Rose Petals Vol 1

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Saipatham Publications

SHIRDI CHENNAI HYDERABAD

SelectionS from SatSangS with Sri BaBuji

RosePetalsVol. 1


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Title: Rose Petals Vol. 1

Selections from Satsangs with Sri Babuji

Editors: Ram Brown Crowell, Alison Williams

Layout & Design: Robyn Aruna Almaleh

Edition: First Edition, Guru Purnima 2012

Published by: Saipatham Publications

Saipatham, Shirdi 423109

[email protected]

Copyright 2012 Saibaba Foundation

ISBN: 978-81-88560-08-0

Processing: Sai Mudra, Shirdi

Printed at: Saibonds Print Systems

Chennai 106

Website: www.saibaba.com


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To SaiBaba o Shirdiwho gave us Guruji


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I youre not able to walk, Baba willcarry you. Hell give you ood, hell give

you water, and i youre sick, hell giveyou medicine. He says, Dont worryabout anything Ill take you to thedestination! To me, Baba ulfls myconcept o a Satguru, not only in anabstract, mystical sense, but practicallyalso, right rom the simple thing o gettinga berth on the train, up to getting the

fnal experience. Sri Babuji


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Contents

AcknowledgementsNotes on Text and SourcesIntroduction

xixiiixv

1 The Satguru 32 Focus on the Joy 9

3 My Samadhi Will Answer 15

4 Living One Life 23

5 Meditation 31

6 The Unique Mahima of Shirdi Sai Baba 41

7 Love and Devotion 51

8 Two Paise: Nishtha and Saburi 59

9 Concretizing Fullment 67

10 Gurujis Baba 75

11 Expression of Love 87

12 Namaskar 97

Appendix of SourcesGlossary

105109


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Acknowledgements

The editors wish gratefully to acknowledge theassistance and technical expertise of the followingdevotees who collaborated on the initial databaseproject which made Rose Petals possible and onthe various pre-publication stages of thetext, fromrecording and transcribing of satsangs, database

design and construction, data-input and extraction,to selection and collation of extracts for topics, textediting and graphic layout and design. They are:Aruna Almaleh, Bob Barnett, Shanti Baron, LindaBhakti Bonner, Chris Burgess, Ram Brown Crowell(co-editor), Karin Dirkorte, Pam Donaldson, CarlosGil-Sobera, Kashalya Milon, Nadja Nathan, LolaNavarro, Anki Sternander, Larisa Webb, PeterWest, and Alison Will iams (co-editor).

A special note of appreciation is due YvonneWeier, the project coordinator and guiding light ofboth the database project and Rose Petals since theirinception and also Gurujis rst Western devotee,who served him faithfully from 1993 to the end of

his life. Her judgement, interpersonal skills andintimate knowledge of Gurujis life and teaching,contributed signicantly to the publication ofRosePetals and ensured accuracy of the nal text.

Finally, it is an honour to acknowledge thesupport of Sri Babujis devoted wife, esteemedAmmagaru, and his beloved daughter, Sruti, forthis project. Their ongoing examples of grace anddevotion following Gurujis passing have beena constant source of inspiration for everyoneinvolved in Rose Petals.


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All of us who have contributed to Rose Petals feelprivileged to have had this opportunity to oer asmall token of gratitude for all we have been givenso freely by Guruji, who accepted nothing from usin return except our imperfect love and devotion.How fortunate we are to have known him and tohave beneted from his wisdom and grace! Ourwish is that, with the publication of this small

book, others may also share in that grace and tastethe incomparable joy of being in the presence of angenuine, enlightened Master.

Note on Text and Sources

The sources of the extracts forming each topic aregiven in the Appendix of Sources at the end ofthe text. They appear there numbered in the orderin which they appear in the text for that topic,according to the number and date of the satsang,or its derivative source as given in the List of

Abbreviations.Foreign words and Sanskrit terms are dened

in the Glossary at the back of the book. Wordsenclosed in square brackets in the text have beenadded by the editors.


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IntroductionThe English Satsangs of Sri Sarath Babuji

When the charismatic south Indian saint andSatguru, Sri Sainathuni Sarath Babuji, knownaectionately as Guruji, took mahasamadhi on13thNovember, 2010, at the young age of 56, hisdevotees around the world mourned his untimelyloss. The adored and beloved gure who had sodominated their lives by the purity of his loveand peerless devotion to his Satgurudeva, thegreat Sai Baba of Shirdi (d.1918), was no morein his mortal frame. It seemed impossible tobelieve that his radiant spiritual presence wouldnot continue, so vibrant and intensely alivehad his living presence been. It was thereforeequally heartening to realize that his vardhate,the subtle expansion of a saints presencewhich occurs when his body dies, was alreadytaking place and was even then being widely felt.

At this momentous juncture, to honour SriBabujis memory and to share his pricelessteachings with devotees, it was decided to bring outselections from his English satsangs, unpublishedup to then, in a monthly email format, each month


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forming one topic, called Rose Petals. It was hopedthat the petals of his words would evoke thefragrance of his presence and so help devoteestranscend the ocean of grief aroused by his passing.The rst issue of Rose Petals appeared on January1st, 2011, less than six weeks after the moving scenesof his mahasamadhi ceremony were witnessed bythousands of bereaved devotees on 17th November

2010, in Shirdi, where his body was entombed in thelocation he had pointed out some time before.

The twelve monthly issues of Rose Petals thatappeared initially in digital format have now beencollected, re-edited and presented here boundin print format for more permanent reading,as Rose Petals Vol. 1. This marks the rst publica-tion of Sri Babujis satsangs in English, withsimultaneous publication of the text in Telugu, asSarathchandrikalu (Moonlight Petals). It is hopedthat Gurujis original and insightful understandingof the nature of spiritual unfoldment will be ofinterest and benet to a wide range of devoteesand sincere seekers of truth.

The texts ofRose Petals Vol. 1 have been drawnalmost entirely from Sri Babujis English satsangs,which took place gradually as Western devoteesfrom countries around the world came to bewith him in India. Naturally, they felt barriers oflanguage and custom and were sometimes non-plussed by the unfamiliar devotional culture thatsurrounded Guruji, unlike anything in the West.They were yet undeniably drawn to him, attractedby the transparent purity of his love and theelectrifying magnetism of his spiritual presence.

Understandably, they had their own questionsto which they longed for answers, which only hecould give. Guruji compassionately recognizedtheir need and graciously responded, providingopportunities to be with him and have theirquestions answered in their own language. Thesemeetings were the beginning of his Englishsatsangs, of which eventually 140 were recorded

over the years from 1993 to 2010, the last givena week before his passing. (Sri Babuji also gavenumerous satsangs in Telugu, his mother tongue;their publication is happily anticipated.) Thesatsangs were recorded live, then transcribed andlater coded into searchable extracts and enteredinto a specially-designed database. Extracts fromvarious satsangs were then collated and edited toform the topics ofRose Petals. The nal text reectsthe vibrant speaking style of Gurujis originalsatsang and some of his endearing, idiosyncraticways of speaking English.

The format of satsangs was always spontaneousand essentially unannounced; they could take place

any time, day or night, anywhere Guruji was.This meant one had to be there, on the spot, inthe moment, to attend. This could, and often did,amount to waiting over many days and stayingnear Guruji even when he travelled, hoping forthe rare chance of satsang. Though satsangs couldhappen at any time, the vast majority took placevery late at night Gurujis daytime, as it were,since he was often up nights and in a varietyof places: in Shirdi, in Tirumala, by the sea onthe coast south of Chennai, in Rishikesh, on the


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Ganga in Varanasi, in Uttar Kashi, or on the roofof his simple at in Tiruvannamalai, or even whiletravelling on boat or train. Usually no more thanthirty people were present, so the atmosphere wasinformal and intimate, as in a family. Whereverthe satsangs were held, pindrop silence prevaileduntil Guruji should rst open satsang by speaking.Usually this happened when he looked up and

asked quietly, in his deep, rich, melodious bassvoice, What news?

In giving satsang it was Gurujis custom not tospeak unless asked; he never spoke unilaterally,or discoursed or gave lectures. He took questionsby turn, remaining silent until another questionwas asked. If no more questions were forthcoming,he would start to get up and go, so it became thecongenial task of those present to keep him therefor as long as possible. Since his replies were alwaysspecic and relevant to the needs of the person infront of him, very often this resulted in his giving adierent answer to the same question from anotherperson, or even in contradicting what he had said

earlier in response to the same question. But thisindividual approach revealed the vast treasuryof Gurujis experience and attainment, since eachreply incorporated a dierent aspect of the subject,adjusted to the needs of the questioner. Althoughthe topic often changed with the question, if thesubject raised were of sucient interest, it would bereturned to again and again, with Gurujis replieseach time adding another dimension to his earlieranswers. It is from such replies that the texts in thisbook have come.

