Sukshma Prana on
the mental substance. It is a force like gravitations, cohesion or repulsion.
Thought travels or moves. Thought has got tremendous power. Thought can heal
diseases. Thought can transform the mentality of person. Thought can do
anything. It can work wonders. The velocity of thought is unimaginable.
Thinking is of four kinds, i.e., Symbolic thinking, instinctive thinking,
impulsive thinking and habitual thinking. Thinking through words is symbolic
thinking. Fear of death is instinctive thinking. Lust, greed, anger, are impulsive
thinking. Instincts are more powerful than impulses. Thoughts of body, food, drink,
bath, etc., are habitual thinking. You can stop easily symbolic thinking. It is difficult
to stop instinctive and impulsive thinking.
Thought is a great force. Though has tremendous power. It can be
transmitted from one man to another man. You can move the world through
thought-force. The powerful thoughts of great sages and Rishis of yore are still
recorded in the Akasa (Akasic records). Yogis who have clairvoyant vision can
perceive those thought-images. They can read them. You are surrounded by an
ocean of thought. You are floating in the ocean of thought. You are absorbing
certain thoughts and repelling some in the thought- world.
Everyone has his own thought-world. Through practices of Yama, Niyama,
Pranayama and meditation you can change impure thoughts into suitable pure
thoughts, Meditation fills the mind with cheerful, powerful, Sattvic (Pure) thoughts.
Pleasure that is derived from sensual objects gives pain to one who
discriminates. Worldly-minded persons, who have lost the faculty of
discrimination, rejoice in sensual objects on account of lack of discrimination. They
weep in old age. You weep when you are born. You weep when you die. You
weep in the interval also. Where then is pleasure in the world Learn to
discriminate. Because a Yogi, Yoga will put an end to all sort of pain. ‘Pleasure
must be give up as pain’.
Sensual pleasure is momentary, deceptive, illusory and imaginary. Mustard
of pleasure is mixed with mountain of pain. Enjoyment cannot bring about
satisfaction of desire. On the contrary it makes the mind more restless after
enjoyment through intense craving (Trishnas and Vasanas). Sensual pleasure is
the cause of birth and death. The body is nothing but a mass of flesh, bone, and
all sorts of filth.
Place before the mind the fruits of self-realisation or life in the Soul or
Brahman or the Eternal such as immortality. Eternal Bliss, Supreme peace and
infinite knowledge. If you remember these points always, the mind will be
weaned from the craving for sensual pleasure. Vairagya, Viveka and
Manukshatva (dispassion, discrimination between the real and unreal and keen
longing for liberation from birth and death) will dawn. You should seriously look
into the defects of the sensual life and into the unreal nature of worldly life. Whose
mind is rendered pure by the agents of dispassion and repeated practices,
becomes a lustrous person. If these mental waves or thought waves subside, you
can attain the absolute state. Just as you can clearly see the bottom of a lake,
when the ripples and waves subside, so also you can cognise your real self where
the Vrittis that agitate your mind subside.
There are five stages of the mind i.e. distracted, forgetfulness,
gathering mind, one pointed and controlled or well restrained. By gradual and
well-regulated practice of concentration daily, the rays of the wandering mind are
collected. It becomes one- pointed. Eventually it is curbed properly. It comes
under proper control.
Concentration is the only way to get rid of the worldly miseries and
tribulation. Your only duty is to practise concentration. You have taken this
physical body to practise concentration and through concentration to realize the
self. Charity, Rajasuya Yajna (a sacrifice performed by a monarch) are nothing
when compared with concentrations. They are playthings only.
One should live by destroying “I’ ness”, “mine’ ness”, selfishness and
“attachment”. Then alone he can be really happy, even while discharging the
duties of his life by remaining in the world. The angle of vision must be changed.
All-embracing and all-inclusive love must be cultivated and developed. Then only
one can feel the ‘self in all’, the ‘one in all’. Then only you can have cosmic
consciousness or universal life.
Then the petty life of hurry, worry, excitement, and competition will seem to
you as nothing when compared to the everlasting life of eternal sunshine and bliss
in the Atman within. It is a great pity that almost all people have totally ignored the
simpler happy inner life of introspection and have caught hold of false toys of
Maya, such as money, women, power, name, fame, position etc., Sooner or later
the experience of the world, the knocks and blows of the mundane life, will force
them to turn their minds inwards to realize the true, lasting happiness.
