Avatars The Bhagavad Gita [song of God] declares, in clear and ringing tones, “Whenever there is decline of dharma [right conduct], and the rise of adharma [unrighteous behavior], I shall embody Myself. For the protection of dharma, and for the destruction of adharma, I shall appear in every age.” The Lord manifests Himself in human form solely for the above divine purpose. What the Gita has stated is eternally true, and holds good for all ages, including the present Kali Yuga [Iron age] as well. A revealing point to be noted in this connection is that the avatars [incarnations] of God, as well as maha purushas or mahatmas [holy men], commonly manifest themselves in the sacred land of Bharat [India]. The reason, as Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Himself has stated, is that Bharat is the punya bhoomi [land of merit], the karma bhoomi [land of destiny], and the tapo bhoomi [land of asceticism, penance]. It is in fact the pulsating heart of the world, and the growth of divinity in man has to be traced to the roots of spirituality nurtured in the soil of Bharat, by the divine rishis [sages] of old. Our blessed land has seen many avatars and maha purushas through the ages. Sri Rama, Sri Krishna, the compassionate Buddha, Shankara, Lord Gauranga, Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Shirdi Baba and now Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, are some of the names that flash through our mind, as we peep down the vista of time. What is the common factor, or link between God, the avatar purusha [creator], the mahatamas, and man? It is the fact that the jivatman [divine spark] that we find in man is nothing but an infinitesimal spark of the effulgent paramatman [supreme absolute]. God is the boundless ocean of satchidananda [being-awareness-bliss] and each of us represents a minute drop of spray that is tossed into the air by the restless waves, glistens for a second in the sunlight, and falls back into the ocean again. What then is an avatar purusha? To extend the analogy further, we can compare the avatar to a towering and majestic iceberg. The waters of the ocean are fluid, and have no concrete form. The avatar, on the other hand, is like a colossal iceberg, a pure and dazzling crystalline mass of solids, while the jivatman is an infinitesimal droplet. And what brings the iceberg into existence? It is the freezing cold. The phenomenon of the birth of an avatar is brought about by the congealing power of the love and earnest longing welling out of the hearts of great siddha purushas [mystics], maha yogis [great yogis], and the pure at heart. What are the outstanding traits that distinguish an avatar from the rest of mankind? There are many, like the innumerable facets of a gleaming gem, but we with our limited knowledge, can only think of a few. One cardinal fact that we have to remember is that the avatar purusha is not compelled by karma [consequences of one’s actions] to take birth in the world, but comes down of his own volition. We, the jivatmas, are caked and heavily laden with the dirt of our acquired karma, which forces us to return again and again to the world. But the avatar is like a gem whose brilliance is visible at all times and places, because of its spotless, heavenly purity. Its effulgence is intense and overpowering. To a jivatma heavily enshrouded by the dark veil of tamas [inertia], the luminosity may appear to be radiated by a piece of worthless glass, but to a yogi, the gem is priceless. The avatar is like a magnet. If a piece of lead is placed next to a powerful magnet, the lead will lie there inert, totally unaware of the invisible pull of the magnet. But if we should pass the magnet over a heap of steel needles, they will come to life, and jump up, irresistibly drawn toward the magnet. The pure in heart are like the needles; by their own nature and composi­tion, they are drawn toward the avatar, the living embo­diment of the divine. The avatar is a living example of truth. Where noble thoughts, words, and deeds coincide, there is truth. It is only when the vision of the archer, the shaft of the arrow, and the distant target are all aligned, that the winged arrow will go and hit the center of the target. The avatar is the infallible divine marksman and his target is truth. The avatar is always a perfect embodiment of dharma. When we think of dharma, we conjure up the vision of Sri Rama in our minds. A perfect son for whomthe promise given by his father to Kaikeyi in a moment of weakness weighed more than a great kingdom and all the comforts that great riches could confer. Though a devoted husband, Sri Rama was prepared to send his chaste wife to the forest rather than bear a slur cast by a lowly washer-man. He held dharma and honor above personal considerations. Then again, think of the dharma preached to Arjuna by Sri Krishna on the field of Kuru­kshetra [battlefield in the epic, Mahabharata]—how to live, and if need be, to die like a true kshatriya [warrior], in the protection of dharma, and the destruction of adharma. Dharma has to be honored, even though the ties of kith and kin are sacrificed. Every act and duty has to be performed as a sacrifice unto the lord, with no desire for the fruits of the action, and with perfect dependence upon the lord. The avatar is also an embodiment of shanti [peace]. For example, though the Buddha was brought up in a regal atmosphere away from the sight of all misery, unhappiness, and death his heart yearned for something that the sensory world could not give. His overpowering desire for shanti finally broke its bounds, and the great prince turned his face away from his devoted and beautiful wife and his dazzling son to embrace the life of a mendicant. His quest for ultimate reality finally brought him shanti, and showed the path of liberation to the millions who believe in the teachings of the compassionate Buddha. The avatar is also an embodiment of prema [divine love]; prema of the highest order, prema for the prematman, and prema for the mass of jivatmas, the myriads reflections of the paramatma on the screen of maya [illusion]. Lord Gauranga was a perfect example of prema. His prema for God’s feet was so infectious that during his tour of India, he spread this benign contagion of divine prema through the length and breadth of Bharat. He was able to send human beings into ecstasies of divine love by his mere touch. Thus an avatar is the

