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Seeking
Omnipresence
After a very busy
year in which David and I travelled extensively both in Canada and
the USA giving talks about our relationship with Sai Baba and our
understanding of his teachings, I felt a desperate need to have
some quiet time for myself, to digest all of my experiences of the
past year. 1999 turned out to be a frenetic year for me and, with
a stream of guests coming to stay in our home and the program of
setting up our little farm in Langley as a facility for breeding
and boarding horses continuing at a fast pace, there had been
little time for me to stop and smell the roses. To add to all of
this, in late September last year, we had a l70’ x 70’ indoor
riding arena erected. For two months we had builders and a stream
of trucks coming and going on our property and we were caught in a
race against time, to complete the structure before the winter
rains came. This beautiful new building will not only be used for
riding but it will also make a fantastic venue for our Ramala open
days. The next one, by the way, is scheduled for July 9th
2000 and we expect to have over 400 people attending. If that was
not enough, David and I had to make several trips to England to
settle Diana into Oxford University, to check up on the Ramala
Centre in Glastonbury and to publish the Ramala newsletters.
My last talk was in Calgary, Alberta, in late
November, to celebrate Sai Baba’s birthday. Certain incidents
which occurred at this event forced me to question the way in
which the Sai Organisation works in the West. Although our hosts
were charm itself and the whole program was done with great love
and enthusiasm by all those involved, as a Westerner I was very
aware that, firstly, there was only a handful of Westerners
present at the celebration and, secondly, that the whole program
was designed for and produced by the East Indian community. Here
in Canada we use the term East Indians to define people of the
Indian culture as opposed to the native Indians, the people who
were here before the white man came and who are referred to as the
First Nations. The devotional singing was virtually all in
Sanskrit, so that for anyone not familiar with bhajans the singing
would have no meaning whatsoever. Moreover the singing went on
for far too long, and when I asked afterwards why this was the
case I was told that it was good discipline for the devotees! If
people went to the ashram in India they would have to sit for
hours, so why shouldn’t they do it now. Needless to say I did not
feel that this was a good enough reason, especially for the people
who were there for the first time.. All the dancing was Indian
and was very attractive and well performed but again held little
meaning for the Westerners. I felt that here we were in Canada
and there was little in the programme that would appeal to
Westerners. Is Sai Baba only for the Indians? Of course not. I
was even asked why I was not wearing a sari when I gave my talk.
I came home with a sense of frustration. How are we going to
attract Westerners to the teachings of Sathya Sai Baba if they are
always being presented in an Indian format. No wonder so many
people are put off after their first visit to a Sai Baba centre,
when their introduction makes them feel that they are getting
involved in some Hindu cult. What happens, I find, is that they
go away, read and enjoy Sai Baba’s teachings but refuse to go to
any of the Sai Baba centres or join the Sai Organisation. This, I
feel, is a great pity as many of them have a lot of talent to
offer.
As many of you who have read previous
newsletters will know, I have been going through a time when I
have been moving away from being attached to the physical form of
Sai Baba to having a much stronger relationship with the
omnipresent aspect of God. This process started on Sai Baba’s
70th birthday in 1995 when Swami started weaning off his form a
whole group of his devotees who, prior to that time, had been very
close to him. Since then the process for me has been
accelerating. Over the past year I have been consciously trying
to become more aware of the omnipresent God. I have been seeking
a totally inclusive experience - what is known as advaita or
non-dualism. Of course duality keeps on rearing its ugly head and
I often find myself retreating into the ‘them and me’ approach to
life, but gradually the oneness of all life is becoming a part of
my daily living. On our last visit to Sai Baba’s ashram at
Puttaparthi, which was a very special and deeply moving experience
for me, during one of our interviews Sai Baba made a special point
of reminding me of this weaning process.
