cont from the previous
....Sai Baba entered the interview room through a door that opened from his quarters. Everybody rose with palms joined in pranam-mudra. Out of politeness, I also got up. I had a close look at his eyes; they seemed staring and unfocused.
He gave ash to a couple of people - I saw it clearly materialize from his fingers. Near me stood a girl of about ten with her father. When Sai Baba came to her he set two earrings that just appeared in his hands into the lobes of her ears. Father and daughter gasped in astonishment, for her ears had not been pierced before. Now they were, and hung with gold.
Seeing this feat, everyone cried "Sai Baba! Sai Baba!" in great wonderment. Then, without acknowledging me with so much as a glance, he turned back and exited from whence he came.
A moment later N.K. came in through the same door and announced, "The interview is over; everyone should go now. He did not speak with you, but you are very fortunate, for you saw a miracle of Sai Baba's power." He waved everybody to the door that opened on the balcony, and we stood to leave.
I followed the father and daughter, but N.K. stopped me with an outstretched hand. "Please continue to sit. Sai Baba wants you to wait here comfortably." I nodded, a bit nonplussed, and retook my seat. As soon as the room was cleared, Sai Baba came in again. This time he looked different.
He didn't have that entranced, almost dazed look I'd seen on his face before. Now he appeared completely normal and relaxed. I thought irreverently, "This is interesting: mad looks for the masses."
He stood in front of me. This time I didn't get up. Speaking in Sanskrit, he asked me how I was feeling and if everything was all right. I replied in Tamil, "I do not know Sanskrit; please speak to me in your native tongue." He switched to his Telegu and asked the same question. Conversation was now possible, because Telegu and Tamil are quite similar.
I answered, "By God's grace, everything is alright. I have a place to stay, and my plan is to visit the ashram for two weeks." He walked around the room as if in thought and came back to me.
"You say you want to visit for two weeks?" I nodded.
"What is your mission?"
Remembering what I'd told the Sikh, I replied, "I am looking for God."
He suddenly smiled and half-raised his arms, turning the palms of his hands in my direction in what I guessed was a benison. Bending his body slightly at the knees, hips and shoulders, he tilted his head coyly to one side and uttered in a silky voice, "If you can't find God here, where will you find Him?"
I was not very impressed by this little show, and was beginning to feel uncomfortable. "Well, I'll be here for some time, and I hope to meet with you more..." I mumbled. He looked at me intently and said, "Any time you want, you can see me."
Just then a servant appeared in the doorway to his apartment and gave a signal. Sai Baba waved him off. He turned to me again and asked, "Aren't you hungry?"
It was just about lunchtime, so I answered, "I wouldn't mind to eat something now, but of course I have to arrange that somebody gives me biksha."
He smiled magnanimously. "Eat with me."
I couldn't hide my surprise and I thanked him. He went through the door and I followed. We came into a room that looked like a place for confidential talks. We sat down on both sides of a small round table.
Through a large entranceway I could see into his bedroom. I noted some of the paraphernalia of God: a plush bed, an alarm clock and some medicine bottles on a nightstand, and, behind a half-open door, a flush toilet.
He nonchalantly sang something to himself as the servant brought the lunch on a serving tray. The meal consisted of utma (vegetables fried with farina), achar (hot pickle), fried eggplant and coffee.
The utma, to my surprise, was flavored with onions; I knew that strict sadhus shunned onions, as this food gives rise to passions. Coffee, an intoxicant, would likewise be considered a worldly indulgence. But apparently Sai Baba did not care for these rules. And neither did I, for I'd not been given sannyasa under vows to a guru.
We finished. He got up to wash and gargle, and I did the same. Then with his customary benign smile he nodded his head, indicating that I could go.
As I came down the staircase, I saw the people still sitting in rows, now gazing at me with open mouths. My friend the roommate rushed up to me with a look of awed ecstasy fixed on his face. Others were running up behind him as we met at the bottom of the stairs.
He eagerly inquired, "What happened? After the interview the others came down but Sai Baba kept you with him."
I said with a nonchalant shrug, "Oh, I had lunch with him, that's all."
Suddenly it seemed two hundred people were mobbing me. I was pulled towards a fancy lodging block and ended up in a big air-conditioned apartment with a roomful of rich people sitting in front of me. They had locked the door and were guarding it because a big crowd had gathered outside.
