This writer can ask Baba a question, pray, and open at random one of His Sathya Sai Speaks, Vahinis, or Summer Showers for an answer. As of May 2011, there are 72 of His books free and online in the discourse section.
http://sathyasai.org/discour/content.htm
*
Asking Baba if I could reproduce pictures of Him without ashram permission the answer in Sathya Sai Speaks was: ‘the thief so intensely desired the jewels of Krishna that Krishna poured them into his lap’
*
Walking by 13th and F in Washington, a park, I wondered if I should offer one of the homeless men there a room in our home and opened in the Ramayana to
‘you have not yet learned the mantras with which to expel demons’
*
Yet several years later, when a man recently widowed asked if we would
give a room, we opened in Matthew to “I was a stranger and you took me in.”
*
On my only trip as of this time to India, in London the question
was’ may I sightsee a little before going to the ashram”’. The
answer in the Bhagavad Gita was
‘Although the Lord is omnipresent he is situated in one place’
*
The trip to Baba was made possible by a round the world ticket from PanAmâ..¦$1100 for 12 city stops
around the world.. one had to stay at least 2 days in each city and had to go
continuously in
either an eastern or western path. On the way home, thinking to get more value
out of the ticket
by going to Miami from San Francisco rather than back to Washington, I felt
uncentered and asked if I should return that day to DC. The answer was
‘Uttaryana: today the sun begins its northern journey’
*
Distributing vegan fliers near a meat counter in a Safeway,
afterwards I asked Baba about it and opened to ‘when the fruit is green it will not fall even if you beat it with a sharp
stick..
when it is ripe it falls of its own accord in the silence of the night.’
*
When G MacCray, a very talented artist,
drew a masterful picture of a living
pig in a sandwich in 3 or 4 minutes so that
we could put it on tshirts and
make funds for our fruitarian and animal rights group,
another group began reproducing
our design. Feeling uncentered
I asked Baba for comment and
opened to ‘The teacher should
be happy when a pupil takes over
her work. Why do you want to remain in 1st grade forever?
*
Watching Cayuga, a German Shepherd with hip dysplasia while her human companion
J Freundschuh was at the
ashram, I wondered if it would prevent Cayuga’s muscle development if I always
helped her
into the car and opened to
‘be content if your seva is to lift a lame lamb over a stile’
*
I was invited by the guest of
honor to a fundraiser in Manhattan. But he was delayed
and there was no ticket at the
door. I went in to the bar
to wait for him. The organizer
of the fundraiser didn’t know
me and though I had ordered
no drink berated me as
a gatecrasher. I left and
feeling sad opened in the
Gospels to ‘the Son of Man
has no place to lay his head’ The interpretation for me
(it would be different for each) was not that I could
in any way be compared to Jesus but that if I
were more like Jesus I would not be uncentered
by the treatment.
*
Sometimes I use a Bartletts or other book of
quotations. In one of them the question was
whether or not to talk to a certain person about Him.
The answer was ‘Talk to him of Jacob’s ladder, and
he would ask the number of steps’, a quote of Shakespeare*
*
Footnotes:
*Obviously it is we who move and not the sun/ Uttaryana is a holy day
celebrating
what from earth seems a northern journey.
*
Once when someone I love very much was in the midst of a 24 hour delivery, I asked Baba for guidance and opened to the W B Yeats line:
‘A sudden blow but: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl’
and she gave birth shortly after to a wonderful wonderful child.
Baba has said He will answer
Any question if
- One is surrendered to
the answer
b/ If it is about an immediate
decision to be made
- If it is about ones
own sadhana and not another’s
When one is totally aligned
to God’s infinite heart and will, there is no need to ask.
-saiom shriver-
http://www.sathyasai.org/imagecol/Animals/images/pashu22.jpg