Sai Baba had given me a beautiful peacock
brooch in our first interview and so it came as a surprise to me
when, in our second interview, he asked me “Who gave you that
brooch?”. As quick as a flash I replied “God did”. Sai Baba then
asked me “Where is God?” and, knowing the answer to this question,
I very confidently answered “God is everywhere”. To this response
Sai Baba then said “If God is everywhere, then, he must be in
England?” to which I replied “Yes, he is.” Sai Baba then said “So
if God is in England, what are you doing here?”. He is always
reminding us that we should be students of his teachings and not
of his form. He has also told us not to have masses of
photographs of him and statues of ancient Indian gods on our
altars. One small picture is enough, he says, or, better still,
none at all. Sai Baba also told the president of the Sai
Organisation of America that the ceremony of Arati, the lighting
of the sacred flame and the devotional chant performed with
circular movements of the flame to honour a deity, which is
performed at the end of most Sai Baba meetings, should not be done
in the West as it is basically an Indian custom. Nevertheless I
find that most Sai centres still perform Arati. Al Drucker
recently told me that he went to a Sai Baba centre in Germany
where there was nothing but a candle and some flowers on the altar
and that it was one of the best and most universal spiritual
meetings that he had ever attended. Perhaps there is a message
here for all the Sai centres in the West.
I know that each of us is at different stages
of spiritual development and that what is right for one may not be
right for another. To use the analogy of a flower, some of us are
buds, some of us have just begun to open our petals and some of us
are in full bloom. Nevertheless I feel that the time has come for
all of us to go beyond the level of the form, of ritual, of
following one particular identity of God. I seek an inclusive not
an exclusive form of divinity, a form that does not separate or
divide people. I want to be able to introduce my Western friends
to Sai Baba’s teaching without them having to become token Indians
in order to understand and to appreciate who he is and what he
represents in the world today. I have great love for the form of
Sri Sathya Sai Baba and feel immense gratitude to him for the
advice, the help and the loving care he has given to me and to my
family over the years, but at the same time I know that his form
will pass away. I also appreciate that Sai Baba will not always
be available to me as, with an ever growing numbers of devotees,
there will be more and more demands on his time from new devotees
who need the personal contact with him. I know that Sai Baba
wants me to grow beyond the attachment to his form, to be aware of
the omnipresent God within me and to be able to tune in to that
God every minute of my waking day. Sai Baba has said that we
should become part of the CIA which stands for Constant
Integrated Awareness (of God). I believe that true
meditation is just that; being at one with the Universe at all
times.
This pursuit of Constant Integrated Awareness
has become my quest for the Holy Grail. While winter has been
upon me I have entered a time of spiritual hibernation. I have
tried to stop analysing everything and to live as close to Nature
as I can and, believe me, with ten horses to look after, five of
my own plus five boarders, this process has been a very necessary
one. It has also been a source of much joy for me, as I watch the
wild deer in the fields by our lake or stand in the snow feeding
our four muscovite ducks. One of my morning tasks, as I turn the
horses out in the paddocks after a night of rain, is to pick up
and return the worms, which have floated onto our tarmac drive in
the flow of rain water and got trapped there, to the welcoming
earth of our fields. Spring is approaching and the dormant seed
inside me is beginning to wake up and is starting to grow again.
I am feeling a strong need to experience a closer link with the
God within me and with the divinity that is inherent in all life.
I feel that I want to invite the Divine to flow through me, to use
my body as a funnel. This feeling is now becoming my primary
focus. To become sensitive to the Earth and to all the creatures
and plants that go to make up her being, is true education.
I have recently been rereading my books about
Jiddu Krishnamurti, that wonderful philosopher, who I used to go
and listen to in the l970s at Brockwood Park in England.
