Dharma Incarnate II
The Declaration
Our Lord declared on the first day of the Navaratri Festival in 1967 that He was God Incarnate. While addressing the vast concourse of devotees, before the hoisting of the Prasanthi Flag, He said,
“When moral codes lose their mastery—
to curb mankind and cure them;
When vice and wickedness bring ruin to man—
to cleanse and purify;
When good men pine midst cruelty—
to guard and save, give solace deep;
When God’s Words are twisted,
tarnished into rites—to reform, reveal.
To lighten burden of the World,
To keep the Word, the plighted Troth
God, the Ever‑Full, Free, has come.
(It can’t be said in plainer terms!)
Sinking and floating on the trivial
Sea of Living, Man
Shrieks and wails in despair to gain the shore;
If He but yearns and prays,
The giver of Peace and Joy,
Sathya Sai, the Life‑Boat is here to save.
What do these words mean? They mean that our Lord, Baba, has come to suppress immorality, to restore to foster the good, to teach mankind the secrets of spiritual progress, and guide man toward the Realization of his identity with God. These are but the many phases of the Revival of dharma.
On another occasion, Baba declared. “Truth is my Reality; My Name Itself is Truth. What I preach is Truth. I am Truth, the Truth of Truth. This day, the World is torn by the storms of Injustice, Immorality, and Inflated Ego. I have come in order to establish beneficial mores, pure habits and attitudes, and good activities so that dharma might be re‑established.”
Our Lord is the Embodiment of Truth, of dharma. He alone knows Him. The physician who knows the genesis and nature of the illness can alone prescribe the remedy. Similarly, only He who knows the Inner Mystery of dharma can enter the task of establishing It. Baba is restoring dharma in ways and through means that are beyond our comprehension. He alone knows how and when; He reinforces It and restores It to health and vitality. We can only witness and wonder, watch and revere.
Vedic Study
Baba is encouraging and reviving the Study of the Vedas and the ancient scriptures. He is laying great emphasis on Indian Culture and its basic tenets. Baba practices them and preaches about them. His Practice is the supreme example He asks to follow. He has founded a Vedic School. He arranges every Dasara a Vedic Yajna, strictly in conformity with the injunctions of the Vedas. The Yajna is performed by the Vedic Scholars He patronizes so generously. Baba wrote in the `Yajna Vedika’: “The Vedas have to be revived not only for the acquisition of grace here and hereafter, but also with the aim of developing reverence to Vedic Injunctions, the fostering of dharma, and the promotion of Vedic Studies. When these are accomplished, the World will gain Peace and Prosperity. The Vedas are the Source of all that is right. That is the reason why it is laid down, “Study the Vedas every day.” In the Gita, the Lord has said, “I am the One who is known through the Vedas.” Baba is bringing Vedic Scholars from all parts of India to attend the Dasara and other festivals and to take part in the proceedings, giving discourses.
He included in the curriculum for the Summer Course on Indian Culture and Spirituality for about 300 college students from all over India not only the sacred texts of all religions and epics of India, but lectures on Ayurveda, Astrology, and Yoga. The Pundits who delivered discourses on these traditional fields of learning were blessed and given tokens of grace. Baba’s discourses given every day of the month-long course were elaborations of the quintessence of the Vedas, Upanishads, and Shatras and, therefore, easy lessons on dharma.
The Heritage
Our Lord is instilling dharma in the hearts of young and old through other means, too. The phenomenal advances made in Science and Technology in recent times have made man cleverer and more intelligent, but less wise and less humble. In the name of progress, man is running along the road to barbarism and terror. Baba alone has this day the Might and the Compassion to lead mankind in its desperate swim against the current, toward the height from which it has fallen. Converting brains into book‑stores, and conferring begging bowls during convocations, universities at the present time feel that their duty is done! Baba is establishing schools and colleges for the New University that will reveal the Universal Spirit fertilizing knowledge in all climes, and that will equip man with the skill to attain peace and joy. Peace that will survive bitterness and defeat, and joy that can survive the ups and downs of fortune. The vast heritage of wisdom earned by the sages of India is being presented to students in these institutions. Boys and girls are taught in separate colleges, and the ideal of motherhood as extolled and realized in this sacred land is emphasized in the Women’s colleges.
Sai is in every being; He is the Inner Motivator of all that lives. Therefore, if we harm another, we are harming Sai; if we serve another, we are serving Him. This is the faith that one gets through one’s experience of our Lord and His Omnipresence and Omnipotence. Baba is establishing the dharma of seva, asking us to serve the poor, the diseased, the distressed, the downfallen, in an efficient manner, but without the fanfare of publicity, propaganda, and fund‑raising. When the Divine blessings of Baba are assured, why seek for alms from the indifferent and the ignorant? Baba is inspiring and instructing man in this seva-yoga, collecting the children in Bal Vikas groups, the youth in Seva Dal Units, the women in Mahila Vibhags, and the adult men in Seva Samitis all over the World.
