Swami is many things for many people. For millions of devotees, He is God, the eternal truth, the infinite being, whose vastness human hearts and minds can never fathom. He is also a Mother and a Father, whose loving touch one can feel every single second.
In addition, for thousands of Sai students like us, He is Guru, a loving teacher, in more ways than one. He gave us an opportunity to be with Him as His students. We spent the best years of our lives at his institute, in his hostels (nay, at our institute, in our hostels). It’s in His loving presence that we learned the most important lessons of our lives. Thinking about those days is by itself meditation.
There are many ways to meditate. We can meditate on His loving name and on his beautiful form and derive happiness and strength. We can meditate on our personal interactions with Him, and experience the same bliss the millionth time as we did the very first. We can also meditate on His nature.
In this auspicious Guru Poornima season, here are seven meditations on His qualities as a loving teacher.
1. He is infinitely patient
Imagining ourselves to be in a modern world, we are always in hurry. We constantly look at our watches. We rush. We fidget when we stop. We breathe hard when we are held at traffic, when we stand in long queues and when the coffee machine whirrs and hisses for too long before it pours our favorite brew.
But, Swami is infinitely patient. His “centuries are spent perfecting a little flower”. He lets us evolve taking our sweet time, learning from our own experiences.
When a successful businessman from Chennai wanted to seek Swami’s blessings for a programme aimed at reviving Vaishnavite shrines in Tamil Nadu, some of his friends told him Swami might not be happy. Swami has always stressed on sarva dharma seva and this might be too narrow in scope, they said.
However, when he approached Bhagawan, He blessed him profusely, saying it was his duty as a Vaishnavite.
On ground, he slowly realized that he cannot revive the temples without taking care of the neighborhood, and his initiative slowly expanded to the ecosystem around temples including people from all religions. Eventually it became a sarva dharma service, much as Swami would have wanted.
Years later, in Kodaikanal, when he updated Swami on its status, Swami smiled and said, “Good boy”.
Swami could have told him when he started. He didn’t. He lets us take our time to learn. He doesn’t need an interview room, or the Mandir verandah, or Sai Kulwant Hall, or Vidyagiri Stadium to teach us His lessons. The whole world is His classroom. He doesn’t look at a clock to see when the class ends. It never ends. Being beyond time, He has all the time to teach us. He has the confidence that we will learn His most important lessons, today or tomorrow.
2. He speaks in the silence of our hearts
It’s in the depth of silence, do we hear the voice of God. The world however is too noisy. There is a constant blabber of voices on television, from our telephones, computers, smart speakers. We are forever consuming information. Information, we tell ourselves, is power.
In the process, we often ignore the source of all power: Swami.
His voice is not loud. It can get drowned by the pandemonium outside. But, when we shut down the noise outside, perhaps in the early mornings, seek his blessings and ask Him for His counsel, He speaks.
He has spoken thus to millions of his devotees – directly, heart to heart. He has solved the knottiest of problems in law, in management and in science. His answers need not always be the ones we expect or the ones we like. A professional who felt he was being unfairly attacked by his critics and opponents. He prayed to Swami to reveal ways in which he can outsmart them. Instead, the answer from the depth of his heart told him: “love your opponents; show empathy; don’t try to outsmart them, try to understand them”. So, instead of fighting them, he reached out and tried to engage. That basically changed the game.
Swami’s teachings are always based on love.
3. His prime concern is our spiritual growth
We get what we want from Swami sooner or later: intelligence, wealth, respect in society. But, ultimately, His primary concern is our spiritual growth. “I give you what you want, so you will want what I want to give you”, Swami says. Like Yashoda who lured Krishna with butter, He brought us close to him with the promise of secular education. And once there, He taught us spiritual discipline – for our own growth.
Interviews with Him are inner views. The discussions always revolved around spirituality. He used examples from science and history, economics and politics, even cinema and drama – and tied them all to profound spiritual truths.
With the love of a thousand mothers, he rushed to help us from the smallest of physical sufferings, a tooth pain, an appendicitis; but when things were going good, he kept preparing us to welcome difficulties. Pain can be a stepping stone to self knowledge.
4. He teaches us through his own actions
Swami is our destination, and Swami is also the way. With his every action he sets an example of how to behave and how to simply ‘be’.