Krishnamurti said “Life is like a vast river, with a great volume
of water, without a beginning or an ending. We take out of that
fast running current a bucket of water and that confined water
becomes our life. This is our conditioning and our everlasting
sorrow.” It is so difficult to be aware of our own conditioning,
of our prejudices, of our petty likes and dislikes, of our
attachments to things and people, of how much we live in the past
and are caught up in the memory of past relationships. That is
why I am making a conscious effort to live in the moment, to go
beyond that little bucket of water that I think is me and to be
aware of the river from which it came. It is because of this
process that I am constantly observing myself both forming and
voicing judgements and opinions about everything. I recall that
David’s guide, Zen Tao, who he channelled for almost twenty years,
once said to a very strongly opinionated lady “Madam, your opinion
is of value to no-one but yourself, since it simply represents
your point of consciousness.” I try to remember that comment when
I’m sounding off about something or other! The thinker is the
thought, the observer is the observed, Krishnamurti used to say,
and I am now beginning to understand what he meant. We create the
nature of our own world by what we think, say and do.
I have also been working on the various fears
that have had a disproportional influence on my life so far: my
fear of abandonment, my fear of not having enough money, my fear
of losing control over any given situation and the list goes on
and on. All these fears form a brick wall between me, the me
which thought has created, which is just a collection of memories
and experiences, and the I AM consciousness that I really am. I
have learned to accept the aspects of my physical self which I
cannot change, my genetic inheritance, and to be happy with the
physical vehicle which my soul has built for this life. I firmly
believe that at birth we are all wired for happiness and it is
only when we block the contact with the eternal part of our
beings, our atmas, that we become unhappy. As I grow older and
become one of the ‘wise women of the tribe’, I find that I have
begun to look at myself differently. I am now allowing myself to
be empowered by my own inner wisdom, to follow paths which before
I would never have thought possible and to explore fields of
creativity of which I have never dreamed. Let me give you a
recent example of this.
I had a mounting block of two small steps made
to allow me to get on to my horses without straining them, me or
the saddle, and as I looked at the wooden frame I thought that it
looked awfully plain. So I took it inside my living room and
painted a horse on either side of the mounting block and then
sprayed clear varnish over it, to protect it. I made such a good
job of it that suddenly all my friends wanted one just like mine
and before I could turn around I had an order for a dozen hand
painted mounting blocks! As some of you may know, I started
painting at 50 and now, ten years later, I am not only enjoying
this creative side of my being but I have also boosted my self
esteem and could even be in danger of making some money! I
watched a program on television recently where a woman doctor was
explaining that our consciousness, which creates the cells in our
body, is firmly locked in the past and therefore keeps recreating
the same old patterns. If, however, we can elevate the
consciousness then we will automatically improve both our health
and the quality of our lives. The divine spirit, our atma, is
present in each and every one of us and if we will only attune to
it rather than to all our past thought-forms and memories then we
will transform our beings. Most of us, knowingly or unknowingly,
are blocking our divine spirits.
One of the great transformative tools in my
life has been to start thinking positively and to replace old
negative patterns and thought-forms, fixed deep in my
sub-conscious mind, with new and positive ones. As we think, so
we are. We create our own reality and so if we hold strong
positive thoughts about something important to us then that is
what we will manifest in our physical world. Try it and see how
it works. Everyone says how blessed my life is, that I seem to
get whatever I need! I believe that there is abundance in the
universe and that it is mine for the asking. As long as I
dedicate everything that I have to the God within me, as long as I
ensure that whatever is entrusted to me is used for the highest
good of all concerned, as long as I use these gifts positively
and creatively, then, more will flow to me. It is the God in me
that attracts these blessings and to whom all thanks must be
given. I end this article with the wise words of my mother, who
was a truly spiritual being. She was always saying to me “Motive
and moderation. As long as your motive is right and you do
everything in moderation then you won’t go far wrong in life.” I
now know that she was simply reflecting the teaching of The
Buddha, to always walk the middle path. Her advice has helped me
to lead a balanced life and has set my soul free to be happy. May
it be the same for you.
Source: Ramala Centre Newsletter,
March 2000,
http://www.ramalacentre.com/newsletter03_00_03.htm
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http://www.ramalacentre.com
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