Jai Sai Ram
Sai ram to the reader. As the twin powers of the Lord's two avatars , from his bodies from Shiridi and Parthi keep oscillating in my mind , blessing me with a variety of poses, emotions , deep realizations ,one of those days it dawned upon me how the power of the parthi avatar of Swami has greatly transformed me so invisibly yet so emphatically. The Sai avatar may not have been exposed to the entire Earth, but to those who Swami decided to expose his luminous glow , only those who have been in its presence physically or spiritually know what a blessed shower of munificence it is , of the Gods , or perhaps God, the ultimate Paramathma . The same athmic power which swami repeatedly emphasized is in all of us, when he addressed us as "Divyathmaswaroopulara" . The love he bore for us, was so personalized, yet collective. It is only in the capacity of the level of Swami , a power of his caliber, that can make us all relate to him in one-on-one contexts, yet gather our united spiritual antennae when we hear the magic word Sathya sai or Swami , because the same electricity flowed through our flawed existences. He gives us visions, indications, gentle nudges that remind us how to connect with swami. He is there around us, over us, yet he is there with us holding our hands. Like a hand of hands.
This omkara swaroopa, ever since he knocked on the ignorant confines of my malformed intellect , has been working tirelessly in cleaning up the mess I had accumulated over my existence in these formative years of mine. Had I lived a better Life, a life of better decisions , I would have been granted a direct interview with him in his physical body but the force of the dirt I had relished putting all over me like a pig in mud, has made him bless me from a distance. I could sense someone or some power constantly looking out for me, in every step, every breath but I could rarely experience the Light with it's real intensity . I have no pride in saying I had made bad decisions over these years, decisions that gave me temporal sense of worthless transitory happiness . Sometimes, somebody was put in my life to partner with me in a bad decision, sometimes I voluntarily piled sand over my head. Yet , somehow, through the force of some good Karma on my charts, I kept in touch with God, Sai Baba , that time with his previous body as Shiridi Sai . My bhakthi was inconsistent . I used to have deep love some days , some days I used to switch of the vision of my Guru looking at me and engage in a vile act like he never existed. What shameless guts I had, to come and stand in front of his picture the next day , when I had taken a bad decision. You might wonder , what is this "bad decision" that I keep referring. To put it in simple terms, any decision that one takes, that makes him forget or not think of his Guru aka God, any decision that a person takes with the intention of seeking some gains out of it, which is not selfless, which does not remind him/ her of their blessings , every time you get immeresed in the illusionary sense of "ego" , or the "I" principle, not realizing that through thick and thin ,God or Guru is mixed with our Life force is a poor decision.
I realized , how gently yet persuasively Swami had taken control of my ignorant existence as he couldn't see someone throw away their Life, when by his own grace they had the name of 'Sai' on their Lips. To reiterate, I sometimes feel , I went through what I went through , the bad phase, the poor decision phase, as a result of my own bad karma yet by the power of my own good karma and his grace , my lips bothered to chant 'Sai ram , Sai ram.' One of those days when I began to realize the presence of Swami in my life, I was down in the cafeteria of the Hotel where I was staying in the USA . They served drinks every monday though wednesday every week as a Hotel tradition. Drinking is as normal as swimming there, in their way of life, unlike the way it is Hyped here in India. Anyway, I was strolling through that day's menu , when my eyes caught the bottles kept in ice racks and people nonchalantly grabbing a bottle or two once in a while. I went near - this was the power of my bad karma. I was about to take make a bad decision. Yet, through some invisible force, I was stopped midway . Like some kind of Internal me inside me, that pulled me back - this was my conscience, my good karma . In other words, swami himself. It was not a vehement rejection of wine. It was an informed decision taken in a state of good mental equilibrium, with no regrets or force. Just how gently but cautiously a mighty elephant avoids trampling over a sleeping house cat. I was reminded of Swami's word play in some of his discourses where he talks about "divine, deep wine" . Things continued to control me like this. What gave me delight was , every time I corrected my impulse from making a poor decision, I was able to relate to one of Swami's many discourses , some strong statements or popular jokes he cracked with the intention of making us get the message in a way we ignorant creatures understood.
Some nights, I used to get a glimpse of Swami in my dreams, I used to try to understand the meaning of the vision , but I soon give up the attempt when I get distracted into thinking with joy that "swami came in my dream". As days passed , through his own grace, Swami made me to be in touch with him through his private personalized instructions for me. The light of Swami grew in me. I increasingly became conscious of my imperfections. The light dawned in me , inside me, on me, that made me realize how misshapen things where there in my mansion, which I thought were perfect. Every word , before I uttered, went through a filter in my conscience "Will this please swami, Is this Sai Approved, Will Swami approve off this" . My mind did this filtering in the few milliseconds before my proud tongue started tickling my throat to conjure up words out of my being. Every action I was about to do, went through a similar screening. One of the important changes in me, among other personal ones was in the way how I began to see my parents, the way I treated them , the manner in which I spoke to them . Not that I was a bad child , but beyond my belief that I was a good son to my parents , Swami brought to light the areas of improvements that began to improve my relationship with my parents. See, that's the beauty of being a Sai devotee. It is not just correction of bad to good that happens, but good to better as well ,and so on. You tend to be a better version of yourself and it is an evolving continuous ceaseless process.
I used to hopelessly yet earnestly look at the various swami pictures, wall hangings that I artfully created out of Love for seeing Swami , to see if there was some Udi manifestation. I am still such a child, but the desire to validate if Swami still loved me, If swami is still there around me unfortunately looks up for tangible proofs like these, when the actual magic is happening within me in an intangible manner, without me noticing. One of these days, it is going to happen. Swami will manifest and materialize things that will make me understand how much he loves me, how I should love him even more . But that's not the goal . So what happens next ? One day udi comes in one of the pictures. Does that mean, I reached the mountain top as a Sai devotee? Does that mean ,I am liberated ? I leave it to your judgement . Swami's love for me, you and all of us is an ever happening process, and when Swami feels that we have served our time and purpose, he absorbs us into his energy like air mixes with air , like water molecules mix with each other . Until then, we have to consciously make an effort to singularly point all our actions, thoughts, words, all of our prana towards the avataric shakthi , the sarva shakthi rupa , the bhaktha hrudayavasa , Sai Narayana and allow him to do his work on us as he wills. In simple words , like one of those videos where one Sai brother puts it, we must simply Surrender and Shut up.
Samasthalokah Sukhino Bhavanthu
