Sai Baba - Many a Gem of Golden Ray Serene

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Many a Gem of Golden Ray Serene

What is of utmost and supreme significance to man is the inward journey or the

spiritual exploration to know the ultimate reality. As for the romance hero,

the questor in medieval romances, so for each of us there is the basic need and

necessity to undertake the spiritual pilgrimage to arrive where we started and

to know the place for the first time, our real home. Sai Baba of Shirdi often

spoke about a foolish young man who went to the seaside with a view to dive

deep into the unplumbed depths of the ocean and fish out precious pearls there

from. He waited all night, sitting listlessly at the promontory and looked

forward to the rosy dawn light when he would dive into the sea and fish out the

precious gems. But as he waited tense and expectant for the dawning of the light

that would make the seascape clear and bright, time seemed to have a stop and he

felt utterly bored and disconsolate. So, he looked around and set his eyes on

the dark facade of the horizon, not aware of the darkness within his heart In

the dim light of the fading moonlight, he saw a mound of stones nearby at the

sea beach. So, in order to pass his time and by way of a pastime to while away

the desultory moments, he picked up a stone and threw it into the waves. The

sound of the splash, produced by the fall of the stone in the water, pleased

him no end. And he continued with his game throughout that humid and sultry

summer night. Just before the day-break, the film of mist disappeared and the

horizon's mirror tilted and in that beautiful and tranquil atmosphere, the

young man looked at the heap of stones nearby and found that the heap of stones

was not as high as it was during the night. He had picked up stone after stone

and had thrown them into the ocean. Just then, the first rays of the sun fell

on the beach and the remaining stones of the mound shone with a strange glimmer

and lustre. The young man picked up a stone and looked at it closely. He found

that it was a precious gem of golden ray serene. He cursed himself for his rank

folly; he had thrown away the entire treasure of pearls into the sea without

knowing it. Sai Baba told the devotees who surrounded him every night at

Dwarkamai to hear his words of wisdom, that this was the tragedy of the human

lot. He presumes to know himself and considers himself to be clever and wise,

but he simply deludes himself by running after strange gods. On account of his

inordinate lust and desire for material glory he is all the time hankering

after precious pearls from the depths of the sea, little knowing that all the

treasure, the priceless gems and pearls are all stored within his own heart and

consciousness. Thus, in his foolishness, the young man threw away the precious

pearls into the sea and had no option but to lament over his lot. Sri Sathya

Sai Baba has also emphasized the fact that man runs after material treasures

and overlooks the priceless gems that are buried in his own back garden. Howard

Murphet makes this point explicit when he says:

There is the story of a young man who travelled the world seeking a hidden

treasure, the pearl beyond price. Finally, he met a wise man who taught him

many wonderful things. The important and most astounding thing was that the

buried treasure was buried in his garden back home. He had to dig for it

himself but the wise man gave him instructions about how to find it. Likewise,

Swami has told me, and all others who drink the cup of his wisdom, that the

spiritual pearl beyond price is buried in the garden of one's own heart, one's

own spiritual heart. It is there that I must dig for it. So the end of the

outward journey, bringing me as it did to the feet of the Avatar,

the Master of all wisdom, was not the end of my journey. I had to set off on

another one, perhaps even more difficult, more hazardous. Swami calls this the

Inward journey.

Sai Baba, being a great world teacher, has given us the guidelines for this our

momentous inward journey. All that we have to do is to follow his directions

truthfully and live by them. His chief stress is verily on a quartet of moral

values or human values, whatever we may call them. They constitute a symphony

and a quartet so that while the music of one is audible, that of the others is

also heard. This is also true of Sermon of the Mount delivered by Jesus Christ

to his disciples. It is true that the teachings and messages given by the

saints, sages and great Avatars have strange, unique and universal quality

since they are meant both for the individuals and the widest commonalty so that

the entire mankind whose spiritual transformation and regeneration is at the

centre of their mission, may benefit by them. Love, Truth, Righteousness, Peace

and Non-violence are the five gems that Sai Baba has underlined as the gems of

golden ray serene which constitute the central kernel of his teaching and the

chief burden of his avataric mission. Sai Baba like Jesus Christ is the very

embodiment of Love. In the following part of the chapter, it may be fair to

describe the full implication of the concepts of Truth, Dharma, Prema, Santhi

and non-violence and how can they take us on to the inward journey reaching the

still centre. At the same time, these five attributes prescribed by Baba are not

merely abstract or symbolic virtues. For one thing, they are remarkably precise

and concrete and can form the cornerstone of man's spiritual quest. These are

composite values falling into a beautiful pattern. They are closely

interrelated, one with the other. That is to say, the practice of one of these

values leads to the practice of the other. However, the stress on the five

human values is not altogether new or original. As we know, these are the gems

that we find in all religions of the world and in the annals of perennial

philosophy. Since these are the eternal verities, which the human race must

live by, they have to be constantly restated and reiterated from time to time.

Krishna gave a concrete shape to these eternal verities in the song celestial,

the concentrated essence of the Vedas and Upanishads and Christ reframed them

in his own idiom and transmitted them to crowds through parables. Sai Baba also

uses parables and analogies in order to drive home the meaning of his sayings.

When the words are clothed in the vesture of thought and feeling, they seem to

go straight into the heart and have a profound effect on the listeners. Baba

often plays on words and shows his complete mastery of the norms of language.

Thus, most of his sayings take on the quality of memorable speech and cannot be

easily forgotten.

