Gifts of Sri Sai Baba

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XVI. GIFTS OF SRI SAI BABA

 

MOST VARIED AND UNIQUE PEARLS AND SWANS

 

Newton's dog, his fellowmen and Newton all looked at Nature and saw apples

fall. The first looked on and derived no benefit. The second ran up and ate

the fruits. Newton alone discovered the Law of Gravitation which has served

mankind, as a useful theory or hypothesis to explain many facts of Nature.

All sorts of men and women have approached Sri Sai Baba. Some have returned

without any benefit. Some received much of temporal goods with just a taste

of the spiritual; others, higher and higher spiritual goods. Every one

received what he was fitted to receive. Baba, the Universal mother that he

was, impartially offered his gifts,' nay, scattered them before his

visitors, but the crows picked up the offal and the swans, the pearls.

It was in accordance with the capacity, the receptivity and the

circumstances of each visitor due to his Karma Rinanubanda, i.e., prenatal

merits and ties, that Baba's gifts were effective; and hence spiritual

benefits received from him are of a very varied description. Anything like

an exhaustive statement of them being impossible, we may content ourselves

here with a set or samples.

That Boundless Love :

When people talk of God, to most He is a word and nothing more. They know

how to use it for their worldly purposes, nothing what effect it has on the

hearer. Convention and current feeling invests its use with a certain

dignity and telling force, specially in oaths and curses. But how few have

felt at all or in any appreciable degree the sacred awe, the first basis of

the idea of the Holy or that for higher feeling of all-Consuming

all-sacrificing boundles Love! For too many have been begotten or brought up

in godless families amidst cheerless, cramped and darkened surroundings

where the words and conduct of the parents, relations and friends are really

a stifling negation of God, conscience and the moral principal, sometimes

nominally vailed by an occasional observance of forms of worship or

reference to God. Some of these are at times candid enough to admit and

sometimes to bemoan the fact that they could never conceive of, much less

experience God in their lives.

Spiritual Rebirth, First step in God-Realisation :

The greatest service Sri Sai rendered and renders to mankind is to save such

souls from thsir utter darkness, to show them the existence in himself and

elsewhere, of vast power, vast knowledge, vast goodness-and self-forgetting

Love wnich blesses him that gives and him that receives and to make them

float on waves of joy and happiness, hitherto unexperienced. Rudely shaken

from or terrified out of their prolonged stupor and indifference they just

receive a few gleams of light into their sinsoiled eyes, feel a glow of

gratitude, love and other noble emotions in their chilled hearts, begin

their spiritual birth and see or feel their God in Sai, their real Saviour.

For the first time, they get a rudimentary idea of Sri Sai-and know God. He

is the giver of the God-idea to them and is God, in their view and it may be

their only God.

The benefit is by no means confined to the class just described. Persons,

who start life better, fall into evil ways, gets tainted by wicked company,

sunk in voice and sin from drama and cinema songs and street talk, lose

their early innocence and receptivity, become thoroughly care-hardened,

sneer at purity and piety and blatantly proclaim their imperviousness to

godly influence. To such Sai has many times restored, in some degree, their

lost innocence by making them feel that they see God in him and in his

devotees. Some cultured and English educated persons that this writer met

have confessed to him that Baba, who has restored their faiths, is God to

them, that in their present life of holiness the foreground is fully

occupied by Baba, and that Sri Rama, Sri Krishna, Sri Siva, Sri Datta and

Sri Pandarinath get their halo of glory through Baba. One lady said "Krishna

no doubt appeals to me and attracts me. But Baba who often appears and

instructs me in visions is a hundred times more powerful".

The need for a noble "Superman" that leads one to God is at its height in

the case of advanced spiritual aspirants who style him their Samartha

Sadguru and derive from him the maximum benefit that a human being can

enjoy. Realisation of th« Ishtadevata, perpetual enjoyment of heaven at His

feet, attainment of Adwaitic Bliss or Nirvana Sukha can alike be had at the

guru's feet and there alone.

A Warning :

Sri Sai Baba showered his benefits on thousands in a variety of ways. Some

only of these have been revealed to this writer; and these may be a sample

of his gift to others. But one cannot be sure that the highest have been yet

made puplic. However that may be, before proceeding to give a very brief

sketch of these, the writer has one request to make or a warning to give.

Person who are great admirers of particular saints, like Krishna Chaitanya,

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Samartha Rarodas, Haranath or Thayumanavar, should

not judge others exclusively by the life, teachings and methods of their

saint or hero. Let not Sri Sai Baba be measured on the Procrustes bed of any

particular saint. Sri Sai is a rare phenomenon by himself and his services

to Humanity, if judged calmly, would be found great enough to require a

special corner in our pantheon and a readjustment of our ideas based wholly

on a few past examples. In the words of Browing (as adapted) we must insist,

Our times are in his hand,

Who saith "A whole I planned,

Past shows but half; Trust God, see all, nor bo afraid"

Add this to the rest,

Take it and try its worth.

 

(This is from the book"The Wonderous Saint Sai Baba" written by Pujyasri

V.Narasimaswami,founder President of All India Sai Samaj,

Chennai...........This book can be read from www.saileelas.org)