Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Now I would like to give some background information about Swanny Farmer, who is, I must
say, one of those rare people whose pure inner beauty shines through, thus endowing her with a
special outer beauty. I feel it was someone like her to whom Shakespeare addressed the words,
"Do noble deeds, not dream them all day long and so make life, death and the vast forever, one
grand sweet song."
Swanny was born in Indonesia in the year 1952. Her father, a businessman in Djakarta, found his
fortunes greatly improving after this third daughter was born and so he was able to send her two
older sisters to complete their education at Hanover University in Germany. When Swanny was
seventeen years old that is in 1969, she was also sent there to join them and complete her tertiary
education. She specialised in psychology because it seemed that this was the kind of training she
needed to help people in their lives. She obtained a Master of Arts degree at Hanover and worked
for a time in Germany. She was invited to become a German Citizen, but decided instead, to go
to England and obtain another degree in psychology. Thus, she attended the University of
Manchester and after about two years there, obtained a degree of Master of Science in
Psychology. With these two degrees she was certainly qualified to work in her professional field
in many parts of the world. Her heart called her back to her home in Indonesia where she worked
in the psychological field for about two years. However, Swanny felt that she was not making
full use of her potential in Indonesia and as one of her sisters was practicing as a Medical Doctor
in Australia, she decided to move to that country where, indeed, she had no difficulty finding
professional work and eventually finished up working up at the Nursing Home for mentally
disadvantaged children in Liverpool near Sydney, where eventually she met Ron Farmer.
As already told, Swanny Farmer changed her job again at that fateful three hour interview with
John Fitzgerald when he invited her to be what he called his navigator, in finding the right
children to launch his Toogoolawa scheme of providing schools, as well as some accommodation
hostels for the unfortunate children who, often through bad parenting, were homeless, school-
less and on the point of becoming street-kids. Ron, who whole-heartedly supports the project and
gives it much voluntary help, carries on other work for Swami too. One of these is conducting a
small publishing business in conjunction with his wife Swanny and a Sai friend by the name of
Ross Woodward. They have already published a very good book designed to help people
anywhere in the world to conduct study circles on the literature of the New Age, particularly the
teachings of Sai Baba. The quality of the book holds out good promise of other treasures to
come.
Dr Farmer of course, continues his main professional work regularly seeing patients at his clinic,
which is in the same building as John's company offices on the banks of the Nerang River. In this
therapeutic work he frequently makes use of the Sai and other spiritual teachings. He told me
about several of these as we walked together on the grassy lands round his home at Willow Vale.
At my request he put several on an audiotape for me. Here briefly, is the gist of one such
treatment.
A Minister of the Uniting Church asked Dr Farmer if he would treat the Minister's twelve-year-
old daughter. Dr Ron Farmer agreed and in due course the twelve-year-old girl was sitting in his
clinic. Her main problem was that in the school classroom, when as a pupil she was asked to
stand up, perhaps to read something, to recite something or answer a question, just the fact of
standing there in the classroom of sitting pupils would bring on such a powerful agonising form
of stage fright that she would break out in a cold sweat and be unable to speak a word and so
would have to take her seat. As neither teachers nor pupils have any understanding or sympathy
in such situations, the twelve-year-old girl would suffer a great deal.
Eventually after asking her several questions, in an endeavor to find a door that he might open
for her, Ron asked intuitively, "Do you have any recurring nightmares?" The answer was that she
did, a terrible dream that recurred every week or every fortnight. In the dream she was walking
along the edge of a cliff when she fell over the precipice and in terror went down towards the
bottom. She always awakened before she hit bottom but it was an experience of great terror. Ron
felt that if he could cure this nightmare terror it would also cure her classroom terror.
Ron remembered one of Swami's teachings to the effect that it does not matter in the least what
form and name of God you worship but you must remember He is with you always and you must
trust in His love and His help. This girl was the daughter of a Minister of a Christian Church and
would probably look to Jesus as her divine guide and savior. So Ron asked her, "Do you believe
in Jesus?" "Oh, yes I do," she answered. Then Ron asked, "Do you love Jesus?" "Yes," she
replied enthusiastically, "I love Him with all my heart, He is my life." Then Ron explained to her
the principle taught by Swami, that is, if we hold onto the name and form of God, bringing it into
everything we do, life will become harmonious and any problems will be solved. Moreover,
Swami says, unlike what is taught in modern psychiatry, that the unconscious is benevolent. So
Ron proceeded to relax his patient and asked her to close her eyes. Then he took her in
imagination, through the details of her recurring nightmare. She was walking along the cliff edge
picturing the scene and then her foot slipped and she began to fall, but now she was holding onto
the hand of Jesus as she fell. He kept repeating to her, "You're holding onto the hand of Jesus,
you're falling, but you're holding onto the hand of Jesus," this he repeated for about ten minutes.
Watching her face as he made her picture that she was holding onto the hand of Jesus, the
expression of fear changed quickly into a beautiful expression of peace and happiness. So
eventually, he asked her to open her eyes and asked her, "What was that like?" She replied that
she forgot she was falling and felt happy in the protection of Jesus. Asked what she felt in her
body, she replied that she felt relaxed, deeply relaxed. Then Ron asked her to imagine she was in
the classroom situation and that the teacher had asked her to stand up and read something, but
while she was standing up she pictured the scene where she was falling, holding onto the hand of
Jesus, so she felt relaxed and not at all worried with this situation because she was holding the
hand of Jesus and felt the joy of his protection. After this guided imagination, he said to her to
open her eyes again. Then he said, "Do you feel now that you will be alright in the classroom
when you have to stand to your feet and speak?" She smiled happily and replied, "Yes, I feel sure
I will because I will have Jesus close to me holding my hand." "Well," Ron replied, "If ever you
have the slightest return of that problem, contact me and I will bring you some more help." She
agreed that she would do so, but she never contacted Ron and he felt that his spiritual therapy
had worked. He has found that this use of the name and form of the God one adores has a very
powerful effect. It releases the stupendous power of divine love, which always conquers fear.
Signs, strange and significant.
In the Blue Mountains just west of Sydney, Australia, I have a number of friends, most of them
followers of Sai Baba. I would not have called Peter a Sai devotee at the time of this episode, but
he was certainly interested in Sai Baba and perhaps it was to encourage this interest that Rocky
Bugmann, an active member of the Sai centre in the mid mountains, gave Peter a very attractive,
good-sized photograph of Sathya Sai Baba. Without framing it, Peter stuck the photograph on the
wall of his bedroom in a position that allowed him to see it easily while he was lying in bed.
Incidentally, Peter is a bachelor of middle age and lives alone except for his four-legged friend, a
dog named Adam. Perhaps Adam acquired that name because of his hatred of snakes. Adam of
the Garden of Eden had no reason to love the reptile, for it was because of a snake that he was
thrown out of paradise into the wide and terrible world.
Although Peter has a large house, he usually allows Adam to spend the night on the floor of his
bedroom. It may have been no more than one or two nights after he had hung the picture that the
strange phenomena began. While Peter was lying comfortably in bed with the light on, gazing
intently at the photo of Swami, it suddenly became three-dimensional that is, it stood out an inch
or so from the wall. At the same time, the image of Swami changed to a man who appeared to be
an historical character? Judging, Peter said, from his clothes, style of hair and beard, he belonged
to history but Peter could not identify him. After a while the photograph went flat against the
wall again and Swami was there. For the next five or six nights, the photo of Swami played the
same strange tricks, the only difference being that it was not the same person who appeared in
place of Swami. Each night there was a different one, always appearing to be someone from an
earlier period of history and never identifiable by Peter. Peter was quite fascinated but puzzled. It
must be some sign to him from Swami but he could not figure out what it was meant to tell him.
And who could help him? The only other person in the room to see this pantomime was Adam
the dog, and he seemed quite unaffected by the strange antics of the picture.
Then came the night when, instead of another human being appearing in the three-dimensional
photograph, in the place of Swami came a large cobra. It was raised and its hood was spread as if
about to strike its victim. Peter was horrified. This, he thought, is a symbol of evil and he
immediately turned out the bedroom light but it was a long time before he could go to sleep. He,
like many followers of the Christian faith, perhaps through the myth of the Garden of Eden,
regards snakes as an animal cursed by God and therefore evil. At last he fell asleep. No dreams
came to help him with his problem and as soon as he woke in the early hours before full daylight
came, he got out of bed with the intention of removing the picture. But it was not on the wall
anymore. Knowing that he had not stuck it to the wall very securely, he looked on the floor
below where the photo had been hanging. It was not far away but ripped into many small pieces.
This must have been the work of Adam the dog who was lying near the heap, as if to protect his
master from any evil that may remain in the torn-up picture. Peter gathered the pieces and burned
them.
It was not many days after this that Peter informed Rocky and myself about the episode, about
what had happened to the photograph. Both of us assured him separately that to Swami, who is
an incarnation of Lord Siva and his consort Parvati or Shakti, snakes are certainly not evil, just
the reverse really. Illustrations of Lord..Siva often shows him with a necklace of snakes around
his neck. They are one of his symbols and he has, indeed, appeared as a cobra to a number of
people at his ashrams, including myself. The one that appeared to me was a beautiful white cobra
in the garden at Brindavan. It had behaved more like a friend than an enemy of man. Peter
understood readily and happily. He was very pleased when Rocky gave him another photograph.
But he had had his ration of signs and wonders and the second photograph behaved as photos are
expected to.
I think that Peter would now call himself a Sai devotee. There are, of course, many different
brands and types of devotees and they meander to the feet of our Lord by many strange but
interesting routes.
***
The Sai signs that came to the married couple, Syd and Karen Paterson were also strange and
certainly significant. The Patersons live near me in the Blue Mountains and I regard them as
earnest devotees who are making good progress on the Sai path that leads back to God.
Strangely, they too witnessed some Sai photograph Leelas but, unlike Peter, it was after they
were already Sai devotees. It was in this case a framed photograph hanging on the wall of their
sitting room. One day when they were sitting discussing Swami's teachings while looking at the
photograph on the wall, it began to play some strange antics. It would, for example, move along
the wall to left or right and sometimes seemed to come away from the wall towards them. At
other times bright lights would appear around the photo, bright pink or green or just white light.
Of course, they told each other what they were seeing after it had happened but to test that it was
just not a fault in eyesight, they decided to tell one another at the time of the happening. For
example, Syd might say, "The colour has turned to silver," or, "The photograph is moving along
the wall to the right," and Karen would confirm that she was seeing the same thing. Then Karen
might say what was happening and Syd would agree that he was seeing the same thing. So they
decided that what they saw was actually happening and believed it to be a sign of God's presence
in their lives.
Other signs also came to them separately. For example, Syd who is a painter by trade, one day -
and all day - during his work saw the face of Swami appear on whatever surface he was painting,
perhaps a door or a wall or a cupboard. This gave him great joy and he had a wonderful day.
Another sign that he spoke to me about was that one day he suddenly experienced Adwaita or
non-duality - everything was one. This brought him a great feeling of bliss, an uplift of
consciousness. Unfortunately, he said, this did not last all day but just for a short period.
Nevertheless he has remembered it always and knows that the truth of Being, lies beyond what
we see with our eyes and is in truth, oneness of all life.
Later on, about the middle of the year 1990, Syd had his first dream of Swami and it was to him
a very important prophetic dream. It remained very vivid in his memory. He told me that it
seemed to begin with him standing talking to a neighbor who had lived next door to him in a
Sydney suburb. Suddenly they saw the form of Sai Baba on the opposite side of the street
standing on the pavement. Swami had a white robe on, said Syd, but I don't know whether he
was aware at the time that white is the colour of mourning in India. Whether or not he
understood the significance of the colour white, Syd knew instinctively that the old overcoat that
Swami had swung across his shoulder represented the body of his own father. Swami gave them
a smile and a wave and moved off down the street. Syd was so full of his strong feelings that he
omitted to return the wave but the neighbour did so, remarking something about Swami being the
head of some weird cult in India. Syd did not answer but remembered thinking, "If only you
knew the truth!" At the first intersection, Swami turned as if to go along the cross street but
instead he faced up towards Syd and his friend and gave another wave. This time, both men
returned the wave and Swami vanished.
