Letters from India - Part 2

11. Discourses in the Mandir - July 1989

Discourses in the Mandir

July 1, 1989

Prasanthi Nilayam

Sai Ram,

How are you?? All is going on fine as usual in Sai Wonderland.

Swami hasn’t given a “normal” Darshan since He came back. He’s started to go around the ladies most Darshans (about 7 out of 10 Darshans) but stays far. If He takes letters, it’s reaching from afar. If someone happens to attempt namaskar, many times He’ll jump back and scold, “Bad habit.”

On 18th June, He cancelled evening Darshan altogether and started having discourses in the Mandir instead. The first day, only boy students took up the entire Mandir, but from the second day we also got to go inside, by token system. Out of about 250 who try to get in daily, there’s room for only about 60 of us.

The first two days were scary. Swami fired angry flames at us, actually addressing His boy students (college). He said they were not disciplined, were doing bad things, and spoiling the new students who had such pure hearts. Swami said they didn’t think He knew, but He knows everything. He would not hesitate to throw out the boys. He said that he’s training an army to change the world. Anyone who didn’t want to comply with the discipline could go away and do whatever they wanted to.

On the first day Swami said He’d expose two students from that day onwards. So far He hasn’t given any names; but every day two students have spoken before His discourse. Most of them concentrate on Swami’s mercy and forgiveness and compassion! They have many stories of falling into bad ways.

One boy told of how before he came to Swami, he was a “rogue” and did all sorts of terrible things that one could possibly do in a big city (whatever that means!). Then he joined the school and was good. Then he fell again into bad ways – at that point Sai came to his city (Bombay) and ordered him to speak before 10,000 people! So he had a chance to improve. Again he was good; again he fell! Then Sai asked him to speak before 20,000 people in the Poornachandra. He lost his voice and his mind went blank. He repented for his bad ways, and again was good. The story didn’t go beyond that!

Now there’s hardly any foreigners here, only a few new people and a lot of old timers. Only about two or three small groups in the whole place! So every day Swami has been giving interviews to either Indians or super-VIPs, or even to resident Indians.

The struggle with the office goes on. I go only to nice Naidu, but every time he mumbles, “Everyone is angry with me for giving you special permission,” and then he gives me a few days, more or less according to his whim. I don’t know what to do. If I write to Swami, what use? He won't tell the office. Besides that, Swami has been playing the part of an Angry God, so I can't imagine Him giving special permission for a young foreigner girl to remain in the ashram! So I must only see how things happen, day to day, I suppose.

One day in the Mandir Swami told the story of the two students who used to sit on either side of Him when He was a young schoolboy; and how these two boys later incarnated as the dogs Jack and Jill. Swami said, “Why were they born as dogs, why not as human beings? Because they wouldn’t have received the closeness that they got as dogs. If they were born as humans, their parents wouldn’t have allowed them to be near to Swami all the time. Their devotion was so intense that they took the forms of dogs to be near Swami.”

This is interesting because it shows that humans can again become animals, even high souls! Swami always says human birth is very difficult to attain. The Vedas are full of examples where humans fell to animal bodies. The Vedas also give many warnings also!

Venkamma is fine; the intense training goes on with her. If everything’s alright, she’ll keep quiet or talk to me normally. If I falter a bit she gets angry and yells and makes me to feel very small! Sometimes she takes a fault silently for awhile, then yells at me for not correcting it, when I didn’t even know it was wrong in the first place!

One amusing thing: every night Venkamma does flowers for the village “Sathyamma” temple. I take little bunches of flowers and hand them to her to be made into the “jada”- the flower decoration. I can tell what mood she’s in by how she takes the flowers from my hand – if she’s upset with me, she grabs them from my fingers; if she’s happy with me, she gently takes them.

Afterwards, she makes a string of flowers. I’ve been attempting to learn how to tie the flower garlands. The first few times, many flowers dropped off, because they were not tied on tightly enough! (These garlands are made by tying knots around the small, fragile flowers, no needles are used). She complained a lot but I kept on. Now I can sorta manage to make a decent garland.

Now just as I was getting good, one of the boys told a story before Swami’s discourse: when the student’s mother was 9 years old, she visited Swami in Whitefield. Those days the young girls used to offer small garlands of flowers to Swami, hand-made by them. Swami used to take a garland or two every day. This girl didn’t know how to make a garland, so every day she used to sit in the back. One day, Swami came up to her and said, “Tomorrow I will take your garland.” She answered, “But Swami, I don’t know how to make one!” He answered, “No excuses, tomorrow you must offer Me a garland and I will accept it.” And then He went off.

That night, she tried and tried and finally completed a tiny garland that was more string then flowers. Next day, Swami ignored all the others and lovingly took only her garland! From that day, she made one every day and He took the garland daily.

During this entire story, Swami was staring with compassion at me the whole time! (Although lately He never seems to look at me or even in my direction.) I was quite happy with the coincidence! I told Venkamma that night while we did flowers (since the boy’s talk in the Mandir was in English, she couldn’t understand). She replied by saying that I shouldn’t come so late at night anymore to her, I should come only in the daytime! That means no more flowers! What do you think of that? Hard Venkamma!

Meanwhile, after one week of discourses Swami ended it by saying, “I am giving you trouble by these discourses. You have to sit a long time. I'm delaying your dinner also. So from today onwards, I am ending these discourses.” I was lucky that out of six days of chance to get in the Mandir, I sat inside three days. The atmosphere was really electric – although scary! (I was inside when He said, “Be careful, be warned!” shiver, shiver!)

(PS A day or two after Swami announced the discourse were ended, the school teachers made a plea that they be continued. So He said, “Alright” and is now continuing them!)

Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu.

Love,

Divya