Sai Sandesh                                                  Volume 7, Issue 12; Dec 2010

Inside

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Sai Knows You Even if you Don't Know Him

Sai Wisdom

It is that Simple!

Nine Gems from Swami

Microwave Miracle

Swami in the Storm

Mahapurushas and Mahatmas (Great Souls) used to and still roam this Earth this very day. Through their intense and ceaseless prayers, meditation, and selfless service, they were able to not only attain divinity, but become walking embodiments of divinity and love.

"Prema Swarupa!" Baba implores the masses at every gathering. "Embodiments of Love!" We must embody the divine and infinite love.

Mahapurushas, great beings, have the same steadfast connection to divinity, whether they are stuck in a cemetery in the middle of the night, or are attending beautiful sermons at a temple. They become walking embodiments of divinity, and they thus sanctify the grounds they walk on.

Though the common person might mistake these Mahapurushas to take no interest in worldly affairs, they in fact are performing a selfless seva to humanity. Wherever their presence goes, their divine vibrations permeate the atmosphere, and those near, with shanti (peace) and ananda (bliss). Those fortunate to be around such Mahapurushas, their chitta, or mental agitations, eventually subside, and the quiet bliss that one experiences in the company of these holy individuals is indescribable.

Recently the author was seated at the dinner table where friends were talking about vibrations, and feeling negativity in someone's home. They also felt unsafe at their own home, saying that someone would mysteriously ring the doorbell late at night, and early in the morning. What could it be? Topics of thieves and ghosts circulated the dinner table. Everyone sat still, and their faces looked ominously out the window, towards the dark streets. The author sat quietly, and happened to glance at a picture of Baba gloriously holding up His abhaya mudra blessings (blessings to show His protection to ward off fear). Reminded of a great Swami's words, the author said, "As is the mind, so is the world."

The guests looked curiously at the author. "Imagine these great, pure, and fearless souls, these Mahatmas and Mahapurushas. Some spend pitch-dark nights in caves, live isolated in jungles, and yet they are unperturbed by the prospects of ghouls, animals, or personal safety. Their sole reliance is their Lord, the Paramatma, the Universal Truth and Oneness which keeps them unaffected by worldly vices. That is why Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba repeats what Krishna said to Arjuna eons ago, 'Whoever is wholly immersed in My contemplation, with no other thought, I shall be ever with Him; and I shall bear the burden of his welfare.'

Do not fear of thieves or ghosts, or the threats of the world. These great souls do not rely on the city lights to dispel their fears and doubts, but they rely on the Light of Divinity which they have worked towards and been blessed with. If they can live in seemingly adverse situations while still remaining established in Sat-Chit-Ananda, in Truth-Awaeness-Bliss, then why can't we with our material comforts?

We are but small children in front of these inspirational, great, and divinely blessed souls. Even if we could emulate a fraction of their devotion and faith, we will develop the same fearlessness and be safely established in Love. And after all, that is what our dear Baba implores us all to do, "Develop love, scatter Love, reap Love. Make this world a happy home of love!"

Yet, despite his best efforts for many years there was no result. Undaunted, the lad continued his efforts as he had utmost faith in his guru’s words. After many years of toiling and innumerable difficulties, however, there was no produce and the lad finally decided to give up. Just then, the guru appeared miraculously and inquired as to what had happened over the years.

Dejected, the lad replied he had failed in his efforts and had not managed to produce anything for offering to the guru. The guru smiled and asked the lad to look at himself. The person who was once a little lad had now grown into a young man. His body, which was once emaciated, had been transformed into a rugged, muscular, and masculine form. He had become stronger and more experienced. Wisdom shone on his face and a strange sense of calmness and peace pervaded his aura—all a product of his tireless, determined, and faithful effort.

Again, the guru asked the disciple to look at the field. Through constant work on the soil, the lad had managed to dig deep enough to find visible traces of precious pearls that lay buried deep within the apparently barren land. These precious treasures, which were buried, had now surfaced.

Isn’t God like that? He asks us to plough the land of our hearts, which though at the surface appears to be barren and hardened, holds precious treasures in the form of love, compassion, devotion, and other virtues extolled in all ancient texts and religions. At first, our efforts may not produce the desired fruits, but if we persist with faith and tireless determination, we are sure to achieve success and become stronger in the process.

The truth is that suffering forms the basis of future success and through every painful experience we manage to acquire precious pearls of wisdom and become worthy recipients of the Lord’s grace.

Swami has proclaimed in His numerous discourses that He knows each one of us even if we don't know Him. And in this incident He has proved it as well. The miracle that I'm about to share in this article was narrated by a guest speaker, GR. She was the sole witness of the miracle, in which Baba made her an instrument to save a life of a Hispanic girl who had never known nor heard about Sai.

