JaiSaiRam !
Swami , in many of his discourses pulls out strands of pearls from the Song of God, more popularly known as the "Bhagavad Gita" . The essence of this gem of a book , is so vast ,& deep so much so that , unless for the self-realized one , no body will do 100% justice to translating the meaning to get to the most simplest men that walked the grounds of earth. Only when we , as human beings as a race realized the what-how of things , we can then help the other living beings on earth , flora and fauna included. The ultimate goal is to transform all of us , everything around us , into reflections of the super divine , and none of the casings around us ,the bodies, the exterior , is true but well engineered Illusion by Maya herself. He often reminds us
"Anor Aniyan Mahato Mahiyan - He is greater than the greatest and smaller than the smallest ..." ,
Sentences like these make us wonder about ourselves, who we really are , are we really who we think we are ,is god just what we think we are. In the already chaotic world we live in, when one begins this quest for self discovery , the wave of thoughts is one tough wave to surf on. This sudden proclamation , the shocking unlearning of the things , that we thought had nothing more than how much we knew about it already, causes serious shock to the mental psyche and puts us in a trance . When we are in this state, swami, comes rushing, opens the door and sits in the chair waiting for us to catch hold of that feet and say "It's you from now on. I have no clue, oh Srinivasa , oh Parameshwara, oh ParaBhrama" .
My own association with swami started on a dramatic note, Swami sometimes like to have some fun, he likes to make a cinematic entrance in our lives, for we as humans respond to those things better. Rare and Blessed are those, who on their own accord realize the enormity of the divinity ,of swami and begin to work on their life keeping Swami in the middle. Like in the Mahabharatha, where Swami , in the Krishna avatar , played the role of Arjuna's charioteer , in the catastrophic War of the millenium even in this Kali yuga, Swami has been making inroads into our lives silently, when we least expect him to come, and help us understand that the only way OUT , is by going IN. Swami is still the "Kali Yuga Manava Sarathy", or the charioteer of the human hearts in the Kali age.
People and elders often express disdain saying , only evil , vile , injustice , lies , untruth and all things bad take center stage in kali age and God doesn't come in Kali age. The happenings around us, largely convince us, that even the Gods will think twice to place a toe here amidst all the dirt. But , is that true ? Did we forget, Maha Periyava , The Shankaracharyas , The Yukteshwars , Raghavendra Swamiji , Ramana Maharishi etc ? Each one these stalwarts, are indeed reflections of the Divine . They knew none of this was real and adopted a way of living , that taught us how to be on the "highway to heaven" . Otherwise, we keep making stops at each and every sense-pull , making detours, falling down, getting lost, unless due to our fortune or sheer divine mercy , some guide comes along in the form of an Avatar and processes our existence, and reorients us in the path , the ONLY path that matters. The pathetic thing here is, we are so caught up with our luggage, our own so called Goals, Destinations, co-passengers, that we turn a blind eye to the fact that we came alone, we are supposed to leave this temporal existence and steadfastly , singularly travel in our chosen paths(religions) towards the Source of Divine that pulls us towards the Almighty. We are so convinced that, what we see is what is ALL there, and the unseen is but illusion , when ironically it is the vice versa. The unseen Divine light, remains unseen until we make a desperate attempt, an urgent plea to wake up from ignorance, to avert our eyes from the sleep , as what we see or hear or feel , happens with our eyes closed. Our eyes , even with the shutters down, have a superb theater , the movies of which keep us engaged. Some of us watch the good ones, some of us doze off, some of us watch the bad ones. But , our eyes are still closed. Only when an avalanche of an avatar comes to our help, gives us a nudge, carefully to not shock us , but at the same time capture our attention, we cease travelling further towards these unreal destinations with our eyes closed. One must ever be vigilant to what they see, hear and do , like swami's pose here.
