The Interview

To the vast majority of people, especially westerners, the idea of kneeling down and touching, with hands, forehead or lips, the feet of another human being is somewhat alien. Even my husband, Ron, before we went to India, said one day: “I don’t know about all this kissing of feet. I feel I ‘know’ Swami so well in my heart that I could go up to Him and simply say, ‘Hello Swami—I’m Ron.’” I smiled to myself and thought, you just wait! Sathya Sai Baba only appears to be “a human being” because He has taken a human form.

Because we are merely human beings, we can express our deepest feelings only through bodily actions. We cry, we laugh, we sing, we punch in anger, we caress in love—and when the inner urge is over-whelming, we go down on our knees.

Swami knows this deep need in those who flock to Him, and allows it in certain circumstances—for our sakes. He in no sense requires it. In fact, if He is talking to a group of men in the ashram grounds, and the women in the party all go down on the ground to touch His feet, He appears unconscious of it. No normal human being could be so totally unselfconscious as Swami is.

I remembered the words of a professor of psychology, president of a university, with doctorates in philosophy and literature and a brilliant academic record. He said: “When I first saw this elusive man walking…I thought, He is not of the earth, but has come to the earth to bless it…. I was a stranger and did not know how to behave…. If they took the dust from His feet into their mouths, I would do the same.” And what manner of being is it that makes a hard-headed lawyer from South Africa write in his diary, “At last—Baba smiled at me at darshan [sight of a holy person] this morning!”

So there we were, alone with the avatar [incarnation] in that small, bare room. And there, of course, was old Ron on his knees, tears running down his face, saying, “Swami, I can’t believe it….” I, too, realized at last my ardent ambition to kneel down and kiss His foot. I wished the moment would last forever, but Swami said gently, “Get up, get up,” and stretched out His small hand.

I could not resist kissing that, too. His other arm was round Ron’s shoulders. “This is a good man,” he said. “I know, Swami.” He smilingly added, “Sometimes you have differences of ideas, sometimes a little short temper, but you have a good man here.” I am happy to say that at other private interviews I was also to receive encouraging remarks.

I bent my head in front of Him, as near as I dared, to hide my tears, and He put his hand on my head in blessing.

“Swami,” I said, “I sometimes feel you are in our home.” He thought and said; “I am in your heart. But I came twice in a dream, but you wonder if it’s just imagination.”

He took hold of the chain round my neck with the pendant on it that a friend from Australia had kindly sent me after she had visited Baba a year previously. It was only a cheap one bought from a stall, but I treasured it because it had Baba’s head on it. He handled the chain and with a smile examined the pendant for a long time.

“I’ve worn it for a year,” I said. I was determined not to let the desire escape that he would replace it! I had not come to India to get objects from Him, but to lay my love at His feet, I just wanted Him to handle it; and thus consecrate it. This was exactly what I had prayed for, no more. Of course He knew this!

Ron asked if he could show Swami an article he had written on the similarities be-tween Sathya Sai Baba and the Christ. Swami took the article and read out the first few lines in an undertone. Ron asked if it was permissible to draw the similarities. Swami thought a moment and said: “Yes, that’s all right.” Ron took back his article. I produced my own articles about Him.

Then, to our joy, Swami asked, “Are you staying a little time?” “Of course, of course!” I said “Come back the day after tomorrow, and I give one hour to discuss all these things.”

The words, when read, might appear casual, but Swami talks to you as if you are the only person in the world. He does so with tender concern, intimacy, and emphasis, looking into your eyes, and with that beautiful, understanding smile. He gives everything.

With a last smile to us both, He turned toward an inner room through a curtain. He seemed to float away rather than walk, with that gentle movement which is indescribable. I have to keep on using the word “gentle” in connection with Baba. He is the embodiment of love. If, on occasion, He ever appears stern in any way, it is only the appearance, only out of love, if correction is needed, or in order to induce people to examine themselves, to “enquire within,” for their own sake.

I have no idea how long or how short that interview was, for time stands still in His presence. One is transported to another dimension. When He bestows personal attention, one experiences so much more than any actual words—from His expressions, movements, voice, and being within that radiant rose-pink aura, the memory of which can never dim once it has been experienced.

The fact is that no one can attempt to analyze or explain anything about Him. As He once said: “I am beyond the reach of the most intensive inquiry and the most meticulous measurement. Only those who have recognized my love and experienced that love can assert that they have glimpsed my reality.”

I passed a strange, but wonderful, night. My whole being seemed galvanized into greater intensity and life.

During the interview Swami did what I am sure He had planned to do the day before. He took hold of my chain and pendant again, and asked: “Wouldn’t you like a real one? This is imitation.” Where-upon He circled His hand in the air and produced a charming silvery disc with His head on one side in bas-relief and the OM sign on the other. What a joy! It was, of course, what I had secretly longed for, but would not ask!

