Their Shelter & Their Strength

This is a talk given to about 60 students of the Sri Sathya Sai Arts & Science College, gathered in Bhagavan’s presence on a sandy riverbed in the Bandipur Forest, Mysore State.

A highly valued facet of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, at least for me, is that one can love Him with all one’s heart, without fear and without restraint. Every person wants to love greatly, with an open heart, but experience has made us afraid.

We may observe how natural it is for young children to love whole-heartedly. With what richness and sweetness do very young children embrace parents, brothers, sisters, and close playmates! How much joy there is for an adult when a child of three or four years tightly embraces him with the sweetest of smiles and says, “I love you, I love you.”

It is the river of love rushing from the open heart of the child that makes the child so incredibly sweet and so overflowing with bliss. It is this rich treasure of love and affection that touches even the dullest adult and makes him share the child’s bliss for a moment or so.

But, as each of us leaves the innocent open‑hearted years of our early childhood, something very sad and tragic happens. Worldly experience invades the shelter of early years and the heart suffers betrayal and rejection. One loves someone and love flows to that person. But, the response is indifference, or a harsh word, or outright rejection, and the resulting hurt is deep and agonizing.

The child tries again and again, and here and there, he is hurt again. In time, a natural self‑protection arises and the child’s love is qualified with caution.

A person learns that when he loves, he is unprotected; love destroys his self‑pro­tection, and makes him vulnerable to suffer­ing. With each year of worldly experience, additional self‑protective factors come into one’s life. Ambition, business cares, com­petition, gratification of the senses, greed, resentment, hatred, jealousy, the whole range of narrowing tendencies exert more and more influence on body, mind, heart and intelligence. The open natural heart expansion of early childhood is by now a thing of the past.

Is not this complete obstruction of the flow of love, a fundamental reason why the life of an older person is often dry and joyless?

In this modern society, a dry and joyless life is the general experience. Witness the frantic search for distraction and pleasure the world over. An almost universal prayer arises from adult persons caught up in to­day’s culture: “O Lord, may there be a new season of spring in my heart. May the dry river of love flow deep and strong again in my heart.”

Here, to me, is one of the most wonder­ful miracles of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Bhagavan is God, His life is divine beauty and divine love. The fettered heart, turned to Bhagavan, can break free from all its bondage. Seeing Him, being sure that He will never betray, is a most wonderful feeling. With joy, the heart res­ponds to this trust. With each day, love for Bhagavan grows stronger. He is divine mother and father to His devotee. He is the present moment at every moment! He is our breath, our food, and our drink. Con­templating God so that at that moment, bliss is the experience.

One may love Him without reserve, without guard, without fear, how­ever guarded one may still be with fellow human beings. Of course, one’s behavior with Him must remain strictly disciplined. The young college boys here, assembled at this quiet stretch of sandy riverbed deep in the forest, cannot, I think, realize their good luck. For them, the heart need never be­come dry. Long before the hot dry winds of the world have had an opportunity to invade their lives, these boys have claimed Bhagavan, He who is their shelter and their strength, from now, throughout the length of their days.

For myself who has come to this peaceful forest from the stormy life of the western world, the good fortune of encoun­tering Bhagavan is almost incredible. Even now, some five years from that marvelous first day, it is difficult to believe that it is really true, that He sits there, and that I am here near Him! It is with the deepest sense of gratitude that I honor Him and give all homage at His lotus feet.

~Dr. J. S. Hislop
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, April 1973