Experiencing the Avatar: A Priest’s Insight 

In the following excerpt from his autobiography, an Italian catholic priest, Don Mario Mazzoleni, chastises those who fault Bhagavan Baba and His mission, pointing out that the world has a history of misunderstanding and misjudging prophets and divine beings. The author emphasizes the need for spiritual aspirants to recognize the Divinity present before us, and imbibe the teachings of the Master—Baba. 

As a result of a serious illness that let me take a break from an intensely active lifestyle,  I started to read many books about parapsychology, eastern spirituality and, finally, about Sai Baba.

The best thing to do after discovering Sai Baba is to study Him. Nothing in my life has given me as much joy and filled me with so much bliss as studying Baba. This in itself is extraordinary. At school, I was forced to study such personages as Napoleon, Cavour, Mazzini, the emperors of ancient Rome, or the Popes. All I got out of it was an overwhelming boredom, and a fervent desire for the end of the class. But when I devote myself to the study of Sai Baba, His work, and His teachings, I never get tired of it even when studying things that I already know (or think I know). In fact, I always benefit from it: it is always uplifting and refreshing.

I have noticed ever since I first found out about Baba that people never tire when they talk about Him. You can go on for hours describing His divine games and miracles, His encounters with His devotees, His ways of drawing them to Him, and you forget even to eat.

Another thing I have observed ever since I have been involved with Sai Baba is that talking about Him warms you and recharges you with new energy. At times, remembering a story about Him or recalling one of His characteristic gestures moves the heart so deeply that when you are talking to someone who does not know Baba, you are liable to dissolve into tears of joy. Often, when I speak of Him, I have seen tears in the eyes of people whom I was meeting for the first time, people who until that moment had always felt distant from faith and religion.

To study Sai Baba, especially to those who have known Him, will seem presumptuous. Someone who proposes to study Sai Baba could be compared to a frog that having tired of its confining little bog decides to venture into the ocean to understand its secrets.

Although Sai Baba complies with even a skeptical scientific curiosity, my “study” was not really a challenge to His greatness, but rather an investigation to learn more about Him. When you come across someone with whom you feel an affinity, it is only natural to want to enter into that person’s life. And then if the encounter goes well, you want more than a simple acquaintance; you desire a close friendship, intimacy….

For me, to study Sai Baba meant first of all to see Him, then to investigate His activity, and third, to understand His thought and His message. Although I expected to take these steps one at a time, I soon discovered that they are not separable. Sai Baba began to be a message from the moment I first saw Him. Because of this, someone who sees Him has already received an enormous gift. I don’t say this rhetorically, because the things you understand upon meeting Him may be enough to revolutionize your life, but they still are only an infinitesimal part of what you did not understand at the time, and will gradually discover in the course of subsequent events.

During my research, I realized that the phenomenon that is Sai Baba transcended not only science with all its laws, but also theology, in so far as it too is a science, subject to the power of reason, and therefore as limited as human reason itself. I understood that if medicine or physics had to upset all its conclusions and surrender before the ‘phenomenon’ that is Sai Baba, theology could not escape from having to do the same in front of the ‘revelation’ that is Sai Baba. In short, it had to be either revolution or surrender.

I would say to myself, ‘what does it matter if the world does not want to recognize Him? “This, too,” is part of His plans. Why should I worry about a task that is fully His responsibility? The sad thing would be if I let myself be blinded by fear, succumbing to the instinct to protect my respectability, I would be reabsorbed by skeptics in order not to upset theories that have become sacred and inviolable. If I did that, what use would I be? It would serve no purpose to complain about the indifference of others if I allowed myself to be swayed by the same laws of apathy.’

Immersed in these thoughts, I decided to actively pursue Sai Baba’s teachings.

After having been concerned all these years with a figure as controversial as the ‘barefoot saint’ of Puttaparthi, I have concluded that it is not legitimate to take into consideration the opinions of anyone who has not seen him, who has not heard him, who has not read His discourses, who is unfamiliar with the environment in which He was born, the religious and social context in which He lives, or who has no elementary notions of science and theology. To understand a fraction of Sai Baba’s reality, it is not enough to have just one of all the qualities listed above; you must have them all, at least to some degree.

Yet there are already groups, often among Catholics, who pronounce judgment, who have already declared that Sai Baba must be a demon or a powerfully mystifying magician. If you inquire further, you will find that they have only seen a photograph of Sai Baba and heard very little about Him. They are people who are afraid of competition or of the intervention of a God who might come and overthrow their kingdom, or overturn their monetary privileges.

Typically, I saw that most devotees of Sai Baba had a great desire to return to their original church with renewed fervor. Moreover, this return is often prevented by pastors who have, in effect, excommunicated the devotees by singling them out in their sermons as traitors to their faith. Nonetheless, there are some parish priests with open minds who have realized that an authentic spiritual conversion has taken place in these people baptized in the ‘Light of the East’, and that it is a conversion worthy of complete respect.

The same obstinacy that serves to divide two theories can be used to unite them. I became aware of this possibility in my recent studies, when I discovered that what divides theologians in their assertions is only an attitude that ranges from laziness to closed-mindedness. If that is all, don’t you think that the effort of discussion should be to promote union?

What we need today are people and theologians who seek this unity with a sincere commitment to practicing it in daily lives—and who stay away from arguments that destroy, embracing instead all that unites!

This is what the poet Kabir [an Indian saint] says:

What use is it if the scholar ponders words and concepts,
if the heart does not overflow with love?

