Miracles by Baba.

MIND BOGGLING MIRACLES OF SATHYA SAI

By Sri Ghandikota V. Subba Rao From Sri Sathya Sai Avatar of Love Prashanti Society, November 23, 1993

[Mr. Ghandikota V. Subba Rao has been a devotee of Swami for many years. He served with UNICEF and the United Nations, as head of the Energy Section, for 34 years and took early retirement in 1985 to return to India to be with his 92 year old father, Sri Ghandikota Subrahmanya Sastry, the Rishi of the Sathya Sai Gayathri and a renowned Vedic scholar. Mr. Subba Rao has been living in Prasanthinilayam since 1985, on occasion translating Swami's speeches, giving lectures to overseas devotees, and editing publications of the Sri Sathya Sai Books and Publications Trust.]
SHIRDI SAI AND SATHYA SAI CONNECTION

That Baba knows our thoughts - indeed our past as well as future, has been repeatedly attested to by a large number of devotees. Just one such example from this writer's own experience is recounted here.
For many years, I developed a deep yearning to visit Shirdi. I made several attempts to pay my respects at Shirdi Sai shrine at Shirdi itself but to no avail. The closest I could come to the point of realizing this dream was in 1983, when I planned on my home-leave trip from New York to India to visit Shirdi after our landing in Bombay. Unfortunately, the whole family developed a stomach virus after our first meal in India at a Santa Cruz airport five-star hotel - precluding any extensive surface travel all the way to Shirdi. It was once again a great disappointment.
I was thinking of this escapade while intensely gazing at Shirdi Sai's shining silver idol and his giant size picture in the background of the Prashanti Mandir Bhajan hall, and also wondering about the connection of Shirdi Baba with Parthi Baba, about which I found numerous references in the Sai Literature. I closed my eyes, with Shirdi Baba in my mind, when to my utter amazement Parthi Baba stood right in front of me while I continued in my reverie. Swami waited till I fully opened my eyes, when with a burst of bliss I clasped His soft lotus feet and hung on to them like a child. Swami beckoned me inside the interview room and materialized a rather large silver ring with an inlaid multi-colored enamel picture of Shirdi Sai - saying that 'I am He'. I was stunned and electrified and I blurted out that at long last my long-cherished desire was fulfilled now! The shining large Shirdi ring on my finger used to attract the attention of my diplomatic acquaintances during my frequent elevator rides in the forty-story UN headquarters building in New York, leading to many inquisitive queries on the strange-looking personality on the ring-face. One thing led to another and before long I found myself presenting Sathya Sai literature to the UN Secretary General in his office!

SRI SATHYA SAI STUDY CIRCLE AT THE UN

Sensing the growing interest in the story of the glory of Baba, we had founded, with Baba's blessings, a Study Circle at the United Nations headquarters, with regular Thursday gatherings in delegates' meeting rooms situated right underneath the UN General Assembly Hall, and sometimes under the Security Council Chamber. Before long, Sai Bhajans began to reverberate in the after-office hours in the United Nations! The annual celebrations of the Study Circle attracted a large number of UN staff members and country delegates. I remember the occasion when the president of the International Court of Justice came rushing along with a couple of delegates seeking Sai Vibhuthi (sacred ash). He proudly showed me a picture of Baba in his wallet!
SHIRDI RING REPLACED BY SATHYA SAI RING

A few years after Baba gave me the Shirdi Baba ring, Swami called me again for a brief interview, and suddenly inquired of me whether I still wanted the old man or was now ready for the younger man! I then replied that having lived with the old man till then, I would welcome the change into company of the younger man! Swami graciously took out the somewhat worn-out big Shirdi ring which then disappeared right in front of my eyes and, then and there, materialized a well-fitting similar silver enameled ring with a picture of Swami showing His Abhaya Hastham - a raised palm assuring protection. This creative gesture and gift signified to me my spiritual (mental) journey from Shirdi to Parthi guided by Bhagavan Sathya Sai Himself. As a result, I found myself and family settling at Baba's Lotus Feet in Prashanthi Nilayam - indeed the very abode of peace.

TEN FOLD PATH TO DIVINITY

Ten Fold Path to Divinity
By Bhagavan Baba

1. Love and serve the homeland; do not hate or hurt the homeland of others.

Have a sense of pride in your motherland. Just as your mother has given birth to you, so too the land has given birth to you. Whatever country you belong to, you should have a sense of patriotism. You should not indulge in criticizing other countries or people belonging to other nations. Having trust and faith in your own country, you won't try to put down any other country. Never bring grief or sorrow to your country. To have pride in your own motherland is important.
2. Honor every religion; each is a pathway to the one God.