It was practically an interrogation session: "What about the miracle with the earrings? And what did Sai Baba say to you?" But I sat silent and serene in the big plush chair they'd given me. In my mind, I was gloating at my sudden change of fortune. I wondered if I could exploit this situation further. I had to find out what being God was really like. "Just do it," the opportunist within myself crowed. "It's not a sin; you're just giving them faith in something higher. This is the life you've been waiting for."
Ignoring their babble, in the relaxed and self-assured manner I'd picked up from him, I began singing "Chitta Chora" (Thief of My Mind), a very well-known Sai Baba song. The entire group froze in a hush. Then one by one they started clapping and singing along enthusiastically until the whole room was in an uproar. The song completed, again I was silent. The proverbial pin would have sounded like a car crash.
Finally, I spoke, softly: "What do you want from me? I am a beggar."
"Swami," came the answer, "you're one of those rare swamis who has accepted Sai Baba as God. Sai Baba has said this is very extraordinary, because he is hiding from those who are engaged in religious and spiritual life. He says that at the end of their sadhana he gives them the darshan they expect - if they worship Rama, he'll appear to them as Rama. If they worship Shiva, he'll come to them as Shiva. But as Sai Baba, only very fortunate people can see him."
I closed my eyes. "But to me", I murmered, "he is simply a guide."
Somebody from the back exclaimed, "Ah-hah, what a vision! His guide!" I began to perceive that whatever I said here would be accepted as "nectarean truth."
Just then a curtain that covered the opened glass door to the balcony moved in the breeze. Seeing this, two ladies in the crowd began to weep. "Sai Baba! Sai Baba is here with us right now!", they sobbed.
Now I could really see how it worked. One didn't have to do anything. Such foolish people would create their own "miracle", propagate it, and make you God.
My friend was there in the crowd, close by. He urged, "Swami, please tell us your experience with Sai Baba."
"Everybody was sent out," I began, "but Mr. N.K. asked me to remain seated, and Sai Baba came to me. He spoke to me in Sanskrit."
They all looked at each other with wide-open eyes. I heard murmurings of "Sanskrit! Veda! Veda coming out of his mouth."
I continued on, even to the point of standing up to show them the pose he made when he said, "If you can't find God here, where will you find him?" And I told them how he said anytime I wanted I could have darshan. They hung onto every word.
My friend asked, "Did you speak to him about me?" I shook my head solemnly. He whined, "But I requested you to do that."
I answered with gravity, "Either you understand he's God, or you understand he's an ordinary person. If you think he's God, then he knows. If you think he's an ordinary person, you shouldn't be here. Why should anyone have to recommend your case?"
Someone exclaimed, "That's the exact thing Sai Baba says! 'If you think I am God, then why don't you have faith, and if you don't think I am, then why are you here?' Sai Baba speaks the same thing!"
Another lady called from the back, "Swami, one more song? Some nectar for our ears?" So I sang a song about Vishnu, one Sai Baba also sings but which is not his composition. As the afternoon drew on I got hungry. They brought me to the canteen and of course, paid for everything.
As it turned out, my friend had also became a celebrity with these rich people because of his relationship to me. They flocked to him to get my attention, and they flocked to me to get Sai Baba's attention.
Despite my hidden cynicism about the 'God' of the ashram, I was yet quite drawn to him because he had pulled it off so well. Having renounced worldly aspirations, I'd found here a whole new temptation. Nothing arouses ambition in the heart like the fame of another, and though I was loathe to admit it to myself, I envied this 'God'. The curious thing was that my crass imitation of Sai Baba's behavior was thought by his followers to be devotion to him.
I was to find out that he thought that way too.
A day or so later I asked my friend to take me around the village. We went to the Chitravati river, but since it was the dry season there was no water, just a sand channel.
On a rocky mound near the riverbed stood a tamarind tree from which the Sai Baba is said to have magically plucked mangos and other fruits during his youth. I clambered up the rocks and sat beneath it. At the time I was not aware of the significance the Sai Baba's followers attached to this tree; I only happened to go there because it looked like a suitable spot for meditation. I sat in the lotus pose, and my friend sat next to me. With closed eyes I visualized Lord Rama, God's avatar as the prince who defeated the demon Ravana.