What use is it if the ascetic dons saffron-colored robes,
if inside that one is pale?

What use is it to display morality
to make it shine in front of all,
if there is no music inside?

The truths that unite are discovered through humility and purity of heart. Everything that divides is founded in pride and ill will.

What makes it difficult to come to agreement is obstinacy and willfulness. Silence is the only solution to that.  If the truth lights its own way, it is wise to avoid instigating conflicts that end up destroying the peace.

The essential thing is to realize that in conducting their searches, all religions have always aimed at the same goal. They use the most diverse methods—one travels by boat, one on a raft, one in a ship—but they all sail in the same water.

Presumption is the most serious deterrent to unity. There are people who are convinced that they are doing the will of God even when they persecute, kill, and torture others.

Spiritual people stay clear of all fanaticism. They do not care whether people sing one way or another, whether they wear a japamala [rosary] around their necks, or a cross on a chain; rather, they desperately seek unity with others, avoiding conflicts.

Unlimited love

Sai Baba does not compete against other religions. That is His greatness. He transcends religions, and He is not interested in having initiates or followers. He does not add or remove a single iota from scriptures, but rather explains them, showing how they have been distorted or forgotten.

Those who see in Sai Baba a man who is organizing villages and colleges for the love of power and money, forget that He has at His disposal all the gold in the world; and that some-one who knows how to draw pearls and diamonds from the ocean with a simple movement of thought has no need to beg for alms. They fail to realize that with their foul and miserable yardstick, they are judging an extraordinary being, someone with immeasurable powers, who can draw from an inexhaustible reservoir from which they themselves benefit, even though they are ignorant of this and ungrateful. They do not realize that what they see in Him is a reflection of their own tendencies.

Sai Baba’s unlimited love flows with compassion towards religions that are foundering in a state of corruption and decadence.

To approach Sai Baba, the essential prerequisite is a heart that is open to truth and closed to prejudice. Then, and only then, does Sai Baba reveal Himself.

Much like Jesus whose identification as the Messiah did not come simply from His declarations, but mostly from His work of salvation, Sai Baba does not worry about making everybody know who He is right away, but He works in the hearts of men, redeeming them.

The world does not change because of someone’s declaration that he is the Messiah. The world will change when man discovers that he is himself divine.

Jesus did not correct those who declared that He was the ‘Son of God’ or ‘Christ’ or the ‘Messiah.’ Even during His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, He condemned the Pharisees’ effort to suppress the crowd’s homage of the ‘Hosanna.’ He always displayed an extreme reserve in regard to the titles people attributed to Him. This was not due to false humility; it was because of the false concept of Messiah that His contemporaries had developed in their minds. They were hoping for a political and nationalistic Messiah, one who would solve all their little social and economic problems.

Likewise, there are many people now who blame Sai Baba for indifference to the sorrow that weighs on the world, and they question, “If He is so powerful, why doesn’t He eliminate all the suffering there is in the world?” These people would like to change the mission of the Divine incarnation. Jesus Christ did not change the sorrowful state of the world either, neither in His own time, nor afterward. Everything that had to happen—bloody revolutions, wars, destruction, persecutions, poverty, epidemics, etc.—all happened on schedule.

At the time of Jesus’ birth, all the children under two were slaughtered at the insane command of a criminal king who was afraid he would lose his kingdom. A comparable incident occurred at the time of Krishna: Kamsa [Krishna’s royal uncle] had all his sister’s children killed because he had been told that her eighth son would suppress him.

It is never the task of a redeemer to resolve human errors with a magic wand. Doing so would ensure that the errors would continue to be committed. It is not the mission of an elementary school teacher or of a parent to do the students’ homework. That would allow laziness to triumph, diplomas would be given unjustly, and degrees would soon prove deleterious to the whole society. No one among us would willingly go to a doctor who bought his degrees! Society can attain perfection only when it understands its faults and avoids them in the future.

Some people who have seen Sai Baba pass in front of so many sick people, often without even looking at them think they detect a mark of cruel insensitivity in this behavior. The truth is that His apparent indifference to illness, which is nothing but a tiny episode among so many existences, contains a deep message: “It is not your bodies which move Me to pity”—the great Master would tell us—“but only your mental state. Heal your minds and then your bodies, too, will no longer undergo suffering. First remove all the causes that have brought on the pain, and you will have perfect health.”

While a Hindu has no difficulty believing in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and worshiping His form along with those of Krishna or Rama or the other Avatars [divine incarnations] of Vishnu [the Hindu divine entity that sustains the creation], the converse would be apostasy for a westerner.

The concept of Avatar deserves close study on the part of Christian scholars. It may be that the whole problem, which makes us think that we are in some antithesis with the East, stems from a faulty interpretation of dogmas, or an irrational and self-serving respect for opinions that have been catalogued as unquestionable and presented as immutable for all time. In fact, people change, and with them their collective and individual level of consciousness also changes. If man changes, his thought will change, too.

No human being has the authority to declare that God can only incarnate a certain way, or

that He cannot choose to spread His message as He wills, not only through prophets, but also by incarnating as the Christ, that is, as Avatars. It would be an unforgivable theological and philosophical absurdity to deny the Divine power the right of taking human form in other epochs, among other nations, and in other physical forms. On this point, there can be no contrary dogma, because this truth is self-evident, and even a child can understand it. God cannot be limited by anything; much less by a human mind. If we want to have some mental concept of God, the first attribute we must give Him is all possible freedom.

Source: Sanathana Sarathi, May 1994