Gurujis satsang was extraordinary and theatmosphere electric, ashing with wit, insight andhumour; in his company one entered a new andpowerfully-enhanced eld of experience. At thesame time, behind the verbal and visual foreground,one felt a deep current of boundless peace andsilence, radiant with an unfathomable love andheld by an impregnable sense of security. Sri Babuji

often noted the real importance of satsang lay inthe silent communion taking place beyond words,remarking, This is just a pretext for all of us tosit together, to express our love and to experiencelove. When he spoke, it seemed the whole range ofspiritual wisdom and knowledge was available tohim and he had an uncanny ability to understandintuitively ones innermost needs and problems,and to respond on multiple levels simultaneously,or on a subconscious level of which the questionerwas unaware, so that afterwards those presentoften felt their underlying issues as well as theirconscious problems had been addressed. His vastexperience allowed him to interpret traditional

practices like arati, namaskar, namajapa and smarana,from an inner dimension that made them accessibleand come alive as expressions of love, rather thanas obligations prescribed by some sacred text orsastra. This was true for everything he said aboutspiritual life.

Guruji seemed inexplicably free from the biasesand religious conventions of his own culture,so that he looked at every aspect of spiritualityanew. He emphasized that we should neveraccept spiritual truths uncritically or simply on


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the authority of a text or teacher, even himself,but to verify everything by our own experience.Trust your own experience! he would say, Letyour path be personal and your realization beyour own. And, Write your own Gita! Or even,Truth is more important than Baba, though noone loved Baba more.

He repeatedly urged us to be honest with

ourselves and get clear about our true needs, goals,and priorities. Lack of clarity led to lack of focus.This fragmented eort and made attainment of thefullment we longed for hostage to ignorance ofour own experiential reality. The rst desideratumwas to dispel the hypocrisy signied by the gapbetween our words and deeds through honest andsincere introspection. This produced clarity aboutour needs and goals by aligning our thoughts withour feelings, which in turn strengthened focus andgave eort a basis to arise less from discipline thanfrom love. Guruji could be quite confrontationalin exposing hypocrisy and in challenging onespreconceived ideas and concepts of spiritual life if

he thought it necessary.At the same time his ever-ready wit and humour could turn any situationto laughter, and he would tell stories from thePuranas or his own experiences on the path with agifted mimicry and entertaining lan. He seemedto have a photographic memory for everythinghed heard or read and could recall everything saidto him previously by the same person.

Guruji knew Sanskrit well, had read widelyin the canonical and commentarial literature ofHinduism and Buddhism, and had an extensive

scholarly library in English, Sanskrit and Telugu.He was highly procient in English and was knownfor the beauty and poetic diction of his spoken andwritten Telugu. He carried out signicant, originalresearch on the origin of arati, citing the relevantSanskrit and scholarly texts, and also on Sai Baba,and was an unparalleled authority on Babas lifeand teachings. It could truly be said of Guruji

that whatever he undertook he carried through toperfection.

Sri Sainathuni Sarath Babuji was born in Chennai,Tamil Nadu, on Vijayadasami, 7th October, 1954,on the same day the famous life-size marble statueof Sai Baba was installed in the Samadhi Mandirin Shirdi an auspicious coincidence which inretrospect foretold his destiny of devotion toBaba. Enormously gifted, spiritually precociousand endowed with exceptional virtues of mindand heart, Gurujis rise to spiritual attainmentwas meteoric. He was that rarest and highestgrade of aspirant, what the Kashmiri Trika (Saiva)sastra calls tivya tiva (intensely intense) those

having an all-consuming, one hundred percent,burning desire to know Truth and be free raresouls capable of sustaining absolute, one-pointeddevotion, along with the unhindered capacity tointegrate and express its results fully into theirlife and experience. Already, at age four, whilestanding before the deity of Sri Venkateshwara atTirumala, a venerable saint appeared to Guruji inplace of the idol, beckoning him forward; Gurujiretained a deep reverence for him ever afterward.Subsequently, as a small boy, while seeing Sai Babas


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portrait hanging on the wall of his grandmothershouse, he felt a peculiar, prescient attraction, astrange familiarity. By 17, he was serving hismaster and mentor, Sri Ekkirala Bharadwaja (1932-1989), himself a peerless Sai devotee, and togetherwith him researching the lives of saints andvisiting various saints and holy places. Three yearslater, at age 20, he was sent by his master to visit the

great avadhuta, Sri Poondi Swami, and remainedin his presence for a month. This culminated in aprofound, transformative experience, one facet ofwhich, Guruji later said, was Poondi Swamis mind(citta) was so pure and transparent, that in it Gurujibeheld Sai Baba. And when, some time earlier,siddhis had begun spontaneously to manifest inGuruji, he prayed to Baba for their removal asdistractions from his love.

Such renunciation of lesser gifts in favour of anexclusive quest for truth reects the clarity andfocus of Gurujis approach to spiritual life andthe sincerity of a devotion so intense it allowednothing less than pure love to motivate its full-

ment. One could see a tremendous unity in Guruji,an integrity in everything he said and did, thatgave his life an aesthetic quality and beauty ofproportion, since no side of it was fullled at theexpense of another. Gurujis brilliant, originalapproach to the path of devotion as expressed inhis satsangs, nourished all sides of his life equally,uniting them seamlessly into one harmoniousexpression of fullment. Every aspect of his lifein thought, word and deed, was integrated by hisdevotion to Baba, so his love manifested as truth,

and vice versa. His integrity extended to detailsof his private life: he accepted no donations,established no ashram, owned no property,avoided any commercialization of his spiritual lifeand all publicity, and insisted, as a householder, onearning his livelihood by the sweat of his brow.This he did by founding a school now one of thenest in Andhra Pradesh from which he received

an honorarium to support himself and his wife anddaughter. Even his marriage was an act of devotion:it was done in accession to his Gurus wish. Inthe classical yogasastra, attaining such a degreeof inner and outer integrity is called trikaranashuddhi, the triple purity of thought, word anddeed. When it becomes rmly established andirreversible, such a rare yogi becomes, according tothe Veda, an aptavadin, a sage (kavi) whose wordsare trustworthy as truth. The words of such asage have an hierophantic, revelatory power thatdivinely sanctions his function as a Satguru and avehicle guiding humanity to fullment.

The magnetic attraction natural to total truth

may also account for Gurujis matchless livingpresence and its ineable power so great that itheld literally thousands of people spellbound inShirdi when he came out for his public darshansor, when he used to travel, would cause immensecrowds to gather wherever he went. In Shirdi,they gazed in rapture as he sat unmoving, eyesclosed, on a stage in front of a large portrait of SaiBaba, without even saying a word. It was one ofthe great displays of spiritual power in modernIndia, embodying a degree of realization very


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seldom seen. I am a coolie of Baba, he would say,laughing. Or, I think of you all as Babas prasad. Iam only sharing my love of Baba with you, thatsall. I am not your guru, you are not my disciples.I am a simple Sai devotee indeed, he wasSainathuni (belonging to Sai). These were realitiesof his everyday experience for Guruji. If, as SorenKierkegaard so rightly remarked, Purity of heart

is to will one thing, then Guruji was its perfectexample. As with everything else, his own life wastestament to his teaching.

It has been said that Guruji had no teaching assuch; indeed, he said so many times himself. Butin retrospect what is interesting is that, becauseall that he said came from the same unied,self-realized source and arose from his directexperience, this fundamental integrity reects alarger teaching, whose depth and contours arediscernable in Gurujis own life. They constitutethe path he himself walked, which we may callSaipatham, the path of Sai. It is too early and beyondthe scope of this introduction to characterize that

path and its teachings further here, but that it isan original, viable, eective and comprehensiveapproach to spiritual fullment will becomeclearer as future volumes of Rose Petals appear.Sri Babujis insights constitute a distinguishedand signicant contribution to the psychology ofthe enlightenment process which are of potentialbenet to every sincere seeker, whatever their pathor sadhana. It is therefore to be hoped that this brief,initial selection from his English satsangs, so fullof his wisdom and all-encompassing love, will

continue to inform and inspire all those who seekclarity and fullment on their spiritual path andhelp to make their aspirations both more real andattainable.

Sri Satchidananda Satguru Sainath Maharaj ki Jai!Satguru Sri Sainathuni Sarath Babuji ki Jai!

Ram Brown CrowellCo-editor, Rose Petals Vol. 1Shirdi2nd April 2012


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The Satguru

GURUJI:

Once you have a Satguru, once you know hestaking care of you, even though you experiencecertain diculties along the way, its backed bythat sense of assurance: he is there. So the senseof longing and your experience of suering arenot the same as you were experiencing before they change. The quality of your happiness istransformed, and even the quality of your sueringand the quality of your desires are transformed.Until you get that, until you get the Satguru, thedesires seem to trouble you unendingly, they seemto be self-perpetuating, but once you get him, thenature of the desires changes. You have desires,

Tirupati, 2001


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things he sees that the bud owers. He doesntdirectly touch the bud to expand its petals so thatovernight it becomes a ower. Rather, his way isto make the bud grow naturally, and mature in itsown time into a ower.

