Sai Baba - A Symbol Perfected in Love

[Guest guest]

A Symbol Perfected in Love

If one is asked to say what Sai Baba is all about, the answer would be clear and

definitive Love. A German woman, who saw Sai Baba for the first time, felt that

he was the embodiment of love. And Professor Varoneshky of the University of

Arizona, a noted and renowned specialist in the study of aura surrounding the

faces of individuals, was struck with awe and wonder because he had never in

his life seen such an aura on the face of any individual in the world. He had

the wide experience of studying the halo on the faces of great and eminent men

of the present century, men of power, statesmen, scientists, artists, social

reformers, saints and sages. But all seemed to him to be just human and mortal.

But after seeing the halo on the face of Sri Sathya Sai Baba, he felt the thrill

of joy akin to ecstasy and wondered if such an expansive aura can ever surround

the face of a mere human being. Professor Varoneshky described this particular

aura as white and pink of the colour of love. When bhajans were sung in the

prayer hall, the white and predominantly pink aura turned golden, the colour of

the sun and then into an expansive blue, and the boundless energy of creation.

And we know that blue colour is also symbolic of love. Professor Varoneshky saw

in the eyes of Baba diamond like brilliance. Though Varoneshky is a Catholic, he

felt convinced that aurawise, Sri Sathya Sai Baba was God, the primal source of

love. Indeed Sathya Sai Baba was the very quintessence of Love. Many other

devotees of Baba have also had the experience of witnessing the halo

surrounding the face of Baba. We have already noticed in the earlier chapter

how John Scher, an American devotee, witnessed the pink and bluish halo

expanding and spreading all over the sky and the faraway horizons.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba has said:

I am the embodiment of love and love is my instrument mine is love that is pure,

free, selfless and unconditional.

And further he has said:

Sai is infinite love. It is this love that pervades and appears in the entire

universe around us. This love is seated ever in your hearts. The universe is

Sai. You are Sathya Sai. Love is my form, truth is my breath, and peace is my

food. My life is my message.

Through constant reiteration of this love, he has clearly and transparently

demonstrated both by precept and actual practice that he is the living

configuration of love that only God can be. He is the kind of love that

surpasses in magnitude and intensity the love of one thousand mothers.

Sai Baba has declared explicitly that Love is God.

It is love that transfigures and transubstantiates everything and binds all into one volume.

Sai Baba has made some extremely precious and beautiful and memorable

observations that are truly reminiscent of the teachings of Jesus Christ

and offer concrete and tangible suggestions for mankind to live by. For

instance, he says:

God is the source of all love. Love God; love the world as the vesture of God,

no more, no less. Through love you can merge in the ocean of love. Love cures

pettiness, hate and grief. Love loosens bonds. It saves man from the torments

of birth and death. Love binds all hearts into a soft, silken symphony. Seen

through the eyes of love, all beings are beautiful, all deeds are dedicated,

all thoughts are innocent, and the world is one vast kin.

And here is another practical and easy way to work for the expansion of this

universal love to attain the bliss of attaining God:

Love for all should spontaneously flow from your heart and sweeten all your

words. The best spiritual discipline that can help man is love. Foster the tiny

seed of love that clings to me and mine. Let it sprout into love for the group

around you and grow into love for all mankind, and spread out its branches over

animals, birds, and those that creep and crawl and let the love enfold all

things and beings in all the world. Proceed from less love to more love, narrow

love to expanded love.

And furthermore, the practice of expanding the love rhythmically to embrace all

and every sentient thing and the recognition of sparks of the same divinity is

the end of all spiritual exploration. Baba says:

When you know that you are but a spark of the divine and that all else are the

same divine spark, you look upon all with reverence and true love. Your heart

is filled with supreme joy and the canker of egotism is rendered ineffective.

Man is seeking joy in far-off places, in quiet spots, not knowing that the

spring of joy is in the heart, the heaven of peace is in himself. Love is God;

God is the embodiment of perfect love. So he can be known, reached and won only

through love. You can see the Moon only with the moonlight.

Such facets of the divine diamond can be seen and realized through intensive

study of all that Baba has said in his discourses and

vahinis. But the important and crucial question is the apprehension and true

understanding of the secret of Baba's extreme love and its redeeming,

transcendental power. That is to say, divine love and its eternal radiance and

transforming power can only be experienced because as Professor Gokak, the

renowned Indian English poet, has said in images of poetry,

.... But divine love

is the naked majesty of midnight stars

It is an infinite and luminous downpour

That fills all your being

To the very cells of the body...

Divine love descends on you

As from the Milky Way

And more and more, the more open you are.

It upholds your sail on the ocean of being

And is the chart(er) of uncharted seas

Human love is the fire of the body

That created man in the image of man.

It is the sallying out of the self to self.

But divine love is the light of the heaven

That recreates man in the image of God.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba has declared that his love flows to everyone, to every

sentient thing of the universe. In fact, it is this love that sustains the

universe. He says, 'If you take one step towards me, I shall take a hundred

steps towards you. If you shed one tear, I will wipe a hundred tears.' His love

is selfless and without any condition. 'Love is my very nature,' he says. The

greatest attribute of selfless divine love is that it is not bound by the

fetters of attachment or craving for any return. It is universal as well as

impersonal. In the words of Professor Gokak, 'Baba's love floods the vast

spaces of the soul. Although it is marked by supreme detachment, it irrigates

the arid heart that it may burst into bloom. It is beautiful itself.' Further,

Professor Gokak says:

At an informal meeting, one of the group asked Baba, 'Swamiji, what is the

secret of the' cure that many afflicted persons experience in your presence

Baba said simply and instantly: 'It is my experience that I am one with every

sentient thing, every human being. My love flows out to everyone, for I see

everyone as myself. If a person reciprocates my love from the depth and purity

of his heart, my love and his meet in unison and he is cured of his affliction.

Where there is no reciprocation, there is no cure...' Baba's love knows no

frontiers. It overflows all boundaries. Like the universal sun it shines on

all, whether they be sun worshippers or owls.

Sai Baba as the single flame and still centre holding the universe in his palm

is the fountain of love, pure love. He is indeed a symbol perfected in love.

God who is SatBeing Awareness-Bliss, can also be fairly described as a symbol

perfected in love. Human love is generally fragmentary just as the finite human

consciousness itself. 'Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic orders?

That was the dilemma before Rainer Maria Rilke, the modern German poet. Torn up

and disconsolate at witnessing the great conflagration during the second world

war and assailed by thousand and one doubts and distractions he mused over the

human condition and had a true vision of the essential human frailty and human

lot. He felt as never before that human consciousness is finite and fragmented

in the extreme. But there is another kind of consciousness that is undivided

and complete. Rilke saw a series of visions at Scholos Duino. Plagued and

tormented by the insufficiency of the human condition, the poet set out to

capture that elusive and beautiful vision of supreme felicity as represented by

the angels, the lovers and all those who have gone to the world of the dead.

