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The Coming One
Easter Sunday lecture at The Sri Sathya Sai Centre, Ibadan,
Nigeria. April 4, 2004, by Mr. Gilbert Prakash Dada.
Today all over
the world, the death and resurrection of The Christ is being
celebrated. The Christ belong to all mankind and as a
central figure in the reconstruction Plan of God, it is
important for us to pay attention to His Life, teaching and
great sacrifice. It is also important for us to develop
greater insight than the majority who look up only to the
vicarious atonement. The work of the Christ is much more
than the shedding of blood. He sacrificed his happiness,
prosperity, comfort, safety and position; he braved the
enmity of the powerful. He refused to yield or compromise.
He renounced the ego, which is the toughest thing to get rid
of. Let us honour Him for these.
The plan of
salvation of man rests not on the sacrifice of blood but by
developing love for God and his creation and knowing oneself
to be God. This is all. The old primitive religions insist
on the shedding of blood for atonement and to this day,
these practices could be found in all parts of the world.
But the animal to sacrifice is actually within us. We move
on two legs but behave more as animals rather than men.
What we have to sacrifice is the animal of desire, lust,
anger, jealousy, ego and pride. This is the animal within
us, and these are to be sacrificed on the altar of the world
before we can enter the Kingdom of God. The shedding of
Jesus’ blood was not pleasing to God. What happened then
was only significant to the earth as a burdened mother,
which needed to be freed.
There certainly
was mystery regarding the shedding of the blood because the
gospels describe graphically how he was killed and pierced
even after he had died. Blood, so much of it flowed on to
the earth. There is one reason for this: The Christ, which
overshadowed Jesus at Baptism, needed to be wrenched from
the blood of Jesus and it was to be complete severance,
which required quick and drastic wrench. The Christ as a
ray from the Cosmic Christ (SAI) now became the indwelling
spirit of the earth which Paul said is groaning and
travailing, waiting for the day of liberation, for contrary
to accepted opinion, the sacrifice on Golgotha was not
completed with the death of the body of Jesus; in fact, it
was the beginning, the sacrifice will continue till such a
time as we have evolved the love and altruism that will
liberate the earth spirit from the cramping conditions of
material existence. In fact, the extreme darkness, which
was said to envelope the earth at the time of death of Jesus
was actually intense light, which blinded all who saw it,
The Christ departing the vehicle He used. He now dwells
within the earth as an indwelling Divine spirit. That was
the sacrifice of the Christ: to accept to indwell the
earth until the earth would have matured enough not to
require any form of guidance to progress onto the Goal.
The day of liberation of this indwelling Christ Spirit is
near as Our beloved Lord Sai gradually nears the fulfilment
of His mission. Soon, His love will be made manifest in the
heart of all mankind. Soon, it will be difficult for anyone
to hate another. Soon all humanity will live in one
brotherhood. When this happens, the work of the Christ will
be completed. Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba said:
“At that time, the world will be peaceful. All will be love,
love, love everywhere.”
This sacrifice therefore is
for the entire humanity and has nothing to do with any
particular religion. You have to work out your salvation by
yourself as Paul advised:
, now is the accepted time;
behold, now is the day of salvation." Corinthians
6:2 and,
". . . work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling." Philippians
2:12.
Let us remember
the statement Baba made December of 1972. He said, and I
quote: “There is one point that I cannot but bring to your
special notice today. At the moment when Jesus was merging
in the Supreme Principle of Divinity, He said, “He who sent
me among you will come again!”, and he pointed to a lamb.
The Lamb is merely a symbol, a sign. It stands for the
voice Ba-Ba; the announcement was the Advent of Baba. “His
name will be truth,” Christ declared. Sathya means Truth.
“He will wear a robe of red, a blood red robe.” (Here Baba
pointed to the Robe he was wearing!) He will be short, with
a crown(of hair). The lamb is the sign and symbol of Love.
Christ did not declare that he will come again, he said, “He
who made me will come again.” That Ba-ba is this Baba, and
Sai, the short, curly-hair-crowned ed-robed Baba is come.
He is not only in this Form, but, he is in every one of you,
as the dweller in the heart. He is there; short, with a robe
of the colour of the blood that fills it.
Let us examine
the scriptures for some detail. ,
The prophet met
Him and marvelled at Him.
