Posted at 19:20:34 Hrs. IST on Jan 31, 2010
Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's Divine Powers are inscrutable,
unfathomable and beyond the ken of human mind. It cannot be deciphered by the
radar of the rationalists. It has to be experienced. Read on for a
scintillating account by the illustrious personality, Dr. Vinayak Krishna
Gokak. The writer was a Jnanpith Winner and was the first Vice Chancellor of
Sri Sathya Sai University.
Power creates, sustains or destroys. If it is exercised on the side of
good, it is Divine power; on the side of evil, demoniac power. The earth
oscillates like a spinning top, this side and that. It reveals its dark half
and its bright half through space and time.
This is true of human potency. But when there is descent of superhuman
power, power which stems directly from the Divine, it contributes not to the
mere oscillation of earth, but to a new dawn, the world's great age, a new step
in human evolution. Baba is the harbinger of this new world order.
Baba's power is the power of spirit. Temporal power may not heed it for a
while, blinded by its own glory. But it bends its head low before spirit at the
end. It proves to the hilt the truth of the poet's utterances—"Tis the eternal
law that first in beauty should be first in might" interpreting `beauty' to man
sheer innocence and purity of being and becoming. It is the power of truth that
knows no compromise, of justice undimmed by any frailty of heart or head, of
love that washes the human shores of earth whether they be black or yellow,
white, red or brown. This Power is a white radiance, a transcendental sunbeam.
What exactly does it consist in? It is a dewdrop that descends from the
thousand petalled lotus, the elemental exercise of a Will that is omniscient
and omnipotent. It is the will that sees and acts simultaneously. What He wills
fills and fulfils itself in space and time. But it bides its time, unwarped by
slushy sentiment, unbiased by impatient hurry. And when it strikes, it is there
for all to see, like a column of light that unites the earth and the sky.
Baba's power is not the display of a siddhi attained after prodigious
labour. It scatters its silver and gold with a rare prodigality, giving people
what they want, till they begin to aspire for what Baba likes them to want. It
is the cascade of Vibhuti or holy ashes, endless, exhaust-less. It is the
crystallisation of lingam after lingam—spheroids of alabaster or jade—from the
silk‑soft lotus leaves in the abdomen. It is the ceaseless oozing of honey from
the heart of granite itself. It is the descent of a succession of golden images
of gods and goddesses, from nowhere. It is the transformation of stray
particles of sand on a seashore into the divine image of Sri Krishna the
reconstitution of water into petrol. It is the profuse impouring of Vibhuti and
the massing in of kunkum behind the glass framed on the photograph, the
foot‑prints in holy ashes leading to the worship room in a house and out of it.
It is the flower moving marvellously from the top of a photograph to its base,
or whole garlands aflutter, as if shaken by the wind. It is the tyrannical
teacher glued to his chair in the class, unable to rise unless he rises with
it. It is the rain that suddenly stops raining or the electric bulb that blazes
with light when the whole area is plunged in darkness. It is the shaft of light
that hits you in the eye from a photograph. All this is not magic. It is the
magic of magics! Creation itself, for, there is no hind of the magician there
anywhere to be found. No wonder a hippie said that he knew, now that he had met
Baba, that the world was safe from atom and hydrogen bombs. The atomic
stock‑piles of the great powers might, at a strategic moment, lie de‑fused in
their vaults, with no hand touching them at all.
This is Baba's elemental Power over Nature, which is incredible and yet
as clear as daylight. It becomes even more staggering when you remember that
these phenomena occur in thousands of homes simultaneously, though removed
thousands of miles from each other. It happened years ago, it happens today
with unabating vigour and it will continue to happen more miraculously than
ever.
There is another dimension to this power. Baba can appear in an operation
theatre, behind closed and guarded doors. He can be here and there, in another
place a thousand miles away at the same time. His image can stamp itself, as in
the heart of crystal, on the stone lingam in a village temple. He can appear in
dream before numberless devotees and recount them their dream‑experience when
he meets them individually. In a chat over the breakfast table speaking to the
devotees who were there at the time, regarding all such miracles, He once said:
"This is happening in millions of homes. The time has not come as yet to assess
it publicly. I am waiting so that all the devotees who have yet to come to Me
may do so. When there is public assessment, there will be such widespread
excitement that I may be rendered inaccessible. All these are signs of a Power
that can change the very course of events in the world."
An American devotee who was present at the time when these remarks were
made, asked: "Baba, have I your permission to tell my friends in America about
this pronouncement?"
Straight came the answer: "It's not my business. It may be your duty."
Baba is what He is. It is not for Him to proclaim from the housetops what
He is. But it becomes the duty of the devotee who has come to know Him and to
experience His effulgence, to tell the world what Baba is, if the devotee is
convinced that what He has experienced is the truth.
It is well known that Baba takes on critical attacks of illness by which
His devotes are afflicted. This has happened in a striking manner once when He
took on paralysis at Puttaparthi and again, when, in Goa, He took on acute
appendix resulting in peritonitis. To put it more precisely, these diseases
come on Him, rather than being taken on by Him. His body, like an Aeolian harp,
trembles in response to the call of those who love Him with a pure and intense
love it is a matter of sympathetic vibrations, for He is Love itself. What
saves His body from these fatal attacks is the immortal and unconquerable power
of this very Love.
There is another facet to Baba's power. As an American disciple said,
Baba can change the human heart. It is not merely a question of teaching yogic
or meditative practices. He brings about a transformation in a man's character
and personality. Thousands have been changed in this way by his compelling
sweetness, His ineffable love, casual word or look. His compassion can put on
the mask of harshness, when that becomes necessary.
What is much more difficult to understand is Baba's power to change human
destiny. He is endowed with that Power of Grace which can alter the characters
writ in the stars or on one's forehead. That He can do this, I have no doubt
whatever. If it sounds incredible, it has to be experienced in order to be
believed. Here, again, it is divine love that is at work for its own
inscrutable purposes.
Baba has declared that He is here in the flesh to restore India to her
former spiritual glory andto carry the message of spirituality to the whole of
humanity through her. He has said in categorical terms is that his labours in
this manifestation will not cease till his mission is over. I am one of those
who believe in Him and in the surety of His pledge. The question may be asked:
Why? On what grounds? My answer to that question is: I believe in Baba and in
the surety of His pledge, not because I am what I am, because Baba is what He
is.
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