The five gems which matter most to mankind are

Sathya, Dharma,, Prema, Santhi and Ahimsa. If one imbibes these priceless

virtues in one's character, he perfects himself in the will of God Almighty,

and earns the grace of the Lord for further union and deeper communion with

him. These virtues can be acquired through the difficult and arduous process of

sadhana, a spiritual exercise costing not less than everything. These are the

ideals that make man grow into the image of God himself. The acquisition of

these priceless gems is a matter of sustained and ceaseless spiritual

exploration. The practice on the spiritual plane involves confidence within

oneself. Without this self-confidence one can get nowhere. Without

self-confidence one is tossed on the stormy seas of confusion and doubt. The

first step on the ladder of spiritual ascent, of course, is the confidence in

the self, the inner self or atma, which is the divinity within. As Baba says,

The first thing you have to do is to develop confidence in yourself. It is

people who have no confidence in their own self who begin to wander about and

to waver and take to various different paths.

The aspirant must have faith in himself, which means faith in the divine. He

must chart out his course in the spiritual voyage undeterred by doubt and

confusion. Baba has advised people to have full faith in their inner vision

because as Baba has pointed out:

Self-confidence is the basis of faith in God also. People who do not know who

they are and have no confidence in their own strength and power assert that

there is no God. But how can they declare that the God in whom you believe and

who exists for you does not exist?

Truly, self-confidence is the first requisite for the seeker and is the precious

gem beyond price; it arises from the atma,

the inner reality and is of divine origin. The second important step in the

ladder of spiritual destination is what is termed as discipline. Sathya Sai

Baba lays great stress on practising the right discipline. Discipline is

essential for attaining self-realization and is the starting point for all

spiritual endeavour. As Baba has rightly declared:

The real you is the atma. This can be learned only by constant meditation, by

moving in good company, by listening to the talk of realized men, by following

some prescribed form of discipline. That is why I lay so much emphasis on

discipline.

And Baba has said the last word on the quality of a disciplined mind and heart in quest of God:

Discipline comes to the rescue during crisis when the world flows towards you as

a dark flood of hate or derision, or when those in whom you have put your trust

shun contact and shy away. Without discipline, the mind of man is turned into a

wild elephant in a rut. You have to catch it young and train so that its

strength and skill can be useful to man and harmless to life around.

Amongst the five gems of golden ray serene,

Sathya (Truth) comes in the first place and tops the list. Sathya is

also the name of Baba. It means the unchanging, eternal Absolute, which is the chief adjunct of God.

Truth may be described as a pole star that guides our journey through life in

the darkest night. Truth is the prime mover since it is the very nature of the

divine. It is truly the base and foundation of our

atma. Truth manifests in action as dharma (right action), in our being as love

and purity of heart. According to Baba, the search for Truth is the avowed duty

and destination of man. Thus Truth is the gem of infinite beauty and splendour,

the brilliance of which illumines our existence and saves us from indulging in

falsehood. Sathya Sai Baba points out:

The chief duty of man is investigation into Truth. Truth can be won only through

dedication and devotion and they are dependent on the grace of God, which is

showered on hearts saturated with love.

The unique distinction of man in the entire creation lies in the fact that

amongst all creatures in the phenomenal world, it is only he who is bestowed

the powers of intelligence and discrimination. It is central to the basic

nature of man to seek love and truth, for these are springs of atmic origin. We

all have come from God, our original home, and it is our duty to return to him.

Thus, the search for truth is basic to human nature and is the sure and reliable

pathway that leads us to the supreme since God is truth and when we tread

confidently on this path, we are sure to feel at one with God. That is

precisely why Truth has been placed at the top of the five moral virtues

recommended by Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Baba has very nicely summed up the cardinal

importance of Truth as an eminently desirable virtue:

There is in everyone a spark of truth; none can live without that spark. There

is in everyone a flame of love, life becomes a dark void without it. That

spark, that flame is God, for he is the source of all truth and all love. He

seeks to know the reality because his very nature is derived from God, who is

truth. He seeks love, to give it and share it, for his nature is of God and God

is love.

After Truth, the next most important gem of moral and human values has to do

with Dharma or right action. Sometimes, the full meaning and implication of

this term is grossly misinterpreted and even missed. It is generally believed

that dharma means adherence to some religious creed or doctrine and has a

predominantly moralistic and ethical content. But it is not fair to take such a

limited and restricted view of

dharma. Dharma is an all-embracing term and has a number of connotations. It

does certainly have its basis in what we may call moral or religious

obligation. But, broadly speaking, dharma is the spiritual obligation;

attendant on one's responsibility to self, to others and to God and it entails

introspection and self-discipline based on the knowledge of one's inner

divinity. That is to say, that a person who is not conscious of his inner

divinity and is not concerned with his spiritual obligation to self, to others

and to God, cannot perform his duty or dharma in the true sense of the term.

However, the most puzzling question is to determine how does one perform one's

dharma or spiritual obligation in action? Dharma is something that depends on

certain specifics of time and circumstances. According to Sathya Sai Baba there

are unchangeable constants, which must be adhered to, always and at all times.

Baba lists them:

And what is dharma? Practising what you preach, doing the way it has to be done,

keeping the precept and practice in line. Earn virtuously, yearn piously, and

live in ‑the fear of God, live for reaching God: that is dharma.

These, then, are the basic, universal laws, which are at the core of all

religions. They are the golden rules enumerated by Jesus Christ in his

Commandments as well as in the Sermon on the Mount. One must strictly observe

the golden rule contained in the saying: 'Do unto others as you would have them

do unto you.' In a nutshell, Baba has surnmarised the basics for the observance

of the dharmic way of life:

What exactly is your duty? Let me summarize it for you. First, tend your parents

with love and reverence and gratitude. Second, speak the truth and act

virtuously. Third, when you have a few moments to spare, repeat the name of the

Lord with the form in your mind. Fourth, never indulge in talking ill of others

or try to speak ill of others or discover faults in others. And finally, do not

cause pain to others in any form.

