A SYMBOL PERFECTED IN LOVE – [Part 1 of 2}

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be just human and mortal. But after seeing the halo on the face of Sri Sathya

Sai Baba, he felt the thrill of joy akin to ecstasy and wondered if such an

expansive aura can ever surround the face of a mere human being. Professor

Varoneshky described this particular aura as white and pink of the colour of

love. When Bhajans were sung in the prayer hall, the white and predominantly

pink aura turned golden, the colour of the sun and then into an expansive blue,

and the boundless energy of creation. And we know that blue colour is also

symbolic of love. Professor Varoneshky saw in the eyes of Baba diamond like

brilliance. Though Varoneshky is a Catholic, he felt convinced that aura wise,

Sri Sathya Sai Baba was God, the primal source of love. Indeed Sathya Sai Baba

was the very quintessence of Love. Many other devotees of Baba have also had

the experience of witnessing the halo surrounding the face of Baba. We have

already noticed in the earlier chapter how John Scher, an

American devotee, witnessed the pink and bluish halo expanding and spreading all

over the sky and the faraway horizons. Sri Sathya Sai Baba has said: I am the

embodiment of love and love is my instrument mine is love that is pure, free,

selfless and unconditional. And further he has said: Sai is infinite love.

It is this love that pervades and appears in the entire universe around us.