A student seeing him go through devotees letters one by one, asked Him why He was taking time to physically read the letters, even though He has shown so many times that He already knew the contents. Swami said, “My devotees write these letters with the faith that I will physically read them. I am answering that faith”.
Another time, he created a bracelet to a doctor who was working in the Super Speciality Hospital. The doctor, who used to bringing his own team of surgical assistants from US in the early years of the hospital, was presently getting used to the local team. The young team were still learning. They were sometimes slow. They fumbled. And the doctor used to get tensed up and angry at their lack of speed. Now, in the Mandir, he was kneeling before Swami waiting for Him to put the bracelet on his wrists. But Swami, who materialised the piece of jewelry, was struggling to unlock it. The doctor waited patiently as the clock ticked on. Swami was still trying to unlock it. The doctor waited patiently. Finally, Swami succeeded and wound it around the doctor’s wrist and blessed him. The doctor suddenly realized that Swami was teaching him a lesson without uttering a single word. A practical lesson in patience.
He resolved to practice the same calmness with his team in the operation theatre. Swami had shown him how to. In the hospital, his patience had an impact on the team, and they got better and better. Swami comes several steps down, and sometimes even acts like us, to take us to a higher level.
5. He teaches in riddles
Swami is an epitome of clear communication. He can simplify the most complex philosophical concepts. When He gives instructions, they are so clear that a machine could follow them.
At the same time, He presents some of the most profound teachings as riddles. Like Zen masters who understood that no language could contain the depth of spiritual truths, Swami often taught us in riddles.
It’s as if He allows us to hear only a part of His teaching, and for the rest He wants us to go deep within, to take help from the Swami who is residing in our hearts. The purpose of a guru, Ramana Maharishi once said is to turn our attention from the guru outside to the guru inside.
Swami did that by teaching us in His own unique ways. He would ask the same question to the same student again and again.
“What does your father do,” he asked an MBA student once. The student gave a factual reply: My father works in such-and-such a place.
The next day – same time, same place, same question. The student elaborated on his father’s job. Swami seemed satisfied and moved on.
Third day: same place, same time, same question. This time, the student said, Swami, “my father is managing director”. This seemed to pique Swami’s interest. The student went on, “Swami, He is managing director of this Universe”. Riddle solved.
Sometimes, His words are like a seed that gets planted in our hearts. It grows within us, and it takes years before it is large enough to shelter under its ever expanding wisdom.
6. He cares more about our intentions than about the results
We live in a world that judges actions based on results. All’s well that ends well, we tell ourselves. We look at our mark sheets to get a sense of what we have learnt. As far as secular education goes, Swami acknowledges the importance of marks. He is happy when students say they have performed well in exams. He even gives us tips to get better marks. “Don’t just read, practice writing. Because, in your exams you have to write”. But, he doesn’t go by marks alone. He says remarks are more important than marks.
And, there’s one other thing that he places above all else. Intentions. If they are good, He is fine even if the efforts get derailed or if results are messed up. “All my students have got 100% marks”, He once said. It was clear to many he didn’t mean the marks that examiners gave, but the marks He gave for the sincerity of students. Often, He preferred those who came with the right intentions over those who had greater talent. Was He being unfair, some have wondered. However, every time the results turned out to be exemplary. In Swami’s world, good intentions trump great talent.
As humans we cannot know others’ intentions. But we can work on ours. That will please Swami. And that will make Him our partner. What else does one need?
7. In His classroom, He is always waiting for us
In a student’s dream one day, Sai Kulwant hall is full to the brim. Swami is gliding among His students. Suddenly, there is a flutter of activity at the side entrance of the hall. A beautifully decked elephant walks in. It is a sight to behold. Everyone turns their eyes on the elephant, as it walks towards the mandir in all its majesty. Realising that all are looking at the ‘creation’ when the ‘creator’ was right amidst them, a student turns to Swami’s direction. And there, He sees Swami looking at the students with infinite love, with a most beautiful smile on his face. Even when we are looking at His world, He is looking at us.
We might get distracted by the brilliant colours and sounds of the world. Get engrossed in it. But, we can be sure that whenever we need guidance, He will be there. In His classroom, Swami, the supreme teacher is always waiting for us. His classroom is this entire universe, and His desk is our own heart. All we have to do is to turn our attention away from the world and look at Him, within.
