37 Sir Prasanthi Nilayam 4th February 1981 |
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The bus has broken down so who knows if I will catch
up with Lynn? I am standing by the road in the middle of nowhere — can
it be a desert? There are kindly directions: Night-fall and I am finally limping into Bangalore having squeezed myself into a series of local buses. I am to stay with old friends here: Raj is a brigadier so their house in the cantonment is imposing with military status; Sarla is the daughter of Bhadra Sena whom I have known and revered from the moment I first set foot in India. The imposing house is alarmingly draped in darkness until I see a brightly lit car moving down the landscaped drive. Raj and Sarla are going to a party; even brigadiers have to do these things: Sorry - yes - I am four hours late. They pull me into the car, not in the slightest put out, reverse, switch on twenty lights, show me my room, order hot water, and again into the Bangalore darkness they disappear.
But Baba IS in Puttaparthi, his birthplace and where his main Ashram has been built engulfing his whole village and indeed the surrounding area. It is 180 kms by road from Bangalore, a journey which I do by direct bus. Practically everyone on the crowded vehicle is a Baba devotee — all shapes and ages, all joyous and carefree, all wide-eyed in anticipation of Baba’s blessings and darshan. Cocooned in a whirl of blissful expectancy, they are off on a sacred pilgrimage their hearts over-flowing with devotion. There is singing of bhajans, chanting, repetition of mantras. Some of the older devotees indulge in light-hearted banter. Sweetmeats are passed round. Everyone is basking in their good fortune to be on their way to see their beloved Baba. Even the driver surrounded by his own collection of Baba photographs is not just a hired guy doing a job, he takes part in the chanting and the good-natured banter; he is very much part of this roller-coaster of travelling bliss. After five bumpy hours – will I ever get used to this? -- we are approaching a stage-set dream city sprung up in a quasi-desert. Everything is sparkling pink, vibrant blue, sunflower yellow. At sunset this mirage of Mediterranean colour is hedonistically Daliesque. As I tumble out of the bus someone points out the colleges, hospitals, huge blocks of accommodation for the devotees, the temples, student hostels, the bank, Baba’s house, Baba’s gardens. There’s an enormous open space where Baba gives his walking darshans twice a day. The Ashram even has its own post office; this, though, I only discover later. Everyone has rushed from the bus to the accommodation office where two unrushable clerks are doling out keys for rooms. I explain my mission. Yes — just fill out the forms read the instructions don’t leave the Ashram until your visit is up and you have to share a room. Err…Right…but don’t you have a single room? That will be extra. Right, thank you. But another thing don’t eat outside the Ashram get your meal tickets at the other office pay in advance now. Right…yes…but can you tell me who to approach about the Interviews? Pause. See the American gentleman in room C-629 he will know. And he does. He has been in the Ashram some years, knows who is talkable to and who isn’t, and I can’t help seeing he has an alarming number of mattresses piled up in his room. Picking one up, he then guides me to my room which is large and newly built and has nothing in it but four walls, a floor and a ceiling. This really is simple living. He throws down the mattress — all for me? — and gets down to business: he can arrange for me to meet several resident Westerners, but no Interviews can be given without permission from Dr. Bhagavantum, Baba’s secretary. But — he says casually -- he left the Ashram this morning for a day or two, or maybe three! I ask: But if such an important person is away there must be a deputy secretary one can approach? Of course not! Deadlock. Then brainwave from new friend — (I can’t give his name because he eventually gave the first Interview himself on this condition, as well as several other conditions, so I now call him Sir, which does not displease him). The brainwave -- Sir says: You ask Baba yourself for permission when he comes out for his darshan later on. Yes. Great. Wonderful. Sir helps me write a note which I am to pass to Baba should Baba wish to accept it — well — what can I do but hold it out and try? The note requests his blessing for the book and permission to Interview a few of his Western disciples.
