SAI BABA GITA – Part I

[Guest guest]

September of 1984, there were extensive riots in South India. There were

shootings not far from Sai Baba's ashram and the ashram gates were locked.

Armed soldiers were patrolling outside and escorting the college students into

the ashram for the evening meetings. For 34 days during the height of the

tension, Sai Baba spoke in daily discourses to the students on the Gita. He

spoke in Telugu, his native language. These talks form the chapters of this

book. I was living in Baba's ashram at the time and teaching in his university.

With Baba's permission, I used these powerful Gita teachings over the years as

the basis for my scheduled talks to visitors who came to the ashram from all

over the world. It has been my good fortune to work with this material now for

almost 9 years. Every moment spent on it has brought new light and depth of

understanding, and, as has

happened to many others, these teachings have unalterably transformed my life.

Five years ago, I had the chance to publish this Gita in India, from the edited

translations of Baba's talks. 12,000 copies in English were printed and

distributed, and translations were published in a number of European and Asian

languages. The original manuscript was presented to Sai Baba on the stage of

the auditorium during the Christmas function in 1987, and he graciously blessed

it and signed the title page. That work contained extensive Sanskrit phrases and

references to traditional Indian themes, which were familiar to Indian devotees.

In the intervening years, the Indian English edition has gone out of print. With

the intention of making these teachings widely available without need for the

reader to have an extensive background in Sanskrit or

Indian philosophy or prior knowledge of the characters and stories that fill

Baba's talks, this book was prepared in the present edition. Here, the majority

of Sanskrit terms have been deleted and incorporated in their English

equivalents into the body of the text. Also, the chapters have been freely

edited to clarify any difficult passages or obscure references and to convert

the spoken words into easily readable text. Every chapter has been arranged to

stand on its own, with the effect that you can turn to any chapter whose

subject matter particularly interests you, without first having to study all

the previous chapters in the book. In editing the text my primary focus was on

clarity in conveying Baba's teachings to the Western reader, rather than on

literal translation. I acknowledge the grave responsibility of editing the

avatar's words and urge scholars to study the tapes of Baba's Gita

discourses in Telugu. Al Drucker,Crestone, Colorado, October 1993 Messages

Suppose you are asked: "Who created all this multiplicity in the world; who is

responsible for all this variety?" What will you answer?... The correct

response is, "There is no multiplicity at all!"... The one divine self remains

the one self forever. You mistake it as many. The fault is in you. Correct your

vision. Remove your delusion. The divinity did not change into the world just as

the rope did not change into a snake. In the dark you mistook the rope to be a

snake but it remains a rope. So also, the divine self remains the divine self

though your ignorance of this fact makes you see it as world... The world of

diversity stands on one leg called delusion. Cut down that leg and the world

falls... I often tell you not to identify even me with this particular body.

You do not understand. You call me by only one name

and believe I have only one form, but there is no name I do not bear and there

is no form which is not mine. After long searches here and there in temples and

in churches, at last you come back completing the circle from where you started,

and find that he for whom you have been seeking all over the world, for whom you

have been weeping and praying in churches and temples, on whom you were looking

as the mystery of all mysteries, is the nearest of the near... your very

self... the reality of your life, body and soul. Assert it! Manifest it! You as

body, mind or soul are a dream. But what you really are is pure existence,

knowledge, bliss. You are the God of this universe. You are creating this whole

universe and drawing it in. To gain the Infinite, the miserable little prison

individuality must go.... Follow the heart. A pure heart seeks

beyond the intellect. It gets inspired.... Within you is the real happiness.

Within you is the mighty ocean of nectar divine. Seek it within you. Feel it.

Feel it. It is here, the self. It is not the body, the mind, the intellect. All

these are simply manifestations. Above all these you are. You appear as the

smiling flower, as the twinkling stars. What is there in the world which can

make you desire anything? - From sayings and writings of Sai Baba Sai Baba For

the countless millions of devotees who have come into his fold, Sai Baba is the

avatar of this age. He is revered as the incarnation of the full power of

divinity. Such an auspicious advent has not occurred since ancient days when

the divinity

came into human form 5000 years ago, in another major age of mankind. Then he

came as Krishna, to enact the role of avatar of that particular age. Now, the

divinity has come again in the role of world teacher, to guide and uplift

mankind at this present critical time in human history. Just as sweetness

cannot be understood through words alone, but must be experienced directly

through the taste, so also the Sai phenomenon cannot be understood by merely

reading about him or studying his words or even experiencing him first-hand.

