Posted on: 23 Nov 2018
Discourse Podcast
Parabrahma Samaarambhaam,
Shrii Dattatreya Madhyamaam,
Shrii Satya Sai Paryantaam,
Vande Guru Paramparaam.
Starting with Parabrahman, the unimaginable God,
With Shrii Dattatreya, the Energetic Incarnation, in the middle
Upto Shrii Satya Sai, the previous Human Incarnation,
I salute to the divine chain of My spiritual preachers.
The Incarnation of Sai
God, being beyond space, is unimaginable. Just after the creation of space or subtle energy, He expressed Himself as the First Energetic Incarnation, which is known as Datta, Eshvara or Father of heaven. He incarnated in a form so that the souls, who were to be created later, could grasp Him. The three potencies of God namely, creation, maintenance and destruction of the world are expressed in the form of the three Divine Personalities namely, God Brahmā, God Vishnu and God Shiva respectively. These three Divine Forms represent the three divine qualities called rajas, sattvam and tamas respectively. The word Datta simply means ‘given’ and it stands for the unimaginable God who has ‘given’ Himself to souls in the form of the First Incarnation. Datta has no connection with any specific religion. This eternal God Datta is the First Energetic Form into which the unimaginable God has completely merged. He further merged with other Energetic Forms in the upper energetic worlds to form more Energetic Incarnations namely Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. The same God Datta also merges with selected human devotees on earth to become Human Incarnations of God. Energetic Incarnations are relevant to souls in the energetic worlds and the Human Incarnations are relevant to human beings. There is absolutely no difference between the unimaginable God and God Datta since the energetic form of the eternal God Datta is the permanent address of the unimaginable God.
All the Incarnations of God are one and the same in the sense that the same God Dattatreya (Datta) has merged into them. But more specifically, the three Incarnations namely Shri Shirdi Sai Baba, Shri Satya Sai Baba, and the future Shri Prema Sai Baba are considered to be the Incarnations of God Shiva. Here, God Datta is taken to be God Shiva. Shri Shirdi Sai Baba was an Incarnation of God Shiva. Shri Satya Sai Baba was the Incarnation of God Shiva and Goddess Shakti. Shiva and Shakti together constitute the Divine Form called Ardhanārīśvara, which has the right half as God Shiva and left half as Goddess Shakti. The next Incarnation, Shri Prema Sai, will be the Incarnation of Goddess Shakti. As per the boon given by God Shiva and Goddess Shakti to sage Bharadvaaja, these three Incarnations were to be born in the dynasty (gotram) of sage Bharadvaaja.
Miracles Overcome the Starting Trouble of Incarnations
The spiritual standards of souls in this Kali age are very very low. They have reduced to 1/4th of what they used to be during first age called the Kṛta Yuga. People in this present age do not recognize the divinity of a Human Incarnation by His spiritual knowledge. The Incarnation is forced to show miracles so that people may recognize Him. This is especially true in the beginning when the public does not know the Incarnation. It is a starting trouble faced by any Human Incarnation particularly in present times. Even Rama, as a boy of twelve years, showed the miracle of turning a stone into a lady called Ahalyaa. Krishna, as an infant, showed the miracle of killing the demoness Puutana. Shankara also showed a miracle by entering the house of Mandana Mishra by passing through the bolted door before starting the spiritual debate. As soon as Shri Shirdi Sai Baba arrived in the village of Shirdi as a boy, He had to perform a miracle of showing four divine lamps burning in a pit that was dug. Shri Satya Sai Baba also showed several miracles as a boy. He stated that He would attract people through these miracles and then preach spiritual knowledge to them.
Due to the miraculous grace of God Datta, even though I never studied Sanskrit from anybody, I became a scholar and poet in Sanskrit. I composed more than a hundred books on spiritual knowledge in Sanskrit by the age of sixteen years. While doing My job for the sake of fulfilling My worldly responsibilities, I could only spread spiritual knowledge to very very few Sanskrit scholars. But I spent My entire leisure time for it.
My Close Connection with Bhagvaan Shri Satya Sai
Before describing how I came in close contact with Bhagvaan Shri Satya Sai Baba, I have to speak about another incident in My life. I was very much influenced by the character of Kunti in the Mahabharatam. Towards the end of the epic, when all her difficulties were over, Lord Krishna told her to ask for a boon from Him. Kunti replied “During all these years when my life was full of difficulties, I was constantly remembering You. Now that all my difficulties are over, I will not be forced to remember You. I am afraid that I might forget You. Hence, even in the future, grant me difficulties alone, so that I will always be driven to remember You”.
This is practically true. In difficulties, one is more active and alert in one’s devotion to God. In times of happiness, one gets lazy and proud, and goes away from God. So, one day, I performed a special ritual worship to God Shiva called Mahaanyaasa Rudraabhisheka. Traditionally, the purpose (samkalpa) of performing the worship is to be declared in the beginning. The purpose of performing the worship declared by Me was that I should get all problems so that I can become more devoted to God. Immediately, I saw that Lord Shiva was startled. He kept looking at Me with surprise since this special worship is generally done by everybody to get rid of poverty and difficulties. Immediately, after the worship, I was attacked by several problems and severe poverty. During that period, Bhagvaan Satya Sai Baba was about seventy years old. But one day, Baba appeared before Me as a young boy of sixteen years, sitting on His silver throne. Actually, Baba was in Puttaparti when this incident occurred. Yet, He was also present right before My eyes in a young body, far away from Puttaparti. The following conversation occurred between the two of Us.
Baba: I have selected You to spread true spiritual knowledge in this world as a full-time activity.
