SAIPADANANDA
Satsang is the most conducive medium for the realisation of the Self. It promotes truthful living, brightens the depressed and gives solace to the dejected; it develops non-attachment to worldly things, dissolves doubts, drives away infatuation, creates spiritual insight and tranquility and leads one on the path of God.
-Sri Radhakrishna Swamiji
- Editorial
- Be as you are
- Gita Jayanthi Message
- Prayer for Peace
- Significance of Baba's Mahasamadhi
- Prayer is the Answer
- Universal Prayer
- Power of Guru
- Sai Baba'sBlessed Assurance
- You are My Friend
- The Passing of Sai Baba
- To Narasimha Swamiji with Love (Aradhana Homage)
- Sai Love Stimulates Immuno-Globulin Content
- Living in Reverse
- LookDeeper!!!
- Hailthe Savior
- Thus Spake the Swamiji
- Swamiji'sPicture - Anexperience
- An AstonishingExperience
- Guru Poornima Celebrations
- Guru andDisciple
- Malleswaram Mandir
- Swamiji's Portraits AdoreSeveral Temples
- The Wayto Peace and Happiness
- Om Sai Sri Sai Jaya Jaya Sai
Editorial
Transformation
The East considers that the realm of spirituality is confined only to its own boundaries. The powerful nations of the West declare that they alone are altruistic, humanitarian, and progressive. In every conflict or controversy, each race or community thinks that justice and righteousness are always on its side. Each organized religious group asserts that it has a monopoly of Truth. And hence we have so much of confusion and disaster. Everywhere we find fear and suspicion. Man is afraid not only of death but of life as well. None can deny that there is chaos in the world. By annihilating space, modern science has unified the world physically, and brought together distant nations as next-door neighbors, but unfortunately humanity is mentally more divided today than ever before. When we analyze the situation deeply, we find that spiritual poverty is the chief cause of the world's malady.
The word 'Revolution' has been in the air for over two centuries. We had the Industrial Revolution, which promised a new era of plenty. It made money the criterion of success, replaced co-ordination between man and man by cut-throat competition, and ultimately made man a 'tool' or a money-making machine. In the factory and workshop, man was regarded as a 'hand' and not as a human being. The later revolutions have, no doubt, improved the conditions of employment for the working classes, but they have not succeeded in bringing an epoch of peace and prosperity to the world, as so loudly proclaimed.
Based on either a formula or a definite pattern and devoid of any consideration for moral and spiritual values, these revolutionary movements have spread bitterness, jealousy and conflict, and thereby intensified the tension in the world.
A historian writes that out of the nineteen civilizations that have so far disappeared from the world, sixteen have decayed from within. It is the same case with our present civilization, and the identical fate will overtake it, if it fails to learn a lesson from history. Moral and spiritual regeneration is, therefore, the urgent need of humanity as a whole. It is the only remedy for the world's ills. If the disintegration of the atom could have released so much of power in the physical world, what cannot be accomplished by the annihilation of the ego-self in the psychic world? Is not Ego the atom of the latter world? The problem of the world is the problem of the individual - of the man who has lost the dignity of human personality, and forgotten his divine destiny. We cannot expect a nation to be great apart from the individuals who form it and on whose freedom and virtuous life its dignity rests. The very foundation of a truly democratic system is the dignity of the individual human being. The process of reform or revolution should therefore start in ourselves.
What is actually needed is a radical revolution which has nothing to do with any idea or ideology- a radical transformation of the human heart. The real revolutionary is the man who loves for Love's sake. He is the true religious man as well. Sai Baba's life gives an enlightening reply to the refutations of certain modern 'scientific' critics who seem to think that spiritual experiences make one to forget his fellow beings. The mission of our revered Radhakrishna Swamiji in initiating each one of us into 'Vishnu Sahasra Namam' and follow Sai-path, proves beyond any doubt that true social service, philanthropic work and love of neighbor can be practiced with the intense spiritual realisation and this leads to love for humanity. In the love of the Sai devotee, who feels the presence of Sai Baba in every object, there are no national frontiers or racial or communal boundaries. He feels universal brotherhood everywhere. "We do not want a new world; we want new hearts. Let the spirit of Sai Baba purify society and the earth will put off the look of weariness and gloom which it has worn so long", said Das Ganu Maharaj to revered Narasimha Swamiji decades ago. His words are not merely correct but prophetic as well.
There is no hope of a world reconstruction without spiritual regeneration as its basis. The earlier the leaders of nations realise this truth, the better for all of us. We conclude this with a profoundly human prayer for all mankind, which has been sung daily by us - Indians for over 4000 years:-
Lead me from UNREALITY to REALITY lead me from DARKNESS to LIGHT lead me from DEATH to IMMORTALITY
The only answer to world and personal tensions today is to put into practice the two pice 'Dakshina' - faith and patience -demanded by Sai Baba. It is only through the acceptance of this principle that we can ease the pressures which agitate today and begin to understand and honor the multiple roots of the cultures of the world.