It was a sad dream for Syd because he felt sure that Swami was giving him a sign that his father,
who was very sick in a nursing home hospital, would not last very long. Thinking about this, Syd
prayed earnestly to Swami to be granted four boons. The first was that the hospital would warn
him of the approaching death in sufficient time for him to let his old mother know, so that she,
who was living in the same nursing home would get there in time for his father's passing. The
second was that he, himself, would manage to be present in the bedroom of his father at the
actual time of his passing. The third was that his father would have a peaceful end with no pain
and the fourth was that Syd would be aware of the actual moment his father left his body.
Perhaps this was asking a lot, he thought, but felt sure that somehow Swami would grant his
wishes.
It was not long after this that the call came from the hospital telling him that his father's
condition had deteriorated so rapidly they were sure he did not have long to live. So Syd had
time not only to warn his mother but also his brother. That morning they were all sitting in
Father's ward. Brother had brought along his wife too, but Syd had not brought Karen because at
this time they were just at the very beginning of their friendship and Karen did not know his
parents. The patient did not seem to be aware of their presence. He was sleeping peacefully with
no apparent pain and so the hours dragged by, with a nurse coming in about every half hour or so
to check the patient's condition, which seemed to indicate to Syd that the end was not far away.
After a few hours of watching, mainly in silence, Syd felt that his mother, who was unwell
herself, was looking as if she needed a rest. So he advised her to go to her room and lie down for
half an hour then he would call her. She went and the brother, who had some urgent business to
attend to, left too with his wife. Syd was left alone with his thoughts. His good father, for whom
he felt great love, was still alive, breathing quietly. Then, after about ten minutes, something
strange happened. A shaft of what seemed like dark blue energy about a yard in length and
perhaps six inches in width began to emanate from his father's throat Chakra at an angle of about
forty five degrees to the body. Then it vanished and the sound of the breathing stopped. At a later
time, Syd learned from someone who had had a great deal of experience with death and dying
and the hereafter, that this was his father's astral body leaving the physical. But Syd must have
known this himself intuitively because of what happened later.
The next event happened almost immediately. Swami came into the room, not the usual Swami
but one about half the size of his small self, a dwarf Swami and he was dressed in green, which is
not a colour he ever wears. Syd took this as a symbol that his father had had a peaceful passing
because to Syd the green colour meant peace, like the peace one feels in a green meadow. To
emphasise the point further, the diminutive Swami floated onto the bed and sat cross-legged on
the chest of the dead body. Having emphasised the point to Syd of his father's peaceful passing,
Swami vanished. Soon after that two nurses came into the room. One of them went and stood
behind Syd with her hands on his shoulders while the other went to the other side of the bed to
examine his father's body. The one behind asked gently, "Where is your mother?" Syd replied
"She's gone and so has my father." "Oh, no," she replied, "I think your father is still alive." But
the nurse on the other side confirmed that he had passed away. Syd sat for a while in quiet
remembrance of his beloved father and mentally gave his thanks to Swami for granting him the
four boons he had requested and indeed for being present and blessing the transition of his father
who had not even been a Sai Baba follower.
Karen, who is very studious and gentle, has had her own experiences of God's hand in her life.
While her husband Syd has felt the unity of all life, she has gone beyond the maya in a different
way. For example, she says one day at work, when everything seemed to be going at a mad rate it
was as if worldly affairs in her life, that is the maya, was going around at an ever increasing rate
and seemed impossible to handle, her mind went beyond it all. She saw it as it was, an unreal,
crazy illusion. She wanted to laugh at the crazy antics of people, including herself. It was unreal
and she stepped back from it all into the quiet peace of reality. She found that on future occasions
when the worldly merry-go-round seemed to be getting out of hand, just to focus on the memory
of this occasion was helpful in trying to re-establish that peace.
Earlier in the same year that Syd's father had died, Karen too, had witnessed the compassionate
hand of Swami at her own father's death. "Neither of my parents were followers of Sai Baba and
they only ever heard his name when I was at home with them and could not help talking about
him sometimes." Her father was sent to hospital through his emphysema and the work of some
other mysterious, tropical virus. She felt somehow that this illness was terminal but the hospital
staff was not very co-operative about informing her and the rest of the family of his state of
health. So either Karen's mother, sister, herself or another member of the family spent a lot of
time in the ward to check on his recovery or otherwise. One day when she was in the ward alone
with her father, he suddenly asked to her great surprise, "You know that fellow you went to see in
India I've forgotten his name what was it?" Karen told him. "Yes, that's right," he said. "I had a
dream of him the other night." Karen felt great surprise and delight to hear that Sai Baba actually
visited in a dream, her non-Sai father. She questioned him about the nature of the dream. "Oh,"
said her father, "He just walked up to me and shook my hand." The pleasure Karen felt had a
tinge of sadness. She felt sure that this handshake meant that her father would leave his body
very soon. Then she asked her father, "How did that make you feel, Dad, when he shook your
hand? Was it a good feeling?" "Oh, my word!" her father said. There was such enthusiasm in the
old man's voice that Karen felt assured and humble, with a rush of gratitude to the Lord that he
seemed to be taking care of her father at this time of his great need.
A few days after this pleasing but worrying conversation, Karen's father did, in fact, pass away.
Only her mother was present and she told Karen that it was an easy, peaceful passing. He just
seemed to stop breathing, she said. Karen knew with an inner knowing that Swami had been
present unseen and had given her dear dad a peaceful and blessed passing. She was very grateful
and somewhat surprised that Swami would in this way, help one who had never taken the
slightest interest in him.
To me, the fact that Swami gave loving help and compassion to the two fathers is a sign that Syd
and Karen have their feel firmly on and are making good progress along the spiritual path. The
ancient sage Narada in his Bhakti Sutras states that anyone well advanced on the path of
devotion will bring divine help to several generations of ancestors and descendants. So I feel that
Swami's blessing to one generation ahead that is to the two fathers is a result of Syd and Karen's
own devotional work and progress. Swami is interested in and brings blessings to the members
of the Sai devotees' families.
Narada's Sutra 71: His ancestors rejoice, the gods dance in joy and the earth gets a Lord and
Savior. Such a devotee who is full of God-realisation gives salvation to seven generations of
ancestors and descendants in the family. The gods rejoice to see a man of God-realisation, as he
is one with God. The Earth gets in him a savior who can bless all mankind.
The mystery of Vibhuthi
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." With these words of the funeral service, the human body is
committed to its final formless form. In some denominations of the Christian church, ash is
blessed by the priesthood, becomes known as Holy Ash and is used as a symbol of penitence,
reminding man that his time on earth is short and that he should use his time to seek the true
eternal values. Back in the timeless mythology of the Hindu religion, Lord Siva as a symbol or
flag of victory used ash. After his victorious battle with the god Kama, the god of desire, Siva
reduced his enemy's body to ashes and smeared his own body with those ashes, so then it was a
victory over desire. But, as we all know, Kama, like Phoenix, rose from his own ashes and is
very much alive and active within each one of us, where he is known as the Kama rupa, or body
of desire. Indeed, as I have heard my late friend Dr V K Gokak say, "He lives our lives for us."
Only one who has reached the state of enlightened self-realisation could, as Siva did, adorn
himself with holy ash as a sign of victory over desire. So why do we smear our foreheads or
swallow quantities of this symbol of victory and purity which Swami has named Vibhuthi? And
why does He call it Vibhuthi?
This is part of the great, the important, mystery on which I would like to invite your
consideration.
Looking into the Sanskrit dictionaries for the meaning of the word 'Vibhuthi', one finds such
definitions as 'manifestations of divine power' or 'opulence by which God controls the whole
universe.' Other words used to define the meaning of Vibhuthi are divine glory and splendor and
magnificence. In some translations of the Bhagavad Gita, we find the title of Chapter Ten is,
"The Yoga of Vibhuthi" while in others it is called "Manifestations of the Power and Glory of
God". And we so learn that the union with the divine, which we seek, is aided or perhaps
accomplished by the power, glory, splendor and munificence of God and this is called Vibhuthi.
Nowhere in the great Scriptures of the nations have I personally read of or heard of a Godman or
saint who produced holy ash from unseen dimension by the wave of his hand or by any other
means.
Interestingly, during the near-half century that Sai Baba spent at Shirdi, He used ash, from the
fire He kept burning, to help people with their health and other problems. This ash He called
'Udi' which must bear some relationship to the word Vibhuthi. So why did Sri Sathya Sai Baba
name the ash that He manifests many times a day by circling His hand by the title Vibhuthi?
Surely He must mean us to understand that this wonderful material which comes in various
shades of colour, perfume and taste, carries with it the divine power, glory and splendor that lie
in the meaning of the word itself. And surely this is something of which we should be fully
aware when we use Vibhuthi either externally or internally.
We should not be like I was when He said to me on the first day of our meeting in a room in
Madras, "Would you like some Vibhuthi?" I said, "Yes," because I wanted to see Him manifest it
out of nowhere. I had no idea what to do with it, nor of its power. But I discovered its power of
healing on the following day when He manifested Vibhuthi for my wife and cured her of
hepatitis on the spot. It is strange that Swami, not always, but frequently, manifests His divine
power and compassion through material things, such as the leaves and flowers of plants, water,
lingams and nectar but certainly most often through holy ash.
I have heard people say that the power of Vibhuthi lies in its placebo effect, its effect on the mind
of the patient, thus creating greater faith and expectation. But I know of cases in which the
recipient of Vibhuthi had no expectation at all, no expectation of a cure, that is. My wife, Iris,
was one of these in the case just related, but the most striking in my experience was the cure of
the parachute jumper, Squadron Leader A. Chakravarthi and his absent wife, which I describe in
detail in my book "Sai Baba, Invitation to Glory", I will repeat the main facts here.
Chakravarthi, along with two scientists with whom he had arrived at the ashram, was called for
an interview during his first evening there. Swami manifested several things for two of his
friends and then told Chakravarthi to join his two palms together in the form of a bowl. Then
Swami waved His down-turned hand in small circles above the bowl thus formed. Vibhuthi
poured from His hand until Chakravarthy's two joined palms were full. Then He told the
parachute jumper to eat the Vibhuthi. The Squadron Leader, who was also head of the parachute
jumping school in the Indian Air Force, had no idea why he should eat the Vibhuthi but he came
from a spiritual family and had the feeling that he was in the presence of a Godman, so he did as
he was ordered. He consumed every morsel of this double handful of Vibhuthi. "The flavor was
quite pleasant and I thought I was getting some spiritual benefit from it," he told me.
He had an interview on the following morning and the same thing happened. Again the Squadron
leader did as ordered and ate all the Vibhuthi, having no idea what the specific benefit might be.
He and his friends returned to Bangalore after spending the one night at the ashram. He was
amazed and of course, overjoyed to discover in the next few days that he had been completely
cured of a disease that the medical doctors had told him was incurable. He was even more
astounded to find that his wife was cured of the same incurable disease. They had both been told
by several doctors that the disease they shared was not only incurable but would prevent them
having children. Now, as if to confirm the cure, Swami told them that they would have a son to
be born on Swami's own birthday that year. This duly took place. No placebo effect could have
played any part in this unexpected healing of two people by two double handfuls of Vibhuthi
given to one of them.
Several friends have told me how they have cured diseases in animals, mainly pet dogs and cats,
by the application of Vibhuthi and this seems to indicate that the healing power exists in the
Vibhuthi without any help from mental expectation or even faith.
The quantity of Vibhuthi required and time taken for healing are also part of the divine mystery.
In Chakravarthy's case, two double handfuls of Vibhuthi healed two people almost immediately.
In the case of Mayan Waynberg, (given in my book "Sai Baba, Invitation to Glory") another
example of Vibhuthi healing an incurable disease (that is, incurable by ordinary medical means),
the patient was instructed by Swami to take a pinch of Vibhuthi in water daily, but it took nearly
two years for the complete cure. Different diseases, different methods and only the Divine Healer
Himself knows the reason. All we can know is that this sacred substance that we have learned to
call Vibhuthi is imbued with the divine power, glory and opulence to work great miracles.
Then there is the amazing worldwide phenomenon of the appearance of Vibhuthi on articles,
mainly on holy pictures, under the glass when they are mounted in frames with a glass front.
Such things are happening to Sai followers from Russia to Malaysia and Australia. Why and how
is this done, may be asked.
