ILLUSION IN REALITY AND REALITY IN ILLUSION

Sweetness can not be separated from sugar

"Light cannot be separated from Sun?,

similarly god can not be separated from creation .

We do not see the stars in daylight but that does not mean that there are no stars in the sky. Standing by the bank of a pool, thickly overspread by scum and weeds, we say that there isnowaterin it. If we desire to see the water we have to remove the scum from the surface of the pond. Likewise, because we fail to conceive and grasp the existence of God or Avatar in the period of our ignorance due to non-removal of the film of 'Maya' from our eyes, that does not mean, there is no existence of God or Avatar in the Universe. So as long as man remains subject to the dualistic delusion of nature, he can not known the Avatar,- Who is God and is One only. When one removes the veil of Maya, he is able to uncover the secrets of creation that ultimately lead him to known The Avatar or God and his purpose.

The purpose of the Avatar is the descent of The Divinity forthe ascent of the mankind. Avatar or incarnation is a highly concentrated, condensed centre of divine effulgence in human form. Avatar is actually the condensed beam of rays of the Lord. The divinity of the Avatar is all-encompassing as, it is the substance of all symbols. Its vision is universal and it embraces all the dimensions of time. As there is a double element in the Avatar, human in front, divine behind, we with our external eyes only see him as a human being as many people looked and assessed Shri Shirdi Sai Baba during His life time. But Baba the Avatar was actually an integrated manifestation of the divine and was always at work and at rest.

The appearance of Baba as an Avatar was an extremely monumental event in the history of mankind as His appeal was universal. He represented the highest expression of man's potential, consciousness without limit, love without boundary. He was all powerful all love, capable of accomplishing anything un-imaginable and dictated history, whose activities were carried-out only for the benefit of all the mankind. He was the source of all knowledge knowing past, present and future and was at all places at all times, that was revealed from His Avataric role i.e. (Leelas). Even if He operated in the physical world in His physical body, while at the same time operating in the spiritual world and would travel in His invisible body over great distances of space who is one-in-all and all-in-one to His devotees.

More memorable than mere spoken advice were his didactic scenes, the core ideal of which embodied universal truths, bringing them within the grasp of even/man. There scenes took the form of interactions, often humorous, between Sai Baba and his devotees, but the end result was to instill faith in God, and to bring home moral and spiritual reminder to the individual. He had no love for perishable things and was always engrossed in self-realization which was his sole concern. Though a Siddha, he acted like a Sadhaka, to introduce the revolutionary spirit of equality, brotherhood and monotheism.

Baba was really one who was conscious of the presence of the power of the Divinity born in Him or descended into Him and governing from within His will, the life and actions, identified inwardly with the divine power and presence, came in a new-age for humanity, to enable it to take another step in its evolution towards its ultimate goal. In the words of "Swami Abhedananda" and "Swami Sivananda" Sai Baba is the one ever great, ever bright luminary still having unparallel existence, ever-shedding his resplendent rays to illumine every nook and corner of the World. HIS cosmic message of universal brotherhood, rendering humanism for all beings, is eternal.

It is a mythological and historical reality that when a Saint attains Maha Samadhi, he attains disembodied freedom for a simultaneous identification or merger with Brahman. But a few liberated saints like Buddha, Vyasa, Krishna, Jesus, Zorastar, Hanuman, Sri Sripad Srivallava, Sri Narasinga Saraswati, Sri Manik Prabhu, Sri Swami Samartha, Akkalkot Maharaj, Sri Gajanan Maharaj, Sri Jangli Maharaj, Sri Janardana Swami, Sri Vasudevananda Saraswati and many other like...., Sri Gnanadeva, Sri Chaitanya, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansha, Sri Gorakhnath even after having the supreme state of liberation, voluntarily choose to participate in the cosmic scheme of helping the souls still in bondage and struggling to attain liberation. Baba was such a saint who while He was in His Physical body assured His devotees that He would not leave them but act more powerfully even after His disembodiment: I shall be ever active and vigorous even after leaving this earthly body. My tomb shall bless and look to the needs of My devotees, My mortal remains would speak from the tomb. I am ever living to help and guide all, who come to me, who surrender to me and who seek refuse in me".

The great Saint Meher Baba found in Sai Baba the highest manifestation of the supreme reality, the personification of perfection and considered Him as The Master of creation who was Brahman Himself having realised Brahman. In Baba, He found His spiritual pursuit and in the year 1915, when He sought Baba's grace and asked for a message, Baba said "Love God to such an extent that you become God". Baba also, much earlier, confirmed through His utterances that is reflected in the "Shri Sai Satcharitra" written by Sri Hemandpanth with Baba's concurrence and grace".

" I am the inner-ruler of all and seated in their hearts. I envelop all the creatures, the movable and the immovable world. I am the controller, the wire-puller of the show of the Universe. All the insects, ants, the visible movable and immovable world is My body and form".

(S.S.S.-Page/14)

"Barring your Name and form, there exists in you as well as in you as well as in all beings a source of being or consciousness of existence That is Myself, knowing this you see Me inside yourself, as well as in all beings".

