SAI BABA GITA
Foreword by the Editor, Al Drucker:
I would like to give you, dear reader, some background on how this book came about. In August and September of 1984, there were extensive riots in South India. There were shootings not far from Sai Baba's ashram and the ashram gates were locked. Armed soldiers were patrolling outside and escorting the college students into the ashram for the evening meetings. For 34 days during the height of the tension, Sai Baba spoke in daily discourses to the students on the Gita. He spoke in Telugu, his native language. These talks form the chapters of this book.
I was living in Baba's ashram at the time and teaching in his university. With Baba's permission, I used these powerful Gita teachings over the years as the basis for my scheduled talks to visitors who came to the ashram from all over the world. It has been my good fortune to work with this material now for almost 9 years. Every moment spent on it has brought new light and depth of understanding, and, as has happened to many others, these teachings have unalterably transformed my life.
Five years ago, I had the chance to publish this Gita in India, from the edited translations of Baba's talks. 12,000 copies in English were printed and distributed, and translations were published in a number of European and Asian languages. The original manuscript was presented to Sai Baba on the stage of the auditorium during the Christmas function in 1987, and he graciously blessed it and signed the title page. That work contained extensive Sanskrit phrases and references to traditional Indian themes, which were familiar to Indian devotees.
In the intervening years, the Indian English edition has gone out of print. With the intention of making these teachings widely available without need for the reader to have an extensive background in Sanskrit or Indian philosophy or prior knowledge of the characters and stories that fill Baba's talks, this book was prepared in the present edition. Here, the majority of Sanskrit terms have been deleted and incorporated in their English equivalents into the body of the text. Also, the chapters have been freely edited to clarify any difficult passages or obscure references and to convert the spoken words into easily readable text. Every chapter has been arranged to stand on its own, with the effect that you can turn to any chapter whose subject matter particularly interests you, without first having to study all the previous chapters in the book.
In editing the text my primary focus was on clarity in conveying Baba's teachings to the Western reader, rather than on literal translation. I acknowledge the grave responsibility of editing the avatar's words and urge scholars to study the tapes of Baba's Gita discourses in Telugu.
Al Drucker,
Crestone, Colorado, October 1993
Messages by Sathya Sai Baba:
'Suppose you are asked: "Who created all this multiplicity in the world; who is responsible for all this variety?" What will you answer?... The correct response is, "There is no multiplicity at all!"... The one divine self remains the one self forever. You mistake it as many. The fault is in you. Correct your vision. Remove your delusion. The divinity did not change into the world just as the rope did not change into a snake. In the dark you mistook the rope to be a snake but it remains a rope. So also, the divine self remains the divine self though your ignorance of this fact makes you see it as world... The world of diversity stands on one leg called delusion. Cut down that leg and the world falls... I often tell you not to identify even me with this particular body. You do not understand. You call me by only one name and believe I have only one form, but there is no name I do not bear and there is no form which is not mine.
After long searches here and there in temples and in churches, at last you come back completing the circle from where you started, and find that he for whom you have been seeking all over the world, for whom you have been weeping and praying in churches and temples, on whom you were looking as the mystery of all mysteries, is the nearest of the near... your very self... the reality of your life, body and soul. Assert it! Manifest it!
You as body, mind or soul are a dream. But what you really are is pure existence, knowledge, bliss. You are the God of this universe. You are creating this whole universe and drawing it in. To gain the Infinite, the miserable little prison individuality must go.... Follow the heart. A pure heart seeks beyond the intellect. It gets inspired.... Within you is the real happiness. Within you is the mighty ocean of nectar divine. Seek it within you. Feel it. Feel it. It is here, the self. It is not the body, the mind, the intellect. All these are simply manifestations. Above all these you are. You appear as the smiling flower, as the twinkling stars. What is there in the world which can make you desire anything?'
- From the sayings and writings of Sai Baba
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Go to a short description of Sathya Sai Baba, by the editor of the "Sai Baba Gita", Al Drucker