Similarly, human love is broken, transitory and fragmented, and the central

thrust of the pilgrim soul is to aspire for divine love as also for the final

merger with the Eternal Absolute,

SatSai Baba in some of his letters and poems, addressed to the beloved students

of Sri Sathya Sai College of Arts and Sciences, has urged them to move into

another intensity and merge themselves into Him. He says in one such poem:

Live ... live ... live in perfect accordance

With My laws, and wonders will ensue.

Let old memories well up in you

>From my subconscious in you...

Old patterns...

Old forgotten patterns and thoughts.

Now plunge them into the Ocean of Light

Burn them from the Consciousness

So that you may be

True emblems of my Being.

Right now visualise my burning Flame

Rising higher and higher

As it burns through you...

It is a flame that is cooling

Cleansing and healing;

That soothes the hidden sorrow...

And leaves you calm and quiet.

Test in my Love

Let all that you have been through

In your many lives up to this day,

Melt away in my redeeming Light.

Children of My Being

Dissolve your sorrows and fears in me.

Let me efface all your Karma

Come back into my Consciousness, which is your own true consciousness Let your

petty human consciousness fade away, right now, when you

come to me, who am your inner self.

You are my own radiant Glorious Self

No longer separate from me

Melt with Me, merge with Me..

Become Me.

It is great poetry as it represents the true voice of feeling and the depth of

highest kind of ardour and love which are the hall­marks of the Divine. As a

Professor of English literature, this author feels frankly and candidly that it

nearly transcends all existing monuments of devotional poetry that he has known.

In the greatest of devotional poets, from Dante downwards to Milton, Donne,

Herbert and Vaughan ... to Mira, Tulsidas, Hopkins to T.S. Eliot, the

motivating force has been the prayer and the supplication of the meditating and

the praying mind to voice the spiritual aspirations of the poet in apt and

adequate metaphors of poetry. Most of such great poetry has either been

devotional or else visionary, tenuous or abstract. But here is another kind of

poetry, not penned by the aspirant praying for the one barely prayable prayer

for the one Annunciation, divine grace and mercy from that Ocean of Mercy. It

is the blessing and grace of the Divine exhorting the devotees to merge with

Him and become Him. In this sense, it is the fullest gift of grace and love

that mankind can ever hope to realize. This is a burning example of what Divine

Love can be and how it can confer salvation on the spiritual aspirant. In

another beautiful prose passage, Sri Sathya Sai Baba explains and points out

the plenitude of Divine Love:

My dears,

Sai is Love. He is compassion and kindness itself. He is ever dwelling in the

hearts of you all. To trust him means freedom from all anxiety, fear and

doubts. He is you, all-in pall. When you have a Lord of the Universe to depend

upon why should you be afraid or anxious about anything? His great assurance

should always sustain you ... The Almighty Lord of the world is seated in your

heart, is the sole doer. You are mere puppets. Let him make you dance as he

wills. Yours is not to question 'Why? Difficulties and worries are not due to

outside causes. They are due to a mind not surrendered unto God.

With love and blessings,

Baba

In another beautiful and memorable poem, Baba voices his great love for the

students and uses resilient and functional imagery of a rare sort. The sense of

complete oneness or unity of the human and divine could not have been better

expressed than in the following lines:

The bird with you, the wings with Me;

The foot with you, the way with Me;

The eye with you, the form with Me;

The thing with you, the dream with Me;

The world with you, the heaven with Me;

So are we free, so are we bound;

So we begin and so we end;

You in Me and I in you.

Sai Baba, as we have seen, is the repository of love, the perennial comforter of

bruised and torn hearts. He knows the agitation of every mind. One may wonder,

who, then, devised the torment, Love? No, the torment is the fruit and

consequence poem of G.M. Hopkins where he voices his tone of desperation and

anguish at not receiving the divine comfort. He voices his agony in his

characteristic style:

No worst, there is none, pitched past pitch of grief,

More pangs will, schooled at at fore pangs, wider wring,

Comforter, where, where is your comforting,

Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?

Hopkins voices his sense of anguish and desolation. But in Sai Baba there is the

loving and caring parent who is always beside his children. Baba has said:

I am always with you, behind you, beside you, in front of you, in your very heart.

And furthermore, he says:

You shed one tear and I will wipe a hundred from your eyes.

He also assures mankind that God is ever ready to help man in calamitous time and clime:

God is the nearest, the dearest, the most loving, the most eager companion for man.

Not only this, Sai love is so powerful, expansive and intense that guards and

protects all those who reciprocate his love and surrender to him. This love is,

in nature, both protective and redemptive. In another beautiful poem, Sai Baba

gives positive assurance to his beloved children that he is always with them:

Dear, dear loved one

You ask:

How will you know when I am near you?

When on a sultry night

Everything is hot and still

The first cool breeze

Brushes your cheeks

I am caressing you

Think of Me.

When the pangs of hunger are satisfied

And loneliness is pierced by happiness

Think of Me.

When I sprinkle your face with rain

And wash the earth; the dry brown leaves

The first smell of clear rain I am cleansing you.

Think of Me.

When pain dissolves

And fear disappears

Think of Me.

While steadfast eyes are horrified

By the cruelties of life

The first glance of the silent setting sun

I am comforting you

Think of Me.

Then you ask:

How will you know when you are near me?

When pain becomes unbearable

You smile

And you love Me.

When I take from you

Your most cherished possession

On the first loss of your sight

Darkness envelops you

And you love Me...

For everything you see, hear, smell, taste or touch belongs to me. So how can

you give to me what I already am but your love? And that I gave to you before

time began as your sole possession. When you return it to me, then you will

know you are truly mine and I will dissolve your sorrow and happiness into me.

That.... being me, I will place you in Bliss forever for I love you and think

of you constantly.

>From your most loving Father.

Sai Baba being both the Divine father and mother, the creator and the preserver

he is always with us sustaining our love for him. And we love him because he

first loved us.

Thus, we come to the inevitable conclusion that Sai love is many a splendoured

thing, which like a sunbeam gives life and energy to all. And like a rainbow it

is compounded of many colours. It has multiplex dimensions and can be fully

absorbed and assimilated if one is ready to receive it. Its sure and most

remarkable manifestation takes place only when the positive and negative poles

of electricity meet in unison. This analogy of the electric current has been

given by Sai Baba himself when he explained to Mr. R.K. Karanjia how the

miraculous cures, remote controlled surgical operations, rescue of the devotee

from drowning and other such critical situations overtake the devotees. The

effect of Sai love is exquisitely comforting and far‑reaching and its

limit is the sky itself. Baba's love is greater than the sum total of the love

of a thousand mothers. At the same time one cannot understand the magic and

alchemy of this love and its boundless transforming power unless one has

experienced it oneself. In this context, it may be fair to quote here the

statement of Professor V.K. Gokak. When questioned by the representative of

Movement Newspaper in America how living with Sai Baba so closely for many a

year has affected his own character and being, Professor Gokak said:

M.N.: I have heard you say that living so close to Baba you sometimes can get

'burned'. To what does it refer?