Well, I would say, it certainly builds faith and even takes people to Sai Baba. My famous friend,
Jegathesan, of Malaysia told me that when he heard people talking about Sathya Sai Baba, his
reaction was negative but when Vibhuthi began to appear on the pictures of Swami and other
holy figures in the home of one of his relatives in Malaysia, faith was born in his heart and he
immediately went to see "The Living God in India." Well, we all know the fine work that
Jegathesan has carried out in the Sai mission to the world.
As to the 'how' of the operation, I have heard more than one person say that the job is done by
other beings and not by Swami. But psychic science has proved beyond question that, in general,
discarnate spirits do not possess the psychokinetic power to move even a featherweight physical
object.
An exception to this rule is the stone-throwing poltergeist and it's not the nature of the poltergeist
to smear holy ash on holy objects in order to increase man's faith in God.
We know that Swami Himself can travel in a flash to any spot on the globe and, when there, use
His divine psychokinetic power to carry out any physical work He likes. We know, too, that He
has helpers, multitudes of helpers, on the subtle planes as well as on the earth plane. He could
endow any of these helpers, be they discarnate, angelic or devlic, with the power to spread
Vibhuthi on the glass or under the glass of holy pictures, inside books, on the cover of books
when they are lying underneath other volumes, on the hands of saintly dying people (as once
happened to a dying Sai devotee in Melbourne, Australia). So, whether He does the work
Himself or delegates it to some of His numberless subtle helping hands, it is not possible to
know, and I do not feel that it matters, since all the divine work is done by God.
Remember the story of the man who, sitting on the roof of his house during a rising flood,
refused all help from men in boats and helicopters who tried to rescue him, saying, "Don't bother,
I have prayed to God to save me." When in due course, he was drowned, and his soul stood in
the presence of God, he said to the Almighty, "I prayed to You to save me, but You did not." God
replied "I sent rescuing boats and a helicopter to take you off your roof and save your life but
you had forgotten that all helping hands are My hands."
Another mystery is why does Vibhuthi appear in some homes and not in others? By what criteria
does God select the homes? Are the people blessed by vibhuti, more spiritual than those who are
not? From my observations, I do not think so.
I have noted that the ash recipients in India seem to be more humble, more egoless than usual. I
first saw the phenomenon, for example, in a Brahmin home in Coimbatore. It seemed to have
covered practically everything in the shrine room and while I sat watching, it was pouring from a
small statue of Shirdi Sai Baba.
Many years ago on my arrival at Prashanthi Nilayam, I met a young man in the village outside
the wall. He told me the story of his aunt who lived in a humble dwelling within the village. He
told me that while Swami was away on tour, Vibhuthi and Amrit began appearing on the pictures
in his aunt's home. It was not long before crowds of people filled her courtyard to see the
phenomenon and receive gifts of Vibhuthi and Amrit, there being plenty for everybody.
Attending to the growing crowds became too much for the poor lady who was a widow. She
became overwrought and unable to carry on.
Then suddenly Swami, who was still on tour bodily, appeared to her in His subtle form and said
"I am stopping this now. Lock your gates and let nobody in." From that moment no more
Vibhuthi or Amrit appeared. My first book on Swami had been published and the young man
knew my name, so very kindly he took me round to meet his aunt. All was quiet there. Though
her pictures were no longer producing ash or Amrit, she had stocks of it kept in jars and kindly
gave me some. She belonged to the class of the meek, the humble, the surrendered to God, the
lovers of the good. Swami had both blessed her and protected her.
But in other countries of the world and also in other parts of India, I have found Vibhuthi
appearing in the homes of people whom I could not class as humble and surrendered. In fact,
they seemed to have as much ego as the average searcher in the domain. So the mystery remains
and I feel that only God Himself knows the answer.
The twain are meeting
'East is East and West is West and Never The Twain Shall Meet' says the well-known line of
Rudyard Kipling, but he does go on to prophesy a time when they will meet and that will be at
the feet of God. Today the twain is meeting, in truth, at the feet of God, not only East and West
but races of all the world are coming to the feet of the Living Avatar of God. This must surely
signify the approach of a great change in the consciousness of mankind. But before considering
this, let us talk about what we understand by the term 'Avatar' and what it has always signified in
the history of man.
It was during my first visit to Prashanthi Nilayam Ashram in 1966 when I first heard Swami
being called an Avatar. I was sitting with a small group of young Indian men on the ladies side of
the Mandir, when Swami suddenly appeared and started walking across the large square of sand
that has now become a green park. He was walking barefooted and red-robed towards one of the
terraced houses that then stood in line with their backs to the road, and their doors and front
windows facing the square of golden sand. We watched the progress of Swami in silence for a
time, then the young man sitting beside me with whom I had a great deal of discussion, said in a
quiet voice, "Many of us regard Him as an Avatar." This gave me something of a shock did he
mean that this little figure, with the mop of fuzzy black hair above his soft luminous eyes was
God? I looked at the speaker again. It was the serious face of the Crown Prince of Venkatagiri.
From our previous discussion, I had learned to respect the knowledge and insight of this young
man. Now he spoke in all seriousness about one that I had considered to be a great yogi with
miraculous powers and understanding, being an Avatar of God. I remained silent, but mentally
decided that when I got back to the Theosophical Headquarters, I would get any books I could
find from the library, and try to learn what I needed to know about the term 'Avatar'.
However, I did not, in fact, learn very much from the books available. Lord Krishna, who lived
some five thousand years ago, seemed to have been the last of the Avatars. He brought great
changes to the people of the earth at that time as did, indeed, the former Avatar Rama. Did such
Beings, when they came to the earth, always shake and move and change the world? Later on, I
remember hearing Swami say that Jesus Christ was a partial Avatar Jesus did in fact change the
Western half of the world from the pagan, power seeking, egotistical values of the Roman
Empire to the compassionate Christendom. If a partial Avatar could do so much, what might a
full Avatar do for the whole world? But first, I must get clear in my mind, what was meant by an
Avatar, and find out if this small red-robed figure, whom I had begun to respect and love deeply,
was really one. While I pondered this question, I continued to be with Sai Baba as much as I
possible could, which was most of the time.
'God as Man on earth!' this seemed to be a far-fetched and incomprehensible idea certainly in my
early years. Christian theology had taught me that God had come to earth once, but only once, in
the form of Jesus Christ and that He would never come again, except at the end of the world.
Certainly, my own thinking and Theosophy had knocked this idea out of my mind. It was not
now a part of my belief system. I knew that Theosophy did accept the truth of the earlier Avatars,
Krishna and Rama - but this was all so long ago.
The idea of God Himself coming to the earth in the form of a man in this modern world was a
concept that seemed impossible for me to accept. And if Almighty God did in fact decide on such
an unlikely move, why should He choose to be born in a remote, primitive village, hidden away
in Southern India, where the mass of mankind was unlikely to hear of Him for a very long time,
if ever?
Then suddenly, the whole idea became acceptable to my understanding and to my belief. It
happened this way. One day, I was strolling quietly in a small garden that fronted the doorway of
Swami's interview room in the two-storey house that stood where the white, lotus-shaped Mandir
now stands at Brindavan, Bangalore. We were all expecting Swami to emerge from the doorway
at any moment. Appearing suddenly, Swami walked into the garden among us. He stopped not
far from where I was standing. A young Indian, probably in his early twenties, stepped boldly in
front of Sai Baba, and even more boldly asked the question, "Are you God?" the hush that fell
over the group of men seemed expectant, and yet somehow fearful. But Swami was his calm,
normal self. He pointed his finger at the young man and replied, "You are God!"
Then, standing among us in that small, quiet garden, He gave a simple revealing talk that taught
me so very much about the nature of man and God. The gist of it was that God incarnates in
every man and woman born on earth but we are not aware of this wonderful truth, although
perhaps sometimes dimly aware. Our very purpose in being born as a human being, He told us, it
to work towards the realisation of the great truth of our Divinity. We are, in fact, when born
Avatars, without the knowledge of this stupendous truth! The ones who are called Avatars are
those who are born with the knowledge of this great truth of their identity with God. And so He
said, "The only difference between you and Me is that while you are Avatars and you do not
know it, I knew it from the time of My childhood. When I tell you as I do, that you are God, that
God is within you all, you may or may not believe it, but you have to do more than believe it,
you must by the life you live, and through your Sadhana reach the point where you experience
your own Godhood. Then you will not only believe, but realise that you are God. That is the one
step that you must realise in your mind and experience in your whole consciousness, that you
and I are one."
I knew at that moment that Sai Baba was an Avatar. And then as the weeks, the months, the years
passed, in close proximity to Him, the conviction that He was the Avatar of this age who came
for a certain wonderful purpose became firmly rooted in my belief system. Now after more that
thirty years of His Presence, physical or subtle, the understanding and belief that Sai Baba is God
on earth, has become firmer, broader and more understandable.
Now let me try to give you in a few words an overall view of the day-to-day work of an Avatar in
this modern age, and the special work for the world, the way in which He will change the world
before leaving His body as Sathya Sai Baba. When I speak of His day-to-day work, please
remember that it is a seven-day week for fifty-two weeks of every year, for He never takes a
holiday. This day-to-day work of God is about the transformation of individuals. His aim is to
place the feet of every individual, who is ready, on what He calls, 'the ancient road back to God'.
There never has been any other road than this, although within it there are many laneways. He
leads the feet of the individual along whatever laneway or Yoga path that is most suitable to his
temperament. For the majority of people in this age, the most suitable Yoga pathway is that of
devotion.
This may be called the Yoga of Love. For this, Swami opens the Heart Centre of each individual
who is ready and lets the love flow out towards him as God and towards every individual in the
world at whose centre, God exists. I know this because this was my own initiation on my first
visit to the Ashram in 1966. Love is the super glue that binds us all together to God. Karma Yoga
or yoga of service to mankind is a very important part of his devotional path. So, Bhakti Yoga or
Yoga of Love, combined with Karma Yoga is the main devotional path for the majority of people
in this age.
As part of His work at the level of the individual, there is the establishment of the Super
Specialty Hospital at Prashanthi Nilayam with another one near Whitefield. There is also His
remarkable work in the educational field. As all the devotees may know, His educational
institutions range from kindergartens to colleges, and to the Institute of Higher Learning, which
has all the powers and authority of a university. To academic excellence is added the spiritual
guidance and authority of the Avatar. Years ago, when the university was first established I heard
one of the very old and learned devotees say that a boy who has spent only one year at a high
school should become a Chancellor of a university is one of Sai Baba's greatest miracles. But to
me, there are some that seem even greater, and establish Him beyond question as Almighty God
in human form. Such, for example, is His suspension of His own Laws of Nature, by making
apples and pears and other fruits grow on the branches of wild bush trees.
This divine work, among so many individuals over the face of the earth, has already brought
Rudyard Kipling's prophecy true. 'East is East, West is West and Never the Twain Shall Meet,
Till Earth and Sky Stand Presently, at God's Great Judgment Seat.' The twain is meeting East and
West are gathering at the feet of God. But, does this mean the end of the world as the poet seems
to suggest? It certainly does not mean the end of the planet, but I believe that it does mean the
end of the old world and the beginning of an entirely new one. In early days, when there were
not so many of us gathering at His feet, I have heard Him say, "The Golden Age will begin
before I leave this body." He has said it since and He has said several times that the new world
will be ushered in before He leaves His present body. He has said it in a quiet casual voice, as if
it was nothing at all. But it is in this manner that He makes all world-shattering announcements.
He did not say what year that this great change of the world would take place only that it would
be in the first two decades of this 21st century the beginning of the new millennium.
There are many, many workers on what the late Sir George Trevelyan used to call 'The Forcefield
of Light' helping the great living Avatar in His work of changing the old world into the new.