This love is seated ever in your hearts. The universe is Sai. You are Sathya

Sai. Love is my form, truth is my breath, and peace is my food. My life is my

message. Through constant reiteration of this love, he has clearly and

transparently demonstrated both by precept and actual practice that he is the

living configuration of love that only God can be. He is the kind of love that

surpasses in magnitude and intensity the love of one thousand mothers. Sai Baba

has declared explicitly that Love is

God. It is love that transfigures and transubstantiates everything and binds all

into one volume. Sai Baba has made some extremely precious and beautiful and

memorable observations that are truly reminiscent of the teachings of

Jesus Christ and offer concrete and tangible suggestions for mankind to live

by. For instance, he says: God is the source of all love. Love God; love the

world as the vesture of God, no more, no less. Through love you can merge in

the ocean of

love. Love cures pettiness, hate and grief. Love loosens bonds. It saves man

from the torments of birth and death. Love binds all hearts into a soft, silken

symphony. Seen through the eyes of love, all beings are beautiful, all deeds are

dedicated, all thoughts are innocent, and the world is one vast kin. And here

is another practical and easy way to work for the expansion of this universal

love to attain the bliss of attaining God: Love for all should spontaneously

flow from your heart and sweeten all your words. The best spiritual discipline

that can help man is love. Foster the tiny seed of love that clings to me and

mine. Let it sprout into

love for the group around you and grow into love for all mankind, and spread out

its branches over animals, birds, and those that creep and crawl and let the

love enfold all things and beings in all the world. Proceed from less love to

more love, narrow love to expanded love. And furthermore, the practice of

expanding the love rhythmically to embrace all and every sentient thing and the

recognition of sparks of the same divinity is the end of all spiritual

exploration. Baba says: When you know that you are but a spark of the divine

and that all else are the same divine spark, you look upon all with reverence

and true love. Your heart is filled with

supreme joy and the canker of egotism is rendered ineffective. Man is seeking

joy in far-off places, in quiet spots, not knowing that the spring of joy is in

the heart, the heaven of peace is in himself. Love is God; God is the embodiment

of perfect love. So he can be known, reached and won only through love. You can

see the Moon only with the moonlight. Such facets of the divine diamond can be

seen and realized through intensive study of all that Baba has said in his

discourses and vahinis. But the important and crucial question is the

apprehension and true understanding of the secret of Baba's extreme love and

its redeeming, transcendental power. That is to say, divine love and its

eternal radiance and transforming power can only be experienced because as

Professor Gokak, the renowned Indian English poet, has said

in images of poetry, ... But divine love is the naked majesty of midnight

stars It is an infinite and luminous downpour That fills all your being To the

very cells of the body... Divine love descends on you As from the Milky Way

And more and more, the more open you are. It upholds your sail on the ocean of

being And is the chart (er) of uncharted seas Human love is the fire of the body

That created man in the image of man. It is the sallying out of the self to

self. But divine love is the light of the heaven That recreates man in the

image of God. Sri Sathya Sai Baba has declared that his love

flows to everyone, to every sentient thing of the universe. In fact, it is this

love that sustains the universe. He says, 'If you take one step towards me, I

shall take a hundred steps towards you. If you shed one tear, I will wipe a

hundred tears.' His love is selfless and without any condition. 'Love is my

very nature,' he says. The greatest attribute of selfless divine love is that

the fetters of attachment or craving for any return do not bind it. It is

universal as well as impersonal. In the words of Professor Gokak, 'Baba's love

floods the vast spaces of the soul. Although it is marked by supreme

detachment, it irrigates the arid heart that it may burst into bloom. It is

beautiful itself.' Further, Professor Gokak says: At an informal meeting, one

of the group asked Baba, 'Swami, what is the secret of the'

cure that many afflicted persons experience in your presence Baba said simply

and instantly: 'It is my experience that I am one with every sentient thing,

every human being. My love flows out to everyone, for I see everyone as myself.

If a person reciprocates my love from the depth and purity of his heart, my love

and his meet in unison and he is cured of his affliction. Where there is no

reciprocation, there is no cure...' Baba's love knows no frontiers. It

overflows all boundaries. Like the universal sun it shines on all, whether they

be sun worshippers or owls. Sai Baba as the single flame and still center

holding the universe in his palm is the fountain of love, pure love. He is

indeed a symbol perfected in love. God who is Sat Being Awareness-Bliss, can

also be fairly described as a symbol perfected in love.

Human love is generally fragmentary just as the finite human consciousness

itself. 'Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic orders? That was the

dilemma before Rainer Maria Rilke, the modern German poet. Torn up and

disconsolate at witnessing the great conflagration during the second world war

and assailed by thousand and one doubts and distractions he mused over the

human condition and had a true vision of the essential human frailty and human

lot. He felt as never before that human consciousness is finite and fragmented

in the extreme. But there is another kind of consciousness that is undivided

and complete. Rilke saw a series of visions at Scholos Duino. Plagued and

tormented by the insufficiency of the human condition, the poet set out to

capture that elusive and beautiful vision of supreme felicity as represented by

the angels, the lovers and all those who have gone to the world of the dead.

Similarly, human love is broken, transitory and fragmented, and the central

thrust of the pilgrim soul is to aspire for divine love as also for the final

merger with the Eternal Absolute, Sat Sai Baba in some of his letters and

poems, addressed to the beloved students of Sri Sathya Sai College of Arts and

Sciences, has urged them to move into another intensity and merge themselves

into Him. He says in one such poem: Live ... live ... live in perfect

accordance With My laws, and wonders will ensue. Let old memories well up in

you From my subconscious in you... Old patterns... Old forgotten patterns and

thoughts. Now plunge them into the Ocean of Light Burn them from the

Consciousness So that you may be True emblems of my Being. Right now visualise

my burning Flame Rising higher and higher As it burns through you... It is a

flame that is cooling Cleansing and healing; That soothes the hidden sorrow...

And leaves you calm and quiet. Test in my Love Let all that you have been

through In your many lives up to this day, Melt away in my redeeming Light.

Children of My Being Dissolve your sorrows and fears in me. Let me efface all

your Karma Come back into my Consciousness, which is your own true

consciousness Let your petty human consciousness fade away, right now, when

youcome to me, who am your inner self. You are my own radiant Glorious Self No

longer separate from me Melt with Me, merge with Me. Become Me. It is great

poetry as it represents the true voice of feeling and the depth of

highest kind of ardour and love, which are the hall­marks of the Divine. As a

Professor of English literature, this author feels frankly and candidly that it

nearly transcends all existing monuments of devotional poetry that he has known.