Swami I Want You Divij Desai, a Student from 2001-2006, in the Department of Physics of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, wrote the following article. Currently he is a Manager, at TCS e-Serve Ltd., in London. My first ideas of God were of someone who could assume any form, who would be bigger than the biggest and smaller than the smallest.In my mind, I often visualized my God as someone who could appear in myriad colors, as one who possesses imaginary weapons, and who had the entire creatiaon within Him. More startlingly, my imagination even led me to conclude that He was more of a punisher than a boon-giver, that He was always framed in photographs and lived only in idol form. One day, these beliefs changed to a perception of a beautiful, loving, and affectionate God. It was the 16th of November, 1995 and I was seated in an august assembly in Sai Kulwant Hall with devotees from all over the world. I had managed to secure a place in front row. When Swami arrived I rose to offer a tray with akshata (rice grains) and said “Swami, today is my birthday.” “Achha, phir Swami bless karta hai. (is that so, then Swami will bless you).” He then took some akshata from the tray and showered them on my head. This was my first face-to-face interaction with Bhagavan. That interaction offered a new image of God—He is not someone who demands years of penance. Till then, Swami was restricted just to photos and distant darshan [sight of a holy man]. But after that interaction I realized that God is someone just like us, but with a difference. He is the most powerful yet tender, all-knowing yet compassionate and munificent. And if we were to take thousands of births from now on and spend every second of these lives reciting the Lord’s glory, we would still fall short of describing it fully. I often wondered why they refer to Him as God when He looks, talks, walks, eats, and drinks just like us. To this query, my heart whispered only one answer. He is like all of us, so He can teach us that we can all become like Him. The very purpose of our life should be to become like Him or to become one with Him. The beautiful and serene face of Bhagavan reflects kshama (forgiveness). It is His kshama that renders us happy and joyous. Each one of us has a story of our own consisting of good deeds, with the latter predominant in most of our lives. But when we face the Lord, He erases all our erroneous writings and sees us as clean slates. As a clean mirror, He reflects our own selves and wipes away every mistake of ours. Swami has often stated that one evolves as a human being by developing kshama. That is why He declares, “Forget the harm that others have done to you; forget the good that you have done to others.” The Vedas proclaim: Tyagenaike amrutatva manashuhu (Immortality can be attained only through sacrifice.) Bhagavan is the greatest example that the world can ever witness in this aspect. Many times we have heard of Bhagavan taking a calamity upon Himself in order to save a devotee from danger. I am reminded of one such incident, which took place when I was studying in my final year at the Brindavan campus. Bhagavan had an injury due to an apparent mishap and did not come out to give darshan for almost a fortnight. People all across the globe—devotees young and old prayed for Bhagavan’s health and to heal Himself as fast as possible. Bhagavan finally listened to our prayers. After a month, when things were back to normal, an elderly devotee of Bhagavan mustered some courage and asked, “Swami, was this necessary? Why did You take this injury upon Yourself? It was so painful for us to see You in that condition.” Bhagavan replied, “When I was hurt, every heart prayed only for Me. For once there was a spirit of unity in prayers all across the planet. And when there is such harmony in thought the world over, do you know how many of your sins will be washed away? And if your sins are washed away will you not be happy, and if you are happy will I not be happy?” Bhagavan had undertaken physical pain and trouble to wipe away our sins. Is there any greater example of sacrifice? If someone were to ask us what makes us believe that Sai Baba is God, what would we say? It is not because He can transmute earth into heaven or metamorphose night into day. The real reason is that He loves us more than we love ourselves. He loves us to such an extent that He is ready to sacrifice anything for our sake. In fact, by keeping a smiling face in spite of being in so much physical pain, Bhagavan teaches us the greatest lesson of overcoming body attachment. “Love is life and life is love.” Bhagavan’s life is nothing but an expression of love. I vividly recollect an episode during my stay in Brindavan. It was the month of March and we had examinations. Bhagavan had come to Brindavan after Shivaratri [holy day dedicated to Shiva]. The night after my first examination, I received a phone call from my mother. She informed me that my father had met with a minor accident. They had been to the family doctor and had been asked to get an x-ray of the injured left leg. I had seen other students and devotees getting up during darshan to inform Swami about their troubles. Swami would usually bless them, comfort them, and at times even materialize vibhuti [holy ash] assuring them that He would take care. Until then, I myself had never experienced it. That night I pleaded with Bhagavan. If it were true that even minute details do not escape Bhagavan’s attention, then He would respond to my prayers. The next morning my

Their Shelter & Their Strength This is a talk given to about 60 students of the Sri Sathya Sai Arts & Science College, gathered in Bhagavan’s presence on a sandy riverbed in the Bandipur Forest, Mysore State. Ahighly valued facet of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, at least for me, is that one can love Him with all one’s heart, without fear and without restraint. Every person wants to love greatly, with an open heart, but experience has made us afraid. We may observe how natural it is for young children to love whole-heartedly. With what richness and sweetness do very young children embrace parents, brothers, sisters, and close playmates! How much joy there is for an adult when a child of three or four years tightly embraces him with the sweetest of smiles and says, “I love you, I love you.” It is the river of love rushing from the open heart of the child that makes the child so incredibly sweet and so overflowing with bliss. It is this rich