Dear all,Wish you a very Happy Baba's day ,
Today I am starting with the first chapter of the book "Inner Voyage To Explore Sai ".Devotees are requested to follow the link given at the end of this post if they miss on any part of the book .Jai Sai Ram .
Chapter 1
SEARCH YOUR HEART FOR SAI
Sarvatma Guha Vasaya Sainatham Saranam Prapadhye
Sai ever lives in your heart
And pervades thy atma – sphere
One’s soul and Sai can never be apart
As He declared “Why Fear When I am near”
Avadhuta Gita says: God is real Self, I am That
He is the Self of all beings, I am That
All pervading like the sky, I am That
Spotless Pure Consciousness, I am That.
“Sai is god, Sai is, Sai always was and will be”, says H.H.Narasimha Swamiji, Apostle of Sai Baba. Sadguru Sai is ensconced in your and my heart, nay in every soul of every creature. Sai dwells in all beings from ants and insects to the God Brahma. He pervades the entire universe. As such, one has to see Sai in every jivatma. Gita says that every soul is a fraction of the Primordial force called God, that is, an Amsa of God. “Mamai Vamso Jivaloke, Jivabhutah Sanatanah” i.e., every jiva or soul is an eternal part of myself”. Therefore, every creature having consciousness of a self is a spark of God. And as such Sai is our God.
In Sai Satcharita, Sai has declared “Though I am here (in Shirdi) bodily, still I know what you do beyond the seven seas. Worship Me always Who is seated in your hearts as well as in the hearts of all beings”. A guru always exhorts his devotees, “go within yourself and behold therein”. The Supreme entity ever lives in the internal world. To search him outside is purely waste of energy.
The gospel says: The Supreme being is neither at left or right, neither above nor below, but it is your being.Therefore, one should seek Sai in one’s heart. No one can say to the Divine: I have known Thee and yet all carry Him in themselves and with the silence of their soul one can hear the Divine voice.
One’s soul is enshrined with Divinity and that identity is our Sai. And one has to look within to realize and experience Him. The feeling of duality between Sai and the devotee is the most extraordinary ‘agyan’ that should be rooted out. The existence of the duality of the seer and the seen is considered as bondage. Duality causes fear. Where there is no duality, there are no relationships, fears, conflicts and bondage. This state is called liberation.The Pure Self and the seer is real. The root of misery is duality.
GOD IS IN YOU
One who has never experienced God within will never find Him outside. God makes His first appearance to a man within the man himself. And that appearance is total. One ’s self is the closest thing to God. God’s temple can only be the temple of Consciousness. It is within one’s soul itself.
INNER VOYAGE
Sai lights the flame within your unawakened soul and He can be felt in every atom of your body, true to the Vedic statement Tattvamasi (Thou Art That), Aham Brahmasmi that means ‘God is within us’. Bhaja Govindham says: “Realize that this consciousness (ayam aatmaa), presiding over all our inner experiences, is the consciousness Infinite everywhere (Brahman).
Thou are the sheath, the tenement of God, abiding place and treasure home of Brahman.
Basavanna in his Kudala Sangama Vachana has said “the rich can build temple for Shiva but for a poor man, his legs are pillars, the head of cupola and the body is the temple of living God. When God is everywhere, He must be quiet as near to oneself. We should make Him our immediate reality. As close as you are to God, so close is God to you.
Staying in this body, the soul, though loaded with past karmas, can hear the cosmic whisper and realize His existence in one’s own self.
Srimad Bhagavatham says: thou sees no reality in the transitory body because of ignorance. Remove the ignorance that veils the true self-knowledge and know thyself is pure, free and Divine Absolute. Therefore, one should feel Sai in our every swasa. He lives in you. He is not different from your own Self. Self and Sai are one in pure consciousness. In fact Sai was pure ananda and consciousness. It is said that the body should be used to attain God vision which is supreme end of life.
Thus, Sai is pervading the whole creation of the universe and lives in the hearts of all. For many years, a voice has been calling out that what you are looking for is within you. Divinity is the innermost part of every personality and your identity is with that Divine Self. But to realize him one has to search for Him by inner voyage and then try to bring Him out. This voyage is of deep meditation in which the meditator and the object of meditation will become one. Meditation is the wick to the lamp of wisdom. The lamp of wisdom is nothing but the Lord. It is the inner voyage that makes one to realize the Soul.
Bhagavad Gita says: “Make your mind one pointed in meditation and your heart will be purified. With all fears dissolved in the peace of the Self and all desires dedicated to Brahman, controlling the mind and fixing to on Me (God) sit in meditation with Me as your only God. With senses and mind constantly controlled through meditation united with Self within, an aspirant attains Nirvana – the state of abiding joy and peace in Me.”
All Mahavakyas emphasize the oneness of Paramatma with every Jivatma in essence. Paramatma is the source of all jivas and so every jiva should strive to get back to the source and be permanently one with it. The supreme soul of jiva is only a spark of Para Brahman and to experience oneness with that source of its Being is pure Ananda.