When I opened my eyes my friend was sitting close with his hands folded and a doglike look in his eyes, as if expecting some teaching or order from me. He looked so utterly helpless that I had to pity him. I figured the best thing I could do was to get him out of the village, for here his foolishness would only increase.
"You should to go to Bangalore, where Sai Baba has his smaller center. There will be no interview for you here."
He asked despondently, "Swami, what paap (sin) have I done?"
"You've done many", I replied. He shivered. "But just do this - go to Bangalore. And Sai Baba may yet see you there." In the back of my mind I was thinking, "You fool, can't you see you're neither rich enough nor unusual enough - like me - to get the Sai Baba's attention?"
Within a few days he left, after arranging with the shop owner my continued stay in his room.
On another day's stroll, I stopped at an old Satyabhama temple on the outskirts of the village. This temple was established by the Sai Baba's grandfather, Kondama Raju. It is said that his son Pedda prayed here for a second male child; subsequently, a boy was born who got the name Satya Narayana, known later as Sai Baba.
I found it curious that the temple was in need of repairs as if it was neglected by the Sai Baba's followers. By a strange coincidence, I'd arrived at the same time as the Sai Baba's older brother, who had come to visit the temple from his home nearby.
I asked him about his famous sibling: "Do you think he is God?"
He waved his hand impatiently. "This is sinful", he said with faint disgust. "That's a big mistake he's making, and God will punish him for it. He was stung by a scorpion when he was a boy, and after that time started babbling about being the Sai Baba.
"It may be that when he was stung that baba came into his body," the brother continued, "but no matter what happened, for him to claim he is Rama and Krishna is wrong. In our family we worship Rama and Krishna as God, but he has taken that position for himself."
"When his time comes, he will be punished for this blasphemy."
The significance of the brother's final statement was not lost on me.
I'd become an overnight junior celebrity at the ashram; in my yellow cloth I stood out in the crowd, and the news that I'd eaten lunch with the Sai Baba had spread like wildfire throughout the compound. I often entertained the crowd by singing the Sai Baba's songs in the style I'd learned from him. Twice daily, different rich men fed me at the canteen. Yet despite the attention I was enjoying, I was growing restless. I'd declared myself a seeker of God, but the easy life here diverted me from my intended goal.
On the seventh day, an excited N.K. came up to me in the canteen.
"Sai Baba wants to speak to you."
"Should I go to the darshan place?"
"No, you just go up to his quarters."
"What, right now? Just walk in?"
"He's there waiting to see you!" N.K. was almost frantic, so exasperated was he with my quibbling. "Please, you just immediately go to him! Even I'm not getting such chance of close contact to Sai Baba!"
So, very casually, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, I walked up the stairs to the interview room and sat down. He didn't come out. Finally I just strolled into the front room where we'd eaten together. But he was not there either. I looked in his bedroom.
On the bed he faced me, reclining on his side, his head supported under a folded arm. As I entered he smiled broadly and lifted his hand in blessing.
I looked around for a place to sit, but there was no chair in the room. Finally I just sat down on the corner of the bed. "N.K. said you want to see me", I began.
"Yes", he replied. "I just wanted to ask you if you've found God yet."
"No, I haven't".
With a hint of knowing irony in his voice, he said, "Under the tamarind tree you meditated on Rama."
"Yes, I did", I replied evenly. "That's my usual dhyana. I like to meditate on Rama, the ocean of mercy. He protects those who are weak."
His eyes bored into mine. "But why are you looking for God elsewhere when you sit with him now?"
I let a polite, thoughtful expression register on my face before telling him, "You are a holy man and my elder, and I am very low and sinful. I don't want to say anything improper to you, please understand, but - you are not God."
He nodded as I spoke, as if expecting my rejection of his divinity. "All right", he said when I finished, "as you see me, so I look. If you want to see me as God, I am God. If not, I'm not. But try to understand - that is what God is." He spoke a little more along this line, peppering his arguments with the usual Advaitist slogans.