If you really aspire to unfold the lurking Divinity within, if you really want to
get rid of the miseries of this Samsara, you must know the principles and technique
of thought-control. You must know the ways of right living, right thinking, right
speaking and right acting. You must practice the five rules of Yama or right
conduct or Sadachara. You must know how to withdraw the mind from external
objects and fix it on one point. You must know the right method of concentration
and meditation. Then alone you can be really happy. Then and then alone will
have power, independence and suzerainty. Then and then alone you will attain
immortality, freedom and perfection.
CHAPTER XXIII
GOD REALISATION(Ignorance or Reality)
IGNORANCEIt is our daily experience to see people stretching their hands towards the
sky while offering prayer or referring to God. A question arises. If Gos is all -
pervading as we all profess, why do we point upwards, as if God abides high up in
the skies Does it not mean that we suffer from the illusion that God is a finite
corporeal being who abides in some celestial region Is it not really surprising that,
on the one hand, we profess God to be all pervading and omnipresent and, on the
other, confine him to a particular place
Evidently, this contradiction is the result of our ignorance. It is natural law
that anything which in physical, viz., man, animal, plant, mountain, water or fire, is
subject to change- birth, bloom, decay and distruction. God being eternal is
however, beyond any change. God must not be thought as a physical being, or as
having any kind of body. He is pure mind. He moves and acts without needing
any corporal space, or size, or form, or colour, or any other property of matter.
As already, stated, the pervasive confusion and illusion about God to be a
finite corporeal entity. However, the scriptures and the teachings of the Great
Masters, Like Shirdi Sai Baba and others like him, affirm in inequivocal terms that
God is a spirit, formless, infinite, all pervading, omnipresent, omnipotent and
omniscient, as illustrated by the following scriptural quotations.
“God is a spirit”, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth. (Bible - John 4:24)
Only a spirit can be almighty, eternal, all-pervading, absolute, constant one
without a peer. Yet, it is a human weakness to fancy God as a human being
(though supreme), endowed with human trait, or improvise God/gods out of fear
and ignorance as humans. Who can be pleased or propitiated as such. Of
course, the pattern of God/gods so conceived changes with the development of
human wisdom and knowledge.
The issue being of Paramount importance, it merits deeper pondering over,
what the holy and wise have said in this regard: -
The inferior devotee says. ‘God exists, but he is very far off, up there in
heaven’. The medicare devotee says, ‘God exists in all beings as life and
consciousness’. The superior devotee says, ‘It is God himself who has become
everything; whatever I see is only a form of God. It is He. He alone who has
become Maya, the universe and all living beings. Nothing exists but God’. (Sri
Rama Krishna).
If we go back to the beginning we shall find that ignorance and fear created the Gods: that fancy, enthusiasm or deceit adorned or disfigured them: that credulity preserves them: and that custom, respects and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men servcits own interests.
The different pictures of God that man can give must flow out of his own
range of vision and imaginations. Man is a self- conscious being that eminated
from one without blemish. But due to his own imperfections, he cannot conceive of
the real as it actually is. He gives God a conscious personality like himself in as
good a farm as could be conceived by him. He is expressing his own frame of
mind, related to his own notions and needs and in accordance with the stage of his
development. The origin and the progress of religion provide interesting material of
study. The primitive man was ignorant of the workings of nature and its laws. On
the one hand, he was without resources necessary for his comforts needs and, on
the other, he was beset with thousand dangers. Violence and disease visited him
unaware and carried him off before he became old naturally. When he could
neither understand the natural phenomenon nor control them, he personified
their causes and from the analogy of his own being supposed that a spirit dwelt in
every natural object. Fire provided warmth and enabled him to cook his food, and
was therefore accepted as a kind of God to be loved and worshipped.