Among these many first grade assistants to Almighty God are two of those called Ascended
Masters. These two are Ascended Master Kuthumi and Ascended Master El Morya. In the book
entitled "The Light Shall Set You Free", they have made two statements of interest that I give
you here. One is 'Avatar Sai Baba is carrying the Christ Consciousness in the world today.' The
Christ Consciousness means of course the same as the Krishna Consciousness or the Divine
Consciousness in man. The other statement they make is that 'The Golden Age would begin in
2011 or 2012'. It is explained in other parts of this same book and in other spiritual books that
by the year 2011, due to the work of Sai Baba and His Helpers in the Light, a sufficient
number of human beings will have raised their consciousness to create what they call 'the
critical mass' that will bring about a quantum leap in the consciousness of all mankind to
bring us into the fifth dimension from the third dimension in which we are now. And as man's
consciousness creates the world in which he lives, the Golden Age or the new Sathya Yuga will
begin. Any stragglers will be brought up to the fifth dimensional level by Prema Sai (Sai
Baba's next incarnation). And, so it may seem, in the new century the members of the human
race, who have suffered hell itself in the last century, will find themselves back in the
metaphorical Garden of Eden talking and walking with God.
First published in "Sanathana Sarathi", November 2000
What is Truth?
When at his trial before Pontius Pilate, Jesus stated that he had come to earth to teach the truth,
Pilate replied, "What is truth?" and walked away. Apparently he did not think that this tall gentle
Jew, whom the temple priest had sent to be tried for his life as a troublemaker to the Roman rule,
would have the answer to this big question. It was really laughable to think that he would have
the answer to a question the Greek Philosophers from Socrates onward had failed to answer
satisfactorily. Well, what is the truth? Do we know it yet, 2000 years after that mocking question
was asked in Jerusalem? Did Jesus teach the truth that he claimed he had come to teach? I
believe that he did for those with ears to hear. Perhaps he did not emphasise the meaning
sufficiently, but he certainly emphasised the importance of knowing and living the truth, for he
said, "If you know the truth, the truth will set you free."
Most men and women long to know the truth about their own being who they really are and what
the purpose of their lives on earth is. Does all this struggle and endeavor end in nothing or does
some important, happy destination lie at the end of this long road, this seemingly meaningless
journey of pain and pleasure? Is there some formula for living that will lead them with
mathematical certainty to a goal that will bring them permanent satisfaction and happiness.
Many men and women have searched through the world for a wise Teacher who will give them
the answers to such questions and who will reveal the truth of being and provide the recipe for
living that will bring them the freedom and joy they seek. Well, as one of those worlds
wandering Sadhaks, I eventually found the One, Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. I knew I had
found my teacher but I did not immediately recognise him as a Godman or Avatar.
Very soon however, Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba gave me the answers to most of my main
questions; the mysteries that remain are probably beyond the level of my conscious
understanding. He told me that there was just one purpose in my life, that it was to develop and
expand my consciousness until it had become one with the Divine Consciousness of God and
thus to become one with the Divine Being that goes under many names. There is only one Being,
He told me One without a second. In the darkness of our ignorance, we think that we are separate
beings and that there are billions of others, but in truth there is only one Being. Such an illogical
statement was hard to accept against the evidence of my senses. Through the years that I spent in
the environs of His physical presence, I began to realise the truth of this astounding paradoxical
statement. Though you and I see many, touch many, hear many, communicate with many, there is
in truth, only One. If this be true, then surely we must be part of the One.
I remember one day some years ago at the ashram, I was sitting on the verandah of the Mandir,
as Swami was calling into His presence a number of boys who had just joined his elementary
school. He was standing perhaps three metres away from where I was sitting. I remember He
asked each boy two things his name and where he was from. Each of them stated his name and
address in India. Each one seemed overjoyed to be in the presence of Swami, while one little
fellow, though smaller than the rest, had the brightest smile. He gave his name readily and when
Swami said, "Where are you from?" he replied, "From You, Swami." Then the Lord Sai smiled
too. "Look," he said happily, "Here is one who knows he is from God."
This boy could not have been much more than six and here was I, in my sixties and still trying to
understand and realise that I was from God that indeed we all are. So we come from God, yet we
are still an integral part of Him the One Being; and furthermore, in our present state of human
consciousness, we are not aware of having any connection with Him; we are, in a sense, like the
prince in the story who was taken from his royal home by a band of robbers. He grew up with the
robbers and believed that he was one of them; indeed he had no idea of his royal identity not
until many years later, when a turn of circumstances brought him back to his home, did he realise
his true identity.
Must we go back to our spiritual home before we realise who we are? On the contrary, I think we
must realise our identity before we can go back. Well, if we have come from God as the little boy
stated, and with which Swami agreed, how did this happen or seem to happen?
There are three main explanations propounded by some of the great Rishis of the past who gave
commentaries on the Vedanta. The word 'Vedanta', by the way, means the end of the Vedas,
because this philosophy comes from the Upanishads, which are found at the end of each Veda.
The word 'Upanishad' means that these teachings are for those who sit close to the feet of the
Master. They are, it is implied, beyond the understanding of the ordinary man or woman. The
great sages strive to understand them but do they always succeed? Now, briefly, here are the
three explanations on how there seems to be such a diversity of life, whereas in truth there can be
only oneness or unity.
The first explanation briefly is that God through his Shakti, created a Maya or illusion in which
we see ourselves as separate, whereas in reality we are only one. This is sometimes called 'the
mortal dream'. Our everyday consciousness in its waking state is really a dream state and only
when we wake from this dream will we see the truth of oneness; this is called the Adwaita
Vedanta or in English, non-duality.
The second great theory as given in Vedanta is that we were always throughout eternity, separate
souls, though part of the one God. The best analogy I can think of for this is the fruit of the
pomegranate with its many separate seeds within the same skin, all being part of the one fruit.
We are still part of the one fruit or the one Being without a second, whom we call God. We, the
separate seeds, are not aware or have somehow forgotten who we are.
The third of the great theories is this: The one and only God created or emanated the myriad of
separate souls from within himself, they are part of his very breath, part of his essence, as the
Old Testament of the Hebrews state; and for all eternity they will remain separate from their
creator, that is, separate in form while being one with God in their spirit or essence. This
particular understanding of Vedanta seems to lie at the base of some of the world's great
religions. For some reason, known only to God Himself, separate souls in this world are born
into the great illusion believing that they are separate or asunder from God. This mistaken belief
of being asunder from the One is the original sin, or error from which all other errors emanate.
When, through the discipline of spiritual training, we come to understand and realise that though
apparently separate in form, we are, in essence and in truth, one with God and with each other,
then we come into the Kingdom of Heaven which is simply the state of Divine Love, or the
feeling of oneness with all. Sathya Sai Baba, whose teachings are in line with the main teachings
of Vedanta, together with the love he stirs in each spiritual heart, has not said, to my knowledge,
which of these three explanations is correct. Since they all teach the one God and our eternal
oneness with Him, perhaps the theories of creation are not important.
Though a great deal of joy-giving light has been thrown by the Sai teachings on such
fundamental questions as where we come from, who we really are and the purpose of our long
journey through this schoolroom of earth, it seems to me that one big question remains. That is,
why did we have to come to earth in complete forgetfulness of our unity with the Divine One, or
to look at the matter in the evolutionary way, why did we have to begin the journey in the
mineral kingdom with only a modicum of consciousness?
Why did we have to develop that consciousness through life in the plant and animal kingdoms
before reaching the human stage, and then struggle on further up the evolutionary ladder until we
reach divine consciousness? As God is Chit or Absolute Consciousness and it is taught that we,
each one of us, is wholly God, why the necessity of the long climb through aeons of time from
the modicum of consciousness in the mineral to the full consciousness of the God-realised man?
In brief, why was it, what the Masters call 'the journey of necessity', really necessary?
Perhaps this is one of the questions, which, in Paramahamsa Yogananda's terms 'will be left for
eternity', or perhaps when we have reached that adulthood of consciousness as God-realised
individuals, we will know the answer.
The esoteric Christmas
Undoubtedly the many millions of Christians throughout the world know that the 25th of
December is the traditional date for celebrating the birth of Jesus. Very few, perhaps, know that
this has not always been so. In fact, it did not become the accepted date for the Christmas festival
until nearly the middle of the fourth century A.D. In her book entitled "Esoteric Christianity", Dr
Annie Besant, who was President of the International Theosophical Society for more than a
quarter of a century, ending about 1934, quotes Williamson Gibbons, author of "The Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire" and a number of others on this interesting subject. From these I
gained the following facts, which should be of interest to all who join in the Christmas festival.
Indeed, other spiritual people who regard Christmas as belonging only to the Christians may feel
inclined to celebrate the 25th of December themselves when they know its true meaning and
implications.
Not knowing and finding it impossible to determine the actual date of the birth of Jesus,
Christians of the earliest centuries chose any date for the celebration. It is said that sects of the
Christian church chose over a hundred different dates. Dates in September or August, February,
March, June and July were chosen by groups of Christians in different countries. Perhaps this did
not matter so much but it was certainly better that all should celebrate on the same date. So in the
year 337 A.D. the head of the Christian church, Pope Julius (, residing in Rome, decided on the
25th of December as the date for all Christians to celebrate the birth of their Savior and leader
Jesus Christ. At this time, about half of the people of Asia Minor, Europe and North Africa had
become Christians, while others retained their old religions, mainly that of ancient Greece. At
about this time, or a little earlier, Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman
Empire. So it paid those in power, or seeking power, to adopt this new religion.
Now what was the reason for the choice of this date, the 25th of December, above all other
possible dates? There must surely have been a good reason and, in fact, there was. The reason
goes back through many centuries to time immemorial. It goes back, in truth, to the worship of
the sun god or the sun hero who reincarnated every year on that date. This was, of course,
connected with the rebirth of the sun in the northern hemisphere. The wise men of ancient times,
as do those of esoteric understanding, believed in the maxim, "As above so below and as below
so above". They understood that what happens below on earth is, in a sense, a shadow of more
important happenings above. As you and I, having three-dimensional bodies, cast a two-
dimensional shadow, so events in the higher spiritual world of many dimensions cast three-
dimensional shadows here on earth. We are concerned here with the rebirth of the physical sun
on the 25th of December and the parallel rebirth of the sun hero, the one bringing earthly light
and the other bringing spiritual Light.
At midnight on the 24th of December, known as the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere,
where our culture had its roots , the sun, which had been declining for six months and seemed
likely to leave the earth forever, was suddenly reborn. The reincarnating sun rose above the
eastern horizon, proceeding through the constellation of Virgo just above the horizon. So it was
that on the early morning of the 25th of December the sun was reborn through a virgin. This was
the great and wonderful event to the earth below. But, in the world above, there was a parallel, a
yet even greater event. To the wise men of the ancients and likewise to the modern esotericists, a
life-giving savior sun is the body of the spirit known as the Logos. The dictionary gives two
meanings to this word Logos, one is the Son of God and the other the Word of God. It is the Son
of God, whether he be considered a messenger or an Avatar, who brings to man the wisdom of
God in words. The newborn physical sun is at first a weak infant. He seems to struggle against
the dark, which is predominant while the nights are longer than the days, and this valiant struggle
of the youthful sun continues until he reaches the line of the spring equinox. And when he
crosses that, he is said to be crucified and rises triumphantly to ripen the corn and fruits, thus
bringing warmth and sustenance to the creatures on earth. His life-giving ascension into the
heavens continues until the summer solstice in June, and then he begins his six-monthly decline
until the next winter solstice in December.
The Logos or Godman, who descends to earth to bring the divine Light and thus save mankind
from spiritual death, has many parallels in his birth and life with his symbol, the physical sun.
For one thing, he is always and inevitably born of a virgin as the sun is born through the cosmic
virgin. The mother of the Godman may not be a virgin in the physiological sense but she is
always so in the spiritual sense. Let us think of the few whom we know, Isis of ancient Egypt
was the virgin mother of Horus, one of the Godmen light-bringers. Devaki, the mother of
Krishna was of a spiritually pure virginal nature and in some accounts of Krishna's birth his
mother, Devaki, was a physiological virgin. The Chinese account of the birth of Buddha claims
that his mother, Mayadevi, was a pure virgin. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin according
to the biblical account, while all accounts show her to be a spiritually pure woman. Those of us
who are fortunate to have known Eswaramma, the physical mother of our Avatar, Sathya Sai
Baba, know that she was pure and virginal of heart. It would seem that none of the saintly
mothers of the Godmen had any bad karma to adversely affect the bodies of those Godmen who
came to earth through their wombs.