He [the prophet] drew near and asked Him:
"What happened to You, my Lord?
Why are Your garments red?
Your side and hands pierced?"
[Isaiah 63:2]
"I have mightily trodden the winepress in Sheol.
I have fought the fight alone and was splashed with blood."
[Isaiah 63:3]
Isaiah had a
glimpse of the lonely Sai the One who fights the devil of
the world, the author of all deceits, materialism and
godlessness, the prince of this world and conquers him.
Fellow travellers on the Path, there is an intense war going
on in the invisible realms between good and evil. Evil has
got to such grave proportions that God has to descend to
restore order. This is His promise: to protect the good and
to restore righteousness. All the Major incarnations have
come with their Shaktis but this Sai came alone with Shakti
kept at His Trikuti always. Sai will win this fight as He
told Isaiah: "I have fought the fight alone and was
splashed with blood."
[Isaiah 63:3].
This also explains the
red robe Swami wears.
We have also John
one of the apostles of Jesus who on the Island of Patmos was
given a glimpse of things to come. His visions form the
last book of the Bible called Revelations. Let’s all read
Chapter 19 verses 11-21.
Here we see
Swami, with the sword of truth in His mouth, declaring the
truth fearlessly, that “Man is God”, and “God is Man”.
Armed thus, He charges and moves swiftly across the sky with
unequalled splendour, changing the hearts of men. He dwells
in the heart of his devotees, correcting and guiding them..
He is to be called by any name, for He responds to all
names. “I have much more to say to you, more than you can
bear, but when he comes, the Spirit of Truth, he will guide
you all into all truth; thus the eternal Charioteer was
promised man.
Sai Baba’s role
is to make immanent in all mankind the Universal Sai Spirit,
also known as the Christ love. His is to raise man to the
level where his vibrations tune into the Christ’s. This
Love supersedes all laws and all fears; He will take away
all selfishness and restore mankind to the blessings of
brotherhood.
The Father and
Son are one, but the Father’s religion, higher even than the
son’s will unite all religions under the sun and do away
with nations and their laws. He does not work directly upon
the physical bodies of man but on the finer vehicles of man,
the vital, desire and subtle bodies,. This is why all the
scriptures speak of him as riding a horse. Horses depict
restless nature of the senses and the mind. Krishna likens
the senses to horses. The one who rides these horses is the
one who has control over the horses that drag the world to
destruction.
The full picture
of the plan of reconstruction of man can only be grasped in
its entirety when the third and final Sai, Prema Sai,
emerges. So it is necessary to look at the work of Sai from
Shirdi to Prema. Sathya Sai is the fullness of the three as
he combines the severity of the Father with the mercy of the
Mother. He is the Avatar from whom the final blow to the
Evil One must come. Prema Sai is the glorious Lord of
immense love and beauty and His advent will find the entire
world freed of the evil forces of Kali ‑‑the great delusion
caused by our failure to look up to and to have faith in the
lifted Godhead instead of the shadow of this same
Godhead.‑‑Whereas the former is freeing and blissful, the
latter is binding and distressing. Remember, this same
serpent, which was active in the great valley of death,
murmurings and confusion, was Life and freedom when it was
lifted up for all to see! (Read the full story in the
Bible, Numbers 21:4-8). It will interest you to note that
when this serpentine energy (Kundalini) remains coiled up in
the muladhar chakra, man literally is blind, confused,
bound and spiritually dead. But when Kundalini is raised up,
man is freed and liberated!
Sri Sathya Sai paves the
way for us all to see this last Sai incarnation. Only
those who prepare themselves through steadfast love and
faith, those who now look up to the lifted up Godhead, will
see and live with Prema Sai. Only those who are
impervious to all manner of falsehood will be made disciples
and to reign with Him in the new world, the new paradise
that was promised mankind for ages. So the choice is
ours. We can spiritualise our lives through
selflessness, harmlessness, unwavering faith and right
speech and be tuned to the Sai vibrations or to look
elsewhere, to chase the shadow, which we will never grasp
because of its intangibility. You must develop faith
in Baba and sustain this faith through satsang, seva and
swadhyaya.(Good association, selfless service and study of
spiritual literature). Om Sai Ram.
Source:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saibabanews/message/3021
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