My experience as a sai youth

[Guest guest]

EXPERIENCES OF SAI YOUTH

 

 

Om Sai Ram,

 

Pranams at the lotus feet of beloved sai baghwan.

 

 

 

Respected sai sisters and brothers I'm elated and thankful to baba

for having given me the chance to attend the sadhana camp (youth

conference).I would like to share my precious experiences of these 3

days with you all as a sai youth from kerala. It was a 3 day program

started on 19th and ended on 21st.

 

 

 

DAY I -19/05/06

 

The camp was held at brindavan in the kalyan mandapam.

 

The topic of the camp was "SAI GLORY INDIVIDUAL & SOCIAL

TRANSFORMATION".

 

First speaker of the camp was Sri Narasimhamoorthy the warden of Sri

Sathya Sai boy's hostel, brindavan. He started his speech by saying

"Ladies are more devoted than men" with an example that happened

to vylar gangadhar shetty. It goes like this "A truck that went out

of control hit his gates and his gate flew defying the laws of physics

(the gate went in different direction and not in a normal direction)by

which the cars that were parked nearby were saved. His watchman was also

saved as just 2 mins back his daughter-in-law had called the watchman

who usually sits nearby the gate" in this incident baba praised the

bhakthi of the daughter-in-law and did not mention anything about his

son. He also gave another example in which not only bakthi of women is

shown but also baba's godliness is depicted. "Baba once gave lot

of gold ornaments to the lady who cooks for baba she said swami I have

grown old now of what use are these gold. When time comes I have to go.

When she thus said swami replied when the time comes I myself will come

and take you." Then the warden sir went on to explain "what is

meant by God coming down to earth. He explained it is actually jeeva

pragna i.e. individual consciousness and daiva pragna that is divine

consciousness. Baba says "both these are in me, but I'm not in

them". To understand this we have to reach an higher level. He says

"when I think I am saibaba it is jeeva pragna and when I think I am

I it is deva pragna. The warden sir also mentions the last words of

swami Vivekananda "India is immortal if she continues the search for

god and it'll perish if Indians are behind political and social

conflict." Sir also said that 2 persons responsible for placing

plain of Indian culture are sadhu and sadhwi. He mentioned the

importance of mother and motherland by quoting these words of bhagawan

Sri Ram "even if lanka is made of gold it doesn't make me happy

because mother and motherland are bigger than heaven!" Swami says

"I am what others believe me to be". He gave us many of his

experiences one will relate one. Once on a telengu New Year (April 5th

2000) warden sir was not able to sleep as he had to do decorate the hall

and next day he got terrible back pain but he somehow managed to go for

darshan. The following day he was not able to get up from the bed. He

sent a word with a student telling that he won't be able to come for

darshan as he was suffering from back pain. Like that he lied on the bed

for some days waiting for baba to come and when he didn't see any

sign of baba day after day he felt bad. Suddenly one day a lot of

commotion was being made by the students and he heard them calling out

baba is coming. Hearing this news he became happy, jumped out of his bed

and when he opened the door baba was standing there and seeing him in

such a healthy condition baba commented "there is nothing wrong with

you, were you trying to fool me?" and smiled. Thus his terrible back

pain vanished. Warden sir ended his speech by these words "India

didn't go in search of god but god came in search of India in the

form of sai baba".

 

 

 

The Second Speaker Was Dr.Narendera Reddy

 

He begins by explaining "that day is a holy day when you listen to

lord's saying." He says our purpose is to realize innate

divinity and manifest it." The 2 points to be followed

 

i)Love for God he explains this point by saying

 

Bring love for god just like love of a mother for her children, chaste

woman for her husband. Intense yearning for god

 

ii)Follow his Commands

 

He defines bhakthi as love for god not affected by good or bad. Always

being calm and cheerful and not having separation with god is bhakthi

 

The A,B,C applied for bhakthi is

 

Contentness, Cheerfulness, Radiating joy to others. This is bhakthi

being one with god. He gave the full form of SAI

 

S—Swami First

 

A— All others last

 

I— Follow my commands Immediately, instantaneously, Implicitly,

completely

 

EG:- baba once told Sinclair not to fly again and Sinclair tore off his

pilot ID and gave off the 5 planes that he possessed. Mr. Reddy quotes

Vivekananda words on service "while doing service kneel at the

person who you are serving". Fruit of love is service. The quality

of service is important and not quantity of work. He says you should

have harmonies of heart, word and action. See god in everything and

everywhere, what all exist is god.

 

 

 

Third speaker was Dr. T. Ravikumar. He differentiated between

information and transformation. He said information is for head i.e. who

are you? And transformation for heart i.e. who am I? I would like to

share on of the experience that happened to a junior of Mr.Ravikumar

when he was a student. "Once this boy thought that he wants to

transform himself by seeing and experiencing swami's love. This boy

wrote a letter consisting of all his bad habits asking swami to

transform him, he also wrote to give a clue that swami have accepted his

letter (request) and posted it to swami. One day to this boys surprise

his father came to see him in an angry mood when enquired the father

said swami had called me and told me about the letter you sent him.