These five injunctions constitute the recipe of a virtuous life dedicated to

dharma and can offer mankind the mode of salvation. At the same time, these

injunctions are not hard to follow for each of us. Nor do they require any

sadhana, mantra or tantra. All one has to do is to chart out one's course in

the perilous ocean of samsara,

keeping always in mind the awareness of one's spiritual obligation. To tend

one's parents with love, affection and reverence is just the repayment of one's

debt and homage to those earthly people who have given us birth. Similarly,

remembering God in one's spare moments is the spiritual obligation and duty of

the pilgrim soul towards the heavenly father. And one should always be loving

and considerate to one's fellow beings as all are brothers and sisters,

emanating from the same divine essence. So, these are the gems of golden ray

serene that shine in their intrinsic glory and resplendence.

Sathya Sai Baba has said that his life is his message. He has declared that he

is dharmaswarup, the very embodiment of righteousness. Although he is not

circumscribed by the concept of duty and reason, he is doing his karma out of

his own volition so as to set an example for mankind and to provide joy to

others. His advent has been for

loka kalyan, and he has founded many educational institutions including schools

and colleges as well as hospitals, all for the welfare of the people. Even

without having any karmic necessity or compulsion, he is devoting every moment

of his life for the sake of his devotees, fostering them, instructing them in

pious and virtuous living, counselling them and curing them of dreadful and

terminal diseases. If one spends a day at the Nilayam, one finds that Baba's

day is crowded with activities right from the dawn to midnight only for the

benefit of his devotees who are ever so near and dear to him.

Though Love figures in the third place and is third in order amongst the

priceless gems offered by Swami, it is the apex and crown of all, since love is

the very basis of creation. Indeed love is the primal energy that manifests

itself in the creation of whole cosmos, the earth and the sky, the rivers and

the oceans, mountains and deserts, the birds and beasts, man and all sentient

things. As Baba has very nicely said :

The basis for the entire world is prema

(Divine love) of the Lord. Even if one is able to get by heart the essence of

all the Vedas (sacred teachings) and is able to compose poetry in a very

attractive manner, if that person does not have a purified heart, he is a

useless person. What other greater truth can I communicate to you?

Thus, love is the central jewel in the well-wrought urn of Sai teachings, the

greatest and most precious acquisition of mankind, which transforms man into

the image of God.

Love is something that has to be cultivated with care. just as we require the

proper fertile soil for the growing of flowers and their blossoming, similarly

to grow love into proper, luxuriant bloom, we require to weed out the weeds of

attachment and greed and selfishness from our hearts.

Once we realize that love is many a splendoured thing and represents the

principle of unity with the eternal Absolute, we begin to work for the

expansion of our love beyond the self to include parents, friends and the

entire humanity. Since there is no limit to the attributes of God, our love for

God is, in reality, becomes all-absorbing, annexing all creatures of the created

world. The secret dawns upon us that the universe is the image of the divine and

expresses the tapestry of God, we begin to see God in all and begin to identify

ourselves with everyone. Their joys and sorrows become our joys and sorrows and

there is no longer any sense of separation or alienation. Through the alchemy of

love we reach our true destination and experience the bliss of oneness with the

divine essence. Baba rightly directs us to extend our love for further union

and deeper communion with him.

Love is God, God is love. Where there is love, there God is certainly evident.

Love more and more people. Love them more and more intensely. Transform this

love into service, transform the service into worship. This is the highest

sadhana.

It is apparent that all the five moral virtues and human values advocated by

Baba are related, one with the other, and their practice involves spiritual

exercise of a very high order. As Baba has stated,

If we really want to experience Prema we will have to understand what peace or

shanti means. If we want to follow the path of peace we will have to accept the

path of dharma. If we want to follow the path of dharma, we will have to accept

the path of truth.

It is mainly through the expansion of love beyond self that one can reach beyond

one's worlds and grasp the importance of

universal values. All the great visions of humanity germinate through a heart

full of love. If we wish to know and experience God, who is Being, Awareness

and Bliss, we must love all the creatures and the creation, which are the

handiwork of God. When we experience the source of love within, we view the

world with glasses of love. Thus, love is the roof and the crown of all values.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba emphasizes the supreme value of love as a priceless gem, our

greatest acquisition and possession that leads us to our goal. Baba's

prescription to us is to follow this way of love in our daily life. He teaches:

Start the day with love

Spend the day with love

Fill the day with love

End the day with love

that is the way to God.

And Baba communicates to us the pearl of wisdom when he says:

I must tell you of the paramount importance of love. Love is God, live in love.

God is the embodiment of perfect love. He can be known and realized, reached

and won, only through love. You can see the moon only with the help of

moonlight. You can see God only through the rays of love.

Peace and Non-violence are the remaining two gems of golden ray serene, which

are eminently desirable for mankind. Jonathan Roof in his beautiful work,

Pathway to God, has characterized Peace as the sign of God's creation working

in harmony. Peace is like a river flowing from the mountain to the sea along

its bank always maintaining its equilibrium with the shore. Everything in the

cosmos follows a definite pattern reconciled in the drift of the stars. Thus

the creation is preserved and maintained by perfect harmony and balance.

