Ganapati Sastri was an outstanding devotee of Bhagavan Ramana. Erudite and scholarly, he was a man of towering abilities. By the age of ten, he had written verses in Sanskrit, prepared an astrological almanac besides mastering several Sanskrit Kavyas. Like Sri Bhagavan, he had a phenomenal memory and the ability to do ashtavadhana, that is of giving his attention to a number of different things at the same time. I his youth, he attended many spiritual and scholarly retreats and worked as a school teacher in Vellore, Tamil Nadu. Not satisfied with the schoolteacher job, he felt that he had come to a dead end, not attaining any success either wit pursuit of God or the world.

Ganapati Sastri approached The Swami in Tiruvannamalai and pleaded, "All that has to be read I have read, even Vedanta Sastra I fully understood, I have performed japa (invocation) to my heart's content, yet I have not up to this time understood what tapa is. Therefore, I sought your refuge at your feet. Pray enlighten me as to the nature of tapas." The Swami turned his silent gaze upon him for some fifteen minutes and then replied: "If one watches whence the notion "I" arises, the mind is absorbed into That, that is tapas. When a mantra is repeated, if one watches the source from which the mantra sound is produced the mind id absorbed in That, that is Tapas."

Ganapati Sastri was jubilated at the sight of Swami, composed verses on him. He declared that the Swami by name Venkataramana Iyer must be known as Bhagavan Sri Ramana and as the Maharshi. He also liked to refer Sri Bhagavan as a manifestation of Lord Subrahmanya. However, the devotees refused to follow this feeling that to regard Sri Bhagavan as a manifestation of ay one divine aspect was to attempt to limit the illimitable.

Once a devotee asked Ganapati Sastri, "If Bhagavan is an avatar of Subrahmanya, why does he not tell us openly?" Sastri replied, "What is an avatar? An avatar is only a manifestation of one aspect of God, whereas a jnani is God Himself". Although he was blessed with several graceful experiences by Bhagavan, Sastri in a way failed to get past beyond his spiritual aims, ideals and ambitions, perhaps conditioned by his intellect. He asked once, "Is seeking the source of the I-thought sufficient for the attainment of all my aims or is mantra dhyana needed?". Sri Bhagavan curtly replied, "The former will suffice". When Sastri continued about his aims and ideals, Bhagavan added, "It will be better if you throw your entire burden on the Lord. He will carry all the burdens and you will be free from them. He will do his part".

During later stages of his life, Ganapati Sastri settled down in a village near Kharagpur with a group of followers and until his death devoted himself wholly to tapas (asceticism). Sri Bhagavan was once asked whether Ganapati Sastri could have attained Realization during this life, he replied, "How could he? His sankalpa (inherent tendencies) were too strong".

(Condensed from "Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge" by Arthur Osborne)
Back to Menu

Contributed Article: Saburi

Alas! Life is full of challenges and problems. How we wish it were smooth sailing without any tides and waves? But it rarely happens and what more; when everything goes our way and there are no challenges in life we have nothing to brace for in life, and living gets arduous and boring. Life gets into a rut; it is like eating the same bland food day in and day out. We do not know our strengths and capabilities. It is only when we are faced with a challenge and we face it bravely we know our capacity and capability. We feel good about being able to rise to any occasion. That quality is manliness. Ability to face any situation at any given time and come out victorious leaves a sense of euphoria in us. Precisely for this reason alone God never promised a smooth sailing life not for demi gods and gods. Often when faced with difficulties we lose patience and lack confidence in ourselves and keep questioning our ability to handle the situations. And when going gets rough we give up and sometimes take drastic measures to end our life only to suffer 100 folds in the next birth according to the Hindu Sastras.

In chapter 18/19 BABA said "Saburi (patience) will ferry you across the sea of this mundane existence. Saburi is manliness in man, it removes all sins and afflictions, gets rid of calamities in various ways, and casts aside all fear, and ultimately gives you success." Further BABA describes the importance of faith or Nishta, which is grossly lacking in present materialistic world where everything is calculative and follows the law of give and take. There is no trust; and one does not know into what relationship they are entering and what they get out of it when they interact with other person. Life and living is mechanical and inhuman without involvement of emotions of love, trust, empathy, and feeling of unity, almost robotic.

