Are You a divine preacher or an astrologer? What is the place of miracles?

[Reply to a question by Shri Bh.V.R.Shastri] Swami replied: I am both. Shirdi Sai Bāba was both an Ayurvedic doctor as well as a divine spiritual preacher. He used to give Ayurvedic medicines to cure the diseases of His devotees. To the devotees who were spiritual, He used to preach spiritual knowledge with perfect clarity, which was the unique characteristic of His preaching. He never confused any concept in spiritual knowledge. The scriptures of Ayurveda and astrology were written by divine sages so that they can be used for solving the materialistic problems of people in this world. Whenever there is a materialistic problem burning the mind, there will be no peace of mind to understand spiritual knowledge.

Miracles exhibited by Human Incarnations of God belong to the God-component and not to human being-component of the Incarnation. God does miracles and gives the credit to His devoted human being-component (Bhakta kīrti vivardhanaḥ…). The human being-component should not claim the credit for doing them with ego. If the human being-component claims the credit for the miracles, God quits the Incarnation at once. Both Rāma and Paraśurāma were contemporary Human Incarnations. Paraśurāma developed an ego after He successfully killed all the wicked kings. So, God immediately left Paraṣurāma and Paraṣurāma was insulted by Rāma. Rāma never claimed the divine credit of His actions and He would always say that He was only an ordinary human being (Ātmānaṃ mānuṣaṃ manye…—Rāmāyaṇam). Miracles are unimaginable events. Their source is only the unimaginable God and not any imaginable human being. In the Human Incarnation, God fully merges with the devoted human being and that unimaginable God is invisible. So, we easily misunderstand that the human being who is considered to be a Human Incarnation is doing the miracle. A perfect Human Incarnation always says that the God-component in the Incarnation has done the miracle. If the Human Incarnation says “I have done this miracle”, it means that the unimaginable God present in the Human Incarnation has done that miracle. Here, we have to understand that the unimaginable God is directly speaking through the Human Incarnation. This is how we should understand Kṛṣṇa’s claims of being the ultimate God in the Gītā. God does miracles whenever He feels that it is the proper time and the proper place. If there is any hope of spiritual progress in a devotee, generally, God performs miracles.

The three unique characteristics of God Datta are: (1) His capability of creating creation, which is seen in His form called Brahmā, (2) His capability of ruling creation, which is seen in His form called Viṣṇu and (3) His capability of destroying creation, which is seen in His form called Śiva. When God Datta enters into another medium (selected human devotee) to form an Incarnation, these same three capabilities are seen in modified form as the spiritual knowledge exhibited by the Incarnation, the sacrifice done by the Incarnation due to His love for devotees and the unimaginable events called miracles performed by the Incarnation. For the sake of giving spiritual knowledge, God Himself enters and merges with the medium (Jñānītvātmaiva…—Gītā) to become an Incarnation because the delivery of spiritual knowledge is very important and it guides the entire humanity. The other two characteristics of sacrifice and miracles can even be transferred to a devotee by God. This is the reason why even devoted demons get the capability of doing miracles through rigorous penance done for God. The capability of loving devotees and sacrificing for their sake by suffering the punishments of their sins is also associated with the miraculous power of transferring the suffering of the devotee onto God. Such love for devotees was clearly seen in the case of the Incarnation of God Datta called Sai Bāba. The same miraculous power was also seen in a devoted saint who attempted to transfer the throat cancer of Śrī Ramakrishna Paramahaṃsa onto himself. But Paramahaṃsa, being an Incarnation of God Himself, objected to the saint trying to transfer His disease onto him. This shows that even a devotee can have this miraculous power of loving other devotees and suffering for their punishments, which ultimately get transferred to God.

However, the devotee is not allowed to preach spiritual knowledge on his own. He is only allowed to give elaborate explanations of the concepts already established by God. That is why Paramahaṃsa said that the propagation of spiritual knowledge must be done by a devotee only following the direct command from God. The reason is that the devotee is likely to err in preaching the concepts of divine knowledge. The propagation of the already-established divine concepts by a devotee is allowed. But establishing new spiritual concepts is not allowed to avoid any errors in basic concepts. An erroneous concept will mislead souls to the wrong direction. Creating such a wrong path is the greatest sin.

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| Shri Datta Swami | Are You a divine preacher or an astrologer? What is the place of miracles?| Bhakta kiirti vivardhanah Atmanam Aatmaanam maanusham manye Ramayanam Raamaayanam Saibaba Sai Baba Baaba Raama Rama Parashurama Parashuraama