In the greatest of devotional poets, from Dante downwards to Milton, Donne,

Herbert and Vaughan ... to Mira, Tulsidas, Hopkins to T.S. Eliot, the

motivating force has been the prayer and the supplication of the meditating and

the praying mind to voice the spiritual aspirations of the poet in apt and

adequate metaphors of poetry. Most of such great poetry has either been

devotional or else visionary, tenuous or abstract. But here is another kind of

poetry, not penned by the aspirant praying for the one barely prayable prayer

for the one Annunciation, divine grace and mercy from that Ocean of Mercy. It

is the blessing and grace of the Divine exhorting the devotees to merge with

Him and become Him. In this sense, it is the fullest gift of grace

and love that mankind can ever hope to realize. This is a burning example of

what Divine Love can be and how it can confer salvation on the spiritual

aspirant. In another beautiful prose passage, Sri Sathya Sai Baba explains and

points out the plenitude of Divine Love: My dears, Sai is Love. He is

compassion and kindness itself. He is ever dwelling in the hearts of you all.

To trust him means freedom from all anxiety, fear and doubts. He is you, all-in

pall. When you have a Lord of the Universe to depend upon why should you be

afraid or anxious about anything? His great assurance should always sustain you

.... The Almighty Lord of the world is seated in

your heart, is the sole doer. You are mere puppets. Let him make you dance as he

wills. Yours is not to question 'Why? Difficulties and worries are not due to

outside causes. They are due to a mind not surrendered unto God. With love and

blessings, Baba In another beautiful and memorable poem, Baba voices his great

love for the students and uses resilient and functional imagery of a rare sort.

The sense of complete oneness or unity of the human and divine could not have

been better expressed than in

the following lines: The bird with you, the wings with Me; The foot with you,

the way with Me; The eye with you, the form with Me; The thing with you, the

dream with Me; The world with you, the heaven with Me; So are we free, so are

we bound; So we begin and so we end; You in Me and I in you. Sai Baba, as we

have seen, is the repository of love, the perennial comforter of bruised and

torn hearts. He knows the agitation of every mind. One may wonder, who, then,

devised the torment, Love? No, the torment is the fruit and consequence poem of

G.M. Hopkins where he voices his tone of desperation and anguish at not

receiving the divine comfort. He voices

his agony in his characteristic style: No worst, there is none, pitched past

pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at fore pangs, wider wring,

Comforter, where, where is your comforting, Mary, mother of us, where is your

relief? Hopkins voices his sense of anguish and desolation. But in Sai Baba

there is the loving and caring parent who is always beside his children. Baba

has said: I am always with you, behind you, beside you, in front of you, in

your very heart.

0in 6pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">And furthermore, he says: You shed one tear and I

will wipe a hundred from your eyes. He also assures mankind that God is ever

ready to help man in calamitous time and clime: God is the nearest, the

dearest, the most loving, the most eager companion for man.

New Roman">Not only this, Sai love is so powerful, expansive and intense that

guards and protects all those who reciprocate his love and surrender to him.