Never have hatred toward any religion. Honor and respect all religions equally. Even as you are a citizen of your motherland but respect all countries, also respect all religions equally.

3. Love all without distinction; know that mankind is a single community.

Develop a sense of the brotherhood of man. Look upon each person as your own brother or sister. There is only one caste, the caste of humanity. All of us belong to the human race, so everyone is equal. Therefore, love each one equally.

4. Keep your home and its environs clean; it will ensure health and happiness for you and for society.

Keep your own house and its surroundings pure and clean. This hygiene will keep you healthy and benefit your worldly life.

5. Do not throw coins when beggars stretch their hands for alms; help them to become self-reliant. Provide food and shelter, love and care, for the sick and aged.
Be discriminating when dispensing charity. In the name of charity or philanthropy, we tend to do injustice to one's country. Charity does not mean that the land should be full of beggars. We can provide some support and means for the beggars, but provide food, clothing and other conveniences in such a way that you are not encouraging laziness and begging.

6. Do not tempt others by offering bribes or demean yourself by accepting bribes.

Never give or take a bribe. Giving bribes, or accepting bribes, is contrary to the very name of the Sri Sathya Sai Organizations. Bear this in mind continuously.

7. Do not develop jealousy, hatred or envy on any count.

We must seek ways to solve difficulties such as hatred, envy and jealousy. To curb this sense of envy and jealousy, we must develop a broader outlook. Do not differentiate on the basis of race, caste, creed, or country. Follow your cultural and religious customs in your own home, but do not attempt to impose them on society. Rather than this, love each person as your own brother or sister, not seeing him or her as belonging to another creed, religion, or country.

8. Do not depend on others to serve your personal needs; become your own servant before proceeding to serve others.

Develop self-reliance. Members of the Sri Sathya Sai Organizations should do things by themselves; they should not depend on others. You may be very wealthy and have servants and assistants to help in a few tasks, but your own work you must do yourself. If you wish to be of service to society, serve yourself first. One who will not serve society has no right to belong to a Sri Sathya Sai Organization.

9. Observe the laws of the state and be an exemplary citizen.

You should never go against the law of the land. We must follow the letter of the law. The members of the Sri Sathya Sai Organizations should follow the law in spirit also and be models for the government.

10. Adore God, abhor sin.

You must love God and avoid sin. Love God incessantly.

NINE POINT CODE OF CONDUCT.. by Swami

Nine Point Code of Conduct

Sai Center members are expected to do their best to practice the Nine Point Code of Conduct in order to be exemplars of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's teachings.

1. Daily meditation and prayer.

2. Group devotional singing or prayer with family members once a week.

3. Participation in Sai Spiritual Education by children of the family.

4. Participation in community service work and other programs of the organization.

5. Regular attendance at the Center's devotional meetings.

6. Regular study of Sathya Sai Baba literature.

7. The use of soft, loving speech with everyone.

8. Not speaking ill of others, especially in their absence.

9. Practice placing a ceiling on desires - consciously and continuously strive to eliminate the

tendency to waste time, money, food and energy - and utilize the savings for service to mankind