Similarly, peace for the spiritual aspirant is a state of spiritual equanimity

based on the understanding of his spiritual obligation or duty. When we have a

clear perception of the divinity working in the nature and cosmos, we tend to

live in consonance with the divine norms and recognize the hand of divinity in

everything.

And when one lives a virtuous life one is at peace with oneself. As Sathya Sai Baba says,

When man thinks, speaks and acts along virtuous lines, his conscience will be

clean and he will have inner peace. Knowledge is power it is said, but virtue

is peace.

To live in a state of perfect peace and serenity, one has to keep one's senses

under control, do away with unreasonable desires and longings. When one has

unreasonable expectations, one feels ruffled and upset by failures and

disappointments. So, a mind in peace follows the path of the golden mean,

thinks, lives and acts wisely and virtuously, leaving the fruit of his action

on God. When desires are burnt away through discipline and

sadhana what remains is the purity of consciousness and the realization of the

inner divinity within. As Baba has said:

There is no mind as such. The mind is a web of desires. Peace of mind is no

desires, and in that state there is no mind. Mind is destroyed, so to speak.

Peace of mind means purity, complete purity of consciousness.

Jonathan Roof has rightly pointed out that:

Atmic peace is our true nature, it is acquired when we look within. If we are

concerned only with outward circumstances, the jumble of daily events we will

be unable to experience peace. Ignorance of our divine origin causes us to be

elated restrained or stilled. To keep the monkey mind on the leash, the best

thing is to repose our faith in God and cling our thoughts to God and God

alone.

As Eliot says:

We shall be still, and still moving

For further union and deeper communion.

If the mind centres on God, the experience of perfect peace will inevitably

follow and peace, thus gained, will be our priceless possession. The attainment

of inner peace in the mind of man has a far-reaching consequence. Baba has put

it very nicely when he says:

If there is righteousness in the heart

There will be beauty in the character

If there is beauty in the character

There will be harmony in the home.

When there is harmony in the home

There will be order in the nation.

When there is order in the nation,

There will be peace in the world.

The last gem of golden ray serene is non-violence which is closely connected

with the other four: Truth, Dharma, Love and Peace. It seems that Baba has

composed a symphony of the traditional moral virtues coming from ancient times

and glorified by all religions, prophets and various incarnations of the Lord.

These values are traditional, but have universal appeal and the acquisition of

each or all of them carves out the destiny of man in the very image of God.

That is why I have described them as gems or priceless treasures. Man looks

before and after and pines for what is not. He goes in search of spiritual

treasures in the wilderness of the material world, little knowing that the gems

are all buried in his back garden. These gems shine brilliantly and radiate

their golden rays serene all round and are repository of radiance and splendour

like that imperial planet, the sun. If one is asked to point out the basic and

integral teaching of Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, it will not be wrong to say

that the five moral virtues or human values with their diamond like hardness,

transparency and serene luminosity constitute the crux and the kernel of his

message.

The last, but not the least of the human values, is non­violence or ahimsa. It

has close kinship with love, truth, peace and righteousness. Non-violence is

the attitude of the mind that leads people to live in perfect harmony and

kinship with others. At the same time, non-violence presupposes high degree of

faith and belief in truth and right action. For practical purposes,

non­violence is an attitude of the mind when one avoids causing or inflicting

pain on others. It implies strict adherence to truth and morality. In the words

of Baba,

Ahimsa (non-violence) is another phase of truth. When once you are aware of the

kinship, the oneness in God, the fundamental Atmic unity, no one will knowingly

cause pain or distress to another.

The safest rule to follow is the injunction 'Do unto others, what you would have

them do unto you.' Thus, non-violence must be a part of our perceptions and

outlook. However, in doing one's duty one may be called upon to do harm to

others. In performance of his duty a policeman may have to harm a criminal. A

soldier in the battle-field may have to annihilate the enemy. There are

different standards of judgment. A dacoit who murders a person may be said to

have committed violence; whereas a surgeon who amputates a part of the

patient's body to save his life is just doing his rightful duty as surgeon.

Lord Krishna, who was an apostle of peace, encouraged prince Arjuna to wage a

war against the Kauravas to vanquish the evil for the greater good of the

society and lasting peace in the world. Baba has very nicely stated:

Krishna wanted the peace of the world and yet he encouraged the big battle in

which forty lakbs of people were killed. Is this

himsa (violence) or ahimsa (non-violence)? Even then Krishna gave an appropriate

answer to this. He said, 'Arjuna, let us take the case of a cancerous growth of

the body, and this cancerous growth gives pain to the whole human body,

although the growth itself is confined to a localized area. In this battle or

the operation, forty lakhs of disease causing germs will be killed for the

benefit of the world. Is this bad or is this for the good of the world?'

Sathya Sai Baba illustrates further:

The meaning of ahimsa is that either in thought, deed, or word, you should not

cause harm to anybody. Gandhi took a vow that until the end of his life, he

would follow this. But on one occasion when he saw a cow suffering from pain,

he could not bear it and he advised the doctor to give an injection and end the

life of the cow. Thus, in order to help the suffering individual, we may

sometimes have to harm him.

Thus, non-violence is beautiful and resplendent gem of golden ray serene; the

acquisition of this priceless treasure may transform the life of the

practitioner into a saga of peace and love and bring him closer to God. Ahimsa

is integral with the other highly cherished and desirable virtues that are the

essential ingredients for a virtuous and meaningful existence on this planet.