His truth can be known only by fully living his teachings and practicing them

in every thought, word and action of daily life. By transforming our lives in

this way, we discover our own truth. This is the rarest of all jewels that this

avatar has come to bestow on us. It is the deeper message of the mission for

which he has incarnated, namely, that the divinity appears among

us in order to remind us of our divinity. "I know who I am," he says. "I have

come to help you to realize who you are." In essence, we are no less than he.

We are God incarnate. That is the principal teaching of his Gita. He has come

as the guide to help us realize our truth and return mankind to its divine

source. The three Incarnations of Sai Like Allah of the Muslims, or Jahweh of

the Jews, or Divine Father of the Christians, or the Buddha Nature of the

Buddhists, or Ahura Mazda of the Parses, or the Supreme Self of the Vedantins,

or the Great Spirit of the native Americans, Sai Baba is a name for the

omnipresent, supreme reality, which in most religions is known as God. The one

divinity takes on countless names and manifests itself in countless forms. It

has chosen a 250 year period beginning in the early 19th

century to manifest successively in three human forms as avatar for this kali

age, to restore righteousness to floundering humanity. All three of these

incarnations are called Sai Baba, which means divine mother-father. The present

Sai Baba, born in 1926, is the second in a succession of three incarnations of

the Sai avatar. He is known as Sathya Sai Baba. The first incarnation was

Shirdi Sai Baba, who left his mortal body eight years earlier in 1918. Shirdi

Sai Baba lived his life exemplifying the unity of God and the brotherhood of

man, by ministering to both the Hindu and Muslim communities of central India,

each of which claimed him as their own. For many years, he would spend

alternate days living in a Hindu temple and in a Muslim mosque. The Sai avatar

will remain in the present Sathya Sai form until his mid

90's, well into the 21st century. Then, shortly after leaving his physical body,

he will be born again in the south of India, appearing as the third and final

incarnation. At that time he will be known as Prema Sai Baba and will complete

the mission of the Sai avatar to end this kali age and usher in the golden age

for mankind. Sai Baba's Ashram - Prashanthi Nilayam Sathya Sai Baba took birth

in the little out-of-the-way hamlet of Puttaparthi in the south of India, near

Bangalore. Now, a modern township has sprung up there, called Prashanthi

Nilayam, the abode of ultimate peace, which is his main ashram. It provides

accommodations for thousands of pilgrims from all over India and from all parts

of the globe, who come to experience Sai Baba's daily public contacts with the

devotees and private interviews for those

who are fortunate to be chosen. The ashram houses a comprehensive educational

complex where students come from all parts of India and abroad to live and

study together. Small children can come into the residential program starting

at the age of five in the primary school, then go on to the high school,

college and university levels, and finally on to the postgraduate and doctoral

levels, to complete their education twenty years later. The Sai educational

system, with campuses in various states of India, is wholly non-denominational

and completely cost-free. All the educational costs for thousands of students

are borne directly by the Sathya Sai Baba Trust. Also at Prashanthi Nilayam is

the central headquarters for the worldwide network of Sai service

organizations, engaged in a wide range of community service projects and in

bringing

education in human values into government and private school systems throughout

the world. Recently, the largest specialty hospital in Asia was inaugurated at

the ashram. Here patients, no matter how poor, can come from all over the globe

for open heart surgery. They stay at the hospital with no charge for doctors,

medicine, hospital services, food or room. Sai Baba, the Human Being and the

God-Man The hub of all this activity is Sai Baba, who from his earliest days

has attracted large numbers of people to him through his unique personal

presence. He can only be described as the personification of pure, selfless

love, the embodiment of perfect peace and bliss, the essence of all goodness.

He manifests every noble human quality that mankind admires and he incorporates

every divine quality that is characteristic of the

avatar. He has the full power of nature in his hand. He has all knowledge at his

command. He knows the past, present and future of everyone who comes to him. He

manifests himself in many parts of the world for the sake of his devotees.

