Previously Posted
| Chapter No. | Part No. | Content of the Chapter |
|---|---|---|
| NA | NA | Introduction (Preface, Foreword, A Devotee Speaks and A Thought) |
| Chapter 1 | Part 1 | In Moments of Ecstasy |
| Chapter 1 | Part 2 | In Moments of Ecstasy |
| Chapter 1 | Part 3 | In Moments of Ecstasy |
| Chapter 1 | Part 4 | In Moments of Ecstasy |
| Chapter 2 | Part 1 | The Heart Overflows |
| Chapter 2 | Part 2 | The Heart Overflows |
| Chapter 2 | Part 3 | The Heart Overflows |
| Chapter 2 | Part 4 | The Heart Overflows |
41
I had started from my house along with my thirsty ‘Aatma’ in quest of cold water which could quench its thirst. Sai came into my life. Hardly had I walked a few steps when the glitter of the path of Sai bhakti drew me towards its dazzle and it was so fascinating and charming that I forgot to stick to the real path and took to its subways. Today, I find myself standing on a four way lane. I have found neither my Sai nor the brilliant diamonds. Treading the path I took to, I feel completely exhausted and my feet are left with no strength to go further. But the desire to reach my Sai and to get lost in him is more forcefully growing within me. But alas where is the time left for it? The soul within, however, cries out: “Sai was within you yesterday, Sai is there today and Sai shall always remain there. You have only to stop looking outside”.
42
For a long time, I had been having a feeling within me that now when due to my advancing age I am unable to concentrate at my Sai sitting before him, am unable to do Naam-Jaap for long hours and clean the corner of the house he occupies in his temple and light a lamp and burn incense before him, I am drifting away from him. This thought hurts me often. In the early hours of morning today, when I was lost in such thoughts, I discovered that now Baba dwells within me constantly. All these rituals which had been my routine, now have no need for me. When there was a need for these, Baba made me to do them. I laughed at my ignorance and a feeling of self satisfaction was left within me.
Related: Scribblings of A Shirdi Sai Devotee
43
Sitting before Sai, I was humming a tune with intense feelings, pouring out my heart to him. The vapours of love and joy within were coming out in the form of tears. Suddenly my Sai spoke to me thus: “My child! Decades have gone bye since you have been crying like this. Your eyes have shed pitcher full of tears. All through you have kept on asking from me all that which provides happiness to your Aatma but never sought from me unlimited wealth, grandeur of life, honour and recognition to make you feel important in life. Almost all my devotees today only seek such things from me. Nobody asks for a share in the wealth I hold and I would like to share with them. Don’t you ever feel the urge for them?” I replied, “My Baba! Even after experiencing your grace so vehemently, if I keep on running for such worthless attainments, would I have not wasted the great opportunity which has been provided to me after coming into contact with your name and which has only been possible due to my ‘Prarabdha’ and your Grace. I know for certain that in the beginning you tempt your devotees to draw them towards yourself showing them toys of various hues and providing them temptations of sorts. You know full well that you have to put in tremendous efforts to make them take to you with utmost sincerity and truthfulness. You have also to part with a portion of your own earnings. All that is much more difficult than to get them caught in the snare of ‘Maya’. Baba said, “My Child! It is merely due to your own devotion and shedding pitcher full of tears with utmost sincerity and beyond all this, due to my grace only that you have continued to stick to the straight path of bhakti. Put in a little more labour. Push a little further your faith and belief and continue your journey towards abandoning all desires. Surely and certainly you shall reach the goal, if not in this birth, then in next. You shall have to come out of the limitations of life and death and attain ‘Mukti’ (liberation)”. Hearing Baba’s words, I felt a little concerned. It seems difficult for me to cross the ocean of life and death in the present birth. But a firm faith has taken root within me that I shall eventually reach the goal, if not today, then tomorrow.
44
Baba you are in me and I am in you. Ours is an enchantingly sweet relationship. But you can see me whenever you desire. My misery is that I cannot see you with these two physical eyes. However, the fragrance of your ever-loving presence, your hovering around me all the time, fills this gap to an extent. Am I not luckier than you Baba, for the pangs of physical presence of yours, which I keep on experiencing at all times provide sublimity to my ‘aatma’ which my seeing you at will would have never done. It is this physical separation between the lover and the beloved which has given birth to bhaktas like Surdas, Mira, Tukaram & Namdev and hundreds of others, in the history of our country.
45
This morning Sai occupying the inner chambers of my heart spoke to me thus: “My child! The Sai you have been seeking, worshipping and seeing in the inner of your self is merely my external ‘Swaroop’ (form). You now turn deeper inwards looking in the inner self and seek my real ‘Swaroop’. I am the Infinite, Indivisible, Omnipresent, Omniscient one and shall remain that till eternity whether the man remains or not, the existence itself remains or fades away. It is another matter that I have been appearing in different forms and shall ever continue to do so. Get up my child, get up and now start searching for that form of mine. I am the indivisible Sat-Chit-Aanand Sai”.
