Readers who have not yet had the opportunity of enjoying English translations of Sai Baba's spiritual discourses would no doubt like to have here some idea of the verbal teachings of this God-powered man of miracles. It is no easy task to give in a chapter even a gist of these vital, luminous teachings. But I am somewhat helped by the fact that the truism "there is nothing new under the sun", applies also to spiritual instruction and philosophy.

Christ's Sermon on the Mount, for instance, seemed no doubt to be quite revolutionary to its original hearers, and to many people since. But in fact all its "new" teachings can be found in the age-old but ageless sacred writings of the east. It seems, indeed, that all the great spiritual truths man is capable of understanding at his present stage of evolution were given out long ago by the ancient masters of India. Since then the basic stock of wisdom has been many times revived, restated, revitalised by the great world teachers who have come. Each presents it with different accent, different emphasis, new interpretations and up-to-date illustrations to suit the age to which he teaches. But a study of the recorded ancient wisdom - in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, the Shastras (Indian scriptures) - show that all the fundamental truths that can be stated have been stated already in some form or another.

This does not mean that the recurrence of new teachers is unnecessary or unimportant. In time any temple built to truth becomes its sepulchre. Enlightening words between the covers of ancient manuscripts or books are inevitably forgotten or misunderstood or twisted by knavish priests to make a trap for the unwary and ignorant. The ancient wisdom has to be brought out and re-dressed, re-energised to give it a new interest and living significance. This can only be done by one who really knows; knows not from books but from his own being. His words will not have the speculative note of the philosophers, but the confident certainty of true knowledge.

Every great teacher who speaks this self-effulgent truth has his own individual approach and method of presentation. Some have addressed only the few, in their own lifetimes, others the many. Those like Christ who spoke to crowds, have cast the wisdom largely in the form of parables, to be easily understood by untutored minds.

Sai Baba has many similarities to Christ, not only in the miracles but in the style of his presentation. In his discourses he uses an abundance of parables, figures of speech, analogies and homely illustrations. This is no doubt one of the reasons why he draws the great crowds; another reason is the authority that sounds through his words, He speaks as one who knows. And he is not afraid to hammer his lessons home, to repeat, to re-emphasise. In this he demonstrates the fact, as all great teachers have done, that it is not enough for men to hear and know about the truths; they must live them. The knowledge and the action must be done as one. Now I will try to give some little idea of what he teaches.



Man is essentially the Atma (which may be translated as "spirit"). He is not the body and must never identify with the body which is merely a temporary vestment. Even those who agree with this truth intellectually act most of the time as if they were no more than the body; so Baba is never tired of hammering in this fundamental truth.

He says, for instance, "You are the invincible Atma, unaffected by the ups and downs of life. The shadow you cast while trudging along the road falls on dirt and dust, bush and briar, stone and sand, but you are not worried at all, for you walk unscathed. So too, as the Atma substance, you have no reason to be worried over the fate of its shadow, the body."

This true self of man is "something subtler than water or air or ether; for it must go into the eye in order that you may see; into the hand so that you may hold; into the feet to enable you to walk. The senses themselves are inert materials; the self must operate before they can function."

The Atma itself is formless, but it creates the forms it requires. It has created the five sheaths of man. The grossest of these is the annapmyakosha (food sheath). More subtle is the pranamayakosha (sheath of vital breath). These two are part of the physical body. Two more sheaths make up the subtle or astral body. These are the manomayakosha (mind sheath) and the vijnanamayakosha (sheath of intellect or higher mind). The fifth is the anandamyakosha (sheath of bliss) which serves the highest body of man, the causal body, known in Sanskrit as the karana sharira. All these components and compartments serve the lord of the castle, the Jivatma (individual spirit).

But the lord, fully preoccupied with these instruments of his own creation and the experiences they bring has forgotten his true identity.

Nevertheless, deep within there is the dim echo of a memory. Sometimes he hears it. So that when a call comes from the immortal regions, he responds. As Baba says: "Man is not a despicable creature, born in slime or sin, to eke out a drab existence forever. Man is immortal and eternal. So when the call comes from the region of immortality, he responds with his whole heart." He "seeks liberation from his bondage to the trivial and the temporary. Everyone craves for this in his heart of hearts. And it is available in only one shop, that is in the contemplation of the Atma, the highest self, which is the basis of all this appearance."

But liberation is a struggle that stretches over a long period of time. It does not come automatically with death as some may think. After shedding the physical body, the Atma is still immersed in other vehicles; it still has links with the earth, links of memory and desire, which bring it back into reincarnation again and again. To reach liberation and eternal bliss, man must get rid of all earthly desires and attachments. In one of Baba's graphic similes he says: "Man is like rice. Provided the husk is removed, it will not grow. Man's husk is his body of desires; if this is liquidated, he will not reincarnate."

Of course, the conquest of earthly desires and attachments is something that calls for long sadhana, or spiritual practices. Most of Baba's teaching is aimed directly towards assisting people in this great struggle, and he uses many homely illustrations to help them grasp and remember the basic principles involved. For instance, he says, "Man's many desires are like the small metal coins he carries about in his pocket. The more he has, the more they weigh him down. But if he can convert them all into one paper note of higher currency, he will not feel any weight. In the same way if he can convert his many desires into one desire, that is, into the aspiration for union with God, then there will be no weight to pull him down to the earth level."