treasure of love and affection that touches even the dullest adult and makes him share the child’s bliss for a moment or so. But, as each of us leaves the innocent open‑hearted years of our early childhood, something very sad and tragic happens. Worldly experience invades the shelter of early years and the heart suffers betrayal and rejection. One loves someone and love flows to that person. But, the response is indifference, or a harsh word, or outright rejection, and the resulting hurt is deep and agonizing. The child tries again and again, and here and there, he is hurt again. In time, a natural self‑protection arises and the child’s love is qualified with caution. A person learns that when he loves, he is unprotected; love destroys his self‑pro­tection, and makes him vulnerable to suffer­ing. With each year of worldly experience, additional self‑protective factors come into one’s life. Ambition, business cares, com­petition, gratification of the senses, greed, resentment, hatred, jealousy, the whole range of narrowing tendencies exert more and more influence on body, mind, heart and intelligence. The open natural heart expansion of early childhood is by now a thing of the past. Is not this complete obstruction of the flow of love, a fundamental reason why the life of an older person is often dry and joyless? In this modern society, a dry and joyless life is the general experience. Witness the frantic search for distraction and pleasure the world over. An almost universal prayer arises from adult persons caught up in to­day’s culture: “O Lord, may there be a new season of spring in my heart. May the dry river of love flow deep and strong again in my heart.” Here, to me, is one of the most wonder­ful miracles of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Bhagavan is God, His life is divine beauty and divine love. The fettered heart, turned to Bhagavan, can break free from all its bondage. Seeing Him, being sure that He will never betray, is a most wonderful feeling. With joy, the heart res­ponds to this trust. With each day, love for Bhagavan grows stronger. He is divine mother and father to His devotee. He is the present moment at every moment! He is our breath, our food, and our drink. Con­templating God so that at that moment, bliss is the experience. One may love Him without reserve, without guard, without fear, how­ever guarded one may still be with fellow human beings. Of course, one’s behavior with Him must remain strictly disciplined. The young college boys here, assembled at this quiet stretch of sandy riverbed deep in the forest, cannot, I think, realize their good luck. For them, the heart need never be­come dry. Long before the hot dry winds of the world have had an opportunity to invade their lives, these boys have claimed Bhagavan, He who is their shelter and their strength, from now, throughout the length of their days. For myself who has come to this peaceful forest from the stormy life of the western world, the good fortune of encoun­tering Bhagavan is almost incredible. Even now, some five years from that marvelous first day, it is difficult to believe that it is really true, that He sits there, and that I am here near Him! It is with the deepest sense of gratitude that I honor Him and give all homage at His lotus feet. ~Dr. J. S. HislopSource: Sanathana Sarathi, April 1973

Sadhana and Swami Isn’t it enough if we love Swami? What is the need for rules and regulations for Sathya Sai centers?” In answer to this query from an American devotee, Dr. John Hislop wrote the following reply: Your letter was forwarded from the Council Secretary to me for answer. Your question is, “Why all the rules for centers and members? This is America, a free country. Isn’t it enough if we love Swami?” This question comes up quite often, and it is not at all unreasonable. Please bear with me for a few paragraphs, and I will do my best to explain. In the context of your sadhana [spiritual effort], which is aimed at God‑realization, intense, all‑con­suming, never‑faltering love for God is surely enough. Swami has declared that the most direct way to Him is `The royal highway of love’. With Lord Sathya Sai chosen as the beloved of your heart, every­thing that you do will be to please Him, and you would face any disaster rather than go against Him. Is it not so? This great love for Lord Sathya Sai and your dedication of thought, word, and deed to Him implies willingness and an eager­ness to discern and obey every rule of be­havior that He lays down for your spirit­ual realization of Him. Your intense desire to please the beloved of your heart will by itself save you from wrong action and will guide you to right action. In this sense, what you say is correct: “Love for God is enough.” For a great devotee of God, correct action is intuitively sensed and observed. And it is this self‑same correct action that Swami has described in words as they apply to Sathya Sai Baba centers and the devotee­ members of the centers. In the guidelines for centers, Swami’s rules for correct be­havior are clearly identified. The other data in the Guidelines is background information and administrative rules from the Council Directors that can be readily changed by petition to the Council. In terms of your personal sadhana, there is only the direct one‑to‑one relation­ship between God and His devotee. But please consider the situation of a center, its members, the public, and Swami’s work and teachings. Not all members of the Sai organization are yet fully‑committed, deeply‑understanding devotees of God. Is it not of genuine advantage to the comm­unity of devotees to be able to know what Swami expects of them as devotee‑members of a Sai organization? Having chosen Swami as supreme guru, will they not be anxious to know and follow His advice? And further, what Sai organization members say and do, and what goes on at a Sathya Sai Center is not hidden from the public. Will the public not judge Swami and His teachings by what they see of His devotees and their organization? The re­sponsibility to Swami is great and should be scrupulously protected and cared for. For this to be the case, all devotees must be able to know and study the rules that Swami deems essential for Sai devotees and Sai organizations. I hope that rules seem a little more reasonable than at first.                                     ~Dr. John Hislop

