When you realize yourself as the Universal Self, you transcend the cycle of duality and impermanence. Meditation prepares the inner world for the descent of the divine current and leads to the perfect realization of Truth. As a result of the practice of meditation, a person goes through a gradual transformation on all planes. The perfect human life consists in the realization of unity and the realization of divinity on all planes of one's being.
53. The Real Guru
Who is a real teacher? It is he who leads the way, destroying delusion and ignorance. Who is the true student? This is the one who seeks to control the restless mind.
(Sathya Sai Baba – Gita Vahini, Chapter 11)
The real Guru is the Highest Self. This truth Sathya Sai Baba proclaimed all his life. It is this true teacher who eliminates ignorance, which consists in the erroneous perception of oneself as being separate from the surrounding world. A student is an individual self who learns from his own Higher Self.
Restlessness of the mind leads to uncontrollable craving for objects of desire, a false sense of separateness, fear, and suffering. In fact, you are learning from yourself – your Higher Self teaches your individual Self. However, most often the teacher appears as a wise and experienced person; such a person we call, Guru.
In Vedic philosophy there is a deep concept of the “principle of the teacher.” A teacher is not so much a personality as a cosmic principle that can be embodied in various people who teach us throughout our lives.
Throughout your life, you meet a huge number of teachers who help you learn a lot of important things, teach all kinds of necessary disciplines, and pass on the necessary skills. However, the highest teachers foster knowledge and practices related to the knowledge of the eternal and pure nature of the soul. A true teacher always remains transparent, striving to point out to the student the infinite potentials of his soul. The teacher reminds the student of his original freedom, for only a free person can realize his divinity. The delusions from which the teacher is freed are the false idea of his own weakness and infirmity.
The teacher guides the student to find his purpose in life and to realize his God-given talents. The teacher opens the soul of the student, just as a lotus flower opens at sunrise. You are incarnated with a special spiritual mission, but each person around you is unique, also incarnated with a special spiritual mission – no one is better or worse than you, all people are different, each person is unique – each person is an infinite spirit gaining experience of earthly existence.
Inspired wisdom not only comes from teachers, but also can be found in many books, particularly sacred, spiritual texts. Any scripture performs the functions of a teacher when talking about the inner divinity of a person and blessing the reader. In every tradition, sacred scriptures are respected and held in high regard. In Christianity, it is the Gospel; in Hinduism, it is the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads; in Judaism, it is the Torah. A careful and thoughtful reading of sacred texts clarifies perception and brings down blessings.
In fact, life itself is the greatest teacher. Everyone is able to recall well a number of situations that taught them significantly more than theoretical lectures. It is important to perceive the events of life not just as a series of random events, but as lessons to be learned that offer something useful to be learned from them.
Being a student is very difficult. The student is not the one who puts the portrait of the teacher on the home altar and burns candles and incense to it every day. A true student is one who embodies the wise instructions of his teacher in his daily life.
Sathya Sai Baba directed people to self-study, often repeating that the true teacher is in the Spiritual Heart. It is in the depths of the soul that the most profound answers to all questions can be found. Divinely, every person has a mysterious desire to explore the nature of his Self – this is the essence of the spiritual path.
54. Miraculous photos of Sathya Sai Baba
This is a story about a Japanese man I met at the ashram who told me an amazing story about his friend, who was also a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba.
Returning home from India to Japan, this friend hung a picture of Sathya Sai Baba in his room above his bed. In this part of Japan, where this devotee lived, earthquakes sometimes occurred. Unfortunately, shortly after his return from the ashram, a massive earthquake struck, causing several buildings to collapse. The earthquake occurred at night, which was especially dangerous.
The man woke to hear a roar and strange cracking noises. Three walls of the house in which he lived had collapsed. After the noises subsided, he got out of bed to inspect the damage. It was then he realized he’d been sitting unharmed on the bed. What was left of the house was a wall and part of the roof, but it was the very wall on which was hung the cheerful photo of Sathya Sai Baba.
The following story is similar, but it happened with one of my Russian friends. Alexander sat down in front of a photograph of Sathya Sai Baba late in the evening, lit a candle and began to practice mantras. He relaxed so much he did not notice how he fell asleep, yet in a dream he saw Sathya Sai Baba.
Waking in the morning, Alexander saw that during the night, while he was asleep, a fire broke out in his house. The candle fell igniting the tablecloth and as a result the photo of Sathya Sai Baba also caught fire. The fire strangely went out by itself. It is interesting that the photo of Sathya Sai Baba was burned exactly along the contour of his figure.