HELP EVER HURT NEVER

Help Ever, Hurt Never

Everyone should act up to the motto: Help Ever, Hurt Never. Every educated person should engage himself or herself in selfless service to society with humility and a pure heart. All academic distinctions or even observance of spiritual practices are of no use if there is no love in the heart. Love and compassion are inherent in every person. Each has to share this love with others. Failure to share one's love is gross ingratitude to society, to which one owes everything. One should give one's love freely to others and receive love in return. This is the deep significance of human life.
To purify the mind, one should nurture noble and sacred thoughts of service to others. One who does not hurt anybody and has feelings of love and compassion to fellow beings is the greatest of men. That is why sage Vyasa gave the essence of the eighteen Puranas (scriptures) in the aphorism: Help Ever, Hurt Never.
Help rendered, however small, if it comes from the deeper urges of service welling in the heart is as good as the offer of life itself.
Look about for chances to relieve, rescue or resuscitate. Train yourselves that you may render help quickly and well. Seva is the most paying form of austerity, the most satisfying and the most pleasurable. It springs out of Love and scatters Love in profusion. To help the helpless is the only way to please Him, to follow and reach Him.
Serve people with no thought of high or low; no Seva is high, no Seva is low, each act of Seva is equal in the eye of the Lord. It is the readiness, the joy, the efficiency, the skill with which you rush to do it that matters. Train yourselves to serve God by serving man, in whom there is God installed in the heart. Convince yourself that the seva of man is worship of God.
Efforts to serve must spring from agony at the suffering of others and the service must be genuine effort to get rid of that anguish. Do not worry about the result. Help as much as you can, as efficiently as you can, as silently as you can, as lovingly as you can, leave the rest to God, who gave you the chance to server.
You should make every effort to avoid harming others in any circumstance. You are only hurting yourself when you hurt others. You should not use harsh words. When you develop human values, you can be free from diseases and even enjoy good health with God's Grace.
Ahimsa, the virtue of non-violence involves much more than abstention from injuring living beings. One should desist from causing pain to any living being not only by his deeds but even by his words and even in his thoughts. One should not entertain any idea of hurting or humiliating another.
Service to man will help your divinity to bloom, for it will gladden your heart and make you feel that life has been worthwhile. Service to man is service to God. For He is in every man and every living being and in every stone and stump. Offer your talents at the Feet of God; let every act be a flower, free from creeping worms of envy and egoism and full of fragrance of love and sacrifice. If you have the talent, use it for the glorification of God and do it by uplifting man. A manishi (ordinary man) gets transformed into Maharishi (sage) by engaging in selfless service.
You have to transform your life through service. You should give no room for arrogance or self-interest to the slightest extent in your service activities. Install in your heart the feeling that the service you render to anyone is service to God. Only then does service to man become service to Madhava. Hence you should scrupulously follow the maxim:

HELP EVER, HURT NEVER

Bhagwaan says...

WHO IS SAI?

[A letter written by Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba to His brother on 25 May 1947 revealing His Mission]

To all who are devoted to me:

My dear one! I received the communication that you wrote and sent; I found in it the surging floods of your devotion and affection, with the undercurrents of doubts and anxiety. Let Me tell you that it is impossible to plumb the hearts and discover the natures of Jnanis, Yogis, ascetics, saints, sages and the like. People are endowed with a variety of characteristics and mental attitudes; so, each one judges according to his own angle, talks and argues in the light of his own nature. But we have to stick to our own path, our own wisdom, our own resolution without getting affected by popular appraisal. As the proverb says, It is only the fruit laden tree that receives the shower of stones from passers by. The good always provoke the bad into calumny; the bad always provoke the good into derision. This is the nature of this world. One must be surprised if such things do not happen.
The people too have to be pitied, rather than condemned. They do not know. They have no patience to judge aright. They are too full of lust, anger and conceit to see clearly and know fully. So they write all manner of things. If they only knew, they would not talk or write like that. We, too, should not attach any value to such comments and take them to heart, as you seem to do. Truth will certainly triumph some day. Untruth can never win. Untruth might appear to overpower Truth, but its victory will fade away and truth will establish itself.
It is not the way of the great to swell when people offer worship, and shrink when people scoff. As a matter of fact, no sacred text lays down rules to regulate the lives of the great, prescribing the habits and attitudes they must adopt. They themselves know the path they must tread; their wisdom regulates and makes their acts holy. Self-reliance, beneficial activity - these two are their special marks. They may also be engaged in the promotion of the welfare of devotees and in allotting them the fruits of their actions. Why should you be affected by doubt and worry, so long as I am adhering to these two? After all, the praise and blame of the populace do not touch the Atma, the reality; they can touch only the outer physical frame.
I have a 'Task': to foster all mankind and ensure for all of them lives full of Ananda. I have a 'Vow': to lead all who stray away from the straight path back again into goodness and save them. I am attached to a 'Work' that I love: to remove the sufferings of the poor and grant them what they lack. I have a 'reason to be proud,' for I rescue all who worship and adore Me aright. I have My definition of 'devotion' [I expect: that those] devoted to Me have to treat joy and grief, gain and loss, with equal fortitude. This means I will never give up those who attach themselves to Me. When I am thus engaged in My beneficial task, how can My Name be tarnished, as you apprehend? I would advise you not to heed such absurd talk. Mahatmas do not acquire greatness through someone calling them so; they do not become small when someone calls them small. Only those low ones who revel in opium and ganja but claim to be unexcelled yogis, only those who quote scriptural texts to justify their gourmandry and pride, only those who are dry-as-dust scholars exulting in their casuistry and argumentative skills, are moved by praise or blame.
You must have read life stories of saints and divine personages; in these books you must have read of even worse falsehoods and more heinous imputations cast against them. This is the lot of Mahatmas everywhere, at all times. Why then do you take these things so much to heart? Have you not heard of dogs that howl at the stars? How long can they go on? Authenticity will soon win.
I will not give up My Mission, nor My determination. I know I will carry them out; I treat the honor and dishonor, the fame and blame that may be the consequence with equal equanimity. Internally, I am unconcerned. I act but in the outer world; I talk and move about for the sake of the outer world and for announcing My coming to the people, else I have no concern even with these.
I do not belong to any place, I am not attached to any name. I have no "mine" or "thine." I answer whatever the name you use. I go, wherever I am taken. This is My very First Vow. I have not disclosed this to anyone so far. For me the world is something afar, apart. I act and move only for the sake of mankind. No one can comprehend My Glory, whoever he is, whatever his method of inquiry, however long his attempt.
You can yourself see the full Glory in the coming years. Devotees must have patience and forbearance.
I am not concerned nor am I anxious that these facts should be made known; I have no need to write these words; I wrote them because I felt you will be pained if I do not reply. Thus, your Baba. 25 May 1947