To mention a little bit about the speaker GR, she's a Kinder Garden teacher in Baltimore, Maryland and is a very very close devotee of Sai. She is one of the very lucky devotees of Lord, who even though believes that Swami is everywhere, got a chance to be in His close proximity since her birth. Back in 1995, Babainstructed her to start sharing her experiences with the rest of the Sai family which resulted in her speaking at Sai events.

The incident goes like this…..GR use to visit Babai around June or July every year, and every year Sai use to call her in the interview room for a personal interview. In one such visit, when the personal interview came to an end and GR walked up to Sai for prostration, Swami asked her to open the palm of her hand and materialized some Vibuthi on it. Later, He gave her a piece of paper and asked her to take it with her but not mentioning clearly for whom. So GR assumed in her mind that the Vibuthi given by Sai might be for her husband who was back home in the US.

Keeping the Vibuthi packet in her purse she returned back home but somehow completely forgot to offer it to her husband. Several months passed by. Later that year In November, GR and her husband visited NY City to watch a Broadway Musical show. During the interval, GR went to use the ladies room where she noticed a Hispanic lady who was cleaning the restroom. As a common gesture, she smiled at the lady, who smiled back. When she was about to walk out, the Hispanic lady struck a conversation with GR asking if she was Indian. GR replied in affirmative. Then, the lady further continued and asked, "Do you know anyone in India by the name of Baba, who has big curly hair and wears a long robe?"

Yet again, but with sheer astonishment and surprise this time, GR replied in affirmative and asked "How do you know about Baba?"

To this the lady replied "Because He comes in my dreams. My young daughter is very sick. She has a hole in her heart and the doctors say that if we don't do immediate surgery she will die. I do not have money for the surgery so I pray a lot to Jesus Christ.

Jesus never came but I see this man in my dreams. He said His name is Baba. He also said that I will meet an Indian lady one day who will have a packet of white powder. If I make my daughter eat this white powder she will be alright.

Do you have this white powder?"

GR was just awestruck after listening to the lady's words. She instantly started fondling her purse looking for some Vibuthi that she normally carried with her but wasn't sure if she did in that trip.

To her amazement, she found the same packet right on top of her purse that Swami had given to her back in July, which she had completely forgotten about and never seen again since then. She immediately handed the packet to the lady and encouraged her about her daughter's wellbeing.

She never saw the lady again after that evening, though she kept thinking about her and her daughter.

The following year, when GR visited Swami, the 1st thing Swami mentioned when He called her into the interview room was "The Girl is fine. No hole, No surgery"

This is our All merciful beloved Swami. All He wants from us is true faith and devotion and He always comes to our rescue even if we don't know Him.

Reflect for a while how inspiring is the example of Lord Krishna while he underwent his education and how his conduct and earnestness contributed to the joy of the elders. Though all learning emanates from Him and is to be earned through His Grace, He plays the role of a pupil, as a representative of the ideal pupil, in order to show the world by His own example, the way in which a Guru is to be chosen and served, the quality of humility that education must instil, and the gratitude and respect that the pupil has to offer to the teacher. It is with the intention of guiding and prompting the students of today that Krishna Himself went through the educational process and lived the ideal. Notice how subtle is the mystery of God and His Leelas! - BABA

Source: Thought For The Day, Prashanti Nilayam, Dec 14, 2010

1. Arise and awake to establish the Divine Attributes (Saisamrajya) based on the foundation of Truth, Right conduct, Peace and Love.

2. All is one; be alike to everyone. The world is one; be good to everyone.

3. Be good, see good and do good. That is the way to God.

4. Our life becomes one of fulfillment when we live in morality.

5. Money comes and goes; but morality comes and grows!

6. Time consumes everyone…..So do not waste time. Time wasted is life wasted.

7. The past is beyond recovery. We are not sure of the future. The given moment is the right time. Do not delay; do the right action.

8. Silence is the only language of the realized. It is only in the depth of silence that the voice of God can be heard. Silence stills the waves of one's heart.

9. Life is lost in dreaming and being is lost in becoming.

Even after witnessing multiple microwave ovens disobey, desist, and demise at inopportune moments of various intensities, this particular failure was peculiar: it failed to turn off! As soon as you closed the oven door: Boom! The oven would keep merrily whirring disrespecting all the timer etiquettes prescribed by the multiple knobs of the oven until, of course, you again opened the door manually. Even when you set the timer alarm, at the end of the timer prescribed time, the audible alarm would go off but the oven would happily continue to radiate its content beyond the requested timer limit. After a few usual trials of resets and reboots, I just reconciled this as another unpleasant fact of life and decided to live with the oven.

