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Sri Sathya Sai Vratha Kalpam
(Procedure of
Worship of Sri Sathya Sai)
Index
Chapter 3
RAKSHA KAANDA (Swami's Protection of Universe)
Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Ram's
amazing leelas and mahimas are endless and to describe them in detail would
fill many large volumes. His life story is deep like the ocean. It is
extremely enchanting, fascinating and enjoyable. Going over it even mentally
is sufficient to bestow every kind of benefit to the devotee. Sri Sai
Bhagavan's story is like the divine Chinthamani (the gem that grants every
wish of its possessor). His qualities and traits are living message of
salvation (mukthi), transcendental knowledge (jnan) and absolute detachment
(vairagya), even as they bestow well-being and wealth on the world. Distress
vanishes if his divine name is remembered and invoked. Those who develop
love and affection for Sri Sai Bhagavan will find that their penury becomes
a thing of the past; they get blessed with peace of mind (santhi) and every
enjoyment (sukh). They attain a state of bliss (anand) both worldly and
heavenly. The Lord is the very ocean of love, vast and deep; he is the
repository of kindness and grace; he is immensely solicitous of his devotees.
As Sai Bhagavan is Parabrahma himself, he readily forgives every
unintentional lapse of his devotee. He is ever evaluating every individual,
determining whether his heart is pure or impure. He is none but Parabrahma
having arrived in human form in order to rescue this world from the
oppressive forces of evil and wickedness. Just like the bee cannot tear
itself away from a flower full with honey, the human heart should
steadfastly adhere to the divine Lotus Feet of Sri Sai Bhagavan. By his
Grace, pure transcendental knowledge comes within grasp. One look from his
lotus eyes is sufficient to relieve the distresses of the devotee and
liberate him from all suffering. The Lord is all merciful. Being the very
embodiment of love and compassion and pity, whose chosen mission is to
rescue the afflicted from misery he will spontaneously shower his
benediction on all the worlds. Will he not bring succour to those who find
refuge in him, who surrender themselves with heart and soul at his divine
feet?
One of the members of a family of
Sri Sai devotees, an official, fell seriously ill. He was running very high
fever. His own nephew, being a doctor, was treating him. The fever turned
dangerous and the patient was hospitalised. There he got every attention and
service but, instead of improving, his condition deteriorated fast. Doctors
did their best but to their disappointment their efforts were of no avail.
The patient's mother was heartbroken. She placed a picture of Sri Sai under
her son's pillow. She was constantly putting a little vibhoothi prasadam in
the patient's mouth and was applying it on his forehead. She was
inconsolable. Day and night she would be weeping and begging Sri Sai to save
her son (Puthra Bhiksha - son's longevity by way of alms). The patient's
fellow officials, relatives and well-wishers were coming to see him.
Everyone had lost hope. One evening doctors attending on him came to the
conclusion that he was beyond medical help; they accordingly removed him to
another area earmarked for such hopeless cases and left. In deep grief, the
mother, relatives and friends were in the verandah outside the patient's
room. It was around 12 o' clock in the night. The patient who was thus
abandoned to death, all alone and isolated, had a vision of Sri Sathya Sai
Bhagavan. In distinct words, the Lord told him, "You are now going to become
a new person", and disappeared. By the morning the illness was gone. All the
symptoms of the disease vanished. The doctors who saw him on their morning
rounds were in raptures of disbelieving happiness. "How did such severe
illness abate so suddenly? Some miracle must have happened and saved you",
said they to the patient and restored him to the normal ward bed. The
devastated mother found herself utterly relieved of her agony; she rejoiced
that the gracious Lord readily responded to her desperate prayer for puthra
bhiksha. Relatives and friends of the patient also shared the allround
rejoicing. Within a short period the patient recovered fully and could go to
Puttaparthi to pay personal homage to Sri Sai. The Lord was overflowing with
love and kindness, called him into his presence and remarked, "You were dead
but you were resurrected to life and have now come to see me!" So saying, He
gave him his benediction and sent him back home. Needless to say, the
grateful object of the Lord's benignity, granted in such wonderful and
timely manner, offered to the Lord his gratitude and returned home a happy
man. In this case, Sri Sai did not give the patient his prasadam, nor did he
even touch him but rescued him from veritable jaws of death. Such is the
extent of Sri Sathya Sai Avatar's immense capabilities. They are
unparalleled and incomprehensible At what moment, at what place and on whom
the Supreme Being will choose to direct his transcendental mercy - it is
something which nobody can predict, despite going through the severest
austerities over several ages. For, in the present Sathya Sai Avatar the
Supreme Being is displaying the most astounding, the most unbelievable, the
most bewildering occurrences which had never been exhibited during earlier
avatars on the sets of the Supreme Being's cosmic stageplay. We notice that
such occurrences are taking place endlessly. He makes no distinction between
the devotee and the devotee's relatives and associates when it comes to
distributing his bountiful favours of love. It is but a demonstration of his
eagerness to treat everyone with an even hand.
