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Baba's Spiritual Socialism

Q: Baba seems to be prescribing a kind of spiritual socialism based on the conversion of wealth into a trusteeship for the removal of poverty.

Baba: Yes, a trusteeship based on love, cooperation and brotherhood. What else can one do? The change must evolve from the heart; it cannot beimposed from outside. All materialist doctrines have failed to bring about any real transformation. There is noequality anywhere. Only spiritual transformation into a desireless mentality can put through the imperative revolution in human consciousness from which alone the desired changes can accrue.

We need to transform society from false to real values. We have to convince people that the ideal of a high standard of life is wrong. It must bereplaced with a high level of living and thinking on the basis of humility, morality, compassion anddetachment, as against the existing greed for competitive luxury and conspicuous consumption. People have to be convinced that the only way to rouse the latent divinity in them is to master desires and conquer greed for pleasure and luxury instead of being a slave to these false materialistic values.

Sai Path to Dharma (Righteousness)

Q: Then I take it that the various educational and social service organizations run by Baba -- some 3,000 in all -- are designed to create the cadres necessary for bringing about the desired socioeconomic change by means of love and persuasion?

Baba: They are designed to put the new generation on the Sai path of truth, righteousness, peace, love and nonviolence. Their motto -- work is worship and duty is God -- seeks to bring in the new social order related to Sathya -- that is, truth, and dharma -- namely, right action.

Q: India has been described as a rich country of poor people. We have the wealth of the whole world locked up in the bosom of our good earth. And yet the people remain economically poor and backward. Have you any solution to rehabilitate our economy?

Socio-Economic Synthesis

Baba: Your analysis is correct. The solution to the problem you have posed lies in hard work and increased production on a cooperative basis. Toachieve this, one has to rid people of the disease of individuality, greed and selfishness. Every individualmust be taught to think and work in the broader concept of society and its needs. Once that is done, there will be less talk and more work.

Here again, it is the spiritual path that can save this country and the world from the wrongs of a materialistic order. What we need is asynthesis of the spiritual and material aspects of life. That will provide man with the social conscience andcooperative spirit imperative to the creation of national wealth and prosperity through selfless, cooperative labor.

Q: Very good counsel, Swamiji - but the trouble is that all the wealth created by labor appears to find its way into the pockets of a rich and powerful minority. Have you a spiritual prescription for this inequality?

Desire must be equalized

Baba: There is no doubt that the distribution is not taking place properly. The existing doctrines of equality, socialism, etc., have not succeeded in achieving equality in distribution of wealth and property. The difficulty is that you equalize, wealth, land and property by legalization, but can the law bring about equality in the desires of the people? This requires the healing touch of spiritualism.

To begin with, one has to cure desire and its evil consequences. We must persuade the rich that desire and its fulfillment in materialistic wants is an aspect of the monkey-mind which can only harm them and put them under bondage. That alone will solve the problem of inequality and maldistribution.

The rich will give up their extravagant wants, the poor will get what they need and a little more; and this process will bring about more equitable distribution.

Q: To conclude this section, Swamiji, would you sum up the main causes of India's social and economic backwardness?

Baba: From a purely material viewpoint, it is a question of supply and demand. Because of the overpowering material values of our society, the demand is growing larger and larger, while the supply remains the same or decreases. The solution, obviously, is to increase the supply or decrease the demand. Then, of course, there is the problem of growing population. This triangular issue of economic imbalance needs to be spiritualised if an effective solution is to be found.

Less Luggage : Better Journey

It is here that our insistence on a desireless life, in which human wants are reduced to the minimum needs, comes to the rescue as the onlypossible way of restoring the social and economic balance. Curb your desires, reduce your wants, live in spiritualausterity, and the available material will be sufficient for all humanity. More than that, the tensions of a competitive socioeconomic system will be dissolved and peace of mind will be restored.

Life is like a journey in a vehicle between birth and death. The body is the vehicle in which you are motoring to death. The less luggage youcarry the better. Why encumber yourself with worldly riches and material comforts, when you may have to changeyour course or even meet with some dislocation or accident and, in any case, at the end of the journey you will have to leave behind all your possessions accept your Atma? Would it not be better to attend to the immortal spirit rather than waste time which is running out on gaining wealth and securing comforts?

This is the logic of spiritualism with which I seek to change the attitude of people.