GURUJI:

The Telugu saint and poet, Vemana, said, Onewho says this world is false, that its an illusion, thatmaterial life is something to be shunned, and youmust seek some reality that transcends this world...If anybody says this he is telling lies, hes a rogue!Only one who can show you that transcendentalstate if at all you call it a transcendental state here in this world, one who brings that state to youhere and gives it to you here only he is the realSatguru. If anyone says you must leave this world,you must leave all desires, you must break allattachments to this world, and then if you come upto me I will give you bliss then what is it hes goingto give? We are here in this world, we cant climba ladder, we cant go up there, we cant give up allthese attachments how can we go up to him? Hemust come down to us, as if from Skandashram tothe foot of the hill, and hand over that state to ushere where we are in this world. If we can giveup all our desires and climb up to him, what is hisuse? Only he who comes down, who frees us downhere where we are he only is the real Satguru.Regardless of our eort, regardless of how we do

japa, or self-enquiry, or this and that, the Satguru

but now they are fullled through him. And ata certain point what happens is, all those desiresbecome expressions of your love, they take shapeas expressions of your love.

GURUJI:

What a Satguru does as a good teacher is to tryand inculcate in you the spirit of love, the spirit ofenquiry, the re of the desire to grow, to becomemature, to know the meaning of the text of yourlife. A good teacher doesnt say its hopeless when achild doesnt understand a text shes only a child!If she believes shes a grown-up, what is the useof a teacher? A teacher is there to teach the child,knowing the limitations of a child. He doesnt sayits hopeless, he is patient.

No enlightened teacher will tell you to bedisgusted with the world. Instead, they will slowlyinculcate something which will give you the desireto grow, to become more and more mature, tobecome an adult. Then youll automatically dropyour toys and start talking and interacting withreal people.

We cant make a bud into a ower just byexpanding its petals. We must give it manure, somewater, good sunlight all those things which helpit to become a ower. And what a Satguru does is togive you those circumstances, some oral teaching,some mystic experience. He provides good soil,good manure, good water, light and air, and goodprotection a fence of satsang. By doing all these


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for when we will be free of all these patterns andthen ask him what he wants us to ask. Alwayswaiting expectantly, When will they ask? [Gurujilaughs] that is Sai Baba. So-o-o patient. He asks usto give him patience. We dont give it, so he givesit to us that is saburi. What can he do? If we cantgive it, he has to give. [Guruji laughs] He gives andthen takes: Come on! Come on! Give! Give up at

least one pattern! [Guruji laughs] So hes full ofsaburi. And hes so persistent. Whatever we do,hell be persistently, patiently waiting. And he doesit. That is Sai Baba.

GURUJI:

Baba said, People come to me because of rinanu-bandha, because of the karmic relationship, andI see you as a part of that karmic relationship. Itake you all as Babasprasad, nothing else. You aresacred to me. Whether you feel sacred or not that

is a dierent matter, but you are sacred to me because I receive you as Babas prasad, and he is theone who does the good. If he does good to you andyou are happy, I also am happy.

showers his grace on us: it is unconditional. Hejust loves us because of the connection, the way afather loves a child. Does a father view the childsqualications before he loves her? And what isthe qualication of the child? Being born to him,thats all. Thats the sole connection. Whether thechild is worthless or very good the father doesnot care: he simply loves the child. Just like that,

the Satguru loves us. We are all his children. Andsurely, in any case, the one who precedes has theright of choice, not the child. Will anybody say,I have chosen to be born to this father? No, itis not our choice; it is his choice. So Baba said,emphatically, I choose my devotees.

It is the gurus choice to select his devotees. Inthe Indian tradition, the disciple will go to theguru and request him to be accepted as a disciple,and then wait. It is the heart which must tell you.Recognizing the guru is something we cannotexplain. It is a certain attraction, an attachment,some liking. We must crave his acceptance. Andwe must realize that he has chosen us even before

we came into contact with him. Only after he haschosen us can we seek and nd him.

GURUJI:

Who is Baba? What is Sai Baba? That is the question.How are we to understand Sai Baba? I am sayinghes the one who takes care of us, like a watchman,always looking, like our eyelid guards our eye.And he is the one who is anxiously, avidly waiting


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Focus on the Joy

Focus on the Joy

GURUJI:

Focus on the joy, that is enough. Focus on yourneed and the solution which gives you joy; just thethought of the solution will give you joy.

That is what Baba taught Das Ganu Maharajfrom the Ishavasya Upanishad when he sent him toKakasaheb Dixit s house. Its a beautiful teaching.Das Ganu Maharaj longed for an interpretationof the rst sloka of the Ishavasya Upanishad whichhad puzzled many scholars. No scholar couldsatisfy him and so at last he asked Baba. Babasimply said, Oh, is this your question? Why doyou ask me? Go to Dixits house, his housemaidwill tel l you.

Shirdi, 1997


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presence, and that is what the great IshavasyaUpanishad says.

This is what people are missing [here]. A sari hasbeen given. It is just there in the next room, but no,we dont want it! Because with most things, exceptfor our physical needs, our happiness dependsonly upon our awareness of them, not on actuallypossessing them. The very thought that we have

money in the bank gives us happiness; whether weactually draw one rupee of it or not is a dierentmatter. The very awareness that it is there, in thebank, that It is mine! that is enough. We feelso secure, so happy. It is there and we are here; itis there and we are here. [Laughter] Like Dixitshousemaid: she doesnt put on the sari and wedont spend the money it stays ve, ten, fteenyears on deposit still we enjoy it.

GURUJI:

[Referring to the Satguru] Once the awareness isthere that, Yes, he is mine, he belongs to me, Ibelong to him, that is enough. When you sit here,whether I am upstairs and you are downstairs,whether we are in one room or two even if thereis a wall there it is the same dierence. I amsitting here and you are sitting there, just in thenext room. But the wall is more important to you.That is why Baba said, Pull down the wall! Justthe wall is there, thats all. You are there, I am here.Just like the sari of Dixits housemaid I am here!

Das Ganu felt insulted. He was a great scholarand he had consulted other great scholars but theycouldnt give an answer. Now he thought Babawas insulting him by asking him to go to Dixitshousemaid, an illiterate person! Anyhow, simplybecause Baba had said so, Das Ganu Maharaj wentto Bombay, to Ville Parle, and then to Dixits house.He stayed overnight and in the morning he saw

the housemaid: she was dancing with joy! Whenhe asked her why she was so happy, she said it wasbecause Dixits wife had given her a sari, and thesari was there, in her box. Thats all! Just the verythought of the sari was enough to make her dance,she wasnt even wearing it! Then Das Ganu realizedthat Dixits maid had answered his question.

GURUJI:

In Babas own way, a beautiful way, he explainsthe exact mechanism of bliss and happiness.

Kakasaheb Dixits housemaid was given a newsari. She did not even wear the sari she kept itin a box but she was dancing with joy. The veryawareness that her new sari was there, in the box,gave her such bliss that she was dancing withjoy. Why? Its meaningless she hasnt even putthe sari on yet! But when she puts it on, what willhappen? Will she get more joy simply from puttingit on? No, because the joy is already there, in justher knowing the sari is mine, and its in my box.Just that thought is enough to give her joy, so sheshappily dancing. That is called love, that is called


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of nature. Let us enjoy it. If you are not able to enjoyit, then seek how to enjoy it. All these things, thesesatsangs, are only meant to make you learn the artof enjoying your own life, thats all. Then everyminute our life is renewed, nothing old, nothingprevious, nothing dead remains. Every minute it isnew every minute!

GURUJI:

Try to appreciate and enjoy the beautiful life thatBaba has given you: it is an embodiment of hisgrace. I see in everybody, in each one of you, howBaba has placed you, where he has put you, whatBaba has given you. If you want more, I will giveyou more! But enjoy it, enjoy what Baba has given!

GURUJI:

Learn! Experience, enjoy and radiate the joy ofBaba! I want to see that joy. When I see that joyI am also joyful. All your faces will be bubbling,radiating that joy of love, the love of Baba. Theconviction that he is yours, the identity that youare his that royal feeling should be there. Weare all sons and daughters of Sainath Maharaj; ifhe is royal, we are also royal, we are princes andprincesses! [Guruji laughs]

GURUJI:

Your actual enjoyment is not dependent upon theobject of enjoyment. It is only your attitude towardsit, how you relate to the object, that gives youhappiness. That is why Dixits housemaid was sohappy that she was dancing with joy.

For instance, someone is looking for a job. Heneeds it desperately and then one day he gets em-

ployment. He hasnt even received his rst pay, onlyan e-mail notice that hes been employed at such andsuch salary, thats all. But, hes so-o-o happy! Whathas happened to him? That simple awareness thepossibility that a job is there and that he can get asalary allows him to enjoy the whole thing. Justthe very awareness makes him really happy. Andlike that, not only with regard to these worldlythings, its the same when you meet a Satguru likeSai Baba. Its the very awareness that, Yes! Thisis my e-mail letter! [Laughter] Ive got it! thatshould make you happy. Even though you haventgot nirvana, mukti, realization or anything stillthe possibility, the promise, the clear promise that,

Yes! Ive got Baba! that should make you happy.So let us all be like Kakasaheb Dixits maid shehappily has her sari, you have got Baba, what isthere to suer? What to worry about? Ah, happilyenjoy life, happily enjoy! Dance, dance, dance!

