The Most Astonishing Miracle
Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is now a phenomenal institution rather than a matchless personality. It is impossible to deal, even meagerly, with any single facet of His supreme versatility. In fact, it is in vain to attempt to assess what is elusive, enigmatic, and unknowable. A humble tribute such as the present effort only sets forth in broad outline salient points, more in an explorative than in an empirical manner.
Several persons, out of ignorance, prejudice, or presumption, look upon Baba as a miracle monger and base His title to fame upon the countless wonders He performs. They blab or believe that His supernal powers are the outcome of magic or hypnotism. Let them hug this illusion and stew in their own juice. However, an old devotee of Bhagavan, a fortunate recipient of His blessing, once told the writer of this article that the greatest miracle that Baba does is to provide the inner guidance to a person and to thoroughly transform his character, habits, and life. The change He brings about, all-embracing in nature, is silent, steady, and sustained, and does not usually call for the footlight or the bouquets. Yet it is really breathtaking though not spectacular, and is effective, complete, and fundamental. In this role as the Pilot from within, Bhagavan “plays” His most astonishing “miracle”.
To make Him the Guide and Guardian sharanagati (submission without any reserve) is absolutely essential. Self-surrender postulates the complete negation of the ego, the monstrous issue of misleading maya. The devotee must know the relative position of himself and of his `mentor’. He must have full and implicit faith in the Guide, and sincere and unwavering reliance upon His wisdom and regard for His charge, not only during the novitiate but throughout. As in feudal hierarchy, service is to come from below and protection from above. There should be no demand or desire, either material or spiritual, for God knows what is good or necessary for His ward. No selfish motive is to be entertained, except perhaps the pardonable general longing for liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Possibly even this last vestige of `clinging’ to the self is to be given up; for it implies a lingering doubt in God’s solicitude for the devotee and also in His omniscience. A unique prayer says:
Bhagawan! Bhoota-bhavesa
na jaane hitam aatmanah!
Twameva sanchintya vibho
hitam me karthum arhasi.
(Lord, master of what has happened and what is to be, I know not what is good for me. You alone think well and do me what is beneficial).
An earnest and systematic attitude of humility and self-abnegation has to be sedulously cultivated. Mere bhakti (devotion) will not do; Bhagavan has stressed the need for shraddha, nishtha, and jnana (faith, steadfastness, wisdom). On the basis of faith, the other qualities have to be securely ‘built’—close attention to word and deed and scrupulous performance of work; and ultimately Truth will flash across the prepared and purified mind. Work has to be done with a sense of dedication and not with regard to reward or emolument.
Gradually a golden (yet adamantine) bond will be forged between the individual and the universal. The devotee will come to realize his relative position in the baffling scheme of creation and will know that he is only a tool to carry out the inscrutable Divine purpose. He will outlive the idle curiosity of his (earlier) spiritual infancy, the fussy hankering after the riddle of the world. He will acquire self-confidence, strength, vigor, and courage to face with equanimity the pulling puzzles of life, the din and bustle of the struggle for existence. Untouched by any dual polarizations, he will be more or less a witness, and though a participant, not a partisan.
One matter has always to be kept in view and should on no account be relaxed or compromised. The devotee should not be vindictive towards anyone who may have done him an ill turn and should not think of paying off an old score. Anger, envy and malice are evils, and they sharply cut both ways. In every object there is God’s presence in some measure, according to the law of evolution. The above qualities—they are indeed vices—imply a perfunctorily negative attitude that is not only morally imperfect, but positively injurious and will harmfully tell upon the person concerned, bringing out real trouble and retarding progress. There are examples of great saints forced to take birth again, often in a lower form, because of some unworthy action they did by chance or by choice. Such instances signify need for caution and vigilance not only in the early stages of sadhana but for the whole span of life. The elephant for all its bulk may slip; even the tallest tree seldom touches the heavens… Baba has clinched this question in an unanswerable manner: “Whom do you hate? I am in every person. Even your so-called enemy enshrines Me within”. The Gita refers to this all-pervasive nature of God:
Yachaapi sarva bhootaanaam
Beejam tadaham Arjuna!