This author has used the analogy of music to explain the significance of these

five moral principles in his work, Sai Baba: The RoseA quartet is chamber music

played within the chamber in which four instruments constitute the ensemble. The

distinctive mark of a quartet is that the four instruments are played on

simultaneously. While the one is played, the other three are continually and

concurrently heard. This creates a fugue as opposed to a solo or a symphony;

and the music is heard so deeply that it is not heard at all! The five

instruments or notes, sathya, dharma, prema, shanthi

and ahimsa, constitute the ensemble and each is conterminus with the other.

Swami says that if one practises a single of these virtues honestly and

truthfully in one's daily life, the other four will automatically be his own

possession.

At this stage, it may be fair to refer to the medieval quest romances in which

the romance hero or the questor has been projected as a paragon of virtue. Thus

we have a Sir Galhad, Sir Percival, Sir Gawan and the Green Knight and numerous

others. King Arthur and his knights of the round table are all paragons of

chivalry and courtesy. They are noble and pure-hearted persons whose chief

loyalty is to their country and to their lady-love. They perform deeds of

courage and valour so as to please their lady­love and prove themselves to be

worthy of their noble calling as knights. They are not tainted by any radical

defect in their character and are emblems of courtesy, valour and purity. In

the process of their quest, they undertake the perilous journey to the Grail

castle and encounter the Grail girl who asks them a number of questions. On

giving the correct answers to these questions, they can get the mythical and

symbolic grail and are ultimately united with the Grail girl, which is the

ultimate goal of all their quest. King Arthur has been described as the ideal

knight. Even in Spenser's The Faerie Queene, the main task of the Renaissance

poet is to fashion a gentleman in the noble and virtuous disciplines. In this

moral allegory, each knight represents a particular moral discipline, such as

holiness, chastity, friendship etc. And Prince Arthur represents the twelve

moral virtues as described by Plato, Plotinus and in Nichomacean Ethics. He is

the very epitome of perfection and purity. He may be the exponent of

magnificence which may be termed as the supreme virtue combining all others in

a grand design. The Faerie Queene is

a fable, a romance and an allegory, which operates on three different planes of

meaning, the literal, the romantic and the moral or spiritual. By the same

token, the priceless gems offered by Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba are aimed at

the noble ideal of fashioning out the spiritual quest of mankind. Once we

imbibe the golden rays of sathya, dharma, love, peace and non-violence and make

them the mentor and guide of our daily living, thought, word and deed, we shall

march with confidence to our avowed destination of merging with the infinite,

supreme Ray of the universe, because that Absolute Eternal can be known only

through adherence to these five ways of knowing.

The central teachings of Sri Sathya Sai Baba are strongly reminiscent of the

perennial Indian philosophy and have a remarkable one-to-one correspondence

with the Sermon on the Mount preached by Jesus Christ. We might even discern a

close similarity between the main teachings of Jesus Christ and those of Sri

Sathya Sai Baba. This may largely be on account of the fact that there is a

basic and essential unity of all religions and that the incarnations of the

Absolute Eternal think alike. In Christian theology, there is a prime emphasis

on love, truth, charity and compassion and on non-violence.

In Koran and Buddhistic religious texts we again find great stress on the

five-fold path of moral and spiritual regeneration. Of course, there are

differences of presentment of these eternal verities depending on the

individual distinctive factors and the compulsions of time and clime. The

techniques and modes of presentation are bound to differ depending upon the

personal outlook and genius of the teacher. For instance, Jesus Christ, who

spoke to the crowds, used parables to drive home the message effectively to his

audience. Sai Baba has striking resemblance with Jesus Christ so far as his mode

of delivering his sermons is concerned inasmuch as he makes copious use of

parables, figures of speech, analogies and homely illustrations. And, it

becomes apparent as we hear him, that he hammers his points persistently to

convince us and there is always a tough reasonableness beneath the lyric grace

of his poetic and often impassioned discourses. Even those who do not

understand Telugu seem to be swayed by the rhetoric of his speech and the music

of his oration. It may safely be presumed that Baba is a poet, a great poet that

only God can be. He has all the resources of language, speech, gesture and

intonation and rhythm, which result in the rhythmic expansion of his message

and meaning beyond the limitations of time and space. Apart from the five gems

of golden ray serene, there are many a facet of the divine diamond that require

attention. Baba has declared that the first sixteen years of his life will be

devoted to mahima and the next sixteen years to miracles and that the remaining

years will be devoted to upadesa or preaching sermons but at the same time, he

has said that mahimas, miracles and upadesa would

continue together.

Some of the salient features of Sai Baba's teachings have to be highlighted

because they provide the basis for the salvation of mankind by offering the

true perspective for spiritual progress. Baba is never tired of hammering out

the point that man is pure atma, a fragment of the paramatma, which is his true

and real home; as such man has to ultimately return to his divine origin and

strive to seek merger with the Absolute. The body of man is no more than a

temporary and temporal vestment. The

atma resident in the body is formless, but it creates the forms it requires. It

creates five sheaths in the body, namely, anamayakosha, paramanayakosha,

manomayakosha, vijnamayakosha and finally,

anandamayakosha. Baba stresses the point that in order to reach the stage of

liberation and beatitude, man must get rid of earthly desires and attachments.

This, according to Baba, involves long and continuous sadhana. Baba says that

to get immersed in the Eternal Absolute one has to fully understand the

atma principle, the divinity within, and if this is achieved, man can become God

by merging his soul with the universal atma or paramatma. It follows from this

that the basis of love and brotherhood of man is the truth of the Atma

principle. When you come to realize that God resides in everyone, all feeling

of separateness vanishes. Baba uses the analogy of the electricity current. The

same current flows through everyone.