A little later He asked Ron what he want-ed. Ron said, “To love more, and some-thing from you, Swami.” Immediately Swami circled His hand again and produced a gorgeous oval ring made of Swami’s ‘five metals,’ with a colored picture of His head in enamel.

He leaned forward and pushed it firmly onto the fourth finger of Ron’s left hand. It fitted perfectly, and was exactly what Ron had daydreamed about in the airplane on the flight to India—even the correct finger!

But a further and most unexpected blessing was yet to come, one that completely over-whelmed me. During a general conversation, Swami turned to me again and asked, “Do you do sadhana (a form of prayer and meditation)?” “Yes, Swami.” “When?” “At night, Swami.” To my wonderment, He circled His hand several times in the air. As everyone gasped, out fell a long beautiful 108-bead japamala—rosary beads. Its total length, were it undone, is 48 inches and can be worn doubled round the neck and still be ample.

It just streamed down from His fingers like a cascade of crystal light. With an al-most casual gesture, He spread it out with both hands and threw it over my head onto my shoulders without touching a single hair. “Oh Swami!” was all I could say, hardly believing that I had been blessed with two gifts from Him at one interview! And al-ways there was vibhuti [sacred ash].

This is what He has said about such gifts: “Do not crave from Me trivial material objects: but crave for Me, and you would be rewarded. Not that you should not receive whatever objects I give as sign of grace out of the fullness of love.

“I shall tell you why I give these rings, talismans, rosaries, etc. It is to mark the bond between me and those to whom they are given. When calamity befalls them, the article comes to me in a flash and returns in a flash, taking from me the remedial grace of protection. That grace is available to all who call on me in any name or form, not merely to those who wear these gifts. Love is the bond that wins grace.”

At the end of the interview all touched His feet. He stood there, unconcerned, and then smilingly went into the inner room.

So there we were again, for the third morning in succession, sitting outside Baba’s porch in that tranquil leafy garden. The silence that literally bathes the ashram at Brindavan is balm to the soul. The raucous bombardment of pop music, television, and radio seemed to exist in some other mad world of constant noise and unrest. Here it was difficult even to visualize our own little home so far away, yet I could hardly believe that at long last I was really in India, with the beloved Sathya Sai.

Baba motioned us all to follow Him in. We asked questions about a variety of subjects: visitors from outer space; healing and asking for His help in this if we mentally called on Him; mediumship, as we wanted to clarify a report I had once read that He did not approve of what mediums did. (But who can approve of what some mediums do?) So we asked, “Is mediumship—to communicate with those in the spirit—wrong, provided the medium is honest and a pure instrument?”

“No, not at all,” Swami replied quite categorically, indeed, as we had expected. We also spoke about the “very bad karma [action]” incurred by man’s abuse of the animal kingdom. When I mentioned science in this connection, Swami raised His eyes, turned His head away and said, “Ah … science …!” with such pain in His voice. “It is essential to spread knowledge of the oneness of all life. God is in every creature.”

It is written that the triple incarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba, Sathya Sai Baba and Prema Sai represents the Shiva, Shiva-Shakti, and Shakti aspects of Divinity respectively. So we wondered if the next descent as Prema Sai (to come immediately after the present form of Sathya Sai is vacated at the age of 96) would be female.

Baba replied, “No, male. In Mysore—Karnataka.”

There was one question I particularly wanted to ask Swami. In April 1979 I wrote an article titled: “Did Jesus die on the cross?” I said: “Swami, there’s something I’ve wanted to know for a long time. Did the physical body of Jesus recover in the tomb? I mean, it wasn’t a materialized body of spirit—like Yogananda’s Master showed himself to him after he’d been buried?”

Swami said, “No—the physical body. No spirit materialized body. The physical.”

I wished I had asked Swami more questions. Yet when one really thinks about it, many questions that leap to mind regarding past events are of academic interest compared to the here and now and the living reality of the divine principle incarnate in Sai Baba at this most crucial period of the planet’s evolutionary history. There was, however, a question that was most vital to us—to hear from Swami’s own lips—and Ron plucked up courage to ask it.

“Swami, you are reported as saying on Christmas Day in1972 that Jesus said: ‘He who sent me among you will come again. His name will be truth. He will wear a blood-red robe. He will be short, with a crown (of hair).’ Does this mean that it was you who sent Jesus into incarnation?”

With ineffable simplicity, never moving His eyes from Ron’s, and in His soft, gentle voice, Swami nodded and said, “Yes.”

Ron took a deep breath. “Then, in that case, are you what western Christians call `The Cosmic Christ’?” (The Cosmic Christ spirit)

Again came that simple, gentle reply, “Yes.”

As long as I live I shall see His face as He gave this answer in a manner no ordinary human being could assume—so direct, so simply, so gently, and completely egoless. For a few moments we said nothing, over-come by the impact of His reply.

Everywhere men and women of good-will are expecting and praying for the second coming of the Cosmic Christ spirit. But whether they recognize it or not, it is here amongst us in the embodiment of self-less love.

~Peggy Mason
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, Sept. 1980