Listening to this the boy thought swami betrayed him when he confided in

swami and was waiting for the after effects from his father. The father

continued scolding him asking is this the way to write a letter to

swami? What have you written there is no salt in chutney! Hearing this,

the boy's breath came to normal and he was elated as he understood

that this was a sign from swami that swami has accepted his letter."

Mr. Ravikumar narrates once Asian development bank checked on baba's

water project and was surprised and impressed to see such a big project

completed within 11/2 yrs. But baba says his most sophisticated and

toughest job was completed in just 9 months which is creating human

beings. Baba's greatest miracle is man. He narrates one of his other

experiences in which baba shows he has time for every one of us

"Once when baba was giving them darshan, he suddenly stopped near a

boy who at that time was studying in first standard. This boy said

something in baba's ear and suddenly baba went into his room and

came to the balcony with one of his robe, called this boy and gave him

this robe. The boy had actually asked baba in his ear for one of his

robe. He ends by giving us this important message "Glorious times

god has come and it is for us to transform into him". Like this the

morning session of camp ended.

 

 

 

In the evening darsan Madhu Balakrishnan was blessed by an emerald ring

created by baba at that moment for him.

 

DAY II -20/05/06

 

 

 

The 2nd days morning session was started by Dr.Deepak anand. He started

his speech explaining about the objectives of life. He quoted Sri

Aurbindo "an aimless life is a miserable life". He said there

should be good and humble aims in life like that of 2 little stones

which originated from one mother cannot be differentiated in molecular

form but as the years passed one absorbed light without returning and

turned into charcoal and the other reflected the light and came to be

known as the diamond. To attain peace one have to merge in peace and

happiness and it can only be attained by following the paths of sathya,

dharma and ahimsa. Destroy the fear in one self as fear leads to asathya

which leads to agitation and in turn lead to Ashanti. Similarly adharma

leads to anti-peace. One should do what he/she is supposed to do and

don't do what one is not supposed to do. Do your duties, with every

duty comes responsibility, not doing your duty leads to adharma. When

one keeps the feeling of himsa is in thought, word and deed it burns a

person's life into ashes as it destroys peace. One can attain peace

by forgiveness. Person who is selfless, consistent and has a purposeful

goal (feeling of unity with god) is a real tapasvi. If one takes all the

water of desires, sins etc. to the sunflower (baghawan) and pour water

at its root (surrender). He or she will get back the water in the form

of oil (peace, bliss, happiness) from the seeds. Everything that one

does should be seen as a task for god. Steps to attain peace (i) take

desires to baba, offer everything to baba.

 

(ii) Focus on divinity, offer whatever you to baba

 

(iii) Surrender negative vibrations.

 

Dr.Deepak anand ended his speech by a small example

 

"Once when baba visited hrishikesh, he went into a monastery and

asked who is the highest priest to the assembled saints in there and

those saints looked at each other and baba himself gave the answer. He

said the highest priest is mother Ganga as she has only one aim i.e. to

merge with the ocean." Hence our goal of life should be to merge

with the infinite.

 

 

 

The second speaker was Prof. Rangarajan. He made us understand the value

of PN cycle-prasadam-naivedyam cycle. He explained that body and the

great gifts (skills/talents) are the prasadam given to us by god and it

is our duty to offer these prasadam back in the form of naivedyam. There

are two negative qualities that prevent us from offering naivedyam, they

are greed and selfishness. Try to find the skill that has been given us

in the form of prasadam and use it to serve others. Life is meant to be

given for the welfare for others but by earning. We have to earn for

living but with that we have to draw a line, which many of us don't

know. He gives the example of swami's life. "Swami is always

concerned about others but not even once about himself. Baba once called

all the faculty members (consisted of about 50 to 60 people) into the

bhajan hall for a private meeting. There they for the first time saw

baba choking and tears out of his eyes. Baba showed the people present

there a newspaper clipping which showed a poor mother as she wasn't

able to feed her children. She poisoned her children and she herself

entered the mouth of death and hence in the year 2000 concept of grama

seva began." Once a young boy wanted to do some service for baba in

1990 when super specialty hospital was coming up. This boy got an idea

and started washing his own cloth thus saving the money that he would

have to pay to the washer otherwise and collected 100 Rs and went for

darshan. Baba to everybody's astonishment came rushing out of the

interview room and went straight to this boy and took the envelope from

the boy and started praising him and from the envelope took the 100 Rs

note. Baba says all our capabilities should be given to do service of

others. We should not loose the opportunities that we get to do service.