I interrupted him. "Excuse me, but I've read all this in your Rama Katha book. Now, one time in there you say everybody is Rama, and another time you say that you are Rama. So what do you actually mean? Look, I know you are not Rama. Why don't you just tell your followers that everyone is Brahman? Isn't this your philosophy? If it is, then you should know that it is incorrect for you to say 'everyone is Rama' or 'I am Rama', because Rama is a person, and Brahman is impersonal."
"Yes", he replied in a patient tone of voice, as if indulging a wayward child. "But I have realized Brahman, and they have not."
I got a bit upset at this point. "Then you should make them realize it. But you deliberately keep them in a position inferior to yourself. You are pushing them down, not lifting them up. At great personal sacrifice they are coming here from many miles distant to wait outside for weeks and months just to catch a glimpse of you, and here you are, happily enjoying it all. Even ordinary politicians show more interest in their followers than you do. You just threw all those letters in the can. At least you could read them."
"Cool down, cool down", he waved languidly. "As soon as I touch those letters, I know what is in them, and I answer through their karma."
I stared at him in exasperation, hardly believing what I was hearing. "But karma is always happening. If you act through their karma, what do you need this ashram for? Why do they have to come here to see you? Please don't mind my boldness, but I am very disturbed by all this. When the curtain moves, these poor people are thinking you are there. They are so gullible, and I am sorry to say I think you are exploiting them."
"But I was there when the curtain moved", he said self-contentedly. "You sang Chitta Chora very nicely. I was there."
Now even more disappointed, I told him, "I know you have mystical powers. You see and hear things ordinary men cannot. So why don't you use your powers to remove their sufferings once and for all instead of playing them along like this? Why do you keep those who have surrendered to you in ignorance of their eternal spiritual existence? How will they ever get out of this miserable world of birth and death? Just giving earrings doesn't solve the problems of life."
"All right", he said, a hint of resignation in his voice, "you will understand later on." Then, changing the subject he asked, "You need any help here?"
"No, I am fully protected by God."
"You don't give that credit to me?"
"To some extent I do, because these people who are paying for me are your devotees. But I see it is my karma that is supplying my upkeep in this world. And that is true for all those people out there, and that is also true for you. You have a karma that allows you to sit there, and my karma allows me to sit here. If I had your karma and you had mine, I'd be the 'God' here, and you would be the frustrated one."
He didn't hear me. A change came over him and he sat up, his eyes unfocused and glittering. "I have to go down now", he said in a distant voice. "I will speak with you again." He quickly exited, leaving me in his room alone.
I decided to have a look around. Opening a closet in his bedroom, I found it filled with orange gowns. I wanted to find his stock of ash, having myself previously experimented with teleporting ash with the aid of a mantra. But the room was bare of anything save the bed and a few standard items.
So I sat upon the bed as he did, imitating his pose in jest and admiring myself in the bedroom mirror. Then I got up and looked from the balcony as he ran up and down the rows, generating mass hysteria. The police had to restrain people from mobbing him. Then he went onto the Shanti Vedika stage.
I suddenly felt sorry for him. "This man is like a puppet," I thought. "All these people think he's God, and he believes it himself - but he, and they, are just being guided by some higher force over which he has no control."
I went down to see what he was up to. Onstage, he had the crowd going in full swing. Arms upraised, he lead them in song, which they responded to in a riotous chorus. As the song ended he collapsed into a chair. He was worshiped with incense, lamp and flowers, like a murti in the temple. Then a group of Sanksrit pandits chanted the Rudram and Chamakam prayers, which are meant for Shiva, to him. This was too much for me. I walked out of the compound to my room.
On the morning of the ninth day I decided to go. I went to N.K. and shook his hand, saying, "Thank you and goodbye."
He was surprised: "You're going? I thought you would stay here. You sing so sweetly. We had one swamiji from Hrishikesh who also sang for Sai Baba, and Sai Baba took very nice care of him. He will take care of you too."
"God is taking care of me. What can Sai Baba do? Let him take care of himself first," was my quick reply. "You should watch out for his health - when he gets into those running moods, I think it isn't good for him."
"What?!" N.K. spluttered. "What is this you are telling?!"
"No, never mind, I didn't say anything", I reassured him, smiling brightly. I waved him off, saying "Sorry, I've got to go now", and went into the canteen to bid adieu to the manager.