Once man comes through the long school of phenomenal existence in this world and on other planes as well - he begins to understand that his main aim is to break out of the cocoon that has held so long. The cocoon has had its uses, but the time of its usefulness is over. He is ready for his flight into the new life of freedom, the divine life.

The fact is that every man is a spark of divinity; every man is potentially God - not God as we usually think of him, with form, but the formless God, the divine ocean from which comes all existence. Baba states this plainly: "If you realise the Atma-principle you become God himself. Each one of you can become God by merging your separate individual souls in the ocean of the universal Atma".

The basis of the love and brotherhood between men is the truth that they are all of this one Atma-principle, no matter what their colour, caste or creed. The analogy that Baba sometimes uses here is that of the electric current lighting globes of many colours, shapes and sizes. The reality behind the globes is the current flowing within them - the same for each. The Atma can be likened to the electricity flow. Men are varied expressions of this one current.



God is formless, yet he has form. He is that which lies beyond all forms yet he creates, maintains and destroys everything that exists. God is really in every form, but in Man more than in anything else, and in some men more intensely and completely than in others. A few men in the world's history have been one hundred per cent God.

The fact is, though, that God, who expresses some aspect and part of Himself as an essence in every form, can actually manifest as God in any chosen shape, be it human, partly human, or otherwise. Also he can respond to any name. Baba puts it this way: "The Lord can be addressed by any name that tastes sweet to your tongue, or pictured in any form that appeals to your sense of wonder and awe. You can sing of him as Muruga, Ganapathi, Sarada, Jesus, Maitreyi, Sakti, or you can call on Allah or the Formless, or the Master of all Forms. It makes no difference at all. He is the beginning, the middle and the end; the basis, the substance and the source."

But we must never think that the omnipresent God is completely contained in any particular form of our choosing, or answers exclusively to the one traditional name we have been conditioned to worship. He manifests through such limited finite channels if our worship is sincere, but he is not confined to them. As the Sufi poet writes, "His dust is here, but He in the Infinite".

In one sense, God is nearer than our hands and feet. We do not have to search for him out beyond the starry constellations "where the wheeling systems darken, and our benumbed conceiving soars", for the loving merciful God is ever close at hand, he is the very core of our spiritual heart. But particularly, "as the doctor is found where the patients gather, and the surgeon in the operation room," states Sri Sai, "so the Lord is ever with the suffering and the struggling. Wherever people cry out for God, there God will be."

As the ultimate object of every man - his true purpose whether he knows it or not - is to realise the God within himself, how should he live his life, in order to achieve this?



Baba does not teach that the only way to reach this spiritual goal is to go away and live in caves, forest hermitages or walled-in monasteries. It is right for the majority of us to live the ordinary life of the world, but we must not become bond slaves to the world's allurements. A boat, he says, is meant to go into water, but the water must not get into the boat. In the same way we are meant to be in the world, but the world must not get into us. He adds another illustration: "Man must grasp God with the right hand and the world with the left. Gradually the left will lose its hold. Do not worry about this; it has to be so; that's maybe why the hand is called 'left' - the world will be left behind. But the right hand must not loosen its grip. Being called 'right', it is right for it to grip right and hold on."

How to do this? We must realise that the great drama of this world in which we are now playing a part is no more than a passing show. We must not identify ourselves with the drama, or become attached to its vestures and "properties" which we will soon be leaving behind anyway. In other words we must learn to discriminate between the permanent and the transitory, the substance and the shadow.

The shadow is the great illusion that we are our bodies and that the physical world around us is the ultimate and only reality. The way to correct that error is to keep our thoughts and aspirations towards God, our faces towards the divine light. Baba gives this analogy: "Move forward towards the light and the shadow falls behind, but if you move away from the light, you have to follow your own shadow. Go every moment one step nearer to the Lord and then the great illusion, the shadow, will fall back and will not delude you at all."

Actually, what we all seek is happiness, but through the deluding shadow of our own ignorance, we seek it in the wrong places. "Once you turn towards the path of worldly happiness," says Baba, "you will be led on and on to greater and greater discontent, competition, pride, jealousy. Just stop for a moment and examine your own experience. Are you happier when you grow richer, do you find more peace when your wants are satisfied? You will yourself be witness to the truth that an improved standard of living is no guarantee of happiness."

When we seek happiness through the pleasures of this world, we always find as much pain as pleasure, as much sorrow as joy. The pairs of opposites, the black and white twins, are ever near to each other. But let them come; the pleasures and the pains, the joys and the sorrows, they are part of the divine Leela or play. Beyond them, and in spite of them, we will find a great peace and abiding joy once we turn our faces towards the light and understand that we are a part of the divine substance, the Atma, and that our real existence lies beyond this shadow-show on the space-time stage.