In the Coorg region of Karnataka,
there was a zamindar who was Sri Sai's devotee. The daughter of a poor
family was working in the zamindar's estate. Her husband and mother-in-law
were constantly abusing her and torturing her. Caught between the two
tormentors, not having a sympathetic shoulder to lean on, with no one to
whom she could turn for succour, the unfortunate woman was dragging her days
through despair and hopelessness. Added to her misery, her off-spring did
not survive and she had no living child. This too came in handy for the
cruel mother-in-law to subject the poor woman to vile and intolerable
insults. The husband would not care to come to her support but would instead
take his mother's side in heaping more humiliation on the hapless woman.
What could the miserable lady do in this situation? As things continued to
become more and more unbearable, she decided to put an end to her life by
some means and was awaiting a suitable opportunity. One day, both the
husband and mother-in-law happened to go to the village fair. That provided
the chance she had been eagerly waiting for. She was keen not to let it slip
by, eager as she was to make a final escape from her terrible lot. At about
9 A.M. she found a rope, tied one end of it to a rafter in the ceiling and
the other around her neck and tried to jump to death. But suddenly the noose
around her neck became loose. So, she tightened the noose and once again
jumped to death. This time the knot on the rafter gave way and she fell on
the ground. Due to abrasion of the noose around her neck, blood flowed. At
that awful moment, suddenly she saw an extraordinary, unearthly flood of
light and a vision. Sri Sai Bhagavan's beautiful form, clothed in yellow
robes, a benign smile playing on his lips appeared before her eyes. She had
never before seen him in actuality but during a bhajan in the zamindar's
house she had seen his picture. She could therefore recognise that the form
in her vision was of Sri Sai. She fell at his feet in adoration and forgot
herself in her utter relief. At that stage one of the neighbours, a lady,
happened to come in. She was surprised to see blood flowing from the neck of
the woman. When she demanded to know what it was due to, the woman could not
help confessing that she had tried to take her own life and that the ever
merciful Sri Sai Bhagavan had saved her. But she kept the matter to herself
for fear that if the zamindar got wind of it she might lose her job and the
family might even be driven out of the estate. But that night, the
zamindar's wife had a dream in which Sri Sai appeared and told her how he
had rescued the unfortunate woman from committing suicide. He blamed the
zamindar's wife for not caring enough about the misery of that woman and the
cruel treatment she was receiving at the hands of husband and mother-in-law.
Because of her negligence a calamity was about to take place and he had to
intervene to save a life.
On receiving the Lord's reprimand,
the zamindarni sent for the woman's husband who described all the details
including how the ever-merciful Sri Sai Bhagavan had stepped in and saved
the distressed woman. The news spread all over the estate. One and all
rejoiced that the Omniscient, Omnipresent, Merciful Sri Sai had come to save
them all from terrible calamity and attendant scandal. Both husband and
mother-in-law came to the conclusion that since God himself had pulled the
daughter-in-law back from the brink of death, surely, she would not die at
all. From that time onwards, they began to treat her with kindness and due
consideration and the whole family found real peace and happiness.
Such acts of rescue have taken
place in this Avatar countless times. Each is more strange, astonishing and
bewildering than another. They are not mere odd occurrences. They are all
demonstrations of the enormous, boundless powers of the Divine Being.
Here is another case. The wife of a
Health Department official was suffering for a long time from paralysis of
the lumbar region and lower limbs. She was incapable of rising or walking or
moving. She was in great agony. She had some children also. She was given
many medical treatments at place after place but it was all in vain. Not
knowing what more to do to help her, the husband thought of having Sri Sai
Bhagavan's darsan at Puttaparthi. Sri Sai summoned him to his presence. He
was all sympathy and kindness and talked to him endearingly. He said, "Why
worry about this small matter." He clicked his fingers, producing little
sounds, "Tak, tak..." adding, " I will thus make her whole in a moment". The
unfortunate husband felt relieved at these reassuring words as he was
totally devoted to Sri Sai and had implicit faith in his word. He returned
home and was waiting patiently for the day when Sri Sai would make good his
promise. As day after day passed, he was getting distressed. Three long
months passed in this uneasy manner as he oscillated between hope and
trepidation. Away from the house, he had to attend to his office work. At
home he had to serve his helpless wife and also to look after his children.