Opportunity in baghwan's view. `After the water project the

entire village heads came to thank baba. At those times baba used to

walk, he went near them and said "I must thank you for giving me an

opportunity to help".' This is baba's humbleness and

greatness. Prof. Rangarajan explains the essence of karma yoga (doing

service well) will be followed by bakthi yoga. Baba says the problem

with bharath is that a person does work only for money and without money

no work will be done by anyone. Perfection of naivedyam can be attained

when one does service thinking it for himself. This thinking slowly

changes to doing everything for swami.

 

 

 

The 3rd speaker was Sanjay Sahania (principal of brindavan campus).He

gave the meaning of the letters SAI, S-spiritual change, A-association

change, I-individual change. Swami says his focus is on lok kalyanam.

All the people in the world are patients. They are suffering from bhava

roga and to overcome this bhava roga first have pills of sai chintam

then follow diet control i.e. i) talk less (shut your mouth and open

your heart) and make minimum connections. He narrates the experience of

a student studying in brindavan. "Once during evening bhajan's

baba was not present there. After the bhajan ended a boy came with red

shot eyes. The boy was crest fallen so to avoid commotion principal took

him to the private room. When the principal asked what happened and the

boy said he saw swami standing near the pillar. The principal was

surprised seeing baba usually everybody becomes happy. The boy continued

he saw baba crying, baba asked him how many times I have told you to

keep quite. (Boy was talking during bhajan) and seeing baba cry he also

cried. He asked the principal what he should do to see baba happy again.

The told the principal he is going to take moana vrdha.Principal said

impossible as in class when teachers ask question how can he keep quite.

Principal advised him not to talk for 15 mins in the morning. After a

few days the boy met the principal this time happy and told him that

when he followed the words of principal baba appeared the next day with

a smiling face. The true sai students are those who follow his orders

and teachings.

 

 

 

The next session was conducted that day evening as we had only little

time. Sri Radhakrishnan of Shankaracharya University rendered to us a

speech in Malayalam. He gave a speech on goal and path to attain it. He

said the goal of every being is happiness. By leading the wrong path one

does not acquire the real happiness. He added self confidence is

important to win the war against wrong deeds and to follow right path.

 

 

 

The next speaker was Dr. Ramachandran Nair ,Vice chancellor,University

of kerala.He told us cultivate the aim of life in us from now onwards

and to work for it. He said it is time for to open our indrias and find

baba in ourselves.

 

 

 

DAY III - 21/05/06

 

 

 

The first speech was rendered to us by Mr.Thakkapa, state president of

Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organizations. He quoted baba "To get human

birth is the biggest boon". He told us that the purpose of human

birth is not be born again. We have to understand baba is an avatar and

we should have total faith, devotion and surrender in baba. He says

participate in sathya sai seva organization is the biggest sadhana. Our

goal is to achieve to become ideal and become successful by implementing

swami's advice

 

 

 

The 2nd speech was rendered to us by Sri Narasimhamoorthy. He advised us

to practice what we learn intellectually. He says the one who learns the

meaning of word love is a scholar. One doesn't get experience by

Vedas, tapas and sacrifice. It is only achieved by true devotion. One

can only unite with god by intense love for him. By experiencing true

devotion one becomes content in life; he gets siddha and amrita in life.

When the mind merges in swami, one gets intoxicated by that love and

finds joy within him. i) Look back be grateful to god;

 

ii) Look ahead trust god; iii) Look around serve god; iv) Look

within see god.

 

One do not get god by brilliant brain, speech, listening to lectures.

God will be found by those who aspire for god and god alone. Swami says

philosophy is full loss.

 

 

 

The 3rd speech was rendered by Sri Sanjay Mahalingam. He explains what

opportunity is and its different types. He says opportunity to find

fulfillment in life, opportunity to see god in own hearts, opportunity

to feel intense love for god and to feel one with him. All that prevents

one from attaining moksha is attachment. The word moksha means moha

kshya. He says to prepare ourselves i.e. body and mind to understand

higher truths of life. "Follow heart as heart doesn't reason

instead heart inspires". Have one focus i.e. to find god which is

our goal. Focus should be single minded (pointed). Loka vasanam i.e.

attachment to what others think, say, feel. Baba says "mind your own

business I am guiding and guarding you, march on." Please god be

valiant and march forwards. Shaastrasanam is important as long as it

inspires. Dehavasanam i.e. too much attachment to body. Once ashta

chakra (a person with many deformities on the body) went to the kingdom

of janaka. The scholars seeing him laughed, ashta chakra too laughed

with them. Seeing this, the king was surprised and asked ashta chakra

"why are you laughing?" Ashta chakra answered "I am laughing

at your plight in between cobblers"

 

 

 

Thus ended the 3 day camp. During the evening darshan baba came down the

dais and gave darshan to all the youth present in there. In the

men's side baba blew the vibhuthi onto the faces of some and to some

gave in their hand. In ladies side too baba gave vibhuti in their hands

and took letters from them.