But is there any special guidance and yogic training that will help men break the grip of the world's allurements; help them make that difficult about-turn from the tinsel glitter to the greater light? Baba often discourses on the three classical yoga pathways to enlightenment. He points out that all of these - karma (action), jnana (knowledge) and bhakti (devotion) - must be used. They are three lanes on the one great highway to God.

Baba says: "Base your action on knowledge, the knowledge that all is one. Let the action be suffused with bhakti; that is to say, humility, love, mercy and non-violence. Let bhakti be filled with knowledge, otherwise it will be as light as a balloon which drifts along any current of air, or gust of wind. Mere knowledge will make the heart dry; bhakti makes it soft with sympathy, and karma gives the hands something to do, something which will sanctify every one of the minutes that have fallen to your lot to live."

I once heard Baba talk in other terms of these three lanes to Self-realisation. He called them "the three Ws", work, worship and wisdom. Work (karma) alone is, he said, the slow passenger train, with long stops and some changes at junctions before you reach the end of the journey. But if you add worship (bhakti) to the work, you will have an express coach, and get to your destination more quickly and easily. Work and worship together will furthermore develop Wisdom, or knowledge of the real (jnana). With this you will then be on a non-stop express train right to your journey's end. So worship while you work, and strive meanwhile for the self-knowledge that will help these two to bring the true wisdom.

Speaking of the spiritual books, he says, that they are only like maps and guide-books. "Scanning a map or turning over a guide-book will not give you the thrill of the actual visit, nor will it give you a fraction of the knowledge and joy of journey through that land."

"In fact," he says in another place, "you need not even read the scriptures, the Gita or the Upanishads. You will hear a Gita (divine song) specially designed for you, if only you call upon the Lord in your own heart. He is there, installed as your own charioteer."

So the great scriptures of the world are guide-books, taking us as far but only as far, as the written word can. The real knowledge must come from our own inner experience. We must ourselves travel to that land that lies within. But it is very difficult, well-nigh impossible, to find one's own way through the forests, though life's dense jungle encircling that divine land. So it is by far the best to have a guide who has been there, who from personal experience knows the route. In other words, the surest, easiest, swiftest way to self-realisation is to have a spiritual guru - a Sadguru who is himself fully self-realised. If in ordinary life you have an experienced guide who is taking you through strange forests or deserts or the intricate ways of an unknown city, you don't stop to argue and debate with him about the route. You put your trust in him and submit to his guidance. Likewise with your Sadguru; you must put yourself completely in his hands. Your own foolish ego and pride and self-will will only lead you astray. Your spiritual guide knows how to take you where you want to go, so the first thing you must learn is the difficult science of self-surrender.

Of course, you are greatly helped in this by the love you inevitably feel towards your Sadguru, who has your true welfare at heart, and helps you onwards, with no other motive than that of his selfless love. It is taught in the Hindu spiritual philosophy that there is no difference, between the Sadguru and God, and in this bhakti love the Sadguru expresses the love of God. "When God loves," wrote St. Bernard of Clairvaux, "he wants nothing else than to be loved; for he loves for no other purpose than that he may be loved, knowing that those who love him are blessed by that love." This selfless love of the Sadguru for the disciple, and the responsive, ever-growing love of the disciple for the Sadguru is the heart of the bhakti marga, the way of devotion.

So while the other yogic lanes must not be forgotten, and must be utilised as required, bhakti is pre-eminently the lane-way for the great journey. Or - to change the metaphor - though bhakti is not the only ingredient in the alchemical formula for transmuting man's base elements to spiritual gold, it is the most important ingredient. Baba has often said that for this age the bhakti marga is the easiest and surest way to the goal, and many great teachers, from Lord Krishna onwards, have said exactly the same thing. Baba uses many stories and similes to point the value of the bhakti marga. Here is one:

A bhakta and a jnani (a follower of the jnana marga) were walking through a forest and became very thirsty. They came to a deep well with water far down and the sides overgrown with bush and briar. There was no way of obtaining water. The jnani overcame the difficulty by expending great psychic force to assume the form of a bird. Then he flew down through the bushes and briars, losing many feathers on the way. On the other hand, the bhakta yearned for the Lord's grace and called fervently on his name. The Lord hearing and responding, the waters rose to the level of the bhakta who was thus able to slake his thirst completely.

Sometimes Baba likens God to a magnet and says, "Remember that the magnet cannot draw to itself a bit of iron that is rusty and covered with dust. You cannot be drawn by God when your mind is laden with the rust of material desires, and the dust of sensual craving sits heavily upon it."

There is on record a story of how a rich man came to Sai Baba when he was in his Shirdi body and asked to be shown the way to God realisation. Baba first put the man through several tests, and then gave a dissertation on the qualifications necessary before any person can hope to realise God in his lifetime. A number of Baba's disciples were there along with the rich man, listening to this dissertation.

I have at various times, and in various places, heard Satya Sai Baba give the same instructions concerning the self-disciplines, training and austerities necessary in order to make progress along the Sai way, which is, the bhakti way as taught by Sai Baba. So I will give the substance of that memorable Shirdi discourse here. In it Baba elaborated ten points.