Sri Ramana Maharishi has said “Plunge your purified mind into your heart”. With contemplation and concentration, which is the real inner voyage, the mind can have access to the inner secrets and can perceive the truth about Self Realization. Meditation strengthens one’s inner awareness.
To know the eternal Truth, one must erase the notion of physical ‘I’ (body consciousness) and search for the egoless and immortal ‘I’. look within and you can find the blooming inner atman by which one can find the eternal in-dweller. This needs inner voyage and the sadhaka should attune his mind to be ever merged in Sai consciousness. When the mind is rid of impurities of desire and develops equanimity, then the spirit of Sai shines forth in its own splendor and the matter that besets the spirit does not bind any longer.
One must understand oneself to know what is beyond us. That awareness delimits our mind and that awareness is self-effacing. For, there can never be individual awareness. It is the cosmic awareness of the one’s energy and the Self. In the Divine consciousness, the smallest of things below unite with the highest, the most sublime from above.
Baba has said that by constant concentration on His form, the distinction between the Dhyata (meditator), Dhyana (act of meditation), Dhyaya (thing meditated upon) will be lost and the meditator will be one with the consciousness and be merged in the Brahman and our Sai is a Brahmaswaroopi. ‘Worship Me through meditation in the sanctuary of the heart’, says Bhagavatam.
When the practice of contemplation becomes effortless, the seeker becomes totally detached even from the body. When you assimitae Sai by imprisoning Him in your heart, finally you will be merged in Pure consciousness. For bringing Sai before one’s mental vision, one has to meditate on His form beginning from His toe.
UNCEASING STRUGGLE
According to Yoga Vasihta, the position of the individual soul vis-à-vis Brahman can be compared to a universal mirror which reflects the world as it is, with Brahman alone being the substratum of existence. The soul’s unceasing struggle is to break clear of constraints of the body to make contact with the Supreme Reality of Inner Bliss.
In the dark chamber of your heart, the lamp has to be lit and it goes on burning at the Altar that brings our communion with God (our Sai). If we want mine of peace then we have to seek what is precious and discard what is not. The peace of Sai Bliss what we are searching for is not outside us. It is really within us. It always has been and always will be. Searching for Sai purely depends on intensity of one’s own devotion.
A SEED TO GROW
Peace is within and the joy is within you. In our hearts, the existence of Supreme Bliss is like a seed waiting in the dessert to grow, to blossom, then Sai’s existence in us can be awakened. According to Keno-upanishad that which speech cannot express but that by which speech is expressed is Brahman. To find God, it is merely uprooting one’s attention from one pace and placing it at the holy feet of the Almighty.
Thus, the Brahmaswaroopi, Sadguru Sai, is ever within us. When we chant His name and pray to Him, we feel full of inner joy and purity of mind. It is our Guru-God Sai that enables us to feel this but God cannot be felt. What you feel is terrestrial what enables you to feel is transcendental.
What we are and what we maybe is revealed by the light within. A searching mind can at last find it in one’s heart. Chandogya Upanishad says : “there is light that shines beyond the highest and this is the light that shines in your heart.” According to Srimad Bhagavatam, the Lord is permanently enshrined within all and the mortal man and the Lord’s presence should be felt every moment. The Lord indeed lies within the depths of everybody and He is the light of every soul and remains still like a sea. But egotism hides the soul. The conquest of the soul is the supreme yagna and so one should attempt to realize the individual self and become one with the Supreme Self of Sai.
Like our Sadguru Sai, Saint Kabir of 14th Century, used to say that God is within every living being and illustrated it by an example of a deer, which searches for ‘Kasthuri’ (musk) outside in the grass without knowing the precious product is hidden in itself. Kabir used to say “I have got the Lord in my heart”.
Sri Ramakrishna also pointed out that an individual carries God (to us our Sai) in his heart. Sri Aurobindo has also said the very sense of duality should be expelled from one’s mind. He said the sun and the unseen should be recognized as the Supreme expression of the concealed wisdom of Brahman.
Thus, it is beyong doubt that our Nityananda Swaroopi Sai is your Guhavasai and so “Om Guru guhaya Sainathaya Namah”, can be a supreme japa mantra. Knowing Sai is knowing God. Knowing God is, to most, the same as being God for in God, there is no ‘other’.
SEEK HIS LIGHT – SIT IN SILENCE
Invoke Sai in whatever you do
Experience Him in any naamavali you woo
Sit in silence, seek His light
Hands to serve Him, Mind to possess Sai
Heart to throb Sai’s name, the soul to rest at His feet
Heart, mind and soul are His gifts
For a human frame to fade in His light.
Explaining the power of inner energy, Yajur Veda says: Find the eternal object of your quest within your soul. When you turn your gaze inward, you will realize that the lasting truth was shining around you. Finally, you can find the eternal object of your quest within your own heart. Your inner vision is illuminated by this new realization.
Coming up in Next post :
- Sadguru Sai – A Realised, Liberated Soul
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