BABA'S ELEVEN SAYINGS
1. Whoever puts his feet on Shirdi soil, his sufferings would come to an end.
2. The wretched and miserable would rise into plenty of joy ant happiness as soon as they climb the steps of my mosque.
3. I shall be ever active and vigorous even after leaving this earthly body.
4. My tomb shall bless and look to the needs of my devotees.
5. I shall be active and vigorous even from the tomb.
6. My mortal remains would speak from the tomb.
7. I am ever living, to help and guide all, who come to me, who surrender to me and who seek refuge in me.
8. If you look to me, I look to you.
9. If you cast your burden on me, I shall surely bear it.
10. If you seek my advice and help, it shall be given to you at o
11. There shall be no want in the house of my devotees.
SAIPADANANDA
"True test to find out how much we have neared God is to find out how much of hatred we have conquered"
- Sri Radhakrishna Swamiji
CONTENTS
Editorial
What is Brahman?
Guru Poornima
Power of Guru
A Divine Message
Guru's Grace
B.V.N. - A Sai Dynamo
The great lesson from B.V.N.
The Unknown Secret
Open Letter to Swamiji
Radha-Krishna Way of Devotion
Sai-nama in Crores
Unique Incarnation
With Swamiji to Hysodlour
Sabake Malik Eke Hai
Swamiji's Birthday
Apostle of Love Saint Saipadananda
This book by Sri Rangaswami Parthasarathi, Retd. Asst. Editor of "The Hindu'', gives an interesting, illuminative and lucid account of the divine attributes of H.H. Sri Radhakrishna Swamiji, founder of Sri Sai Spiritual Centre, and how he endeared himself as mother, father, guru and god to his numerous devotees, as also the personal experiences of his innumerable devotees, both during his lifetime and even after his attaining Mahasamadhi. It is a unique compendium of Sai faith and a treasure house of spiritual guidance and deserves to be studied and preserved by every devotee of Sai Baba.
Editorial
Saipadananda Sadguru
Realisation of God is possible only through a Guru. To develop inwardly, to attain divinity, and to arrive at the state of Sai Baba, a guide is absolutely necessary - a Sadguru who knows the truth perfectly, who has spiritual power. The Guru is more necessary than a friend, a son, a relative or a wife, more necessary than wealth, machinery, art or music. Guru bestows the ecstasy of knowledge in action and the joy of divine love, who teaches detachment in action and grants liberation in this very life-time. We are reminded of a parable in Sai Satcharitra, where Sai Baba has narrated the search for a Guru. Armed with Vedic knowledge and confident of having understood 'Brahman' four seekers went on their quest for a Guru, lose their way and ultimately feel the need for a Guide. But three out of them fail to recognize the Guru when he appears as a tribesman. But Sai Baba who submits himself to this Guru reaps the benefit.
Guru lives in great secrecy and his glory is not of an ordinary kind. Therefore, it is not surprising that the appearance of Guru should be deceptive. After telling us how easily one can fail to recognize the Guru, how humility and self-surrender are the only means of reaching him, Sai Baba proceeds to tell us how difficult it is to pass the difficult tests to which the Sadguru may put you in order to try your faith and patience. In fact Baba himself was suspended with a rope from the branch of a tree head-downwards over the water of a well. So staunch was Baba's faith, this ordeal was no ordeal at all. All that his Guru required of him was faith, and patience and this test he was able to pass without difficulty. To meet your Sadguru in this life-time requires good fortune, good luck which you must have earned through good deeds in previous births. We are really fortunate that in H. H. Saipadananda Radhakrishna Swamiji we have found a supremely divine Guru, Swamiji would grant the experience of paradise to his devotees in their own homes. Through his grace alone, initiating devotees into 'Vishnu Sahasra Namam', he made them perceive knowledge and showed them Sai Baba, the Lord of the Universe. His teaching to men and women was: “Look upon each other as Sai Baba". Though a Yogi of great skill, he lived in a simple and ordinary way. He always lived in a thought-free state, as if his mind itself had become pure Sai Consciousness. We knew Swamiji as a unique celestial Yogi. Although omniscient, he feigned ignorance. He did not attach any importance to miraculous powers, he believed that compared with Sai's miracle of 'Self-manifestation' all other miracles are insignificant. The world is in Sai Baba. What miracle could be greater than this? Yet sublime, wondrous and secret powers lived in Sri Radhakrishna Swamiji. Sri Swamiji was an extraordinary being and was renowned in the world. People will remember him, tell stories of his virtues and see him in visions as long as the sun and moon shine. He was a glorious being who was worthy of the greatest honor, for he was the perfect embodiment of Guru Hood. Singing his praises and remembering him receptive Sai devotees would get his grace. Even now his living presence is felt at Sri Sai Spiritual Centre and from his photographs. Indeed he fully pervades the inner and outer world, for he has merged in the Self of all, and he is omnipotent.
