Since very early 2012 when my earlier book on Sri Sathya Sai Baba's (1926-2011) teachings, Cognition and the Universal Heart. was going to press, I have been working on an in-depth exposition (several hundred pages) of his teachings for the world at large, his universal teachings that would be meaningful for every human being The present book is really an introduction to this larger effort for a broad international and particularly a Western audience. The idea that there was a need for a smaller scale but concise in-depth introduction to this larger effort arose in the context of a workshop proposed by Prof. Parthasarathy Rajagopal on "Interfaith Dialogue" at the 2017 Labor Day retreat of Sai devotees in the Midwest Region in the United States (Region 5 of the International Sri Sathya Sai Organization ISSSO in the USA). At that time I had several hundred pages of Manuscript, let me call this the "C-D Manuscript," "Consciousness," Caitanya, and "Divinity" or "the Divine," Divyatvam, projected to consist of an Introduction and 5 Chapters, and a brief (5 pp.) tentative Preface for the first three Chapters. At the workshop, Prof. Rajagopal prepared a handout describing his feelings and experience in Interfaith Dialogue, participants could pick up copies of the Preface, and I showed some slides on "the Problem of articulating Sai Baba's Universal Teachings." After our brief (15 minute) presentations, Prof. Rakesh Nagi coordinated the questions from the audience and the resulting discussion.
The workshop was lively, there was tremendous shared good will and many expressions of heartfelt feelings. Thinking about this experience, I began to feel that there was a need for a presentation of "Swami's universal teachings" that was less elaborate than several hundred pages, which would speak to readers from all countries and cultures, particularly readers from the West, and that would also be useful to Indian readers and devotees of Swami. The result is the present book. The book aims to give an initial understanding of Swami's universal teachings as he expounded them in his last four Vahinis (1979-1984), corresponding to Chapters 1-3 of the C-D Manuscript. I have tried to write informally, using Swami's words as much as possible, but with sufficient detail so that a reader can connect connect what Swami is saying with his own life and experience and with issues and current developments in his own culture and society. These kinds of things are pursued much more fully in the C-D Manuscript.
The book is addressed to serious readers from all cultures and traditions, particularly to readers who are affected by a Western understanding of things, and who are, if they are not religious, not content with the picture of human life and existence presented by Science, Western-type (or any other, ultimately cultural) "Ontology," and Western-type (or any other, likewise cultural) view of History. At the same time it is also written for Indian readers and devotees of Swami.
In the last several Vahinis 1979-1984, Swami is projecting a self-standing picture of how to "contact the Divine within oneself" for human beings everywhere.
"No knowledge can be superior to virtuous character [as exemplified in the founders of the great religions and seen in individuals in all cultures]" (excerpt [3-1B] (7) below)
Sri Sathya Sai Baba (1926-2011) (here, "Baba" or "Swami") is widely regarded as one of the great Indian spiritual figures of modem times. He has been recognized for his numerous social projects (hospitals, schools, Colleges, an Institute of Higher Learning, projects to bring drinking water to the poor), and "strengthening the faith of millions of people." There is a huge and still growing devotee literature of several thousand books describing the authors' personal experiences with Swami, and how over the years their experience as a whole transformed them and their lives. There is also the fact which in the media has aroused the most attention, the large number of miracles associated with him. And there is the fact that beginning in the 1960s, Swami often referred to himself explicitly as Avatar, ie, as representing a "Divine Descent," a "full" Avatar like Krishna. In any case (maybe as a result of the combination of these aspects), Swami's teachings are considered both in India and in the West to be largely "traditional," i.e. in the ambit of Indian tradition, and the "Sai Baba Movement" is regarded as basically an Indian religious movement which, like several others, has spread all over the world.
Actually, however, over the years Swami has unfolded an understanding of the Truth of the Universe and Existence that is in its outlines as clear and developed as the understanding developed by Science, but that deals with the actualities and realities of human conscious subjective experience everywhere, in all cultures, all religions, in every human knowledge enterprise. Although in his writings and discourses Swami is constantly referring to the Vedas and Upanishads as sources of highest knowledge of Divinity and Reality, actually the vision/understanding he is teaching is universal, i. e. is valid for and can be understood by human beings everywhere, in all cultures and traditions and is self-standing (understanding it does not depend on Indian tradition).
However, it is not so easy to articulate and communicate this universal self-standing vision/understanding. Swami teaches that human nature is Divine - Divinity or Divineness, Divyatvam ("that what is in essence Divine-ness"): "The same One Divine manifests in the constant daily experience of all human beings, in all cultures, religions, philosophies, arts." Here "Divinity" or "the Divine" includes not only the usual connotations of "the Divine" in the major religions, but also the higher ideals of truth and of "objective truth" that can be felt in Philosophy and Science, and the higher ideals expressed in Myth, community life and in Art in all (including non-literate) cultures and all societies. Swami teaches that this One Divine or Divinity "pervades," and is constantly (at all times) "present in" the daily experience of all human beings, but human beings are not aware of it. It is the "source of all consciousness," i. e., all consciousness experienced by human beings (and animals) is a manifestation of it. (E. g. it is "indissolubly knit together" with, "inextricably interpenetrative", avinaa bhaava sambandha, of all ordinary conscious beings in the world, cf. excerpt [3-5A] Section 8).
Vedas (1216)
Upanishads (508)
Puranas (638)
Ramayana (764)
Mahabharata (376)
Dharmasastras (168)
Goddess (518)
Bhakti (248)
Saints (1604)
Gods (1310)
Shiva (396)
Journal (181)
Fiction (64)
Vedanta (382)
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