The other important teaching of Sai Baba has to do with the nature, existence

and immanence of the Divine principle. Although God is formless, he manifests

himself in any form. In his famous pronouncement Baba has said:

There is only one caste, the caste of humanity; there is only one religion, the

religion of love; there is only one God and he is omnipresent.

According to Sri Sathya Sai Baba, God is without form or formless.

The Lord can be addressed by any name that tastes sweet to your tongue, or

pictured in any form that appeals to your sense of wonder and awe. You can sing

of him as Maruga, Ganpathi, Sarada, Jesus, Maitreyi, Sakti or you can call him

Allah or the Formless, or the Master of all Forms. It makes no difference at

all. He is the beginning, the middle and the end, the basis, the substance and

the source. Baba says that God is nearer to us than our hands and feet. We

don't have to search for him beyond the starry constellations, for the loving

merciful God, our eternal charioteer, is ever close at hand and can rush to our

rescue in moments of crisis provided the voice of our calling is sincere and

prayerful. As Baba has reassured all: 'As the doctor is found where patients

gather, so the Lord is ever with the suffering and the struggling ... wherever

people cry out for God, there God will be.' Baba's chief message to humanity is

that exhorts mankind to reach and realize the divinity within through the

exercise of love, truth, peace and non-violence and selfless service to all.

Baba does not prescribe a life of ceaseless penance in a cave or in the

mountains by renouncing the world. Rather he advises us to lead the ordinary

life in the world and yet engage ourselves in spiritual practices without being

bound to the attachments and allurements of the world. Baba gives the analogy of

a boat on the crest of the tempestuous seas. A boat cruises on water, but the

water must not get into the boat. Similarly, one must live in the world, but

the world must not get into one. Giving another analogy of a drama, Baba says

that the world is a puppet show in which one has to act one's roles, but one

should not identify oneself with the shadow play and must steer clear of the

temporal and the insubstantial and must always remember that he is the child of

immortality and has the power to discriminate between appearance and reality,

shadow and substance.

Sathya Sai Baba also points out the need for following the pathways of yoga for

disciplining the mind and moving towards the divine centre. These paths of

enlightenment have been prescribed in the sanatan dharma. They are known as

Karma yoga, Jnana yoga and

Bhakthi yoga. Baba says:

Base your action on knowledge, the knowledge that all is one. Let the action be

suffused with bhakthi, that is to say, humility, mercy and non-violence. Let

bhakthi be filled with knowledge, otherwise it will be as light as a balloon

which drifts along any current of air or gust of wind. Mere knowledge will make

the heart dry, bhakthi makes it soft with sympathy and karma gives the hands

something to do, something, which will sanctify every one of the minutes that

have fallen to your lot to live.

Baba has described the three lanes of spiritual realization in a perfectly

convincing manner. As Howard Murphet has said:

I once heard Baba talk of these three lanes to self-realization. He called them

the three Ws, work, worship and wisdom. Work

(karma) alone is, he said, a slow passenger train with long stops and some

changes at junctions before you reach the end of the journey. But if you add

bhakthi to work, you will have an express coach and get in your destination more

quickly and easily. Work and worship together will further­more develop wisdom

or the knowledge of the real Unana). With this you will then be in a non-stop

train right to the end of your journey. So worship while you work and strive

meanwhile for the self-knowledge that will help these two to bring the true

wisdom.

The beauty and the power of Sai Baba's teachings lie in their instant and

immediate appeal to our mind because they are clothed in simple and homely

medium and have the weight and sanction of the true voice of feeling. Baba

talks to his audience as man to man and, of course, as

sadguru, a world teacher who is also a world redeemer like Jesus Christ. The

central thrust of his teachings is that we must aspire to reach a level of

consciousness where all is one and the same divinity is there entrenched in the

hearts of all. One must seek God through ardour, selflessness and

self‑surrender. And to achieve this kind of supreme effacement of the

ego, one has to undergo the difficult exercise of a lifetime's death in love,

ardour and selflessness and self‑surrender. Baba's teachings are neither

abstract nor metaphysical like the teachings of some doctrinaire philosophers

or religious theologians of different faiths; they are remarkably plastic and

concrete, practical and empirical in the extreme. Sai Baba, in his Shirdi body,

had given his devotees some important and crucial hints for God realization, and

Sri Sathya Sai Baba has also been hammering on these points in his discourses.

These in a nutshell can be simplified to absolute formulae:

The spiritual aspirant must realize the absolute triviality and insignificance

of things material and worldly honours, laurels and titles. His aim must be

higher, that is to turn his gaze inwards and discover the divinity within which

is the mirror reflection of the God himself. He must always follow the master,

his conscience, the indwelling God.

The aspirant must control his mind and his senses. If the mind is unrestrained

and senses unmanageable, like wild and vicious horses drawing a chariot, he

cannot reach his destination. The mind should not only be controlled, it must

also be purified to be a vessel of divine love.

Finally, the most important thing is that one must have the grace of the Lord

without which nothing can be attained.

The teachings of Lord Krishna in the Srimad Bhaguvat Gita and those of Shirdi

Baba and Sri Sathya Sai Baba have the same universal quality. They represent

the concentrated essence of all that the Vedas, Upanisads, Puranas and Bible

have taught.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba has emphasized the fact that in the present age, Kaliyuga,

the remembrance of the Lord's name is enough to lead man to the path of

self‑realization, and bhakthi marg is

the easiest to practise. He lays stress on the fact that a true seeker must lead

a life of absolute devotion to truth, love, peace and non‑violence and

steer clear of all impurities, falsehoods, and crazy attachments to worldly

desires. We know that in his Fire Sermon, Lord Buddha also has preached the

gospel of desirelessness, the burning out of all base passions, attachments and

temptations so as to reach the cherished goal of attaining

Nirvana.