Gokak: It means that he is all perfection. In that light around him, no iota of

untruth can survive. No insincerity can have any place around him. But we are

imperfect; that is why we are human. In our dealings with him we will try

sometimes to impose that imperfection on him without our knowledge. He is very

sorry for us because he knows that we are going to be burned...but if one

understands what is happening that it is the impurity that is being burned, and

then one can understand it all right. Plus, there is Baba's game ... While this

is happening, his love is still there ... It still flows to the person. This is

what saves and heals him ... You are on the top of a volcano ... As Baba has

been saying 'The nearer and dearer you are, the greater are your chances of

getting burned.'

Professor Gokak has given a personal testament saying how Sai wrought a miracle,

bringing about a sea-change and transformation in his emotional life. A poet

that he is, Professor Gokak says that his personality was an adamant rock that

prevented the waters from flowing out. His predominantly intellectual

make‑up, spirit of detachment, restraint, poise and central control of

emotions prevented him from giving vent to his feelings. He says that the

living contact with Baba took him from the arid desert of impersonality to the

vast expanse of emotion. It seemed as though Baba had cut a little of that

adamant rock to allow the fertilising waters of love to flow. That is what Baba

did for him without his knowing it. At this stage, the present author, who had

known Professor Vinayak Krishna Gokak for a number of years, nearly thirty

years, can very well testify to the change registered in the personality of the

learned professor and an eminent intellectual of the country. Having worked with

him at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla where Professor Gokak was

the Director, and again at Prasanthi Nilayam where he was the founder Vice

Chancellor of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, the author had

numerous occasions to perceive the soft, tender, warm and affectionate nature

of the late Professor. Indeed, the gush of the fountain of love and jets of its

energy came out unhindered from the inner spring of his heart.

Another reference and grateful acknowledgement to Baba for bringing about a

change in the nature and world-view by the impact of Baba on his personality

and character has been made by no less a person than Dr. Samuel Sandweiss. He

says in answer to the following question:

Question: Dr. Sandweiss, you described in your chapter on psychiatry a new

element that Sathya Sai Baba has added to your understanding of human nature

that of divine love. Can you tell us a little bit how that's affected your work

in the United States?

Answer: Baba's love touches us at such depth and with such intensity that one

can only describe it as omnipresent, unconditional, boundless, divine. It is

his greatest gift to us, a gift that transforms the devotee and I'm sure will

transform the world as well. My first experience of this love was so profoundly

moving that I saw in it the basic force, which supports and sustains us all.

Since then I have come to see my life's work as trying to purify my own

capacity to love, to express this love with those who come to me for help and

to help modem day psychotherapists come to know of this love that heals all

illnesses.

.... Perhaps I can begin by describing the impact and meaning of my first

experience of Sai love. Throughout my personal and professional life, I had

been searching for peace of mind, how I achieve this for myself and help with

its achievement by others ... Although many patients were brought through

crisis and felt better emotionally; there was still uncertainty, worry and

unresolved sufferings in their lives. Still unanswered were such basic

spiritual questions as 'who am I in the vastness of this infinite universe? Why

am I here? What is the purpose of my life? How shall I lead it? I could see that

Western psychiatry had no answer. Neither my patients nor I had the deep sense

of peace and protection in our lives that one would hope to find a closer

relationship with a loving, caring God.

This may be considered to be a very revealing, convincing and vital statement of

Sai love not only for its impact on the personal level, but also for its

therapeutic value. Dr. Sandweiss goes on to describe his feeling of ecstasy and

bliss on receiving the shaft of sunlight that Baba's love indubitably is. He

says:

One evening after hearing Baba speak to his students I retreated dejected and

almost broken. I stood a great distance away from him, many walls and many

people separating us. I was in the moment of my greatest pain, attracted by

Baba's greatest vitality, love and sheer beauty yet wanting to retreat ... I

pictured myself being a penniless outcast ... As I stood, steeped in this dark

cloud of pain, I looked up to find the most precious, tender healing light of

love I had ever witnessed. Baba came directly to me, smiling tenderly and

playfully capturing me in the radiant light of sheer bliss which sparkled in

his eyes. I was immediately immersed in his great joy and happy beyond measure

.... He reached out and gave me a small piece of candy but the spiritual gift

was immeasurable. What an immense revelation to me; his understanding of

another being deeper than anything I'd ever realized before. In an instant he

showed me he was nearer to me than my very breath, that he actually resided in

my heart, and, what's more, he responded to my pain. He had waited for the

moment when I would be ready to understand and accept. In this tender, intimate

act of compassion, I saw the glory of his omniscience and omnipresence, the

mighty transforming and healing power of his unconditional love. And he wanted

nothing in return.

The personal experience of Dr. Sandweiss is no longer personal; it is the

externalization of the innermost realization in the internal castle of the

mind, the awareness of a love that is truly like a boon and a blessing. It

fertilizes the groundswell of one's urges and apprehensions to soar highter and

still higher and to purify and expand one's love beyond self. Baba has said in

his own inimitable way:

Love. Love alone can bind you to others and to God, who is the embodiment of

love. Love knows no fear, no anxiety, and no grief. I am love. I shower love.

(Sathya Sai Baba)

Perhaps, it may not be out of place at this point, when the glory, the splendour

and the majesty of Sai love, which is mysterious, unique, infinite and

unknowable, to relate some of the deeply felt tremors of that love which this

author has come to realize during the moments of his calamitous torments and

sufferings and how soothing, sweet and comforting can this love be in which one

gets fully immersed with the whole soul alive and have a fair glimpse of divine

love. The author would share some of the contours and magic of Sai love and for

this purpose a narration in the first person may be necessary and desirable for

the simple reason that only within the texture of subjective presentation can

the immediacy and urgency of an intimate journal be properly communicated to

others. Such an account may fairly be described as a personal testament.

I lived a, more or less, lucid, calm and serene existence in my adolescence and

early youth. I was noble and idealistic and loved people as loving was my

innate and original impulse. I was full of the milk of human kindness. Deeply

attached to my family of parents, brothers and sisters, I was ever ready to

make the maximum sacrifice for them. An emotional and loving temperament was my

greatest acquisition and strength. This was at the source of my kinship with

people. Coupled with this, I was endowed with a creative imagination that

expressed itself in my creative writings in Hindi short stories, to be more

precise, and at a comparatively tender age while I was studying English

literature at the Bachelor and Master's level, I had the privilege of being

known all over the country in the field of Hindi fiction as a promising young

writer. My short stories appeared regularly in prestigious magazines and

periodicals of the country and they were taken note of by general readers and

critics alike. By the time I graduated with honours in English literature and

joined the master's course as graduate student in the same subject, two

collections of my short stories had been published. And there was no turning

back; the sky seemed to me to be the limit. And then dame Fortune smiled on me

and I was awarded a teaching Fellowship of substantial value from an American

University and I spent nearly two and one‑half years at the university

and was awarded the degree of doctor of philosophy in English. My doctoral

dissertation on T.S. Eliot's later poetry was highly commended by the examiners

.... so much so that my major professor said that I was the best student he had

ever had. And another German Professor was simply lyrical in my praise. He gave

me a testimonial saying that 'Krishna is a poet, not the kind of poet who writes

verses. He is a poet who sees the simple in its inexorable complexity and the

complex in its tantalizing simplicity. He will be an eye and a voice to his

people. Whoever will be kind to Krishna will receive the blessings that come

from a noble mind and a beautiful soul. He is an honour to his country and a

source of pride for all men.'

