Ramakatha Rasavahini - Foreword by N. Kasturi

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Foreword by N. Kasturi

This Book!

The Rama Story, Stream of Sacred Sweetness, has been for millions of men, women

and children, for many centuries the perennial source of solace during sorrow,

vitality when floored by vacillation, illumination while confounded,

inspiration in moments of dejection and guidance while caught in quandaries. It

is an intensely human drama, where God impersonates as man and gathers around

Him, on the vast world-stage, the perfect and the imperfect, the human and the

sub-human, the beast and the demon, to confer on us, by precept and example,

the boon of Supreme Wisdom. It is a Story that plays its tender fingers on the

heart-strings of man, evoking lithe, limpid responses of pathos, pity,

exultation, adoration, ecstasy and surrender, rendering us transformed, from

the animal and

the human, into the Divine which is our core.

No other story in human history has had such profound impact on the mind of man.

It transcends the milestones of history and the boundaries of geography. It has

shaped and sublimated the habits and attitudes of generations. The Ramayana,

the Story of Rama, has become a curative corpuscle in the blood stream of

mankind, over vast areas of the globe. It has struck root in the conscience of

peoples, prodding and prompting them along the paths of Truth, Righteousness,

Peace and Love.

Through legends and lullabies, myths and tales, dance and drama, through

sculpture, music and painting, through ritual, poetry and symbol, Rama has

become the Breath, the Bliss, the Treasure of countless Seekers and Sadhakas.

The characters in the Rama Story have invited them to emulation and to be

elevated themselves. They have provided shining examples of achievement and

adventure; they have warned the wavering against vice and violence, pride and

pettiness; they have encouraged them by their fidelity and fortitude. To every

language and dialect that the tongue of man has devised for the expression of

his higher desires, the Story of Rama has added a unique, sustaining sweetness.

Sai (Isa, God), whose Thought is the Universe, whose Will is Its History, is the

Author, Director, Actor, Witness and Appraiser of the Drama that is ever

unfolding in Time and Space. He has now deigned to tell us Himself the story of

this one epic Act in that Drama, wherein He took on the Rama role. As Rama, Sai

instructed, inspired and invigorated, corrected, consoled and comforted His

contemporaries in the Treta Age. As Sai Rama, He is now engaged in the same

task. Therefore, most of what the readers of Sanathana Sarathi perused, month

after month, (during these years) with ardour and pleasure, as instalments of

this narrative -- The Ramakatharasavahini -- must have appeared to them

"contemporary events and experiences", and "direct counsel to them in the

context of contemporary problems and difficulties". While reading these pages,

readers will often be pleasantly struck by the identity of the Rama of this

Story and the Sai

Rama they are witnessing.

"Science" has moulded this earth into the compactness and capsularity of a

space-ship in which mankind has to live out its destiny. "Sai-ence" is, we

know, fast moulding this space-ship into a happy home of Love. This book must

have been willed by Sai as a paramount panacea for the removal of the ills that

obstruct that Universal Love - the morbid itch for sensual pleasure, the

mounting irreverence towards parents, teachers, elders, spiritual leaders and

guides, the disastrous frivolity and flippancy in social, marital, and familial

relationships, the demonic reliance on violence as a means of achieving immoral

ends, the all-to-ready adoption of terror and torture as means of gaining

personal and group gains, and many more evils besides.

Sai Rama has recapitulated herein, in His own simple, sweet and sustaining

style, His own Divine Career, as Rama! What great good fortune, this, to have

in our hands, to inscribe on our minds, to imprint on our hearts, this Divine

narrative! May we be processes by the study of this Book into efficient and

enthusiastic tools for consummating His Mission of moulding mankind into One

Family, of making each one of us realise Sai Rama as the Reality, the only

Reality that IS.

Sai has declared that He is the same Rama come again, and that He is searching

for His erstwhile associates and workers (bantu, as He referred to them in

Telugu) in order to allot them roles in His present Mission of resuscitating

Righteousness and leading man into the Haven of Peace. Let us pray, while

ruminating over the first half of this Story, that we too be allotted roles and

may He grant us, as reward, the Vision of that Haven.

 

Rendered into English by N. Kasturi.

Prasanthi Nilayam, India.

 

Source: http://www.vahini.org/ramakatha/forword.htmlVahini.org: 'Vahini' Books

written by Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

 

 

 

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