Climbing the Highest Mountain The following is an excerpt from the address given by Dr. Thorbjoern Meyer, Chairman, Coordinating Committee Europe Group One, on Gurupoornima day at Copenhagen. SAI‑ideals, when assimilated by the indi­vidual devotee, give a new confidence in the real Self, and gradually one dares to be, just to be—openly and wholly—what one really is. To realize that to be is to experience one’s own Divinity and the Divinity of the whole creation. This is sathya, truth, the first of the basic SAI‑ideals. When we express this (inner) truth in our actions, it is dharma, because to express the immanent Divinity in actions is: to see good, to hear good, and to do good. It is a philosophy of life complete­ly transforming man. It requires total unity of thought, word, and deed. Dharma is and has always been the same “Sana­thana Dharma”. The way it is act­ually expressed in daily life might vary with time, place, and circumstances like age, culture, sex, and life stage. But basi­cally it remains the same throughout the ages: to express the immanent Divinity, the one and only truth, in action. He has told us how our intelligence should be used to discriminate, as a God­-given faculty standing next to atma. This discrimination is helped by the ahimsa [non-violence] principle: never to harm anyone, anybody or anything by what we think, say or do. When we are able to identify ourselves with the entire creation (and experience all as manifestations of the One and only), ahimsa comes about quite naturally. Finally we radiate and express prema, unselfish Divine Love, because truth, love, and light are Divine principles gene­rating compassion and understanding. Then we have reached our goal of har­mony and happiness, because now we feel shanti, inner peace, total equanimity, regardless of ups and downs in the transi­tory, outside world. This unshakable stability within is what enables us to think God, to breathe God, to talk, and act God, finally unite with Him and be God, and stay in that incommunicable bliss when the last hour arrives. Though highly imperfect and only a beginner on the spiritual path of glory, I can paint this image for you and know it is truthful, because of the incomparable wisdom of Bhagavan Baba’s Divine teach­ings, and because of His compassionate grace where He allows human beings like you and me to involve ourselves in His work even while we are ourselves in the process of reformation. In the midst of a world governed by an ever‑increasing material greed, some of us have become seekers. We found out that something was utterly wrong. Selfishness is closely followed by its twin brothers greed and envy, and on this level of ego, distrust, hatred, and violence are increas­ing all over the world. When we started to experience this as a glaring dissonance, we were motivated to seek harmony in our lives. I believe this quest for harmony and happiness is as old as mankind. There is a thought-provoking old legend about the downfall of man, when God decided to take away from man the divine spark within. The lesser gods and the archan­gels suggested to bury it deep down in the ground, but God said that man would search everywhere and find it. Then the lesser gods suggested to bury it at the bottom of the sea, but this also God refused, as man would eventually find it even there. As a last resort, the lesser gods suggested to hide it at the top of the world’s highest mountain, where man couldn’t even breathe, but God resolved that at some stage man’s search would also bring him there. Then the lesser gods and the archangels gave up, but God said, “No, let us hide it within the heart of man. That is the last place he will look.” Now materialism and modern science have been ever pointing at the outside world as the source of happiness. But as this “happiness” more and more clearly remained an interval between two sorrows, earnest people all over the world are to­day turning to the way of the spirit as the answer to the crisis that faces humanity. All along He has been the director of the play. But now that so many conscio­usly take the first step toward Him, He takes a hundred toward us. He has even taken a human body and is here ready to show us the way. Once in ancient Greece a disciple of the famous philosopher Socrates asked, “How am I to go to get to Mount Olympus?” (the mountain of the Gods) and Socrates answered, “Make sure that each step you take leads you in that direction.” Through many lives mankind has strug­gled to find happiness and harmony, and now at the peak of this Kali‑age, with all its resistance, an increasing number of people are turning their awareness toward the inner truth. A spiritual hunger is growing all over the world. We have, so to speak, reached the foot of “Mount Olympus”. Now we have to choose our path uphill. At this stage, the Lord Himself is there as our guide saying, “Follow the master, face the devil, fight to the end, and finish the game.” So it seems that in struggling uphill of this, the Lord’s mountain, which is higher than the world’s highest mountain, the devil will try to stop us. Who is this devil we are to fight in order to proceed? And where is he? Sathya Sai points out that he is staying with us and is our selfishness, our small ego, our own polluted mind, our own attachments, and ignorance. But such a fight is not going to be easy! It will really be like fighting kith and kin. We have grown accustomed to our world­ly attachments, we like them and do not feel as separate entities. Not at all! Must we really fight our own self? Like Arjuna, we are hesitating. But like Arjuna, we have “Sanathana Sarathi” (the ever-existing charioteer), now in the form of