I experienced the warmth, love and admiration of all my fellow students,

teachers and the President of the University, which filled me with ecstasy. I

was truly on the crest of the wave. Back in India, I was in for a phase of

disaffection and disillusionment. I was baptized in pain and suffering and even

the Gods who love honest and sensitive men put me on the wheel of fire. My

efforts to get a good position in the universities failed and I felt terribly

sad and disconsolate. What was worse, the very base of my life, my family posed

many a problem for me. My only daughter, Rashmee, showed symptoms of the

terrible disease schizophrenia when she was a teen-aged student in the high

school and I knew for the first time how unnerving and tragic the whole

situation can be. Life, then, became a blazing inferno, a cauldron of fire

where I had to dance in measure like a dancer. My very existence, safety and

work were threatened, for there was no knowing what would happen the next day.

Rashmee was very unwell. She raged and raved and it became increasingly

difficult to contain her or to keep her in the house. I took her to all the

major psychiatric clinics and sanatoriums of mental health, but there was

absolutely no relief whatsoever, and the tender plant that she was, withered

and there was no end to the withering of flowers. It was at this time that I

sincerely prayed to some super power to terminate the torment and save the life

of my beloved daughter. At that time I was serving as a Visiting Fellow at the

All India Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, where Professor V.K. Gokak was

the Director. As he knew about my problems, so he sincerely advised me to pray

to Sai Baba. It is he who can cure her. 'Look, Professor Sinha, yours is a

difficult problem in which none else but God can help. It is a dilemma which I

myself had gone through. My daughter, too, had mental weakness. I kept her at

home and had to pay the price. I was away to the United Kingdom on a short-term

assignment as Visiting Professor at Leeds University. One morning when I was

going to the university to continue my lecture on Indo-English Literature, I

got that dreadful news through a cable from home. My crazed daughter, poor

girl, had jumped down the well in the compound of my house and had thus ended

her life. It was a tremendous shock but assuming that work is worship, I

proceeded to the university and somehow delivered my lecture with a broken

heart. There is nothing one can do but bear the onslaughts of outrageous

fortune. The other alternative, though it may sound extremely callous, even

heartless, is to put your daughter permanently in a lunatic asylum so that you

can live in peace. This is a pragmatic approach and perfectly logical and

practical. But I know it is easier said than done. Of course, Sai Baba can cure

her by his Grace. Why not take a chance? Professor Gokak whispered in a sibilant

voice.

However, the situation took a turn for the worse. Rashmee suffered yet another

setback and lost her balance altogether. I got alarmed and felt that I would

lose her in the hilly terrain of Simla with deep ravines and precipices. So I

had no option but to resign my post prematurely and rejoin my post at Bihar

University, Muzaffarpur. Soon a research student, Miss Shelia Prasad, came to

see me and offered me a coloured photograph of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. 'Sir, I am

aware of your problem. Please worship Sai Baba. He is an ocean of mercy. He

will listen to your prayer, I believe!

Thus, there was the beginning of the end of my problem. The visiting card of

Baba poured in the shrine and fragrant aroma of

vibhuthi appeared on the pictures as well as on the floor. The whole house smelt

of a strange aroma and excitement was high. My ardent desire now was to visit

Puttaparthi and to seek the blessings of that God incarnate who walks the earth

in human form. But where was the wherewithal, the money to undertake that long

trip? But Baba had a different design for me. His calls are strange and unique

and when the right time comes, even Karma has to be burnt out. Another research

student of mine, a lecturer in a women's college, had submitted her doctoral

thesis on the poetry of Wallace Stevens, under my direction. I had put

Professor Narasimmaiah of Mysore University on the panel of examiners. Although

he had given his approval to the thesis, he declined to travel way up north to

conduct the vivatest of the candidate; rather he suggested that the test could

be arranged at Mysore itself should the administration of Bihar University

agree to it. The Vice Chancellor of my university was pleased to sanction the

holding of vivatest at Mysore. And in the summer of 1973, 1 proceeded to Mysore

along with my wife and daughter. The candidate and her husband also accompanied

us so that there was good company. After the vivatest was completed, we made

our maiden journey to Puttaparthi and waited tensely for the darshan of Baba.

Swami went straight to the women's section in the

darshan line and picked up my wife and daughter for a personal interview. And

Baba asked Rashmee, 'Where's your papa? Call him.'

Words fail to describe that momentous interview which was bound to have a

lasting impact on me and initiate me to the world of deathless devotion and

ardour without end and love unlimited. Baba took me to an ante room below the

stair and looked at me with his eyes brimming with love, 'Ah, what a

suffering!' I remember, there was so much of feeling and concern over my lot

and that of Rashmee. I instantly broke down and tears gushed forth from my

eyes. 'Swami, you know everything. Now I have come to you.' Baba smiled

serenely and said, with great assurance in his voice, 'Don't worry. Swami will

set right everything. She is mentally weak, but she will gradually improve.

Give her the vibhuthi in a tumbler of water. She will be all right.' We knelt

at the lotus feet and holding the packets of vibhuthi emerged out of the

interview room to the open field lit up by the rosy beams of the setting sun. I

felt comforted and radiantly happy, and said to myself, 'there must be some

merit in your life that after so much of suffering and parched landscapes of

your life, Baba, like the benevolent God, has sent you rain. His words never

fail. Be assured that Rashmee will recover from her ordeal and be whole

subsequently. So, cheers!'

