What is the internal meaning of the following indirect miracle?

[Shri J.S.R. Prasad asked:- Sāṣṭāṅga namaskāraṃ Swami. Swami, one Sai devotee was telling me that Shri Satya Sai Baba was given poison through His food and then, Baba transferred His miraculous power to His mother to create sacred ash eating which Baba was cured. What is the internal meaning of this indirect miracle?]

Swami replied:- The background concept of this incident is that the miraculous powers possessed by the human incarnation of God cannot be used for Himself or for His family members. The reason is that the human incarnation is preaching people to reduce and gradually eradicate selfishness, which is the worldly bond with self and with family members. A preacher shall practice the spiritual concept before He preaches it to others. Once a lady came to Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa requesting Him to advise her son, who was eating jaggery very much. Then, Shri Paramahamsa told her to come after one month. After one month, the lady again came with her son and Shri Paramahamsa advised the son not to eat jaggery. Then, the lady asked Shri Paramahamsa about why He told this after one month. Shri Paramahamsa replied that He was also fond of eating jaggery and He practiced for one month to stop eating jaggery. He explained that He has achieved the deservingness to preach others by this self-practice.

In the case of Satya Sai Baba also, the same concept is reflected since He did not use His miraculous power to save Himself from the danger of His life. He transferred His power to His mother and she used this power to save her son. You may doubt whether this type of behaviour can prove the presence of selfishness in the case of Baba because it is indirect selfishness only. The reply for your argument is that Baba used His miraculous power to save Himself not with the selfishness to live in this world for some more time to enjoy the worldly pleasures. He used His miraculous power to save Himself for just one reason only, which is that He has to continue the divine program of propagation of spiritual knowledge in this world for which only God Datta descended to earth getting mediated through the physical body of Baba. This is not selfishness and this is only the devotion to God to fulfill the divine program. This is the intention of Baba in this incident. You may argue that if this is the intention, Baba could have materialized the sacred ash by Himself. The answer for this point is that if Baba materializes the sacred ash and uses it to save His life, it appears externally also that Baba had misused His power to save His life. Such immediate reflection of misunderstanding will not come if Baba does the miracle in this indirect way. Then only, everybody will become anxious to know the background of this incident and then only, there will be a serious search for the reason behind the intention of Baba in this miraculous incident.

He could have used His power at the beginning itself when cruel devotees served Him the poison mixed food so that such situation itself might not have happened. In such case, the expression of the miraculous power of God would have been absent. In this Kali age, expression of miracles is very much necessary to deal with atheists and the possible atheistic tendency of theists also. In the early ages, such need was not there. Actually, the miracles were looked down by them as very cheap actions and were meant only for creating belief in the minds of atheists about the existence of God. But, these cheap miracles became very essential for the souls present in this Kali age because of their very cheap low spiritual level. Shri Paramahamsa was crossing the river on a boat while a saint walked on the river using his miraculous power. The saint proudly told that he had spent 30 years to achieve that miraculous power. Shri Paramahamsa replied that the value of his entire spiritual effort to achieve that miracle is only two rupees because He is crossing the same river by giving two rupees to the boatman. When Shankara came into the house through the bolted doors, Mandana Mishra was not surprised at all because he and his invited guests (Sage Vyasa and Sage Jaimini) were able to do such simple miracles. Instead of appreciating Shankara for this miracle, Mandana Mishra scolded Shankara. But, after a long serious spiritual debate for about a month, all the three agreed to Shankara and Mandana Mishra surrendered to Shankara as His disciple. If we were there, we would immediately fall on the feet of Shankara as soon as we see such miracle done by Him and no debate would have been needed to accept the philosophy of Shankara because we will immediately praise Shankara saying that His philosophy is perfectly correct and is the absolute truth even without listening to Him completely!

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