Everybody wants something from this Emperor of Saints, who possesses nothing but gives everything to those who ask. And what does the Guru ask for? Only unwavering faith in him and inexhaustible patience! Surely this is not too much to give. Guru Poornima is round the corner. Let us remember with love and gratitude Lord Sainath and Gurudev Radhakrishna Swamiji and vow to ourselves once again that we will offer him in our own humble way the Gurudakshina of faith and patience.
What Is Brahman?
By Radhakrishna Swamiji
Brahman is ka and kha of the Chandogya Upanishad and is supremely blissful. In the anubhava aspect Brahman as the Inner Self is eternally blissful and communicates bliss to the finite self and leads him gloriously to the world beyond. Brahman—the antaryamin, the Inner Self, immortal, the organic relation between Brahman and the universe of chit and achit as saririn and sarira— it strikes the keynote of pedantic thought and experience.
The Absolute substance of sadvidya is the inner self of the Antariyamin Vidya and as the life of life, the seer of all the seers, and love of all loves He constitutes the saririn of the universe In the collective and individual aspects. The human form is infinities and adored as the living symbol of the cosmic form and consciousness. The Brahman is the All-Self, the inner ruler of all jivas, the infinite in the finite in the cave of the human heart, the source of its vision and the supreme self which is higher than the highest and experiences these philosophic truths as spiritual excellences of Brahman. The Being is described in the Mundaka Upanishad as the warp and woof of earth and heaven and as the highest self. "Him in whom, heaven and earth, the mind and the vital airs are woven, know Him alone as the self. He is the bond or setu of the immortal."
The Chandogya Upanishad defines Brahman thus: "Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, knows nothing else that is Brahman, the infinite. When one sees something else, hears something else, knows something else, then that is alpa, the small." Brahman is infinite bliss and when the devotee intuits Brahman as immanent in all beings he does not see anything apart from Him and therefore experiences infinite bliss. The pleasures of the senses and the happiness of the cultured mind are only partial expressions of the bliss of Brahman. The world of phenomenal experience is essentially blissful as it is pervaded by the Brahman, but the finite self affected by Avidya in the form of karma has a fragmentary view of the world as owing to its distorted version, it sees apart from Brahman and suffers from the sorrows of the divided consciousness. But the seer who has Brahma drishti or the intuition of the All-Self is immersed in the bliss of the human. He revels in the self and enjoys the universe as his aisvarya or wealth. The finite self connotes Brahman as its true self and this meditation on the Brahman leads to the attainment of brahmananda. Thus the philosophic knowledge of the Brahma Vidya leads to the mystic experience of the bliss of the Brahman.
A K S H A R A
The Akshara is neither coarse nor fine, neither short nor long; it is without colour or shadow, without outside or inside: it eats none and none eats it. In that imperishable akshara the ether is woven, warp and woof. The akshara vidya concerns itself with Brahman as its sustainer or support. That imperishable is unseeing but seeing, unheard, but hearing, un-thought but thinking. There is nothing else that sees, hears or thinks thus, but it. In that imperishable the ether is woven warp and woof. This vidya inculcates the worship of Brahman as the cosmic ruler.