GURUJI:

Let us enjoy every minute, every breath. Life is agift to us, it is not a curse, it is not a bane. It is a gift


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My Samadhi Will Answer!

DEVOTEE:

Would you explain the word samadhi?

GURUJI:Experiencing that love, that bliss or sense offullment whatever you call it getting fullyabsorbed in it without any reexive defensemechanisms, that is samadhi.

DEVOTEE:

But why is Babas tomb also called a samadhi?

GURUJI:

The word samadhi has several meanings. The rstTenali, 1993


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Rose Petals My Samadhi Will Answer

GURUJI:

Baba was never conned to his physical bodyeven before 1918, because he himself said, Mymurshid (guru) has already freed me from thisbody. Whoever thinks that this body is Sai Baba,hasnt seen Sai Baba at all. Because he had alreadybeen released from his body, it was already a tomb a small, moving, limited tomb that was capable

of interacting with a number of people. Then,because he is so loving and he wanted to cater tothe growing needs of the people, and the devoteesneed some means of interacting with him, he hadto change. So he changed his tomb from thattomb [his physical body] to the present tomb,which is an extension of Babas body and a formof it. That is why he said, My tomb will speak, mytomb will move, my tomb will answer, just as hisphysical body had been answering.

GURUJI:

We see Babas form and think that he is a Satguru,but by what signs? Because he manifested a partic-ular state. That state gave him the stature of aSatguru. What is important is the stature, not theform. That is why Baba used to say repeatedly, I amnot this body, I am not only this form. This body isonly a means, a tomb, which manifests something.That state was manifested through the form of SaiBaba because we cant understand it unless it isconveyed to us through a concrete channel.

meaning is a tomb. The tomb of any person can becalled a samadhi, so one meaning is tomb. Samadhialso means a state of samadhana, a state in whichour quest for concretization of our abstract senseof fullment is answered and all our needs arefullled; this is the second meaning of samadhi.The third meaning is that state of mind where youare so inwardly absorbed, without any conicting

intellectual or emotional pulls, that all youremotions become totally harmonized. That blissfulstate is also called samadhi.

So the meaning of samadhi is where youexperience that all your needs are answeredcompletely so that no grounds for conict can ariseagain there ends the matter! There are no furtherneeds or desires to be answered, so there are noseeds for future conict. In the ordinary biologicalsense death answers or completes the physicalneed for life, so a tomb is called a samadhi. In thespiritual sense, samadhi is the name given to thatstate in which all our spiritual needs are answeredand get fullled, and in which we experience that

our abstract ideal of fullment has become totallyconcretized that is samadhi. So the word can beused in dierent ways: Baba is in samadhi, thatstate of consciousness; what we see concretely ishis tomb, his samadhi; and when we go there whatwe get is samadhi, our needs are answered. So in allthese senses it has meaning. That is why Baba said,My samadhi will answer! His state of fullmentwill answer the various needs of the people. It isthe samadhi which answers.


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that which grows, develops, unfolds actually,growth. It may be stoppage of the growth of thebody, but not the inuence of the saint. He is notreally dead.

DEVOTEE:Guruji, when somebody dies, is it possible to knowwhere they go, what happens?

GURUJI:

Yes, it is possible to know.

DEVOTEE:

And how can one know this?

GURUJI:

If you know this here, if you know your soul rst.Do you know where your soul is? Do you know

really that your soul is in your body? If there,where is it? How is it? First try to know that!

DEVOTEE:

Guruji, Baba said if you cant meditate on me inthe form of bliss, meditate on my form. For thoseof us attached to the form, could devotees feelabandoned if their guru takes mahasamadhi? Orwill they still feel taken care of?

DEVOTEE:

Guruji, today is Bhagavan Ramanas mahasamadhi.Nowadays it is celebrated with great spirit andjoyfulness, but when he left his body fty yearsago it cant have been like that for the people leftbehind then. So, although today is a beautiful day,there is also a certain poignancy to it, thinkingwhat it must have been like for his devotees who

were left without his form that was so beloved tothem.

GURUJI:

The day when he left his body would have been avery painful day for the devotees, no doubt aboutit. But in India the anniversary of a saints deathis usually celebrated, not mourned, because theyknow there is no death for a saint. Because of thepersonal attachment that the devotees had whentheir master was in the body, it was natural thatmany people cried and it was a day of sorrow.When you have a personal connection with thesaints physical form, it is a painful thing when itpasses away. But in the course of time, the traditioncomes in its place and they realize that it is onlythe body which has gone, and they experience hispresence more and more in a dierent way.

As I have already told you, a saints death,the so-called death, signies for some saints thegrowth of his inuence and his mission. So thatday is actually celebrated, not mourned. If youhave to mourn the death of a saint then hes not asaint, because there is no death for a saint. That iswhy such a thing is called vardhate. Vardha means


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on the window, then that itself will take you towhat is beyond the window.

DEVOTEE:

In spirituality, why is formlessness usually givenmore importance than form?

GURUJI:

No reason. Form is just as important and just asvaluable. Even now form is so important to me who said it isnt? Even now I worship Baba and Ithink of Babas form. I dont have any problem withform, or with formlessness! [Guruji laughs]

DEVOTEE:

But we always hear that we have to transcend formand go beyond to formlessness.

GURUJI:

Babas form is a form, but the bliss which that formgives is always formless. What form will you giveto bliss? Both are there at the same time. Whenyou look at Baba, what you experience is the formwhich gives bliss, which is formless. Baba also saidthe same thing Meditate on me as bliss. If youcant do it look at my form. But if you look at theform what happens is you start to meditate onbliss again! [Guruji laughs] That is Baba!

GURUJI:

When I experienced bliss from Babas form, it wasafter his mahasamadhi.

DEVOTEE:

But how would it have been if you had had theexperience of Babas living form as well?

GURUJI:

Then it would have been even greater, because Iwould have realized that Baba was not the format all at the rst instance itself, just by seeing him.Because I was unfortunate to have only his pictureto look at, I had to cling onto his form for sometime. But if Baba could not give us that experienceat any instant, what would he be?

Anyway, rst think about now! [Guruji laughs]If we know now that all forms are transient, thatsooner or later any form will disappear, from thiswe should know the value of form; and that formis only a means to formlessness. Thats why I give

the example of the window: dont look at the frame,look at the window.

DEVOTEE:

But dont we need to start by looking at the frame?Isnt that the only way for most of us?

GURUJI:

First it starts with the frame but dont get stuckthere. In order not to get stuck there, just lookthrough the window more and more. Be focused


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Living One Life

DEVOTEE:

Are the spiritual life and worldly life separate?How can we balance them?

GURUJI:

In fact, there are not two lives. You live only one l ife.What determines whether it is spiritual or worldlydepends upon your object, the goal, and the sourcefrom which you derive your fullment. If youderive your fullment from a worldly object youcall it worldly life, and if you derive it from a so-called spiritual source, you call it spiritual life. Babanever dierentiated between the two. He saw thereal source, the basis of a persons endeavour why

Tiruvannamalai, 1995


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Rose Petals Living One Life

life.So there is no question of integrating spirituallife into our daily life. It is not that sadhana(spiritual practice) should be part of our life, butthat our whole life should be part of our sadhana.Spiritual practice has to happen twenty-four hoursa day and not only at a special time that we allotfor it one hour of meditation every day! If we havean attitude of learning we can see and use all the

situations of our day-to-day life as sadhana. Thatis to see the whole world as the guru, to see thewhole life as the guru, to learn from everythingand everyone.

So, basically there is no dierence between theworldly and the spiritual. It all depends on ourattitude. Something worldly can be spiritual andsomething spiritual can be purely material.

GURUJI:

As you have a pull towards the world, make it a

means to achieve your spiritual end. Then all theworld will become a means to that.Usually, for a seeker, the world is considered an

obstacle, an enemy, a nightmare, whereas to a Saidevotee it is a tool to draw him nearer and nearerto the object of his love. For example, when wehave an illness, what happens in many spiritualcircles is that one should not complain about it. It isnothing to do with our sadhana or our Satguru. Theguru tells you that you are not the body. Focus onthe Self, dont worry about this illness! But we aretroubled by our poor health. So we say to ourselves,

people strive. Whether it is worldly or spiritual, whydo people strive? It is for fullment, for happiness!

Usually peoples concept is that fullmentcomes only through worldly objects. If someonesays to them, No, no, that is not fullment! theystill experience it as fullment! They want money,or they have a problem, and unless it is solvedthey cant be happy. If you say, That is all maya,

real happiness lies somewhere beyond! they maylisten out of respect, but it cant go into their heartand they dont really understand it. So what Babadoes is he rst fulls our desires by his power.Then once we know that Baba is the source of thefullment, our focus slowly shifts from the actualobject of the desire to the one who gives that object.