Knowing something of the lives of the great Avatars of history, we can see more easily through
them, the continuing parallel of their lives with that of the new-born sun. They too suffered in the
early part of their lives from the threats of the spiritual darkness around them. The Avatars are
not, of course, born every year like the physical sun, but they reincarnate at the end of a cosmic
year when the spiritual light is fading and the power of darkness comes near to eliminating the
last shreds of spirituality in the hearts of men. Then in the boyhood of the young Avatar the
parallel with the sun continues. His life is still threatened by the power of darkness. We know the
threat to the baby Krishna by his wicked uncle Kamsa was there from the very beginning of his
life and continued through his childhood. We know how, when he heard of the birth of the baby
Jesus, the prince of darkness King Herod, who had heard in a prophecy that this child would be a
threat to his throne, had all the male children born about the same time in Israel slaughtered to
make sure that he had eliminated the threat to his power. But an angelic messenger had warned
the baby's parents and they took the young Jesus into Egypt where he lived until the threat to his
life was over. We know, too, how the dark forces worked through certain ignorant and misguided
villagers to kill the young Sathya Sai through poison and fire.
But is this interesting, strange parallel with the life of the sun seen also in the many sun heroes
who have come to help mankind through past ages? Annie Besant states that this is so and that
the similarity in the pattern of their lives is too great to be accounted for by a mere coincidence.
Today we do not, of course, think of a sun hero, a savior, as he was called, being born every year
at the winter solstice, as perhaps some of the ancient peoples did. Oddly, however, in a
metaphorical way we do think of him being born each Christmas. As Rudolph Steiner points out,
in some of the Christmas carols we sing 'Christ is born on earth today', 'Today the angels are
rejoicing and singing on earth as well as in the heavens'.
Perhaps in past ages many of the ancient peoples celebrated the 25th of December not because a
new sun hero was born but to rejoice in the birth of one born in past years. The Celtic peoples,
for example, used to light fires on the hills of Scotland and other countries on the 25th of
December, and the bells would ring in rejoicing and thanksgiving to Bael, one of the ancient
Light-bringers. When they became Christians, the Celts continued lighting the bonfires in honour
of the new savior and redeemer, Jesus Christ. How appropriate it was that the Christian leaders in
Rome in the year 337 A.D. chose this date to celebrate the birth of Jesus! Whenever he was
actually born, was he not the great and recent bringer of the spiritual Light and therefore the
Savior and redeemer of mankind?
Another of the ancient light-bringers, or sun heroes, was Dionysius of ancient Greece, renamed
Bacchus by the Romans. In Rome itself, it seemed very useful and appropriate that on this day
any ritual celebration by the Christians would hardly be noticed and attacked by the non-
Christian Romans who were busy noisily celebrating the birth of Bacchus who, as well as being
a sun god, was also the god of the grapevine. A good deal of noisy celebration and drinking
seemed called for. Also sports and games were part of the Roman celebrations of the birthday of
Bacchus. Altogether it was safe for the Christians to hold their quiet spiritual rejoicings on this
day. Christians were not altogether safe from violence even at that period in the first half of the
fourth century A.D.
So the Christmas rejoicings and celebrations go back into the dawn of time. We can hear the bells
ringing out through the many centuries, giving it a greater dimension. As well as this greater
dimension in length, the concept of Christmas gains also a greater width. It embraces not only
the birth of Jesus but of all other bringers of spiritual Light. We can include all of them, Rama,
Krishna, Buddha, Sai Baba in both of his births and others we know and appreciate, in our
prayers of thanksgiving and our songs of joy on that special day of the year, the 25th of
December, honored and sanctified through so many generations of our forefathers and perhaps
by ourselves in former incarnations. We do not need to belong to a Christian church. We do not
even need to think of ourselves as Christians in order to open our hearts and minds in unity with
all our brothers and sisters on the earth and of all time and feel our oneness with the one and only
God, who has periodically paid his special compassionate appearances on earth in the many
forms and under the many names we know and of so many more that we do not know. Sai Baba
teaches us this by holding Christmas celebrations at Prashanthi Nilayam each year. And though I
have spent Christmas in many lands among many peoples, those held at Prashanthi Nilayam are
the most spiritual and meaningful that I have ever experienced. Thinking of Christmas in this
esoteric way helps us to feel in our spiritual hearts the unity, the love in all religions, as Swami
teaches us to understand and accept.
Wensley gains more than a cure
Wensley Roth lives in New South Wales near the Queensland border with her husband and
children. It was while I was in that area in the early 1990's that she told me an interesting story.
That is nearly a decade ago now but I have not told her story in an earlier book because
something seemed to stop me. The reader will realise by the end of the chapter the reason why I
had an inner prompting to wait. She not only told me her story verbally but wrote it for me in all
details.
It was in October of the year 1990 that she noticed a swelling on the right side of her neck. This
she was told was an enlarged lymph node. In the following month a number of lymph nodes
were removed from her right armpit and from the shoulder. Her medical specialist informed her
that she was suffering from a disease known as non-Hodgkins lymphoma. This disease, he told
her, was treatable but could not be cured - it always comes back. Wensley remarked, "I would
like to be the exception to that rule."
During the early months of the next year, that is 1991, she heard about Ian Gawler's clinic for
people suffering from cancer and in March that year she paid two five day visits to his centre. I
would like to introduce Ian Gawler here because I knew him personally some years before. He
was suffering from a serious bone cancer and had several months' treatment from a number of
psychic healers in the Philippines. Then he was advised to go to India to Sathya Sai Baba to
complete the cure. He did so and Swami assured him that he was cured. Ian felt complete faith in
this and, after gaining some strength, returned to his practice as a Veterinary Surgeon in Victoria.
Then he had the idea to open a clinic in which he could help patients suffering from cancer. So it
was interesting for me to learn how Wensley fared in Ian Gawler's clinic. Briefly she told me that
it had been well worthwhile and she gained a number of benefits from her time there. For one
thing she was taught some very useful techniques in meditation and visualisation. A woman she
met at the clinic showed her a photograph of Sathya Sai Baba and gave her some of the Vibuthi
he had manifested. Furthermore, it seems to have been through this woman that she obtained a
copy of Dr Sam Sandweiss's book The Holy Man and the Psychiatrist. One day while she was
resting with her eyes closed she became aware of a man standing before her with a great deal of
compassion in his eyes. He had a peculiar headgear, which seemed to be a cloth tied over his
head. When she opened her eyes the vision faded away. She told her friend about the vision who
wondered if it could have been Sai Baba. Later when she saw a photograph of Shirdi Sai Baba
she recognised the man in her vision. She began to feel a longing to go personally to Sai Baba,
whom she somehow felt was her Sadguru in this life, yet he seemed so remote, so far away in
India that she felt reluctant to go to him at this time.
The benefits she gained at this time at the Gawler Institute are too numerous to mention here.
One, however, is that Ian Gawler taught her a number of affirmations which she used and felt
were very helpful in fighting the disease. One was, 'At last I can be my true self' and another, 'I
have much to achieve in this incarnation' and a third, 'My spiritual evolvement is number one
priority in my life.' On returning home towards the end of April in that same year, she found that
the tumour or swelling on her neck was only half the size it had been eight weeks earlier when
she went to Ian Gawler's clinic. Her oncologist was pleased and told her to keep it up, whatever
it was that she was doing. So she kept to a strictly vegetarian diet with fruit juices and mineral
and vitamin supplements. She also continued the meditation and visualisation that she had
learned at the Gawler Institute. She did this twice daily for a period of half an hour to one hour
each session. Often her meditation would be the white light meditation that Ian Gawler had
taught her. "I would visualise the light as coming from Baba," she said, and sometimes his form
as Sathya Sai would appear to her while she was meditating on the light. And sometimes,
surprisingly to her, she would hear the word Jesus pronounced strongly and clearly by an inner
voice when the form of Swami appeared. "I did not understand this at first," she said, "But later
wondered if Jesus was the one who sent Swami or did it mean that Swami was the Father who
sent Jesus?"
Wensley continues her story: "While at the Gawler Institute I learned that disease comes about
when the divine energy that is constantly flowing through the body is blocked at some point and
for some reason. Then at the point of the blockage of the sustaining energy, probably the one
called prana, a lump is formed. So I tried to visualise the divine energy again flowing through my
body, propelled by Sai Baba or by Jesus, so that the lump would be removed.
A few weeks later, tests showed that the lump in my neck had been reduced to the size of a pea
and my Oncologist remarked that this size was normal in many people. A week later I could not
feel anything at all where the lump had been. And this was only about six months after the
original diagnosis.
About a week after this very encouraging development, I was driving my car along a road when I
saw a notice above the entrance to a ground, saying "Sathya Sai Camp." Although I was not
familiar with the name Sathya, the word Sai arrested my attention. There were some people
under the sign at the entrance, so I made some enquiries. The two I spoke to were Arthur and
Poppy Hillcoat, who became my friends later. They confirmed that it was a Sathya Sai Baba
camp and kindly invited me to join the camp. I felt very happy about their invitation and told
them that I would attend the next day. This was a wonderful day for me being among a crowd of
Sai devotees, hearing Bhajans sung for the first time and enjoying a talk by Arthur Hillcoat.
Arthur and Poppy kindly gave me a beautiful photo of Sathya Sai Baba sitting in a cross-legged
position. They also gave me two of your books, Howard, Sai Baba Man of Miracles and Sai
Baba Avatar. It was by a photo in one of them that I was able to confirm that the one who came
in my vision while I was at the Gawler Institute, was Shirdi Sai Baba.
It was in October of that same year that I had my first dream of Sathya Sai Baba. He was looking
straight at me and was surrounded by an aura of pink light. Then he extended his aura to envelop
me. (Later Wensley, no doubt, would have learned that the pink colour is the aura of love.) It was
in December of that same year that my oncologist could not find any trace of my recent disease.
So I thought with joy that I was cured. He remarked that he wished all of his patients would
manage their diseases like I did. My joy at being cured was deflated when I heard my oncologist
telling my general practitioner that I was in remission. I recalled that he told me earlier that this
was a disease that could not be cured but would go into remission and then come back.
I continued reading regularly the books about Sai Baba and enjoyed many dreams and visions of
him. Consequently my love for him grew more and more and I felt certain that he was the
Sadguru I had hoped to find. So I decided that my search was over and I must as soon as possible
visit him in India.
In the early months of the following year, which was 1992, I intensified my meditation both on
Sai Baba's teachings and on his present form. While I was doing this I was surprised to hear the
name Jesus pronounced several times and I felt certain there must be some connection between
Sathya Sai Baba and Jesus. I longed to know what the connection was. Was it, I wondered, that
Sai Baba was a reincarnation of Jesus or did it mean that Sai Baba was the Father God who sent
Jesus? Then I was given a vision. In this Jesus was standing before me, dressed in a long white
gown. He held his arms before him to make the sign of the cross. Next I saw Sathya Sai Baba in
the cross-legged position in which I saw him in the photograph, floating towards the figure of
Jesus. Then the words came to my ears or inner ear, "Sai Baba crucified." The words sent a shot
of sadness and compassion through my heart at the thought that Sai Baba too had suffered the
pains of the crucifixion. But how could this happen? It must mean, surely, that the two were one,
one in the Christ consciousness and the cosmic consciousness.
There was another thing in that vision. When Swami was quite close to Jesus, I heard the latter
say, "Sai Baba is the Lord." When I thought about these words, I decided that it meant that Sai
Baba was the Avatar carrying the divine consciousness in the world today.
One day during the Easter of 1992, I was feeling rather low in spirits so I put an extra large pinch
of Vibuthi into a glass of water, drank it and lay down to rest. Later as I was waking from a sleep,
I heard a voice saying, "Divine intervention." Then a few minutes later, as I was looking into the
glass from which I had taken the Vibuthi water, I saw two images, one of Swami and one of
Jesus.
The fruit of my many visions and dreams was my first visit to Sathya Sai Baba at his ashram in
India, that is, his main ashram known as Prashanthi Nilayam. This took place in November 1992.
On the day after my arrival I was granted an interview. I shall never forget the exultation and
gratitude I felt when I heard Swami say to me, "Your cancer has been cured." So I felt this was
not just a remission but, by His Grace, a cure.