No doubt, this situation is due to the games played by Law of Nature where a great imbalance is brought into the world with the havoc played by Maya only to make way for setting the balance, which again is controlled by Nature (God). It is during these tremulous situations that a man should come out of the cocoon of comfort and braves the uncertainties by using intellect bestowed upon him by God in choosing the right path and making a calculative decision for the good of mankind. In life man always has two choices - Good (Shreyas) and pleasant (Preyas) but He who has earned grace of God through faith and patience and recognizes the cosmic nature of the almighty; he alone will be guided by the Supreme Power to choose Good over pleasant.

As Baba said, "There are two sorts of things viz., the Good and the Pleasant; the former deals with spiritual affairs, and the latter with mundane matters. Both these approach man for acceptance. He has to think and choose one of them. The wise man prefers the Good to the Pleasant; but the unwise, through greed and attachment, chooses the Pleasant." Man is fortunate to be bestowed with intelligence; why not use it by His guidance and execute that action which will bring out the best in us? We can make informed decision, as managers think and come out with best choice and also know our potential in facing grave situations in life. Mind is the biggest enemy if left unrestrained it gallops like a pack of wild horses and looses it path leading towards the destination. If it registers in Mind that it cannot cope with a situation then body runs away from the source of problem and eventually from life itself. He who recognizes the weakness of mind and acknowledges the fault within self alone will be able to control the mind and set in the right path by the blessings of BABA. In Baba's philosophy, there is no room for escape of duties and responsibilities. No short cuts what so ever. One should diligently and sincerely discharge the responsibilities while constantly thinking of God and know that HE alone is the charioteer who leads us to our destination. Even Avataar Meher BABA said "Be brave! Don't feel dejected or despondent with difficulties and inconveniences. Face it all - that's manliness, that's heroism." (LORD MEHER, Vol. Six and Seven, Bhau Kalchuri,)

(Contributed by Anitha Kandukuri, Canberra, Australia)
Back to Menu

Experiences of Devotees:

Sujatha
Om Sai Ram, I would like to share one of the wonderful miracles that I have experienced in my life. Thank you Baba for being with my family and me in every moment of our life. I am confident that you will be us all the time.

We had planned for Shirdi trip in February and we friends (3 of us) booked the tickets 4 days in advance. The agent who booked the tickets assured us that he would give us the confirmed tickets both ways. But, we did not get the confirmed tickets from the agent until the day of our scheduled travel to Shirdi. We were supposed to go by the 6:20 KK express from Bangalore. The tickets were wait listed (no.103/102 and 100) until 1:00 pm on the day of travel. We were checking the confirmation status on the web, but we could not get the confirmed tickets. So we decided to cancel the trip this time. As a last try, I called the Railway enquiry, someone picked up the call and asked if it was Sujatha talking and continued to speak ' you are going to Shirdi, you will get the confirmed tickets, why are you still in the office go home and get ready to go to the station. You will have a nice darshan of Baba. He also asked me to give the prasadam to him after returning from Shirdi. I was shocked for a moment and asked him how does he know my name, he refused to answer my questions. Exactly after 5 minutes of the call, I checked the website again for confirmation of the tickets. It was a miracle that two of our tickets were confirmed. It was an amazing experience of Baba's miracle! We were confident that the third ticket also will be confirmed and I rushed home and reached the station on time. All three of us reached Shirdi safely.

We wanted to stay in Bhakti Nivas. To our surprise, we were allotted with a room as soon as we filled the registration form. We did not wait at all. There were many people still waiting for the rooms. We were lucky to experience this miracle of Baba!

We reached the temple for evening arathi and we were allowed to sit in a big hall during arathi. There were few people standing right in front of Baba and singing the arathi songs. We were wishing to stand there for the arathi but we could not reach there as it was very crowded in the hall. After the evening arathi we were seeing near by places like Museum, Dwaraka Mandir...etc., A group of ladies called us and offered a VIP pass where in seven people could use that pass. WE COULD STAND RIGHT IN FRONT OF BABA FOR THE NIGHT ARATHI USING THAT PASS. We were thrilled when they offered us the pass. It was around 8:00 pm when they offered us the pass, we went to have Baba's Prasadam but seeing at the BIG queue we decided not to eat there as we might miss the night arathi. We were about to go back, by then the guide who was the three ladies saw us and told that he would get the prasadam tickets for us and that we need not wait for long. They gave us the tickets in 5 minutes. They refused to take money from us for the Prasadam. We had prasadam and came back to the VIP pass queue. Our Wish of standing near Baba's Samadhi was fulfilled! We had a beautiful view of Baba and enjoyed the night arathi. I had never ever thought that I would stand in front Baba's Samadhi and sing Arathi songs. We went for the morning darshan next day and saw near by places. By then our return tickets were also confirmed. We returned home safely. Every time I think of this experience, I feel I am very lucky. Thank you very much Baba for the opportunity given to me to write. And thank you all the devotees for reading. HAVE FAITH IN BABA AND SURRENDER TO HIM COMPLETELY. HE WILL PROTECT US ALL THE TIME.
Back to Menu

Devotees say...