(1) The aspirant must realise the absolute triviality and unimportance of the things of this world and of the next. He must in fact feel a disgust for the honours, emoluments and other fruits that his action will bring in both this world and also in the one to follow, for his aim is higher than that.

(2) He must fully realise that he is in bondage to the lower worlds and have an intense aspiration to get free. He must work earnestly and resolutely to that end, and care for nothing else.

(3) Our senses have been created with a tendency to move outwards and so Man always looks outside himself. But he who wants self-realisation, and the immortal life, must turn his gaze inwards, and look to his inner self.

(4) Unless a man has turned away from wrong-doing and composed himself so that his mind is at rest, he cannot gain self-realisation even though he has great knowledge.

(5) The candidate to the spiritual life must lead a life of truth, penance, insight and right conduct.

(6) Two classes of things constantly present themselves to man for acceptance - the good and the pleasant. A would-be disciple has to think and choose between them. The wise person chooses the good; the unwise, through greed and attachment, chooses the pleasant.

(7) The aspirant must control his mind and senses. If his mind is unrestrained and senses unmanageable, like wild and vicious horses drawing a chariot, he cannot reach his destination. But when the intellect and enlightened will exercise the control, like the hands of a good driver manipulating the reins (the mind) expertly to guide the horses (the senses) steadily along the right road, then the true self who is the master of the chariot reaches his journey's end - the supreme abode of the all-pervading God. Sometimes, using another simile, Baba likens the mind to an electric cable. "Do not establish contact with the mind; that is as bad as contacting the cable! Watch it from a distance; then only can you derive bliss." That is to say, becoming too closely identified and involved with the mind incapacitates one for seeing the real that lies beyond the mind.

(8) As well as controlling the mind a man must purify it. To do this he must discharge satisfactorily, and at the same time in a non-attached way, the duties of his station in life (his dharma). He must get rid of the great delusion: "I am the body", or "I am the mind"; this will help him to lose egoism, get rid of avarice and purify the mind of all lower desires.

(9) The aspirant must have a guru. The knowledge of the self is so subtle that no one by his own effort could ever hope to attain it. The help of a great teacher, who has walked the path himself and attained self-realisation, is absolutely necessary. There is no difficulty about finding a guru; when the pupil has done all he can in self-enquiry and self-training the guru will come, either in the body or unseen. Baba sometimes says, "If necessary God himself will come down and be your guru."

(10) Last, but not least - in fact the most important of all - is the Lord's grace. When the pupil goes on trying and failing over and over again, when all seems quite hopeless, and he fully realises his own utter helplessness, then the divine grace comes, the light shines, the joy flows through him, the miraculous happens. He takes another step forward on the spiritual way.



After the Shirdi dissertation was over, Baba said to the rich man, "Well, sir, in your pocket there is God in the form of two hundred and fifty rupees; please take that out." The man took out his bundle of currency notes and, counting the money, found to his great surprise that there were twenty-five notes of ten rupees each. He had not known previously the exact amount of money in his pocket and so, feeling Baba's omniscience, he fell at the holy feet, and asked for blessings.

Baba said: "Roll up your bundle of God. Unless you completely get rid of greed you will never get the real God ... The love of money is a deep whirlpool of pain, full of crocodiles in the form of conceit and jealousy ... Greed and God are as poles apart; they are eternally opposed to each other ... For a greedy man there is no peace, contentment, nor steadiness. If there is even a little trace of greed in the mind, all the spiritual endeavours are of no avail ... The teachings of a guru are of no use to a man who is full of egoism, and who always thinks about the sense-objects. Purification of the mind is absolutely necessary; without it all spiritual endeavours are nothing but useless show and pomp. It is, therefore, better for one to take only what he can digest and assimilate. My treasury is full and I can give anyone that he wants but I have first to see whether he is qualified to receive what I give. If you listen to me carefully you will be certainly benefited "

Baba knew that the rich man to whom he spoke was mean and greedy. His preliminary tests had demonstrated this fact to all present. Having wealth is not in itself a crime. It is our attitude to the wealth that matters. If we are "poor in spirit", that is, unattached to our possessions, understanding that they are held in trust from God and must be used properly, then it does not matter how much or how little we own.

This wealthy man, unlike the rich young man who came to Christ and asked for salvation, apparently did not go sorrowfully away. The chronicler states that, on the contrary, after getting Baba's blessings, he left the place quite happy and contented. He like the others present, had enjoyed the spiritual feast served by Baba and perhaps he felt some hopes that the insights thus gained would eventually enable him to reduce the size of the camel of his attachments, so that it might pass through the eye of the spiritual needle.

Whether we seek self-realisation via the bhakti marga or one of the other lanes, it is necessary to purify the heart of greed, desire, hatred, falsehood and the other vices. One of the great purifiers, for those who can practise it, is that inward-looking self-raising exercise known as dhyana or meditation. As taught by Baba, meditation can be on God with form or the formless God - or on one leading to the other.

Long ago Lord Krishna taught the self-same method (as recorded in the Srimad Bhagavata). Speaking not as the warrior, but as the supreme God, Krishna said: "Having withdrawn his mind from the sense and fixed it on my form, the devotee should now focus it on only one part of it, preferably the smiling face, to the exclusion of all the others. Then, withdrawing it from even there, he should concentrate it on my all-pervading Self which is free like the sky. Leaving that too, and becoming one with me, he should cease to think of anything. He will see me, the inner ruler, in himself, and himself in me, like light that has united with fire. All doubts about matter, knowledge and action will then come to an end."



In his former incarnation Sai Baba struggled valiantly to remove the dangerous misunderstanding and conflict between Hindus and Moslems; in this life he strives constantly to show the basic unity between all religions. Among his devoted disciples are men of all the leading faiths. He shows his approval by materialising appropriate things for each .... including, for the Christians, crosses and images of Christ. "This is the greatness of the Sanatana Dharma, the eternal spiritual law... this insistence on the one-ness behind the apparent multiplicity. The Atma, which it declares to be the basic truth, does not contradict the doctrines of any faith. God is unlimited by space and time. He is undefinable by names or forms."

Speaking of the evils of our day, Baba says, "Nations are arming wildly and breeding hatred ... Man has reduced himself to the status of a wild beast ... The spark that arises in the individual mind has spread a world-wide conflagration of hate and greed. This has to be scotched in the individual, the family, the village, the city, the nation; in fact wherever it raises its head. Man is suffering because he is not aware of the treasure he has in himself. Like a beggar ignorant of the millions hidden under the floor of his hovel, he is suffering dire misery." Four firemen are capable of putting out the world conflagration: satya, dharma, santi, prema. Nothing else can do it.

Satya is truth; it is that intellectual clarity which enables us to see beyond all the shams, falsities, illusions, right to the heart of things. Through satya we know the truth of our own being, of God, and of the universe.

Dharma is the spiritual law of living. It is the executive power of carrying out satya, the basic truth, in the circumstances under which we are placed. Sometimes dharma will demand that we act one way, sometimes the opposite way, but in each case it will be in accordance with the unalterable, immortal law of spirit. Through dharma we live the truth; dharma is satya in action.

Santi is the great peace that comes to men through satya and dharma, through knowing and living the truth. It is that "peace that passeth understanding, abiding in the hearts of those who live in the eternal".

Prema is the divine love which in all the great religions is named as the highest expression of God on earth. Christ said that God is love and that we must love our neighbours as ourselves. The Sanatana Dharma gives the reason for this: that through our real selves, the Atma, we are actually one with each other, with all men, and with God.

Defining this prema, which flows constantly from God, and which all men are capable of feeling for one another, Sai Baba says: "It is sustained in bad times as well as in good. It is not like the pepper or salt with which you flavour your dishes; it is the very bread and butter, the essential substance itself. It is an unchanging attitude, a desirable bent of the mind, standing steady through joy and grief."

And one of the many stories he tells on this theme is about Radha's love. One day Yasoda, the foster-mother of Krishna, was searching for the child who had strayed away. She sought almost everywhere in vain, and then went to the house of Radha, but Krishna was not there either. Then Radha closed her eyes and meditated on Krishna for a while, and when she called his name, he appeared. Yasoda shed tears of joy that her beloved was found, but after thinking about the incident, she said to Radha, "I love Krishna as a mother, with some egoism and possessiveness in me because he is my son. Your prema is pure; it has no egoism prompting it." And so it was more effective.

Pure prema has the power to call God into manifestation before our eyes. Sai Baba is himself a personification of pure prema, as Christ was. If through his example, influence and Power, enough of this love can be sown in the hearts, of men, the world will be changed.

Finally, it must he said that Baba's most important teachings and training are given individually through words, hints, directions for action, example and (perhaps most important of all) silent influence. Such spiritual guidance differs for each individual disciple for it depends on the disciple's temperament, state of progress and needs at the time. As it is personal and secret, it cannot be extracted and expounded by any observer. I can only say that to some he gives mantras, to some special guidance in meditation, to some yogic practices and austerities. Others receive none of these, but different types of help. Some followers seem at a certain time to be given much leeway, while others have to keep their sails trimmed close to the wind. The many are taught by simple parables and analogies; the few who can understand are told deeper meanings.

The underlying theme of all his training is that we must seek God through self-surrender and devotion. The soul which has completely surrendered itself, blotting out the lower ego, is able to absorb and gain full benefit from the silent, wordless teaching which the Sadguru radiates.

At the same time, Baba often says, "It is all within you. Try to listen inwardly and follow the directions you get." To show the importance of this inner voice, he tells the story of Lord Krishna and Arjuna taking a walk together.

Seeing a bird in the sky, Krishna said, "There's a dove!"

"Yes, a dove", responded Arjuna.

"No, I think it's a pigeon."

"You're right, it is a pigeon. "

"Well, now I can see that it looks more like a crow."

"Beyond doubt it is a crow."

Krishna laughed and chided Arjuna for agreeing to every suggestion. But Arjuna said, "For me your words are more weighty than the evidence of my own eyes. Whatever you say it is, it is."

Here Lord Krishna represents the divine voice within each one of us. Our physical senses may give us a wrong report, but the inner voice will never do so. The purpose of the outer Sadguru is to help us hear the voice of our inner guru clearly, surely, and at all times, so that it becomes our infallible Guide.

Higher and nobler than all ordinary ones are another set of teachers, the Avatars of Iswara. They are the Teachers of all teachers, the highest manifestations of God through men.
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

When I discovered on my first visit to Prasanti Nilayam that most of Sai Baba's devotees spoke of him as an avatar, I began to enquire and read all I could find on this Indian doctrine of divine incarnations. Actually, of course, it is not an exclusively Indian doctrine. Christianity teaches that Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth, was an incarnation from the Triune Godhead, but it states that this was the only divine incarnation, a unique event in the long history of man on the earth.

Hinduism, or the Sanatana Dharma, and Mahayana Buddhism on the other hand teach the more reasonable doctrine that there have been many incarnations on earth from the Godhead. In its simplest, most elementary form, this Hindu doctrine means that Vishnu - that member of the Triune Godhead concerned with the maintenance and evolution of the universe - takes human birth. Narayana, another name for Vishnu in his all-pervading mode, is considered the origin or seed of avatars.

The Srimad Bhagavata states the truth of the avatar principle in allegorical language in its first Book. "The Purusha [that is, the first person, or God] known by the name of 'Narayana' is perceived by the yogis as possessing thousands of heads, of eyes, of arms, of feet, etc., and is the seed of all avatars."

On the same subject it states, "As countless rivers are born from an ocean that never goes dry, so countless are the descents of the lord; some of these are major, like Rama, Krishna, etc., but most are minor amsas (rays) from his supreme radiance."

So according to this teaching there are degrees of "avatarhood", and many of the great spiritual teachers of India are believed to have embodied rays of the divine radiance and to have been partial or minor avatars. The few, the Teachers of teachers, those who have brought about a great forward movement in man's spiritual evolution, are called the major avatars.

But how shall we understand this question in its deeper metaphysical sense? According to the truth-religion, that is, the wisdom at the foundation of all the great religions, every human being is a descent of the divine into matter. But as well as being a descent from God, Man also represents an ascent from lower forms of life. Because of the immortal divine spirit that has come into him, Man has struggled upward along the path of spiritual evolution, and will continue to ascend until he fully understands and realises himself to be of nature divine; or, to put it another way, until he is merged with God, and knows himself to be merged. The end of his long journey of many lifetimes through the phenomenal worlds of matter will be to arrive where he started, as T.S. Eliot says, but to know the place where he is, and who he is, for the first time. Changing the metaphor, the divine seed will have become a fully grown plant.

So Man is at present a meeting point of the animal and the divine. As he climbs upward from the mud and the mire, the higher light descends into him, inspiring and aiding his climb. All men as well as being sons of earth are sons of God, as Christ said. But when an individual has reached the end of the pilgrimage and washed away the dust of earth in the "cool kingdoms of celestial dew", what then? There will be no desires to draw him back to earth, no karma, no "unfinished business", to drag him back. If he returns, if he reincarnates, it will be because of his love of mankind, his desire to help his fellow men in their titanic struggle. Great compassion can be the only motive for the descent of one who has reached enlightenment, freedom, divinity.

We must keep in mind that one who has lived as man and finally and fully realised himself as God merges with the divine ground of all being, the Godhead. He becomes, in mythological terms, part of the myriad eyes and hands and feet of Narayana. If he incarnates as a human being once more on earth surely this is God incarnating, for the freed soul and God are one.

The metaphysicist may try to draw a distinction between the divine man and the divine in man, the "descent" and the "ascent". But when, a highly-intellectual devotee of Baba questioned him on this point, Baba said that there is no real difference that you can call it "ascent" or "descent" because both are involved and both are true. The fact is that our finite minds cannot really grasp this deep abstruse question. All we can understand is that a major avatar, though man in appearance, human in body, is totally God within.

What are the signs and signals by which we may know a major avatar? The most obvious are, of course, the siddhis the supernormal powers. Being completely merged with God, he will have command of all of these without the use of mantra, tantra or yantra. He will have, for instance, the power of creating anything on the spot from the akasha; that is, from apparently nothing and nowhere. The same power enables him to increase or diminish quantities and sizes as required, and to cause objects to vanish or change their nature.

Important points to note are that, with an avatar as distinct from a magician, these siddhis do not disappear or decrease no matter how much they are used, and they are never used for personal gain - always to bring blessings and benefits on others, or to glorify God.

Another major avataric sign is the power of bestowing divine grace. Sai Baba says that such grace is really a reward for good things done in the past, perhaps in a past life. It is like personal savings that have been fixed in the karmic bank, and are suddenly released by the power of the avatar. We don't remember the good deeds, the causes, and so the "windfall" is regarded as a gift from heaven.

But, Baba says, there is also special grace. This has nothing to do with past good actions. There are no assets in the karmic bank on which you can draw, but you desperately need some funds. A rich man with understanding and compassion may go guarantor for you, and the bank will advance you the money. Special grace is something like this, and the avatar has the power to bestow it. It may come as a result of one's repentance and self-surrender to God, and is thus similar to redemption.

