Teacher and Devotee

[Guest guest]

Teacher and Devotee

Dennis Gersten, M.D. is a psychiatrist in private practice in San Diego, and

author of "Are You Getting Enlightened Or Losing Your Mind?" (Harmony Books).

Here follows a letter he wrote me about his transformative experience with a

guru named Sai Baba. On reading this letter, I thought to myself, "Yes, he's

probably lost his mind, but maybe he's a little enlightened, too." Whether or

not what Dr. Gersten describes is objectively true, his twenty-year history

with a guru has been deeply beneficial to him personally and as a psychiatrist.

Here is all the passion of the devotee and true believer. - Jill Neimark.

I've thought a lot about your questions and decided to go all out, 100% truth.

Many people will think I am crazy for what I am about to say. It's so

controversial that my publisher deleted this material from the book.

I began my psychiatry residency at the La Jolla Veterans Administration Hospital

at the University of California at San Diego. Within the first month, a nurse

named Madeleine approached me and gave me a photograph of an Indian holy man

with a big Afro and an orange robe. "You're a spiritual person, and I think you

should have this photograph. His name is Sai Baba." That was all she said. I

kept the photo, but had no interest at all in Sai Baba.

In my second year, I was supervised by a San Diego psychiatrist, Dr. Samuel

Sandweiss, who is a devotee of Sai Baba. For two years we met and he told me

stories of this man of miracles. The miracle stories shook my very foundation

of reality. Sometimes I thought that Dr. Sandweiss was himself out of his mind,

except he was friendly, intelligent, and sociable, with a loving wife and four

daughters.

When I finished my residency, I traveled with Sam to India to see Sai Baba. Baba

deluged me with so many miracles that after four days I couldn't take any more

and left on the fifth day. During that brief visit I observed and experienced

Sai Baba materializing material objects out of thin air. He manifest sacred

ash, called "vibhuti," rings, medallions, even candy, with a wave of his hand.

If you think this was sleight of hand, let me say that Sai Baba even

materialized a three-foot-high brooch for his pet elephant. During the closing

moments of that first trip, I was called in for a personal interview. Sai Baba

knew everything about me. Now, I'm obviously interested in things that most

doctors and psychiatrists shy away from. But it was as if he'd lived in my head

every moment of my life.

But we've just scratched the surface. There is no miracle known to humankind

that Sai Baba has not performed. I personally know two people who had a loved

one resurrected from the dead. The most astounding was a woman whose husband

died while at the ashram. She refused to let anyone take the body for

cremation. She told people, "Baba said he would come help him." Five days after

the man's death, Sai Baba came to the room, which reeked with the odor of the

decaying body Half an hour later Sai Baba walked out of the room with the

resurrected man.. arm in arm, cheerfully greeting the wife.

Isaac Tigrett, founder of The Hard Rock Cafe, is a devotee of Sai Baba. In

Isaac's younger days, he says, he was sailing around the curves of the Malibu

hills in his sports car when it flew over the cliff. Sai Baba appeared in the

car, held his arms around Isaac and protected him completely. The car lay

demolished at the bottom of the cliff with the waves pouring over it. Isaac was

unharmed.

These stories are jarring to the average American, but more so to the average

psychiatrist. "Magical thinking" they call this stuff Yet, if one dares to

explore what I have said, then we are faced with more than a challenge for the

theories of modern psychiatry. Psychiatry is a speck of dust compared to the

infinite mystery of God. Sai Baba says, I am God and you are God. The only

difference is that I know it and you don't." And so, yes, this psychiatrist is

saying that, after his puny medical ego had been sufficiently deflated, that

he, that I, know that God is on earth, walking, talking. Is Sai Baba my guru?

We, in the West, have a very hard time with the idea of a real guru. We're

tough-minded individualists, and surrendering to Sai Baba has been a tough

lesson. What is a guru, anyway? The word means "he or she who removes the

darkness." These people are like human magnets, their power of attraction is so

great. Although gurus throughout the ages have developed immense powers, these

are not what attract. It is the boundless love one feels in such a presence, a

love so great that one can be permanently changed.