I mused: hadn't my cup of suffering been full? And I grieved and grieved and

cried in total anguish and ceaseless torment. I wondered if there was some

super power in the cosmos that could bring me relief like sunlight on a broken

column. And I had waited all these years of crucifixion and baptization in pain

for the advent of a ray from the supreme which could open up for me the new

vistas and avenues of hope, faith and love. I returned home with a new sense of

faith, hope and love. It was now heartening to notice a gradual and certain

change in the mental condition of Rashmee. She was calmer than before and took

special keenness in reading books about Sai Baba and performing pooja in the

shrine and usually getting ecstatic and thrilled whenever she noticed traces of

vibhuthi, kumkum and turmeric on the photographs. And what is more, she often

reported that she had seen Sai Baba in her dreams. She was quiet and fairly

composed and her usual tantrums of the previous months were now a thing of the

past. Everything seemed to be going on pretty well and I came to realize that I

had found a new anchor for my soul, something to live by. A new awareness had

dawned upon me that of faith. Tender bud of faith, hope and love seemed to

sprout and both my wife and myself lived in continual enchantment and feeling

of security. But Baba had ordained yet another test for us so as to help us

perfect our will in his will. During my outings I used to take Rashmee along

with me so that she could feel mentally refreshed and see places. In one such

outing, a mishap overtook us. I had an official conference at Magadh

University, Bodh Gaya. Rashmee was sleeping on the terrace of the bungalow

where we were staying. At midnight, she screamed as though she had a nightmare

and rushed towards the stair. She took a false step in the waning moonlight and

fell supine on the level ground below the open terrace. It was a calamity; she

was rushed to the medical college hospital where X-ray was taken; a hairline

fracture in the first lumbar was detected, requiring immediate hospitalization

and three weeks' complete rest on bed. The orthopaedic surgeon who treated her,

expressed his apprehension that her condition was alarming and may ultimately

lead to permanent paraplegia. However, we waited and prayed to Sai Baba to

redeem the situation and shower his grace on the unfortunate girl. There was

nothing else that we could do in the situation. I took a long leave from work

and nursed the patient amidst fluctuating moods of hope and despair. After

three weeks, the surgeon allowed the patient to go home and use an orthopaedic

belt around her waist and take regular walks in the open air. He told me that

he was amazed at the improvement in the patient's condition and wondered how it

had come about. Very soon we were back toMuzaffarpur where the doctor of

doctors, our beloved Lord Sai Baba, took the entire responsibility of the

patient. By virtue of his omnipresence he arranged for profuse supply of sacred

ashes. All that we did was to place a piece of paper in front of his photograph

in the worship room and he did the rest. Vibhuthi gathered in thick cluster

inexhaustibly and it was administered with a glass of water at least twenty to

thirty times in twenty-four hours. And the result was astonishing. The

improvement registered on the patient was phenomenal and X-ray plates now

showed complete healing and her movement and gait became nearly normal. It was

indeed a miracle of love, the like of which I had never seen before. As a

consequence of this, our faith in, and love for Baba deepened and increased a

hundredfold. My wife particularly joined the local Sai Samiti and attended

Majans and participated in other social service. At her behest weekly Majans

were held at our residence in which a large number of devotees were present and

the many miracles continued taking place. Large footprints of Swami appeared on

the stairs and the entrance routes and exit doors. The fluorescent tubes were

aglow on their own and the scent of jasmines floated in the air. On one

occasion, a mysterious visitor in the guise of a demented woman came to the

prayer hall and after the bhajan was over, she went out and faded in the thin

air on the street going out of the campus.

Messages also appeared mysteriously in the shrine and in one such message there

was a direction penned in green ink to the author to write a book on Swami. All

these phenomena were beyond my comprehension, plunging me in a state of

enlightened mystification. And finally, I came to the only conclusion that Baba

was surely and truly divine ... the very embodiment of love. What he had done

for Rashmee was something, which only the divine parent could do.

Not that Rashmee was completely normal mentally; she still was excessively

emotional and flew into rage at the slightest provocation and always wanted to

have things her own way; but by and large, life was peaceful and we enjoyed a

session of serenity and pinned our faith in Swami's words that she would

recover in good time. His love was in action and had fertilized the very ground

of her consciousness. She read all the books on Swami with great relish and

regarded him as her saviour. She always kept on insisting that she be taken to

Puttaparthi for the darshan of her saviour.

However, there was yet another reversion in her mental condition in the year

1977, and this time in the hotel room at Bangalore. Rashmee was tired and

fatigued on account of the long journey and did not eat and sleep well. As soon

as we booked a room at Kapila hotel, she started fretting and fuming

unnecessarily and ran out of the room and rushed to the crowded streets. It was

difficult to restrain her. I was utterly hopeless and disconsolate and was at my

wits' end. It was night time. There was heavy traffic on the streets and I

feared if Rashmee could save herself from being crushed by a car or a truck

plying on the road. At that time, help came from an unexpected quarter. At once

a driver stopped his tonga and accosted me. I told him about Rashmee and her

present mental condition. He offered to render all possible help. He persuaded

Rashmee to sit on the tonga and took her to a hospital. I followed him on a

scooter. The doctor on emergency duty advised me to take her to the Institute

of Mental Health, which was located twenty kilometres away. Again the tonga

driver offered to accompany us. He left his tonga at the hospital and

accompanied us in a taxi to the famous Institute. I thanked him very much.

