What Is Baba's Mission

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What Is Baba's Mission By H. H. Sri Saipadananda Radhakrishna Swamiji

Mysticism denotes that attitude of mind which involves a direct

Immediate, intuitive apprehension of God. It signifies the highest

attitude of which man is capable, namely, a beatific contemplation of

God 'and its dissemination in the society and the world. - Gurudev

Ranade All roads lead to Rome. All paths margas lead to Sri Baba, Sri

Krishna, and Sri Rama are all divinely gifted or perfected souls and

expressions of divinity transforming every one who comes into contact

with their divine personality - especially those who are drawn through

Rinanubandha by their divinity and that are the purpose or mission of

their lives. So, Baba has not one mission, but a hundred missions.

Protecting the good (virtuous) punishing or reforming the wicked,

establishing Dharma (virtue) or its hold on the people, are the

functions of divine personalities and Baba was performing all these

functions. A mission may come in. as a part of these functions. Saints

expound all the margas and find which marga or combination of which

margas would suit each approaching devotee and give the same to him.

Thus Baba adopted every marga but in particular one may not that

predominance in his methods was neither for ritual nor for Vedic study,

but for living in consonance with the supreme manifestation of Divinity

in Him. His mission is to help every one; that means, of course, every

one capable of benefiting — not persons who come in an unreceptive

mood. Baba quoted occasionally his master's or Guru's behest that " as he

has received liberally from his master, he must similarly distribute

liberally amongst those that approached him. " Baba was distributing not

merely wealth, worldly relief and comforts but also spiritual blessings

to all and sundry those were capable of receiving those benefits. To us

Sai devotees, Baba is not only a teacher but a controller from within

the ever watching Guardian Angel. He regulated the lives of those who

wholly surrendered to him. While doing service incidentally the work of

conveying moral teachings was carried on by Baba and he gave occasional

talk about morality. `Behave properly,' 'Behave with integrity

and probity. Hurting others is sinful was the advice given by Baba to

Shama and Rao Sahib Galwanker which will suit us too. Baba expected

people to act us to this teaching. When a great saint lending a

perfectly pure life as a Samartha Sadguru and helping thousands that

came to him in the course of about half a century on their way to God is

to be described, his utterances are sure of ethics and spirituality and

it is neither possible nor desirable to make anything like an attempt to

give a fall account of his moral teachings - Baba's influencing devotees

was not and is not mainly by any sort of express teaching. He was

molding his children as he called his devotees, from inside and he used

not merely words but also his gaze, his touch and even his aura or the

will power to remove undesirable tendencies and influences and replace

them by useful and holy ones. Even today it is his inner working that

counts in the improvement and building up of the devotee. His presence,

his gaze, his touch had all their effect. Each of these had its own

peculiar effect as intended by Baba. Baba in many ways sowed seeds of

morals and spirituality in the hearts of those approaching him, and

some-times almost imperceptibly. Whenever he rendered any worldly help,

that help was accompanied by a spiritual seed sowing and the beneficiary

remembered Baba with faith, love and admiration for his power, guidance

and kindness. These thoughts were the seeds from which a huge tree of

faith would grow up later on and Baba who sowed the seeds mostly,

watered and manure his plant and in many a case, beginning with worldly

benefit, the devotee got on to higher and higher spiritual levels.

(Source Shri Sai Padananda April 1993)