{"id":14940,"date":"2011-04-24T17:09:10","date_gmt":"2011-04-24T21:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/?p=14940"},"modified":"2015-10-02T13:52:04","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T18:52:04","slug":"sri-sathya-sai-baba-left-his-body-this-is-how-i-met-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/sri-sathya-sai-baba-left-his-body-this-is-how-i-met-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Sathya Sai Baba left his body today. This is how I met him."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sai<\/a>Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Bab<\/a>a is no more with us physically. He left his earthly body on 24 April 2011 at 7:40 a.m (10:10 pm Eastern time). “Service to man is service to God. \u00a0Dedicate all your gifts to service to mankind, to all living beings. Love all, Serve all.” \u00a0Sai Baba’s devotees called him Swami. \u00a0I learned at church this morning that Swami had passed and I was at once joyous yet sad. \u00a0My astral body had its few minutes of tears, even though I know there is no death. \u00a0I discovered Sai Baba in 1990. A series of synchronicities and “accidents” had me in stop at Pat Thomas’s house in the middle of the day. \u00a0Judy Kopp, whom I did not know at that time, came by and invited Pat to go to the home of Buddy and Shanti Balwant, devotees who had just returned from India where they’d gotten darshan<\/a> from Sai Baba. \u00a0Not knowing who it was, suddenly my mouth was saying, “I want to go.” \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"saibaba-hand\"<\/a>We went to a modest home in Palm Bay and were warmly greeted and led to an altar room, a meditation room, and we sat on the floor in front of a large version of the photo of Sai Baba to the left here. \u00a0There were five of us, Pat, Judy and her son Rhett, me and Buddy, who was humbly telling of his experience meeting Swami in person. \u00a0I was positioned directly across from the photo and it was 18 x 24, looking at me quite life sized. \u00a0I was transfixed by the image and tears began shooting out of my eyes and continued the whole time we were there. \u00a0As we left an hour later, Buddy graciously let us each choose a photo of Sai Baba from the stack he had, and when I selected a very small one, he gave me the 18x 24 poster. \u00a0I felt so overwhelmed with \u00a0love at the gesture, and filled with shakti, one of those bathed in bubbly bliss<\/em> feelings that every cell of your body dances with. \u00a0That poster today graces my healing bench in the altar room. \u00a0Each morning during meditation I feel an alignment with him, as one on The Path. \u00a0I do not feel any less aligned or devoted now that he has left the physical plane.<\/p>\n

“There is no thing in the world which is not Manifestation of God. Do not doubt that the entire cosmos is pervaded with God and that everything is contained in Him. There is no single atom in the universe which is not permeated with the Divine.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Swami<\/a>

Swami forever in our hearts<\/center><\/p><\/div>\n

I’d set off a bug bomb in the house before I left this morning, knowing that meant I’d come home to wash every surface before I let the cats back in: \u00a0not just the floor but also all silverware, each pot and pan and plate and glass and cup and saucer and bowl and door handle and well, you get it. \u00a0I thought what perfect time to do a total cleaning of the entire house and dedicate the job to new beginnings. \u00a0 I\u00a0will share two stories from my personal journal about my relationship with Sai Baba:<\/p>\n