These characteristics, namely omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, are

the mark of a full incarnation of the divinity. In his teachings he befriends

all faiths and emphasizes the unity of all religions in the oneness of

divinity. In his personal manner, Sai Baba displays a majestic grace, and at

the same time, an exquisite joyfulness. In the midst of a splendorous temple

and ashram, he lives in a small, simple room, and maintains an austere life

style, completely committing his time from early morning to late at night to

ministering to the needs of those who come to him. Not being limited

to the physical plane, Sai Baba works in all dimensions, gross and subtle,

appearing through visions and dreams and inner experiences, as well as in his

physical form. As the divine teacher guiding the spiritual unfoldment of his

devotees, he inspires from within and directs from without. He illuminates the

heart and transforms the mind and reveals the greatest of all treasures, the

immortal Atma, the universal self abiding in every heart. The Sai Advent These

two and a half centuries encompassing the Sai advent are a unique time of great

spiritual significance in the history of the world. During this period, many

saints and sages are also appearing on the earth in order to advance the divine

mission of revitalizing spiritual values and reversing the present downward

trend of moral degeneration which is engulfing the world. In

the millenia to come, generations will look back with great awe at those of us

who lived during this sacred time, much as we might look back at those

fortunate ones in other ages, who were the contemporaries of Rama or Krishna,

or of Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed or Zoroaster, and who had the unique

chance to experience their sacred presence directly. Very rarely in the long

span of human existence, has the divinity taken a human form on earth and

allowed itself to be widely recognized by many. And even more rarely has the

divinity come in all its fullness and glory as avatar of the age, as is true

today in the form of Sai Baba. Now, the full power of God can be directly

approached and experienced by all, and his teachings, which have the authority

of the source of all wisdom, can be understood by everyone, for he speaks to us

in the language and the idiom of our present time. Introduction to the Gita Gita

means song. But the Gita is no ordinary song. It is the divine song of

emancipation. It is given by God to free us of the illusions that have kept us

bound. The Gita celebrates our highest truth, the Atma. Atma means self. But

Atma also means God. Atma is our god-self, our true self. And since God is

always one, Atma is the one true self of everyone and everything. Illusion

makes it appear as the many. Our destiny is to dispel the clouds of illusion so

that our truth is revealed and the atma is realized. That is self-knowledge.

