Shirdi Sai Baba Stories,Leelas and Teachings.: Inner Voyage To Explore Sai-Guru Bhakti-Sai Marg(Part 2).

Dear all,
Happy Baba's day .Today I am uploading the second part of 9th chapter from 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/chapter of the book .Jai Sai Ram.

Chapter IX
GURU BHAKTI – SAI MARGA(Part 2)

PRAYER – MOST IMPORTANT
A devotee should feel that Lord is his own, and it is his duty to go and see Him and worship Him often, irrespective of any other consideration. Such visits will make his tie with the Lord stronger and stronger till at last the Lord takes possession of his heart as His own temple. The most important requisite is prayer from the depths of one’s heart standing in front of the deity to make his heart pure, to make his mind clean and devoted and to give him enough fervor or capacity to remember and mediate upon the Lord. Such prayers will reach the Lord who is all knowing, and His Grace will flow to the devotee.He may carry on the worship as often as he can and pray for devotion and purity of heart. Similarly he may visit sacred places where such vibrations are active by the assembly of great souls and devotees. We know of the atmosphere which prevailed at Shirdi during the life-time and after the Maha Samadhi of Sri Sai Baba. Inexpressible divinity was always vibrating in that place, and those who visited that place (and other such places elsewhere) got blessed. Such visits to sacred places purify the mind and heart of an aspirant.

All kinds of charities are good indeed to make a man pure. The foremost necessity is to have association with great souls, who are ever immersed in divinity only. Such association will inspire a devotee wonderfully with spiritual inclination, and at last a power divine will grow in the heart of that devotee. Without such association, no one can gain anything spiritual.
One must cultivate devotion and inclination to practice sadhanas in the above manner in the beginning. After getting inspiration by all these means one may surrender oneself at the feet of a great soul praying to Him to show the path for salvation of his soul from the miseries of death and birth. The devotee may accept the great soul, who is an adept in spirituality, as his own guide, Guru and everything in life. He must follow the directions of the Guru without a tinge of doubt. That faith alone will give him infinite amount of spiritual strength. Then, he may follow strictly the path prescribed by the Guru with full faith in Him. The grace of Guru alone will give spiritual elevation and realization to the disciple. However, much the disciple may exert himself, he will not get any result or reward unless he gets the grace of His guru. are the preliminaries needed for an aspirant before he begins his practices. After getting initiated into the path of spiritual practice, the disciple should consider his Guru as his God.

CONCEPT OF GURU

Explaining the concept of Guru, our Swamiji has said: God and Self are logical sequences in the Spiritual Journey to Liberation. When the divine spark starts glowing inside a mumuksha (ardent spiritual aspirant) and all the values of worldly nature fail to quench his thirst for reality and the hunger for God becomes powerful insistent and continuous, then God Himself takes the form of a Guru suitable to the understanding of all sadhaka.

Spiritual Goal is something that can rarely be attained by sole effort without guidance from a competent realized Guru. When one cannot cross a forest or climb a mountain- peak without a guide, how difficult it should be to journey alone on the intangible spiritual path? People, who out of egoism, pride and ignorance question the need or competence of the Guru are yet too raw and have not reached the ripe stage of a suitable disciple. Even exhalted avatars and mahapurushas, who by their own right were born with Brahma Jnana went through the formalities of Guru-Sishya relationship like Rama with Vasishta, Krishna with Sandeepany, Saint Narada with Sage Sanat Kumar, Sukha with Janaka.
When a saint attains Mahasamadhi, he attains disembodied freedom and a simultaneous identification or merger with Brahman. But a few liberated saints like Buddha, Vyasa, Krishna, even after attaining the supreme state of liberation voluntarily chose to participate in the cosmic scheme of helping other souls still in bondage and struggling to attain liberation. Baba was such a saint Who even while He was in His physical body assured His devotees, that He would not leave them but act more powerfully even after His disembodiment. “I shall be ever active and vigorous even after leaving this earthly body.” “My tomb shall bless and look to the needs of My devotees.” “I am ever living to help and guide all, who come to Me, who surrender to Me and who seek refugee in Me.”