There are dierent kinds of objects throughwhich we derive our happiness. When there is onesource, the Satguru, which can give all of those,our mind starts focusing more and more on him.Then as the love for him develops, the pull towardsthe other objects slowly gets weaker until only thepull towards the Satguru remains.

DEVOTEE:

Guruji, how can we integrate spirituality into oureveryday life?

GURUJI:

Why do you divide life into spiritual and non-spiritual? Why make this articial division andgive more value to one and less to the other? Life is


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business, the so-called unspiritual activity, thatis actually pulling him to the so-called spiritual.And Baba knows how to slowly transform. His lifeis based on the business, and since the business isbased on Baba, ultimately, his whole existence isbased on Baba. These pulls, these burning desires,are like small sticks of re scattered around hereand there, and he wants to gather them together

and make a big bonre. That is the way.

GURUJI:

Once the desire is fullled and the devotee knowsthat their experience came through their Satguru,the loving bond between them leads to theirtransformation. It is not the fullment of the desirethat is the purpose; it is the transformation.

DEVOTEE:

But for the devotee, it seems in most cases that the

purpose is the fullment of the desire.

GURUJI:

To them it is like that. They may not be seeking anytransformation, but if Baba fulls their desires, it isfor transformation. They may not be aware of it. Itdoesnt matter. It is enough if they know that it isBaba who gave the experience.

We are not the body, but at the same time we areworried about the illness and so a clash is created.But for a Sai devotee, if he gets ill he goes to Babato cure him. Then once he is better he feels, Oh,Baba has cured me! Even the illness, that samebody which is normally considered an obstacle,even that becomes a means of drawing him closerto the Satguru.

By looking at things in this way, we can makeall our life an expression of our love towardsour Satguru, a perpetual, unending ritual whichdoesnt seem to be a ritual and which breathes intous the spirit of love.

That is what I mean by making your whole life apart of your eort for spirituality.

GURUJI:

Baba never asked people to give up their desires,to shun desires, Desires are not good, they are

not spiritual, no, he didnt say it. He slowlytransformed these pulls into a bigger pull.See, for example, a businessman. Once he has

come to Baba, he prays to him before making anydecision and he gets the success. So his successand the business link him to Baba. Business isnot something which takes him away from hisSatguru. In fact, his main pull, his main desire money is bringing him more and more to Baba.Whenever he gets a contract he makes a point ofcoming to Baba. If there were no contract, maybehe wouldnt come at all! [Guruji laughs] So it is the


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Everybody is eligible for happiness. Everybodyis capable. Everybody is seeking. And everybodyis bound to get it, as long as they seek and aresincerely seeking.

GURUJI:

We feel that something is missing but we dontknow what it is, so we experiment maybe this,maybe that will give me happiness? The wholeworld is experimenting, struggling for that whichis missing. The so-called spirituality is one of theways.

Everybody is struggling, everybody is a seeker,

everyone is on the spiritual path, as long as we aretrying for happiness. It is only the method thatdierentiates the paths. Happiness is a basic needof human nature. If it were not, spirituality wouldhave no meaning. For example, a person who isstriving for money, why do they want money? Forhappiness. Why do they want power? Happiness.Why do they want friends and relationships?Happiness. There are thousands of dierent things.Everybody is striving and striving and striving. Thewhole world is full of that struggle and striving forhappiness. Among the millions of methods whichhuman beings are trying and still inventing moreand more we are also trying in our own way.

Maybe by trying this way we will get something, ahappiness which is not dependent on anything else,that which the saints have spoken of.

The struggle for happiness is a human problem.We are only responding to the human problem.Everybody is. It is not our special problem that weare trying to use special methods to solve. It is nota special disease; it is a common complaint. Onlythe means are dierent and some are branded asspiritual and some are branded as worldly, but Iam talking about the basic struggle of all beings.


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Meditation

GURUJI:

Meditation is an expression and experience ofour love, of our need, of our object of love. See,for instance, when I leave the room after satsangyou sit quietly. All the talk that normally comes tothe mind is not needed then. Youll have absorbedsome words, some pieces from the satsang. Itsnot the intellectual theory, or the concepts, or theteachings. The mind refuses to think; it dissolves,it falls away. You simply sit with your eyes closedand feel the joy inside. That experience of joy ismeditation.

Tirumala, 1995


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Rose Petals Meditation

not able to experience yet, in meditation you cometo experience that part also. It may be called thesearch for Truth, but in that search do not reject therest of life, thinking its all maya (illusion), or shunya(void). Rather, participate in life! Embrace life!

GURUJI:

When meditation becomes an expression of oureort to concretize our abstract sense of fullment,then alertness automatically comes, interest auto-matically comes. When love towards our object oflove is there, one of its symptoms or by-productsis alertness. Not sitting in a morass of dullness,watching the clock, watching the time that is notalertness. When interest and alertness are there,even if you sit for two or three hours, you wontwatch the clock.

DEVOTEE:

Guruji, when we sit for meditation should we useany technique?

GURUJI:

Nothing! Simply sit and feel the bliss; real medi-tation is actually experiencing the bliss. If the mindwavers, try to focus on Baba in whatever way youlike, whether calling him by name or by thinking ofhim, whatever it is. When the time comes that you

DEVOTEE:

Guruji, what is profound meditation and what roledo thoughts play in it?

GURUJI:

Profound meditation is an ecstatic experiencein which one feels that ones vessel is full to thebrim. It is the experience of fullness by whichone is so overcome that it doesnt matter whetherthoughts arise or not. Our attention is so heldby the experience that thoughts become totallysecondary; even if they come they have no powerto distract from the experience.

GURUJI:

The main purpose of meditation is to awaken ouremotion. Real meditation starts when our love getsawakened. Meditation is not turning a humanbeing into a stone: static, stoic, indierent, without

any thought, without emotions. Meditation isturning a stone into a human being. If the emo-tions are cultured and harmonized they can ndmeaningful expression in life. If one emotion isstronger, the others will naturally harmonize withit. Meditation is not keeping the mind blank. It isexperiencing and relishing the taste of life, notwithdrawal from life, not shutting yourself awayfrom life. Life is so natural; if you shut yourself ofrom the world, you shut yourself o from Truthitself. And since life is something more which you are


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an object that spontaneously evokes your love,and try to make that love grow, grow, grow. Then,automatically, you will get a thoughtless state avoid, vipassana, everything will come. This is thespontaneous [natural] method, not the forcefulstopping of thoughts that is manipulative. This ismaking eort through eortlessness.

GURUJI:

Always remember that the experience of expan-sion, of vastness, is a sign of good meditation.Even though you are focusing on something, yourexperience should be one of expansion, not ofcontraction or constriction. You feel expanded. Thathappens when you are aware of what I said before the nature of the Satguru, of Baba, vast like theHimalayas that awareness. That gives you theexperience of vastness, of expansion. Look at thesea: you cant even pinpoint the horizon your mindexpands, it goes on expanding that is meditation.

DEVOTEE:

Guruji, what can be done if the mind doesnt feelbliss and cant stay focused on Baba?

GURUJI:

Without forcing the mind, try to contemplate your

are not even aware you are doing meditation, thatis right meditation. It should feel like when yourereally hungry and there are no restaurants around.You run here and there until you nally nd arestaurant and greedily eat the food. After eating,how do you feel? You say, Oh, my God! That wasdelicious! You feel immense satisfaction. Thencomes, Ahhh, now I feel like taking a siesta. Real

meditation is like a siesta, when eortlessly youreyes close from the experience of full satisfaction.

GURUJI:

People try to control the mind by observingthoughts, or try to stop thoughts by concentratingon a form or concept, though both are concepts[thoughts]. Meditating on having no thoughts isstill a concept and the thoughts become obstacles.Or some want to brush aside thoughts and concen-trate on having a voidness; they want to have aninsight, a vipassana. And there are other techniques:watching the breath, and this and that.

But I always advise people to do it the other wayaround, and without all these things, go with thenatural tendency of the mind. The natural tendencyof the mind is to concentrate automatically on whatyou love, or on what you hate, what you dontlike. In the second instance, this is accompaniedby displeasure, a negative feeling, a sadness, andyou are not at ease; you lose your peace of mind.But in the rst instance, you experience love anda kind of fullment. So rst try to catch hold of


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object of love and connect yourself to it in any wayyou can. Do whatever connects you more and more,because that connection is what will give you thefullment, the experience of bliss. Your object oflove itself will give you the experience: bliss is itsnature. Once you are experiencing the bliss, thereis no need of the form, the connection or any othermeans. But to get it all the time is not possible, and

often we miss it, so at these times we have to useour own ways to connect again.

GURUJI:

Because they love Baba so much, people like me liketo look at him, like always to think about him andtalk about him theres nothing theyd rather do.They cant do otherwise, because they want alwaysto be with him. For these people their love is not aneort or a means to do anything to be meditating,contemplating, or doing nama. For them these arenot spiritual practices done to achieve a goal, theyare simply expressions of their love. And all thespiritual practices should be done like that thisis what I feel. And what you get from Baba thefullment, the nal goal is not dependent on thisdirectly. As though Because you have meditatedon me for four hours, I will give you bliss no! Itsnot directly related to it. Because for them its donesimply as an expression of their love for Baba, notas a means of getting anything; they know Babawill give whenever they are ready to receive.

