We Love You

A young adult relates her experience of the ten days spent with Swami during the Summer Course in May 1995.

I can still recall the ride from Kadugodi to Bangalore Airport at the end of my first Summer Course in Indian Culture and Spirituality in 1992. I had spent that ride trying to subdue the pain of saying goodbye to Bhagavan but, instead, was preoccupied with a flurry of thoughts. When would I again sing Brahmaarpanam (the food prayer) right before Him, or listen to Him sing bhajans (devotional songs) and tell His childhood stories? When would I see Him laugh again or watch Him listen to the Sai Symphony? All of us had understood the priceless nature of these experiences and kept saying that going to the Summer Course was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. But each time I heard or said those words, I wept and wept until I could weep no more, wishing that the vividness of our experience and its influence on me would never lessen as the Summer Course became a distant memory.

So, when faced for the third time in my life with the opportunity to attend Summer Showers in Brindavan, would there be any need for deliberation, discourse, or dilemma before booking a ticket to Bangalore? When it suddenly appeared that I might again find myself caught in the Summer Showers, gazing at the sight of my Lord giving discourses, all I could remember was my many prayers that He call us again and again to His lotus feet, my utter despair on the last day of my first Summer Course, and Swami’s words: Shed one tear for me and I shall wipe a hundred from your face. Take one step in my direction, and I shall take a hundred towards you.

Just as I might wonder whether a friend whom I had ignored for months would still speak to me, a doubt arose in my mind even as I prepared to see Bhagavan for the 1995 Summer Showers in Brindavan. I seriously wondered, Would God Love me even though I was a sinner? With that question, I doubted the limitless parameters of divine love, only to find the answer waiting for me as soon as I arrived.

Barely a few hours after we had alighted from the plane, we were sitting for morning darshan (being in the presence of a holy person). Within minutes, we caught sight of Swami walking amidst square blocks of hundreds of people. I merely sat admiring His petal-like form, as I continued to wonder whether I could expect His attention after consciously doing wrong, or whether I should continue the practice of hiding from His picture when I make mistakes.

I sat up straight when I noticed He was coming towards the back of Sai Ramesh Hall, where we were seated; soon He was walking down our row. Before I realized it, He was standing before me, allowing me to touch His feet—one, two, three times—and taking my letters. And as He did, the answer to my query came loud and clear: Yes! Yes! I love you though you make mistakes, though you may turn away from me. I love you. As I looked up at the brilliant form, now just a few feet away and enveloped in sunlight, taking letters from the next soul, I smiled with the knowledge that here stood my best friend and closest companion, who would remain so even after I had confessed to Him my lapses and strayed in the wrong direction.

What thanks can we offer Sai?
Mother Sai gives the love of a thousand mothers;
Father Sai gives the care of a thousand fathers;
Guru Sai imparts the knowledge of a thousand teachers.
What thanks can we offer Sai?

The angelic voices of 500 girls sang these words, garlanding Him with strings of musical notes suffused with feeling as all of us sat on the plush green lawn outside Swami’s house. We sat in neat rows, back to back, while Bhagavan walked among us, giving us padnamaskar (an opportunity to touch the feet of a Divine being) and mysore pak (sweets). Soon afterwards, He brought boxes of snacks for each of us. Shouts of “Thank you, Swami!” came forth from all directions. His reply was like the warm embrace a mother gives her child. “No mention! Do you thank your own mother? You are mine and I am yours.”

Swami, You are more than a mother. You make mother’s love look like nothing. Are you really mine? Could I really be yours?

The following day, as I filed out of the interview room with the others, passing Swami, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by all He had given me, I said, with my hands folded, “Thank you, Swami.” He lovingly hit my folded hands and sent me out of the interview room with the others. “So, this is love” I thought. “Love is that which gives and never receives.” He had given us passes, accommodations, food, snacks, sweets, padnamaskar, darshan, laughs, interviews, Vibhuti (sacred ash) from His very hands and, of course, the gems of His teachings. He told us “No mention…” and denied our thanks. Above all this, He called us by surprise at 3:30 one afternoon to give us saris! As we unwillingly stood up and walked down Swami’s driveway (only after He took pity on us and said He would see us again the next day), my heart once more so unfortunately erupted. Is there a limit to all that He gives? Is there a limit to divine love? I had asked him to increase my love for Him. And now my small heart poured forth in love—a love not controlled or forced, attempted or pursued. I wondered how He had accomplished this. I tried hard to think of one person in my life who has shown me even a fraction of the love Bhagavan has shown me throughout my life. Mother? Father? Brother? Aunt? Friend? Teacher? These relationships paled in comparison.