I Am God, I Am God, I Am No Different from God Berniece Mead, National Sai Spiritual Education Coordinator at the time, gave the following talk on the weekend of September 26-27, 1998, at the San Diego Sai Conference. Iwould like to offer pranams (salutations) at the feet of our sweet and loving Lord, the indweller of my heart as well as yours. I would like to ask Him to use me as an instrument—that I may be a hollow flute with divine melody coming from it. A familiar bhajan(devotional song) says, “I am God. I am God. I am no different from God.” Do you believe it? What does it mean? So many times when we make mistakes, we go around with sad faces, harboring resentment, jealously, anger, or hatred. And as an excuse we say, “I am only human.” What does it mean to be human? We are human beings with human bodies, but our next step is divinity. That isn’t exactly true either because we are already divine. Swami says, “Yes, I am God. But so are you. The only difference is that I know I am God and you do not.” Having human bodies is a very special privilege. Swami has said that when righteousness declines, He comes back. Apparently, we have reached a very low ebb in our evolution. Thus, the Lord of the universe has descended to earth. Those of us here have done something special in the past, because we heard about the Avatar (Sai Baba) and decided we would do something about it. Many others heard of Him, but did not pay heed. What made us pay attention? My personal belief is that we truly have done something good in the past to be here today. And I hope that we will not lose sight of the fact that we are special. Swami is telling us that we have to become ideal human beings. To do this, we have to follow a dharma. We have gotten into a lot of trouble by behaving as less than human. Sometimes we act like animals. Anger and jealousy—and all the things that take away peace—are not human. They are animal qualities that can even become demonic. I’m not going to ask for a show of hands because I would be the first one to raise my hand and I hate to do that. We have all had moments when we acted like demons. In an interview Swami asked a young woman, “Where is your husband?” She told Swami she did not have a husband. He looked at her and said, “Yes, you do. You have many boyfriends. You are acting like an animal. Why are you acting like an animal? You are a human being.” Then He said, “I can’t believe it. Right here in front of Me, you are thinking about your last boyfriend.” I talked to her later and she admitted she had been and she did not know where the thought came from. But we know where the thoughts come from. Swami was teaching all of us a lesson. As He turned to me to say something, the young woman began to cry. Swami made her a ring and told her that He loved her, but that He had used her to show all of us how to be human beings. He has told us about the value of truth, righteousness, peace, love, and nonviolence. In 1993, when Swami talked with the boys at Kodaikanal, He told them about these values and how they were a part of the sheaths (koshas)—the layers that make us what we are. Human beings are not their bodies, He pointed out. Bodies are disease-ridden and impermanent. They come and go. Five layers make up the body. It is kept alive with food. In fact, the first layer is called the food sheath—the annamaya kosha. This sheath is connected with the value of right action, or dharma. Swami tells us it is our dharma to practice this value. This is our true nature as human beings. We are human beings for a short while in this lifetime. We come from God and we go back to God. We cannot get away from Him. He is always with us. Why do our minds wander from the path? I think it is all a game. Probably we all helped make the rules way back when we were one with Baba. Isn’t it funny that we get bodies, then we form attachments, and our senses work overtime? We think that the world is what it is all about. The one who dies with the most toys wins. We are taught that throughout our lifetime and die so unhappy. What miserable creatures we are! And we are all so afraid of dying. Even in our Sai family, rumors come up about what Swami says. Why do we get involved in rumors? We cannot waste time worrying about dying. We have to think about living—and living in a dharmicway. We experience peace when we live that way because jealousy, hatred, envy, and all the things that make us miserable go away with right action. The breath, or pranamaya kosha, and Swami’s love keeps our bodies going. We are walking love. Why can’t we experience that? Why can’t we turn on the switch, as we do for electricity, and find love? It permeates the entire world. God never leaves us alone. Love and God are synonymous. And both are what we are. When we sing together, we experience the unity of oneness. We cannot argue. We may be jealous of someone leading a bhajan when it sounds particularly good. But if we can just enjoy the moment and breathe together, the breath will show us that we are one. We’ve been given the manomaya kosha (mind), which is like a stumbling block in a sense. Swami says this koshais equated with the value of peace, but to attain peace is up to us. The mind is a special gift that can set us free when we see that God is all

The Wonderful Mother That I Have Mrs. Geeta Mohan Ram comes from a family that has been associated with Swami for the last four generations. Her great grandfather, Mr. Seshagiri Rao, came to Swami in 1943 and was the temple priest of Prasanthi Nilayam for many years. Her father, Dr. Padmanabh is a familiar figure in Swami’s ashram in Bangalore. Having come to Swami at a tender age, her life is full of exciting and illuminating experiences. Below are excerpts of a talk she delivered at a Sai Retreat on May 13, 2006, in Atlanta, USA. My pranams (salutations) at the Lotus Feet of our ever-present Swami and Sairam to all of you on this wonderful day—a holy day of Buddha Poornima, with Mother’s Day coming up tomorrow. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to do my namasmarana [taking the Lord’s name] and place my respects at Sai—my Mother, who has been a part of my life since the day I have come into this world. To speak of Swami is a huge responsibility. [For] many subjects you can prepare, read books, and have references, but when we speak of Swami people look at us very differently. They wonder and say, “They have had the association of this Divine being—how has their life changed?” So when you speak of Swami, your life changes. When you enter a Sai Center and sit for bhajans [holy songs], study circles, your life changes—it should change, otherwise we would be very poor representatives of this wonderful Mother that we have! My multi-faceted beloved Swami For me Swami has been many things. I have seen many facets of Swami and I still discover more as the years go by. He has been my Mother—a very loving Mother—corrected me like all Mothers do with their daughters. He has been a strict Father pointing out my poor marks in several exams. He has been a strict teacher and has not forgiven me if I have made the same mistake twice—even after having been corrected. But He has also been a very good friend! These are all things that a Mother has to be with her children—you have to be a loving mother when your child is very young; you have to be a strict parent