This love is, in nature, both protective and redemptive. In another beautiful

poem, Sai Baba gives positive assurance to his beloved children that he is

always with them: Dear, dear loved one You ask: How will you know when I am

near you? When on a sultry night Everything is hot and still The first cool

breeze Brushes your cheeks I am caressing you Think of Me. When the pangs of

hunger are satisfied And loneliness is pierced by happiness Think of Me. When

I sprinkle your

face with rain And wash the earth; the dry brown leaves The first smell of clear

rain I am cleansing you. Think of Me. When pain dissolves And fear disappears

Think of Me. While steadfast eyes are horrified By the cruelties of life The

first glance of the silent setting sun I am comforting you Think of Me. Then

you ask: How will you know when you are near me? When pain becomes unbearable

You smile And you love Me. When I take from you Your most cherished possession

On the first loss of your sight Darkness envelops you And you love Me.. For

everything you see, hear, smell, taste or touch belongs to me. So how can you

give to me what I already am but your love? And that I gave to you before time

began as

your sole possession. When you return it to me, then you will know you are truly

mine and I will dissolve your sorrow and happiness into me. That.... being me, I

will place you in Bliss forever for I love you and think of you constantly. From

your most loving Father Sai Baba being both the Divine father and mother, the

creator and the preserver he is always with us sustaining our love for him. And

we love him because he first loved us. Thus, we come to the inevitable

conclusion that Sai love is many

a splendoured thing, which like a sunbeam gives life and energy to all. And like

a rainbow it is compounded of many colours. It has multiplex dimensions and can

be fully absorbed and assimilated if one is ready to receive it. Its sure and

most remarkable manifestation takes place only when the positive and negative

poles of electricity meet in unison. This analogy of the electric current has

been given by Sai Baba himself when he explained to Mr. R.K. Karanjia how the

miraculous cures, remote controlled surgical operations, rescue of the devotee

from drowning and other such critical situations overtake the devotees. The

effect of Sai love is exquisitely comforting and far‑reaching and its

limit is the sky itself. Baba's love is greater than the sum total of the love

of a thousand mothers. At the same time one cannot understand the magic and

alchemy of this love and its boundless transforming power unless one has

experienced it oneself. In this context, it may be fair to quote

here the statement of Professor V.K. Gokak. When questioned by the

representative of Movement Newspaper in America how living with Sai Baba so

closely for many a year has affected his own character and being, Professor

Gokak said: M.N.: I have heard you say that living so close to Baba you

sometimes can get 'burned'. To what does it refer? Gokak: It means that He is

all perfection. In that light around Him, no iota of untruth can survive. No

insincerity can have any place around Him. But we are imperfect; that is why we

are human. In our dealings with him we will try sometimes to impose that

imperfection on him without our knowledge. He is very sorry for us because

He knows that we are going to be burned...but if one understands what is

happening that it is the impurity that is being burned, and then one can

understand it all right. Plus, there is Baba's game ... While this is

happening; His love is still there ... It still flows to the person. This is

what saves and heals him ... You are on the top of a volcano ... As Baba has

been saying 'The nearer and dearer you are, the greater are your chances of

getting burned.' Professor Gokak has given a personal testament saying how

Sai wrought a miracle, bringing about a sea-change and transformation in his

emotional life. A poet that he is, Professor Gokak says that his personality

was an adamant rock that prevented the waters from flowing out. His

predominantly intellectual make‑up, spirit of detachment,

restraint, poise and central control of emotions prevented him from giving vent

to his feelings. He says that the living contact with Baba took him from the

arid desert of impersonality to the vast expanse of emotion. It seemed as

though Baba had cut a little of that adamant rock to allow the fertilising

waters of love to flow. That is what Baba did for him without his knowing it.

At this stage, the present author, who had known Professor Vinayak Krishna

Gokak for a number of years, nearly thirty years, can very well testify to the

change registered in the personality of the learned professor and an eminent

intellectual of the country. Having worked with him at the Indian Institute of

Advanced Study, Simla where Professor Gokak was the Director, and again at

Prashanthi Nilayam where he was the founder Vice Chancellor of Sri Sathya Sai

Institute of Higher Learning, the author had numerous occasions to perceive the

soft, tender, warm and affectionate nature of the late Professor.

Indeed, the gush of the fountain of love and jets of its energy came out

unhindered from the inner spring of his heart. Another reference and grateful

acknowledgement to Baba for bringing about a change in the nature and world-view

by the impact of Baba on his personality and character has been made by no less

a person than Dr. Samuel Sandweiss. He says in answer to the following

question: Question: Dr. Sandweiss, you described in your chapter on psychiatry

a new element that Sathya Sai Baba has added to your understanding of human

nature that of divine love. Can you tell us a little bit how that's affected

your work in the United

States? Answer: Baba's love touches us at such depth and with such intensity

that one can only describe it as omnipresent, unconditional, boundless, divine.