GURUJI:

As long as we have the love, meditation willnaturally come. Then gradually everything we dothroughout the day becomes an expression of ourlove, not only sitting here for one hour looking atBaba. There are dierent ways of expressing thatlove; meditation is one of those ways. When allour actions are expressing our experience of love,

everything becomes part of meditation.

GURUJI:

Since you cant sit still for twenty-four hours andstay focused, you need something more. The bodyneeds some activity because there are so manydistracting pulls and patterns. The solution isgradually to let all these patterns be channelled insuch a way that the activity we do is, in the end,related to Baba. So while doing it we are remindedof him and feel the satisfaction of doing it for him,

or to him, while remembering him. Then, whenthe mind clears enough, just sit and experiencethe happiness, for as long as you can. After sometime, again the mind starts getting disturbed.Then again some activity is needed. By working inthis way, the hours of meditation and stillness areprolonged until nally there is no need to get upany more. When the need to move is gone, it doesntmatter whether you sit or get up, both are the same.

But here the most important thing is: manypeople take care of what they do in meditation,but they pay no attention to what they do outside


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GURUJI:

Working in the world and meditating, both becomesadhana until we reach the goal. Dont connemeditation to the time you sit with eyes closed,because that is only a part of your life your lifeis not only that. Make meditation part of your life,but make your whole life part of your meditation.How? Baba said, Meditate on me in the form of

bliss. If you are not capable of doing that, thenmeditate on me in this form you see here. But hisrst preference was bliss, the taste of life, therelish of life. When you really enjoy somethingall the symptoms of meditation will come. Whydo you close your eyes when you taste somethingdelicious? Because you relish it and feel fullysatised you are happy! What I am asking ofyou is to relish the taste of life. Meditation is theenjoyment that arises from relishing the taste oflife that is true meditation.

it. Then they say, Oh, we have been meditating,doingjapa for two, ve, or ten years, still nothinghas happened. This is because they take care onlyof what they do in meditation. But I tell you, whatdecides, what modies, what spoils, or what keepsup what you do in meditation, is what you dooutside meditation usually people dont take careof that. But if you focus on what you do outside

meditation, you wont need to make any eort inmeditation at all it will naturally come.

Try to go through the routine of your wholeday in such a way that it becomes meaningful andfullling by keeping it more and more focusedon Baba. Do it! Then see how you sit and how youexperience it!

DEVOTEE:

How do we know that we are really meditatingand not just sitting with eyes closed?

GURUJI:

You judge a tree by its fruit. What you are doingoutside your meditation will tell you you dontneed any other test. To see your forearm, you dontneed a mirror. The quality of your meditation canbe seen from what you do in your daily life.


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The Unique Mahima ofShirdi Sai Baba

DEVOTEE:In a book I read recently the author referred to SaiBaba as a miracle worker, but others say that it isnot a correct way to describe him.

GURUJI:

They may say that Baba is a man of miracles, but henever materialized anything. Such things he calledchamatkar, and he emphatically said, We dont dochamatkar.

Shirdi, 2006


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Rose Petals The Unique Mahima of Shirdi Sai Baba

GURUJI:

With Sai Baba almost all his miracles carry atransforming eect on the experiencer. This isvery rare in any saint. The so-called supernaturalacts or so-called miracles that happened aroundhim always carried a teaching, which pushed atransformation. You can see that in his biography,to some extent. Just try to imagine yourself in the

place of any of the devotees who experienced amiracle with Baba, and you will see.

In this way, Babas biography is his teaching.There was no verbal teaching, no separate teaching,in fact. Baba taught through his acts. With regardsto chamatkar they only bae the experiencers mind,but with Baba, the miracles carry a teaching. For ex-ample, if people came for money, Baba didnt simplygive it, or say, Go there and you will nd money,nor would someone come and just hand it over tothem. No, Baba would try to make it seem as if ithad simply happened naturally, but the experiencerknew that there was more to it than that.

There was a devotee, for instance, who used to

come to Shirdi from time to time who was a bigmanager in a cotton mill in Bombay. At one pointhe had some trouble with the management so heresigned and was unemployed. Almost a yearpassed and he was having diculty maintaininghimself. He was in the nancial doldrums. Oneday he decided, What am I doing simply whilingaway my time in Bombay? Lets go to Shirdi andat least stay in Babas presence for two or threemonths until I get another job.

DEVOTEE:

So then what did he call those superhuman acts?

GURUJI:

To him it is just like a mother caring for her child.But if you want to call it a miracle, its okay. Whena baby feels hungry and milk suddenly justmaterializes and ows from the mothers breast,is it not a miracle? As long as the child needsthe milk, it comes; and when the need is gone, itautomatically diminishes. It is a miracle that everymother does and every child experiences, and yetit is so natural. And Baba experiences it like that,so naturally.

DEVOTEE:

But we dont experience it like that, do we?

GURUJI:

That is why you call it a miracle! I call it naturalmothering. Baba is taking care of us like a loving

mother. What you call a miracle is natural mother-ing to a Satguru like Sai Baba.

DEVOTEE:

Many miracles were seen in Babas life. As wellas fullling a persons need, was there any otherpurpose to them?


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station, the mill owner was right there and sawhim immediately.

Oh, I was actually looking for you! What areyou doing now?

Im not doing anything.Will you accept a post in my mill? he asked.Oh, very happily I will!Okay, then come to Bombay tomorrow. Ill be

back there by then.So he went to Bombay, he got the appointment,

and he did become a seth, in fact.All this happened within a week. Do you think

it was all a simple coincidence? If Baba had justsaid, Go home! and he had met that person inBombay, it would have been a dierent matter,but Baba purposely said, Go via Pune! And themeeting happened in a railway station, where thereare hundreds of people, and where even just onesecond is enough to miss a person, yet he got downfrom the compartment exactly when the mill ownerwas there! So accurate, as if everything had beenplanned exactly.

Just think how that devotee must haveexperienced it! He not only experienced that SaiBaba gave him a job, but also how miraculouslythe whole thing unfolded.

GURUJI:

Sai miracles seem so natural. We receive hiskindness, mercy, protection and grace from thepeople around us. When we pray to Baba for

So he went to Shirdi and by then he was experien-cing bitter poverty. As he entered the mosque Babagreeted him, Oh avo, seth, avo. Come, rich man,come. (A wealthy man is called a seth.) Come seth,come!

The man felt embarrassed. See, Baba is ridiculingmy poverty. He is calling me a rich man, a seth. I amnot a seth now, and he went and sat down.

Baba asked, What is your programme?Then he said, I want to stay a few months here,

Baba.No! Go to Bombay! Baba said. Start for Bombay

immediately!That man was baed. I only came just now and

he is already asking me to go away! Oh, even Babais only thinking of rich people. Im a poor man, thatis why he doesnt want me to stay here. Then hesaid, Okay, Baba, as you have ordered it, I will go.

Then, when giving that man udi, Baba said rmly,Go via Pune! Nobody goes to Bombay fromShirdi via Pune. It is ridiculous! It is a completelydierent route. Yet, Go to Bombay via this route!

he said.So the man went to Pune, and, just as he got o

the train, he met somebody who was the proprietorof a cotton mill and who said he had just beenthinking of him. A managers post had been vacantin his mill for about a month and he was wondering,Who is the right person for the job? Actually, themill owner knew this man and thought he would besuitable for the post, but he didnt know his addressor how to reach him, so he couldnt do anything. Butwhen the man got o the train in the busy railway


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every day and reading aloud a few pages ofEknathBhagawat.

This man went there, and just as he came in, theywere reading a chapter in which Eknath Maharajwas answering precisely the same question hehad asked Baba! The devotee who was reading thepassage didnt know that this man had alreadyasked Sai Baba that same question, or that Baba

had sent him there to get an answer to his query.Another remarkable feature of this is that it was aregular reading that took place every day and therewas no guarantee that the man would go theredirectly. He could have stopped for a cup of chaiin the canteen, or for a chitchat with a friend, or hecould have gone to his room, to the toilet, whatever.But just as he sat down, the question was addressedand answered! Baba had said, Go to the pothi andyour question will be answered. Just look at thestage management of Baba!

GURUJI:

Before I went to Poondi, I was very hecticallyreading all the scriptures. They all extol the ecacyof tirthas and going to kshetras (places of pilgrim-age, holy places) and I had a doubt: why do saints who are completely fullled and have attainedtheir ultimate object why do they need to go totirthas? In the Puranas we see that many saints visittirthas, and dierent holy places. I wondered, whatis the need for them to do that? What more holinessdo they need? Are they in need of holiness? Or do

example, I am in dire need of money. Please helpme Baba, Baba does not place a lakh of rupeesunder our pillow as we sleep. Someone will cometo us at the right moment and advise us, Do it thisway and your problem will be solved. If we followtheir advice, circumstances turn favourable for us,our needs are fullled and the problem is solved.