AN AVATAR OF SHIVA

The Supreme Being contains within itself all the Gods, avatars, prophets and gurus like the Vishwaroopa revealed in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagawat Gita. Baba repeatedly stressed on “ALLAH MALLIK” and thereby tuned the minds of His devotees to the Supreme Being. His frequent references to the Most High as Fakir made the Hindus regard SRI SAI BABA as an Avatar of Lord SHIVA, who is also called Thyagaraja – the Lord of all the Fakirs.
The Guru not only shows the way but has the power to transmit the truth of his experience. In fact, it is the Guru who makes the spiritual ideal living and dynamic by initiating the disciple with a simultaneous impulsion into the practice for the progressive unfoldment of the spiritual realisation.

The Guru is the ‘Preraka’ who arouses the spiritual thirst in the disciple. He is the ‘Swechaka’ who opens the spiritual eye. He is the ‘VACHAR’ who explains the method and the goal. He is the ‘Darsaka’ who shows clearly the Goal. He is the ‘Bhodhaka’ who endows the disciple with the necessary understanding. Without the light of the Anubhuti or practical realisation of the Bhodaka Guru all spiritual knowledge of a sadhak will only be theoretical like that of a man who has learnt all about swimming from books but has never entered water. The Guru exercises his spiritual power of transmission of realisation either through intense thought power or by gracious penetrating glance or by touch like the tortoise, fish or bird respectively, which bring out their young by intense thought or by sight or by touch respectively.

The Guru enjoins on his disciple to observe his injunctions faithfully if he is to cross the terrible sea of samsara. The solo efforts of Sadhakas in the spiritual path are fraught with grave risks and dangers. Complete and unflinching faith in the Guru will take the disciple to the goal even as Ekalavya attained perfection in Dhanur Vidya by worshipping with faith only the clay image of Drona as Guru.

May the All Merciful SRI SAI BABA bless you all. FAITH (Nishta)

Deep faith can help perform miracles and even mountains can be moved. Faith is Bhakti Yoga in its ultimate form. Faith provides stability and security. It removes the fear of the complex. There is no need to declare the superiority of any faith. Faith is the surest guide in the darkest days. The Supreme in Infinite but it is our faith, that is small. It is faith in the name of the Lord that works wonders, for faith is life and doubt is death.
There are different levels of faith. The tamasic faith resting or inertia suggests that will be done whether one acts or not. The rajasik faith, inspired by one’s own confidence in oneself proves dynamic in whatever one does. The satvik faith is activated by some laudable ideal. The highest is the faith that is spiritual.

Rig Veda says: “By faith is fire kindled, by faith is offered sacrifice, sing we of faith, the pinnacle of joy. Bless faith the one who gives. Bless him who gives his worship unstinting, bless this song I sing. As the Gods evoked faith from the mighty asuras, so my prayer for generous worshipper be accepted. The Gods led by the spirit honor faith in their worship. Faith is composed of the hearts’ intention. Light comes through faith. Through faith men come to prayer, faith in the morning, at noon and at the setting of the sun. O! faith, give us faith!

GATE OF SALVATION

Those who believe in Him get to the gate of salvation. Those who believe in Him are saved with their kin. Those who believe in Him swim across and help others to swim across the ocean of samsara. They don’t have to beg others. Such is the name of the God, the Pure according to Guru Nanak. When we repose our faith in God (our Sai) there is room for love. If you have no faith, then, you go about blaming others and God for all the ills.
The only condition, Sai Baba put to His devotees was absolute and abiding faith in Him. “Believe in Me with all your heart and I shall protect you” He used to say. “Look to Me and I will look to you. Cast all your burdens on Me and I will bear them. Think of Me in your hour of trouble and I shall be by your side” were the assurances given by our Motherly Baba to His devotees.

He had many ways of testing the devotees’ faith and one of them was while seeking His permission before leaving Shirdi. And Baba’s command given at the parting time from Shirdi should be implicitly obeyed. Many devotees suffered by ignoring Baba’s advice. Equally Baba helped to solve the problems of those whom He wanted to drag to His holy Feet.
Faith is the beginning of the human quest for Self discovery and absolute faith can neither be forced nor taught. It is an experience that transcends trust, reason, belief and ideology. Faith can help one to discover the depth of an Infinte power. Faith is the unquestioning surrender to the will of the Almighty. To know God we must be aware of the light within and the Self has its own light. It is said that this light is the faith that gives of the eternal and eternity. Faith is deeper that determines one’s character and makes him interact in a particular way. One’s faith may be weak or strong depending on his spiritual progress.