to inculcate discipline and devotion; you have to be a teacher by example—I am sure many parents will agree with me. And you have to be a friend with your child, too. Swami has been those many things to me. When the Lord becomes your guest… My earliest memories—and very sweet ones—of Swami are of when I was a child and He used to come and stay with us in Bangalore in my parents’ house. When Swami is with you; you know that everybody is very focused. When we have a guest in our house, the housewife is focused on the room, the bedroom, and the food—as she wants to make the stay a pleasant one for the guest. But imagine having Swami staying with you! You will have this wondrous feeling of when is He going to walk into the kitchen, and I remember my mother would constantly be cleaning the kitchen never knowing when Swami would walk into the kitchen! I remember my father, who never lifted the newspaper to put it away, would be constantly putting away the newspaper so that Swami wouldn’t find it on the sofa in our living room! I remember my brother cleaning his room exceptionally when Swami was around because he never knew when He would come in. And I remember hiding my story books behind Sathya Sai Speaks so Swami wouldn’t know what I was reading! This is my experience that whenever Swami would come, suddenly the look of all the bookshelves would change. I think as a child I read Enid Blyton; as a teenager I probably read Barbara Cartland and Mills and Boons—whatever the current craze was in school—but they would all go behind, and in front of them there would be a second row of Sri Sathya Sai Speaks, in the hope that Swami would think that I was reading them! You can’t trick the Lord! The thread that ran through my life is that whatever I did, Swami knew everything. He is Omnipresent and you could never really trick Him—even though for a while He pretended and played along. I remember once when He came into our room. He would actually eat in my room because we had separate food for Swami, and then the other devotees who came with Him were fed. He would walk into the room a little bit ahead of time while my parents and aunts were setting up the table. And then He would stand in front of the bookshelf and look at all the books. So your heart is pounding, and you hope that He would just look at the books in the front. Then He would look at the books and say, “Oh! Prema Vahini!” Then He would look and say, “Oh, is this the new one that has come out at the Sathya Sai bookstore now?” And He would very sweetly remove two books and say, “Oh! Barbara Cartland! Is that what you read?” and put the Sathya Sai Speaks back right where it was! The ecstasy and agony of experiencing ‘that omnipresence’! So the thread of Omnipresence ran through my life. Sometimes as a child I would wish that ‘that Omnipresence’ was not reminding me all the time that He was with me because I wanted to be like any other child and read what I wanted to read and do what I wanted to do! But as I grew older, I remember what a wonderful sense of security it gave me—because wherever I went, I knew that Swami was with me! It was very easy for me to say, “No” when my other friends said “Yes” to things—because I knew that when I went back on the weekend, Swami would be asking me where I went last Wednesday

Lessons Learnt at His Lotus Feet Ravi Mariwala, a Bal Vikas student from then Bombay, spoke many times in front of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba and thus developed the desire to be a student at His University. In 1982 Mariwala joined Bhagavan’s college and studied there for nine years. He was in the speaker’s group and travelled with Swami to Kodaikanal and Tamilnadu. He is a recipient of three gold medals from Swami. Swami handpicked him to serve in the Super Specialty Hospital, where he served for 14 years. Ravi lives in North Carolina with his wife and two sons. With deep humility and heartfelt pranams at Bhagavan’s lotus feet I would like to share with you the deep and significant learnings of my stay with Him. That time is imprinted in my memory and cannot be replaced. These are true, sincere, and touching learnings and are not bookish or conceptual. Why is our own experience important? While we may be inspired by other people’s learnings, eventually we have to develop our own. The true impact of your contact with the master can only be visible when you open yourself to Him so that He can guide you on a path. We are very blessed that in this Kali [Iron] Age, we are here when the Avatar was here in form. I am sharing the teachings with love in my heart, but you have to open your hearts to imbibe His teachings. I was very blessed that I joined Bhagavan’s college in 1982 and passed out from it in 1991. I had completed nine years at His lotus feet. But then at that very opportune time, instead of letting me go out into the wide world to build a career for myself, Bhagavan pulled me and rescued me from a mundane life by taking me into His fold as an employee of His own hospital, which at that time was only a concept. My first meaningful interaction with Bhagavan was when I had the chance to speak in His presence. I was a typical Mumbai boy, and clearly the company I kept at school would not align with Swami’s expectations. When I joined Bal Vikas (Swami’s values education classes), I was able to see this need for change more clearly. Inspired by my ideal Bal Vikas teachers, I took a vow to mend my ways and walk the path that would please Swami. The first time I saw Swami was in Dharmakshetra in Mumbai, where I had gone very disinterestedly, and literally I was the last person sitting in a hall with the capacity of 15-20 thousand people. A very young and vibrant Swami came out and started walking down the aisle to where I was and looked at me. He stood there and gently waved His hands. As I gazed at Him I was deeply affected and transported to a peace that I sensed within me. At that moment I knew that this was the beginning of a very different direction for my life. Very soon thereafter, I got the opportunity to speak in front of Bhagavan. Swami lovingly accepted my garland and kept on looking at me as I spoke. After my talk, He materialized vibhuti [sacred ash] and made me sit down to the left of His throne and kept rubbing my back. I interpret this as though He was getting rid of the Mumbai-related tendencies and thoughts and was preparing me to join His college. As the program continued, Swami kept talking