Lead into Gold
In 1967 Howard Murphet, the author of the book Man of Miracles, spoke at a public meeting in Chennai [Madras in Southern India] in the presence of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Following is a transcription of that speech.
It is indeed a great privilege and joy to be given this opportunity of speaking a few words to you in the presence of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba.
But what can I say to you, His followers—many of you bhaktas [devotees] of long standing who know His works and words much better than I do? Well, perhaps you may find some interest in hearing how skeptics of the Western world had the good fortune to meet Him, what He means to me, and what I think is His significance to the world.
The mass of men in the West—and unfortunately, I’m afraid, a growing number in India, too—are materialists who do not believe in the remote possibility of what we call `miracles’. The main cause of this state of mind is, I believe, the spurt ahead that physical science has taken over the last century. Having learned a good deal, men think they know a lot. Anything that appears to contradict the set of fundamental laws they have formulated is not acceptable. It cannot exist! There must be some mistake, some poor observation, some fraud, and some trickery!
A cautious approach is no doubt necessary to the progress of science. But how easily it can degenerate into prejudice, cynicism, and a closed mind!
This attitude is more prevalent in those countries most affected by what is called `scientific progress’. But, of course, not all in the West are so conditioned. Many, for example, in the Roman Catholic religion—and some outside it—believe in the well-tested and authenticated healing miracles at Lourdes, France. Moreover, there are, and always have been, those seers, prophets, and poets who discern the divine beneath the surface of mundane things. To the self-satisfied cynics, to the blind materialists, Francis Thompson, the English poet says:
“The angels keep their ancient places;
Move but a stone and start a wing.
‘Tis ye, ’tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.
I hope that I myself was not a cynic when I came to India. I know that I was a skeptic, but not an incurable one. I had read, of course, of the great miracle-workers and teachers of India’s past. I hoped that some might still exist today. I hoped–yet hardly dared to hope—that I might even meet one. For underneath, like all men, I longed for the `many-splendored thing’.
But I must say that my approach has always been the cautious, scientific one. Like St. Thomas—whose bones, they say, lie buried here in Madras—I needed to see and to touch for myself in order to believe.
It was here in this city–through a strange network of circumstances that I can only say was Sai Baba’s grace—that I met Sai Baba. Later I went to His Ashram in `Prasanthi Nilayam’. The map shows this as being in Andhra Pradesh, but to me it’s a place ‘half-way between heaven and earth’.
As Christ was kind to Thomas, Baba was kind to me. On many occasions I saw and touched miraculous, incredible things, so that now I know beyond any doubt that in the presence of Sai Baba these things do happen.
This is not the time to tell you about my specific experiences. You all have your own joy-making, love-evoking collection of miraculous experiences with Baba. Or if you haven’t, you shall with faith. But since Baba granted me the permission, and great privilege, of writing a book on him, I have talked to many devotees and heard their wonderful stories. These are all a part of the supreme story of Sai Baba in this Incarnation.
Well, having established to the satisfaction of my critical self that miracles do take place, what then? What does it mean? I am not one of these people who say—as I have heard people in this city say—”Miracles, so what?” As if they could perform one themselves any morning before breakfast!
Surely these happenings demonstrate, as no words can, the reality of the non-physical worlds. “Actions speak louder than words”, is one of our clichés. The word is powerful—but in the `word made flesh’—we see its power dramatically. Then it becomes a strong buttress for our tottering faith.
There are, we know, various levels of magic, and all of them—high or low—prove the existence of occult laws, of the reality of worlds within worlds. But the high magic—the Divine Immaculate Science—of a great Master goes further than this.
By its copious and constant flow, by its selfless, ego-less purity, by the love and benevolence that motivate it, we know that it comes from the high divine level; it is a concrete proof of the spiritual plane and of spiritual law. In a sense it is God talking to us—talking not in tongues, but in deeds.
But in the quarter-century record of breathtaking Sai miracles—those gracious gifts from some mysterious dimension, the conquest of space and time to bring help to devotees in distress at great distances, the healing of bodies, and perhaps more important still, the healing of souls, the giving of the strength necessary to face karmic suffering, and to grow in spiritual stature as a result of that suffering…. But in all these, we must not lose sight of the greatest miracle of all. This is the miracle of His prema—His Divine love. The really miraculous thing about this, it seems to me, is that while UNIVERSAL, going out to all men, it is at the same time INDIVIDUAL. You feel it beamed directly and blissfully on you. As one of His bhaktas (devotees) put it, “Every person thinks that Baba loves him the most.”
Yes, this pure love—universal yet individualized—is the central miracle from which all the others come, as by-products. The main end-product of this stream of prema is to raise us to a knowledge of our true spiritual selves—to a realization of our one-ness with all life, and with the Author of all life.
How few there have been through whom has flowed this miraculous river of pure, ego-less love, with its attendant whirls and eddies of the lesser miracles! How lucky, how blessed we are to have known such a One on earth, and to be with Him still!
And when time must take us away from the Beloved Form that is the great focus of this Light, shall we be desolate? We should not be, if we have understood Him alright. He Himself has said that our Guru must be found within our hearts. Experiencing the outer Guru, trying to raise our own lives to the level of His purity, love, and truth, must lead us to hear His echo within the core of our hearts. And thus, we are helped to realize the ever-abiding inner Guru, that is God. Then we shall never be desolate.
Many have tried to solve the mystery of the great miracle-workers. Eliphas Levi, writing of those who acquired the high magic, says—”To command nature we must be above nature by resistance to her attractions.” Arthur Osborne says in `The Mountain Path’ that when powers appear in a person at an early age, it’s probably because that person attained such a state of purity in his last incarnation that power flows through him unimpeded in this. But it seems to me that the truth may go even deeper. There is, for instance, the profound Indian metaphysics of Avatars [incarnations] to be explored and understood. Even so, could we ever really understand?
Sai Baba Himself tells us that we cannot solve His mystery. Better than trying, He suggests, is to just dive into Him. Better than the mental gymnastics, that get us nowhere, is a dive into the refreshing lake of Divine Love. Through bhakti [devotion] we will come to jnana [knowledge].
I find that trying to write a book about Him is like attempting to put the universe into a small room; doing an article on Him is like squeezing a mountain into a jam-jar. Enclosing Him in this short talk is like putting the ocean into an inkbottle.
I can only say in conclusion and in summary that, like many before me—but unlike Caesar—`I came, I saw, and I was conquered.’ I saw purity and high spiritual power; I saw prema, sathya [truth]—all those things toward which man strives through many lifetimes. Seeing all this, who would not be a devotee?
And, of course, for the spiritual gifts He gives, it is quite impossible to thank Him in words. Words are such feeble things! Nor is there anything He wants from us except, in His own graphic phrases, “the unsullied blossoms of pure hearts, and the fruit offerings of good deeds.” In another place He says, “Come to me with empty hands—I shall fill them with gifts and grace. If your hands are full, what am I to fill them with.”
Our empty hands must be outward signs and symbols of an inner purity and submission; hearts and minds must be emptied of dross to receive the gift of grace—the supreme love that transmutes the lead of earthly natures into the gold of the divine spiritual man.
~Howard Murphet
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, June 1967