Rashmee was asked to wait in the ladies' waiting chamber so that she could be

admitted into the Institute on the morrow. The doctor cautioned me to keep

strict vigil on the patient so that she might not run out, a possibility that

often happened in the case of deranged minds. I made her sleep on an empty

bench and waited outside in the verandah. But sleep and fatigue got the better

of me and I lapsed into temporary sleep. When I woke up and cast a look I was

stunned to find that the bench was empty and Rashmee was not there. I made a

frantic search all round the premises and even looked for her in the sprawling

verandah and adjoining lawns and even across the street and tree-lined avenues

and gardens nearby. But there was no trace of Rashmee anywhere. I reported the

matter to the doctor on duty, but he was of no help either. 'Didn't I warn you

to keep a vigil on her? Now what can I do? Please go out and report the matter

to the police station. There is one round the corner. Maybe, they will manage

to get hold of her. You should have been careful/ the doctor said in a sulky

and accusing tone. My heart beat faster and my mind seemed to reel. Tension

filled my bloodstream. Many dark and gloomy thoughts crowded my brain. 'Shall I

ever see Rashmee again? What chance was there to locate her in the desert

wilderness of the metropolis? Swami, I had brought her for your darshan and

blessings ... and she has been lost and that too in a state of schizophrenic

attack. But your will will be done. Please have mercy on her and save her from

possible disaster! I thought and voiced my prayers to Swami. I returned to the

hotel where Rashmee's mother was anxiously awaiting our arrival. She looked

askance at me, but I could not utter a single word. Sensing that I was dazed

and in a state of shock, she asked with concern, 'Where is Rashmee? Where have

you left her?' I sobbed and sobbed unable to speak a word. But after a while I

composed myself and related to her how Rashmee disappeared from the waiting

chamber in the Institute when I temporarily lapsed into sleep. She consoled me

and said gravely, 'It is not your fault. It's all her karma

and her fate. But do not worry. For those who have no refuge, there is Swami to

take care of them. His love for Rashmee has always been demonstrated and I have

no doubt in my mind that he would protect her this time as well from any

calamity. Let us go to Whitefield rightaway! She said in a warm and resonant

voice which seemed to ring with firm faith and conviction. When the day dawned

and the golden rays of the sun wove patterns of red and vermilion we were on

way to Brindavanam, Whitefield with one member less. All our thoughts were now

centred on Swami. We reached Brindavanam and waited in the darshan line. I

scribbled a note hurriedly praying Swami to intervene, and handed over the note

to Swami when he came near me. He cast a glance, which seemed to caress me as

though waves and waves of sympathy rolled over to me at least so it seemed to

me. When Swami returned to his bangalow and the bhajans started we sat all

through the session, thinking only about Rashmee and her sad plight. Time

passed. We did not even care to have the morning tea or breakfast and even at

lunch we did not feel like taking any food. It was an Ash Wednesday for us. How

could we think of taking any nourishment when Rashmee was not with us and she

might be hungry, desolate and without protection? She was my daughter lost, the

favourite child so near and dear to me and the prospects of her recovery seemed

very dim indeed! We could not even summon the courage to get back to the hotel

and brood over the consequences of what had happened. Doubts assailed my mind

once again. Swami had blessed her and had promised to set right everything. But

in spite of improvement in her mental condition for some time, there had been a

reversion landing her in a difficult situation when her safety and well-being

has been threatened. So, we remained at Brindavanam for the whole day and

attended the evening darshan and prayer. But nothing pleased us and we

desperately prayed to Swami to do something and soon. When the shadows of the

evening lengthened and dusk spread its inky mantle on the streets, buildings

and the facade of the horizons, we reluctantly boarded a city bus and alighted

near the Railway Station. Once again, gloomy thoughts gripped our mind and

tears trickled down our face. As we moved slowly towards the crowded street

near the Kapila hotel, we saw a swarm of people crossing the road. And we

recognized a form resembling Rashmee in the melee of the unfamiliar crowd, as

she came closer, there was no doubt. It was she-Rashmee, My beloved daughter.

Was she the long lost daughter of King Pericles in Shakespeare's Winter's Tale.

 

Feeling surged in our hearts and tears of joy welled up in our eyes. I fondly

embraced Rashmee. She looked tired and was coughing. 'Where had you been last

night and the whole day today?' I asked her in a numb voice.

'I was with Sai Baba,' she said enigmatically.

'O.K. you must be feeling hungry. Let us go to the cafe across the road. We

shall have some coffee and talk,' I told her.

Seated in a secluded cabin of the cafe, I ordered some snacks and coffee and

felt a deep sense of repose now that the precious and lost member of the family

was with us. She looked fairly quiet and composed as though the delirium and the

hysteria of the previous night had subsided.

'Now tell me, dear, what happened when you slipped out of that waiting hall?'

Rashmee said something that was truly amazing. She said: 'I ran out of the hall

because I had the impression that it was a hospital for mad people. And I was

very angry with you because I suspected that you would leave me here alone

amidst mad women. I was terrified and ran out. I walked out of the hospital and

came on the desolate street. There was no traffic and no one was walking on the

street. I found a park adjacent to the road and entered it. I found a bench and

slept on it. Early in the morning at day break I was aroused by the piercing

rays of the sun falling on my eyes. I remembered that I had none to look after

me; both my mother and father had left me alone and conspired to put me in a

hospital for mad women. So I sobbed spasmodically. At that time a fakir,

wearing a loose gown and a cloth tied to his head, came near me. He asked me

tenderly, 'Why are you crying, baby?'

'My parents have left me. I have to go to Whitefield to see Sai Baba. Can you

tell me how to go there? Can I get a bus to Whitefield?' I asked him. He

thought for a while and said, 'You have not taken any food. You must be feeling

hungry. Come with me. I will take you to an eating-place and put you on a bus

back to the place where your parents are staying. They have not left you;

rather they are worried about you.' He bought some ground­nuts for me and took

me to the bus stand.

I asked, 'Tell me, father, who are you?

'Have you been to Shirdi? No? Come some time. I am always there/ he whispered.

'But I have to go to see Sai Baba at Whitefield. Which bus will be going there’? I enquired.

'Think that I am Sai Baba. First go to the place where your parents are. They

are greatly concerned about you. Then you can go to Whitefield/ he advised me.

Rashmee continued, 'I reached the Railway Station and for the whole day I have

been wandering on the street. Papa, I must tell you the fakir looked very much

like that saint whose picture is in our worship room at Muzaffarpur 'You mean

Sai Baba of Shirdi?

'Yes,' she nodded.

It was a night of rejoicing. Next morning I took the bus to Brindavanam,

Whitefield and waited for Swami to come. He came out and moved gracefully. The

whole sky was lit up with the purple and pink aura and the sky seemed to become

orange. He came straight to me and paused for a while, then he smiled faintly

and whispered, 'So you have got her. Are you happy now?' He sailed ahead,

leaving me in a state of trance. It was a message of joy, perennial joy. Here

was the loving and caring God ever ready to help us in the hours of our need,

all-knowing and omnipresent.

His love for Rashmee has again and again been manifested, the positive poles of

the electric current meeting the negative one. As years have passed, Rashmee

has shown steady progress towards normalcy. But for that temporary reversion at

Bangalore, there has been no more disturbance in her mental poise. It may be

said that Rashmee's life is full of Sai love and it has taken her out of

critical situations. Another instance of Sai love can be related when in 1990

Rashmee had some recurrence of pain in the spine and she was really miserable.

Sitting in the darshan line at Prasanthi Nilayam, she was awaiting the arrival

of Swami. It started raining very heavily. Many devotees thought that it was an

ordeal by water. In another sense, it was a downpour of divine love, at least so

it proved to be for Rashmee. She was praying to Swami: 'Swami, how can I bear

this pain in my back? ... I do. not want to live in this condition ... either

cure me of this or take me to yourself for eternal rest...' There was commotion

in the line as Swami came to the devotees on a car. Many village maids had

thronged the place and as Swami approached, they rushed towards him. Rashmee,

who was in the second line, was flung down by the terrible rush of rustic women

and fell on the feet of Swami. Swami assisted her to get up by giving her a prop

and in the process placed his palm on the affected spot in the first lumbar and

spoke to her softly, 'Do not harbour such gloomy thoughts. Life and death are

not in your hands. Be happy and full of ananda always ... Swami is always with

you. Remember...' Rashmee felt from that moment onwards that all her pain had

vanished and she had regained her physical and mental well-being. It has been a

miracle of love. From these examples, it becomes apparent that the love of Sai

Baba is the greatest boon on earth that one can hope to acquire. It is a

transcendental sunbeam that illumines the whole soul of man. Thus, Sai Baba,

more than anything else, is a symbol perfected in love.

