Sanathana Sarathi - Through the Years

June 21, 2007

It was February 16, 1958 when Bhagavan blessed the first few copies of The Sanathana Sarathi to be distributed freely to all present. Most Wonderfully after five decades while Sanathana Sarathi celebrates its golden jubilee, the Sun and the Moon are so aligned that Shivarathri fell on February 16 this year too. But why the name ‘Sanathana Sarathi’? Could it not have been ‘Divine Love’, ‘Sai Speaks”, “Unity to Divinity” or anything similar? And who christened it so? Prof. Kasturi, the Lord’s hand-picked mission-man and the first editor of this magazine, narrates a beautiful incident to put to rest all such often queried queue of questions. “I got the good news pretty quick; Baba had come to Bangalore . He was staying in Sri Vittal Rao's house on the 9th Cross Road , Wilson Gardens, only 5 minutes away from my residence, ‘Ashoka’ on the 12th Cross,” writes Prof. Kasturi in his biography, Loving God. “Knowing that there was a possibility of His coming to his place, I had tipped the dry cleaner, who attended to the washing and ironing of his door and window curtains, to inform me as soon as he delivered the wash to Vittal Rao. I had noticed that he had the curtains washed and ironed as part of house-cleaning, preliminary to Baba's visit. When the news leaked at last, I posted the little daughter of my domestic help on a slab of stone facing his house, with directions to keep watch for a big car and an orange robe. So within ten minutes of Baba's stepping into his house, Vittal Rao was amazed to find me on his verandah! “Wait! Wait!” he

pleaded. But Baba spotted me and came towards me with His palm ready to fall on my shoulder. “Now, you have to work at Puttaparthi”, he said. “A monthly magazine will start soon. Guess! How is it named?” He asked. I confessed I could not delve into His Will. Yet He drew out from my reluctance a few names. “The Godward Path”, “Karma Dharma ...”, “Premayoga.” He waved aside the titles I suggested and announced that he had decided to designate it as “Sanathana Sarathi!” Who else but the parents name the child, isn’t it? The “Sanathana Sarathi” is a product of His divine love, to share love and transform every being into a beacon of love, just as He is. It was epoch-making. Imagine God himself writing week after week! Imagine if we

had the Bhagavad Gita written by Lord Krishna Himself and not by a third party! Imagine having Lord Rama’s life story in His own hand-writing! For the first time, the Avatar acceded to document His message Himself. Perhaps, this is the best way the purity of His preaching could be preserved, and the destiny of mankind could be rewritten to save it from impending peril in the present Kali age. The very first article in the inaugural issue of Sanathana Sarathi was Bhagavan’s ‘Prema Vahini’, or the ‘Stream of Divine Love’. What else could it be, when Bhagavan has declared that if you ever want to give Me any appellation, call me “Premaswarupa or the Embodiment of love”, for

“Love is my form; Love is my instrument.” And each devotee’s life is a testimony to this unconditional all-encompassing love of Bhagavan. For twenty-five months till February 1960, Swami wonderfully penned for mankind the challenges and characteristics, norms and nuances of Divine love. Once and for all, Bhagavan settled the age-old controversy on the relative status of the three paths - Bhakti, Karma and Jnana (Devotion, Action and Knowledge) - that lead to God. He explained, "I do not agree that Bhakti, Karma and Jnana are separate. I do not place any one before the other, nor will I accept a mixture of the three. Karma is Bhakti; Bhakti is Jnana. A piece of candy has taste, weight and shape; the three cannot be separated. Each bit has

all the three; we do not find shape in one bit, weight in another and sweetness in the third. When the candy is placed on the tongue, the taste, the weight and the shape are simultaneously experienced. Similarly, Jnana, Karma and Bhakti may be truly experienced only as one whole." Karma is love in action, Jnana is love experienced and Bhakti is love universally shared. Thus, Baba dismissed in one stroke all disputations about the superiority of any one of these disciplines over the other. Swami chiselled and created the ideal editor out of Prof. Kasturi after bringing into existence the magazine a year ago. The Sarathi then was half the current size and bilingual with articles in English first and then in Telugu. The cover picture, a telling sketch of Krishna holding the reins of the galloping horses and directing Arjuna’s chariot, was in direct consonance with its name and mission. After the first anniversary, the cover pages portrayed beautiful sculptures of the earthly manifestations of the Lord through different ages, thus, covertly conveying the divine declaration of Lord Krishna - ‘Whenever there is a decline in Dharma and rise of wrong conduct, the Lord incarnates to save the pious, destroy the evil and restore righteousness.” And the inside pages overtly had a beautiful and benign image of the current and happening incarnation – the Sathya Sai Avatar. Swami wrote a Divinely Timeless Piece on Dharma in

February'1963 which read "Whoever subdues egotism, conquers selfish desires, destroys bestial feelings and impulses, and gives up the natural tendency to regard the body as the self that person is surely on the path of dharma,” Swami explained, and continued, “Such a person knows that the goal of dharma is the merging of the wave in the sea, the merging of the self in the Over-self. In all worldly activities, you should be careful not to offend propriety or the canons of good nature; you should not play false to the promptings of the inner voice; you should be prepared at all times to respect the appropriate dictates of conscience; you should watch your steps to see whether you are in someone else’s way; you must be ever vigilant to discover the truth behind all this scintillating variety. This is your entire duty, your dharma. The blazing fire of wisdom (jnana), which convinces you that all this is Brahman (God), will consume into ashes all traces of your egotism and worldly attachment. You must become intoxicated with the nectar of union with Brahman; that is the ultimate goal of dharma and of action (karma) inspired by dharma.” That is probably as comprehensive and complete, the meaning of dharma can get. And this is just one paragraph. Bhagavan wrote, in all, thirteen timeless pieces on this subject which ended in February 1963. ... to be continued

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