Elevating our Intension and Actions….The Sai Way
By Dr. M Sainath
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This is the transcription of the talk delivered by Dr. Sainath in the divine
presence of Bhagavan Baba during the Dasara Celebrations on October 12, 2005.
I offer my most prayerful pranams at the Divine Lotus Feet. Revered elders,
sisters, and brothers.
What Is Peace?
A soldier once went to a Zen Master and said, “Master, I have fought many a
pitched battle. I have undergone the rigors and the training and the discipline
of being a soldier. Yet, I do not know what peace is. Pray! Tell me what is
hell, what is heaven?” The Master looked at the soldier and asked, “Who are
you?” And the soldier said, “I am a samurai!”
The Master then exploded, and asked, “You! A samurai? Who on this earth would
take you as a soldier?” This infuriated the samurai. He drew out his sharp
sword and rushed at the Zen Master. The Zen Master calmly said, “Here opens the
gate of hell.” The samurai then realized in whose presence he was, sheathed his
sword, bowed down in humility and surrendered. And the Master then said, “Here
opens the gate of heaven.”
If there were to be a moral to this story, it is that we are the architects of
our own hell, and our own heaven. When we contract the world into ourselves,
and take in all the dualities that the world is associated with, in the process
we open the gates of our hell. But when we expand to encompass the entire
world, we see unity in diversity and open the gates of our heaven.
The Right Direction of Action
At one point of time, Bhagavan identified six important qualities that a
devotee needs to have to attain peace and happiness. As stated in the Bhagavad
Gita, He said:
“These are: Anapeksha, not desiring any fruits;
Suchihi, purity of purpose and action;
Dakshaha, determination;
Udhasino, detachment;
Ghatavytaha, not pondering over the past;
and most importantly, giving up all pomp and show.”
A devotee went up to Bhagavan and said, “Bhagavan, in these days how are we to
develop these six qualities?” And Bhagavan said: “Very simple! You dedicate all
your actions to God with purity of heart and action.”
Action is verily the road to success but the main question to ponder here is in
which direction? Many of us are so busy climbing the ladder of success that we
do not have the time to see if the ladder is propped against the right wall or
not, before it is too late! On this holy day, in this august assembly, I would
like to share with you all a few of my thoughts and experiences on this point
of action and progress.
The Intention Behind Action
The first point I would like to touch on relates to what my elder brother spoke
on just before me: the purity of action. Bhagavan was once saying, while
illustrating this very point: “You can clap your hands to keep in tune with the
bhajans; you can also clap your hands to squat mosquitoes.” A patient is forced
to fast because of the illness that is afflicting him, but a devotee fasts with
the purpose of penitence. Which action gives merit, which action does not?
Sai Baba with Indian President Dr. S. D. Sharma
Bhagavan lays enormous stress on the intention behind the action. For one
convocation ceremony of the Institute, the late President of India, Dr. S. D
Sharma, was the chief guest. During the interval between the convocation and
the cultural drama program which the students were to put on, it started to
rain. Bhagavan sent word to the President of India: “Since it is raining, you
may choose not to come, it is all right.” But Bhagavan was going and the
President, who was a very ardent devotee of Bhagavan, said, “How can I stay
back when Bhagavan is going?” And so he too went, even though it was raining.
And in the car he asked: “Bhagavan, why are You choosing to go when it is
raining?” The answer was very illustrative.
Bhagavan said: “For the last twenty days my boys have been struggling, giving
up their food, giving up their sleep with the sole intention of making me
happy, with the sole intention of getting one word out of my mouth ‘Chaala
bagundi’. When they have worked so hard for my sake, how can I let them down?
Rain or no rain I am going!”
This illustration is very important in the sense, that it drives home the very
important point: The intent is as important - if not more - than the content.
‘You Look to Me, I Look to You’
We now go over to this next point. There was a time during darshan when
Bhagavan picked me out of the students and He named the place where my father
was posted at that time and said, “Such a small place, but so many dangers!
But, you don’t worry, Swami’s protection is always there.” I was perplexed!
What danger? What protection?
And so I went back to the hostel, I rang up home and they told me that recently
there was a spate of robberies in the locality and every house was falling
victim to these thieves. And for the next few days, I was very upset. Worrying
what was happening there, I was unable to concentrate on my work.
Sometime later Bhagavan picked me out once again and asked, “Vachaara?” (Did
they come?). I asked Swami, “Who?” and He said, “Dongalu! Inka Evaru?”
(Thieves, who else?)
I was alarmed! Thieves! Swami said: “Don’t worry, everything is all right!”
Once again I called home and this time I got the news that the previous night
there had been a break-in. The glass panes of one of the windows were removed
and the wire mesh was cut! But what was surprising was that not a single soul
had entered through the window. And when I went back in the evening to thank
Bhagavan, He said: “Naku Thelsuney! (I know) You did your duty here, I did mine
there.”
This is an example of the mercy that God has for us when we focus all our
actions on pleasing Him - He takes care of all our needs. There is nothing to
worry about and that is an important aspect of all our activities.
The True Riches
For illustrating the third point, I would like to take up an example which
Bhagavan often uses. This is about King Bhatruhari, who had once performed a
great sacrifice. And in the process of the sacrifice, he had given away
everything that he had: his clothes, his riches, even his kingdom. At that
point of time, one renunciate came and said, “Oh king! What will you give me?”
