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Sai Vichaar 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.Disclaimer From the Editor's Keyboard... Sai Vichaar wishes its readers and devotees a Special Thursday. Today is the beginning of the glorious eighth year on the web for Sai Vichaar. This is a special day of celebration of His love and glory. It would not be possible without Sainath's grace and the support of ever increasing number of readers and devotees across the globe. Inscrutable are His ways. It is said in Sai Satcharitha that Sainath chooses His followers for various activities. It is also believed that unless He makes the choice, one cannot even attempt to initiate the task. Shriman Booty was entrusted with the construction of the mandir while Srimad Hemadpanth was blessed with the task of authoring Sri Sai Satcharitha amritha. We are aware of Dasganu Maharaj's vision and how he was blessed with the task of propagating Sai tatva through his kirtans. A Sai devotee as a response to a vision that Sadguru Sainath had blessed him with a few years ago, conceived this Shri Saibaba web site. In a similar manner, Sainath has chosen Sai Vichaar through a vision graced to another Sai devotee. What a thrust! Inscrutable are His ways indeed! With regards to the task of sending out Sai Vichaar to thousands across the world, what can we say, coconut's weight on a sparrow's head! Nothing is impossible with love and devotion! Let the love of Sai be reflected in every sentence written, every word said. Let our love and devotion to Him be seen in this Newsletter just as it has been elsewhere. The "Question of the week" for the week is, Q. How is believing in miracles helpful in one's spiritual growth? Humbly Yours, The Editor
Disclaimer Sai Vichaar is devoted to the philosophy and teachings of Shri Sadguru 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:
Baba's method of Teaching
As for Baba's declaration about his Guru, Professor Narke heard Baba say, "Maja Guru Brahman ahe", that is, My Guru is a Brahmin. Having said so much about his Guru, professor Narke carefully noted that Baba did not say that he had any sishya to continue his line. On the other hand, Sai Baba said, 'I would tremble to come into the presence of my Guru.' There was no one prepared to serve Sai Baba in that way at Shirdi. Once Sai Baba asked, it seems, 'Who dares to call himself my disciple? Who can serve me adequately and satisfactorily?' But apart from a disciple to continue the line, Baba helped in various ways and in various degrees. He encouraged them, protected them, and gave them instructions occasionally.
One who was merely seeing him and staying by him for a while got faith. Baba gave experiences to each devotee, of his vast powers of looking into his heart, into the distance regions of space and time, past or future and this infused faith. One need not swallow a thing on trust. The solid benefit, temporal or spiritual reaped by the devotee and his feeling that he is under the eye and power of Baba always, wherever he may be and whatever he may do, gave him an ineradicable basis for his further temporal and spiritual guidance. Baba's is the power that controls this world's goods and our fate here and now, as well as our experience and fate in the future, in this world and many unseen worlds. The professor concludes that the duty of a devotee under Baba is only to keep himself fit for the Guru's grace. That is, he should be chaste, pure, simple and virtuous and he should look trustfully and sincerely to the beloved master to operate on him secretly, and to raise him to various experiences, higher and higher in range, until he is taken at last to the distance goal. 'But one step is enough for me', is the proper attitude now, He need not take the trouble to decide complicated metaphysical and philosophical problems about the ultimate destiny. He is ill-prepared to solve them now. The guru will lift him and endow him with higher powers, vaster knowledge and increasing realization of truth. And the end is safe in the Guru's hands. These above conclusions, as professor Narke says, are not from any single lecture or address by Baba, but are gathered from the various hints, his dealings with many people and his occasional words.
Contributed Article: My thoughts about Living with Sai
I am of the opinion that the most important attribute of a Sai devotee should be ego less simplicity. Apparently, it looks simple to do so. However, I think that the first step in this direction should be to renounce jealousy and stop indulging in destructive criticism and denigrating conversation, slander or gossip about others. Baba said that jealousy is a manifestation of one's ego, but easy to get-over, as one does not gain in being jealous of others. Only when we cultivate the attitude of appreciating others, sympathizing with their difficulties and being happy at other's well being, Baba will be happy with us. Baba once admonished a devotee for indulging in denigrating gossip and slander about others and compared that attitude to that of a pig devouring filth.
