SADHANA and GURU

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SADHANA

- GURU

(Sai's Former Guru's Mahima)

175. Baba himself described how he met his

guru: Once myself and three others were studying our Pothi, Puran and other works and

discussed how we were to get realisation.

One said we should depend on ourselves (and

not on a guru) for Gita says raise your self.

A second said the main thing is to make the

mind self-controlled, free from thoughts and doubts. It is we who are in

everything, everywhere.

A Third.: The form

(i.e. in phenomena) is ever changing. The formless is unchanging. So we must

always be making Vichara i.e., distinguishing between

Nitya and Anitya.

The fourth (S.B.) disliked

bookish knowledge, " Let is do our prescribed duty, " he said,

" and surrender our body, speech and life to a guru, who is all

pervading. Faith in him is

the thing needful.

As we rambled through the forest, we met a Vanajari (a caste that carried salt, grain etc.) who asked

us " where are you going in this heat into the forest? " We gave no

direct reply. He kindly warned us from getting into the trackless

woods—and that needlessly. He bade us share his food.

We disdained his advice and marched on.

But in that vast and dense wood, we lost our

way

That man met us again and said that by relying

on our own cleverness, we had got into a wrong way and that a guiding finger is

needed to show the way. " Do not despise offers of food. Such offers ate

auspicious signs of success in one's endeavor, " he said and he again

invited us to take food with him. Again we declined it and went away. I soon

felt hungry and I went and accepted a bit of bread and ate it and drank some

water.

The Guru came then and said, " What was your dispute? " and I told him

all our talk. The

others left him and did not care for him. But I reverently bowed to him. Then he took me to a well

tied up my legs with a rope, and

suspended me,

head downwards, from a tree by a side of the well. My

head was about three feet off the water, which I

could not reach. And my guru left me there and went away-God knows where. He returned after 4 or 5 hours

and asked me how I fared. " In great

bliss was my time passed " -! answered. The Guru, mightily pleased with me,

drew me near him, passed his palm over my head and body and spoke to me tender words dripping with love,

and he put me into his school -where I entirely forgot my father and mother and

all attachments and desires.

I loved to gaze at him. If

he were not there to see. I would not like to have eyes at all. I did

not wish to go back. I forgot all other things but the Guru. My life was

concentrated in my sight and my sight in him. That was the object of my

meditation. In silence, I bowed.

Meaning i.e.,

Realisation flashed upon me, of itself

without effort or study-purely by his grace.

Guru's grace is our only sadhana. JNANA comes as experience (or in its wake).

 

(Source Sai Baba Charters and Sayings)

http://www.saileelas.org/books/babasayings.htm