IN ONE WORD
Disciple: Great Teacher, tell us about life after death
Confucius: We have not yet learned to know life. How can we know death?
Disciple: Then, Master, is there one word which can serve as a cardinal concept of life?
Confucius: Is not ALTRUISM such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
Be as YOU ARE
(The fast words of a great Saint)
Dear friends.
Withdraw the mind from the senses and fix it in meditation. Control the thought-current. Find out the thought-centre; be quiet there. Then you will be conscious of the Divine Self; you will see it dancing in ecstasy. Live in that delight. That high delight, consciousness, is the God in you. He is the unique one. He is in every heart.
You need not go anywhere to find Him. Find your own core and feel Him there. Peace, bliss, felicity, health, everything is in you. Trust in the Divine in you. Entrust yourself to His Grace. BE AS YOU ARE. Off with strange thoughts and past impressions. He who lives from within an ingathered Soul-life is a real saint, though he may be a householder. He who allows his mind to wander with the senses is an ignoramus, though he pretends to be a sage.
See as a witness, without the burden of seeing. See the world just as a drama. See without attachment. Look within. Look at the inner Light, unshaken by mental impressions. Then, floods of conscious bliss shall come pouring in and around you from all directions. This is the supreme Knowledge; realise.
Aum Aum!
—Saint Thayumanar
(Translated from original Tamil by H.H. Shuddananda Bha-rathiar, who stayed with Sai Baba during 1910-18. This gives the essence of the great South Indian saint Thayumanar just before his Mahasamadhi on January 15, 1742).
Gita Jayanthi Message
By H.H. Radhakrishna Swamiji
(We are happy to publish here the Gita Jayanthi message of our beloved Swamiji issued on November 30, 1968. It is indeed very inspiring) —EDITOR
Om Sri Sainathayanamaha.
Mattah Parataram Naanyat Kinchidasti Dhananjaya;
Mayi Sarvamidam Protam Sootre ManiganaIva, (B.G. 7-7)
"Nothing there is beside Myself. I hold all like the thread holds the beeds." says the Gita. The Divine Himself became the many. To find all—embodied Lord within to fix one self in the Atman which He is, is the real way of conscious eternal unity. Until that Unity in the self is achieved no social, gathering, no preaching, no external mental or vital means can bring about permanent unity in the humanity. Humanity is blindfolded with the divided mentality and is wandering here and there aimlessly to reach Unity.
There is but ONE, the only one that is. It is the Brahman which is Sat (Existence), Chit (Knowledge or awareness), Ananda (Bliss). Brahman is God, Paramathma, Purushothama, and Kshethragna. He expands Himself through His supreme Prakriti or Paramashakti every where embracing all, all His becoming. He is the life of lives, the fulfillment of all lives. He is the fount of Peace, Bliss and Beauty in life. Variously do men paint him in every several guise? He is the only one that is. He is Knowing's essence. He is the Transcendent, the Universal, and the Individual. He is the Paramathma, Viswathma and Jivathma. He is the highest, the purest, the most blissful, the Truth—Light, Life, Love, Freedom and Beauty in all. He sheds His Graceful Light equally upon all. The pure and the awakened one embrace Him and enjoy His embrace.
To find that Paramathma is to find yourself. He is within you as your Supreme Self in your heart's Sanctum. To possess Him in the self is to possess and enjoy Him in all. He is the one in the many. Real Love and Real Union is found in the self. Everything is dear to you for the soul is dear to you. When you are conscious of the self, You can be conscious of the self in all—the All-Self and expand yourself, your love, your power, peace, joy etc., to all that lives. Then alone your love is a living love embracing all that lives. Then you see lives as moving temples; you see yourself in all. The whole Macrocosm lives in you and you as the Macrocosm live in all. You are then yourself and all the selves. The harmonious and real inner and eternal unity dissolves your separate, egoistic individuality in the collective individuality. You are then inseparable from all. Such a self-union in God—awareness of cosmic consciousness is the real unity, real bond of love in real peace and bliss. It is upon this rock of peace that the harmony of the multifaced Human existence can stand firm unto aeons. It is towards this peace, bliss and beauty in existence that we go finding and expanding our self. If that fountain-head of Truth is attained, then alone we can transform by it our mental, vital and the material life too.
