The Divine Playground on the Banks of River Chithravathi
The following article is adapted from a book entitled Lokanath Sai by M.L. Leela, a long time devotee of Swami. The divine play of Sathya Sai Baba with His devotees is reminiscent of the childhood play of Krishna with his devotees.
This is the human form in which every Divine entity, every facet of the divine principle—that is to say, all the names and forms ascribed by man to God—are manifest. ~Sri Sathya Sai Baba
During the early days, from 1946 to 1949, a few devotees of our Lord had the opportunity to witness Swami’s leelas (divine play) on the banks of the Chithravathi River. Usually we got ready around three in the afternoon—just like children in Madras waiting for their parents to take them to Marina Beach. By four o’clock, Swami led us to the river bank. We trekked in the cool, sweeping breeze, following our Lord as He walked in flowing robes, bright as sunlight in an atmosphere of serenity. We were surrounded by golden brown hillocks topped by occasional dark streaks. Our steps, which we took with feet that plunged into the sand along the river, contrasted with the gliding Lotus feet of our Lord, who also walked along the sand. We walked for about half an hour, then Swami asked us to decide where we wanted to sit. We selected a spot and Swami sat in the place that we chose. He sat in the center and we sat in a circle around Him.
Shortly, He said, “Let’s talk,” and devotees posed questions about Lord Rama or Lord Krishna. Often Swami told stories about incidents in their lives that had hitherto been unknown and unrecorded. Then he would ask the lucky few with melodious voices to sing Meera bhajans (songs composed by Meera, a woman saint 16th century) or Thyagaraja keerthanas (songs composed by Thyagaraja, a devotee of Rama who lived in the… ) or Purandaradas keerthanas(songs composed by Purandaradas, a devotee of Rama in …) Sometimes, Swami would call a devotee and have him sit near Him. Then he would pull an idol from the sand. Each time it would be the form of the personal God the devotee worshipped. He or she would be in tears of joy as Swami would give them the idol and ask them to worship it. The idols were Ganesha, Rama, Krishna, Panduranga, Narasima, Padmanabha, Devi, Hanuman, Saraswathi, Shirdi Sai, Kumaraswami, or others. After this very special blessing, everyone would receive a general blessing by way of blessed food. Swami would produce laddus (a round Indian sweet) from the sand and distribute them Himself. He would distribute the one single laddu in His palm to everyone there (all 30 or 40 devotees), giving more than half to each one! His palm was like the container that produces endless food. Sometimes He would offer Doodhpeda (milk sweet) or Kesari (sweet semolina) or sweet pongal (rice and lentils). Whenever we looked tired, Swami would manifest Badaam Halwa (almond sweet) and give it to us.
Once, Swami brought out idols and pendants made of ivory and sandalwood from His “Sai Store”. Other times, He gave photographs of the deities to chosen devotees. Once, when Swami asked a devotee who was well-versed in the Bhagawad Gita, whether he owned a copy of the Gita, the devotee said that he had only an old copy with the pages torn. Swami leveled the sand as He usually did and pulled out a new copy of the Gita, written in Telugu, and gave it to him. Overjoyed, the devotee read it in tears.
World War II was raging at that time and rolls of film were hard to come by. I had an ordinary Agfa box camera. Swami manifested some rolls of film and gave them to me so I could take group photos of the devotees with Him. He asked me to mail the photographs, along with the negatives, to the devotees.
Once on the banks of Chithravathi, Swami asked me to read a book written by His school master, Sri Kondappa, on Baba’s life. When I read, “Shirdi Sai Baba is now reborn as Sri Sathya Sai Baba,” Swami’s form changed to that of Shirdi Sai Baba. My father rose from the crowd, shouting, “Hey, Sai! Hey, Sai!” and rushed toward Baba, hugging Him tightly. Swami found it very difficult to release Himself from my father’s embrace until His form changed back to that of Sathya Sai.
One day, while we were walking to the banks of the Chitravathi, Swami asked us all to run and catch Him. He ran quickly, then sat down at a distance. We ran toward Him, but just as we were about to touch Him, He appeared elsewhere. We rushed toward his new seat, but when we got close, He again changed His location. Finally, we surrendered at His Lotus Feet, admitting our defeat. He had revealed His omnipresence.
I remember another memorable event on the banks of the Chitravathi. While we were on our way to the riverbank, Swami asked us to collect white stones—quartz—from the bases of the hillocks. We brought a large load. He instructed us to put the stones on a large towel. He then made a big bundle of the towel and the stones inside and beat the bundle on the sand. Using the sand as a pounding rock, He crushed the white stones! Swami slowly opened the bundle and the contents became sugar-candy powder. He asked us to fetch water from the river. Then He dropped the sugar-candy powder into a large vessel. He kept transferring the water from one pot to another and back again. This happened several times. With each change of vessel, the sugar candy changed color; it gradually became light brown, then dark brown. It also became more and more dense. Small bits of raisins and other fruits appeared. Finally, it became Panchamrutham. (immortal blessed food consisting of five ingredients) Swami distributed it to us as Sai prasad.
