Sai Ram

[Guest guest]

Sai Ram,

I had the good fortune of reading a book on Swami compiled with

stories and incidents that happened in the life of Swami’s mahila

devotees. The name of the book itself is Sri Sathya Sai Divine Path-

Mahila. I enjoyed reading the book, needless to say. The book had many

an eyeopener as do all books of and about Swami. Some of the quotes

really touched my heart and had a tremendous impact in my thinking.

 

Swami touches your life so subtly and changes it so gently that you

are not even aware that this has happened to you. One fine day when

you reflect you realize what you were and what you have become. Then

you wonder when did you change? When did you change for the better?

When did you became such a lovely person that you are?

 

I once read a book of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, in which he

emphasizes that to become good and happy you need to love yourself.

NEVER HATE YOURSELF. Swami has also been stating the same thing. When

Swami, the embodiment of divine love resides in our hearts can we hate

ourselves? If we hate ourselves are we not hating our Swami? How can

we ever hope to gain peace by hating our beloved Swami?

 

When we start changing I have seen people get transformed into

embodiments of the same love that Swami tells us to realize within

ourselves. Instead of wishing bad for the person who harms them, they

wish that the people who harm them should also get to realize Swami’s

love and do only good. Before their transformation, they would even

have cursed those people who harmed them or mentally told them to go

to hell. ‘Curses’ now become a prayer for the recipient, once the

transformation takes place and now the same people feel sad for the

bad ones and pray for their transformation too.

 

Anger gets replaced with love. Anguish gets replaced with prayer.

Hatred gets replaced with sympathy and understanding. Truth replaces

the urge to escape through falsehood.

 

The transformation is such that helping a mentally and spiritually

blind person through the right path becomes a natural and self

expected thing. Reaching out to a so called deaf (mentally and

spiritually) person who has stuffed cotton in his ears so well that

pus has started coming out and doing the simple act of removing the

cotton, thereby removing the pus that had started forming in his ears

or his life becomes an action of instinct and automation for the Sai

Bhakta. This enables the person to hear and throw out the pus out of

his or her life.

 

The transformed individual starts questioning the anger arising within

the self and before flaring out, the individual thinks whether there

is another way of dealing with the situation and in flaring out is he

or she doing so to boost their own egos? Mistakes are often

continuously made, but the difference is that all mistakes have a

lesson that is learnt by the devotee through self analysis and

reflection. The effort to accept what life gives as a result of one’s

past karmas becomes genuine. The effort to correct oneself in the

present pays. The ability to tolerate someone else’s mistakes

improves. The ability to give a genuine heart-felt and love-filled

smile to your worst enemy becomes a reality. The conscious effort to

point less at others soon becomes the ability to see only good in

others.

 

What is the peace that we are all consciously or unconsciously seeking

after all? It is not peace for our egos. It is peace for our souls. We

are all fortunate that we have the physical presence of our Swami, in

this era when we are conscious of our lives and physical self. The

peace that we seek is our presence at His divine lotus feet- it is a

treasure so clearly made visible to us. No matter how much one draws

out of this treasure from His infinity, there is no dearth to His love

and the treasure never gets exhausted.

 

People who donot realize this simple fact are really unfortunate. Our

transformation makes us pray for them through Bhajans, Gram Seva,

Satsanghs, Nagar Sankirtans, Relief works, Bal Vikas, Human values

programmes etc.., ALL THE WHILE HELPING OURSELVES, because the more we

get involved in these kinds of activities, the more we learn to love

ourselves.

 

Through these activities, we are stating the right without going into

the controversy of the wrong. Everyone gets the golden opportunity to

explore their selves even as we grow along with them. The example we

set in the society makes us so strong as we are reflecting Swami’s

ideals in our day to day behaviour and activities. Perhaps that is why

Swami’s children excel where ever they go. Perhaps that is why people

trust Sai Bhaktas and think twice before hurting them.

 

We know we are not perfect. We are all still learning and we will

continue learning till we breathe our last breath in this illusory

world. There will be times when we will falter but we know that Swami

will prod us to return to the right path. But as we learn along, the

intensity of the mistakes become lesser and lesser as we move on

forwards along the path of perfection.

 

 

--

laxmi