If we ourselves don't record what kind of a person we are, then we keep ignoring the conscience and do actions and think thoughts that are but baseless and shallow. Swami, in his presence , when he walked and lived with us , in the body, gave darshan to millions. Why we called it Darshan ? Simply put, it means "sight" . What were we blind before ? Didn't we 'SEE' things earlier ? With the aforementioned explanation, does it now make sense for you , why it was called Darshan or the "Actual vision, Sight " that mattered in reality ? He was walking with us, making us watch him, see him, with all the senses directed at him, touching his feet, smiling and crying in bliss, smelling his lotus presence, capturing his physical form as much as the eyes can swallow , for we missed this. We had been missing this like a fish out of water, but we didn't realize it. The moment, we tasted his enigmatic presence, none of anything what we were , doesn't amount to anything. In swami's words "I challenge you and tempt you everyday with your past, so that you may see that the past is ultimate delusion". Personally too, I can attest to this. I had a big baggage of bad thoughts, evil desires which I secretly relished like a Pig eating Filth , but neither did I know that I was relishing discard and I was a Pig. But, the graceful almighty , the man with a heart as soft as wax , didn't even care for his own purity, he came through the mud ,the dirty mud where I was hopelessly wrestling , with other pigs, caught me by the ear , dragged me out , gave me a bath, fed me the actual nectarine food, and made me see what I had been doing all this while, and What I should be doing from now on. The previous sentence is as real , as I can put forth, the story of my Life. Swami made me human again , only to again work with me, that I am not just human, but indeed Divinity in Human casing. Do we now realize how much help we need?
The moment, we had our senses washed and cleansed in the detergent called Sai Baba, all we want is HIM, while he proceeds to help the others in queue, those like us who have no clue what they are doing and what's about to happen. While he "appears" to move away from us, to help others, we again become naive babies, while we start crying for his attention and don't want him to move away from us, for just we got a taste of what divine love is. Looking at our baby like innocence, all he can do is get into peals of laughter, like this
when in reality he never left us . Just like God made copies oh himself and created humans, Swami makes copies of himself all around the globe , giving his personalized attention to our cases, and we don't realize our own "self-appointed" swami, but we begin to yearn for the swami's copy that "appears" to move away from us. He enjoys this yearning , because, again this is a test. Whether we pay attention to swami, whether we still are in the same track that he showed us, whether we still continue to represent the ideals that he recently reminded us. The moment, we assume swami moved on and we end up getting caught in the same quicksand that swami removed us from , one never knows when we will get the next chance to be saved. But, on the contrary, when we abide by our new found virtues and ethics, when we continue to groom our dharma, swami continues to bless us, by our side by giving visions in dreams, by pulling in people , who also have their own swami's partnering them, while the swami with us talks with the swami of the other person. The swami with us does all the talking with the swami's with other people ,as long as we imagine, we are different from swami. The moment, the force of our Karma, the good deeds, the strength of our divine grace reached its peak, we ourselves become Swami himself we will notice we are no longer standing, but we are "existing" . Like the light in the Sun, like the water in the clouds, like the whiteness of the moon, we simply exist in divine company and we cease to DO anything. We Simply Be. To reach this state , it all starts from having the good fortune , to first realize that we have our own swami with us and all that binds us with him is pure selfless faultless doubtless singular love, from "heart to heart" like swami says often. "I want heart to heart connection , love to love. I don't want anything else from you. " . Ever since Swami , silently goes invisible, he still stays with us, beside us,with us,within us, around us, before and after us, above and below us, Swami exists with us, as long as we continue to foster and groom the Love-to-Love connection from ourselves to Swami . That is the magnet that binds us with him. If we start accumulating bad things again, if we fail to realize the swami in others, slowly this magnetism begins to erode and Swami alone decides when he will give us the next opportunity for this soul-cleansing. This is the reason why swami emphasizes that, our conscience is the actual Chithragupta, the recorder of each and every deed and thought we fathom. The moment we realize Swami's presence with us, our thoughts and actions get transformed , cleansed , for the better. Even during struggles , we don't feel the pain, the pang of the sorrow, for we hold onto swami's hands tightly, and he makes it easy. Sometimes, he raises his hands to prevent a blow from hitting us, even IF it was destined to hit us. But, to warrant such a blessing, one must work real hard to win his grace. No one can fool Swami. The goal is to not escape from all our punishments, for Karmic Laws are meant to be experienced. BUT they can be waived, if we lose the connection that WE did the karma, WE sinned, WE did that good deed, WE did the right thing. As long as we see our identity in everything we do, we experience the good and the bad. But if we erase of the WE/I from them, they no longer exist, you don't expect the karma good or bad to return at you like a Frisbee, as Swami would have already absorbed it for us, while we attempt to merge and get absorbed into Swami himself.
SamasthaLokah Sukhino Bhavanthu