The inclemency and the fury of the elements, however, was supposed to
hide a malignant God behind, that needed to be appeased to avert their wrath
and to win their favour. As civilization progressed and gifts of nature in the form
of crops, etc., through rains multiplied his Gods changed and evolved. Deities
always arise in terms of human needs and get all the homage and adoration that
poetic fancy can imagine. Worship of stars, mountains, woods, spirits, giants,
dwarfs, and fairies, has gone on. It was, infact, always feat that had made gods for
man and it was to enlist them to his old that he propitiated them and offered
them flattery to ---- them listen to his supplications. The God must have been
born out of fear. Lingam and Yoni and even soil were worshipped as procreative
spirits. Then born the magic. To bring rain in a drought, or a child to a barren
woman or to find cure for diseases or to win victories over enemies, magic was
freely employed. Many prayers are up to this day, of the nature of magic formulas
mumbled over and over again with faith in repetition for their efficiency and effect.
Then the appearance of the dead in dreams and the fright they caused produced
first ancestoral worship and then of the defenet kings and strong men. But later
these human gods were further humanized so that not strong man but good man
began to be adored. As the horizon of man’s vision further extended, a more
exalted concept of divinity was adopted. He could not then be given a human, for,
that would put a limit to His omnipotence and omnipresence; nor could he be
supposed to be subject to human passion of jeolousy, wrath, revenge, praise or
adoration. So the new god was supposed to be diffused through all matter. This
was pantheism, but this also could not satisfy the needs of human soul, as it was
too abstract and cold to provide-solace and comfort which personal God could.
But the personal aspect of God too, in whatever form one may consider, has
always gone on evolving depending on the level of the human race, its prejudices
and prepossessions. Man does not know God as He is but as he imagines Him
to be. It can be said with good deal of truth that man creates God in his own
image, which sometimes may be more hallucination or The figment of his own
imagination. Persons, in tune with the infinite could alone give the most correct
picture of the Personal aspect.
Religion is regarded as the creation of man that has arisen, by whatever
psychological process, from man’s experiences of daily life and serves for him
various functions. It constitutes an attempt to formulate symbolic answers to
questions and problems that confront man. Gods, demons, evil spirits, witches,
souls, taboos and other supernatural sanctions governing behaviours, rites at
critical times during the life time, mythology, and other religious beliefs and acts are
seen as the casting into concrete and comprehensible form of fear, hopes, wishes,
dreams and animosities of man. Once man has put his problems in these forms,
he can deal with them by acts analogous with those of his ordinary experience
with objects of nature and with his fellowman. Man has then created gods and
religion is his own image and in the image of the world of his experience, and his
religious beliefs and acts are functional responses to circumstances of life.
Religion is regarded not as the mainspring of culture or social life but rather as a
derivation of more fundamental factors, especially ways of gaining a livelihood and
the closely associated manner of ordering society.
Dr. Radhakrishna has said, “It is an irony that, in actual practice, God has
been reduced to Gods and goddesses, so much so that God’s creation - the sun,
the moon, the mountains, the rivers, the trees, the fire, even the animals - are
worshipped as the very creator. The said creations, which are actually, meant to
serve the man, have thus become the master of men, the crown of creation, their
slave! He, accordingly becomes a smart minded, self-centred and begot:”
“The greatest of the temptation we must overcome is to think that our own
religion is the only true religion. Our own vision of reality is the only authentic
vision, that we alone have received a revelation and we are the chosen people, the
children of light, and the rest of the human race live in darkness. The saints do not
believe that God is the exclusive property of any human being or a group of human
beings”.
Under strict regimentation, man is completely given to fanaticism. This,
in turn, generates in him intolerance, hatred and animosity, towards those who
profess different faiths and beliefs or follow different paths or whose diet, dress or
culture is at variance with his own. At times, passions are so worked up that even
for a slight deviation from or non-performance of a religious practice, such people
do not hesitate to shed blood, apparently to appease their God or to prove their
devotion.
Ironically, at times, such acts of fanaticism are committed even in the very
places of worship. It may sound strange, but it is a stark fact that the largest
number of human lives have been sacrificed at the alter of religion:
It will not be exaggeration to say that the concept of God being a finite or
corporal being is as old as the human history. It was repudiated, from time to
time, by the Great Masters, who enlightened the people that God is all pervading
and formless. The Gos is one. But with the departure of Great Master from the
scene, the foresaid delusion about God reasserts itself. All this is so ironical and
even amazing. Such a situation has always provided a hay-day to the self-styled
redeemers and take religious preachers to confound the people again.