Myself: I am just a teacher of chemistry. It will be better if You select some saint, who is totally dedicated to spirituality.
Baba: Who is better than You in this world for doing this work?
Myself: But I have the worldly responsibilities of a big family which is dependent on Me.
Baba: I will take care of all Your worldly problems.
After this conversation, I immediately resigned My job as a professor of chemistry and got involved in this divine work. As per His promise, Baba is taking full care of all My worldly responsibilities. After this conversation, God Datta appeared to Me at the holy site, Shrishailam, and merged with Me. God Datta, through Shri Satya Sai, even performed some miracles through Me to overcome the usual starting trouble.
Two Levels in the Spiritual Journey
There are two levels in the spiritual journey: Pravrutti and Nivrutti. Pravrutti is the human level related to the behavior of a soul towards fellow-human beings. It is the step in which one’s worldly fascinations are reduced by the devotion to God. As a result, the soul follows justice and avoids injustice and sin. Nivrutti is the divine level related to the behavior of a soul towards God. In it, all the worldly fascinations totally disappear as the soul reaches the climax of devotion to God. In fact, even justice is sacrificed for the sake of God since the soul is completely filled with love for God alone. In this Kali age, the souls are at a level below the human level of pravrutti. They are committing sins for the sake of achieving their worldly fascinations. This is actually the level of animals and devils. Hence, every Human Incarnation in this world in the Kali age gives a lot of stress on pravrutti, which is to be achieved by the majority of human beings.
Baba used to pose this question in His speeches “When at present you are at the lowest level of animals and devils, how can you aspire for the divine level without first reaching the human level?”. It is perfectly true! Unless we first reduce the force of our worldly bonds, how can we think of the total destruction of our worldly bonds? The worldly bonds are weakened due to our devotion to God, which is the level of pravrutti. When our devotion to God intensifies and reaches the climax, the worldly bonds are totally destroyed. This is the level of nivrutti. Unless we first reach the middle-level of moderate devotion, how can we reach the climax of devotion? The most important point here is that, be it the weakening or the complete destruction of the worldly bonds, it should happen only due to the devotion to God and not by forced efforts. Detachment from the world should come only due to the attachment to God. The first part of the path to reach God is pravrutti and the second part is nivrutti. Since the majority of humanity is below the first part, all spiritual preachers like Krishna, Buddha, Mahaaviir, Jesus, Mohammad etc., stressed only on the initial part in their preaching. Shri Satya Sai too stressed on pravrutti in His divine discourses. Interestingly, even in pravrutti, developing devotion to God at least to some extent is essential to weaken the worldly bonds. So, even pravrutti begins with devotion to God. Thus, nivrutti, which is totally related to devotion to God, comes in at the very starting point.
Controlling Atheism
In this Kali age, atheism has gained a lot of strength due to the rapidly falling spiritual standards of people. So, to pacify the atheist’s ego, Shankara preached that every soul is God. This philosophy is acceptable to the atheist since according to it, there is no God other than the atheist himself. If Shankara had preached that He alone is God, while all others are ordinary souls, the jealousy in the atheist would not have allowed the atheist to accept it. Democracy means treating all as equal. The atheist’s psychology does not allow him to accept monarchy, which treats only one as great or aristocracy which treats only a few as great. The concepts of democracy and equality are good as far as the worldly life of human beings is concerned. But spiritual life is totally different. The Veda says that both spirituality and worldly life are opposite to each other (Duuramete vipariite vishuuchii). However, Shankara applied these policies of worldly life in spiritual life too since it is easier for common people, and especially people influenced by atheism, to accept one uniform policy. However, Shankara revealed the truth to His disciples, who were spiritually advanced, that He alone is God (Shivah kevaloham).
Shri Satya Sai followed the same path of Shankara when He addressed everyone as divine souls, and when He stated that every soul is God. This is highly essential in present times when the development in science had led to the spread of atheism. In the beginning, the Incarnation has to follow the psychology of the people to whom He intends to preach spiritual knowledge. The philosophy of monism provides the climax of attraction for any soul since it preaches that any soul can become God just by recognizing that he or she is already God! It makes the philosophy tremendously attractive. But that attraction is necessary in the beginning for a person with an atheistic mentality so that it can gradually change to a theistic mentality. Once Shri Satya Sai warned people that a human being should not think that he is God and behave like a madman. Even the human being-component of the Human Incarnation can slip sometimes and develop an ego like Paraṣurāma. Then what to speak of ordinary human beings claiming to be God!
The other main aspect of the program of Shri Satya Sai was also the performance of miracles continuously throughout His life. The miracles are essential to prove the existence of an unimaginable domain. The tremendous development in science in recent times is promoting the false belief that nothing beyond science can exist. Many people have come under the influence of this false belief and they refuse to accept the existence of anything supernatural. Miracles cannot be explained by science and they indicate the presence of the unimaginable domain, which is not different from God. Hence, they are most essential to control the rapid growth of atheism. Shri Satya Sai preached lot of spiritual knowledge through His divine discourses and developed devotion by singing several devotional songs with His excellent sweet voice.
I convey My auspicious greetings to Bhagvaan Shri Satya Sai Baba on the eve of His auspicious birthday through the following verse:
Chitraavatii nadiitiira, puttaparti nivaasine,
Shrii Satya Saayine tubhyam, uchyate janmamangalam
.
I convey My auspicious greetings
On this auspicious birthday to You,
Bhagvaan Shri Satya Sai Baba,
Who lived in Puttaparti on the banks of river Chitraavati.