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Sai Vichaar Jun 11, 2009 Volume 12, Issue 05 (In its twelfth year of publication) 01.Feature of the Week 02.Contributed Article 03.Experiences of Devotees 04.Devotees Say 05.Sai Activities 06.Prayer Club 07.Quote of the Week 08.Question of the Week 09.Subscribe to Sai Vichaar 10.Email Newsletter to a friend 11.Submit Articles to Sai Vichaar 12.Un-Subscribe Sai Vichaar 13.From the Editor's Keyboard 14.Back Issues 15.Disclaimer From the Editor's Keyboard... Sai Vichaar requests the devotees to continue to submit to Sai Vichaar using the pages intended for various sections of Sai Vichaar. Sai Vichaar gratefully appreciates the patience of its readers during the past few weeks of revamping of our database. In the true spirit of Sai devotion, contributors are requested to remember to suit the content, language, style, and presentation, appropriate to a worldwide readership. It should also be noted that when a section from any material other than their own is quoted or referred to, it is the authors' responsibility to acknowledge the source appropriately. The "Question of the week" for this week is, Q. How does a Sai devotee deal with deceitful relationships and situations where there is abuse of trust? Humbly Yours, The Editor
Disclaimer Sai Vichaar is devoted to the philosophy and teachings of Shri Sadhguru Sai Baba of Shirdi, and will take every measure to avoid topics or themes contradicting the same. Sai Vichaar team or saibaba.org is not responsible for the opinions expressed by individual contributors.
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Feature of the
week: Signs of a Perfect Master
"You will never be able to understand thoroughly how great Sai Baba is. He is the very personification of perfection. If you know Him as I know Him, you would call Him the Master of Creation" - Meher Baba (1894 - 1969) Meher Baba said that when a sincere and patient seeker of Truth comes into contact with one who is spiritually perfect, he would observe certain outer signs that are inseparably associated with inner spiritual perfection. The most important of these signs are three: firstly, Perfection is not only "Oneness with God," but also the continual and uninterrupted experience of "Oneness in everything." A Perfect Master continually, without break, experiences and realizes his own Self as the Self in all. This inner experience objectively manifests itself in the spontaneity of love that such a one feels or expresses towards all Creation. To him nothing is attractive or repulsive. Good and bad, saint and sinner, beauty and ugliness, wisdom and idiocy, health and disease -- all are modes of his own manifestation. When embodied Perfection loves, fondles or feeds any living creature, it feels and enjoys as if it were loving, fondling and feeding its own Self. In this stage no vestige of "otherness" is left. The second sign is the atmosphere of bliss that Perfection radiates in its immediate vicinity, an atmosphere that a stranger in search of it cannot help feeling. A Perfect Master not only enjoys infinite bliss but also experiences universal suffering. The acuteness of suffering however is nullified or subdued by the overwhelming feeling of bliss. Hence Perfection can outwardly appear blissfully calm in the face of every kind of suffering and persecution. The third sign of Perfection is its power to adapt itself to any level of humanity. It can be as nonchalant on a throne as in a gutter. It can very naturally be thrifty with the poor, extravagant with the rich, regal with kings, wise with the learned and simple with the illiterate and the ignorant. Just as a Maser of Letters teaches English in different ways to beginners and graduate students, so also a Perfect Master adapts himself to the level of those whom he wants to uplift spiritually. Sadhguru Sainath is the foremost of the Perfect Masters Meher Baba resorted to during his quest to seek realization. Meher Baba, a great Yogi himself, felt that if one knows Sainath as he had known him, he/she would accept Him to be the Master of the Creation. Sainath of Shirdi is the rarest of such Perfect Masters who is perfect in and out
Contributed
Article: Gratitude and Devotion Time and again, it needs to be stressed that mere gratitude to Sainath for what He bestowed on us is not enough. The gratitude must lead to the pure state of devotion. Few are born with the absolute realization of Omniscient and Omnipresent God. For the most, the first encounter with the supreme conscious happens as a result of an event that defies logic. Everyone of us stand a testimony to this phenomenon; students getting rewards that they did not expect, hopeless patients whose fortunes were reversed for the better, the jobs that we believe Baba give us, and even the occasional bliss our spiritual pursuits have brought us. It is also the experience of several that such gratitude fades away slowly with time as other priorities occupy the lives. Although conscious of the never ending chain of wants and desires, the spiritually aspiring mind gives in to what appears as the real happiness. Stages of life according to Hindu scriptures include balya (infancy), kaumarya (youth), grihastha (household), and vanaprastha (retirement). It is thought that vanaprastha is a stage where in, the man proceeds for a recluse in woods and spends time in search of spiritual fulfillment. The myth of life also concocts convenient justifications for waiting for tomorrow, not realizing that tomorrow does not exist for granted. Time is an entity that human life has no control over. Shri B.V. Hanumantha Rao wrote "Sai Anusaranamu" a great work on Sainath of Shirdi in Telugu, "Time is a valuable commodity. There should be no waiting to initiate any kind of attempt for liberation. It should be done when all our senses are in right order and we have the right physical and mental condition. It is a common practice for man to wait until the earthly life is settled, and it is his tendency to procrastinate until he will be ready for the spiritual journey. In reality, such a day may not come at all. Every stage of life brings with it, its own situations that may demand one's time and attention. It is very easy to be entangled in the trap of earthly comforts, joy, sorrow, fear, and a myriad of myth. Human life can be short and no one can predict when it will end. On the other hand, leaving everything, our thoughts, deeds, and their consequences at God's disposal will bring a renewed sense of well-being, happiness and fulfillment that is only perennial. Cultivating the attitude of staying immune to the earthly uncertainty will bring one close to the Lord and assure him of a fruitful spiritual realization" (Contrbuted by: Sai Vichaar Team) Sai Devotee We too started the same practice. Couple of weeks back my wife started taking our baby for a play group and that was her first day for that group. The area was bit new and roads were little confusing . On the way back she entered wrongly into an One-way traffic lane , for a moment we just panicked, luckily by BABA's grace there was no on-going traffic at that second, and immediately we got an opening to another street which had Two-way traffic lanes. Never have we ever seen such an immediate opening to other street. It was all by BABA's grace we could come out of the critical mistake without any ticket / accident.
Manu Devotee Lekshmi Sudha Murigeppa Venkata Sai devotee Kavitha Gita Sai devotee Quotation of
the Week: Q. How does a Sai devotee deal with deceitful relationships and situations where there is abuse of trust? A. Your answer can go here.
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