Tribute to Gurunaam Guru - Sri Sathya Sai - on Gurupoornima 2019

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“A day will come when you would be me and I would be you”, said He and I almost instantly dismissed it as an impossibility. 

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Today that day has come to pass.

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23rd November 2017, the 90th birthday of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, is when for the first time I experienced a feeling like never before, when every part of my being shook with the sudden gush of purest love for one and all who had assembled in the newly opened Premamrutham hall, and the illusion of the ephemeral world melted and dissolved away in the incessant involuntary streams of tears that flowed from both my eyes. In those silent sobs of bliss the river reached the ocean at last and I disappeared into Sai.

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This has been a recurring experience since then in many places in many countries with many people, so very often that it’s no more out of ordinary. 

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‘Bless me with the bliss of the self, bless me with the union with you, bless me with self- realisation’, were the prayers I had made to my Master as a young student disciple at His university without even knowing what that truly meant in its entirety. Nevertheless even to pray thus could not have been without His will. When He appeared to me in the subtle, on one fine evening way back on 2011, I had prayed that He grants me the highest spiritual state without even weighing my eligibility. 

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And He compassionately told me that such a day will come but not now. “ The clay pot is still wet, it will break if I pour the water. The wire will burn if a current of higher voltage, than its transmission capacity, passes through it. Have patience, I am preparing you. What you ask for is with me, safely locked away. I shall grant you the key to it when the time is right.”

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Eight years later after those words were spoken by the divine, on this Guru Poornima of 2019, as I sat on the stage while Sri Narasimhamurthy spoke about the third phase that began on that day, that of Sankramana (Ascension) of the subtle phase of Bhagawan’s mission, it happened! The prophetic divine words came true. And it was not sudden not rushed, rather it happened slowly, smoothly and gradually. But intensely nevertheless. So intense that I could not feel my limbs after a while. I had no control over my body especially the left side which almost seemed paralysed. But deep within I felt a sense of calm that refused to be affected by the proceedings of the day. It was a feeling like that of a thick molten metal which had just started melting  and while some of it moved, some remained stationary. I felt as if I was melting part by part, but this time there were no tears, instead there was a deep dense silence that was intoxicating. 

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Sumeet helped me to the green room after the discourse that was given sitting on the throne due to my inability to stand on my own. The experience lasted a few more minutes before I could come back to my senses, and I sensed that I was no more the same. Something had snapped within me, perhaps the last vestiges of attachments had also been broken away and I felt so free which I had never ever felt before. The joy of a river that had traversed many a tedious terrain to reach the mouth of the creek from where it would rush into the expanse of the ocean to lose itself only to find itself, was mine. I felt liberated once for all. 

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Since then the last sense of individuality, and the accompanying dark shadows of shame and fear, simply vanished into the bright spiritual illumination of a million suns that shone from within. 

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The ascension had begun and was witnessed by not merely the mortal eyes of the stupefied audience that sat in the hallowed hall, but also by the innumerable elevated beings that had descended in drones from dimensions beyond. A cosmic event had occurred only to the realisation of a few, when humanness was metamorphosing into divinity. The colourful wings of bliss and love opened up from within and the soul took to a flight of bliss, leaving the body behind. The experience was electrifying and emancipating, illuminating and intoxicating, it was simply liberating. 

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I am grateful to my Master who redeemed me of my pettiness and allowed me to ascend the steps of spiritual haven, till there remained only one, I in my master and my master in me, no more the painful separation of two but a blissful union of ONE. 

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Sri Sathya Sai Atmabodhakaya Namaha. 

Sri Madhusudan Sai