How much more can I love you, Lord
How much more can this vessel of my heart contain?
For it is already flowing through my eyes as tears at Your lotus feet.

In the split second that Bhagavan turned the bend and began heading up my row to give padanamaskar, I thought about what I wanted most in life. The pull was there to ask Him about my admission to medical school? If I didn’t ask Him, would I then have the strength, courage, and confidence to apply for, and go to, medical school and become a worthy physician? Or would I be wasting my chance to ask Him for Himself. No, Iwou1dn’t waste that chance. I decided that I would ask Swami for nothing less than the highest and the greatest He has to offer.

The next morning, hearts beating fast, we bounded up the driveway of Trayee Brindavan to wait in an alcove for an interview with Bhagavan. Once inside the private interview room, I sat right before Him. Swami, Swami, Swami … I waited as He attended to my fellow sisters. Finally, He looked at me. I could scarcely believe what was happening. My Lord was not going to ignore me! Ah, He indicated for me to ask my question. At the realization that I would be able to ask Him my deepest desire, how could I have held back the tears that flowed down my cheeks or prevented my words from choking as they so unfortunately did? But He leaned forward, His face close to mine, giving me a second chance to ask my question. This time I squelched the emotions, and the words came clear: “Help me to want only You.” He sat back in His chair, and like a professor pointing out an error or a doctor making a diagnosis, He nodded His head and gently said, “Need to control mind. Mind, even here, going here and there.” I nodded my head as He spoke and tried to listen carefully, feeling the familiar role of a student noting her errors. But then the floodgates of emotion took over. I knew this was my problem. I had often prayed about it to Him. However, I didn’t know how to begin solving it and, pathetically, my next question came forth: How? And then I experienced a moment more precious to me than my very life. Bhagavan leaned forward, lifted His right hand, and as I sat before Him, I felt that Hand, which can turn earth into sky and sky into earth, gently reach my head (and subsequently all the others’ heads) as He said, “I will bless you.” What more would one want than to have God Himself bless your effort to reach Him? What greater boon could one ask from Him who can give anything? I could not resist touching His feet yet again—the feet of Him who understood my problems, understood my questions, my yearnings, of Him who knows what is best for me.

As we all sat in the private room somewhat silently, with Swami ready to listen to us, I foolishly racked my head, trying to think of what I wanted to ask Him. Though I had come to India prepared with about 25 questions, here I sat just in front of His lotus feet as Swami said, “Tell, tell” and the only thing I could wish for was that the interview would never end. Though I had even forgotten what I wanted so deeply, He had not. It was my good fortune that one of the girls asked Bhagavan if we could kiss His feet. With the answer “Kiss, kiss,” the glance of my Lord met mine, and I knew that my unspoken longing had finally been granted. I immediately leaned over, grasped His heel with my right hand, His toes with my left hand, and held strongly that deceivingly fragile foot, which I kissed three times.

As a group, we were a bit quiet this time, our second chance to confide in Bhagavan during a private interview. In one of these split-second instances during that interview, a girl voiced three words that again were in my head and undoubtedly conveyed not only my thoughts but the thoughts of each one present. “Swami, we love you!” she so boldly cried. And with a sweep of His eye, He looked at each one of us, even turning His head to me on His left. With certainty He replied, “And I love you, also! All are pots with the same atma within.”

How much I love You
Only You know.
My heart beats only for You
You are my life.

This time, when I left the gates of Trayee Brindavan after taking morning darshan, I did not say goodbye or ask to take His leave. How could I possibly bear such a thing? No, I never say goodbye to my Swami, for were He to leave me, He would take with Him my breath, my heartbeat, my very life. Instead I pray that He remain with me always, that I may feel His presence wherever I may be.

Several weeks after my return to New York, He answered this prayer. On a sleepy Sunday morning I answered the phone to hear the message that Swami had just asked our group leader, who was still in Puttaparthi, “How are the Summer Course girls? Tell them I am thinking of them always.”

What more do I need, Lord,
When I know that you are listening,
as I cry out your name?
What more could I want,
When I know You think of me,
so that I may do the same?

~Roshan Ramanathan
Staten Island, New York, USA