The Power Of Pure Love…
Wednesday, July 25th, 2012
Who is Sathya Sai? How should one account for His psychic powers? Has mankind ever understood Him and His benevolence of Divine Darshan in its fullest extent with due respect and reverence? …And is it possible for myopic human vision to restrict this Almighty citing Law Of Nature and other humanly perceived barriers? He Himself had said once, five decades ago in 1961, …”This has been the case, in all ages; people may be very near (physically) to the Avatar, but they live out their lives unaware of their fortune, but exaggerating the role of miracles which are as trivial when compared to My glory and majesty, as a mosquito is in size and strength to the elephant upon which it squats. Therefore, when you speak about these `miracles’, I laugh within Myself out of pity, that you allow yourself so easily to lose the precious awareness of My reality.” Read on an interesting article by Kalidas Mukherji, published in Sanathana Sarathi, March 1977.
In the past the Avatars appeared in disguise and did not reveal their true self except to a few of the inner circle and this is one reason why people failed to recognise them in their life time and enrich themselves by their divine presence in full measure. It was long after their disappearance that they came to be recognised as Avatars and worshipped as such. Sathya Sai Baba strikes altogether a different note. He himself has declared that He is an Avatar and to make others realise that His is divine power, He showers miracles of amazing nature. These paranormal phenomena are drawing millions to His Feet and these have convinced them more than anything else that He is an incarnation of the Divine Essence.
Avatars possess formidable yogic powers but they use them as little as possible. Ramakrishna was against occult methods and strongly expressed himself against miracles. According to Ramakrishna the paranormal powers are a positive hindrance in the path of spiritual progress. Although Sai Baba uses His strange powers from time to time for a limited purpose, He shows the same repugnance to them. Let the Master speak for Himself. “If I were just like any one of you, you would not have cared at all. That is why I have to take up this human form and show you now and then these miracles and superhuman faculties.” This simple statement of Baba, it should be noted, has been often misunderstood. It is therefore, necessary to point out that Sai Baba has never attached undue importance to miracles and times without count cautioned the Sadhakas not to go in for miracles in the path of spiritual perfection. Sai Baba in His speech, delivered at the World Conference at Bombay on May 17, 1968, said:
“You elaborate in your lectures the unique power of Sai, the incidents that are described as `miracles’ in books written on me by persons. But, I request you not to attach importance to them. Do not exaggerate their significance; the most significant and important power is, let me tell you, my Prema. I may turn the sky into earth, or earth into sky; but that is not the sign. It is the Prema, the Sahana, effective, universal, ever-present, that is the unique sign.”
Bhagawan further observed in a discourse on June 19, 1974 as follows:
….Those who profess to have understood, the scholars, the Yogis, the Pundits, the Jnanis, all of them are aware only of the least important, the casual external manifestations of an infinitesimal part of that power, namely, the miracles! They have not desired to contact the source of all power and wisdom, that is available at Brindavan (Whitefield, Bangalore).
“This has been the case, in all ages; people may be very near (physically) to the Avatar, but they live out their lives unaware of their fortune, but exaggerating the role of miracles which are as trivial when compared to My glory and majesty, as a mosquito is in size and strength to the elephant upon which it squats. Therefore, when you speak about these `miracles’, I laugh within myself out of pity, that you allow yourself so easily to lose the precious awareness of My reality.”
What Sai Baba spelt out, in one of His discourses in May 74, on His miracles is of immense value and deserve careful attention of all interested in Sai Baba.
“All powers are in the control of Sai. Unfortunately many educated people who call themselves Yogis, Maha Yogis, Pundits and people who have all kinds of qualifications talk only of the miracles that I perform. They do not make an attempt to recognise the strength and the true nature of Sai that they apparently see…it is foolish for people to think that I am just a Man of miracles and no more… These miracles have an insignificant place in My totality… To always talk of the Vibhuti which I give or to talk of other things that I materialise is not correct… Do not be led away by people who always talk of having got a locket or a watch or a ring from me. These things have no deep mean¬ing. If you can earn My grace, it is as good as getting the entire world. Do not talk of My miracles but talk of the Prema which you can get from Me by your conduct.”
Sai Baba’s greatest power, His supreme magic, is to be found in His all consuming Love. Love is the Eternal Principle. It is through love that He wants to reform and reconcile mankind and it is through His love that He is striving to call forth the divine in man. His love ever flows in all directions alike for the poor and the rich, the wicked and the good. Sai Baba often than not moves among the poor and the helpless bringing them succour and solace. He is ceaselessly calling the wretched and the wicked who are groaning under the dead weight of misery, pain and disease. He neither wants nor accepts anything from any one. He always asks the people to make Him a gift of their misery, their sufferings, their doubt and their distress and take from Him Ananda, the elixir of the life eternal. The call is irresistible and so tens of thousands rush to His Feet for peace which no earthly `magician’ can offer and which can be given as a free gift in abundance only by an Avatar.
The Avatar is always the same, the Satchidananda, the Eternal, our God reborn. But with each return He reveals Himself a little more fully commensurate with the time-spirit. Sai Baba is the Avatar of this era of science and technology and so He has manifested his supra worldly power in unusual ways to carry conviction with the people of this age steeped in gross materialism, utter disbelief and scepticism. It is in keeping with the time spirit that He has appeared as the supra mental Light that baffles the combined intelligence of the whole world.
Last but not the least, no Avatar from the past ever gave any thought for the transformation of the body, to make the body divine. It is believed by not a few that such a divine transformation of the body has ostensibly materialised in the person of Sri Sai Baba of Puttaparthi. Hitherto the Divine principle appeared as Avatars in human form with all the short-comings and limitations of the human physical body, but this time Sai Baba, the Avatar of the age, has assumed a divine body.
Sai Baba, has declared, “I have come with this body, and you can see that there is no difference between this body and any other human body. But yet illness has never affected this body. It cannot any time.” Sai Baba has further observed, “This body will ever be free from illness and pain; disease can never affect it. This is the real truth.” More surprise was yet in store. On October 31, 1961 Sai Baba said that years later His work load would increase so incredibly that it would no longer be possible for Him to travel by motorcar, train or aeroplane and He would have to travel through the sky. “I will have to move across the sky. Yes, this too will happen, believe Me.” This startling statement coming, as it did from Sai Baba, may appear to men of science a grotesque fantasy but their intellectual pride maybe rudely shocked. But one who has received light from above, one who has once felt the glory of God within, can no longer allow himself to believe that intellect is sovereign and omnipotent, and accept reason alone as the supreme guide. Whenever man has seen the effulgence of the soul, and is no more deluded by science, and feels convinced that there is a higher power, there is an unfailing oracle far beyond the ken of human intellect, reason and science.
Nevertheless, doubters will doubt, unbelievers will raise a hue and cry and dignitaries proud of their lore will fret and fume but one who has chanced to hear the voice of the eternal in the stillness of his heart, will accept Sai Baba with tears of joy rolling down his cheeks, and doubt not for a moment that the highest light, the supreme Truth and wisdom has appeared on earth in a divine body and in the words of Sri Aurobindo, “The descent of this Truth opening the way to a development of divine consciousness here will be the final scene of the earth evolution.”
II Samasta Lokah Sukhino Bhavantu II
Posted in Reflections |