When self-knowledge comes, the illusion of separate beings and separate objects

goes, and is

replaced by unity consciousness. Self-knowledge is the only knowledge that has

truly eternal and lasting value, for it enables us to transcend all limitations

of time and space, and be immersed in the bliss of the Atma. In every major age,

God comes as avatar and teaches the Gita to initiate us into self-knowledge and

dispel the veils which hide our divine nature. 5000 years ago, God came as

Krishna, to render this song of truth at a time of great moral decline. At that

time, he gave the Gita in order to rescue Arjuna, and through him all of

mankind, from the fog of illusion and attachment. In this age, he has come

again as Sai Baba, to give this sacred teaching at another time of great

turmoil and deteriorating values. The malady he is treating is the same, and

the remedy he prescribes is also the same, stemming from the same ancient

wisdom. But, being the very source of eternal

wisdom, he knows how to transmit it in a way which makes it come alive today and

be meaningful in this present age. In his Gita teachings, Baba shows us how to

transcend the false perception of our senses and mind, which constantly support

the illusion of separate existence. Step by step, he directs us onto the inner

path to discover who we truly are. When all illusion is stripped away, we

realize that we are not these bodies and personalities, we are not separate

beings individualized into name and form. The truth is, and he emphasizes it

over and over again, that we are not different from God. Our unchanging

reality, which was the same before we took on the limitations of these bodies,

and which is the same after we let go of these bodies, is the one divine self,

the atma. Inexplicably, atma has become cloaked with the changing names and

forms which make up the covering veil of

Maya, or illusion. But, under the layers of obscuration, hidden from view, atma

shines in everyone as the unvarying radiance of divine light. To realize this

requires a purification of consciousness, until only pure awareness, unbefogged

by illusory mind-stuff, remains. Baba tells us that when we give up our outer

vision and our fascination for the world and, instead, turn our mind inwards to

gain the integral vision, we become steeped in unity consciousness. When we give

up body-consciousness we gain God consciousness. When we expand beyond our

limited human awareness into the fullness of our potential, we become who we

truly are. We transcend the illusion of separation of God, man and world and

merge into the one divine principle. That is the essential teaching of the

Gita. The Gita is the very heart of the

ancient wisdom making up the perennial philosophy of the East. It is the basis

of all spirituality. We are told that it had a profound influence on Jesus, as

well as on the Buddha, not to speak of the countless spiritual lights who have

graced this planet in the millenia since the Gita was given by Krishna on the

battlefield. The Gita has something for everyone at every level of the

spiritual path. Baba talks to each of us at the level at which we are ready,

pointing us from wherever we are, to our final destination. If we incorporate

this Gita into our daily lives, we will never need to read another book nor

study another teaching. By following the directions given here, we will be led

home to our own unchanging truth. First, however, there are a number of stages

we must go through. They are best spoken of in terms of the yogas. The Sanskrit

word yoga speaks of union,

referring to union with God. There are three principal yogas which Baba takes up

here. They are karma yoga, the path of selfless service; Bhakti yoga, the path

of devotion wherein we see the divinity in everything we see; and jnana yoga,

the path of wisdom, the culmination of the spiritual journey, wherein we dwell

constantly on our highest truth. These yogas are the soap which purifies us and

strips away the layers of unreality that have covered the atma. For too long,

illusion and unreality have posed, bizarrely, but totally convincingly, as the

only true reality and kept the bona fide reality, the atma, hidden. These yogas

help return us to unity consciousness. A question may arise as to why, when the

verses of Krishna's Bhagavad Gita are freely available, Baba has elaborated

this new version of the Gita. Baba explains that this present age is different

from Krishna's time and different from Rama's time, as well. In the age of

Rama, the forces of darkness were embodied as demonic hordes, external enemies

that disturbed the inner peace and tranquility of the people. Rama, God

incarnated as avatar, personally took up arms and went into the forest to

destroy this evil. Tens of thousands of years later, in the age of Krishna, the

forces of evil were not outside in the forest, but right at home in the same

family. Now the avatar did not take up arms directly. Instead, he drove the

chariot and galvanized Arjuna to fight the battle and win the victory. In

truth, the divinity had already decided the outcome. To make it clear to Arjuna

that he was merely an actor in this drama, Krishna gave Arjuna a vision of the

cosmic form of God. Suddenly, Arjuna could see all of time,

past, present and future. He saw all the combatants on both sides, engulfed in

their inescapable destiny, following the play orchestrated by the Lord. Though

he was engaged in fighting all the battles, Arjuna saw that he was merely the

instrument carrying out the will of the Lord, and that the ultimate conclusion

of the war, the triumph of righteousness over evil, had been decided even

before the first battle commenced. In those days people lived much longer than

they do now. Baba mentioned that at the time of the Mahabharata war, Krishna

and Arjuna were both in their eighties. Krishna and Arjuna had known each other

for over 70 years. They were the closest of friends, spent most of their time

together, and were related as brothers-in-law. In all this time spent together,

the Gita never came up. For years, Arjuna, along with the other Pandava

brothers, had nobly borne every insult and indignity

perpetrated by their wicked cousins. But, the forces of evil were unrelenting.

The conflict was destined to culminate in war. Preparations for the battle

commenced. Now, on the eve of the war, when Arjuna saw his beloved grandfather

and his revered teacher ready to fight on the opposing side, and all his other

close relations arrayed for battle, he threw down his bow in despondency. In

speaking of this, Baba said that Arjuna had faced many worldly dilemmas in his

life and knew how to deal with them. But, at that point, Arjuna was facing a

spiritual dilemma. He was overwhelmed with a feeling of helplessness that

stemmed from the onslaught of his inner enemies, attachment, infatuation,

deluded vision, and the rest, which had made him forget his own truth and his

commitment to preserve righteousness at all cost. Now, in desperation, he

turned to Krishna, knowing that Krishna alone could rescue him from this

quagmire. He declared, "Lord, command me. I will do as you say." At that moment,

their relationship changed from chums and co-equals to master and disciple. And

it was at this point, Baba tells us, that Krishna chose to teach Arjuna the

Gita. Surrender of the individual will to the divine will was the key to proper

preparation in receiving this age-old wisdom. Baba said that the sage Vyasa

tuned in on their dialogue with his yogic powers of subtle hearing. Vyasa

elaborated Krishna's teachings into 700 verses in the Sanskrit poetic form,

which have been preserved through time as the Bhagavad Gita. But, Baba said

that in the 20 minutes or so, when Krishna spoke to Arjuna on the battlefield,

he did not actually expound all these verses or render them in poetic meter.

Krishna's goal was very specific. Krishna who was the

divinity incarnate was always unremittingly happy. Arjuna, like the rest of

humanity, experienced periods of joy and sorrow. Here, on the eve of the

battle, Arjuna was deeply depressed, but earlier that day, Arjuna had been

highly elated, eager to fight. Krishna knew that all of these changes of mood

were caused by illusion. Arjuna was out of touch with his true nature, the

atma, which is synonymous with eternal delight. Krishna resolved to dispel

Arjuna's confusion and bolster his courage by teaching him the knowledge of the

atma, so that Arjuna would discover his own divine truth and be forever immersed

in unchanging inner joy. In these chapters, Baba gives us an insight into the

main points of Lord Krishna's Gita. Since this present book is the Gita for

this present age, Baba gives many additional directions for our spiritual

advancement, which are particularly applicable to these

troubled times and our needs. His goal is the same as Krishna's, namely to

establish us in Ananda, the eternal delight which is our true nature. This age

is different in many ways from Krishna's age. In this age, the forces of good

and evil are not only battling in the same family, but they are battling inside

of every being. Baba tells us that if the Lord were to come today, sword in

hand, to stamp out all traces of evil, no one alive would escape or survive. He

comes, instead, as the inner director. Following his guidance, we must fight our

own inner battles, conquer our own inner enemies, and gain the ultimate victory

of salvation and awakening. This kali age, in which we are now living, wherein

gross materialism and lawlessness have run rampant and spiritual values have

declined, is, in many ways the worst of all ages. But,

from the spiritual point of view, this age is the best of all ages for the

transformation of the individual. In this age we can most readily throw off the

bonds of illusion and realize the atma. But, it requires swimming up-stream

against the powerful current and rapids of worldly life, which try to sweep us

into the abyss and keep us locked onto the endless cycle of birth and death.

Now, the avatar of this age, through his teachings, shows us how to navigate

these rapids. He works internally as the indweller in every being, directing us

how to confront our own inner enemies and win this war of good and evil inside.

In ages past, Baba points out, the spiritual path was primarily devoted to

rituals and religious practices, such as meditation, penances, chanting of

mantras, prayers and other worshipful activities. These practices are still

important, but they are not enough. Baba often says,

"Hands that work in the service of society are much holier than lips that pray."

He wants us to do karma yoga and engage in selfless service to mankind. All our

work must be pure and done to the full extent of our capacity for excellence.

At the same time, we must have no attachment to the fruits of our labors, but

instead, offer up all our actions and their results to God. When we see the

divinity everywhere, installed as the indweller in every being, and we serve

that omni-present divinity in all we do, then karma yoga automatically becomes

bhakti yoga. Our work becomes worship. But in this there is still some

separation between ourselves and God; there is still some duality. Baba is not

satisfied with our spiritual progress until we become totally immersed in

non-duality and reach our highest truth, the realization of the immortal self.

That is the final stage. Baba tells a little story of an old woman who was

sewing in her home at night. She was working on her tapestry when she lost her

needle. The light being very dim in her house, she went out to the street lamp

where the light was bright, to look for her needle. Baba ends the story there.

Whenever he tells this story he always seems a little amused by the silliness

of it. We are like that old woman. We have also lost our needle while working

on the tapestry of our many lives. Our lost needle is the knowledge of our

truth, without which we cannot finish our work. After groping through countless

lives caught up in illusion, we now know that there is something vital to our

existence that we have lost. We go to great teachers and to ashrams where the

spiritual light is intense, hoping to find there what we have lost.

6pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We get great solace being in the light and we gain

deeper understanding of what we are looking for, but the final discovery of

what we have lost can only happen when we look inside our own heart of hearts.

There within, deeper than the body and the mind, deeper than our sense of

I-ness which stands at the core of our individual self, beyond all sheaths,

subtle and causal, which cover our truth, we find the brightest light of all,

the light of atma. When the atma, our true self is realized, the tapestry of

our long journey in the world which we have been working on for so many eons

and so many lives, is finally complete. Baba assures us that, just as was true

in the vision given to Arjuna showing the final outcome of the war, the outcome

of our long trek and our inner war has also already been determined by the

divine will. We are destined to return home.

