Sai and Jesus
Al Drucker is a very old devotee of Bhagavan Baba. Following is an excerpt from his talk given in Bhagavan’s presence on Christmas day 1981 at the Poornachandra auditorium in Prasanthi Nilayam.
Through God’s will I came into this life in a Jewish family, and so I was brought up as a Jew, the same religious tradition that Jesus and His disciples were brought up in. Jesus symbolically chose the Jewish festival of Passover for His last days on earth. I remember as a child how on that Passover holiday we would sit together in the evening before the meal and tell the story of the exodus of the children of Israel from the land of bondage. Jesus and His followers must have also recited that biblical story on Passover eve, which was His Last Supper for His disciples. It must have had enormous significance since Jesus had announced Himself to be the Messiah, or Christos in Greek, who, like Moses in more ancient times, had been sent by God to save His people.
In the Passover story it is told how God came with wondrous miracles and signs, and directed Moses to bring the people out of captivity into the desert. There, God gave them His commandments and law. Then after 40 years in the wilderness, He brought them into the Promised Land. It is a story of trials and deliverance. Whenever the people came into difficult times, the prophecy was that God would send the Messiah, the Savior, who could deliver them from their suffering.
In the family in which I grew up, this story of the exodus had special meaning, for at that time we were living through the dark days of Hitler in Nazi Germany. We would sing with great feeling the songs that prayed for the Messiah to come and rescue us, and sometimes we would sing King David’s heart-wrenching Psalm from the Old Testament, “Oh God! Oh God! Why have You forsaken us?” But God had not forsaken. He had come and was present here on earth in human form. Many years later, after coming to Bhagavan, … it became clear that we had all been rescued and were being brought by Him to the golden age, the Promised Land.
Last year the opportunity came to say to Him, “Swamiji, we are all so grateful to You. We were lost and You found us, and now You have brought us here to You. Dear Lord, You are the Messiah we have been waiting for and praying for so long.” But Baba answered, “No, No. It’s not like that. Not just the Messiah. You are also Messiah. You are all Messiah. You have the strength to rescue yourselves from bondage and help others to do so also.”
Swami’s message was clear… “Do not look for the Savior outside of you. Like Moses and Jesus you are also the chosen of God, the Son of God. And in time you will even realize that you are wholly divine, that you yourself are also God.” It is a powerful and truly revolutionary message…We cannot believe and we won’t trust in ourselves as the divine spirit; we cannot believe that divine spirit is our true essence, our reality. So in life after life, we have gotten lost in the world, dwelling only in our lower natures. But our souls cried out for freedom. When finally the agony and suffering became unbearable, we prayed for deliverance. Like children we cried for the all‑knowing, the all‑powerful, Heavenly Father to come and rescue us, to love us and guide us… In His infinite compassion and mercy He answered that call. First, He sent Jesus, the perfected man, to serve as an example to us of the ideal human life. And now He Himself has come to guide us home.
Last March I started to ask Bhagavan a question about Christ, but before I could ask, He repeated a statement that most of us have heard before with wonder and awe. He said, “Jesus announced to His followers that this age, this Kali Yuga [the Iron Age], will become so wicked, and man will become such a danger to himself, that the One who sent me, the Father Himself, will have to come and save mankind. His name will be truth. He will wear a red robe and a crown of black hair. He will be called Baba.” And here Swami added, “My name is Sathya, which means truth. This is My robe and this is My hair. This is the Baba that Jesus announced.” He was the all‑loving Father as He said this. He was not making a pronouncement. He was just speaking very softly and gently and naturally of a simple truth that we can’t properly talk of Jesus without at the same time talking of the Father. The two are inseparable. Sai and Jesus are One. Truly Sai and all His children are One.
As we grow up spiritually and begin to understand the magnitude of our great fortune to be born as human beings on the earth at a time when our Divine Father has come as Avatar… as we delve deeper into His mystery, His wonder, His magnificence…as we strengthen the bond of love between us…as we follow His teachings and do His work, seeing all mankind as our family and brethren…we are naturally raised to the full expression of our own innate divinity. Our prema [love] and bhakti [devotion] directly call forth God’s grace, and He multiplies our efforts a hundred‑fold. He says, “Be a lamp unto yourself,” and step by step we are led onward to our own uplifting, coming closer and closer to our Divine Father Sai, until finally we realize that we and He are One. So‑Ham. I am He. The Father and Son are One.
That in essence was the path that Jesus trod and revealed to us. And that is our own path as well. Let us pray to Bhagavan for His blessings that we may one‑pointedly proceed on that holy path and soon reach His lotus feet.
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, Feb. 1982