I ask Swami for guidance on Monday 12-6-99:<\/em> <\/span><\/strong>The old law of attraction at work again\u2026 what a delight and a blessing. \u00a0I\u2019ve started to become a little interested in someone and of course then start to question whether I really want to begin the entire relationship process again. \u00a0As I\u2019m driving home, I glance at Sai Baba sitting on my dash and I ask him for a sign. Am I meant to have a personal relationship, or am I meant to live monastically in solitude? <\/em> I mean, whichever it is, lemme know and I\u2019ll pursue it with gusto, whatever the choice. <\/em> It\u2019s a beautiful sunny day and I\u2019m driving along AIA looking at the beach; I turn my radio on. \u00a0I hear a familiar drum beat and the traffic around me disappears and it\u2019s just me and AIA and Swami on the dash singing to me, \u201cthe night we met I knew I – needed you so. \u00a0And if I had the chance I\u2019d \u2013 never let you go. \u00a0So won\u2019t you say you love me. \u00a0I\u2019ll make you so proud of me. \u00a0We\u2019ll make them turn their heads \u2013 everywhere we go. \u00a0So won\u2019t you\u2026. Be my, be my, be my little baby. \u00a0My one and only, baby my darling, be my baby nowow…oh, oh, oh, oh<\/em> \u201c \u00a0The song goes on forever. \u00a0I\u2019m looking at Swami and he\u2019s looking right at me, enjoying my amusement. \u00a0He\u2019s right. \u00a0His is such an intense love, how can a mere mortal compete? \u00a0There\u2019s no choice anymore, and that\u2019s fine. \u00a0I\u2019m glowing all the way home, filled with Swami\u2019s love and it\u2019s radiating back at me from the walls in the van. \u00a0I\u2019m bombarded the whole way home, even opening my window to let some of it slip past me and go into the street. \u00a0My face feels like fresh cool laughter is cradling each molecule, caressing and tickling as it goes out the window. \u00a0I laugh and laugh to myself on the way home.<\/p>\n

A story of Swami playing with me: \u00a0Friday 12-24-99 Christmas Eve <\/em><\/span><\/strong>I was driving in the van this morning and looking over at Sai Baba on my dash \u2013 he\u2019s been there for years now and I look at him every day of my life and spent lots of time driving in the van. \u00a0Today it seems different, I can see the light shining thru him and it\u2019s not that he\u2019s backlit, it\u2019s that a white hole at the ajna center seems to have opened up and it\u2019s shining a beam of white light right down down the center of his face. \u00a0I thought, \u201cthat\u2019s neat, they designed this photo so in a certain light, it looks like white light is pouring out of his third eye, neat.\u201d<\/span> \u00a0So I\u2019m driving around and thinking about that and remembering the earlier phone conversation I had with a friend who just had radial keratotomy done to correct his near-sightedness. \u00a0I was reflecting on the metaphor I gave him that his surgery merely mirrored his desire for seeing things with a new eye, that he was ready for a higher vision. \u00a0As I thought that, I reflected that I was doing the same; here I was looking at a photo I\u2019ve looked at for years under all kinds of light and backlight, and yet I never noticed that it did the light beam thing. \u00a0I reflected that so often we see the things around us, the things we are most familiar with, and yet we aren\u2019t really aware of them in the greater sense.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m driving around and reflecting and looking at the photo, and I\u2019m driving north and then east and then south and then west and the light beam is still there all the time, no matter what direction the sun is coming from. \u00a0I find that interesting since the light beam seems to have nothing to do with the ambient lighting. \u00a0It wasn\u2019t until my cell phone rings and I go to answer it that I see the light beam go right up into the opening at the ajna and the opening closed right up. \u00a0At that moment I realized that it wasn\u2019t an outside lighting occurrence, but a state of consciousness event. \u00a0I was driving the same direction (west) and the light did not change; it didn\u2019t just go out, as when a shadow passes. \u00a0It went back up into the opening and the opening slowly closed up, right in front of me. \u00a0As soon as I was distracted and brought back to earth, it disappeared. \u00a0Interesting. \u00a0But I know not to get all caught up in the little magic that happens, just take it as the sign that it is, a kiss of hello and a finger pointing the way, and carry on with the work. \u00a0It’s simply another test of am I serious about the work or am I still distracted by the showy stuff?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

His Lotus Feet<\/p><\/div>\n

If there is righteousness in the heart,
\nThere will be beauty in the character.
\nIf there is beauty in the character,
\nThere will be harmony in the home.
\nWhen there is harmony in the home,
\nThere will be order in the nation.
\nWhen there is order in the nation,
\nThere will be peace in the world.<\/p>\n

The End of Death As We Know It<\/a>
\nMa Yoga Shakti entered Mahasamadhi February 20, 2015<\/a>
\nFinding words to express what it feels to lose someone I\u2019ve never lost<\/a><\/p>\n

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