It is his greatest gift to us, a gift that transforms the devotee and I'm sure

will transform the world as well. My first experience of this love was so

profoundly moving that I saw in it the basic force, which supports and sustains

us all. Since then I have come to see my life's work as trying to purify my own

capacity to love, to express this love with those who come to me for help and

to help modem day psychotherapists come to know of this love that heals all

illnesses. ... Perhaps I can begin by describing

the impact and meaning of my first experience of Sai love. Throughout my

personal and professional life, I had been searching for peace of mind, how I

achieve this for myself and help with its achievement by others ... Although

many patients were brought through crisis and felt better emotionally; there

was still uncertainty, worry and unresolved sufferings in their lives. Still

unanswered were such basic spiritual questions as 'who am I in the vastness of

this infinite universe? Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? How

shall I lead it? I could see that Western psychiatry had no answer. Neither my

patients nor I had the deep sense of peace and protection in our lives that one

would hope to find a closer relationship with a loving, caring God. This may be

considered to be a very revealing, convincing and vital

statement of Sai love not only for its impact on the personal level, but also

for its therapeutic value. Dr. Sandweiss goes on to describe his feeling of

ecstasy and bliss on receiving the shaft of sunlight that Baba's love

indubitably is. He says: One evening after hearing Baba speak to his students I

retreated dejected and almost broken. I stood a great distance away from him,

many walls and many people separating us. I was in the moment of my greatest

pain, attracted by Baba's greatest vitality, love and sheer beauty yet wanting

to retreat ... I pictured myself being a penniless outcast ... As I stood,

steeped in this dark cloud of pain, I looked up to find the most precious,

tender healing light of love I had ever witnessed. Baba came directly to me,

smiling tenderly and playfully capturing me in the radiant light of

sheer bliss, which sparkled in his eyes. I was immediately immersed in his great

joy and happy beyond measure ... He reached out and gave me a small piece of

candy but the spiritual gift was immeasurable. What an immense revelation to

me; his understanding of another being deeper than anything I'd ever realized

before. In an instant he showed me he was nearer to me than my very breath,

that he actually resided in my heart, and, what's more, he responded to my

pain. He had waited for the moment when I would be ready to understand and

accept. In this tender, intimate act of compassion, I saw the glory of his

omniscience and omnipresence, the mighty transforming and healing power of his

unconditional love. And he wanted nothing in return. The personal experience of

Dr. Sandweiss is no longer personal; it is the externalization

of the innermost realization in the internal castle of the mind, the awareness

of a love that is truly like a boon and a blessing. It fertilizes the

groundswell of one's urges and apprehensions to soar highter and still higher

and to purify and expand one's love beyond self. Baba has said in his own

inimitable way: Love. Love alone can bind you to others and to God, who is the

embodiment of love. Love knows no fear, no anxiety, and no grief. I am love. I

shower love. - Sathya Sai Baba Perhaps, it may not be out of place at this

point, when the glory, the splendor and the majesty of Sai love, which is

mysterious, unique, infinite and unknowable, to relate some of

the deeply felt tremors of that love which this author has come to realize

during the moments of his calamitous torments and sufferings and how soothing,

sweet and comforting can this love be in which one gets fully immersed with the

whole soul alive and have a fair glimpse of divine love. The author would share

some of the contours and magic of Sai love and for this purpose a narration in

the first person may be necessary and desirable for the simple reason that only

within the texture of subjective presentation can the immediacy and urgency of

an intimate journal be properly communicated to others. Such an account may

fairly be described as a personal testament. I lived a, more or less, lucid,

calm and serene existence in my adolescence and early youth. I was noble and

idealistic and loved people as loving

were my innate and original impulse. I was full of the milk of human kindness.