Nevertheless, we must still tread the path and fight the battles and win final

victory over our inner enemies. We initiate this process by making friends with

the divinity in our hearts, keeping it as our steady companion and allowing it

to guide our inner journey. As we proceed on our path the clouds of illusion

thin out and we become aware of a great mystery. We realize that the spiritual

journey we thought we were on is itself an illusion. We are not individuals on

the spiritual path following the direction of the divine inner guru. In truth,

we are the totality. We are the divinity itself. We are and always have been

the atma. Atma is neither born nor reborn; nor does it ever die. As atma we

have not come from somewhere nor are we going somewhere. We have never changed.

Only the illusion of individuality and separateness has changed. Ultimately that

illusion disappears and we

discover the glorious truth that we have always been one with God. Baba tells

us, "God if you think, God you are. Dust if you think, dust you are. Think God.

Be God. You are God. Realize it." Some years ago in a public discourse, Baba

directed us to repeat several times daily, "I am God, I am God, I am no

different from God. I am the infinite supreme. I am the one reality." If we

allow this declaration of truth to suffuse our lives and fill us with the

consummate love that is God, these powerful words will gradually become our

direct inner experience. More and more we will identify ourselves with the

divinity, our real self, and less and less with these ephemeral personalities

which are but shadow selves. Thus we realize who we are, the immortal self, the

one divinity, which is love itself. That is the inspiring message of this

Gita. The Essence of the Gita For Western readers who may not be familiar with

it, here follows a summary of the traditional Bhagavad Gita, as set down by the

sage Vyasa. That Gita was given by Krishna to Arjuna, just before a great war

involving huge armies with millions of combatants, coming from kingdoms

scattered all over the Indian subcontinent. In massive encounters that raged

daily for 18 days, the forces of good were pitted against the forces of evil.

This war proved to be one of the bloodiest of all time. When it was over, only

a handful of men survived. In this war, Krishna, who was God incarnate, took

the humble role of a charioteer, to guide Arjuna and the Pandava brothers to

victory. But, on the eve of the great war, it looked like the

battle was lost before it even started. Arjuna, the foremost warrior on the side

of good, had become overwhelmed with doubts; he decided to throw down his bow

and not fight. This situation came about after Krishna had driven Arjuna's

chariot onto the battlefield between the two armies. There Arjuna saw his

beloved grandfather, his teacher and his kinsmen on the opposite side, getting

ready to fight and die for their cause. They had allied themselves with the

forces of unrighteouseousness. Filled with a deep despondency, Arjuna said, "O

Krishna! I cannot fight! I feel overcome by a sense of helplessness! What good

is winning this war when it will lead to the destruction of all these kinsmen,

teachers and heroes. I do not know where my duty lies! I beg you to tell me

what is right for me! I surrender myself fully to you! I am your disciple!

Please teach me!" Then the blessed Lord gave him the great wisdom

teachings of the Gita. Krishna started the Gita teachings with an admonishment,

"Arjuna! Shake off this faint heartedness. It is not worthy of you. Do not

yield to weakness. You have been preparing so long for this battle to preserve

righteousness. "Even as a man casts off worn-out clothes and puts on others

which are fresh, so the atma casts off bodies and enters into others which are

new. Bodies are born, and what is born must die. But the eternal atma is never

born. It never dies. Weapons cannot cut it, fire cannot burn it, water cannot

wet it and wind cannot dry it. "This atma is not your perishable body. it is

your immortal self, the imperishable self of everyone, once that is known, then

what is there to grieve for? the wise never

grieve... neither for the dead nor for the living. "I am that atma, Arjuna. I am

the supreme Lord of all, residing in the heart of every being. I am the father

of this world and also its mother and sustainer. I am the beginning, the middle

and the end. Everything is produced out of me. Everything is pervaded by me. No

creature can exist without me. Whatever path men travel, it is my path.

Whichever way they go they reach me. "Though I am eternally birthless and

unchanging, yet, I incarnate myself from age to age. Whenever righteousness

declines and unrighteousness prevails, I take on a form, to protect the good

and to destroy evil. "Veiled as I am by my inscrutable power of illusion, my

Maya, the world does not recognize me. Although they do not know me,

Arjuna, I know them all. I know their past, present and future. In truth, I am

ever unmanifest and imperishable; but not understanding this transcendental

nature of mine, the ignorant regard me as a mere mortal. "Knowing nothing of my

reality, they ignore me and become occupied in the world with vain hopes, vain

works and vain knowledge. Lost in the maze of Maya, they are spun around like

puppet-dolls on a merry-go-round. "This divine illusion of mine is most

difficult to overcome. Among thousands of human beings, only a few struggle to

know my truth; even amongst these that struggle, only one, perchance, comes to

know me in reality. Such a one is a yogi, one steeped in the highest wisdom.