Our ideal is to be ever energetic, active, agile and divine soldiers of God. We have to embrace God in earth life with all our spiritual richness, Divine. Dynamic energism in a life of eternal peace, bliss and beauty is our purpose. We aspire to perfect ourselves and be a centre of self-perfecting force. Our purified being can draw that force from everywhere for that God force fills all the space. You will know what that force is when your inner being awakens. That force is pouring into you; flows into your self. To receive that force you have to completely give your self upon the Lord, Paramashakti (Sai) and open inner communion with him. All our hearts we must consecrate and make into a garland for Him. We must have our being in God. This spiritual communion of all with one Supreme raise our human consciousness to God consciousness and we all find ourselves united into one Divine Communion, one Universal Nation of God's children. Our kingdom on earth is then God's kingdom where we live in perfect self-consummation, Self-Union; a life of the soul in this body, a life of Supreme Peace, Bliss and Beauty for it is the All-peaceful, All-blissful consecrated life. It is towards the divine life of peace, bliss and beauty, towards a new dawn of spiritual communism that we have set our foot.
Let us head on that ocean fount of Divinity and fertilize all our lower members with its abundance. Our very body must be radiant with divine energy; our mind must be a blazed with dazzling Divine; our senses must embrace in Divine Ananda. Our heart must be a perennial stream of Bliss. When thus our body, life, mind and heart divinely transform themselves then alone we are divine and dynamic centre of Divinity. Then our life will be rooted in the divine consciousness and we can enjoy the kingdom of God within and without.
See thyself in alt and be free from fear and weakness Shrink not from aught. Expand thyself. No grief shall be when oneness is seen everywhere. Know the Truth and live the Truth and be the Truth.
We are one and He many. We are the whole as well as the part. We are individuals in collective body. We need not fear birth and death. We need' not shrink from life and society. We shall embrace God in the Self as well as in the wider Self, and the Universe. We must possess, enrich, expand and enhance life's empire.
Know you must the self in you The God in all that lives;
To embrace your wider - you be your self all that is
Om Shanthi!
Om Shanthi!!
Om Shanthi!!!
Each drew a circle to shut others out, as heretics, rebels, things to float. But loving wisdom knew the way to win; it drew a circle that took all in.
—A Sufi Saint
Prayer for Peace
O LORD SAI BABA,
Do shower Thy benign mercy and grace on every being in this world and help us all and grant us the strength to recognize the sublime truth that is Thou and Thou alone who pervades the whole universe and that we are all Thy children who are out to spread everlasting peace on the face of this earth.
O Lord of Lords, Shirdeeswar God of Gods - Sainath Maharaj,
Do, therefore, in Thy infinite mercy and grace, help us and guide us all in the very right direction, and lead us from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light eternal, and from death to immortality. May peace, everlasting peace, be spread in this world.
Amen.
Sri Godavari Mathaji
(Head of Upasani Maharaj Ashram, Sakori)'
SAI POWER CURES
There is always the ever present Sai - power. No one knows when SaiNath's full time for each life has elapsed. The most important ingredient in getting well is for the patient to get well. For the patient to have a reason to love. There is always hope of getting well if the patient wants to live and if the patient has a reason why the patient should live. Faith in Sai, belief in Sai, and hope in Sai - these are the best medicines.
Significance of Baba's Mahasamadhi
By H. H. Narasimha Swamiji
(We reproduce below extracts from the Mahasamadhi of H. H. Narasimha Swamiji just before he cast off his mortal coil on the 19th October 1956).
EDITOR
Sai Baba's Mahasamadhi is not a matter for regret. The parting of the soul from the body in the case of the ordinary house-holder is generally considered very painful, and poetry largely feeds upon the sentiment of sorrow on such occasions. In the case of Sai Baba the parting of the breath from the physical body was not a matter to be regarded as painful either for Baba or for those connected with him.
Baba was a perfect realiser of the soul and a thorough master of Atma Jnana. It was not mere book learning as to what the nature of the Atman is. It was one of perfect realisation. He lived the life of one who noted that he was not the body, nor the artificial personality meant by people's ideas about him and his own ideas mostly based upon the body and its activities. As he said on some occasions, his Guru Mourshad took him away from his body, that is, long ago he cast away the idea that he was the body-self that practically every one of us takes ourselves to be. He was dwelling almost constantly on the Lord. Allah and Hari were ever on his lips and in his heart. Consequently they were so even at the time of the parting of his breath from his body, and according to Bhagavad-Gita, the effect of that would be to make him the perfect God or Brahman after his leaving of the body. Every real devotee who is ardent to his attachment to Baba has ample proof that Baba is still active and vigorous as God is in his dealings with his bhaktas.
Many devotees of Sai Baba are now experiencing His constant and perpetual guardianship, protection and help, in almost every matter, that there is no necessity for pressing this truth further to show that Sai Baba is still there after His Mahasamadhi and is not gone. How can God go and where is He to go? But it is not every one that gets the benefit of His continued existence and protection.