How has this transformed my practice? Because I have witnessed miracles, I now

expect miracles. It's my job to create the atmosphere in which a miracle can

occur The mere belief in miracles is like a fertilized garden. I now know that

deep change need not take eight to fifteen years of psychoanalysis, four times

a week. Deep change can be instantaneous, and that is a miracle. But there are

"real" miracles that I have been part of in my clinical work, and I stand in

awe before them. Take Carmen, an acquaintance who came to me for help after

being diagnosed with lung cancer

I gave Carmen the works: meditation, mental imagery techniques, nutritional

supplements, and some lingham water. A lingham is an egg-shaped stone. Sai Baba

materialized one for a friend of mine and said, "This is for healing purposes. I

will send you patients." She returned to America and made bottles of water

prepared with the lingham.

Carmen's entire right lung was filled with cancer. Then came the call. "Dennis,

you just won't believe this. Then again, you probably will. I had the surgery.

They opened my chest and discovered that the cancer had spread into the left

lung and was wrapped around the big blood vessels. They closed me up and sent

me home to die. Well, I was meditating one morning, and suddenly Sai Baba

appeared in front of me. He was reaching inside my body pulling cancer out.

They gave me one radiation treatment. And you know what. The cancer has shrunk

by 75%." Six months later Carmen walked into my office and said, "Dennis, I am

100% cancer-free."

The question arises, when going beyond traditional medical and psychiatric

boundaries, what to do with spiritual experience, how to "treat" it. Before

each session with a patient, I now say a silent prayer for guidance in working

with the next person. I imagine my guru, Sathya Sai Baba, in the office with

me. When I am stuck, I will silently ask Baba for advice. Part of my spiritual

practice is to look for the spark of God in every person, including the

craziest of my patients. Sometimes this can be quite a challenge, but I've

learned to find wisdom in the midst of insanity; divinity amidst the darkest

depressions or psychotic episodes. A few months ago, I was working with a woman

named Sarah, who suffered from a full-blown manic psychosis. Mania is

interesting. These people have an ability to zero in on your personal

weaknesses in an instant. When this woman and I met, she was loud, angry, and

threatening. I managed to simply listen, remaining centered. Toward the end of

that first meeting, she asked about my family I told her I have a 22-year-old

daughter. "Do you tell her you love her?" she asked. "Yes," I said, "I do."

"But do you tell her every day?" she insisted "Yes " I said, "every single day"

And then the kicker: "But do you really tell her from deep in your heart? I want

you to tell her tonight from the bottom of your heart how much you love her." I

agreed. I knew that the divine part of Sarah had spoken, and that I had better

pay attention. I went home that night and told my daughter how much I love her,

from the bottom of my heart. Spiritual psychiatry is about bringing my patients

to a point of serenity they may never have experienced, but it is also about

finding the divine in another person and connecting with that, soul-to-soul.

This is the psychiatry of the future, a psychiatry of love, hope, faith, and

miracles; a psychiatry that heals and uplifts, that sees the pain as part of

the spiritual journey that knows that spiritual ecstasy is real, and that God

exists. A psychiatry that dares to bring God into the office, that dares to

offer miracles, and that considers Prozac the last choice and not the first.

- Dennis Gersten, M.D.

>From Psychology Today, April 1998

Religion's Bad Boy! The Lure of Gurus

Holy Madness in Healing: Psychiatrist as Disciple

http://www.saibabamiracles.com/baba/devotee.html

[Guest guest]

Teacher and Devotee is excellent.

 

Well psychiatrist had to admit that ultimate

is saichiatrsit.In one of the interview swami said

that cancer can be cured by love.

 

Anyway the psychiatry of the future has given a new

insight overall it was brilliant.

 

All I can say brother keep up the good work.

 

Swamis blessings to you.

 

Sai Ram and Nmastee

 

Soumendra

 

preetham sai <preetham_sai (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Teacher and Devotee

Dennis Gersten, M.D. is a psychiatrist in private practice in San Diego, and

author of "Are You Getting Enlightened Or Losing Your Mind?" (Harmony Books).

Here follows a letter he wrote me about his transformative experience with a

guru named Sai Baba. ..........

[Guest guest]

Thanks for very much for the article !!

it was wonderfully appreciated.

Jai Sai Ram !!

indrani.