Baba is beginning his slow-walk-progress along the segregated lines of breathless, expectant disciples. The discipline here is extraordinary; there is no pushing. (Males and females are much separated here — they don’t even eat together in the huge hangar-like canteens). Baba is wearing a cerise kaftan in heavy silk. He is slightly built but his Afro/American hair style adds inches to his height. He moves serenely like a floating lotus through a pond of bulrushes. He is smiling and gracious and is actually taking my note. Sir gasps with delight. Baba says: I’ll see you later. Baba is all sweetness. He floats on. In response to a devotee’s plea for something or other, he stops, and makes a circular movement with his out-stretched hand which is turned downward. From his fingers, and right in front of my eyes, fine powdered ash falls into the open palms of the blissed-out devotee. Baba smiles at me again and moves on. It is one of those mini-miracle manifestations long associated with Sathya Sai Baba. He doesn’t repeat this throughout the rest of his fifteen-minute perambulation, although thousands of open palms are silently, imploringly held up to him as he passes. Did you see that? — Sir later yells blissed-out himself — he did that specially for you! I’m trying to be practical, so ask: What will happen now? You’ll see — he knows everything…he didn’t have to read the note: He knew! Quite, but — I can’t help being practical — when can we start the Interviews? And what did he mean when he said he would see me later? After many interpretations, we decide it’s safer to wait and see. But how late is later? After four hours excruciating waiting and not altogether convinced that good Sir is correctly interpreting the Divine Will, Sir has proposed another plan: I am to hand Baba a further note during his morning darshan. I’m ready to try anything, but all I need to be told quite simply and plainly is Yes, or No! Baba this time walks unsmiling right past me: he ignores the note, he doesn’t even perform one tiny mini-miracle anywhere near me. Have I done something wrong? But optimistic Sir is telling me everything’s just fine and Baba knows all and all I have to do is hand Baba during his afternoon darshan… Not another note? Yes, why not? Well… at last Sir gets the message; he is thinking deep, real deep. Dr. Bhagavantum never returned, may never return, and here we are offering notes but apparently getting nowhere. Sir now has a new plan…he is not the sort of person who will let a friend down. He makes yet more conditions — after all, living in any Ashram calls for noble sacrifice — then off we dash to his room before he changes his mind: he has offered himself as the first victim - he will give the first Interview and THEN get permission. Breathless we reach the room not daring to glance at each other, not daring to think what such boldness may bring.
Interview 37 I was born on the East coast of the U.S.A. At the age of thirteen I joined the local church. At that time I was under the impression that a person was a body, your parents had produced you, and that you were lucky you were not born a human-cabbage. I had no personal experience of the Soul. Earlier, when I was about 9, a friend of the family developed mental trouble, so my mother took up psychology to try to understand why — this was at night college. After the class she would come home and tell me what her professor said. I ended up with an education in psychology from about the age of 9 to 15. But when I later studied psychology at college I found that in fact it was nothing like my mother had presented because she had screened out information she didn’t think valid. Anyway, I soon found that this subject was a waste of my time as no two psychologists seemed able to agree. Each had his own brand of psychology. It was a subject of endless debate. So I went into higher mathematics and the sciences, in this I could do well. I finally decided I’d better study finance because in that way at least I would have money. But at the same time I became interested in hypnosis thinking I would be able to help people understand the mind. One day a psychiatrist who was a hypnotist asked me why I was interested in hypnosis. I said: I want to help people. He said: Don’t tell me that — no one wants to help people! I was disillusioned with that. All this was while you
were at University? But I was soon asking people: Do you know of anybody who manifests spiritual abilities today as Jesus did in His day, who has the same character as Jesus and is performing miracles? Many names were offered but they were quickly disqualified by human weakness. Finally, someone told me about Sai Baba. I was able to read a book about him. Then that night in meditation a light came. So I wrote to Swami — I call Sai Baba Swami, it means someone who is aware of his higher nature — and as I was writing, my body became warm and a high feeling of love descended. I asked if I could come to visit him in India. Afterwards, during meditation, a blue light came into the room, a light on another dimension: my attention and that light took the same space and became one. This continued for some time and I was able to re-experience that light regularly in my meditations. After six months I knew that Swami and the light were one and the same. That was over eight years ago and I am still doing the same form of meditation. Did Swami