This love operates continuously and on all levels. It was in the year 1985 that

I relinquished my position as University Professor and Chairman, Department of

English, University of Bihar after the completion of my term of service and

joined the University of North Bengal on a similar assignment. But again, Swami

had some definite plan for my future and I was one of the few fortunate ones who

were asked to serve at the lotus feet. On the fifteenth of July, 1985, 1 joined

the most coveted and prestigious position as Professor and Chairman, Department

of English, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, a deemed university of

which Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba was the Chancellor and Professor V.K. Gokak,

the founder Vice Chancellor. I found the maximum level of satisfaction working

at an elite institution where work was akin to prayer and the challenges were

exciting. I have had the privilege of working at many universities at home and

abroad, but never before did I witness such devotion and discipline, such an

atmosphere of peace and tranquillity and such a silken bond of love and

affection permeating the campus life. Swami was there to oversee the whole

programme and loved to meet the teachers and students with a good deal of

frequency, addressing them on spiritual themes and transmitting the electric

waves of pure love. The teachers sat on the front verandah in front of the

mandir in the mornings and evenings and Swami was easily accessible to everyone

and he spoke to them whenever he liked to do so. There was always a sense of

nearness and intimacy and Swami's invaluable counsel was available for the

asking. All seemed to bathe in the effulgence and radiance of divine love. Life

was all this and heaven too, and I felt that such singular good fortune of being

so near to the Lord of the Universe must have meant great merit in one's so many

earlier incarnations. At least I felt so and realized that such sweetness flowed

to me that I was blessed and everything about me was blessed. It was a feeling

of oneness and belonging to the whole creation, nature, living objects, the

earth and the sky and the entire cosmos.

Time passed although I lived in the sempiternal regions of the timeless. And

then the time came when one finds oneself on the threshold of illumination more

illumination, and has the epiphany of a rare kind standing at the frontier of

life and death. On the eleventh of January 1987 1 was face to face with death

and oblivion. I suffered a stroke leading to left-sided monoplegia. I had left

my quarters to proceed to the annual sports meet of the university colleges at

the Hill View Stadium. It was a very important function and Baba was to

inaugurate the function. It was dark in the morning and after a night of

disturbed sleep I was moving on the busy street, tense and uneasy. Some kind of

fever sang in the mental wires and my head was heavy. When I passed by the gate

of the College of Arts and Sciences, I remembered that I had to pick up some

important papers from my office. So, I turned around and came to my office in

the building. My head seemed to reel for a moment and I somehow steadied myself

and went to the toilet to wash my face and sprinkle some water on my head. It

was then that I felt a severe numbness in my left limb and fell on the floor. I

lay unconscious in that condition for a while; then the instinct for survival

made me exercise my will. The first thought that came to my be­numbed mind was

to send earnest and eager prayers to Swami. 'Swami, you are the absolute sole

Lord of Life and Death. I have no lust for prolonging my life except to

dedicate it to your service. I have still many promises to keep; so I do not

want to sleep forever, not at any rate in the roomless toilet. I do not fear

death and oblivion but I have some promises to keep and to make myself worthy

of your love. You are omnipresent. Will you pull me out of this desperate

situation? At this stage, I decided to exercise my will and using my right

limbs I crawled slowly up to the lavatory door and unfastened the latch. Now I

was on the verandah and could see the entrance gate of the college, the green

shrubbery, the red and pink flowers and the vast blue expanse of the sky. The

effort was too much for me and my energy was sapped. I reclined on the floor

and fainted. My head was spinning like a top, and my nerves were on edge. I do

not remember how long did that swoon last, but I was aroused from my slumber by

a voice: 'Sir, what's happened? You look so terribly unwell. Can I help you?

'Do please. It seems I've suffered a stroke. Do please run to the Hill View

Stadium and inform my colleagues and my family. But first bring a rickshaw and

take me to my quarters. I want to rest/ I muttered in a feeble voice.

The young man disclosed his identity saying that he was an assistant in the

college and when he was passing by the college gate, he heard a voice directing

him to go to the college. 'Don't worry, I'll soon be back with a rickshaw,' he

said. He was very helpful and took me to my quarters, When he left the room, I

lapsed into sleep and lost all sense of time and space. When I opened my eyes

next I was lying in a cabin in the Sathya Sai hospital under the shadow of

oxygen mask and saline water was being injected through my veins. I saw my wife

and daughter, both standing near my bed and anxiously looking at me. When I

opened my eyes, the doctors came towards me and asked 'How do you feel now?

There is nothing to worry; your B.P. has come down. You will feel much better

tomorrow. Now do try to sleep,' the superintendent of the hospital said :

I have a faint recollection of the goings on in the hospital on the first two

days. When I was sufficiently stable and my mind was beginning to be alert, I

asked my wife all about it. I was told that my condition had gone on

deteriorating in the afternoon and the blood pressure was still rising. The

attending physicians were all at sea and hardly knew what to do. They suggested

that my wife and daughter should rush to the maiidir

and speak to Swami when he came near them in the darshan line. Swami came in the

evening to the sick room. He looked intently into my eyes for a long time and

withdrew quietly. My wife entreated him to have mercy and save her

'sohag' (marital state). Swami raised his hand as a gesture of benediction but

he did not speak a word. However, the visit of Swami proved to be salutary. By

night, the blood pressure registered a fall and eventually became normal. The

film of haziness before my eyes was dispersed and I was able to see clearly. I

could speak fairly audibly. I beckoned my wife to come near me and told her,

'You look so anxious and disconsolate. But there is no need to worry. Swami

will take care of me, believe me.' 'Yes, we have been sending our anxious

prayers to him day and night/ she whispered.

'I know ... I know,' I mumbled.

On the fourth day after the attack, I was feeling reasonably well, although left

limbs were immobile and I lay limp on the bed, unable to sit up or stand. A

terrible paralysis had overtaken my nerves and there was nothing I could do

about it. In the morning of the fifth day a visitor came to my cabin and

introduced himself as a male nurse from Canada. He told me that he was of

Indian origin and was settled in Canada and that Swami has asked him to attend

on you and help you in your daily chores. He sponged my body with a towel,

shaved me and helped me change my clothes and took me out on a wheel-chair to

the terrace outside where I found plenty of sunshine, fresh air and a sense of

openness and happiness. After many a day I had seen the blue expanse of the

sky, the teeming vegetation and heard the sweet and soothing melody of the

birds. I cast a lingering glance at the domes of the temple and the huge regal

building of the university office located at the top of the hill. In short I

felt a sense of oneness with the world of nature and experienced a new upsurge

of life within me. Mr. Gopal, the compassionate male nurse from Canada, proved

to be a very good companion. He was warm and affectionate and what is more, he

was a very good devotee of Swami.

He told me 'You are very lucky, brother Sinha. Swami is deeply interested in

your welfare and quick recovery. He has given the doctors a piece of his mind

and is not very happy with their initial response and reaction to your critical

state. But he has now entrusted me with the job of seeing you and keeping

company. He has asked the Vice Chancellor and the colleagues and students of

your Department to be with you in the nights so as to provide relief to Mrs.

Sinha. I want you to do me a favour. When Swami comes to see you next time, do

have a word put through on my behalf. This is my only wish to come back to

India and serve at the hospital. If Swami is pleased with my service to you, he

may call me here. So, do please commend my case. I shall ever be grateful.'