In his conversations with John Hislop, Swami has clarified many points about the

essential unity of everyone in the divine tapestry.

Hislop: When does one really experience that he is the same as another? Because,

now one feels for another through compassion. But compassion is not direct

experience. When someone hit a dog, Shirdi Sai Baba had the bruises. That is

the actual experience of unity.

Sai: All is divine. When YOU are firmly established in the fact of your

divinity, then you will directly know that others are divine. Compassion for

others is felt as long as you consider yourself as a separate entity. The story

about Shirdi Sai Baba as related in books is not fully correct. The facts are

that a lady made a plate of sweets for Shirdi Baba, and a dog ate them. The

lady drove the dog away with blows. She then carried another platter of sweets

to Shirdi Baba, who refused them saying that he had eaten the sweets she

previously provided and his hunger was satisfied. The lady objected that it was

the first time the sweets had been offered. Baba said, no, she had offered them

before and had also beaten him. In this way, he gave the lesson that he was

omnipresent and that there was only one life. During the lifetime of Shirdi

Baba not much attention was paid to him. Recognition of him as an Avatar, and

interest in his life developed only after his death. The same lack of

recognition of divinity is illustrated in the lives of Rama and Krishna.

Krishna was considered just as a cowherd boy, and, then, just as a charioteer.

Sai (at the start of an interview with a group of Westerners): Follow the

master, the inside atma, the super conscious. Life is a challenge; fight to the

end. Life is a song; sing it. Life is divine; realize it. Life is character;

there is one path.

Sai (to a young Westerner about age 16):

What do you want?

Boy: Liberation.

Sai: What is liberation?

Boy: End of the path.

Sai: Immortality is the meaning. Removal of immorality is the only way to

immortality. Who are you? Not the outside, not the body. Who are you? Inquire.

Love is everything. Expansion love, not selfish love. Selfless love of the

Self, not Ego love ... Life is a cosmic stage in which all are actors. In one

scene an actor may take one role, and in other scenes, different roles.

Creation means change. How can these changing scenes give bliss to persons who

are also changing? Your bliss can be made permanent only by immortality, not

change.

Thus, in his conversations with John Hislop, Baba has thrown light on various

topics, puzzling the minds of devotees. He has offered the most priceless gems

that shine like golden rays of the sun and ever become part and parcel of our

mental furniture.

Sai Baba has prescribed for the spiritual seekers many resplendent gems of

golden ray serene which take us along the sunlit path of sadhana and

self-enquiry and take us nearer to the end of our divine pilgrimage. In the

last chapter of this book, an attempt will be made to analyze the various

grounds of our beseeching and the different modes of our apprehension of the

divine reality or the voice of our calling. But here, some broad hints have

been listed whereby one can move on the straight path to heaven. Dr. Samuel

Sandweiss has given in the following the precise contours of Sai Baba's central

teachings which are the essential prerequisites for moving on the fateful

pilgrimage to God.

The nine steps in the pilgrimage of man towards God along the path of dedication

and surrender are (1) developing a desire to listen to the glory and grandeur of

God, the handiwork of God and the various awesome manifestations of God

divinity. This is the starting point. It is hearing about the Lord again and

again that we can transform ourselves into divinity. (2) Singing oneself about

the Lord, in praise of his magnificence and many other exploits. (3) Dwelling

on the Lord in the mind, revelling in the contemplation of his beauty, majesty

and compassion. (4) Entering upon the worship of the Lord by concentrating on

honouring the feet or the footprints.(5) This develops into a total

propitiation of the Lord and systematic ritualistic worship in which the

aspirant gets inner satisfaction and inspiration. (6) The aspirant begins to

see the favourite form of God, which he likes to worship, in all beings and all

objects wherever he turns, and so he develops an attitude of vandana or

reverence towards nature and all life. (7) Established in this bent of mind, he

becomes the devoted servant of all, with no sense of superiority or inferiority.

This is a vital step, which presages great spiritual success.(8) This takes the

seeker so near the Lord that he feels himself to be confidant and comrade, the

companion and friend, the sharer of God's power and pity, of God's triumphs and

achievements, his Sakha

in fact, as Arjuna had become. (9) As can be inferred, this is the prelude to

the final step of total surrender or atmanivedanam, yielding fully to the will

of the Lord, which the seeker knows through his own purified intuitions ... One

of the principles of straight living is silence, for the voice of God can be

heard in the region of the heart only when the tongue is stilled and the storm

is stilled and the waves are calm ... silence is the speech of the spiritual

seeker. Soft sweet speech is the expression of genuine love. Hate screeches,

fear squeals, conceit trumpets. Love sings lullabys. It soothes. It applies

balm. Practise the vocabulary of love, unlearn the language of hate and

contempt ... The second sign is cleanliness; not outer clean­liness alone, but,

even more, inner. There is a strange glow on the face of a guileless person.

Inner cleanliness has its own soap and water the soap of strong faith and the

water of constant practice, The third sign is that the true aspirant will have

a reverent attitude to the duty he is bound with. He will carry out every task

assigned to him as if it is the act of worship by which the Lord will be

pleased, through which he can approach the pedestal of God. Work is

worship-this is the motto ... render every thought into a flower, worthy to be

held in His fingers, render every deed into a fruit, full of the sweet juice of

love, fit to be placed in His hand, render every tear holy and pure, fit to wash

His lotus feet...