Sometime later I had a dream, a very vivid dream, in which a lady who was Indian but dressed in
western clothes, appeared and said to me with a smile, "The object of your disease was to bring
you to Sai Baba." How blessed I am that He whom Jesus called the Lord has revealed His
divinity to me in so many ways and in His mercy, turned the remission into a cure. I am humbled
to be the recipient of so much of His Grace. Now when I wake up each morning to the glory of
the sunrise, I feel happy to be in a new day in which I can love God. My latest dream message
was that just as the Mother-Father-Siva-Shakti God loves me, so I must strive to mirror that love
to Him and to all mankind on planet Earth. This will be an expression of the Divine One within
me. Thank you beloved Swami."
Note by author: It is almost a decade now since Wensley gave me her story and while I was
writing this chapter in October, 2000, I tried to make contact with her through friends in
Queensland, but nobody seemed able to trace her. So, sadly I began to think that perhaps, after
all, the killing disease had returned and carried her off as the same non-Hodgkins lymphoma did
to my wife. Then, joy of joys, I had a phone call from 'the pink twins' in Brisbane, telling me that
Wensley had walked into a Sai Baba function carrying a bunch of beautiful flowers and smiling
like a picture of radiant health. They told her that I would like to hear from her and she phoned
me the next day. Now I can happily conclude this chapter by saying that Wensley's hope to be the
exception to the rule came true. The so-called remission was a cure, as Swami told her, on her
first visit to him.
Easter and the dharmic life
One day, a little over half a century ago, I was sitting in a coffee house in the wonderful city of
Old Jerusalem. The table where I sat looked through the open front onto a cobbled street. This
was the street I had come to see and to walk along. Its name was the Via Dolorosa, which means
the Way of Sorrow. This is the street along which Jesus of Nazareth walked carrying his heavy
cross on that first Good Friday some two Millennia ago. His back was covered with blood from
the metal tipped whips with which he had been scourged and there was blood on his face from
the crown of thorns that had been forced into his scalp. Though a man of strong build, he had
been greatly weakened from the torture he had suffered at the hands of the Roman soldiers and
his cross was heavy. Story tells that he fell over at least once during his journey up the hill to the
place called Calvary or Golgotha. Having reached that summit, he was nailed to the cross he had
carried and remained there suffering until the sun set on that first Good Friday. Then, as bodies
were not permitted to remain on a cross on the Jewish Sabbath, which was the Saturday, Jesus
the Christ was killed by a spearthrust by the Roman legionnaire named Longinus. The corpse
was taken down and his great uncle Joseph of Arimathea and his friend, another devotee of Jesus,
named Nicodemus, carried Jesus. They put the corpse in the private tomb in the garden of
Joseph's house in Jerusalem. Then a large stone was rolled in front of the tomb, closing it off.
Finally a squad of soldiers from the Temple troops was placed on guard at the entrance of the
tomb.
All was quiet throughout the Saturday, the Sabbath, but early Sunday morning brought the
beginnings of the final act of this world drama, out of which a great religion was born. Somehow
the stone had been rolled back and the tomb was empty. Nobody was there. A little later in the
day, Jesus walked through a closed door into a room where some of his disciples had gathered.
His physical body had been transmuted into a subtle body which some have called a spiritual
body, a body of glory and a body of light. This is a phenomenon that Swami has demonstrated
many times. That is, he travels through walls or closed doors in his subtle body and when
necessary lowers its vibration to create a solid body that can be felt by human hands and can be
seen by normal human eyesight. Some days later, after communicating with his disciples and
others, this body of Glory, this body of Light, ascended to the highest spiritual realm as Lord
Rama and others has done.
What, if anything is the significance of this Easter story to you and to me? "Jesus died on the
cross and was resurrected to save all mankind," write the Christian theologians. "But," preach the
Christian evangelists; "To be saved you must believe in Him, in Jesus." I want to take you, if you
have not gone there already, a step deeper into this great, important question. In fact, Swami has
already shown us that step if we can take it. He teaches us that we are all one and I feel that most
of us accept that, even though we may not have experienced it. But if we ordinary humans are all
one beneath the surface, then surely Godmen are also all one and they are aware of it. Swami has
shown himself in the forms of Rama and Krishna and Dattatreya and Jesus. All physical forms
are but the clothing of one Godman, one Avatar of God. Swami has indicated, not only by taking
the form, but in other ways, that he and Jesus are one. Once on the Christmas day platform at
Prashanthi Nilayam, I said a few words about the several different names Jesus had been known
by when he was on earth and afterwards. One of these was Isa, which he was called in India and
the Middle East. Swami opened his own discourse by saying the true name of Jesus was Isa the
letters of that name also make the word Sai. Isa and Sai are one. So the Godman who can save us
from our iniquities and lead to the goal does not have to be named Jesus or Isa. Today his name
is Sai and by his loving grace, his infinite mercy, he is leading us on to our spiritual home. But
why, you may ask, did the all-loving Godman in the body named Jesus or Isa has to suffer the
Via Dolorosa and the Crucifixion?
Long before the time of Jesus, in the temples of ancient Egypt, men went through the ritual of
crucifixion as an initiation to the highest. But why did one have to go through it in agonising
actuality on the human stage? Was it simply that a great spiritual Light should come into the dark
world of the west under the Roman Empire? It was that and more than that. Spiritual masters
such as Rudolf Steiner have given interesting esoteric reasons why the Crucifixion of Jesus is for
the benefit of all humanity, but here I would like to give only the explanation given by our own
great Master, who, as I said earlier, went through it all himself in an earlier body. And why do I
say that you and I are today treading the Via Dolorosa, treading it voluntarily as the Godman did
two thousand years ago? We have come through a certain doorway in consciousness from the
ordinary self-consciousness of mankind to a level where we have become aware of the purpose
of our lives and where we are going. We know that our destination is union with God. We know
that we are treading the path to our spiritual home. We have discovered, too, beyond all doubt
that we are two people. Each of us is at least two people, one the obvious self-assertive one who
makes a great deal of noise on the stage of life, what Swami calls the personal ego. We have
inherited this from a long way back when we were parts of the animal consciousness. This was
necessary for that phase of life but now, with our feet on the spiritual path, we realise that this
ego who dominates our lives is really an anachronism. He is an anachronism and an impostor
who belongs to a past time. He has no place in eternity. But the other Self does belong to eternity.
He has been buried away in the dungeons of falsehood and maya, in the darkness of our
ignorance for so long that we seldom hear his voice. And when we do, we call it 'conscience'. It
is, in truth, the voice of God and is therefore the root of all consciousness. We now know that the
ego self has to be eliminated in order that the God Self can take command and guide us into that
spiritual harbour which is our destination. But it is not an easy struggle while our feet are on this
slippery and narrow path. Some have named it the razor's edge. Jesus himself said that it was a
way that was strait and narrow. I am calling it the Via Dolorosa.
Swami has said that pleasure is just an interval between two sorrows and here we know the
purpose and meaning of sorrow, hardship and adversity. We know their meaning and their value
in helping our faltering footsteps up the slippery, rough, cobbled road to Calvary. We know that
we must strive here to live the dharmic or sacred life that will take us in the shortest possible
time to the cross on the hill and what lies beyond it. Swami makes a cross with his two
forefingers and states that the cross stands for the final death of the personal ego. When this false
ego is finally annihilated from the body, which is its tomb, there will arise that glorious eternal
spiritual Being which is our true Self. And this, as the Godman Jesus illustrated, will be able to
communicate with and inspire his brother men who are still on the human path, to arise and
become part of the one God.
So this great drama of Easter is important to every one of us because it illustrates what every
human being must go through before he comes to his glory. It is our model. It seems to me that
we must strive with all the divine will that is in each of us to live the life of dharma, the special
sacred life, as we strive with brave hearts and divine understanding towards the cross of final
victory that stands on the hill. We all know and we are all striving to practice those five divinely
human values, those five bright beacons that our Lord has given us to keep our feet on the
slippery way. I just want to say here that it behoves us to delve as deeply as possible into their
meaning.
Take, for example, the first one, Sathya or Truth. It was Jesus who said, "Know the truth and the
truth will set you free." What is this truth that will set us free from our bondage? For me it is the
fundamental truth of oneness. If we can reach within the glittering lights of diversity and take
hold of this truth of oneness and strive to live it, then we are well on the way to freedom.
The last of the five beacons is Ahimsa or Non-violence. That seems fairly straightforward, but is
it? One of our greatest Godman leaders, Lord Krishna, encouraged the violent destruction of a
large part of the Kshetria caste in order to rid the world of a group that had grown evil beyond
redemption. He was cutting down the diseased tree, as Swami says. But Krishna encouraged the
right understanding and the right attitude when necessary violence must be carried out. We know
that life must be destroyed in order for man to eat and to live. When our hands are doing violent
acts, from the chopping up of spinach, through the cutting down of a tree, to the slaying of men
in battle, we must do it with love and reverence, without any violent feeling towards the form of
life that we needs must destroy for a greater good. For all forms of life from a blade of grass to
the greatest sage are parts of God. I feel it would be true to say that the more we can follow the
life of dharma, the more we can weaken our false ego as we try to tread the narrow path, less
painful will be the final crucifixion of the ego.
Here we have the key to true Shanthi. While our feet and hands are playing their part in the tug
of war between good and evil, let our minds be in the eternal, the infinite. A line from an old
prayer says, "There is a power that maketh all things new. It lives and moves in those who know
the Self as one."
May that power grow in us all as we struggle up the Via Dolorosa with the great vision of
oneness before us.
(This is a slightly condensed version of the talk the writer gave at the Australian Sai Conference
held in Mittagong, NSW in 1997)
Sai Avatar and mysticism
I would like here to draw an interesting comparison between the teachings and missions of Sai
Baba Avatar, who walks the earth today and those of Mysticism. Mysticism began as a powerful
spiritual movement about one millennium ago affecting all the monotheistic religions. Whatever
the founders of these religions may have taught, the ordinary members of Church, Synagogue,
Mosque and Temple worship a God 'out there' somewhere, somewhere beyond the bright blue
sky. The Mystics however, arising from the membership of the various religions found a God
within themselves, deep within, seeming closer to them than breathing, nearer than hands and
feet.
It may be that the fathers of the Mystic movement in each religion had an intuitive sense of the
inward divinity; or it may be that the movement was born with those who had meditated deeply
and discovered the inner presence. In any case, the movement grew in some religions rapidly, in
some slowly. In most of the religions it was not welcomed, in some it was condemned as
blasphemy to bring the austere, judgmental God from his pure throne far beyond the earth, into
the intimacy of one's personal body, into the body of sin, as thought many. This was not
acceptable to a large number of the orthodox religionists, yet in spite of this opposition, the
Mystical movement grew apace and eventually had a good influence on each of the monotheistic
religions.
For some reason, it grew most strongly and rapidly in the Muslim religion and a good proportion
of the followers of Allah became Mystics or Sufis as they were called. In the Jewish religion
also, Mysticism was, and is, a strong movement; it is known as the Cabala. It had no particular
name in the Christian religion but those individuals who followed the mystical path of close
inner union with God were often called Saints. Some who responded to the divine voice within
themselves, such as Joan of Arc, were martyred and then later canonised as Saints.
There was, moreover, a vast difference between the God of the ordinary religionist as taught in
the religious institutions and the inner God of Mysticism. The former was a judgmental God
giving the heavenly rewards to those who kept his Commandments; and terrible punishments,
often everlasting, to those who disobeyed his laws; whereas the inner God of the Mystics seems
to have been a close and loving friend, leading his human children along the pathways of love
and deep understanding back to their spiritual home. It seems strange that a greater proportion of
people is not attracted to the intimate God of the Mystics away from the judgmental tyrant
resident in the remote skies. Perhaps it is because it is not easy for most people to find the inner
divinity, maybe many more would, if they were given leadership.
When, in my student days, I was researching all the churches of every denomination to find the
one that appealed to me most, I heard no mention from the pulpit of the God who resides within
the heart of man. Indeed, I had to live through many decades and travel through many countries
before I met the One who revealed to me the great secret, which is the secret of life itself and is
so simple that it should be made known to every child.
The time was the mid sixties of last century. The place was a small garden at Brindavan, near
Whitefield. I was strolling in that garden with a few men of varying ages; we were waiting for
Sri Sathya Sai Baba to appear through a doorway. When he did appear, one who must have been
the youngest among us, accosted him with the pointed and important question, "Are you God?"
