Christmas

Hislop: The crucifixion of Christ, the metal figure of Christ on the cross that Swami created; the metal, when strongly magnified, appears to be more or less covered with small bumps. What are they?

Sai: They are blood, knots of blood. The body was in bad condition. It had been hurt and injured over the entire body. At death, the blood came to a sudden stop, and the bumps are clots of blood.

Hislop: Swami, on the photo enlargements of the statue, it also looks as if a sort of slice off the nose had been removed.

Sai: The nose is whole. That is a heavy bloodstain. When the face itself is enlarged, it is seen as a dead face. Swami made the metal image of the body after its death.

Hislop: Because of pictures being around, and the story and pictures being in books, the little figure on the cross is becoming quite famous. What should be done with it? Should it be placed in the new Sathya Sai Museum?

Sai: For the museum, Swami will make a big image of Christ. The small one was for you. You keep it.

Sai: What do you make of Christmas?

Hislop: I was never really interested in Christianity, but I have paid more attention since Swami made the crucifix.

Sai: I mean, what does Christmas represent?

Hislop: The birth of Christ is represented.

Sai: The 25th is not the birth. It was on the 24th, near midnight.

Hislop: Not long ago, I found out something very interesting about the Christian religion. The early Christian fathers of the Eastern Church knew something of which modern Christians have no idea. The early Fathers taught that one should constantly say, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.’ There is constant repetition of Christ’s name until the name goes into the heart where the repetition continues without cessation. Along with the repetition of the name, the form of Christ is visualized in the mind. I learned of this through reading an old book, The Way of the Pilgrim, translated from the Russian.

Sai: As time goes on, the significant factors of the spiritual path are lost. The Christian mystics took up the repetition of the name of Christ starting about 19 years after his death. As time goes on, human nature comes to the front and the divine is put aside and forgotten. That which was known of the spiritual path after the time of Rama was no longer there at the time of Krishna. And that which Krishna taught was gone when Sai came. It is the same with the Buddhists, the Moslems and the Jains.

Source: Conversations with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba