By Dr. M Sainath
This
is the transcription of the talk delivered by Dr. Sainath in
the divine presence of Bhagavan Baba during the Dasara
Celebrations on October 12, 2005.
I
offer my most prayerful pranams at the Divine Lotus Feet.
Revered elders, sisters, and brothers.
What Is Peace?
A
soldier once went to a Zen Master and said, “Master, I have
fought many a pitched battle. I have undergone the rigors
and the training and the discipline of being a soldier. Yet,
I do not know what peace is. Pray! Tell me what is hell,
what is heaven?” The Master looked at the soldier and asked,
“Who are you?” And the soldier said, “I am a samurai!”
The Master then exploded, and asked, “You! A samurai? Who on
this earth would take you as a soldier?” This infuriated the
samurai. He drew out his sharp sword and rushed at the Zen
Master. The Zen Master calmly said, “Here opens the gate of
hell.” The samurai then realized in whose presence he was,
sheathed his sword, bowed down in humility and surrendered.
And the Master then said, “Here opens the gate of heaven.”
If there were to be a moral to this story, it is that we are
the architects of our own hell, and our own heaven. When we
contract the world into ourselves, and take in all the
dualities that the world is associated with, in the process
we open the gates of our hell. But when we expand to
encompass the entire world, we see unity in diversity and
open the gates of our heaven.
The Right Direction of
Action
At one point of time, Bhagavan identified six important
qualities that a devotee needs to have to attain peace and
happiness. As stated in the Bhagavad Gita, He said:
“These are: Anapeksha, not desiring any fruits;
Suchihi, purity of purpose and action;
Dakshaha, determination;
Udhasino, detachment;
Ghatavytaha, not pondering over the past;
and most importantly, giving up all pomp and show.”
A devotee went up to Bhagavan and said, “Bhagavan,
in these days how are we to develop these six qualities?”
And Bhagavan said: “Very simple! You dedicate all your
actions to God with purity of heart and action.”
Action is verily the road to success but the main question
to ponder here is in which direction? Many of us are so busy
climbing the ladder of success that we do not have the time
to see if the ladder is propped against the right wall or
not, before it is too late! On this holy day, in this august
assembly, I would like to share with you all a few of my
thoughts and experiences on this point of action and
progress.
The Intention Behind
Action
The first point I would like to touch on relates to what my
elder brother spoke on just before me: the purity of action.
Bhagavan was once saying, while illustrating this very
point: “You can clap your hands to keep in tune with the
bhajans; you can also clap your hands to squat mosquitoes.”
A patient is forced to fast because of the illness that is
afflicting him, but a devotee fasts with the purpose of
penitence. Which action gives merit, which action does not?
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Sai Baba with Indian President Dr. S. D. Sharma
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Bhagavan lays enormous stress on the intention behind the
action. For one convocation ceremony of the Institute, the
late President of India, Dr. S. D Sharma, was the chief
guest. During the interval between the convocation and the
cultural drama program which the students were to put on, it
started to rain. Bhagavan sent word to the President of
India: “Since it is raining, you may choose not to come, it
is all right.” But Bhagavan was going and the President,
who was a very ardent devotee of Bhagavan, said, “How can I
stay back when Bhagavan is going?” And so he too went, even
though it was raining. And in the car he asked: “Bhagavan,
why are You choosing to go when it is raining?” The answer
was very illustrative.
Bhagavan said: “For the last twenty days my boys
have been struggling, giving up their food, giving up their
sleep with the sole intention of making me happy, with the
sole intention of getting one word out of my mouth ‘Chaala
bagundi’. When they have worked so hard for my sake,
how can I let them down? Rain or no rain I am going!”
This illustration is very important in the sense, that it
drives home the very important point: The intent is as
important - if not more - than the content.
‘You Look to Me, I
Look to You’
We now go over to this next point. There was a time during
darshan when Bhagavan picked me out of the students and He
named the place where my father was posted at that time and
said, “Such a small place, but so many dangers! But, you
don’t worry, Swami’s protection is always there.” I was
perplexed! What danger? What protection?
And so I went back to the hostel, I rang up home and they
told me that recently there was a spate of robberies in the
locality and every house was falling victim to these
thieves. And for the next few days, I was very upset.
Worrying what was happening there, I was unable to
concentrate on my work.
Sometime later Bhagavan picked me out once again and asked,
“Vachaara?” (Did they come?). I asked Swami, “Who?”
and He said, “Dongalu! Inka Evaru?” (Thieves, who
else?)
I was alarmed! Thieves! Swami said: “Don’t worry,
everything is all right!” Once again I called home and this
time I got the news that the previous night there had been a
break-in. The glass panes of one of the windows were removed
and the wire mesh was cut! But what was surprising was that
not a single soul had entered through the window. And when I
went back in the evening to thank Bhagavan, He said: “Naku
Thelsuney! (I know) You did your duty here, I did mine
there.”
This is an example of the mercy that God has for us when we
focus all our actions on pleasing Him - He takes care of all
our needs. There is nothing to worry about and that is an
important aspect of all our activities.
The True Riches
For illustrating the third point, I would like to take up an
example which Bhagavan often uses. This is about King
Bhatruhari, who had once performed a great sacrifice. And in
the process of the sacrifice, he had given away everything
that he had: his clothes, his riches, even his kingdom. At
that point of time, one renunciate came and said, “Oh king!
What will you give me?” And the king said, “I have only my
kingdom left. You can take it.” And the renunciate took the
kingdom.
He then told the king, “Oh king! You have nothing now! You
have lost everything. You have been reduced to a pauper. You
have a family to maintain. Shall I give you something so
that you can start your life all over again?” King
Bhatruhari, a very wise man, said, “Master, what I
had given away in the form of riches and gold was never
mine. I was a custodian of the people’s wealth. What is
really mine is my own Character, my own Strength, my own
Truthfulness, my own Bliss. It remains with me, no one can
take it. And regarding me being a pauper, how can I
be a pauper when all of you have blessed me for giving and
sacrificing so much? I have not lost anything, I have gained
much.”
What really matters is the strength within us - the strength
of our character. As Bhagavan says: "To depend on the
ephemeral to gain the eternal is a folly of the highest
order."
Acting in the
Omnipresence
For the next point, which I consider to be perhaps the most
important point to be held in mind while we go about our
lives, I would like use an illustration from my own life.
Those were the times when I was doing my Ph D; I was working
very late in my laboratory and at that point of time there
were some important sets of readings which I had to take
once every couple of hours. I had taken the last set, and
since it was very late at night, I was relaxing. When
suddenly some unknown force threw me literally out of bed to
rush into the lab like a madman, and there in front of my
eyes I found catastrophe unfolding!
I
had forgotten to tighten the clamp or the pressure was too
much on the water cooling pump circuit, and the clamp was
slowly unfolding with the result that the water pipe was
coming out right in front of my eyes. Before I could do
anything, water was spewing all over the lab where there
were open circuits and expensive instruments! I did
not know what to do. I just shouted, “Sai Ram!” and went in.
In my eagerness to undo the damage, I did not see the water
pool below me on the floor and before I knew what was
happening, I was being electrocuted. I did not know how long
I was there; but I did feel some powerful hand pull me back!
I recovered, I undid the damage but the matter did not end
there.
I
always used to feel that among all the laboratories in the
Institute, the nuclear physics lab was one place where
Bhagavan had - please note this word - directly
never inaugurated. And I used to pray to Swami, “Swami, why
is it that you never came into this lab?”
It was a couple of days after this accident, when one of the
student-brothers came from Brindavan and he wanted to see
me. He had a message for me. I came to see him and he said,
“I have message for you from Swami. Swami wants to know how
you are.” I had never informed anybody about all that had
happened. Swami wanted to know how I was. Swami had even
said, He told me: “You need to be more careful and not
careless.”
A few days later, when I went to Bhagavan to offer
my gratitude in person, Swami put His hand on my shoulder
and said, “Why do you want to invite me to a place when I am
already there?” If our actions do not take into
consideration the Omniscience and Omnipotence of God, it is
not going to get us anywhere. Two actions performed with
different intentions, are bound to invoke two different
reactions. An act which is done considering the Omnipotence
and Omniscience of Bhagavan is bound to get the desired
result.
Spontaneous Acts of
Love
I
would like to conclude with a very touching incident. When I
was passing out of the higher secondary school, my
headmistress told us: “You cannot distribute the
perfume of joy to others without getting a few drops of it
on yourself.” And this was illustrated to me - much
later I would say - when I was in the hostel.
All of us are with Bhagavan and we have been touched by Him
in various means. There was a time when the department of
physics was holding its viva for the second year post
graduate students. One batch had finished their viva, and
the second batch was scheduled to be held the next day. It
was quite late in the night and the photocopying room is
right next to mine in the hostel. I heard some activity
going on in there, so I just walked in to see what was
happening. I discovered that all those students who had
finished their viva were very busy photocopying and binding
their books and reports.
I
asked, “What are you doing here?” And they said, “Sir, we
are binding and photocopying the reports of the batch which
is going tomorrow.” Then I said, “Why aren’t they doing it?”
Their answer made me very proud - very proud because I had
brothers who had taken that spring of Love from Bhagavan,
who had learnt to act without anybody coaxing them.
Their reply was: “Sir, we sent them away. This is a menial
job; we did not want them to get disturbed with this. We had
already finished our viva, and as they had not yet finished,
we sent them away to study; we are sitting and doing it
here.”
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No one had forced them to do it. No one had asked them to do
it; they had done it spontaneously. That spontaneous
expression of love which is characteristic of Bhagavan is
what we need to see here. Each one of us sitting here has
been touched by Bhagavan in various ways - direct, indirect,
with our knowledge, or without our knowledge. But the fact
remains that the spark of His love is there somewhere within
each one of us. And the greatest activity which we can do is
uncover this spark.
Speaking on an occasion Bhagavan said: “The syllable Ra
stands for destruction. Nara, or man, therefore
stands for the indestructible. Man is basically
indestructible, he is Eternal. But the syllable Ka
when you add it to Nara becomes Naraka or
hell. And this Ka," Bhagavan said, "represents
Kaama and Krodha. When we associate ourselves
with this Ka syllable of Kaama and
Krodha, what was Eternal now becomes extinguishable, we
become destructible."
On this auspicious conclusion of Dussehra celebrations, this
is the greatest sacrifice that we need to do: The
sacrifice of excluding this Ka or Kaama
and Krodha from our activities, purifying our
hearts, performing our actions with this purified heart, and
then offering it at the Lotus Feet.
Jai Sai Ram!
-
Heart2Heart Team