SCRIPTURESMan, by nature, relishes an easy and comfortable living. But, to keep his
body and soul together, he has to toil hard, day and night. He suffers from a real
or imaginary fear of want and insecurity and is thus driven to seek refuge in the
(unknown) supreme power i.e. God, the great giver and the source of strength to
weak and solace to distressed, disturbed and distracted.
The self-styled redeemers are ever ready to prescribe for the seekers short
cuts to the coveted haven. They know well that people may have a belief in the
(unknown) God, but they have firm faith in and unbounded reverence for the
(known) scripture. To strengthen their strong hold over the devout, they resort to
dilatory and divisionary tactics, making the scriptures the starting point.
Exploiting the devotee’s faith in the scriptures, they assert that the scripture
which the latter follow is the only true one, ignoring the fundamental fact that
essence of all the scripture is one and the same. And this is the only rational
attitude and approach.
The basic reason for such an illogical attitude is that, contrary to the
scriptural teaching, people tend to regard the scripture describe God, but it is
equally true that they cannot reveal God. Certainly, they enshrine the experience
and teachings of the Great Masters and are therefore worthy of respect and
regard. But self-sublimation and self-redemption is possible by living up to tenets
of the scripture and not by their adoration. No doubt, the devout read and recite
the scriptures, but they do not comprehend the spirit behind, the key to which lies
with the True Master. A True Master is, therefore, indispensible to provide clue.
RITES AND RITUALSFor the self-styled redeemers, recitation and adoration of the holy books,
worship of idols, signs and symbols and performance of rites and rituals in the
prescribed manner, is an end in them. To strengthen their hold over the innocent
devotees and also to suit their designs, they even give a distorted inter- pretation of
the scriptures. Their directions are designed to be accepted as a divine
commandment and adhered to rigidly as a matter of faith by the devotees in their
own interest. Any query by devotee in this regard is not explained but explained
away. Yet they would ask the devotees to close and gently press their eyes to see
the divine light (Rabi Jot) or plug their eyes to hear the cosmic Sound (Anhad
Shabad) though the above verse is a clear warning that any object of touch, tests,
smell, form, or light seen or sound heard, internally or externally, is not God.
Preying upon the innocence and faith of the namin God-seekers, the so-
called redeemers succeed in keeping them confused and yoked to rites and rituals,
which cast their own spell. They, therefore, lay the whole emphasis on the
observance of rites and rituals of religious practices as the very and without
explaining their real significance.
Rites and rituals may inspire one to imbibe moral and ethical values or to be
pious, upright and compassionate, or inculcate an attitude of detachment, though
these virtues are not the exclusive privilege and possession of the religious and
the ritualiste Rarely, rites and rituals may arouse an urge in the devotee to know
and realize God, the prime purpose of human life. At the most, rites and rituals
may be treated as aids, helpful only upto a certain stage.
When once a devout has understood the fundamental truth that God-
realisation is the prime purpose of human life, he realizes that he no longer needs
the aid of rites and rituals. Now the question surging uppermost in his mind
should be: How can I know and realize God to be truly a Man of God and not of
gods
It is not a fact that God - knowledge transformed Vivekananda, an ordinary
monk into a spiritual stalwart In case the devout is still not seized of the most vital
question (of God-realisation), we may rightly conclude that either he is yet to be
convinced of the prime purpose of human life or that he is a simpleton and has
been misguided to stay content with the mechanical performance of rites and
rituals - Let the ritualist pause and founder over the scriptural injunction: without the
Lord, all pious deeds (enjoyed by religion) are illusion. Recitation, austerities,
discipline, action all are robbed away here (and are not carried beyond). Fasting,
rules of conduct, and observance of religious discipline are not worth half a penny.
Here after the valuation of things is different and therefore these things are
different and therefore these things do not count there. Bathing at holy places and
wondering about on earth can ensure no place hereafter. This way avails not
there and at best may satisfy man on this earth. Reciting from memory the four
Vedas will not secure Gods presence in the next world. If a man did not know the
one Nectar-word, all the rest he knows is nonsensical prattle. Nanak expresses
the view that the Guru should be served. The Name dwelt upon and ego of the
mind shed off. Whoever practices this view will cross the sea of life.
In sum, the significance, if any, of the rites and rituals is that these may help
to keep the body fit and the mind disciplined and calm. But certainly, in
themselves, these cannot lead to God-realisation, of which they are supposed to
be the means. And yet, rites and rituals and other such practices are propagated
as the very end in themselves - sacred, holy and sacrosanct. Even a little
departure from or negligence in the observance and performance of the rites and
rituals strictly in the prescribed manner or questioning their real significance, is
regarded as a sacrilegious act, a sin. Threatened with dire consequences, if no
doubt, this is done with sole motive that in the name of God- realisation, the seeker
should be kept entangled into the cab web of rites and rituals. In the
circumstances, the seeker is driven to fear and superstitions, so much so that even
certain days are considered by him as ominous, He, thus remains bound down to
such futile routines all his life in the false hope of God- realisation, what a pity!
In this situation, a question, naturally arises: why are people given to rites
and rituals It is our daily experience that repetition or routine performance of an act,
physical or mental, requires minimum effort and is, therefore, comparatively, more
satisfying and easy to perform. So also is the ease with the observance of rites
and rituals. In the religious realm, however, such a satisfaction is deemed as an
attainment. The God-seekers or devotee remains tied down to and content with
such routine rituals. In course of time, he begins to nurse an illusion that he has
actually attained God-realisations.
TRUE MASTERThere prevails a great deal of misconception about True Master or Sadguru,
especially His hallmark and His manifestation. The priest class and religious
leaders have managed to delude the masses, in every age, in believing that the
outfit such as a particular attire or forehead - mark, or rosary, or matter hair, is
hallmark of a True Master and that, unlike the multitude, he manifests rarely, not in
every age. Let us examine this stand objectively.
An illiterate may be better dressed than a doctor. Also a person does not
become a doctor merely by doctor apparel. Medical knowledge and not the attire
is the hallmark of a doctor. In other words, one, who heals patients, is a healer
not withstanding the nomenclature - Hakim, Vaid, Tabeeb or doctor. Further,
death of a doctor does not mean the end of medical knowledge. What dies is
the physical body and not the transcendental knowledge. Knowledge (ever)
abides. Another person equipped with medical knowledge takes his place. This
holds good also in the case of a True Master.
There is yet another cogent reason why a True Master should be there in
every age. Times without number it is asserted and propagated that God-
realisation is the foremost aim of human life. In other words, to realize God is an
obligation as also a birthright, nay a divine right of every human, in whichever age
he or she is born. And, as a doctor is indispensable to dispense medicine, so is a
True Master for dispensing God-knowledge. In other words, God can be realized
by the grace of True Master alone. In the circumstances, is it logical that there
should not be a True Master in any age those who contend or propagate that
manifestation of a True Master in rare phenomenon, should honestly search their
hearts and ponder over the gravity of the consequence of their approach? Are not
they depriving the teeming million’s of an opportunity to discharge their most
sacred obligation and exercise their divine right to realize God and thereby fulfill
the chief aim of human life to be redeemed Are not they, wittingly or unwittingly,
‘violating’ their divine right
The truth is that since the Divine is eternal, so is the Divine Messenger or True
Master to bless the aspirants with the Divine Message or God-knowledge, in
every age, whatever be the nomenclature of the whatever (of God-knowledge).
Again, let us not forget that a Divine Messenger or True Master is not a person but
an institution and God-knowledge his sole hallmark.
Word (Divine) is the Master, Guru and the Lord,
Disciple is the conscious inner accord.
REALITY
By now it is clear that the belief that God is corporeal and finite being is,
infact, no more than an imaginary fabrication and therefore differently presented by
different people, even though every religion teaches that God is formless and one.