Obviously, Sai Baba has given the recipe for leading a straight and pious life

lived under the shadow of the divine in consonance with the awareness of divine

presence. This is what the spiritual path is all about. Baba goes on to say

adherence to these golden rules can confer permanent bliss on the seeker won

through self-control and self‑realization. Baba says:

Do not judge others to decide whether they deserve your service. Find out only

whether they are distressed: that is enough credential. Do not examine how they

behave towards others, they can be certainly transformed by love Sewa or service

is for you as sacred a vow as

Sadhana, a spiritual path. It is the very breath, it can only end when breath takes leave of you.

One can say in conclusion that there are many a ray of golden ray serene that

are hidden in the basic core of one's being. One can dig them up by developing

an attitude of independent self-inquiry. Such an attitude comes naturally to us

since our basic nature is love, purity and reverence. If we follow the nine

basic steps formulated by Baba and live a virtuous life based on sathya,

dharma, prema, shanthi and ahimsa,

we can travel the path leading to the celestial city of God.

Not only in his conversations with John Hislop, but also in his numerous

interviews given to different groups of western devotees, Sri Sathya Sai Baba

has clarified many points relating to the practice of the spiritual path. These

suggestions are, in a different sense, illuminations, which sharpen the focus on

the essential quest of reaching the state of supreme bliss, Being, Awareness and

Bliss. Here are some of the relevant excerpts that throw a flood of light on the

attendant modes of

sadhana or spiritual practice.

Devotee: Baba. Please tell us how you are attained. I find my sadhana (spiritual

practice) unproductive.

Sai Baba: I know you are inflicting many austerities on yourself. I must tell

you I am attained only by devotion and a way of life that is illumined by that

devotion. Do not deprive the body of the elementary needs; it is a sacred

instrument you have earned, for taking you to the goal. Lead a simple, satwic

(balanced, pure, good) life, eat simple

satwic food, be sincere in speech, do loving service, be humble and tolerant.

Maintain undisturbed equanimity. Direct all your thoughts towards me, resident

in your heart.

Devotee: How, Baba, can we progress in our devotion?

Sai Baba: There are different modes of devotion: that which foolishly weeps for

me when I am not physically present; that which surrenders to me with wild

abandon; and that which is steady and strong, ever attached to my will. I

accept all these forms of devotion. The choice between the one or the other is

not yours, because it is I who rules your feelings, modifies them. If you try

to go where I do not will, you can do nothing apart from my will. Be assured of

that, this is the highest devotion.

Devotee: So what remains for me to do?

Sai Baba: What makes you think that doing is so important? Be

equal‑minded. Then you will not be bothered about doing or not doing,

success or failure. The balance will remain unaffected by either. Let the wave

of memory, the storm of desire, the fire of emotion pass through without

affecting your equanimity. Be a witness to these. Commitment engenders holding,

narrowing, limiting. Be willing to be nothing. Let all dualities subside in your

neutrality.

Devotee: Yes, Baba. But when it is pain that one has to endure...

Sai Baba: Do you think that I would confront you with pain were there not a

reason for it? Open your heart to pain, as you do now for pleasure, for it is

my will, wrought by me for your good. Welcome it as a challenge. Do not turn

away from it. Do not listen to your mind, for mind is but another word for

need. The mind engenders need; it manifested as this world because it needed

this. It is all my plan: to drive you by pangs of unfulfilled need to listen to

my voice, which, when heard, dissolves the ego and the mind with it.

Devotee: But being full of defects, how can we rise to such high expectations?

Sai Baba: Your deficiencies make you need me and curb the arrogance of your

mind. They are there on purpose, as instruments to prod you on. Through them, I

am making you want me. The feeling of separation is just a trick of your mind.

You form conclusions; they become beliefs, they shape your activities and

attitudes.

Devotee: It is hard to undergo your tests.

Sai Baba: It is like baking a cake. I stir, I knead, I pound, I twist, I bake

you. I drown you in tears; I scorch you in sobs. I make you sweet and crisp, an

offering worthy of God. I have come to reform you. My plan is to transmute you

into a successful sadhaka (spiritual aspirant). I won't leave you until I do

that. Even if you stray away before you become that, I will hold on to you. You

cannot escape from me ... All are my instruments. Perhaps you believe that I

choose: this one is good ... that one is worse, etc. No. Either will do. My

will is the source of all that is and happens, it interpenetrates every thing

and act; it includes everything. Finally, let me tell you this: My will is that

you should manifest my will in you and through you.

Lastly, before this particular chapter on the priceless pearls of golden ray

serene is terminated, it may be fair to quote the important observation of

Sathya Sai Baba in respect of the spiritual exercise as a means of the

purification of one's motives and to see the one single flame that is inclusive

of the entire cosmos, substance and weight, as together fused into the blazing

light of the single flame.

Sai: The purpose of all sadhana is to see the good the Divine in everything and

to be able to overlook the bad, the evil. From the viewpoint of Divinity, there

is no good or bad all is Divine. But the mind sees this as good and that as bad,

this as right and that as wrong. It is the mind that must be trained to see the

Divine in everyone and in each difficulty ... Do not fill the mind with

thoughts of the evil actions that may be perceived in the world. The purpose of

all types of sadhana is to see the Divine in everything. This is true adjustment

sadhana. This you can carry on in everything you do.

Thus, we have taken a measure of some of the precious gems beyond all price that

are and can be our precious acquisitions and possessions once we voyage on the

path of atmic sadhana and spiritual exploration for the attainment of the true

purpose of our life.

Author: Swami Sai Sharan Anand

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

BLISSFUL SRI KRISHNA JANMASHTAMI ! !

collection: preetham sai p.v.

mangalore,india.

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