And the king said, “I have only my kingdom left. You can take it.” And the
renunciate took the kingdom.
He then told the king, “Oh king! You have nothing now! You have lost
everything. You have been reduced to a pauper. You have a family to maintain.
Shall I give you something so that you can start your life all over again?”
King Bhatruhari, a very wise man, said, “Master, what I had given away in the
form of riches and gold was never mine. I was a custodian of the people’s
wealth. What is really mine is my own Character, my own Strength, my own
Truthfulness, my own Bliss. It remains with me, no one can take it. And
regarding me being a pauper, how can I be a pauper when all of you have blessed
me for giving and sacrificing so much? I have not lost anything, I have gained
much.”
What really matters is the strength within us - the strength of our character.
As Bhagavan says: "To depend on the ephemeral to gain the eternal is a folly of
the highest order."
Acting in the Omnipresence
For the next point, which I consider to be perhaps the most important point to
be held in mind while we go about our lives, I would like use an illustration
from my own life. Those were the times when I was doing my Ph D; I was working
very late in my laboratory and at that point of time there were some important
sets of readings which I had to take once every couple of hours. I had taken
the last set, and since it was very late at night, I was relaxing. When
suddenly some unknown force threw me literally out of bed to rush into the lab
like a madman, and there in front of my eyes I found catastrophe unfolding!
I had forgotten to tighten the clamp or the pressure was too much on the water
cooling pump circuit, and the clamp was slowly unfolding with the result that
the water pipe was coming out right in front of my eyes. Before I could do
anything, water was spewing all over the lab where there were open circuits and
expensive instruments! I did not know what to do. I just shouted, “Sai Ram!”
and went in. In my eagerness to undo the damage, I did not see the water pool
below me on the floor and before I knew what was happening, I was being
electrocuted. I did not know how long I was there; but I did feel some powerful
hand pull me back! I recovered, I undid the damage but the matter did not end
there.
I always used to feel that among all the laboratories in the Institute, the
nuclear physics lab was one place where Bhagavan had - please note this word -
directly never inaugurated. And I used to pray to Swami, “Swami, why is it that
you never came into this lab?”
It was a couple of days after this accident, when one of the student-brothers
came from Brindavan and he wanted to see me. He had a message for me. I came to
see him and he said, “I have message for you from Swami. Swami wants to know
how you are.” I had never informed anybody about all that had happened. Swami
wanted to know how I was. Swami had even said, He told me: “You need to be more
careful and not careless.”
A few days later, when I went to Bhagavan to offer my gratitude in person,
Swami put His hand on my shoulder and said, “Why do you want to invite me to a
place when I am already there?” If our actions do not take into consideration
the Omniscience and Omnipotence of God, it is not going to get us anywhere. Two
actions performed with different intentions, are bound to invoke two different
reactions. An act which is done considering the Omnipotence and Omniscience of
Bhagavan is bound to get the desired result.
Spontaneous Acts of Love
I would like to conclude with a very touching incident. When I was passing out
of the higher secondary school, my headmistress told us: “You cannot distribute
the perfume of joy to others without getting a few drops of it on yourself.”
And this was illustrated to me - much later I would say - when I was in the
hostel.
All of us are with Bhagavan and we have been touched by Him in various means.
There was a time when the department of physics was holding its viva for the
second year post graduate students. One batch had finished their viva, and the
second batch was scheduled to be held the next day. It was quite late in the
night and the photocopying room is right next to mine in the hostel. I heard
some activity going on in there, so I just walked in to see what was happening.
I discovered that all those students who had finished their viva were very busy
photocopying and binding their books and reports.
I asked, “What are you doing here?” And they said, “Sir, we are binding and
photocopying the reports of the batch which is going tomorrow.” Then I said,
“Why aren’t they doing it?” Their answer made me very proud - very proud
because I had brothers who had taken that spring of Love from Bhagavan, who had
learnt to act without anybody coaxing them. Their reply was: “Sir, we sent them
away. This is a menial job; we did not want them to get disturbed with this. We
had already finished our viva, and as they had not yet finished, we sent them
away to study; we are sitting and doing it here.”
No one had forced them to do it. No one had asked them to do it; they had done
it spontaneously. That spontaneous expression of love which is characteristic
of Bhagavan is what we need to see here. Each one of us sitting here has been
touched by Bhagavan in various ways - direct, indirect, with our knowledge, or
without our knowledge. But the fact remains that the spark of His love is there
somewhere within each one of us. And the greatest activity which we can do is
uncover this spark.
Speaking on an occasion Bhagavan said: “The syllable Ra stands for destruction.
Nara, or man, therefore stands for the indestructible. Man is basically
indestructible, he is Eternal. But the syllable Ka when you add it to Nara
becomes Naraka or hell. And this Ka," Bhagavan said, "represents Kaama and
Krodha. When we associate ourselves with this Ka syllable of Kaama and Krodha,
what was Eternal now becomes extinguishable, we become destructible."
On this auspicious conclusion of Dussehra celebrations, this is the greatest
sacrifice that we need to do: The sacrifice of excluding this Ka or Kaama and
Krodha from our activities, purifying our hearts, performing our actions with
this purified heart, and then offering it at the Lotus Feet.
Jai Sai Ram!
- Heart2Heart Team
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