BABA'S PUZZLING PERSONALITY
Baba's personality was always puzzling to those who made an effort to understand him fully instead of being content with accepting one part of him as Baba and ignoring rest. The latter is the widest course forthe majority and is ordinarily adopted by most of his devotees. But the more intellectual and the more curious amongst those approaching Baba make an effort to understand him and try to grasp as much of the facets of his complete personality as is possible. There they meet with apparent contradictions and mutual inconsistencies and they are baffled. So much so that a Parsi doctor named Dr. Jal, told this writer not to attempt to understand or write the life of Satpurushas. He said it was simply impossible to understand them. Evidently in his own case, he had tried and failed and was impressed by his ownfailure so as to give the kindly advice to others not to waste their mental efforts in trying to grasp a Satpurusha's personality. but if we do not understand the whole personality, there is at least somesatisfaction that we have succeeded in understanding a good portion of that personality. In point of fact when we talk of ourselves and other personalities around us, we do not grasp the whole personality either of ourselves or of others. We go on understanding more and more of both and with a working knowledge of both get on in the world. Similarly in respect of a Satpurusha's personality, we must try to understand more and more, for it is our nature to desire more and more of such knowledge and to get on better with deeper knowledge. When a person is attempting to place before the public a picture of the life and lilas of a great Purusha it is incumbent on him to present all sides of the Divine Personality. The task is difficult on account of the various apparent inconsistencies that are bundled together in the personality, but all the same we shall attempt it as we have already stated in an earlier portion of the book.
Emerson has stated that the human and divine are not separate, but rather various grades in one continuous series. When qualities arrive at a certain stage and are of a certain sort, people declare, `Thisis divine', for they are far above the average human. Whether the superiority is in respect of power or of kindness or other qualities, the words are uttered at once, `Those are divine qualities'. At present we are not concerned with the intricacies of Christian theology, and we are at liberty to take Jesus Christ as a human person and point out the divine qualities in him. Tennyson wrote of him in the opening lines of, In Memorium, `Thou seemest human and divine', and many readers would certainly note the human feature of Jesus Christ as beaming out of the gospel, touched not infrequently with the divine features. Similarly those who came in contact with Sai Baba have come in contact with his human peculiarities and the divine peculiarities mixed up so very closely that the two seem to be inseparable. So, Thou seemest human and divine, may be applied to Sai Baba as well as to Jesus Christ. We may note in passing that this combination, far from being an undesirable mixture, is a necessary one. If some being existed with all divine perfections only, human beings would not be able to approach or appreciate him. It is the fact that this satpurusha has his human body, human touches and human limitations that makes us feel that he is also a human being, and we draw inferences about his inner nature from knowledge of our own nature and that of our fellow beings; we have the confidence that we have understood the nature and qualities of Satpurusha to some extent at least, therefore, we are emboldened in approaching and dealing with such a Satpurusha. Unless there were such human features and limitations, this personality would be of no use to us. That is why, avatars are described in the Hindu scriptures as promoting human welfare. They combine human and divine features. Especially in the case of Sri Rama, the seventh Avatar, the human features come out constantly, and yet are supported by the divine features so as to enable the Rama personality to be of great service to us, spiritual and temporal. Rama dhyana, Rama smarana and Rama Lila, in general are found to be very useful for spiritual and temporal purposes alike on account of the human element in Rama. Similarly in Sai Baba, who is often termed Sai Rama, partly because Ram Navami was chosen by Baba to be the day for his Urs to be celebrated at Shirdi and partly because he showed himself as Rama. His human elements and divine elements are both mixed up so finely as to help us to understand him and approach him.
(Courtesy: HH Pujyasri B.V. Narasimha Swamiji)
Baba's personality was always puzzling to those who made an effort to understand him fully instead of being content with accepting one part of him as Baba and ignoring rest. The latter is the widest course forthe majority and is ordinarily adopted by most of his devotees. But the more intellectual and the more curious amongst those approaching Baba make an effort to understand him and try to grasp as much of the facets of his complete personality as is possible. There they meet with apparent contradictions and mutual inconsistencies and they are baffled. So much so that a Parsi doctor named Dr. Jal, told this writer not to attempt to understand or write the life of Satpurushas. He said it was simply impossible to understand them. Evidently in his own case, he had tried and failed and was impressed by his ownfailure so as to give the kindly advice to others not to waste their mental efforts in trying to grasp a Satpurusha's personality. but if we do not understand the whole personality, there is at least somesatisfaction that we have succeeded in understanding a good portion of that personality. In point of fact when we talk of ourselves and other personalities around us, we do not grasp the whole personality either of ourselves or of others. We go on understanding more and more of both and with a working knowledge of both get on in the world. Similarly in respect of a Satpurusha's personality, we must try to understand more and more, for it is our nature to desire more and more of such knowledge and to get on better with deeper knowledge. When a person is attempting to place before the public a picture of the life and lilas of a great Purusha it is incumbent on him to present all sides of the Divine Personality. The task is difficult on account of the various apparent inconsistencies that are bundled together in the personality, but all the same we shall attempt it as we have already stated in an earlier portion of the book.
Emerson has stated that the human and divine are not separate, but rather various grades in one continuous series. When qualities arrive at a certain stage and are of a certain sort, people declare, `Thisis divine', for they are far above the average human. Whether the superiority is in respect of power or of kindness or other qualities, the words are uttered at once, `Those are divine qualities'. At present we are not concerned with the intricacies of Christian theology, and we are at liberty to take Jesus Christ as a human person and point out the divine qualities in him. Tennyson wrote of him in the opening lines of, In Memorium, `Thou seemest human and divine', and many readers would certainly note the human feature of Jesus Christ as beaming out of the gospel, touched not infrequently with the divine features. Similarly those who came in contact with Sai Baba have come in contact with his human peculiarities and the divine peculiarities mixed up so very closely that the two seem to be inseparable. So, Thou seemest human and divine, may be applied to Sai Baba as well as to Jesus Christ. We may note in passing that this combination, far from being an undesirable mixture, is a necessary one. If some being existed with all divine perfections only, human beings would not be able to approach or appreciate him. It is the fact that this satpurusha has his human body, human touches and human limitations that makes us feel that he is also a human being, and we draw inferences about his inner nature from knowledge of our own nature and that of our fellow beings; we have the confidence that we have understood the nature and qualities of Satpurusha to some extent at least, therefore, we are emboldened in approaching and dealing with such a Satpurusha. Unless there were such human features and limitations, this personality would be of no use to us. That is why, avatars are described in the Hindu scriptures as promoting human welfare. They combine human and divine features. Especially in the case of Sri Rama, the seventh Avatar, the human features come out constantly, and yet are supported by the divine features so as to enable the Rama personality to be of great service to us, spiritual and temporal. Rama dhyana, Rama smarana and Rama Lila, in general are found to be very useful for spiritual and temporal purposes alike on account of the human element in Rama. Similarly in Sai Baba, who is often termed Sai Rama, partly because Ram Navami was chosen by Baba to be the day for his Urs to be celebrated at Shirdi and partly because he showed himself as Rama. His human elements and divine elements are both mixed up so finely as to help us to understand him and approach him.
(Courtesy: HH Pujyasri B.V. Narasimha Swamiji)
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