Baba does his leelas in this way he is not

performing magic tricks. This is the special featureof Babas so-called miracles: whatever help we getis from the people around us and the surroundingcircumstances. This is his approach when respon-ding not only to our mundane everyday needs, butalso to our spiritual needs. That is why he has said,I have no spiritual heirs. I will answer the needsof my devotees even from my samadhi.

GURUJI:

With Baba, if we are worried about a problem,someone will come and show us the way; it ashesupon us as the answer to our problem although theperson who advises us does not know that this isthe solution we were longing for.

This was Babas way even when he was in thebody. He would never give discourses on Vedanta,or directly answer questions on philosophy, butpeople used to ask him and he would answer inhis own way. Once when somebody asked sucha question, Baba answered, Go and attend the

pothi. Pothi meansparayana, devotional reading,and some of the devotees were sitting together


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every miracle that you see, every experience thatyou read conveys a message the message whichsome other saints taught verbally. Nobody felt anylack that Baba did not teach, because they were sofullled. There was no need for that. Teaching isneeded in order to get that experience of fullmentand to get rid of our helplessness. When that isspontaneously achieved in his presence, what is

the need of any other thing?

they need some polishing of their holiness? [Gurujilaughs] Why?

I was thinking about this one day when I wasoutside, and of all the slokas and all the dierentreferences in the Puranas, when suddenly therewas a big gust of wind. Then, a piece of veryold notepaper, which somebody had used aspackaging for some peanuts or something, came

and just dashed against my face. I caught it andopened it and then I saw: it was a page from theNarada Bhakti Sutras, with exactly the sutra wheresomebody asks Narada, Why do holy men go toholy places? and Narada gives the answer, Holymen go to holy places in order to make the holyplaces holy. [Guruji laughs] That was the sloka!

Then I thought, Oh! If Baba wishes, he can givean answer wherever we are. That is why I alwaystell you when you say, What Guruji, you are goingaway! What are we going to do? No need to worry.Baba is so great you will get your answers!

DEVOTEE:

Sai Baba did not give philosophical teachings inthe way that some saints do, did he?

GURUJI:

No, no. Nobody expected such a thing from him.The moment they went to him they saw the power,they were aware of their helplessness, they soughthelp and they got it. By getting the help they alsogot the message. So every leela, every incident,


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Love and Devotion

GURUJI:

Happiness comes because of love. When you havean object of love, thinking of your object of lovewill give you the experience of love. And if at allI tell you anything to do, it is this: when you areunable to experience love, the only way to bring itback and to strengthen it, is to give expression to it.The more you express it, the more it grows, and themore it strengthens.

Some people think, I should simply sit andkeep my mind focused on Baba. But how long canyou sit simply focusing, focusing, focusing? Thatfocusing is losing its focus! So we need to nd otherways which give us the focus. People are always

Shirdi, 2005


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Rose Petals Love and Devotion

But we know the technique instinctively, everybodydoes, because it is so human. The technique I amreferring to is not something new, not a bolt fromthe blue.

For example, the father goes to the oce, thencomes home and sees his small child; he loves thechild so much, but he is away all day at the oce.Why is he working? To feed the child; that is a

dierent matter. But as soon as he comes home,what does the father do? He just picks up his childand gives her a kiss, and then a doll or a dress hebought while coming back from work. What makeshim do this? Why does he hug the child and kissher? Simply because he loves the child, thats all!The love is there inside us is it necessary to expressit? Yes, because even though its there it can growweak and wither away if not expressed. But evenwhen weak, its there, and expression can triggerit. See you want to give just one kiss to the child,but the moment you kiss her something springs up,and you cant help giving her two, three, four, evenve kisses, until shes almost smothered in kisses!

This is the nature of love to want more and moreexpression and are these not rituals?

Daily the father comes back from the oceand performs that ritual. And in the morning themother gives the child a bath, dresses her in prettyclothes and puts owers in her hair. Usually at sucha young age a child has no dress-consciousness;whether you dress her in rags or riches she wontcare, its the same for her. But will any motherthink, Oh, she doesnt know the dierence, soIll dress her in rags? Will any mother think like

searching for ways to do this some bring owers,some bring fruit, others do puja or sing nama whatare all these things? Are they done to focus on thefruit or owers? [Laughter] No, they are done tostrengthen our focus, weakened to distraction byother objects, and to centre it on our object of love.This is needed because our minds are so active andwe have so many pulls.

So when we choose to do certain things mind-fully, discerning what are our real expressions oflove, then our actions become genuine expressionsof love and we experience it. The more we expressthat love the more it grows and the more weexperience it; this is how to strengthen our focus.There are some resistances, which are our old habitpatterns, and these tend to distract and divert us.The only way to resist your resistances is to giveyour love more expression. If your love is weakand not expressed, it slowly withers away. Theexperience may be there, but it feels soft, weak, notso strong.

So when anybody complains that they are unable

to experience love, I say, Then express it! And infact, these expressions are the real rituals. It mayappear sometimes that they are just rituals, but ifthey express our love they are not merely rituals.If it expresses our love, any ritual is ne. And anyritual, or non-ritual, that doesnt express our loveshould be shunned. Because what we want is love,and to express love.

To some of you the statement, Expression streng-thens love may seem strange. How can expressionstrengthen love? Have you ever thought about this?


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strengthen and experience it more and more, moreand more. You may call this a spiritual practice, aritual, or just a need. To me it is simply the mostnatural way of living; it is the art of life.

In this there is no beginning, no end. Its not thatthrough suering, through tapas, through turmoil,that you reach the cessation of suering thefreedom, nirvana, mukti that youre looking for.

The practice from the very beginning is the end.The experience of fullment through love is yourgoal, and you experience this from the beginningitself. The path itself is the end in fact, there isno end to it. It matters only how much you areexperiencing it at any moment whether in full,fuller, fullest, or the most fullest way! This maybe wrong grammatically, but that is how we feel:every time it is full, at every step it is full. But alwaysit wants to be fuller, and you want to experience itmore and more. So no suering, no means, no end,just that self-consuming love, that experience oflove which is our fullment a fullling love. Thatis the start, it is the means, and it is the end. Not a

means to an end, but the end itself that is what Iam saying.

And once you experience that, then this checkingbusiness, of where are we going, what are we doing,are we getting anything, what is our progress all this is not needed. Nothing. No progress, noprogress reports. If at all you get any progress,you progress in more expressions and experiencesof love. And even if you dont progress, you dontlose anything because you are already there. Thatis the path here. That is Saipatham!

this? Then why do we dress her in pretty clothes?Again, it is our expression of love. Its not that thechild needs it: you are the one who wants to seeher dressed in the latest fashions and hairstyles,and to take photos of her and maintain an album.Are these not rituals expressing love? In puja theychant, Abishekam, vastram samarpayami, (I oerbath and garment), and Naivedyam samarpayami,

(I dedicate the food oering). So here also, youbathe the child, dress and feed her. There, at theend, you say, Dhyanam karishye, (I will performmeditation) and then you sit for a while. Here,you simply sit and enjoy playing with your child.And if you miss it, you think, Oh, today I haventspent time with her! Let me sit ve minutes at least,otherwise shell miss me so much! But in fact, its

you who miss her so much, its you who make thetime to sit with her. Is it not a ritual?

So these are the ways we express our love. Butthey are not the only ways. Sometimes, when theneed is there, a new way is invented, and we keep oninventing new ways, new expressions, more rituals

to express our love, in ever ner, more beautiful,more fullling ways. Always, the more you expressit, the more it grows and needs to be expressed there is no end to it. In fact, no end is not a negativestatement because in love, no one wants an end toit: Oh! Love should also have a limit! No foolwill feel like that. Rather, it should be so unending,with umpteen expressions and endless experiences.And this love is triggered by the Satguru, its notour choice, and because that experience gives usfullment, even an iota of fullment, we try to


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they make cakes with cow dung which they useas fuel, as rewood to cook food, and then whensomebody dies, at the funeral they are crematedon a pile of dung cakes. If we dont nd that objectof love and make our whole life consumed in ourexperience of that love, what happens is that all ourlife, all our eorts, every breath we take and everybreath we give out, is like collecting dung cakes for

our funeral. Then all our life is like a preparation fordeath, because we cant ascribe any other meaningto it. We feel frustrated, we are not fullled, we arenot enjoying life. Is there a meaning to it?

When you nd your object of love, life is no longera preparation for death. Why then are you living?To experience the Satgurus love! Then your life hasa meaning and a purpose. Every breath will be anexpression or an experience of love, expression andexperience. When we breathe out we express love,when we breathe in, we experience love. What youexperience you express, and the more you express,the more you experience.

Ill give you a mundane analogy. If you want togo to Madras, you go to the bus station and boardthe bus. Then, if you are really wise, you simply,happily go to sleep, because by getting into theright bus, all your eorts are ended; in eect youare already at your destination. Why? Because eventhough the bus is still in Tiruvannamalai, when itreaches Madras you will still be in the same bus. So

there is no fretting and fuming, Oh, have I reachedthe right destination? Is this the right bus?