Today there were only about a hundred people gathered at the darshan area. It had been announced that the Sai Baba would go to Bangalore; his big foreign-made automobile was ready at his private exit gate.
I went into the Mandir's ground-floor bhajan hall and made obeisances before the altar upon which the forms of Krishna, Satya-Narayana and Shiva were displayed. As I came out, I looked up and saw the Sai Baba motioning to me from the balcony.
I strode up the stairs and found him in the interview room sitting in a chair, his hands on the armrests. I entered, offered him my respects and took a chair facing him.
"So?" he smiled. "Going?"
"Yes," I smiled back.
"But you said you'd stay two weeks."
"Sorry, but I've become too dissatisfied here. I cannot bear to see these people anymore and all the suffering and anxiety they are putting themselves through for you."
"Do you know where you will go next?"
"No, I don't, but I hope to end up in a peaceful place."
All at once he rose from his seat, his eyes again glittering. He gazed down into my face and intoned meaningfully, "Until you find what you're looking for, you'll have no problem for food."
He lifted his right palm: "I will maintain you."
"For whatever you are doing for me," I replied, "I am very thankful. But I don't accept you as God."
In an odd voice he prophesized, "You yourself will become God." He moved his hand forward as if to give me vibhuti.
"No", I countered, "don't give me that ash. I don't want to take it from you like this. Just let me take it from the container."
"But why won't you take it from my hand?" he purred.
"Well", I grinned, "I know it doesn't originate from your hand, so let me take it from where it really comes."
"You're wrong. It does come from my hand", he insisted.
"Sorry", I grinned again. "I don't believe you. Let me take it from the container."
Without saying another word, he went into his quarters and brought out a small pot filled with ash. Holding it out to me he said simply, "Very well. If you want, take it from here." I sprinkled a bit on my head.
"Please go happily and remember my words to you."
I said, "Namaste," and got up to go. He spoke once more.
"You dislike me, don't you?"
"No, you're a nice man. Why should I dislike you?"
"When you find what you're looking for, you will dislike me," he said softly in that odd prophetic voice. He left me and I went downstairs and out of the compound.
Relieved to be departing the village, I walked out of town along the main road until I reached the highway. I turned to have my last sight of the ashram. Just then, the Sai Baba's big car glided out of the special gate, drove down the road and turned onto the highway in my direction.
The automobile sidled up next to me, its motor humming. In the back I saw the familiar smiling face ringed by the frizzy hairdo. Next to him was a well-known female singer in an expensive silk sari. As his electric window buzzed down, he told the driver to turn off the engine.
"I'm going to Bangalore", he called to me. "Would you like to come?"
"No," I told him. "Now I'm taking my own direction."
"But you don't know where you are going."
"That's true, but I am going nonetheless."
He turned to the lady and said, "He doesn't even know where he's going. He's just looking. I tell him to stay, but he says 'no, I am going.' I ask him where, he says 'I don't know.' All the time just looking, looking."
Then I said jokingly, "But like everybody, I am only looking for you."
Still speaking to the lady he said, "Everybody's looking for me to become themselves. He's looking for me to become myself."
I laughed, a bit embarrassed. I could see he knew my motivations all too well. He turned to me again. "Go to Jilallamuri and see Amma." Amma was a woman whom many said was an incarnation of a goddess. "You'll be very happy in Jilallamuri."
"How shall I get there?"
He said something to the lady. She took 25 rupees out of her handbag and handed the money to him, and he held it out to me.
"You have 25 rupees; it costs 23 rupees eighty to take a bus from here. Just go to the bus stand and wait."
Taking the money, I waved, "All right, so goodbye. This is the last time we'll see each other."
"No, we'll meet again," he said gaily. He told his driver to start the engine, and the window buzzed up. Then he was off.
I went to the bus station; the Jilallamuri bus soon came and I boarded it. Rolling through the parched landscape, I reflected on my recent experiences.
OK, that's all for now. After you read let your heart decide. I'm not going against Sai Baba. May be he is a very nice and good man. After all, he is also my revered elder. But for me HE ISN'T MY DEAR SUPREME LORD PARAMBRAHMAN, SHRI SHRINIVASA GOVINDA NARAYANA and never be...
terima kasih