with me on the stage, virtually granting me a private interview during the public function. He also gave me permission to join His college after I completed school. I joined Swami’s college in 1982 and finished my studies with two postgraduate courses, MSc. and MBA. By Swami’s grace I got three gold medals from His own hands. After that I served in the Super Specialty Hospital for 14 years. Lesson 1—Obedience is Key My first learning is about the importance of obedience in our lives. The acronym I use is OIK—Obedience Is Key”. After I joined Swami’s college, I discovered new meanings of the word obedience, and a new depth of obedience was required if I wanted to walk this path sincerely. One day in 1990, Swami called me to the interview room, where there were seven or eight of us. Swami started admonishing me and showed His irritation. Clearly, He was angry. However, I couldn’t understand what I had done to incur this anger. Then Swami pointed to my hair and said, “You have such long hair! Don’t you know that you are a Sai student and I expect Sai students to observe three disciplines: I want you to wear white clothes, be clean-shaven, and have trim hair”. Now, internally I was truly perplexed. I couldn’t understand why Swami was saying this because I had had a haircut only two days back. Out of deep reverence for Bhagavan, however, I kept quiet. By then I had learnt not to question Bhagavan but to listen to what He was saying and absorb it. Soon after, fortunately, Swami changed the topic and talked about other things. After the interview, my only mission in life was to get to a barber and have a haircut because in less than 24 hours I would be back in the Mandir [temple]. Early the next morning, I went to the hostel barber and asked him to cut my hair. The barber was surprised and he said, “Sir, you had a haircut a few days back.” I, however, insisted. Not just that, I asked him to cut my hair short and deep. I went to college, and in the evening I went to the Mandir. Swami was sitting inside and when he heard the boys thundering into the Mandir to grab the best place, He came out. I was sitting in my place and He beckoned me to come into the interview room. I was alone with Bhagavan in the room wondering what was to come. As Swami says, “Love My uncertainty.” Very sweetly Swami said, “Very good,

Pray Intensely The following is the transcription of a talk by Leonardo Pablo Gutter, a psychologist by profession, who has served in the Sai Organization for over three decades. He started the Latin American movement of the Sathya Sai International Organization and previously served as the Chairman of Zone 2, Latin America. Mr. Gutter is a founding member of the Sri Sathya Sai Trust of Argentina. He is a Member of the Prasanthi Council, and Co-Chairman of the Intellectual Property Committee and Co-Chair of the Community Adoption Committee of the Sathya Sai International Organization. Ioffer my humble pranams [salutations] at the Divine lotus feet of our beloved master and Lord. As my English pronunciation is a disaster, I hope to be able to speak with the language of the heart and pray that you will listen to me with your hearts, and thus have a good communication.We are in the middle of this pandemic—the Covid crisis—we know when it started, we don’t know when it’s going to end. But we know that everything is God’s will and thus it gives us an opportunity to intensify our sadhana (spiritual practices). They [the authorities] asked us to wash our hands more often and more intensely, but we as spiritual aspirants should also wash our hearts and minds more intensely and often. This is how we should spend time during the quarantine in our homes instead of watching TV or reading the newspapers. We have read Swami’s books and listened to His Divine discourses; through these and His life He taught us the practical way of living. We are very fortunate because we are alive when an avatar came to earth and incredibly fortunate because we are awakened onto the spiritual path. I’ll give you some points that I think are very important for all of us, and then I will narrate my experiences. We know that there is a karmic law that says that when you commit a mistake, even unknowingly, you have to pay the consequences. But if you know that the action is wrong, and you still do it, the reaction will be much stronger. We are all scared that we will die of this Corona Virus Pandemic, but we as spiritual aspirants should not be afraid of death. We have to remember that we all will die one day, and that is a very important tool for us. This brings me to the story that I was asked to share: I was working for many years as a psychologist. One day a lady came to me with her daughter who was 12 years old and said that she thought her daughter was psychotic, and she asked me to check her. I asked her mother to leave and I interviewed her daughter, whom I found to be quite normal. She said she could see spiritual beings as we see each other, she had extra sensory abilities. She remembered clearly who she was in her past life and how she had died. She also knew what was going to happen to her in this life. Once I realized after two or three meetings that she was not psychotic at all but was a very evolved human being, I stopped treating her like a patient. I met with her family and asked for their permission to meet at their house. I started going to their house every Sunday to share tea with them, and I would carry some biscuits and spend two or three hours with them. This continued for three years and I became like a family member. One day the girl said, “Jesus appeared to me and told me that we should meet next Thursday at 8 p.m.” So the next Thursday I went to their house and a couple of minutes before 8 my skin was tingling. The girl said, “Jesus is here.” The girl transformed into another person—she performed the mass and blessed the food. Then she wrote a sentence in a strange language on a piece of paper. I took it to a translator of old languages, and he could not understand what was written in it, but then he had the idea of putting the paper in front of a mirror and he could understand. It was Hebrew or Aramaic language, I don´t remember very well now which of the two. The message from Jesus to all the people that were in that meeting and I feel it applies to all of us too, was, “You are not doing enough. When are you going to do enough, when will you wake up from the slumber of ages.” What is our sadhana? A