Why no Pumpkins or Cucumbers

Q: Baba has already clarified most of the issues raised by Dr. Narasimhiah and other critics. Some, however, remain unanswered. Narasimhiah askswhy you do not materialize a pumpkin or a cucumber or a watch with a distinct mark to prove that it is yourcreation and not a transfer of somebody else's manufacture?

Baba: Pumpkins and cucumbers can be materialized as easily as rings or objects. But these are perishable objects and the whole point of materialization, as I have already explained, lies in their permanence. That is why rings or watches become more serviceable as talismans or means of contact and communication, between the Avathar and his devotees.

The point they are trying to make is that big objects like pumpkins cannot be transferred while small ones like rings can be. But as I have repeatedly said, I do not transfer things by a sleight-of-hand. I create them to be talismans.

Now coming to your question about a ring or watch with a distinct mark to prove that it is My own creation, would you like Me to materialize something for you?

Miracle of OM Ring

Q: Yes, Swamiji, I certainly would.

Baba waved his hand in the air to produce a silver ring bearing the inscription OM in the centre with Sai Ram marks on the sides and held My right hand to gently put it on the third finger. It was an exact fit and it was precisely what I wanted from Baba.

Q: Thank you, Baba, you have answered the question beautifully. Now to Narasimhiah's unanswered point regarding the bogus Sai Krishna or Pandavapura exposed by his committee as a fraud and a cheat. He alleges that the boy had your patronage.

No Contact with Fake Boy

Baba: I can assure you there is absolutely no connection between him and Myself. His people have several times attempted to arrange a meeting between us, but we have refused their requests. Of course, thousands of people, as you saw this morning, come here for darshan. There are others also who masquerade as My disciples or make money using My name. As this happens not only here but in other statesand even abroad, we cannot do anything about it. They expose themselves sooner or later, as did this boy. Ihave absolutely no connection or relationship with such people.

Q: The Narasimhiah Committee wanted to investigate your miracles scientifically under controlled conditions, as they put it. You rejected the proposal. Would you like to comment on this controversy?

Baba: How can science which is bound to a physical and materialist outlook investigate transcendental phenomena beyond its scope, reach orcomprehension? This is a fallacy on the face of it. One belongs to the material and the other to a spiritual plane. Science must confine its inquiry only to things belonging to the human senses, while spiritualism transcends the senses. If you want tounderstand the nature of spiritual power you can do so only through the path of spirituality and not science. Whatscience has been able to unravel is merely a fraction of the cosmic phenomena; it tends, however, to exaggerate its contribution.

Q: That is true, Swamiji, but science is developing all the time so that the metaphysics of yesterday become the physics of today.

Glow-Worm in Sunlight

Baba: Quite right, but it is still blind to the vast and invisible world of consciousness. The very fact that science is changing all the timeproves its incapacity to investigate the ultimate and absolute truth. Some time ago, scientists maintained thatthe atom cannot be broken, but recently they succeeded in breaking it. They are still ignorant about the realities of the pranic force behind the atom, which is the least of its components.

Science is merely a glow-worm in the light and splendor of the sun. It is true that it can research, discover and gather a lot of informationabout nature and its material functions and use it for the development of worldly things. Spiritualism, on theother hand, reigns over the cosmic field where science has no place. That is why some discoveries of science are useful while others can be disastrous.

As I have said before, Dr Narasimhiah and his group are like the Telugu men who go to the cinema to see a Tamil film. They will see only thedancing, the fighting and violence, the heroes and villains, the star with a beautiful face and these kinds ofsuperficial things, but they will lose the subtler aspects such as the music and the poetry, the plot, the dialogue, the jokes and the like.

Wrong Spirit and Approach

However, as I have said again and again, those who want to understand Me are welcome here. It is the spirit of the investigation that isimportant. Foreign parapsychologists have come here and examined Me in such a positive and constructive spirit. Youhave seen their reports. They do not write letters or make public demands.

Narasimhiah's approach was improper; that is why I rejected it. If it were not so, he would have been welcome. I do not call people here so that they may bow to a God. I want them to come, see, hear, study, observe, experience and realize Baba. Then only, they will understand Me and appreciate the Avathar.

Q: Dr. Narasimhiah maintains that according to science, "Nothing can be created out of nothing." You have evidently negated this lawof science with a transcendental formula for controlling cosmic energy and producing paranormal power. Can you explainthis mystery?

"What I Will, Happens"

Baba: The formula that nothing can be created out of nothing is appropriate to the limited field and dimensions of science. It does not at allapply to the transcendental field and dimensions of spirituality. In the latter field, anything can be createdby the supreme will. All that exists can be made to disappear and what does not exist can be made to appear.