Klaus Kadur
In the morning on my drive to work I thought about a devotee's report I had read the previous day, which revolved around the prayer: "If I can't live in peace, at least let me die in peace." This, I felt applied to me and consequently took up a special meaning for me. When driving home a deep, mighty calm came over me, full of warmth and confidence. Thank you.

Raj Gangina
Dear Baba, You helped in all my obstacles until now. This one of greatest miracles you have done in my life by fixing marriage only in five days. You are the final judgment to me so whatever things to be happened my life I leave in your hands. I pray to you dear father for same support until end of my life.
Back to Menu

Prayer Club:

Sai Vijayadevan
Jai Sainath. Baba, please help me get this job and save me and my family from this hour of crisis.

Sai Kiran
Shree Sainath you know what tensions and fear I am going through. Please Baba fulfil all my wishes and give me a very happy life. I only have you as my strength and support. Om Sai Shree Sai jaya jaya Sai.

Chandrasekhar
Hey Sainath, I have been your disciple for so many years and you know for fact how much I believe in you and your things. I am trying since seven years to get good job and status here. Please shower your blessings on our family to stay together and lead peaceful life. Baba please help me to get in to a good project. If I did any thing wrong with you or to any one, please forgive me. Please accept our koti pranams and please be with us and my family always.

Sai devotee
Om hari om jai Sai ram ji. Thanks Sai baba for your darshan we are very greatfull to you. Sai ram please listen to my humble prayers get my children settle down soon, get my daughter and son married soon.Bestore your blessing on our family. Always come in my dreams. Sai Om

Indu
My humble request to maharaja dhiraj Sainatha ki jai ho. Baba you have made me reach where I am today. But you know my professional life has been in turmoil for past two and a half years. My request is that Baba, you make me permanent in the current job so that I can lead a respectable life here. Please guide me at every step in my professional life here. I am mentally very disturbed and immensely sad because after working with immense devotion and sincereity still am not been made permanent. What is my fault Baba, why I have to suffer so much. Please help me Baba please.
Back to Menu

Quotation of the Week:
"If we see all actions as God is doing, we will be unattached and free from karmic bondage"-Saibaba of Shirdi
Back to Menu

Question of the Week:

Q. Why do we humans need spiritual attainment? Was not early man lived without spiritual wisdom?

A. by Sai Devotee

First, let us try to look at the second part of the question, which asks, was not early man lived without spiritual wisdom"? Evolution or progress is the process of life. The evolution is not peculiar to humans. It is part of the nature .The human evolution can be divided into these stages (emotionally and intellectually.)
Stone man- they are ignorant or unaware of external condition like a stone.
Plant man -Their reaction to the world is confined to the necessities.
Animal man -They are Greedy Desire loaded. Survive by fighting and procuring
Man- they have consideration for others and starts thinking spiritually
God man -There develops universal love and sees divinity in every one.
Satgurus and great mahatmas come under the God man category. The wisdom starts appearing in us only from man stage. Then slowly we start using our inner wisdom to delve into the inside of us. All of us are progressing towards God. Experience is the path. We progress from fear to fearlessness, from anger to love, from conflict to inner peace and so on. We can see all these types of man in our every day life and most of the times we act like combination of all these types. So, it is clear that if the early man is in the first three stages, there is no way for him/her to live with spiritual wisdom. If he/she is in the last two stages obviously wisdom might had become part of their life. If they were a combination (like most of us), whichever stage feature is more, they would have behaved like wise.

Then the question comes why do humans need spiritual attainment? First, we should know that every human being is a SatChitAnanda rupa or Atma covered by ego or ignorance. The essence of every one is eternal bliss. The Atma, Soul, or Self is also known as God. Therefore, there is no more to be attained for that. It is full by itself. But most of the times, most of us identify ourselves with ego.