(S.S.S.-Page/229)

"Make Me the sole object of your thoughts and actions, and you will, no doubt attain paramartha (Spiritual goal of Life)".

(S.S.S. -Page/98)

"Baba said that He was omnipresent occupying land air, country, world, light and heaven and that he was not localised".

(S.S.S.-Page/103)

"My abode is in your heart and I am within you" (S.S.S.-Page/85) "I am roaming in their forms. He who see me in all creatures is my beloved".

(S.S.S.-Page/56)

Many such reference can be quoted from Shri Sai Satcharitra as regards Baba, the condensed form of divinity who once told 'The son may forget his mother, the mother may forget her son, life may forget the body, the body may forget life, the intellect may forget arts it has, the eyes may forget the wink, But I shall never forget my Rinanubandha with my devotees. The great Mystic and Mysterious BABA never actually revealed Himself except as an extraordinary Soul of love and compassion, whose super human power and unfathomable energy transcended human faculties and belief. He taught that before one learnt what was valuable one must unlearn what was harmful.

"People attribute a name to me who am Nameless; action to me who am actionless.body to me who is bodiless; they attribute a colour to me who am colourless; quality to one who is without them, eyes and ears to the eyeless and earless; form to the formless; ME, who am beyond all ornaments".

"Albert Einstein said, the presence of a superior reasoning power revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God".

It is true that with the omnipotent divine consciousness, God speaks through supermen, who are also the saviours and are called Avatars i.e. incarnations of God Himself, descending to humanity as occasion arises during the darkest days and Baba was actually a rare phenomenon, whose service to humanity, if judged calmly would be found great enough to require a special corner in our Pantheon. His was a message of love, mutual forbearance and understanding. He was the most human amongst all Supermen and was most approachable and had abound sympathy for all creatures of the universe.

In a subtle but very effective way he chiselled into men's hearts the truth that the supreme mission; the only mission of life is to feel the spark of divinity in all and in the process, sense God, live in the proximity of God, grow on to like God, and ultimately become one with God. For it, the enunciated path.

"Life is an opportunity, cash on it,

Life is an adventure, get in to it,

Life is a trajedy, grow from it,

Life is a struggle, make it sacred,

Life is a song, sing it,

Life is a promise, meet it,

Life is a game, play it,

Life is a duty, fulfil it,

Life is a challenge, encounter it,

Life is a dream, realise it,

Life is beauty, feel it,

Life is bliss, experience it."

Baba was the central or common factor that bound the followers of various religions in the country as He preached that there is only one God whom people pray in different names and never identified Himself with any particular race, religion and that was the only best means of founding the universal faith, resulting in the unequivocal surrender of the Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Parsees, Sikhs and Jains at His feet with intense faith. He preached no cult and was not the founder of any sect but only showed a way of life to mankind through His living activities and messages.

Remarkably, Baba was the great harmoniser of all faiths. His compassion and love are significantly catholic and never critical but easily and equally available to the pauper and prince to the illiterate and the learned, to the sinner and the puritan, to the younger and the old, to the atheist and the theist without any exclusiveness. The common man saw divinity in human form possessing uncommon divine qualities like utter selflessness, utter truthfulness, utter simplicity, utter faith in God and extreme love and compassion for all living beings.

As The Avatar of the age through His divine functioning (Leelas) He put an equilibrium amidst the doctrinal tussles of various religions, sects, admitting all as true, being different paths to the same God. Just as many rivers proceeding through various zig-zag courses merge into the same ocean.

The Leelas were performed not to purposefully defy the boundary of the known scientific laws but as His will was completely aligned with the supreme consciousness, the underlying source of the entire creation (matter) was also sub-serviantto His commands. As an incarnation of supreme consciousness Himself, the whole spectrum of divine creative powers were waiting to dance to His tune, ready to instantly materialize even the faintest wish of the creator and such leelas were and are merely an extension of His spontaneous divine will, while His own life was simplicity itself personified.

"Swami Paramahamsa Yogananda" once to a question of a man, as to how could God, the unmanifested absolute, appear in visible form to a devotees, gave a fitting reply "If your doubt, you won't see, and if you see, you won't doubt". It is actually not possible to describe Baba and His Leelas adequately by language meant for the world's life. Baba, The Infinite can not be encompassed, He can be an atom, He can be a world; He can be both at once. He can be form, He can be formless; He can be formless form; He can be manifest, He can be latent; He can be both in one; He can have qualities; He can be qualityless, He can be two together. The impossible was simply possible for Baba that was unthinkably wondrous.

Baba the incarnation of purity has showed mankind as how there is illusion in reality and reality in illusion and once told Maya ends only when Chaitanya is realised. Chaitanya is endless. Chaitanya is a cave and he who enters into that cave never returns but becomes the cave. He used to say "Live in faith and bury doubt, instead of living in doubt and burying faith". He through His invisible spiritual force has left behind such powerful perennial wave for international integration of mankind, the colossal impact of which shall definitely sway the whole of humanity, without being conscious of the process and ultimately shall merge all men in the divine ocean of true consciousness that goes a long way to establish Universal Faith and Spiritual Fraternity in the World.