(Arjuna! I am the seed of all living things, whatever they may be)
Matthah parataram naanyat
Kinchidasti Dhananjaya.
Mayi sarvamidam protam
Sootre mani ganaaiva.
(Dhananjaya! nothing exists apart from Me. All are strung in Me like beads by a thread).
When a person realizes his indwelling spirit, it is just like his deciphering his permanent address. The identity must be experienced. God is ever watchful without being known or seen. He is behind the side-curtain, directing the play on the stage, and nothing escapes His Argus eyes. Even a blade of grass does not grow without His will… God reveals His infinite mercy (let it be mentioned in passing that none, however wicked, is to be damned forever, to burn in the quenchless flames of hell) and redeems and sustains him here and hereafter. There are four types of such `good souls’, according to the Gita:
Aarto jijnaasurarthaarthi,
jnani cha, Bharatharshabha
(He who suffers, he who seeks to know, he who aspires for some object, and he who knows the reality).
A devotee is par excellence, unique, and God has a special human regard for him. Their attachment is permeated by the rapture of love and is suffused by its fragrance. (It is said to be mainly of six different kinds that need not be glanced at here).
It is obvious that punishment is the privilege of God: “Vengeance is Mine”, the Bible says. Similarly, to forgive is Divine. Man naturally errs, and God exercises His grace in different ways. He guides the seeker (novice) along the right path, even helping him over the stile, cutting short a circuitous road, a journey in a longer or a lower plane. He also pardons a bona fide mistake, a margin of defect or draw-back.
But God indulges in leelas of a peculiar type when He bestows His compassion upon His devotee often both before and after. The Divine Child is indeed self-willed, and He plays the whole gamut of pranks. They are sometimes of the nature of tests to accelerate the devotee’s advance and to intensify His faith. Yet they constitute an ordeal of fire, and such a `baptism’ is only the shadow of His protective, outstretched hands. There is no cleansing without suffering; sorrow is the harbinger of the morrow breaking in at the end of the night of the soul. Only it should be attuned to the chain of the spirit, and not of the flesh.
In the inner consciousness, the devotee will know that God is everything and he will not stray away after mundane glory, however glittering, alluring or meretricious. He will echo:
“Thwameva maata cha pita thwameva
Thwameva bandhuscha sakha thwameva
Thwameva vidya dravinam thwameva
Thwameva sarvam mama Deva-Deva.”
(You are verily my mother, my father, my kith and kin, my friend, my learning, my wealth, indeed my everything! Oh! Sovereign God).
He can even take some liberties with his Ishthadeva. The distance between them is annihilated. For him the sight does not flicker any more, the Peace does not fade away. He becomes a jeevan-mukta (one liberated even in life in the gross body). To attain this state, constant unremitting effort is indispensable; mere wishful thinking will not do. In His innumerable discourses Bhagavan has inimitably dwelt on this absorbing theme.
God is as much in need of man as man needs God. While people seek God, God goes in search of a devotee. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa is said to have cried out in agony for His devotees. He even sought out Narendranath (the future Swami Vivekananda) in Calcutta when the latter delayed or demurred in going to Dakshineswar. Sri Sathya Sai Bhagavan left His home to devote Himself entirely to His bhaktas. The Divine quest for man is the subject of “The Hound of Heaven”, a mystic poem by Francis Thompson, in an unusually strange, but none-the-less factual and convincing, symbolism. Erratic, arrogant, or stupid, man vainly strives toward his Divine Seeker. He tries the different objects of the manifest world like a bee flitting among flowers, but they disappoint him and do not give him lasting rest or refuge—nature, women, children, fine arts, sensuous pleasures, and the like. Finely the relentless chase ends in man’s surrender to God, who captures his quarry at a significant moment and resolves all his whims, trials, and troubles and restores him to favor. This pursuit of the human by the Divine is little known or appreciated; yet it is real. So long as we are immersed in petty problems, we have no time or turn for this tremendous drama. But none can escape. If we hearken to Bhagavan’s exhortations and put into practice any of His advice or admonitions, we are indeed blessed.
May Sri Bhagavan Sathya Sai Baba guide us and vouchsafe to us His beatific Grace.
~Prof: P. G. Narayanan
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, May 1968