Deeply attached to my family of parents, brothers and sisters, I was ever ready

to make the maximum sacrifice for them. An emotional and loving temperament was

my greatest acquisition and strength. This was at the source of my kinship with

people. Coupled with this, I was endowed with a creative imagination that

expressed itself in my creative writings in Hindi short stories, to be more

precise, and at a comparatively tender age while I was studying English

literature at the Bachelor and Master's level, I had the privilege of being

known all over the country in the field of Hindi fiction as a promising young

writer. My short stories appeared regularly in prestigious magazines and

periodicals of the country and general readers and critics took them note of

alike. By the time I graduated with honours in English literature and joined

the master's course as graduate student in the same subject, two

collections of my short stories had been published. And there was no turning

back; the sky seemed to me to be the limit. And then dame Fortune smiled on me

and I was awarded a teaching Fellowship of substantial value from an American

University and I spent nearly two and one‑half years at the university

and was awarded the degree of doctor of philosophy in English. My doctoral

dissertation on T.S. Eliot's later poetry was highly commended by the examiners

.... so much so that my major professor said that I was the best student he had

ever had. And another German Professor was simply lyrical in my praise. He gave

me a testimonial saying that 'Krishna is a poet, not the kind of poet who writes

verses. He is a poet who sees the simple in its inexorable complexity and the

complex in its tantalizing simplicity. He will be an eye and a voice to his

people. Whoever will be kind to Krishna will receive the blessings that come

from a noble mind and a beautiful soul. He is an honour to

his country and a source of pride for all men.' I experienced the warmth, love

and admiration of all my fellow students, teachers and the President of the

University, which filled me with ecstasy. I was truly on the crest of the wave.

Back in India, I was in for a phase of disaffection and disillusionment. I was

baptized in pain and suffering and even the Gods who love honest and sensitive

men put me on the wheel of fire. My efforts to get a good position in the

universities failed and I felt terribly sad and disconsolate. What was worse,

the very base of my life, my family posed many a problem for me. My only

daughter, Rashmee, showed symptoms of the terrible disease schizophrenia when

she was a teen-aged student in the high school and I

knew for the first time how unnerving and tragic the whole situation can be.

Life, then, became a blazing inferno, a cauldron of fire where I had to dance

in measure like a dancer. My very existence, safety and work were threatened,

for there was no knowing what would happen the next day. Rashmee was very

unwell. She raged and raved and it became increasingly difficult to contain her

or to keep her in the house. I took her to all the major psychiatric clinics and

sanatoriums of mental health, but there was absolutely no relief whatsoever, and

the tender plant that she was, withered and there was no end to the withering of

flowers. It was at this time that I sincerely prayed to some super power to

terminate the torment and save the life of my beloved daughter. At that time I

was serving as a Visiting Fellow at the All India Institute of Advanced Study,

Simla, where Professor V.K. Gokak was the Director. As he knew about my

problems, so he sincerely advised me to pray to Sai Baba. It

is he who can cure her. 'Look, Professor Sinha, yours is a difficult problem in

which none else but God can help. It is a dilemma, which I myself had gone

through. My daughter, too, had mental weakness. I kept her at home and had to

pay the price. I was away to the United Kingdom on a short-term assignment as

Visiting Professor at Leeds University. One morning when I was going to the

university to continue my lecture on Indo-English Literature, I got that

dreadful news through a cable from home. My crazed daughter, poor girl, had

jumped down the well in the compound of my house and had thus ended her life.

It was a tremendous shock but assuming that work is worship, I proceeded to the

university and somehow delivered my lecture with a broken heart. There is

nothing one can do but bear the onslaughts of outrageous fortune. The other

alternative, though it may sound extremely callous, even heartless, is to put

your daughter permanently in a lunatic asylum so that you can live in

peace. This is a pragmatic approach and perfectly logical and practical. But I

know it is easier said than done. Of course, Sai Baba can cure her by his

Grace. Why not take a chance? Professor Gokak whispered in a sibilant voice.

Courtesy: http://www.indiangyan.com/ With Sai love from Sai brothers

–‘’

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