Book excerpt: This must be said of this book: It is the authentic Voice of the Divine Phenomenon, that is setting right the moral codes and behaviour of millions of men and women today. And, so, it merits careful and devoted study. The Lord has declared that when ethical standards fall and man forgets or ignores His glorious destiny, He will Himself come down among men and guide humanity along the straight and sacred path. The Lord has come; He is guiding those who accept the guidance; He is calling on all who have strayed away to retrace their steps. Baba’s love and wisdom know no bounds, His grace knows no obstacle. He is no hard taskmaster; His solicitude for our welfare and real progress is overwhelming. Bhagavan has announced Himself as the Divine Teacher of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. By precept and example, through His writings and discourses, letters and conversations, He has been instilling the supreme wisdom and instructing all mankind to translate it into righteous living, inner peace, and universal love. When the Ramakatha Rasa Vahini, the uniquely authentic nectarine stream of the Rama story, was serialized in full in the Sanathana Sarathi, Bhagavan blessed readers with a new series, which He named Bharathiya Paramartha Vahini (Stream of Indian Spiritual Values). While these precious essays on the basic truths that fostered and fed Indian culture for ages before history began were being published, Bhagavan decided to continue the flow of illumination and instruction under a more comprehensive name, Sathya Sai Vahini —“The Stream of Divine Grace”, the Ganga from the Lotus Feet of the Lord. This book contains the two Vahinis merged in a master stream. Inaugurating these series, Bhagavan wrote for publication in the Sanathana Sarathi, “Moved by the urge to cool the heat of conflict and to quench the agonizing thirst for ‘knowledge about yourself’ with which you are afflicted, see, here it comes, the Sathya Sai Vahini, wave after wave, with the Sanathana Sarathi as the medium between you and me.” With infinite compassion, this Sathya Sai incarnation of the Omniwill is freeing millions of people in all lands from disease, distress, despair, narcotics, narcissism, and nihilism. He is encouraging those who suffer gloom through wilful blindness to light the lamp of love to see the world and the lamp of wisdom to see themselves. “This is a tantalizing true-false world; its apparent diversity is an illusion; it is ONE, but it is cognized by the maimed multiple vision of humans as Many”, says Bhagavan. This book is the twin lamp He has devised for us. Lord Krishna aroused Arjuna from the gloomy depression into which he led his mind, at the very moment when duty called on Arjuna to be himself —the famed warrior, ready and eager to fight on behalf of right against might. Krishna effected the cure by reminding him of the Atma that was his reality and of Himself being the Atma that he was. Bhagavan says that we too are easily prone to get caught “in the coils of cleverness and the meshes of dialectical logic. The key to success in spiritual endeavour (and what is life worth, if it is not dedicated to that high endeavor?) is philosophical inquiry and moral advance, both culminating in the awareness of the Atma, the source and sum of all the energy and activity that is.” We are all motivated by fear, doubt, and attachments, just as Arjuna was. We are all hesitant at the crossroad between this and That, the wave and the ocean. But, created by Him, we are “the miracle of miracles”. Bhagavan says, “What is not in man cannot be anywhere outside him. What is visible outside him is but a rough reflection of what really is in him.” “The Atma is free. It is purity. It is fullness. It is unbounded. Its centre is the body but its circumference is beyond the beyond.” Man has been endowed with a superintellect, which can recognize the existence of the Atma, strive to bring it into his awareness, and succeed. However, very few are human enough to seek to know who they are, why they are here, wherefrom, and where they go from here. They move about with temporary names, encased in evanescent ever-changing bodies. So, Bhagavan accosts us, “Listen! Children of Immortality! Listen! Listen to the message of the sages who had the vision of the most majestic Person, the Purushothama, the Foremost and the First, who dwells beyond the realms of illusion and elusion. O ye human beings! You are by nature ever full. You are indeed God moving on earth. Is there a greater sin than calling you ‘sinners’? When you accept this appellation, you defame yourselves. Arise! Cast off the humiliating feeling that you are sheep. Do not be deluded into that idea. You are Atma. You are drops of nectar, immortal truth, beauty, goodness. You have neither beginning nor end. All things material are your bondslaves; you are not bondslaves, as you imagine now.” Bhagavan says, “Through the unremitting practice of truth, righteousness, and fortitude, the Divinity quiescent in the individual has to be induced to manifest itself in daily living, transforming it into the joy of truly loving.” “Know the Supreme Reality; breathe It, bathe in It, live in It. Then It becomes all of you and you become fully It.” A material object is not self-expressive. It depends wholly on the capacity for knowledge (chith-sakthi) of the individual Atma for its manifestation (prakasa). The relative world of objects is dependent upon the relative consciousness of the individual Atma (jivi). When the object is further scrutinized and the true basis of the Plurality is grasped, Brahman or the Oversoul as the first Principle is acknowledged as a logical necessity. Subsequently, when sense control, mind cleansing, concentration, and inner silence are achieved, what appeared as a logical necessity dawns upon the purified consciousness as a Positive Permanent Impersonal Will (Prajnanam Brahma), whose expression is all this. Sathya Sai Vahini reveals to us in unmistakable terms that the self in man is “no other than the Overself, or God”. We are told that this is true not only of mankind but of all beings. Everywhere and anywhere! In fact, “Will causes this unreal multiplicity of Cosmos on the One that He is. He can, by the same Will, end the phenomenon.” “Being (God) is behind becoming, and becoming merges in being. This is the eternal play.” says Bhagavan. As Bhagavan writes, “the supreme end of education, the highest purpose of instruction, is to help us to become aware of the universal immanent Impersonal.” Sathya Sai Baba, in His role as the Teacher of Teachers, is instructing us herein for this supreme adventure of the soul. Seekers on this pilgrimage have in Him a compassionate guide and guardian, for He is the embodiment of the very Will that planned the Play. As we are led through the valley of this Vahini by Bhagavan, holding us by the hand, He exhorts us to admire, appreciate, and adore the seers and sages of many lands who pioneered this realm and laid limits, bounds, preparatory disciplines, and practices to smooth the path and hasten the discovery of truth. He writes of the Vedas and later spiritual texts, of the forms of worship that have stood the test of centuries of loyal acceptance, and of disciplinary codes for the four stages of human life and for humans with pronounced inborn characteristics —the vertically uplifting pure (sathwic), the horizontal expansive emotional (rajasic), and the declining dull (thamasic). He clarifies the role of karma (action) and its consequence. “Like a frail ship caught in a stormy sea, man climbs up a gigantic wave and reaches its froth-edged peak. The next moment, he is hurled into the trough, only to rise again. The rise and fall are both consequences of his own deeds. They design the palace and the prison for man. Grief and joy is the resound, the reflection or reaction of one’s own actions. The individual soul (jivi) can escape both by cultivating the attitude of a witness, not involved in the activities it has to do.” Bhagavan writes of yoga as the process of “coming together of the individual soul (jivatma) and the Highest Atma (Paramatma), the Self and the Overself”. He elaborates on the path of love (devotion, bhakthi), of selfless activity (karma), of mastery over the mind, of sublimation of consciousness (wisdom, jnana). Bhagavan analyses the rights and responsibilities of the individual and society and reveals to us that they have the one underlying purpose of spiritual fulfilment. To sum up, Sathya Sai Vahini is the Gita given to us by the Person who, as the eternal charioteer (Sanathana Sarathi), is eager and ready to hold the reins of our senses, mind, consciouness, ego, and intellect and to guide us safely to the Abode of Supreme Peace (Prasanthi Nilayam), the goal of all mankind. May we all be blessed by His love and grace.