I might have pleaded, goaded, chided Baba to remove this minor irritation and was secretly hoping for a miracle in first couple of days but then I forgot all about it as the ensuing days passed on.

A week passed by with fairly innocuous accidents comprising of burnt food and overboiled liquids; it almost became my very second nature to leave the oven door open rather than slamming it shut after every use. Ever open microwave door ceased to evoke jarring emotional response anymore, as it used to. We had literally used the oven dozens of time by now and the peculiar behavior steadfastly continued despite our tinkering of various magnitudes. As is usual in our house, we had prepared a weekly prasadam for Baba but for the last item: papads.

Unlike the conventional deep fried papads, we simply dry baked the papads in the microwave oven. I had put the five papads in the oven and set the alarm to three minutes and was vigilantly watching the oven so that I could stop the oven at the right moment. So, you can imagine my great surprise when at the end of the allotted time, the oven turned itself off obediently and continued to work like all (few) good microwave ovens worldwide. Isn't this Baba's way of saying, I will satisfy all wishes, major or minor, to encourage all acts of devotion to Me.
Amma's Longjump

Those of who know my amma are well familiar with her physical abilities: she had sadly decades of chronic severe arthritic problems in both her knees. Her continuous working habits wore her knees, knee-caps included, beyond any hope of recovery and remediation. Her both knees had taken the characteristic bow shape which physicians immediately recognized her severe condition of beyond any hope of easy medication; she consumed her daily dose of painkillers and limped along with a happy countenance despite medical problems of various magnitudes. She packed her day (and night) with devotional deeds and passed her time with Baba's name on her lips as her schedule permitted.

When smooth marbled architects are marveled around the world and its charm and décor is being discussed, I am sure, we are happy to ignore and dismiss the hazards it poses for an aging arthritic inhabitant with bare grip on the granite ground.

For undertaking repairs and remodeling, my family had moved from an independent house to my sister's upper floor.

The marbled limited space was cluttered and congested and was doubly dangerous and perhaps needed no more additional tricks for tripping. One day, inevitably amma tripped near a threshold rather with a strong momentum and she was catapulted a couple feet.

The projected panorama of ensuing crash landing, much dreaded hospital visits and long recovery must have flashed across her mind in that momentous flight and a helpless cry of "Baba!" escaped her livid lips, partly as a habit and partly out of desperate exasperation.

Baba must have heard her cry for help in His infinite Grace – because she landed like a petal on a flower bed.

When she recalls the incident now at a bare request, her eyes shine and twinkle in a recall of divine glory and of His touch and with moistened eyes she will say "Baba instantaneously appeared there and cradled me in His hands and gently placed me on the floor".

Thank you for providing me with yet another opportunity to share my experience with Baba. It was last thursday, the stormiest day in new york city when the city came to a momentary halt and I was on my way back from work to Baba's mandir for bhajans. It has been long time since I sang a bhajan for Baba and I was longing to sing one. But nature had its own plans. It was 6pm and I was still struck in traffic , long way from the mandir.

Later I realized that there was a disastrous tornado that struck in the city in close proximity to where I was. Time was passing by and it was 7..715...730.. and still no improvement in traffic flow. I was struck in the same place. And that was the time when I usually get a chance to sing a bhajan for Baba, and I sang it sitting inside the car. I was praying Baba to just let me see him and I was disappointed that I was not able to make it. I took it as a bad omen that Baba doesn't want me to sing on that day.

Time flew and it was eventually 9pm, I made very little progress in the traffic towards home. And my stomach literally started crying to me for some food and I had no access to food in the middle of the street. I was still praying to Baba just to have his darshan. Suddenly I got a call from my wife who is in mandir all this while and was telling me that a regular devotee/volunteer (who lives a block away from mine) is also struck in the havoc traveling in public transit a few yards from me and was trying to find a way to reach home.

Then I further proceeded to pick him up and started the journey back home in the chaotic traffic. All of a sudden he removed a bag of food and started to share it with me. After eating it and quenching my starvation, I slowly asked him how he got that food in the middle of nowhere. And the answer just shook me as there was another Baba's devoteee's house closeby where I picked him up and they ran into each other to their surprise.

And the other devotee has actually given him the food which turned out to be Baba's shej arati prashad. As he was unable to travel to the mandir because of the storm wreckage, he wanted to give it to Baba through the other devotee. All 3 of us were headed to the same Baba mandir but were not able to make it.

The moment I learned it was Baba's shej arati prashad, all my hair stood up and I was totally in a baffled situation connecting the dots.

Then, all my doubts regarding my inability to have his darshan was gone and was firmly reinforced that Baba is protecting his children from all calamities at any time.

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