Therefore, Arjuna, you should be a yogi! With all your being take refuge in me

alone, and by my grace you will attain supreme

peace. "From this moment on, fix your mind steadily on me dwelling in your

heart. Be devoted to me, bow down to me, worship me. Know that I am always

within you and soon you will become one with me. Yes, truly do I promise this

to you, Arjuna, for you are very dear to me. He who knows my divine birth and

work, will not be born again after death. He will not lose sight of me, nor I

of him. "Arjuna, whoever works for me and has me as his supreme goal, whoever

is devoted to me and is unattached, bearing no malice towards any creature,

will quickly come to me. Such a one sees me everywhere, residing in all beings,

as the imperishable amidst the perishable. "For these, who have me ever present

in their

mind's eye and serve me steadfastly with affection, I will carry their burdens

and I will give them what they need. Talking about me to each other, they are

forever satisfied and delighted. Out of my compassion for them, I strengthen

their power of discrimination and destroy the darkness of ignorance that

beclouds their vision. Bringing their senses under control they transcend the

world of death and decay, and attain immortality. "Arjuna, whoever offers me

with love, either a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or even some water... such devout

offerings coming from a pure heart, I will surely accept. Whatever you do,

whatever you eat or sacrifice or give away, whatever austerity you perform,

offer that first to me. Then you will be free of the consequences of your

actions, and soon your mind will become calm and wise, steeped in renunciation.

Endowed with evenness of mind and having abandoned the fruits of your actions,

you will be freed forever from the fetters of birth. "Arjuna, resign every

action to me. Fix your mind firmly on me. I will perform all your actions

through you and liberate you from all sins. Fear not. By my grace you will

overcome all obstacles. "But if from self-conceit you do not listen to me, you

will surely perish. You may think, 'I will not fight!' But impelled by your

sense of duty, your own nature will compel you to fight. What out of delusion

you do not wish to do, you shall do in spite of yourself. Arise, Arjuna! With

the sword of wisdom that I have given to you, cut to pieces this ignorance

which doubts the truth that the divinity is ever-present in your heart. Arjuna,

stand up and achieve glory! You are pledged to uphold righteousness! The forces

of unrighteousness have become rampant. You must encounter them and destroy

them! "Take refuge in me, Arjuna. Think of me at all times and fight! It is not

you who will kill these heroes, but I. I am the world's creator and sustainer,

but I am also the mighty world-destroying time that devours all. Truly, these

warriors in hostile armies have already been slain by me. You are merely the

instrument through which I act. "Here, I give you a vision of my universal form

in which you can see the oneness of all existence! Behold my divine power!

Behold the whole universe, moving and unmoving, all unified in me!" Overwhelmed

with wonder and amazement, Arjuna bowed his head in adoration and spoke with

palms joined, "O supreme Lord! Hail to you! Hail, again and again! If the

effulgence of a thousand suns were to blaze forth together in the skies, their

glory could compare only a little with your infinite splendor! You are the

imperishable Lord, the undying guardian of the eternal dharma. You are

everything that can ever be known. Seeing your awesome form, all the worlds are

trembling with fear. And so am I. Just as the many rivers flow towards the sea,

so do all these heroes in the world of men enter your flaming mouths." Then the

blessed Lord again assumed his usual gentle form as Krishna, and said,

"Graciously have I shown to you this infinite, primeval form of mine. It is

very rare, indeed, to see what you have just seen. Neither by study of the

scriptures, nor by austerities, nor by charity, nor by rituals, but only by

single-minded devotion can I be seen thus. This experience of my cosmic form

and this sacred knowledge that I have taught you are the most precious of all

treasures.

justify">"Arjuna, have you listened to me with full concentration? Has the

delusion caused by your ignorance been dispelled? Think over everything that I

have said to you, reflect on it fully, and then do what pleases you." Arjuna

answered, "O Lord of the universe! Your powerful and wonderful words contain

the highest wisdom, and you have spoken them with so much compassion. Through

your grace, my delusion is now destroyed. I stand free of all doubts. Please

direct me! I will do as you command!" TO BE CONTINUED With Sai love from Sai

brothers – ‘ Source:

http://laluni.helloyou.ws/askbaba/saibabagita/

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