"What? When Baba clicks, this sofa will not be empty, Be
assured!"
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"...The group (Telengana group) was very much
attached to Baba. They crowded round the sofa when Baba was in the room on
the first floor. They stroked the feet and gradually made bold to exert
extra pressure, pretending to perform the Seva of 'mild' massage. I had to
nuzzle through them to secure a crevice between their toroses through
which I could caress the Lotus Feet. One day while Baba was tickling us
into waves of laughter, Parthasarathi from Madras got a brilliant idea. He
pulled his camera from its bag and taking good aim. shot and bagged a
picture of us around the Feet and of Baba lit with smiles. At this Baba
rose and asked for the camera. I feared that He might nullify the portrait
and negate the negative by holding the camera in His hand. Instead, He
told Parthasarathi "Come! Stand behind the sofa, I shall click the next
one". The Telengana brothers did not welcome the plan. They shouted -they
had not yet learnt that still small voice we were used to-that the empty
sofa did not deserve to be photographed. I protested, "What? When Baba
clicks, this sofa will not be empty, Be assured!". And, Baba responded
with an emphatic "Right Kasturi!" I kept my right palm on the foot-stool
when Baba was peering through the lens. My intention was to test whether
in the picture that must materialise, my palm would appear below the sole
or above the foot. But Baba noticed it and He said, "No! Take off'. I had
to obey.
When He returned the camera to Parthasarathi, He said, "Hey! Be careful. I
am there." At that, I asked Parthasarathi, ''You must give each of us a
copy," and looking up to Baba, I implored, "Swami, you must tell him to
give us copies or else, he won't". And, to our great joy, Baba directed
him to send a postcard size print to every one. It came into my hands, ten
days later. Baba is sitting in the chair, His face and hair slightly
blurred with a look of surprise at the role He had imposed on himself.
Though I admired the deep devotion of the Telengana group, I was unable to
appreciate their blatant pranks, often in Bhagawan's very presence. I saw
them open Baba's silver pan-box and take supari for their own use. I
witnessed them behaving like the cowherd boys of Vrindavan, carrying away
bunches of bananas which were near Baba's room and plunging into a peeling
spree and finishing off the lot. "They ought not swagger so," I told my
neighbour, Radhakrishnan of Coimbatore. He too shook his head in fierce
disapproval. We resented their 'disregard' of the pervasive and profound
sanctity of the place. We commented, confidentially of course, on the
phenomenal tolerance with which Baba was allowing them to strut about. The
climax for us was when Baba agreed to accompany them to their native
villages when they decided to leave.
The jeeps which had brought them weeks previous and which helped us to
reach various picnic spots, (among the hills, inside the jungles and along
the Chithravathi) now turned homewards. I had heard them plan visits with
Baba to many beauty spots in and near the Telengana countryside. Some
place names, like Ekasilapuri, the ancient capital of the Kakatiya Empire
and Ajanta, the centuries old repository of Buddhist fresco paintings,
aroused in me a great longing to join the party. I had years previous
taken my students on an educationa). tour to those places, but visiting
them again as a member of the party that Baba the Supreme Artist leads,
would certainly elevate me, I felt. No one knew whom Baba would favour
with the direction to get ready to join. So, most of us stood on tiptoe.
I saw two big leather boxes come down the circular stairs, from Swami's
room. At the same moment, one of the Telenganas ran down to where I stood
and said, very excitedly, "Swami wants you". Though he did not finish the
sentence, I could surmise the message, "Jump into a jeep." When I leaped
up, two steps at a time, I found Baba talking to Seshagiri Rao, the
septuagenarian. Baba turned to me and said, "Kasturi! Stay here itself. I
am taking Seshagiri Rao with me.You did not quite like these people being
so free with me. It was sheer envy that bothered you. You and your
Radhakrishnan! Could you not be happy that so many from Telengana came to
Swami and did such splendid seva and earned so much grace from Me? This
Seshagiri Rao was happy for that very reason. So, I am not taking you with
me. Seshagiri Rao! Go and sit in the jeep."
That was it! I came down the eighteen steps heavy laden with remorse and
repentance. I stood stupefied, when Baba and His cowherd companions drove
away, along the bumpety-humpety road which will take them to the asphalt
highway to Hyderabad! That was the first time I was stuck in such
lacerated loneliness. I could not attend to anything but the wound my
'superiority complex' had inflicted on me. I diagnosed the complex with the help of my accomplice,
Radhakrishnan. :dhakthi need not always be packed in starched shirts. I
had misread their open-heartedness as audacity, their innocence as
boorishness. I must cast overboard the tawdry academic acquisitions that
weighed me down. They did not help me to rise in Baba's estimation - the
University Degrees, the pedagogic self-esteem, the metropolitan veneer of
hollow etiquette. Like Seshagiri Rao, I must be engaged wholeheartedly in
the duties I am assigned and not entangle myself in the gyrations of
others. Judge not, lest you be judged, I warned
myself. I strove to make myself fit to be in the Divine presence by
eschewing my ancient and deep-rooted Koravanji tendency to seek out the
failing and faults of others. I attempted to divert my sense of humour
towards discovering, within the layers of rocks, the precious veins of
goodness and godliness.
The Nilayam was denuded and desolate since Baba had left me behind, to
nurse the sickness in my mind. I sought rigorously to cleanse my cynicism,
a handicap which Baba has often categorised as evil number one. To relieve
my distress, I spent larger hours in prayer and meditation....."
Source
Source:
Loving God - P 220
Prof.N.Kasturi,
long time close associate of Bhagawan and author of His biography, Sathyam
Sivam Sundaram brings forth exhilarating account of experiences with the
Lord walking on two feet and thus imparts to the readers the magical
divine formula as how total surrender makes one to near and dear to God.
ISBN
81-7208-169-3
http://www.sssbpt.org/products/pages/ItemDetails.asp?itemid=1695
Loving God
by N.
Kasturi
Each person has to live the volumes of biography, which we bring with us,
page after page, howsoever punctuated with dots and dashes, interrogations
and exclamations, commas and colons, until the sentence ends ultimately
with a Full Stop. The author says ‘Luckily I have as my inseparable
consul, Bhagavan Himself; He dots the I’s and crosses the t’s as I live
the lines on every page. He has made the Book of Life my biography –
momentous and meaningful for me’. This book contains a bunch of the
author’s reminiscences, which may be welcomed by many readers.
http://www.saibaba.org.hk/P-Overseas.htm
This is a
spiritual autobiography by one of Swami's most famous devotees, who was
also the author of The Life of Sathya Sai Baba as well as editor of
Sanathana Sarathi and numerous Swami volumes. This book covers the
adventurous and fascinating early years of Prof. Kasturi's scholarly life
in South India as well as the many blissful years of personal relationship
in service to Swami at Prashanti Nilayam. One is amazed throughout the
autobiography by the prodigious accomplishments and remarkable industry of
this gentle man. The stories, the joy, the miracles, flow continuously.
This is a life story filled with many spiritual rewards.
http://www.sathyasai.org/inform/desexp.htm
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