Baba said explicitly to His devotee Raghuvir Purandare, "If you fight with others and abuse them, I become very unhappy. Control your anger. Don't give tit for tat. If some body takes up a destructive argument with you or tries to fight with you, reply calmly in one or two words. Don't get angry and take up the fight." This valuable instruction is for every one of Sai devotees. Let us get rid of the feeling of revenge and reprisal at the same time checking our baser instincts including anger in order to live with Sai. We can vividly see that Baba exhorted His devotees to be sincere, frank and truthful in their dealings with others. He also said, "Fulfill your commitments and obligations without fail."
To live with Sai, we should cultivate respect for all religions and faiths and more importantly universal brother hood beyond the barriers of caste, creed, race and religion. Sai prema knows no boundaries of nation, race, caste, creed and religion. He discouraged all the enquiries and questions about His birth, parentage and origin.
Baba said, " Destroy the barriers separating one from the other. Consider that you are in me and I am in you!" He always used to say "Allah Malik!"exhorting us to acknowledge supremacy of Almighty and cultivate ego-less simplicity. Baba's value for humility is very evident from his response to the behavior of Nana-Vali and Jawahar Ali. I am convinced that He would expect His children to acquire humility.
Another striking feature of Sai-tatva or Sai philosophy is the realization by us that He is there in all beings and hence respect and compassion for all forms of life. Sai Baba is unique in establishing that He is present in all living beings. Living with Sai signifies seeing Him in all other forms of life. In other words, "Aatma vat sarva bhoothani". As explained by Him, fear or disgust for other beasts is the consequence of one-self developing the feeling of alienation from other forms of life. Baba expects His devotees to value "Rinaanubandha" i.e., linkages or connections among persons and organisms due to their commitments or relationships in their previous births or lives. This may look queer to those influenced by the western thought. Baba, however, proved the point unequivocally as one can see from Sai Satcharitra. Hence Sai advised all of us not to discourteously drive away any body including animals etc., which approach us, but treat them with sympathy and compassion. He said God would be certainly pleased, if you give water to the thirsty, bread to the hungry, cloths to the naked and your verandah to strangers for sitting and resting.
Those who have imbibed Sai-tatva, would certainly follow His valuable piece of advice that help received from others in the form of labour should be adequately compensated. Their helplessness or need for money should not be taken advantage of or exploited to their disadvantage.
Importantly, living with Sai also means that one should not hate or decry or loath others' food habits; but should respect all forms and kinds of food. After all " Annam parabrahma swarupam." In other words, food is the expression of God, a divine blessing and hence sacred. At the same time, one should not thrust his or her food habits on other unwilling persons. Baba never gave importance to taste of food and consumed all kinds of food. At the same time, He never forced a certain kind of food on those who were not used to it. Sai maata (Mother Sai) took abundant care to prepare a lot of tasty food to cater to the tastes of the children! Baba, however, advocated moderation in food consumption. He also suggested that one should not be too attached to any kind of food for that matter. He said, " Be satisfied with one or two items of food. Don't go after tastes!"
One of the activities dearest to Lord Sai is feeding the hungry and helping the needy. He said that any hungry individual or living organism needs to be offered food and fed without any reservation whatsoever. He used to feed many from the food He collected by the way of 'Bhiksha' or alms. (To be continued)
(Contributed by Maddipatla V. R. Prasad)
P Razdan Sai devotee Pooja Walia Sandhya Ramya Adisesh N Kuppuswamy Shantahari Jayashree Usha Sai devotee Gulnaaz
Quotation of the Week:
Q. How is believing in miracles helpful in one's spiritual growth?
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