Special grace may change a person's fate, and so also may its opposite - the power of laying dooms. By the laws of karma, or moral compensation, all men will suffer sooner or later for their errors and misdeeds. But if the crimes are very great, the avatar may hasten and concentrate the karmic effects by laying a doom. Thus Lord Krishna put the doom of prolonged wandering, with physical and spiritual suffering, on Ashvatthama, the killer of infants and sleepers.

If the avatar shows anger, it will be righteous anger, to overcome evil and promote human welfare. Behind it will be the sweetening leaven of love. The surface personality may sometimes show human emotions, but behind them is the constant bliss of one who lives in the eternal. From the eternal heights, beyond maya (illusion), where his centre always is in full consciousness, the avatar sees the past, present and future. Untrammelled by restrictions of time and space, he perceives causes and effects far beyond our human vision and judges accordingly. Therefore his words and actions are often hard to understand. They may seem puzzling, sometimes even unreasonable, to ordinary humans who see only a small portion of life's great tapestry. So we say that the avatar is inscrutable.

These then are some of the outer signs by which men with perception may recognise the God in human form. Minor avatars, possessing perhaps a few of such features, come fairly frequently, particularly in India. Several have lived and taught during the last hundred years, for example. The great avatars, on the contrary, are rare; many centuries elapse between their advents. They come only when conditions on earth have reached a critical stage, when there is grave danger of the evil, demoniac, or backward-pulling forces overpowering the good, devic, or forward-pulling forces. They come as a drastic medicine to destroy the evil toxins in humanity, and give a spurt to the evolution of human consciousness. In the oft-quoted verse of the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna, speaking as God himself, says, "Whenever virtue subsides and wickedness prevails, I manifest myself to establish virtue, to destroy evil, to save the good, I come from Age to Age. "

There is no doubt that we are living today in an age of great crisis. "The world is the body of God," Baba says. "There is a cancer in the body and it must be removed." Can the cancer be treated or must it be removed by drastic surgery? That is the question. In other words, must there be a catastrophic war, an Armageddon, before mankind (what will be left of it) learns to live in brotherhood and peace? Or will a gentler therapy be effective?

Long ago Lord Krishna, both heavenly avatar and earthly king strove first for peace. But he found in the end that the surgery of war was necessary to remove the cancer of that day - a powerful military caste that had grown arrogant and evil and forgotten its dharma. Many centuries earlier avatar Rama was forced to deal with the same problem in the same way. He had to fight to destroy the rakshasas, the demons in human form, who were dominating the earth, and obstructing the divine plan of human evolution.

What about today, with the human race riding the precipice of nuclear doom, with ignorance and greed sharing the reins? Can the powers of light take over direction in time? Baba uses a different metaphor: "White ants are in the tree again. In ancient times the tree was cut down. Now we try to save it." So perhaps there is hope.

"But why should an avatar be necessary?" the religious-minded man may ask. "If the direct intervention of God is essential, why can't he act from where he is? Why must he incarnate?" Sai Baba once said: "A person wishing to save a man from drowning must jump into the same pool; the Lord must come here in human form to be understood by men."

In taking on human form, we should note, the divine one takes on certain human features and limitations. He has a physical body to which, as Swami says, he "must pay the taxes." If we study the lives of known avatars, such as Rama and Christ, we find evidence of some emotional attributes that are more human than divine - sorrow, anxiety, partiality towards certain people, for example.

We may be surprised to find these human touches in the personality of the incarnated God, but actually they bring him closer to us. Through them we are able to understand him a little, and so come to the divine qualities beyond the human. Hence it is by becoming a human being with some of its imperfections that an avatar is able to promote human welfare.

Concerning his mission in the world Baba has said many things. Here are just two of them: "I have come in order to repair the ancient highway leading man to God. Become sincere, skilful engineers, overseers and workmen, and join me. The Vedas, the Upanishads and the Sastras are the road I refer to. I have come to reveal them and revive them." And also: "I came to sow the seeds of faith in religion and God. You might have heard some people say that I became Sai Baba when a scorpion stung me. Well, I challenge any one of you to get stung by a scorpion and transform yourselves into Sai Babas. No, the scorpion had nothing to do with it. In fact, there was no scorpion at all. I came in response to the prayers of sages, saints and seekers for the restoration of dharma."

Practically all the close devotees of Baba, especially those who have known him for a number of years, regard him as undoubtedly a major avatar. Their personal experiences, their deeper feelings and insights have convinced them of this.

Some people, like Dr. K.M. Munshi, sense the divinity of Baba at the first contact. Writing in his journal soon after his initial interview with Baba, Dr. Munshi said, "The true test of a God-possessed individual is whether he has the capacity to plant the seed of faith in men a seed which when it blossoms, will liberate them from greed, hate and fear. This quality Baba has in abundant measure."

People from the west as well as the Indians see Baba as a divine incarnation. After her first visit to Prasanti Nilayam a woman of Germany, a devout and earnest seeker on the path, said, "Baba is the incarnation of purity and love." Later, after spending more time with him, she wrote in a letter: "I get more and more convinced from within that he is Jesus Christ who has come again, in the fullness of Christ, as Satya Sai Baba..."

