…I have had good schooling…what about you?

I am happy that I have spent thirty four years of my life in the thrill of His loving Presence. Prasanthi Nilayam is wherever He is. It is an Oasis luscious with flower and fruit, in a world being denuded fast of Truth and Love. The wasteland which described has become a deadly desert. But, the oasis is steadily spreading and the desert is invaded by green.

Peace on Earth and goodwill among men are boons which every nation will soon receive from the New Jerusalem. Prasanthi Nilayam is the one place on earth where no one is measured in terms of race, religion, cast, creed, colour, language, scholarship or wealth. Here man is not a weapon or vehicle, a tool or trailer, a fallen angel or a risen ape. Man is here valued and honoured as a son of God and accepted as Sai Himself. For Swami teaches us so. “I separate Myself from Myself in order that I may love Myself. I am in you; you are in Me. We cannot be separated.”

We are all He Himself; He loves us as Himself. We may deny Him or defy Him; we may not have seen Him or heard of Him. But, He knows us and cares for us. We are His, even while we flee from Him out of opacity or audacity. Many, in fact, are unable to stand the rigour of the discipline He enforces. They find it very uncomfortable to have His eyes on them, at all times everywhere. They are unwilling to undergo the deep diagnosis He undertakes before conferring the peace they seek. Baba does not compromise, collude, condone or conceal, as most Gurus and monastic heads do. He does not allow concessions for adolescence, senescence for an ignoramus or an intellectual, a beggar or a billionaire. All have to see good, be good and do good. All have to live in Love.

I reckon myself to be singularly fortunate that I could spend at least the second half of my life in Him. My companions and colleagues at the University of Mysore, my friends and colleagues at the University of Mysore, my friends among poets, playwrights, pundits and philosophers have not cared to inquire why so many of their own fraternity are one with me in adoring Baba and observing the Guidelines. He is marking out for the pilgrimage to our own perfection. Alas! They expound and extol incredibly mysterious mythological and legendary phenomenon; they erect their reputation on adaptations and elaborations of popular classic. But for them the era of aascharya, awe and wonder at the inexplicability and the indeterminacy of the Universe has not dawned at all! They are too much attached to the anachronisms they cannot cast off and to the goggles they have acquired while fascinated by trinkets. I can only sympathise with such people for their smugness and sloth. Some among them are chronic Thomases, whose ego, blown high by a touch of Sanskrit and a rub with philosophy, inclines them to infallibility. Many such do keep away, but yet cannot resist the call to carp. They are hurt when the barricade of spite they erect around, “Sathyam Sivam Sundaram” is broken through by thousands from all over the Indian subcontinent, and from every other part of the globe, from Argentina and Zambia, Iceland, Iran and Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, who adore Him as well as those who avoid Him, those who approach Him or reproach Him. How can creepers, who must have prejudices to cling to, climb straight towards the Light of Truth?

Well. I have decided long ago not to lose a wink of sleep or miss a beat of pulse, when such people hug their fantasies. I am concerned with the ecstasy I derive, witnessing Sai smiling from whatever I look on. I am drawing courage from the boon. He has granted me on ‘Sathyam Sivam Sundaram’, when I placed my Kannada version of that book at His Feet:

Sree Puttaparthi Nilayudu
Kaapaadunu Ninnunepudu;
Karunaakarudu:
Cheypatti Broachuneppudunu;
Echchatanu; maravakundu;
Yerugumu, Bhakthaa!

The Resident of Holy Puttaparthi,
The Compassionate One,
Will guard you always,
And ever hold your hand,
To save you ever, every where.
Know this, O devotee!
And forget it not.

I have no knowledge of the year when I was last on earth. But I must congratulate myself that, this time, I have had good schooling. Now! I am awaiting to receive my School Leaving Certificate, namely, the signal to leap into the warm, lap of Sai, for the final rest in Him.