It was then that we received from the divine lips of Swami, the great revelation. Perhaps it was
the matter-of-fact tone of the stupendous statements that made me accept them immediately
without question. He told us that we were all Gods, we were, indeed, Avatars of God, having
brought God to earth within us, each one of us, when we were born, but we had forgotten this
great truth long, long ago. The purpose of our lifetimes on earth, he said, was in order to
remember the great truth of our own divinity. It took many lifetimes to re-discover and
experience this one great truth of our identity. To help mankind in this task, Avatars with full
memory of their divine identity come to earth from time to time. He, himself was one of those;
he had known it from his early childhood in the remote village of Puttaparthi. "God is
everywhere," he said, "But the easiest place to find Him is within yourself."
At later times through the years I spent with him, he frequently reminded me in many different
ways of that God within, who is our true identity. Once he said, "My job as your Guru is to lead
you to your inner Guru." Then many years later he said, "I have brought you to your inner Guru
or God and there is no spiritual reason why you have to come to me again." Then he added as an
afterthought, "But in a human way I always like to see you, of course." So here was Sathya Sai
Baba revealing to me, very soon after I had come to him, the reality of the inner God discovered
by the Mystics through inner search, but never mentioned in Sunday school or Church. Surely
every child should be told this magnificent truth about itself.
So it is that I see Sai Avatar as a super Mystic and I ask myself what is the difference between an
Avatar and a Mystic are their teachings different or the same? Is their mission on earth different
or the same? Considering their earthly mission first, I see that of the Avatar today, as of all
former Avatars, to be vaster, more expansive than that of a Mystic. Sai Baba, Sai Avatar, has the
charisma necessary to attract huge crowds from all parts of the world and the teachings to change
the consciousness of millions. He has said that he is the Avatar of the masses, whereas one such
as Aurobindo is the Avatar of individuals. Unlike Aurobindo, Sai Baba's teachings are put in
simple language that does not require a philosophical bent of mind to appreciate and understand.
To all people of deep spiritual perception, the signs in the world today are not those of doom and
destruction as might appear on the surface, but of a great change. A change that could be
described as the death of the old world, or of the old world order and the birth of something that
is entirely new, stupendous, wonderful, in fact what has been termed the Golden Age. The
present Avatar has said, and I have often heard him say it, that the Golden Age will be born
before he leaves his present body in the year 2021. In support of this, two of the leading
ascended Masters have predicted that this new age will begin in a little over a decade from now,
from this time of writing; it is now early in the year 2001. Other great workers in what Sir
George Trevelyan called the 'Force field of Light' are working for this new age and know that it
is not far distant.
No Mystic, be he Christian, Sufi, or Jewish, ever came to the world with such a mighty mission
as this. The Mystic's aim, in whatever century he was born, was to teach as many people and
change the lives of as many people as he could in his lifetime. But he thinks in terms of
individuals, or perhaps hundreds, and eventually maybe thousands of individuals, but his mission
is not to raise in a few decades, the level of the consciousness of the whole of mankind.
One of them whom I feel to be among the greatest, that is, Rumi of the Sufi order of Mysticism
must have brought many to the light through the Dervish Dancing he started in Turkey, through
his poetic teaching and his great influence on the world of art, but his ambitions fell far short of
bringing a quantum leap upward to the world consciousness. So, while the Avataric mission and
that of the Mystics is different, their teachings in general are much the same. The differences are
few, mostly a matter of degree and can be related to their missions.
While I have through the years read something of the writings of the Mystics, particularly of the
Sufis, and some of the Christian Saints, the one I have studied more thoroughly is a modern
Christian Mystic named Joel Goldsmith. Although he would be classed as a Christian Mystic
because the Master he followed was Jesus the Christ, he was Jewish by birth and lived in our
modern age from approximately 1890 to 1964. To what might appear to be a coincidence, though
I believe when on the spiritual path, there is no such thing as a coincidence, most of his books
and a large quantity of his audio teaching tapes, suddenly became available to Sai friends of
mine. Together we studied his books and his tapes. The most remarkable thing about them is the
way they fit into the Avataric teachings. Put in different words and language, style, they make an
excellent supplement to what Swami has taught about the relationship of man and God and,
while giving a different reason for the great illusion of separateness, teach the truths of Adwaita
or the essential oneness of all mankind beneath the veil of illusion. The only difference in the
teachings of the Mystic and the Avatar that I have noted is in the matter of prayer or man's verbal
communications with God.
The Mystic, Goldsmith, follows closely his understanding of the teachings of Jesus in the New
Testament, which says such things as, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness
and all the rest will be added unto you." His Master, Jesus, also says in other places that the
Kingdom of God is within you and that God himself is within you and in prayer we should ask,
he says, for further understanding and enlightenment and for help in living the Spiritual life of
compassion, forgiveness and so on. If we do that, Joel Goldsmith points out, there is no need to
ask God for any material advantages, such as a better job, a higher salary or anything else of a
worldly nature, because God has said through Jesus, that all such things will be given to you if
you concentrate on using prayer for the advancement of your spiritual evolution. Sai Baba, on
the other hand, encourages his devotees to ask for whatever they want, whether it is material or
spiritual. He says that he will give people what they want if it will not bring them any harm, in
order that they will, in time, ask for the things he wants to give them. Those things are of course
the spiritual treasures. So Sai devotees happily petition God for material things that will help
them in their daily living. Many even ask for simple things like a parking place for the car and
believe that Swami helps them.
Perhaps this wider latitude granted by Sai Baba is that he calls people to him at an earlier stage in
their spiritual development, earlier in their spiritual journey homeward, than those who would be
attracted to the Goldsmith teachings. People have to be ready, Swami says, before he calls them
unto him, but they are ready at an earlier stage than they would be for the Mystic's teachings.
And so, they have analogically, the easier kindergarten or primary school privileges.
Furthermore, by giving them the material trinkets they love, he establishes more firmly, their
love for the living Avatar, placing their feet more firmly on the spiritual path. Interestingly I
discovered, when much later he told me that he was now in my heart and visits to him physically
were no longer necessary, that the material things such as rings and watches and the many other
trinkets, do work as a kind of talisman in helping to bring the student to his inner God.
In speaking about the Vedic chant, the Gayathri, I have heard Swami praise it because it contains
only one petitional prayer and that is the request for spiritual Light. As our footsteps advance
along the pathway home, our petitions to God will automatically become spiritual requests and
not those of a worldly nature.
The other types of communication between man and God, those we generally call meditation or
contemplation, Joel Goldsmith teaches that they should be carried out at least twice a day for a
period of a quarter of an hour or more each time, and then throughout the day whenever possible,
if it be only for a minute or more. This, in a sense, is like the 'receiving' practice in Subud, by the
Master, Pak Subuh, who said that we should endeavor to receive the spirit and grace of God
while we are occupied in our daily task, particularly when cooking or preparing food. Those
eating the food, he said, would taste such divine blessings.
Joel, like Swami, gave specific instructions in different forms of meditation and said that each
student would, in time, discover the best form and the most fruitful technique suitable to himself.
These teachings are really no different in essence from those of Sai Avatar, except that the latter
perhaps adapts the instructions for the type, manner and periods of meditation to the needs of the
individual, but he does encourage all of his devotees to interweave in their daily lives,
communications with God such as repetition of the divine name, quiet moments of meditation
and sweet loving interchanges with the divinity. Whatever can be fitted into the necessary
worldly tasks of one's life helps to increase the strength of one's divine life along the pathway
home.
It is interesting to note that the modern American Mystic gives as much emphasis to love or
prema in the development of the divine life as does Sai Avatar. Joel is sterner than Swami in
condemnation of human love as being too tainted with selfishness or the element of self-interest,
to equal the selfless purity of divine love. Man must be satisfied with nothing less than the
attainment of this pure, selfless love. Swami, while saying the same thing in principle, is a little
more tolerant and understanding towards certain kinds of human love. Mother love, or more
correctly, parental love, is closest to the pure love of God and in some cases where a parent is
prepared to give his own life to save that of the child, love reaches its highest level. As Swami
said when he was on earth as Jesus the Christ, "No greater love has no man than this, that he lay
down his life for his friend." And there have been examples among world explorers, among
warriors on the battlefields, and among members of families, of those whose love has been so
great that they have willingly given their lives to save that of others. Here, the greatest of all
human values reaches its zenith in the pure Divine Prema.
It is, indeed, heartwarming to know through study and experience that the Mystics of the world
both present and past are supporting the stupendous mission of the world Avatar, if in a humbler
and relatively modest way.
I would like to conclude this chapter by stating that I personally have found great joy in the
realisation that Mysticism is giving its unqualified support to the work of Sai Avatar, as we
workers on the divinely human path must strive to do.
Sai miracle children
A completely new and fascinating phase of Swami's work for mankind has been launched. He is
bringing to birth in different parts of the world, what I have termed 'Sai miracle children'. He is
reported to have told a Sai devotee who has spent a long period with Swami at the ashram in
India that there will be thirteen of these children and I understand that there are five of them in
incarnation already. One of the five is in Holland, another in India, two of them in countries that
I am not certain of and a fifth one in Australia. Of the latter, I am quite certain, as I have spoken
to his mother and had reports from several of my close friends who have been to visit him and I
have a photograph of the little boy himself.
The story of his birth, which was related to me by his mother and the account of his subsequent
miraculous manifestations are of such an outstanding nature that they would perhaps sound
incredible to any but Sai devotees of long-experience and deep understanding, yet there are many
unimpeachable witnesses to them. First then, the birth. When she was six and a half months
pregnant, and certainly not expecting the birth of the child, she was having a meal one day in a
well-known restaurant with her husband and possibly some friends. She told me that during the
meal, she suddenly had a vision of a group of monkeys standing in front of her making excited
noises, while the one who appeared to be leader came close and was talking to her in some
language that she did not understand. She could make nothing of this vision of excited monkeys.
Although a Sai devotee, I expect she had not read about Lord Rama and his army of monkeys led
by the great devotee, Hanuman but to me it seems that the child in the mother's womb has some
close connection with Lord Rama. At any rate, on the following day, the mother was rushed to
the hospital, as the birth of the child was imminent. She told me that while she was getting
undressed to go to bed in the hospital, she saw Vibhuthi oozing from her body, particularly
around the stomach area. Immediately she felt it must have a connection with the child she was
carrying. She did not feel that she, herself, was worthy of such a manifestation, so the child
within her must be very holy indeed. She felt some worry however, that he was arriving so
prematurely. He arrived that day and was very small indeed, weighing only a kilo and a half. He
was put into a crib and at this particular hospital it was customary to write the religion of the
child just born, on a label to be put on the crib, in order that ministers of religion visiting the
newborn babies could give their blessings to any child born into their religious flock. This
mother and her husband were close followers of Sai Baba, so on the label for religion, she wrote
'Sai Baba'. She was somewhat surprised and very pleased that all the religious leaders who
visited the hospital that day, including a Buddhist priest and several from Christian
denominations, as well as giving their blessings to the newborn children of their own religious
denominations, all came and blessed the little boy under the label 'Sai Baba'. On this first day of
his life, something else surprised her when, going to look at him lying in the crib, she saw a gold
cross lying on his forehead. It had just appeared there as he lay asleep so she took it off and hung
it around his neck.
Although so tiny at birth, the little boy was perfectly healthy and grew quickly to normal size.
East and west met in the two parents. The beautiful and spiritually advanced mother was
Singhalese, from Sri Lanka, while the tall, handsome father came from Greece. They named their
Sai miracle son, Alexander Saisha. He is generally called Alex. I know, as I have a photograph of
Alex, taken when he was between two and three years old that he is a very handsome little boy
indeed.
The account of the miracles that flow from him was given to me partly by his mother and
completed by my close friends who have visited him. I think the Vibhuthi must have been
manifesting on his skin while he was still a baby-in-arms. I know the Vibhuthi appearing on his
face and head could not have been such a nuisance to him as it was to the little Vibhuthi baby-in-
arms that the Indian parents brought to Swami over twenty years ago. I saw it appearing
immediately after the mother had wiped it off him, she, and the baby's father had brought him to
Prashanthi Nilayam to beg Swami to make the manifestation of Vibhuthi less frequent. I write
about it in my book entitled Sai Baba Avatar. I would say that little Alex of Australia is not a
fallen Yogi reborn, as Swami said the little Indian child was. Alexander Saisha is one of the
group being sponsored into incarnation by Sai Baba for a particular purpose of which I will say
something later on.