Here the means is also the end so there is noquestion of whether we are wasting our life inorder to get something. Or, if you dont get it, thatyou think, Oh, all these eorts, all this time hasbeen wasted! Now we have to retrace our steps andstart all over again! There is no business with allthese things. You are already there experiencing it,and trying to experience it more and more. Thenyour whole life becomes a part of it, a part of thatexperience. Not that we experience it as part of ourlife: even one lifetime is not sucient to experienceit! Is one short life sucient to experience the bliss

of love?Then our life has meaning and value. Otherwise,

what meaning do we have for our lives? Come on,anybody tell me: why are you living? If you arehonest, you will answer, Because I havent died sofar. Because its beyond your choice, because youcant help it otherwise. What kind of fate is it, livingthis helpless life?

That is how Baba has very beautifully put it. Hesaid, Find the guru, otherwise why and for whathave you come? Is it to collect dung cakes? In India


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Two Paise: Nishtha and Saburi

Radha Bai Deshmukh came to Baba for upadesh,got none, and resolved upon satyagraha. She started

fasting, which should end only with her death orwith upadesh from Baba, whichever occurred rst.After three days of her fruitless fast I intercededwith Baba on her behalf and requested him to uttersome divine name in her presence. Baba sent forher and addressed her thus,

Mother, why do you think of dying and tortureyourself? Take pity on me, your child. I am abeggar. Look here, my guru was a great saint andhighly merciful. I fatigued myself in trying to servehim and yet he did not utter any mantra in my ear.

Shirdi, 2006


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Rose Petals Two Paise: Nishtha and Saburi

GURUJI:

The story of Siddiq Falke comes in the Sri SaiSatcharita. He came to Baba after having done theHajj pilgrimage and Baba didnt even allow him tostep into Dwarkamai. He told him he could takedarshan from a distance only and that he should notenter Dwarkamai at all. And so Falke waited fornine months in Shirdi.

In fact, it was a shame, wasnt it? For a Hajji notto enter a masjid how he would have felt! Yet thisHajji Falke waited for nine months and his patiencewas so exemplary that at the end he used to dinewith Baba. Very few people were allowed to sit inDwarkamai and dine with Baba only nine or ten but Siddiq Falke was chosen. This man who was soill-treated before so-called ill-treatment, of course was so much honoured later. What was the reason?What gave him that? His patience, his saburi. Whatwas the basis for his saburi? His love. Whats theuse of my staying in Shirdi? I dont even get thechance to enter Dwarkamai! He never thoughtlike that. He knew why Baba was making him wait,

and he waited and waited and waited, and he gotwhat he wanted. That is saburi.

GURUJI:

Nishtha doesnt mean faith. Nishtha should ac-tually be translated as uninching perseverance.Why uninching? Because what inches youare your likes and dislikes, so uninching meansna-ishta (no likes). Everybody has their own likes

Instead, he rst shaved me clean and then beggedof me, twopaise. What he wanted was not metalliccoin he did not care even for gold but onlynishtha and saburi. I gave these to him at once andhe was pleased.

SriSai Babas Charters and Sayings, No. 137

GURUJI:

Nishtha is one of the paise Baba asked for asdakshina. It means paying attention, keeping ourmind on our purpose, asking ourselves, Whatdo we want, where are we going, what are wedoing? Remaining steady and devoted to ourpurpose whatever comes, whether palatable or not,whether happy or unhappy, just persevering in it,that is nishtha. It is natural to any beggar, in fact areal beggar perseveres! If someone doesnt give, orchases him away, he wont go. Hell keep on asking,Sir, one rupee, one rupee, but he doesnt go. He

sticks to his purpose, hell keep pursuing it. Learnnishtha from him.

The otherpaisa Baba asked for was saburi. Saburiis happily waiting, not complaining, Oh, this is toomuch, I cant take it! or getting disappointed andeasily frustrated, or giving up out of impatience.Waiting cheerfully, with patience and love, that issaburi.


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and stressed by the waiting, youre impatient forit to be over. But if your Beloveds ight is delayedby two hours, even though you must also wait,its a dierent kind of suering, you almost enjoyit. With your boss, if you dont wait you will loseyour job; there are longterm consequences to notstaying. Here, with no consequences and nothingto lose by not waiting, even if the ight is four

hours late, still you will stay. Why? Because thelonger we wait, once the ight comes in and weglimpse our Beloved, the greater our enjoymentis! We feel the extra two hours was worth it, noproblem. We love to stand there, we enjoy thewaiting, we enjoy the anticipation of seeing ourBeloved! Just the thought of seeing him makes ushappy! Even the waiting is so thrilling, we enjoyit! And this actually changes the whole quality ofwaiting: it ceases to be waiting in fact. Instead, thewaiting for becomes waiting upon. You know thedierence between these two, hmm? Waiting uponour Beloved. This is true saburi.

GURUJI:

Na-ishta means no ishta, theres no my ishta,theres no your choice or liking. Always keepingyour focus, keeping your object in view, alwaysmindful of why youve come that is nishtha.Always that attention, that carefulness, that focus that is nishtha.

and dislikes, their own pulls, their own brand ofpreferences; all these are called ishtas in Sanskrit.That is what is meant by ishta: it is your liking,something chosen by you. So na-ishta means no-ishta no liking, no choice. So, among all yourishtas, one ishta (our object of love) should be thererst! Holding onto one ishta amongst all the restis nishtha this is the uninching devotion Baba

asked for. Love becomes uninching when the pulltowards the object of love becomes stronger thanour other pulls then this pull itself gradually pullsyou away from the others, and your love becomesuninching and steady; that is nishtha.

DEVOTEE:

Do nishtha and saburi mean that our relationship tosuering changes, or that we actually experiencesuering less because now it has an underlying

purpose?GURUJI:

It all depends on how you relate to your reason forsuering, and to its object. For example, see thedierence between waiting at the airport for yourboss or for your Beloved. Suppose your boss iscoming and youve been sent to receive him. Youarrive with a name tag and youre standing therewhen an announcer says, This ight is delayed twohours for technical reasons. Just see, during thenext two hours, how you suer! You feel anxious


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DEVOTEE:

Thats what remains?

GURUJI:

Thats what remains. These were the only twopaisethat actually remained with Baba and even thesewere to be given as dakshina!

GURUJI:

Suppose our Beloved is arriving by train and wewant to be at the station to meet him. We evenarrive one hour before the scheduled time toensure we wont be late. We are looking forward somuch to seeing him that we are waiting happily this is saburi.And while waiting, in order to be readyto receive him, there are several things that need

to be done: we have to enquire about the platform,check the time of arrival, nd out the compartment,then stand at the right place and be alert. Ourwaiting and eagerly looking in the direction of theexpected arrival wont make the train come sooner.But when it comes, we are prepared, we are ableto glimpse our Beloved as soon as the train comesin, and we are ready to receive him. All thesepreparations are what sadhana is about it is theart of happily waiting, the art of readiness andreceptivity.

DEVOTEE:

In the Sri Sai Satcharita it is written that Babas gururst got Babas head shaved and then asked himfor twopaise. Does that mean that only after all histhoughts were cleared that he was asked for nishthaand saburi?

GURUJI:

If everything else goes, then what remains is nishthaand saburi total, loving attention, waiting uponthe guru. That is nishtha saburi.


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Concretizing Fullment

DEVOTEE:

Guruji, what exactly is it that causes this longing,this desire inside us for liberation and enlighten-ment, for seeking Baba? Where does this longingcome from?

GURUJI:

I think I explained this many times. It happensbecause you feel you need something, that youare lacking something, but you dont know whatit is. And when you see Baba, he personies, heepitomizes, he gives you a concrete picture of whatyou are aspiring to. You cant explain it, you cantdescribe it, but something tells you instinctively,

Shirdi, 1996


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Rose Petals Concretizing Fulflment

Outwardly they seem to have surrendered to theSatguru, but in reality they have surrendered totheir own sense of fullment. If you understandthis process and its mechanism, you will realizethat all these people who are prostrating to meare not really touching my feet. Actually, they aretrying to touch their own state of fullment.

You asked what I feel when people do namaskar.

Yes, if at all I feel anything, I feel that thosenamaskars are being oered not to me but to SaiBaba, because Sai Baba is the concrete image of myown sense of fullment and perfection. Also, mostpeople need a guru to trigger and help concretizetheir sense of fullment, so it is their need for a guruthat makes some people see me as one and treat meas such. For myself, I feel no need for devotees ordisciples, so I do not see them in that light.

DEVOTEE:

Guruji, would you explain what you mean byconcretization of the abstract?

GURUJI:

Suppose you know that someone has depositedone lakh rupees in your bank account, but you donthave a cheque book and you cant withdraw it doyou think you are rich or poor? You are rich, butyou need a cheque book in order to concretize it, toactually get hold of the ru

Rose Petals Vol 1

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