SWAMIJI’S BLESSINGS

Though not educated, faith was the fulcrum of her life. Till she came to our Swamiji’s fold, she was a protégé of Kanchi Paramacharyal, Sri Chandrasekhendra Swaraswathi, 68th Pontiff of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam. His word was law to her. Once, she was standing as a watch guard outside, when her sister and brother in law were doing pada pooja to Paramacharyal in an upstairs room in Kanchi Kamakshi temple. Within a few minutes, the Sage of Kanchi himself called this devotee inside to participate in the pada pooja. Such was the grace she enjoyed from the great saintly soul. In 1957, when her atma guru, Sri Chandrasekhendra Saraswathi, said that she could get married to this disabled, there was no second word and despite the stiff opposition from her parents, she got married.

Pujya Sri Narasimha Saraswathi has elucidated “Kanchi Paramacharyal, Sri Chandrasekhendra Saraswathi, continued the life of Sai Baba and His eyes were filled with peace and calmness. Guru veekshanyam is what we pray for”.When this lady devotee came to Swamiji, she completely surrendered heart and soul to Him and once when Swamiji said that he had known her father in Siddamalli, we started worshipping both Swamiji and Paramacharyal as one and seeing them in each other.

One day such a soul, adorning Swamiji’s holy feet in her heart, offered her humble namaskarams to Swamiji at Sri Sai Spiritual Centre. With sparsha deeksha. Swamiji blessed her ‘Dheerga Sumangali Bhava’. Within a few seconds sensing my ignorance, who was standing nearby Swamiji said, “enna, Nataraja, you are worried that you have not been blessed. He said that this epithet ‘Dheerga Sumangali Bhava’ was the most powerful blessing both for the husband and wife and hence there should be no worry.” With this two in one blessing, we returned home.

On another occasion, when it was night duty off for me, we both of us had the urge to spend the day with Swamiji. So, knowingly or unknowingly we went to Sri Sai Spiritual Centre at 3:15 p.m. a rest hour for Swamiji. We found the main gate was locked and there was no other way except standing on the other side of the parapet wall next to Swamiji’s Kutir and contemplate on him with his image next to my mind. Believe it or not, within a few minutes, beyond our expectations, Swamiji immediately came and opened the front gate and told us “you should have jumped over the parapet wall and come to my room. My room is always open to all the devotees.” We had no words to express our gratitude to Swamiji and he took us to his kutir, gave us some same advice and chanted Vishnu Sahasranamam in the hall. After making our humble prostrations to His Holiness, we returned home.

PATIENCE (SABURI)

Baba’s charters 137 says that Saburi is courageous patience, do not discard ir. It ferries you across to the distant goal. It gives manliness to men, eradicates sin and dejection and overcomes all fear.Patience with perseverance are the stepping stones for achieving one’s goal. The perception of Divine personality in Sai Baba is a matter of gradual growth. The proof of growth is in the visible results and can be easily felt by one’s neighbors. Frequent introspection on the grounds of faith to see if they are valid and strong will destroy faith and the perception of divinity in Baba will disappear.

POWER OF SILENCE

Prayer within breath is silence. Love within Infinite is silence. Wisdom without word is silence. Compassion without aim is silence. The first experiment for spiritual growth is silence and this is the first step towards meditation. (This is what our Baba advised Upasani Maharaj to sit quiet and do nothing for four years in the Khandoba temple in Shirdi.)
In silence, one can experience himself as the soul or a condition for Self-knowledge. Then, the soul is capable of realizing its true home. Tearing the wall of Maya, Sai was with Supreme Reality and this resulting ananda is uge muge. Katho Upanishad says: The ultimate really cannot be known through speech, through eyes and not even through the logic of words. It can only be known through silence. The silence does not reside in the mind but in the heart.

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