Since I had already developed a soft corner for him in tiny heart, I assured him

that I would do all I could at the right time.

During my illness, all my friends and acquaintances came to see me at the

hospital to enquire about my welfare. I was overwhelmed by their fine gesture

of affection and their interest in my well-being. Sambhavna, my granddaughter

who was studying at the Sathya Sai Primary School, could not come as the Lady

Principal thought that the child would be greatly upset to see me in my present

condition. Sambhavna was a favourite child of Swami. She had a congenital defect

in her heart that required open-heart surgery for plugging a hole in the heart.

I had prayed to Swami to cure her and he regularly gave her vibhuthi and once

when she was down with fever, he had taken her to the hospital himself on his

car. The principal of the school used to tell me that the child was really

fortunate that she had earned the grace of Swami. The Vice Chancellor, Dr.

Saraf, was a regular visitor to the hospital to see me and always expressed his

confidence that Swami would see to it that I would soon be all right with the

blessings of Baba. In fact, everyone in the campus was watching my condition

and was feeling gratified that Bhagwan Baba, who was an ocean of infinite mercy

and compassion, would not forsake me. And, assuming the serious­ness of my

stroke with blood pressure touching 220/110 mark, worse could have happened,

heart failure or cerebral haemorrhage, but Swami had sent timely help and had

taken control of the whole situation.

Now my condition was very much stable and I was more alert and hopeful than

ever, and talked intimately with my family members, doctors and visiting

friends and students. The only limiting factor was that there was yet no return

of power to my paralyzed left hand and leg. But Mr. Gopal took me out on the

wheel-chair to the terrace and I spent longer periods sipping tea, reading a

book or just talking to Mr. Gopal about life in Canada. He advised me to go in

for physiotherapy at a good centre so that the return of power to the affected

parts may be hastened. There was no facility for physiotherapy at the Sathya

Sai hospital during the eighties, and it did not seem practicable to go over to

Bangalore for that exercise. My son, a Reader in Economics at Magadh University,

came to see me, but he could not get a longer leave from his university to be

able to accompany me to Bangalore. So, it was decided that I should go back

home in Bihar and take intensive course in physiotherapy. But before I left,

Swami once again sent word that he would be visiting the hospital to bless me.

One morning, word went round that Swami's car had arrived and that Swami would

soon come up to my cabin. The Superintendent and other doctors waited in my

room. Presently, the orange-robed figure of Swami appeared in the room. He came

near my bed and cast a caressing and loving glance at me for a few minutes. His

eyes met with mine and it seemed to me that beams of love and only love fell on

me and I was on the receiving end. There was no immediate effect except the

dawning of a feeling of well-being as though my burden of karma had been lifted

by a divine miracle, the cleansing ray of celestial love. Swami spoke in a firm

voice: 'Professor Sinha, I am very happy with you ... very very happy! You need

not worry. You'll be all right and in good time. You have still to do a lot of

my work...'

I was on the crest of waves of joy at that moment and felt not only happy and

sublime, but also very proud of myself. And the words of my German professor in

the United States echoed in my mind: 'You are so noble and tender and proud ...

You are a poet and God loves the poets already!' And now I was experiencing

that supreme continence of affirmation coming from the mouth of God himself. I

was bathed entirely in the white radiance of divine love. And for a moment it

seemed to be that one's sufferings and afflictions, even physical undoing and

crucifixion are all for the best because they take one several steps closer to

God, even force the divine to bring about the wished for transfiguration and

consummation and union by love. As suffering alone had been the ground of my

beseeching all my life, I was not surprised that God had heard the voice of my

calling and had rushed to my rescue and preservation. I remained in a state of

dizzy rapture for many days and the tender, loving words of Swami continued to

ring in my mind: 'I am very happy with you ... very very happy. You have still

to do lots of my work...'

On the fixed date of departure, Swami sent word to Mr. Kutumba Rao to arrange a

car to take me and my family to Dharmawaram Railway Station and he also

expressed his desire to see me at the time of parting just after the morning

darshan in the field in front of the

mandir. It was Mr. Gopal who took me on the wheel‑chair to the centre of

the field. Most of the devotees had departed and the field was comparatively

less crowded. Swami walked up to me. He looked at me lovingly and with perfect

serenity and love. He waved his right hand and clusters of thin white

vibhuthi came into his hand. He rubbed the z0huthi gently on my left arm and leg

and gave me some to eat. I was unable to control my emotions and looked on

tenderly. Words seemed to fail me. I knew that the hour of separation had drawn

near. Swami had called me to serve at the university for three years, but even

before the termination of that term, sickness had forced me to leave. Now I

shall be thousands of miles away from him and would suffer the agony of

separation from my divine master. What could I tell him now? Then words rushed

to my mouth and I said faintly, 'Swami, what about Sambhavna? Should I leave

Sambhavna here at the school? Should I take her back with me?'

'Better take her with you since you will not be here/ Swami said. Then, showing

a pen, he asked me, 'Is it yours? 'Yes, Swami,' I assented. But it was hard for

me to understand how he got my pen. Maybe while he was applying vibhuthi on my

forehead and the left hand, my pen might have fallen down and he had picked

that up. But it strikes me as a symbolic act. He had said I still had to do

lots of his work and I surmised that continuing with my job at the university

was not possible in my present state of health and there was hardly anything

else, much less community work or social service ... could come under my

purview. But my mind was as keen as ever and my intellectual prowess,

sensitivity, vision and insight remained as sharp as before even sharper with

the acquisition of mellowed perceptions and transfiguring force of divine love.

I could perhaps devote the remaining years of my life in my creative and

critical writings and maybe, I could write my memoirs about Swami, the

assignment which he had ordained for me way back in 1973 when in a mysterious

message appearing in the worship‑room he had directed me to write a book

on him. Now that he has made me a humble instrument to write not one but three

books about him. I think it is the culmination of my modest work, and the

trilogy, for whatever it is worth, will be an offering at his lotus feet if not

a coronet to adorn the head of the glorious and beautiful Lord.

Here ends my personal testament which may be of some interest to the readers. At

least, it gives me immense satisfaction to record my intimate personal

experience of Sai love.

At the same time, divine love, which has no beginning, middle or an end, flows

for ever and impregnates the parched soil of our hearts with a new

efflorescence of tender shoots of faith, hope and love. Here is the poem in its

supreme beauty and glory:

Walk the earth with your heads held high.

Your spirits soaring

Your hearts open to love

And believe in yourself and God within you

Then all will go well.

The earth is a manifestation of My Being

Made out of my life!

Wherever you look, I am there

Wherever you walk, I am there.

Whomsoever you contact, I am that person

I am in each, in all My Splendour.

See me everywhere.

Talk to me and Love me,

Who am in each.

Author: Swami Sai Sharan Anand

http://www.indiangyan.com/books/otherbooks/sai_baba/a_symbol_perfected_in_love.shtml

collection: preetham sai p.v.

mangalore,india.