Dahara Vidya is the meditation on the ether of heart which is the city of Brahman. The Chandogya Upanishad directs us to look within and seek the subtle ether or daharakasa in the lotus of the heart which is the city of God or Brahmapuri. The ether in the heart refers to the highest Brahman. "The self is free from evil, old age, grief, hunger, thirst and death and its wishes are immediately self-realised." To distinguish it from the freed self which has the same qualities the Upanishad says that the subtle ether contains both heaven and earth within it and is the abode of the whole universe; it is the Brahman who dwells in the self and rules it and whom the self does not know. Self-knowledge is essential to meditation on Brahman and therefore the Upanishad requires the mumukshu to realise his true atma as different from the empirical Jiva in the three states of waking, dream and dreamlessness.
While atman is finite Brahman is infinite and omnipotent. He is absolutely free from all self-contradictions of the finite— infinite and even from a shadow of the imperfections of karma and punya-papa. Omnipotence is expressed in the absoluteness of His mercy. Out of his boundless love, Iswara sets aside His Supreme glory and becomes easy of access to all jivas by entering into their hearts. Within every jiva is hidden in the Brahmapuri the rich treasure of absolute truth, goodness and beauty. Blinded by karma the finite self is unable to discover it. When the self is morally cleansed it intuits itself and becomes serene and radiant with bhakti and reaches the resplendent region of everlasting bliss with the saving grace of its inner light. Brahman transcends the limitations of prakriti and the Jiva is therefore nirguna. None of the categories of space, time and causality which have a phenomenal use are adequate to describe the nominal self.
The thirty-two vidyas expounded in the Upanishads are meditations of Brahman with the essential qualities of satya, jnana, ananda and amala and they all point to the realisation of Brahman as the summon bonus of life.
Guru Poornima
By Radhakrishna Swamiji
'Sai is Vyasa, Vyasa is Sai, an identity which we lose in samadhi when contemplating either or both of them".
- Sri Narasimha Swamiji
The Guru Poornima is the day of the worship of the Guru, the day of celebration in the remembrance of sages who have been compassionate enough to impart 'Brahma Vidya' to the aspirants. The Upanishad indicates that one cannot realise the innermost secrets of the Vedas, namely the real nature of 'Atman' until and unless one has very high and intense bhakti towards one's 'Ishta Murthy God' and the same intense devotion towards the Guru, in fact identifying God with His Guru.
A Guru alone will be able to protect one by administering with love the medicine of spiritual initiation and enlightenment to keep the mind from attachment.
We should strive for 'Guru Bhakti' as the anti-dote to all the ills of mundane life and as the secret which alone renders all pious acts significant. To have that is real blessedness. This alone is real blessedness to have coveted the incessant worship of Guru's Padukas with one's whole heart. To cast aside the bonds of desire, keeping the mind free, giving up fruits of action, the real blessedness to be coveted in Guru's incessant worship.
Let your mind, the precious tool, be properly utilized by the intellect with the precious teachings imparted by the Guru.
Power of Guru
(Extract from 'Day by Day with Bhagavan' from a Diary of
Sri A. Devaraja Mudaliar, who chronicled Ramana Maharshi)
Tattvaraya composed a 'Bharani'(a kind of poetic composition in Tamil) in honor of his Guru Swarupananda and convened an assembly of learned Pandits to hear the work and assess its value. The Pandits raised an objection that a 'Bharani' was only composed in honor of great heroes capable of killing a thousand elephants, and that it was not in order to compose such a work in honor of an ascetic.
Thereupon, the author said: 'Let us all go to my Guru and we shall have the matter settled there'. They went to the Guru and, after all had taken their seats; the author told his Guru the purpose of their coming there.
The Guru sat silent. And all the others also remained silent. The whole day passed, night came and some more days and nights, and yet all sat there silently, no thought at all occurring to any of them and nobody thinking or asking why they had come there.