When Bhagawan led us to the banks of the Chithravathi, we passed through a cluster of huts. Every day, an old woman, with a basket full of basil leaves (tulasi), emerged from one of the huts. Swami would halt there. She offered all the tulasi leaves at His Lotus feet, prostrated herself before Him, and returned happy to her hut. One day, Swami asked her to join the group. She came joyously. As soon as we had settled on the sands, Swami asked her to express her wish. She replied, with humility and devotion, that she wanted to possess a photograph of her deceased husband (he had passed away in 1924) for worship. Swami asked whether her husband had ever been photographed. She answered that in 1924, there had been no photo studios in their area. Instantly, Swami pulled a passport-sized photograph of the woman’s husband from the sand and gave it to her. She looked at it and reveled in joy, as if her husband had come back to life. How could anyone witness such a miracle and keep quiet?
Let us analyze the time sequence. Swami took Avatar-hood in 1926. The husband shed his mortal coil two years earlier, in 1924. The materialization of the photograph, as I have related, happened sometime in 1946. How can we account for the strange, unique phenomenon? Scientifically, it is impossible. A majority of devotees may not even be able to accept this phenomenon. How is it possible? As mere mortals, do we even have the authority to express our opinion about it? Indeed, is anything impossible for the creator of the multifarious, beautiful, wonderful world of animate and inanimate things? How did the Creator make this magnificent world of mountains, trees, rivers, oceans, the sun, moon and stars, and all the beings and non-beings? In the same way, the photograph of the never-photographed deceased man emerged merely by His will, though the Great Creator came to the world in physical form only in late 1926. I am reminded that He has said, “All beings are images of God. All men are His pictures. All beings exist only as a result of His will in accordance with His plan. So there can be no one beyond His Grace.”
Whenever we accompanied Bhagawan to the Chitravathi banks, we would sit in a place where the riverbank lay on one side and a hillock on the other. We would often gaze at a lonely tamarind tree at the top of the hill; it jutted out with a crown of leaves. Though the tree had grown between a huge, split boulder, it had a very healthy growth. Other than the tree, the hill was almost barren, with little vegetation. One day, Swami suddenly suggested that we climb the hillock. All of us, young and old, started climbing. Swami led us. We reached a particular spot with a steep boulder. We couldn’t climb it on our own. Swami stood on top of the boulder and bent down with outstretched arms to lift each of us up. We all reached the top—young, old, light, and heavy. The tamarind tree was like the Moola Vigraha and Swami appeared as the presiding, as well as the processional, deity. We sang bhajans led by Swami Himself. Then Bhagawan asked us, “What do you want?” He added “Look at this tree. You can pluck and take whatever you want. Everything is there.” To our great astonishment, we saw many different things hanging from the tips of the branches: apples, laddus, oranges, plums, dates, guavas, lockets, and idols—including a small pendant of Matsyavathar (the divine fish form of Lord Narayana). All of us rushed to the tree and plucked whatever we wanted. With permission from our Lord, I, a botanist, took a branch of the tamarind tree with two apples hanging from its tip. I wanted to show it to my classmates and professors at Presidency College in Madras where I was doing graduate work in botany.
My classmates were struck with wonder. But my lecturers expressed doubt, saying a magician must have tied the fruit to the tips of the branches with invisible wire. Equating divinity to paltry money-making magicians is the fashion of the educated. Their intellectual arrogance cannot be easily subdued. It has to be sublimated. Bhagawan often says, “If you merely get degrees, you will not achieve much. Along with your degrees, develop general knowledge and common sense. It is no use to have culture without education, or education without culture. Education and culture are like positive and negative ends. Only by uniting the two can you have the electricity of divinity.”
Soon it was dark. Seeing that we were in a joyful mood, Swami decided to enjoy Himself at our expense. As we began to climb slowly down the hillock, Swami showed us bright balls of fire. They were racing up and down, here, there, and yonder on the ground. He said, “See. Ghosts are waiting to catch all of you. This place is haunted by ghosts of vanity.” Some of the older women in the group were terribly frightened. They even forgot about the presence of the Lord. We descended fast. Swami walked ahead, teasing us about our fears.
Source: Lokanath Sai, by M.L. Leela
Madras: Sri Sathya Sai Mandali Trust