Sometime after the manifestation of Vibhuthi on his skin, Amrita began to flow at about the third
eye area. This is sometimes called 'the nectar of the Gods'. Then a healing oil bearing a
wonderful perfume, started to flow from the crown of his head. This oil, of which I have been
given a little myself, is reported to have cured cases of cancer. Of course, neither the Amrita nor
the oil are flowing constantly, which would be too much for the child to bear. They flow
intermittently, sufficient for quantities of each to be kept in bowls by the parents, for gifts to
some of the lucky visitors. I, myself, have also received a little of the Vibhuthi and can say that
it's taste is not like any other Vibhuthi I have ever had. It is sweet with some indefinable pleasant
flavor.
Another outstanding phenomenon manifested by this little Australian boy who is not yet quite
three years old, is the production of Shiva lingams. They do not come up from within his interior
or by the wave of his hand, as do those of Sai Baba, but simply appear in the palm of his little
hand as he lies asleep in his bed. He may be either asleep or awake when they appear but they
are of remarkable size, some larger than a duck egg, his mother tells me and they are all made of
beautiful crystal of glorious colors. Swami, himself, who is frequently in the house tells the
mother to whom these sacred symbols of Lord Shiva should be given. It is really a great honour
to receive one.
Another remarkable production recently begun by the little miracle boy is items of jewellery.
Although a few of these have been medallions, the great majority have been rings golden rings.
Between thirty and forty of these have come from Alex up to this time of writing that is May
2001. Some of the rings have borne precious stones, and all appear of first class quality, "The
kind you would find in the best jeweler’s shops," remarked an observer friend of mine. The rings
may appear in his little hand partly buried in Vibhuthi, or they may be lying beside the sleeping
child. Rose petals are often found, strewn by some unseen power, on each side of the little sacred
form. Sometimes, the shining gold rings are found among the rose petals. Who receives these
beautiful and valuable rings? Once or twice the little boy himself has handed a ring to some lady
among the daily visitors, but generally I understand, the oft-present Lord Sai in subtle form tells
the mother for whom each of these rings is intended. Some of the ladies, who receive the
jewellery, are overwhelmed at the receipt of such a precious gift. The reader may well guess that
this little Australian member of Swami's miracle team receives plenty of visitors. The fact is, that
although no publicity, bar that of word of mouth, has ever been given, people from all over
Australia and many from abroad come daily to see him. The house where he lives is a small one
and only thirty people at a time can sit comfortably there. The generous hard-working mother
books people who apply by phone, allowing for thirty each day, six days of the week. Sunday is
a rest day. Applications have been on such a scale that she is always booked out for some nine
months ahead. They certainly cannot cope with more than this number and that is why the
parents have asked me not to give any indication of the location of the little boy and his unnamed
parents in this chapter.
These young parents are not rich, just the reverse in fact, yet they give food as Prasadam to all
the daily visitors. My Carer, Sita Iyer, along with two good friends of mine, had the blessing and
the great joy of visiting the home recently on a day when mainly friends of the family were
present. They described the food served as, "More like a banquet". In the main, the mother cooks
the meal herself with some help from a member of her family. One of my friends heard the
mother say, "I cook for Swami, and he is often here while I'm cooking to direct me. Then I serve
it as Prasad to my little son's visitors." I know personally, from long experience that only the best
quality food is served in Swami's presence and that when visiting friends to have a meal He
usually goes to the kitchen first and either helps cook Himself, or gives advice to the cook. So I
understand that when he supervises the cooking for the visitors of His miracle child and perhaps
He stays there some of the time when it is served, the little mother considers that nothing but the
best is good enough. But, the question is, how does a young couple on a small income provide
such expensive food for so many people six days in the week? I know that some of my friends
think of the 'loaves and fishes' when Jesus fed the multitude. I feel myself that something like
this must be the answer. I have known cases in India where Swami has multiplied the food and I
think of Jack Hislop's remarkable and story about how when he was on a visit with Swami and
the hostess was overcome with embarrassment because she did not have the food to serve them
dinner, Swami said to Hislop, "Go and get the food in the car, Hislop." Jack knew full well that
there was no food in the car but he went anyway. He found, standing near Swami's car, two
Angels holding a tray of food between them. A big tray it was, but Jack managed to carry it
inside, his face still stamped with a look of amazement, at which Swami said, "You can shut your
mouth Hislop, They are always there but you just don't see Them."
The parents of little Alex do not say how this miracle is achieved. It, like so many other things of
which they do not speak, are private matters between them and Swami. And so, for their comfort
and indeed for the little boy, I can only say that their location is somewhere in the vast continent
of Australia. Furthermore, I know nothing of the other four miracle children except that they
exist. As they are all Sai-sponsored children I presume their miraculous powers must be the same
as, or similar to, those of little Alexander Saisha. Anyone may hear by word-of-mouth, of the
location of any one of the team of Sai miracle children, but if it is the Australian one, please
remember that the parents who are true Sai Baba devotees will not accept a donation in the form
of food, money or in any other way.
Now, let us consider briefly, what Swami may have in mind in initiating this new and unexpected
phase in his mission. Swami has not told anybody to my knowledge about any special reason he
may have so I can only give my own opinion here. I have stated in a number of places in my
writings that Swami has said, in fact he said it as early as the 1960's, that the Golden Age will
begin before he leaves this body, which will be in 2021. So, I expect that every well-informed
Sai Devotee is aware that this is the culminating point of his mission to mankind. It is a greater
mission than any Avatar has attempted before, but as I heard Sir George Trevelyan state from a
Sai platform in Rome, "Avatars do not fail, it is not in the nature of an Avatar to fail in his
mission," or words to that effect. We know if we read the sacred writings with a little insight that
the Avatars who have gone before have not failed in their main mission to mankind on earth. And
so, I have great confidence that this living Avatar will not fail in his mission.
No doubt many of my readers have heard about the big propaganda campaign against Sai Baba
that was launched in recent times. The dark or backward-pulling forces were undoubtedly aiming
to ruin the Avatar's mission once and for all. But, did they ruin it? The strong wind that blew
away the chaff leaving only the grain behind may have helped rather than hindered his mission.
Perhaps he intended for this wind to blow for what was the chaff but those of little faith and less
understanding. In the words of the old hymn, those, "Who never loved him well, and those who
had lost the love they had." Of what value is such windblown chaff in the building of the critical
mass that Sai Baba must create in the very short span of years that he has at his disposal. If the
Golden Age is, as he has stated, to have it's initiation in the few years between now and 2021,
what is the function of the critical mass, as it is called in science. A good homely analogy is the
small amount of leaven or yeast required to raise the flat loaf of unleavened bread to the level of
the baker's loaf. In the same way, the present level of the consciousness of mankind can be lifted
by a quantum leap to the level required for the Golden Age by the power of the critical mass.
What must this critical mass consist of in numbers and in quality? We do not know the numbers
required but no doubt God does. We may, perhaps, have some thoughts about its quality, about its
content; surely it must be the true grain without any admixture of chaff. It must be those devotees
of God who have deep understanding, firm faith, those who are striving with all their willpower
to live according to the highest values of truth and the Divine Love. In short, those devotees who
are firmly on the journey home.
So it may well be, I think, that this team of thirteen miracle children are meant as a strong
weapon in the building of the critical mass and thus help to bring about on time, the greatest
miracle ever. That is, raising the mighty loaf of human consciousness and thereby bring about
that new world of peace, contentment and joy for which we are all longing. At least, that is my
opinion and my great hope.
Epilogue.
This is the last of a series of books I have written about the living Poorna Avatar, Sri Sathya Sai
Baba. Oddly, the series began with the book Sai Baba Man of Miracles and ends with the chapter
on the Sai Miracle Children. I did not plan it this way but as, on the spiritual path there are no
coincidences, it must have some significance. The only one that I can see is that Swami has
stated that miracles are his visiting card, or the card that states his identity, that is, his identity as
an Avatar.
I learnt just before I met Swami, from a lecture given by N Sri Ram, at that time, the
International President of the Theosophical Society, that although advanced Yogins may have the
Siddhis, to manifest certain supernormal phenomena on occasions, if they demonstrate this
power too often and for too long a period they will lose the supernormal power. The only beings
who can manifest this power frequently and for long periods, in fact, for the whole of their lives,
are the Avatars of God. Well, Sri N Sri Ram was undoubtedly not only a very wise man but one
very well versed in the Sanathana Dharma of India and, I accept that Sai Baba's constant and
frequent demonstration of His miraculous powers from childhood to the present day is certainly
His visiting card to all who have the eyes to see and the spiritual understanding to welcome the
Divine visitor to the earth. His changing the atomic structure of hard granite to that of sugar
candy, was to me, intellectually, His complete demonstration that He used, smilingly and happily,
the power of Divine or Absolute Consciousness which none but an Avatar can do. Yet His most
heartwarming miracle for me, was when, as an answer to my prayer, He came in a flash from
Prashanthi Nilayam in India to a room in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia, just at the right
time for me to see Him with my fleeting ration of clairvoyance while waking. He showed me that
He was standing there beside my couch waving His healing hand above me and I found that I
had been brought back to perfect health. The only two antibiotics ever known to cure this terrible
disease had failed to do so.
I always felt great elation when people visiting the Ashram from many different countries told
me that one of my books, often Sai Baba Man of Miracles, had brought them to Swami. Perhaps
the pinnacle of my elation and satisfaction came when an Indian man who lived in New York
noticed me among a crowd in front of the Mandir at the ashram and said in a loud voice for all to
hear, "There are two Australians whom I respect and honour; one is Don Bradman because he
beat the English at their own game and the other is Howard Murphet because he wrote the book
that brought me to Swami." It was the first and only time I had ever been bracketed with the
great Australian hero, Sir Donald Bradman. Of course I should not have been surprised at the
verbal thanks and praise I always received when visiting the ashram. Long ago, when Iris and I
were talking with Baba one day, the subject turned to our futures, and when I asked Him about
my future, his words were, "You have an illustrious future, you will bring many people to the
light." I had never heard Him use the word 'illustrious' before, and that He should apply it to me
was quite overwhelming. They were the only words of praise that He ever gave to me for my
work, but they were enough. Swami is very sparing with words of praise, probably because He
knows they tend to inflate the ego.
While the writing of this series of six Sai books, of which this will be the last, although being of
benefit to mankind and therefore proving to be my true work in this incarnation, it was also of
very great benefit to myself. It was my best spiritual exercise that which took me, as deeply as
my mind and heart are capable of delving, into the meaning and scope of this Avatar's work for
mankind.
Finally, I would like to say a word of thanks to the writers of the many letters I have received. A
few I was able to answer, but sadly for the many which came in the years after my eyesight had
failed me, I was generally not able to give an answer. The secretarial help I had, although very
compassionate and kind beyond measure, was, of necessity, limited in time and was not able to
include answers to my letters of appreciation from readers in many countries.
So now, my final word of this Epilogue is to give thanks from the bottom of my heart for all the
joy-bringing appreciative letters received from many parts of the world and to say, "God bless
you."
Acknowledgements
This book, like the former two, Where the Road Ends and Sai Inner Views, is, of necessity a
spoken book, that is, I spoke it onto audio cassettes, which left a gap that I could not have
bridged without the help of someone.
The two ladies who bridged the gap for me, putting the book into typed script, were Karen
Paterson who lives in the Blue Mountains and Fran Pearce, the Horticulturist of South Australia,
who also gave me a great deal of help in my last two books. My deep thanks go to both of these
willing helpers in the Sai service. Karen also helped in the final editing by reading the typed
chapters aloud so that I could make any corrections or alterations.
There were others, too, who helped me in many ways to fulfill happily this order from the
highest, that is, Lord Siva himself. Outstanding among the many was Pru Remme who helped in
a number of ways, including some editing.
I want to record here my eternal gratitude to all.
With Sai love from Sai brothers – ‘saidevotees_worldnet’