Some people, however, who have visited Baba and seen him as a holy man with supernormal powers, do not regard him as an incarnation of divinity. But this has ever been the way of the world. Most of Krishna's contemporaries saw him only as a man; even some of the great yogis of the time seem to have doubted his avatarhood; only a few saw his infinite splendour and knew beyond doubt what he was. The same seems to have been true of Rama. And how many accepted Christ as of the high Godhead when his sandals trod the dust of Palestine? Even some of his disciples were not convinced.

But when one spends days and weeks with Sai Baba, be it in the special atmosphere of the ashram or on tour in many places, one soon begins to feel that he is far beyond the measurements of man. Apart from the miracles which show his command of nature, his power to be anywhere and know what his devotees are thinking and doing ("I am a radio and can tune in to your wave," he says), and his ability to bring protection and help; apart from all these superhuman qualities, there is the pure ego-less love. This above all stands as a sign of a Christ-like divinity. In man sometimes we see flashes of this love shown towards children, the sick, the weak. In Baba it is there all the time, flowing freely from the divine fount of his nature, embracing everybody, collectively and individually.

And this love is backed by a great wisdom, a deep intuitive perception that sees the real beyond the play of shadows. His devotees have countless proofs that Baba sees their past, present and future, that he knows their karma, and what suffering they must go through to pay old debts and learn the deeper truths of life, to reach deliverance. And he helps them to bear that suffering when its immediate removal is not expedient. He becomes the kind, gentle, indulgent mother, the courageous, compassionate, merciful father until his children's hearts and eyes overflow with bhakti tears. They wonder: "What have I done to deserve this? Surely I am not worthy."

If we were asked to list the attributes in our concept of God, the spiritual parent, most of us would name these: compassionate concern for our welfare, knowledge of what that welfare truly is, the stern strength to make us take the nasty medicine when necessary, the power to help and guide us along the narrow way to our spiritual home, the forgiveness and mercy of the father who welcomes with joy the returning prodigal, the power to bring essential innovations to the human drama which he has himself created, and a love that is equal towards all his human children. These are surely the salient qualities in man's mental image of God. And these qualities - all of them - those who have the eyes to see have seen in Sai Baba.



Furthermore, a tree is judged by its fruit, as the Bible tells us. Baba's fruits are those devotees who have surrendered themselves fully to his influence and through the years been moulded thereby. After meeting a number of these, several western visitors have remarked: "Baba's devotees are a wonderful advertisement to him. After being with them, one knows even without meeting him that Baba is something very special." I myself can say that never before, after years of experience in many places among many groups of seekers, have I met a set of people with such fraternity, such generosity, such warm-heartedness and sincerity. It is a joy to be among them, and often I think of the words of St. John concerning the early followers of Christ: "We love each other because he first loved us."

To a Vedantist devotee of Baba I once said: "Do you think Sai Baba is an avatar?" He replied: "That's really a subject well out of my metaphysical depths. But of his God-like love, power, infinitude, inscrutability and final mystery, there is no doubt." I find myself echoing this. Why bother about a metaphysical label over which men will argue anyway? There is certainty concerning the divine attributes, and there is, too, the feeling of unfathomable waters. As I once remarked in an address to one of Baba's mammoth audiences, "Writing a book about him is like trying to enclose the universe in a small room."

The point is put more graphically in a symbolic story. When the child Krishna was running around getting into all sorts of mischief, his foster-mother Yasoda tried to tie him to a post with a piece of rope. But the rope would not go around his body. She took a longer piece but that also proved a little too short. Whatever length she obtained, it was never quite long enough to encircle the divine child.



So, too I find that every description of Sai Baba - of his miracles, his personality, his qualities, his teachings - is short of the actuality. There is always something important that eludes and escapes one. On this matter Baba himself says: "No one can understand my mystery. The best thing you can do is to get immersed in it. There is no use arguing about pros and cons; dive and know the depth; eat and know the taste. Then you can discuss me to your heart's content. Develop truth and love and then you need not even pray to be granted this and that. Everything will be added unto you unasked."

At another time he said: "Of course you must discard all evil in you before you can evaluate the mystery. Do not proclaim before you are convinced; be silent while you are still undecided. When faith dawns, fence it around with discipline and self-control so that the tender shoots are guarded against the goats and cattle - the motley crowd of cynics and unbelievers. When your faith grows into a big tree, those very same goats and cattle can lie down in the shade that it will spread."

[1] Krishna and the Theory of Avatars, by Bhagavan Das.

[2] See The Occult World, by A.P. Sinnett

(The Theosophical Publishing House, London)

[3] The Incredible Sai Baba, by Arthur Osborne. (Rider & Co. London)

[4] The Life of Bagavan Sri Satay Sai Baba, by N. Kasturi.

[5] Esoteric Buddhism, by A.P. Sinnett (now out of print)

[6] This story was first published in the magazine, Sanatana Sarati ("Timeless Charioteer"), and checked by the Editor, Mr N. Kasturi, M.A., B.L., lately of the History Department, and ex-College Principal at Mysore University.