service once or twice a week? Reading spiritual books? Spirituality is a way of living where we eradicate all bad qualities from our heart and our mind; we must be good and be even better day by day till we are like Swami. Let me tell you how I came to Swami. I was the vice president of a Raja Yoga organization and I heard about Swami—there were no Sai centers in Argentina at that time. There was a lady in the organization who went to India and met Swami. She started to share with us her experiences, and so I decided to travel to India to meet with the spiritual master. A couple of days before leaving for India I had a very special dream. I was with a few people and Swami came into the room and I folded my hands. As He was near me I had the most incredible experience: suddenly a wave of energy started rising from my feet to my head, and as it rose each cell of my body exploded with happiness—I was in bliss. The energy came in waves and by the third wave even though I was fully conscious I felt like a dead body. I realized that I was pure consciousness within a dead body. At that time, Swami stopped walking through the people and started to leave us, but when He went to the

From Transformation to Happiness This is an edited version of a talk given by at the Sri Sathya Sai Center of Metropolitan New York in March 2022. A lawyer from Costa Rica, he is the producer of the radio program, “Sathya Sai Baba: Love in Action’, which broadcast 360 programs from 2007 to 2014. He has written over 1000 articles for various media on the Avatar and His message. Jose Cabezas has held various positions in the Sathya Sai Organization of Central America and the Caribbean. We have to understand that with the teachings of Sai Baba, the material plane takes on a higher spiritual value because Swami has an impressive characteristic: He is not the Avatar [Incarnation] who only teaches us to connect to the heavens and the kind of life that will come to us according to the result of our actions, or with our own inner being. He also teaches us to enrich life wherever we are. In short, His teachings connect us with the heavens, with the earth, and with ourselves. Sai has all the answers that we may seek. When we listen to His speeches or His teachings in auditoriums where there are young and old, rich and poor, intellectuals and illiterate, men and women, not one person leaves without the conviction that that the message was for him or her.  For about 15 years, my office was in front of one of the largest churches in the center of the capital of my country, Costa Rica. I used to go there frequently to take a break. Day by day I saw people getting into the church with the sole reason of asking the Lord for a favor. This seemed normal to me until I met Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Little by little I became consumed with His teachings and learned that spirituality must be a constant way of life and not only a way to ask for help, which is not bad at all, but it is not the way to find that happiness that everyone needs and seeks and believes as the reason for living.  Truth and Service Baba tells us one of the most unquestionable truths, “If you look at me, I look at you.” Looking at Him is nothing other than living as He teaches us, complying with His principles, seeing life as He teaches us to see, based on practicing service to others because serving others is serving God. Hands that serve are holier than lips that pray, He told us. That truth is something very new that no one had said so emphatically before.  Truth is God. One day I tried to find the seed of it and found that what Sai Baba wanted to tell us is not what we understand as truth. Baba says that what we can appreciate about objects is clouded by our materialism and by the meaning we give to things. He says that if we walk through a dark place and see a hose on the floor, it could appear to us as a snake. The senses deceive us. Instead, God is what He is.  Truth is God because the truth is what never changes. When we say, “I am,” we are also the essence and reality. If God is reality and essence and we are also reality and essence, understanding His most popular teaching, “You and I are one” tells us that we are part of Him. There is one difference, though: we haven’t realized it, He did and hence affirmed it.  Let us focus on the concept of truth and the activity of seva or self-less service. The first places in us the clear and precise concept of God and who we are. The second complements us with other living and non-living beings in an absolute sense of unity⎯we are all one. We are one with creation. The more we focus, contemplate, and meditate on this truth, the more will be our interest to live in tune with that truth and more will be our passion to serve.  It is only then that we are flooded with a sensation or an experience that the Divine force is in us and at the same time we are in it. We can experience this by letting ourselves be led by the hand of our Lord Sai Baba. It is the beginning of a new life. But we will not achieve it if we only approach Him to ask and ask and ask. If we look at Baba, He looks at us. But looking at Him is beyond seeing. It is connecting with Him, which happens only by fulfilling His teachings, the prime one being ‘Love All, Serve All.’ Let us remember that He told us He does not need anything and that He is served by serving others. It is analogous to what Jesus said⎯that He was helped when we gave clothes and food to the helpless, and that every time we did so, we were doing it to Him.  Finding Baba when in need Many of us found Him during very difficult moments in our lives, financial, health, family, or social. Many of our problems are God’s way of attracting us to Him and the longer we take to get closer, the more we delay their solution because Baba is always the solution. If we take one step toward Him, He takes ten toward us. He fulfilled that promise to all of us who tried. Moreover, He said, “Bring me your recurring desires from your mind whenever they arise, your confusion, your fear, your longing, your anxiety, your inability to love the world, your hesitation to serve, your jealousy, all the shortcomings of your spiritual discipline.”  I came to Sai Baba because I was going through a very difficult material situation. I had built a commercial company in my country back in the early ‘90s, and in a few years it collapsed. In the midst of the anguish, I felt very scared. In addition [I was]