He was desperately looking forward to the promised divine intervention and
relief. Every minute was agonising. Meanwhile, he had to go to an outstation
camp in connection with his official duty. While making the necessary
preparations, he went into his room. At that moment, Sri Sai Bhagavan
entered into the other room where the paralysed lady was lying on her bed,
gave her his vision and ordered her, "Come on. Get up and do pranaam." The
lady felt overjoyed to have had the darsan of Sri Sai so early in the
morning. Totally forgetting her bodily infirmity, she got up immediately and
stood on her feet. At that moment she heard sounds, "Tak, tak, tak..." as
are produced when fingers are clicked. In overwhelming happiness, she bent
down and put her head on the Lotus Feet of the Lord and did pranaam. When
she got up and looked around, Sri Sai was not there. She was in transports
of joy. She was feeling unusually light and cheerful and fully capable of
bodily movement. Her first concern was to make some coffee for her husband
preparing to leave on his journey. She went into the kitchen and set about
that task. After completing his preparations for his impending journey the
husband went to see his wife. She was not in her bed. Hearing some sounds
from the kitchen, he went there and found her moving about quite normally.
He was in indescribable raptures. He neared her and enquired how she could
move into the kitchen on her own. Thereupon she recounted all that happened
in the morning, how Sri Sai Bhagavan had given darsan to her, the 'tak,
tak..' sounds she had heard, how she had got up from her bed and fell at his
feet and how he had disappeared thereafter. Husband and wife were overjoyed
that the longstanding disease had just vanished at the sweet, nectarlike
order emanating from the divine lips of Sri Sai, that their deep despair and
gloom of years had been dispelled in a blissful moment marked by the Lord's
click of fingers - again and again the happy couple went over the whole
occurrence in happiness and abiding gratitude.
This depository of kindness, who
has appeared on the earth with the divine purpose of saving all the peoples
of the world, very well knows the right moment when he should intervene and
offer succour to the needy, which person needs help and in what manner he
should be saved. He will present himself in a vision to that particular
person, at that ordained moment and relieve his suffering in that merited
manner as befits the case. He is capable of every masquerade; he assumes
every shape and manner as the situation demands. To the onlooker he would
appear as though he is not in the know of anything, that he is not at all
concerned. Swami transcends and is wholly untouched by Maya. At the same
time he entangles humans in the clutches of Maya and enjoys the fun. He
holds in his divine hands the strings of this puppet show. That is his
leela. It is the duty of devotees to strive constantly to avoid the snares
of Maya; to overcome every obstacle by constantly and devotedly worshipping
Sri Sai Bhagavan and singing his praises; to keep busy in meditation (dhyan)
and prayer and similar other devout and elevating activities; to endeavour
at every step to merit and receive the Lord's grace. The Omnipresence of Sri
Sai is complete and unbroken. It pervades everywhere. The directions in
which his programme of Raksha (protection, rescue, safeguarding) operates
are also wonderful. An instance is the case of a little boy saved from
certain death. A well-to-do family had a double storeyed building. The
mother was one day busy watching her children at play on the terrace. Her
elder boy was four years old. While playing, he was running back and forth,
and accidentally he reached the edge of the terrace, slipped and fell to the
ground a full fifty feet below. At that exact and vital moment, Sri Bhagavan
caught the little child who was on free fall in his arms and put him safely
on the grassy patch below and vanished. Meanwhile, the mother discovered
that her child was missing and went in search of him. As she came down the
servant who had seen the child falling also came running and picked him up.
On examination it was found that he sustained no injury or wound and was
perfectly hale and hearty. Both servant and mother were surprised. The
mother, still not believing her eyes, asked the boy with great concern
whether he had really received no injury. The boy replied, "Our Baba caught
hold of me as I came down and went away after leaving me here". When the
news reached the head of the family and neighbours, they too were
wonderstruck. They recalled that Sri Sai had declared quite often, "I am
following you (Venta); I am with you (Janta); I am before your eye (Kanta);
I am in your home (Inta); I will always protect you". They all told each
other, "He has made good his promise to-day, for us and before our very
eyes; this little innocent child has been saved from certain death. We are
blessed, one and all". The manner in which Sri Sai implemented his programme
of Raksha in this particular case left everyone fascinated.
End of Chapter 3
Once again Pooja will be performed.
A coconut or fruit will be offered as naivedyam and arathi will be offered.
Thereafter, recitation of the Katha will be resumed.
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