In order to promote their rested interest, the so called redeemers or religious
guides feel totally unconcerned that their irrational approach negates and
undermines the most sacred and fundamental truth of oneness of God. It also
sows seeds of polytheism, sectarianism superstitions and blind faith, and thereby
leads the naove devotees away from the cherished goal if God-realisation. It is no
surprise, therefore, that the humanity is being consumed by fire of strife,
intolerance, hatred, fanaticism and factionalism. The present generation especially
the youth, carries a conviction that they are unfortunate to have been born in an
age bereft of Great Masters of the past, competent to reveal God, instead of falling
a prey to taboos, dogmas, complexities and even absurdities woven by self-styled
redeemers to yoke the innocent God-seekers to the wheel of mere routines, they
prefer to be known or even dubbed as atheists, though in the heart of their hearts
they too nurse an irrepressible urge to realize God, the Supreme power.
However, mere belief in the existence of God is not sufficient, as already
discussed. The prime aim of human life is to realize the all-pervading formless
God. This is so because, of all the creations, man is not only conscious but also
super-conscious, God-realisation is, therefore, possible only in the human life, the
span of which, in turn, is not only short but also unpredictable.
The seekers need not be dismayed however, provided they have an
earnest, nay a burning yearning to know and realize God. Since Gos is all
pervading and omni present, there is no need to retire to a forest or mountain or
undergo torturous practices to realize God. (Shri Sai Baba). The seeker must not
accept anything short of God-realisation like Swami Vivekananda who used to put
the straight and significant question to everyone: “Sir”, do you know God Can you
show God to me” He repeated this question till, atlast, he met Sri Ramakrishna,
who was himself a God- realised being and unveiled God to Vivekananda.
Similarly, to satiate their longing for an abiding perception to God form less, the
aspirants should also, in all humility, approach and ---- the grace of someone who
himself is God-realised.
Here we must not forget the God being all pervading and omnipresent.
God-revelation takes no time; just a mere hint is sufficient to introduce one person
to another.
“Ask and it shall be given to you; seek, and He shall find; know, and it shall
be opened unto you” (Bible, Matthew 7:7)
“Sit in faith (before the Master) for a moment and you will realize the All-
pervading” (Raj Talang Benikabirji p. 727)
“Say the Lord, if you come to me walking, I shall run to (receive) you
(Muslim Bukhari and also Sai Baba)
The knower alone can make us known and realize God. Certainly Shirdi
Sai Baba was such a knower, who revealed the all-pervading formless God by a
mere hint saned rites and rituals, taboos and dogmas. This hint illumines and
transforms is one’s out look and vision; the ignorance is dispelled and one realizes
the reality busy and perceives the real, i.e., God is most proximate, here, there and
everywhere and at all times.
DHARAM SAI.
CHAPTER XXIV
PARAMAHAMSA YOGISThe Yogis are those who have controlled all the out going faculties of the
mind and attained concentration by the practice of the eight fold means of Yoga,
i.e., Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and
Samadhi. The Paramahamsas are those who have attained the super conscious
state in which all illusion of the world has vanished in the direct realization of Truth,
the oneness of existence. They belong to the highest order of Sanyasis. The
world is put here to qualify Yogis because they are sometimes seen to apply their
powers of Siddhis to worldly ends, which brings on their downfall. The
Paramahamsas, however, having realized the hollowness of all earthly vanities
through knowledge renounces them.
The Paramahamsa path called Turiyashrama (the fourth order) is accessible
with great difficulty through the merits acquired by the strenuous exertions of many
previous births. They have not many exponents, and it is enough if there be one at
any time in any country. Such a one is firmly established in the consciousness
of “I am the Brahman”. This is what the knower of truth hold, he is not conditional
by anything, though living in the body, for he rests his whole mind always in
Lord Brahman (Pramatman); and Lord Brahma (Pramatman), too, for that -- reside
in him. Having renounced his sons, friends, wife and relations etc; with a view to
attaining the perfect and un- disturbed peace of mind, without having anything to
identify his self with all things which is useful only so long as Truth is not realized
and all desire which binds the soul and charms it by its endless deceitful sports of
Maya.
He being a Yogi rests absorbed in the Paramatman and has no
consciousness of heat and cold, and because of his seeing no other self but his
own in all, does not feel elated by honour paid to him, nor grieved by being
disrespectfully treated. He neither feels happiness nor misery. He is beyond the
reach of hunger, thirst, grief, delusion, decay (by body disease) and death (of
these first two belongs to the prans, the next two to the mind and last two to body).
