Bhagawan is always ready to pour his love on all of us and makes us grow spiritually to draw us closer to Him. But Swami has always been carefully dosing us with the right amount of grace. Too much grace may make us spiritually lazy or even develop spiritual ego. But we all want to be always in the loving care of Baba and enjoy his loving grace and supreme peace. Who will not want to? But some work needs to be done on our side to become deserving of Swami’s grace.

To capture rainfall one needs to keep the pot in an upright position and if the pot is inverted, you will miss out all the pouring rain. Similarly, the activity of switching our state of mind from that of a pot in the inverted position to an upright position to capture the grace of god is known as Sadhna (spiritual practice)

Swami says that Sadhna has to be intense to win the grace of God!  Dr. John Hislop, an ardent American devotee (author of books My Baba and I and Conversations with Sathya Sai Baba), asked Swami what does He means by “intense”. Swami replied in His usual simple yet profound manner:  “Imagine you are sitting in a room and a cobra comes in. Will your eyes and mental focus ever leave the snake for a single second? This is what I mean by intense!”

Just like me, many of you like reading these beautiful words of Swami and understand the inner meaning as well. Some of us even go on discuss about it with others on the spiritual path or will even conduct study circles and workshops to discuss these sacred thoughts. But many of us will miserably fail when it comes to practice the teachings of our Divine master. Then, for such Sadhakas (spiritual aspirants), our Dear Lord has other ways to teach his weak students! He gives us blows! Here is another beautiful incident that happened to a sanyasi ( renunciate)  at Ramana Ashram.

On an early morning, the sanyasi was lying in his bed - worrying about his present miserable condition - in his room at the ashram and the door was bolted from inside. He was hit on his head! He described the hit to Prof. Kasturi as “hard but bearable”. That is how Swami’s hit will always be! It will be strong, otherwise you won’t get up, but just like a mother hitting, it will be bearable! The sanyasi tried to find out who it was but there was no one as the door was still closed. He sat on the bed. Then he saw in the bright light that appeared before him, Sage Ramana Maharishi, who had died long ago, and Sathya Sai Baba by his side. He then saw both of them merging together and disappearing with only one light left. And, from the light came the words of consolation in Telegu saying, “Don’t worry. Don’t meditate. Simply watch the mind, and when it goes somewhere tell the mind. Ah! I know your trick that is your way. I don’t follow you. I will be here. Next time you play the trick be careful!”  Then Swami said: “I will guide you thereafter”.

So, the blow was not only for waking him up, but also for leading him forward. Swami explains that these kicks are meant for those who are spiritually choked-up, lazy or do not want to grow.

“I hit your head in order to broaden your small mind so that I may fill it up with more of my grace and love” – Baba

A contribution by Brother Subheer Ramnoruth