answer your letter? Inside, he told me things about my past nobody could have known, then started treating a nerve in my leg which had been injured years before. He actually materialized some oil and rubbed it on the exact nerve. Then he told me he loved me. I wasn’t sure what that meant, coming from London where some consider it quite normal to have unusual relationships, and there he was with bushy hair and a red dress on. But I have found over the years that Swami is in no way sexual — he is beyond sex. I was happy about this because one of my spiritual awarenesses was that people like Jesus are not sexual. All the great teachers were wrapped up in love but not wrapped up in sexuality. Nor were they grabbing after money. I had come across many people involved in spiritualism and mediumship able to do unexplainable materializations. You had witnessed that
sort of thing? Three days later when I came out I was told Swami had been asking for me but no one knew where I was; he had called everyone in the day after the discourse, and materialized all kinds of things. I felt like a real dog at that point. Maybe once in a year he asks specifically for a new person by name. But it proved to me that he is not in any way a normal psychic who had marshaled some power to be used now and then. Swami has constant power. There is no limit. He does seem limited in this sense — he says: I cannot do anything wrong. I can do no action that will cause pain or injury to others. Of course, he doesn’t always give everybody what they ask for — over the years you have to work for the right. How long did you stay
that time? Can you give an example? Did you actually ask
Swami
for anything? He told me three things to do, right? He told me: Don’t go outside the Ashram, don’t talk too much, don’t mix with the other people here. They are going all different ways. A few days later Swami came up to me and said: You are going outside, stay inside. And again later on he said: You are talking too much, stop talking. Then another time he saw me and said: You are mixing with people, keep to yourself. About three months later he called me inside and talked to me privately, and he said: what did I tell you? You disobeyed and now you are sick — what did the doctor say was wrong with you? It was hepatitis. So he gave me a fruit juice diet with fat-free yogurt mixed with water and salt. He said that was to go on for some days, but I found `some days’ went on for three months. I could eat no solids. He didn’t call me in for seven months; I felt I had committed a grave sin. Well, I had been praying for someone on a high spiritual level to tell me what to do; after showing me that he was on a high spiritual level he told me what to do and I disobeyed. How did you support yourself
in those days? Are they organized on
an international level, and are there any fees to be paid? What happened after that?
Did you stay on? Has Swami
given out what his mission is? When Swami was only 13 he announced who he was; he grew up in this village, Puttaparthi, and that is the reason there is so much power here, it being close to where he came to Earth in this incarnation. He has also announced that he will live to be 94 in this life. He has even materialized a picture of himself in his next birth — he looks like one of the Christian Fathers. He says he will be called Prema Sai Baba — Prema Sai Baba — Prema means love. Sathya means truth, and Sai Baba means divine father. He has said about his mission that it is to revitalize the truth which is at the heart of all religions. He says he is not advocating a socialism where everybody is given equal, because he explains that not everyone can receive equally until they have earned an equal amount of good traits. He teaches that those who have an exceptional share of good qualities and therefore attract good fortune must reach out and provide, in a positive way, help to those having less. He gives various formulae for living a decent life. He says things like: Money comes and goes, morality comes and grows. Did Swami
continue chastising you if you did wrong? Has he not refered to
himself as the
Avatar of the age? This morning during his
darshan he stopped in front of us to
manifest ash for a devotee. Has he explained why he does this? I take it that you are
now living at the Ashram on permanent basis.
After several weeks of these articles, the editor of the newspaper came personally to see Swami. Swami’s spokesman told me what follows: he [the spokesman] went in to tell Swami, intending to get permission to have the editor shown off the premises. Swami said: No, no! Show him in. He was allowed in and Swami told him about his past life and then manifested a ring for him — all this actually appeared in the next issues of the paper. But when he left, Swami’s spokesman returned to ask why so much kindness had been shown to a man who had been so unkind. Swami’s reply was: You treat people differently, I treat everyone the same. A little later another devotee asked Swami: why is it you allow untruths to be published about you — you could easily stop it. Swami said: It is this way. Some people read nothing but negative press reports, scandals and rumours. They read about me only because my name is printed in these columns, but sooner or later someone prints the truth about me which they also read; this is the chance they have for spiritual salvation which otherwise they would not have. So even these publications do some good service to mankind.
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© Malcolm Tillis 2006 |