Bhagwaan says... LOVE ALL SERVE ALL

Bhagwaan says LOVE ALL SERVE ALL

God is Love and can be won only through the cultivation and exercise of Love. He cannot be trapped by any trick; He yields Grace only when His commands are followed - command to love all, serve all. When you love and serve all, you are serving yourself most, yourself whom you love most! For God's Grace envelops you then and you are strengthened beyond all previous experience. Let all days of living be a continuos offering of Love, as an oil lamp exhausts itself in illumining the surroundings. Bend the body, mend the senses and end the mind - that is the process of attaining the status of 'children of immortality', which the Upanishads have reserved for man.
God is the embodiment of sweetness. Attain Him by offering Him, who resides in all, the sweetness that He has dowered on you. Crush the cane in the mill of Seva, boil it in the cauldron of penitence; decolorize it of all sensual itch; offer the crystallized sugar of compassionate Love to Him.
Seva (service) brings out all that is great in man. It broadens the heart and widens ones vision. It fills one with joy. It promotes unity. It proclaims the truth of the spirit. It drives out all evil qualities in a man. It must be regarded as a great spiritual discipline. You are born to serve, not to dominate. Everyone in the world is a servant and not a master. All relationships - husband and wife, mother and child, the employer and employee - are based on mutual service. The world is progressing because of such mutual service. Seva should be done out of a sense of duty.
The body has been given to man for the performance of right action. Every person has to discharge his duties in life. It is a sin to ignore one's duties. Perform you duties without regard to what others say or do. Engage yourself in service activity. Consider social service as service to God. To earn the Love of God, this is the easiest way. The best way to love God is to love all and serve all. Your entire life sanctified thereby.
Devotion consists in expressing love towards all. You cannot effect a change of heart by speeches. They often lead to confusion and conflict. Better than speeches is practice of love with faith in the divine. Follow the path of love and redeem your love.
Man knows that God is the very embodiment of love. Only through the cord of love can God be bound. But it is only when love is for love's sake that this cord can bind God to man. If love is motivated by desire for worldly objects, God will be beyond our reach. You must become embodiments of love. If you are merely loving, your love will be confined to a few. Only when you become the embodiment of love can your love comprehend all. Only then you will realize that it is the same God who is the indweller in all beings.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the Divine who has not only endowed us with this precious human body but which also sustains it. We shall be able to enjoy these gifts of the Divine only if we discharge this debt to the Divine. How is this to be done? It is by rendering service to other bodies saturated with the same Divine, by doing righteous deeds and consecrating all actions in the service of the society. This debt to the Divine has to be discharged in full in this life itself or during many future lives. The earlier we repay this debt, the sooner we shall realize Divinity.
It is needless to search for God. Verily you are the Divine. Strive to realize this Truth. There is a simple and easy way. Have faith that every human being is an embodiment of the Divine. Love every one. Serve all. The best way to God is to LOVE ALL, SERVE ALL