Our history and tradition, scripture as well as literature, are full of such incidents which they call miracles. The material laws and formulas simply do not apply to divinity. For Me this is not a matter of any mystery or mystique. What I will, happens: what I order, materializes.

Q: The Vice-Chancellor appears to ridicule your statement that "There is God in us all." He asks: "Is this not pure escapism? How can God be so unsure of Himself?" Your rejoinder, please?

God Exists in Everybody

Baba: His questions contradict the very basis of Indian philosophy as well as that of most religions. All our scriptures assert that God ispresent in everyone. According to Vivekananda, "God is present in all." The only thing that is manifest and commonto the whole world and, in fact, governs and directs the entire universe, is divinity. Nothing else really exists except divinity.

Mine is no escapism but the fundamental and eternal truth. I say so not because I am unsure of My own divinity. It is My confidence in its absolute and total authenticity that makes Me affirm this fact. It is the scientists who are so unsure of themselves that they indulge in escapist theories.

For example, they say that the moon is lifeless. Simultaneously, they maintain that all matter consists of moving atoms. Now isn't the moon also a conglomerate of the same moving atoms? Then how can it be lifeless? There is no matter which does not consist of atoms, electrons, neutrons and protons, which are also constantly moving. This energy, too, is God.

So also there is no human being in whom there is no divinity. To say there is no God in man is like saying that there is no atom in the moon orany large lump of matter. The omnipresence of God has been described in our ancient texts as: "ano baniyammahatoo maniyam" (God is a small particle in the smallest of particles and a large mass in the largest of masses). In this context, how can one say that God is not in man?

No Preference for Wealth and Power

Q: Another pertinent issue raised by your critics is that you show a preference for wealthy and powerful people as opposed to the poor and week in the matter of divine gifts, miracle cures and individual darshans. Is this true? If so, why?

Baba: This is wrong. I never see or make any distinction between the rich and the poor. I only look at them from the viewpoint of their devotion, their desires, the sacrifice they are willing to make and their troubles. You were here this morning and sawhundreds of people, a few rich, the majority poor. Did you find Me making any distinction? All those I brought with Me to this room were poor and weak, sick or troubled.

In My view, those who appear to the world as wealthy or powerful persons really bring to Me their troubled hearts and sick minds. I cure them by asking them to surrender material wealth and power to spiritual peace and grace.

Q: From what Baba has hitherto said, it appears that your mission is to enable mankind to rediscover and incarnate its lost godliness. Am I right?

Baba: You are right. When man turns inward to realize his true self, then God will become manifest to him. Self-realization is God-realization. In simple words, it is the realization that you are not just a body and mind with physical organs, but there is within you a self - the Atma that is God - distinct from these perishable things. This self is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. The comprehension of this truth puts you on the correct path to God-realization.

Terror of Nuclear War

Q: So your objective can be summed up as a brotherhood of humanity to be achieved through the doctrine of love?

Baba: Yes, what else can save the world from thermonuclear fires? Everything points to the terror of conflagration coming; and My mission is to preempt the fires by reestablishing dharma and the spiritual law of one God, one religion, one language embracing one humanity.

I preach only one religion of love for all, which alone can integrate the human race into a brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God. I know only one language of the heart beyond the mind or the intellect which relates man to man and mankind to God, thereby creating mutual understanding, cooperation and community life in peace and harmony. On this basis I want to build one humanity withoutany religious, caste or other barriers in a universal empire of love which would enable My devotees to feel thewhole world as their family.

Q: Well said, Baba -- but wouldn't this dharma with its Hindu orientation conflict with the established religions?

Baba: No, it will not do anything of the kind because My objective is the establishment of sanathana dharma, which believes in one God aspropitiated by the founders of all religions. So none has to give up his religion or deity, but through them worshipthe one God in all. I have come not to disturb or destroy but to confirm and vindicate everyone in his own faith.

Dharmic Way to Peace

Q: But how will that prevent a nuclear holocaust?

Baba: By removing all causes, sources, barriers and provocations of class, caste, creed, color and race, and replacing the existing hate and violence with love and non-violence. I expect to provide humanity with an evangel of peaceful cooperation to replace the present escalation to death by co-destruction.

R.K.Karanjia: Thank you, Swamiji. I am all the more grateful to you because I really did not expect you to answer the whole long list of my questions.

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