The children of this land, heirs to the most precious of all spiritual literature, have long been denied access to that treasure house. But Baba insists that the Bal Vikas children be told the stories that are plentiful in the Vedas and Upanishads, the epics and Puranas of India; He wants that they should learn to sing bhajans, enact plays on themes from the stories of Rama, Krishna, and the many saints and sages intent on God‑realization. Baba Himself has set an example by writing such plays and training boys to enact them!
His Life as Message
Baba says, “My Life is My Message.” He has been impressing on us that dharma consists in the development of love, forbearance, discipline, simplicity, sincerity, fraternity, and reverence. Baba is Himself the supreme exemplar of these qualities. He is ever active in His self‑imposed task of showering Grace. From dawn to dusk, He is ever busy in ministering to those who are torn by anxiety, fear, pain, panic, doubt, disease, desire, and agony of some sort or another. He knows no distinction of status or wealth or age or scholarship. All are bathed in His Love. dharma flows from Him; dharma lives in and through Him.
And let us remind ourselves that our Lord has no duty to perform, no benefit to gain! He has no compulsion to engage in activity! He is Master of all; He owns all and has nothing to gain or no fear of loss! He says, in the Gita, “There is nothing I need to gain; there is nothing I have not gained; there is nothing I need do in the three worlds. But yet I am engaging Myself in activity!” Why then this ceaseless toil? It is graciously undertaken by Him for your benefit and mine. You and I are prone to do what those all that we consider great do. In the Rajasuya Yaga celebrated by the eldest of the Pandavas, what role did Lord Krishna play? He could have kept all by Himself. But He imposed on Himself the task of welcoming the guests and showing them to their seats! That was done only to teach others how guests must be received and respected. Baba is active, so that we may learn the manner and method.
Shower of Grace
Another means by which Baba is establishing dharma on the strong basis of faith in God is by the shower of grace. Those who approach Him or do not, those who are devoted to the Name He has assumed or the Form He has equipped Himself with, or those who have no devotion to them, those who have never seen Him or even heard of Him… those within the confines of India or in the most distant corners of the world—are drawn by His Grace by means of some picture or book, or a chance conversation, to look on Him for guidance or help. Then He cures the illness, rescues from the calamity, solves the puzzling problem of life, clears the doubt, loosens the knot, presents Himself in dreams, appears directly in person before them, until He transforms them into earnest seekers of their own Reality, which is Himself! This is uniquely Baba’s own; no other incarnation has attempted this alchemy.
Four Pillars
Baba is teaching us four great principles of life: sathya, dharma, shanti, and prema. (truth, righteousness, peace, and love). He has often told us that if we keep these four as guidelines in life, we cannot deviate from the right path. Moral codes or what are usually referred to as dharma (Hindu Dharma, Stree Dharma, Raja Dharma, etc.) are adapted to the religion one follows, the sex one is born in, the status one occupies, the profession one is bound with etc. It will be difficult for those for whom they are intended to observe these codes because of physical, economic, or educational deficiencies. Even if these codes are observed in practice, unless these four pillars support the mansion of life, it is bound to crumble and fall apart.
Every rite that is prescribed might be done; the worship offered to the God installed in the shrine or temple might be without a flaw of mantra or fault of ceremony. But if the person who is dharmic so far as these are concerned is not observing sathya, dharma, shanti, and prema, his is but hypocritic play‑acting! Bhishma is said to have told Dharmaja, the eldest of the Pandava brothers, the quintessence of dharma while he was awaiting death on the bed of arrows. He said, “The expounders of dharma are ignorant of its fundamentals, and so are leading men astray. Earnest seekers are confused by conflicting accounts and teachings. Therefore, listen, I shall tell you the basic tenets of this mode of living. Ahimsa (non-violence), dana (charity), sathya (truth), and krodha-vivarjitham (refraining from anger)—these are the four cardinal principles of dharma.” We can see that Bhishma mentions sathya; his dana is the dharma emphasized by Baba, for it involves sacrifice, compassion, morality etc. refraining from anger is in other words, shanti and ahimsa is prema.
Lode Stars
In this Kali Age, man is weak in body, mind, and spirit. Realizing this tragedy, Baba has with infinite compassion called on us to eschew almost all redundant and external rites, but rely on Namasmarana as the constant ritual and sathya-dharma-shanti-prema as the lodestars of daily living.
In the Treta Age, Sri Rama was extolled as “Vigrahavan Dharmah” (Dharma Incarnate). Now, in this Kali Age, Sai Ram is the Vigrahavan Dharmah.
~Vidwan S. V. Rama Sarma;
Translated from Telugu
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, May 1973
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