Having given up all thoughts of calumny, conceit, jealousy, ostentations,
arrogance, attachment or antipathy to objects, joy and sorrow, lust, anger,
covetousness, self-delusion, elation, envoy, elation, egoism, and the mine-ness in
objects of enjoyment, he regards his body as a corpse, as he has thoroughly
destroyed the body-idea. Being eternally free from the cause of doubt, and of
misconceived and false knowledge, realizing the Eternal Brahman, he lives in that
himself, with the consciousness “I myself am He (Paramatman), I am that which is
ever calm, immutable, undivided, of the essence of knowledge-bliss, That alone is
my real nature”. That (Jnana) alone is his Shikha. That (Jnana) alone is his holy
thread. Through the knowledge of the unity of the Jivatman with the Paramatman,
the distinction between them is wholly gone too. This (unification) is the
Sandhya’s ceremony.
For Paramahamsa Yogi the quarters are his clothing, he prostrates himself
before none (Davas or the like), he is not required to perform the Shradha
ceremony, blames none, praises none-the Sanyasis is ever of independent will.
For him there is no invocation to God (in any image), no valedictory ceremony
(Prayers offered to chosen deity at the end of worship, to retone to His supreme
Abode) to him; no mantra, no meditation, no worship; to him is neither phenomenal
world nor that which is unknowable, he sees neither duality nor does he perceive
unity. He sees neither “I” nor “thou”, nor all this. Such Sanyasi has no home.
This not allowed to accept anything made of gold or the like, he should not have a
body of disciples, or accept wealth.
All desires of mind cease to exist, (and consequently) he is not agitated by
grief, and has no longing for happiness; renunciation of attachment to sense-
pleasures comes, and he is everywhere unattached in good or evil, he neither
hates nor is elated. The outgoing tendency of all the sense-organs subside in him
whose Smriti thus extols the bliss such as one possesses, the happiness enjoyed
by the King of Gods or by the sovereign ruler of all men is nothing compared with
that which belongs to the Yogi who is devoid of attachment and is One word in the
knowledge of Self rests in the Atman alone. Realising “I am that Brahman who is
the one infinite knowledge - Bliss” he reaches the end of his desires. He has
nothing more to desire, no want to satisfy, no duty unperformed.
The Paramhamsa Yogi, the fourth order of Turiyashrama is classified much
higher than the God as he is firmly established in the consciousness of “I am the
Brahman”. In the above paragraphs I have explained the path of the
Paramahamsa Yogis and their duties and I leave it to you to decide whether Shirdi
Sai Baba was God-reincarnation or Paramahamsa Yogi or some one other than
them.
Om Sai - Om Sai - Om Sai
A BRIEF ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In this book, the author’s revelations clearly state the nature of God and miracle.
Miracles made their appearance from the very day when the world was created. He
who cannot behold them is deprived of the greatest gift of life. In this book author
has tried to explain the inner depth of the miracles of God and His creation i.e how
and why they happen. He has tried to explain the very reason of these myteries or
miracles and had shown a true path for everyone’s spiritual quest to reach the
“Ultimate Truth”.
Major. D.V. Tangri (Retd.) also known as ‘DHARAM SAI’ graduated as
Commissioned Officer from IMA Dehradun in 1950.
In the year 1953, he received a sweet cosmic invitation in the form of a bright light
to come to Shirdi. He followed the bright light and directly reached Shirdi Sai
Baba’s Samadhi. Only after reaching the sacred holy samadhi he realised that the
light was from none other than Baba to guide him to the spiritual path to reach the
“Ultimate Truth”. And since then he became an ardent devotee of Baba.
In the year 1965 during Indo-Pak war Baba saved him from death by turning his
face from direct bullet hit on his head.
In 1970 he had to proceed on a posting with promotion from Poona but Baba
ordered him to leave the service. He dare not defy the order of his Great master,
the Sai and took premature retirement and refused his promotion.
He also took to writing articles on Baba’s life and teachings. His book in Hindi Sai
Baba Ki Dan-Atma Gyan” is already published. Since 1953 he has followed the
spiritual path shown by Baba to attain the “Ultimate Truth” and self-realization.