46
I worship my Sai in the temple of my heart where none other than I and Sai exist; where there are no pushes and pulls by devotees; where I can keep on sitting before my Baba gazing at him for howsoever long time I wish; where nobody cares to see, who am I and how I look, how heavy is my purse, how long and thick the garland I have brought to offer to Baba and how heavy is the box of sweets have I brought to offer to Baba and nor would anybody be able to assess how deep feelings do I carry within me for my Baba.
47
During the last few days, I have felt a little unwell. Almost nothing has been scribbled. Does it convey to me that the thoughts on Baba which crop up in my mind have relevance to my body only and not to my soul or inner self? If it were so, the pages after pages which I had been blackening for years, were not indeed the cravings of my heart for you O’ my Baba, but I was merely deceiving my own self. Wasn’t I committing an act of sacrilege by talking of you but the inside in me was hollow?
48
Baba! I implore you to provide me the strength to ignore the physical ailments, I suffer from in old age. Allow them not to hinder my absorption in you. Rama Krishna Paramhansa and Raman Maharishi both suffered from cancer but could this disease in any way affect their attunement to the self upto the end of their lives? I am fully conscious that by talking of such high saints I, who is merely a grain of linseed, is talking of the Himalayas. I also know well that I haven’t undergone any hard ‘Sadhanas’ (penances), but merely have been having absolute faith in your words that by merely chanting ‘Sai’,’Sai’, you shall take us beyond the ocean of life and death. This shows that I haven’t been able to properly chant even your name with heart and soul and have merely been deceiving my own self. Whatever I have been feeling and doing was merely a ‘Bhram’ (delusion) of my heart. Let it be so. Even by acting thus, the experiences that I have had in my life, even those are enough for me. During the last many years, the feeling of ‘Sai Kripa’ that I have been nourishing within me, and the feeling of ‘Aatmanand’, it has been providing, weren’t these the reflection of your ever raining ‘Kripa’ on me? What a fool, I am, O’ Baba! All that which you have bestowed on me in your ‘Masti’, without appreciating its value, I am talking of not being able to pluck the stars from the sky. Baba! I beseech you to excuse me; I am an ignorant child of yours and have remained so even today. Lift me up and make me a bhakta from whose mind all delusions should vanish. Baba you have remained the same Sai who manifested on earth in a torn ‘Kafni’ (Copin) and maintained this character till the last moments of your life on earth. And we who claim to be your devotees only by chanting your name have gained enormously and are now engaged in changing even your identity. Your idol sitting on a rock with a torn off ‘Kafni’ has been covered with valuable shawls; heavy gold ornaments studded with precious stones and diamonds have been put around your neck; your head has been covered with precious crowns and even this much wasn’t enough for us, even the stone you sat on has been converted into a gold throne – seeing which even kings and emperors lying buried in tombs would be feeling envious of you for they could not attain by fighting wars and shedding blood which you have attained without even asking for it and while maintaining the character of a Fakir. All this is being heaped around the Fakir who spent his whole life in a torn Kafni, eating the food obtained by begging, having a brick underneath his head while going to sleep on a sack-cloth. Surely, it is some sort of game being played by you which has a secret behind it and which shall be understood at the right time. Neither you had anything to do with the torn Kafni nor with the glamour around you today. Neither you were concerned with earlier Swaroop, nor with the present one. Neither that was you nor this. You are merely a ‘Tatva’ (force) which existed then, exists now and shall always remain so. It is merely the thinking of man which shall keep on changing.
49
Traversing on the path of life, I appear to have reached a stage, when the will to continue the journey has lost charm. Life seems to have stopped functioning but it has stopped at a point when I have completely got lost in Sai and my ‘Aatma’ is having a peculiar sort of experience of having the feeling of completeness, as if nothing is left to seek. In such moments of feeling of oneness, the heart seems to be overflowing with ecstasy.
50
Why do I want to bind my Sai in the limitations of words? The one who is infinite, who is beyond all limitations; him I keep on incessantly trying to entrap in the snare of words and the truth is that I entrap myself in my words. My Sai is infinite, indivisible, unmanifested, without a name, supreme being: Satyam, Shivam, Sundram (Truth is God and God is beautiful)
More poems and thoughts in coming part of the chapter
© Author – Late Shri. Suresh Chandra Gupta – Explicit Rights To Publish To Shirdi Sai Baba Books.com (Member of SaiYugNetwork.com)
Love you Deva! Jai Sai Samarth!
Happy Kamda Ekadashi Baba!