So, the spiritual attainment is for ego and we can say that the human needs spiritual attainment. Forgetfulness of the real self or delusion of the ego as real self is ignorance. Ego is like a shadow, which has no existence on its own. This process of realization of Self or Atma (or) dispelling of ignorance (or) disappearance of ego is called spiritual attainment. Until that time, regardless of whatever one has, the dissatisfaction never ends. Spiritual attainment means seeing the same Self in every one. The detailed description is given by Sri Hemadpant in Sai Satcharit (chs.16, 17,.50).

The promise of Self-realization is TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE (especially freedom from emotional tyranny.) This leads to peace in daily life. In turn, one can remain joyful irrespective of external or internal circumstances. A joyful and peaceful person can serve the society better. So, trying for spiritual attainment is helping our ego to become thinner and thinner and to disappear .So, spiritual attainment doesn't make the person dull and passive, in fact it makes the person more active and productive with broader outlook at things and people. That's why our scriptures urge us to strive for spiritual development as it brings out the best in us.
(Please do not worry about the synonyms of Atma, you can use any terminology that makes you understand better.)

To attain this, different kinds of spiritual sadhanas are prescribed. As told in Sai Satcharita Baba used to prescribe various practices depending on each and every one nature (ego). For some reading pothi, for some doing charitable work etc. So, when the ego is inclined towards attaining oneness with the universal self, the grace of God descends on the person in the form of Satguru to guide and help the person. We have to remember the words told by Baba to Thakur, "It is not easy to tread on this path, it is inevitable that one wears out one's body in hard toil, reading from a book is one thing and practice is other thing, when you put all that into practice, only then will your wishes be fulfilled (ch.21)." Continuous and repeated study of SAI SATCHARITA with understanding, under our Satguru, will yield the harvest at the right time.. The more we understand the meaning of it and try to practice it, the nearer our goal becomes. As our ego becomes thinner and thinner, God becomes nearer and nearer. OM ATMA (SATYA)TATTWA BODHAKAYA NAMAHA.

Q. Why do we humans need spiritual attainment? Was not early man lived without spiritual wisdom?

A. by Rama Nagpal

Before answering these question we need to know what a spiritual life is. Spiritual life is merging with god. As the moisture comes up from the ocean into the clouds and the rain falls to the earth, river flows and merge back into the ocean. each river has its own unique form. no river has exactly the same form. each river has its own name; they are not the same. but when it reaches the sea and merges into the sea, all that difference is lost in merging with the sea. in the same way,we, as devotees, can merge with god and obtain self-realization.

The early man had his own ways of worshipping god. They were not much into the materialistic life as is the sorry state of world today. Now coming to the question of why do humans need spiritual attainment? It is because life is intolerable and it is not our natural state. Were it our natural state, and then we would not need to crave for spiritual attainment. We become interested in spiritual attainment because, to us, we have reached the point where we are looking for more meaning to life. Otherwise, why do you engage in spiritual activities? If you were so happy and satisfied, you would stay home and look at TV, or just go out and have a good time. Why? Because it is intolerable to you, that is why.

You know you are suffering and you want to wake up and here comes swami, the lord of creation, and the lord of all, who comes only to wake us up.
Back to Menu

Sai Activities:

Shirdi Saibaba Prayer center, Minnesota - Gurupoornima Celebrations
Shirdi Saibaba Prayer center, Minnesota celebrates Gurupoornima 2004 on July 3, 2004 at Geeta Ashram, Brooklyn Park, MN. Please watch for more details. Regular Sai activities in the Twin Cities, MN are being conducted at Shirdi Saibaba Prayer Center, 725 Lake St NE, Apt #139 Hopkins MN. For details, please contact hamaresai@yahoo.com. Or call the Prayer Center at 952-938-2983.

Sai Baba Center in Toronto
Devotees in Toronto invite you all to join in our weekly Satsang every Thursday at the two Locations mentioned below. For more information please call Shammi Chopra 905 887 1752 or Roshan Dastoor Ph: 905 812 8290 or email us at saileela99@yahoo.com

Shree Shirdi Sai Sansthan Sydney, Australia
Shree Shirdi Sai Sansthan Sydney invites you with family and friends to join in a 2 days of Blissful experience of Bhajans and Satsang to commomerate 3rd Anniversary of Shirdi Baba gacing Sydney. The event starts Sunday 13th and Monday 14th of June 2004 at 420 Liverpool Road, Strathfield South, NSW 2136, Australia. For more details contact contact Sansthan's Info-Line 0500 524 724 or email: events@shirdibaba.org.au
Back to Menu

You may subscribe to receive the newsletter by e-mail.

Fill out your e-mail address and hit the subscribe button: