In times of intense crises when crucial decisions about the course of life one has to take confront Sai Baba followers they frequently fall back on a few peculiar practices : 1. There exists a book of 100 or 200 answers. So Baba followers pray intensely asking him to 'RESPOND' to the crucial question they are about to ask, and after an intense prayer they open at random a page of the Answer Book and read the answer that the book gives which is purportedly Sai Baba's ANSWER to the question.
So you may have an anxious girl asking Baba whether to say 'Yes' to a particular groom proposal, or you may have a financial speculator asking whether to invest in a particular share and so on. These days with technological advances, computers have entered this activity where the program generates a random number and a suitable response is displayed. The programs on the net advise you to take this business very seriously and pray with intense faith and further the questioner is asked to accept the answer with tremendous faith and refrain from asking the question again.
So it was that I too like a fool once took part in this exercise. It so happened that in Sai Satcharita which is the sacred book of Sai Baba followers, everyone is advised not to abandon his own Guru however more famous or attractive another Guru may appear. I had this injunction firmly implanted in my mind. One day it so happened that while browsing through the collection of books at a bookshop my eyes fell on a book by Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev entitled 'Essential Wisdom from a Spiritual Master'. Somehow the style and contents of the book appealed to me and I bought the book. On going home and reading through the book I came across three jokes:
1. Once a businessman boarded a flight and found himself sitting next to an elegant woman wearing the largest, most stunning diamond ring he had ever seen. Awestruck he exclaimed, "Wow! That's a beautiful ring you have there!" The woman replied "Yes, this is the Schoreder diamond. It is beautiful, but it comes with a terrible curse." "What curse?" asked the businessman. "Mr. Schroeder", answered the woman.
2. Once a hypnotist bombastically said he would take everybody in the hall together into a 'let go' state of hypnosis all at once. "I want you each to keep your eye on this antique watch. It's a very special watch. It has been in my family for six generations," he said. He slowly began to swing the watch gently back and forth, while quietly chanting "Watch the watch! Watch the watch! Watch the watch..." The crowd became mesmerized as the watch swayed back and forth, back and forth, light gleaming off its polished surface. Suddenly it slipped and fell from the hypnotist's fingers and fell to the floor, breaking in a hundred pieces.
"Shit !!" said the hypnotist.
It took three weeks to clean up the theatre!
3. A man sat in a train traveling from Bristol to London, with a young boy of four years. Halfway through the trip another man with two big suitcases got on the train and sat next to him. The first man said "Those two suitcases look just like mine; are you a salesman too?" "No," the other man replied, "I'm on my way to the airport, I'm flying to Greece." Then he asked, "So what are you selling, anyway?" "Condoms," the first man replied. Shocked, the other man said, "Condoms? And you're taking your son with you while you sell condoms?" "Oh, this is not my son; it is a complaint from Bristol."
Now, I'm fairly well read too. And I have come across many witty jokes. However this was the first time I came across these jokes. Now a spiritual guru who shares jokes like these while talking about spirituality I found very, very attractive. The style and the content of the books besides various other jokes too made me fall for his teachings.
Now I had been advised by Sai Baba never to abandon your Guru. Further you are repeatedly warned in Sai Satcharita that if you disobey the Guru you may end up severely repenting the act. So I was in a quandary. I wanted Baba's permission to go to Jaggi Vasudev.
I hence came on the internet to the site that purportedly provides Sai Baba's RESPONSES to your questions and gingerly typed:
"Have you appointed Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev to be my Guru?" and pressed the Enter Key.
The response on the computer was:
"YOU HAVE TO SUFFER ONLY FOR THREE MONTHS MORE. REMEMBER SHRI SAI. EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT.
With a response like this I lost my guts. I dared not disobey Baba. I read thro' the book but scrupulously avoided enrolling for the yoga programs of Jaggi Vasudev. As months dragged on, I found the urge to be associated with Jaggi become stronger and stronger." Finally, despite my own will, I found myself undergoing the Inner Engineering Course and even going on a Mount Kailash Yatra with them. From the past two days I'm being troubled in my mind whether to continue the yogic practices I learned from Jaggi Vasudev or not.
Today I chose to look into Sai Baba's crucial response to my question. I found that Sai Baba had responded indeed but not answered my question!
Suppose you ask a man "Do you think it will rain today?" and he replies "Two plus two equals four." HE HAS ONLY RESPONDED TO THE QUESTION BUT HE HAS NOT ANSWERED IT! The response may even be factually true but it is certainly not the answer! So on reconsidering the computer response and using my commonsense I choose to continue with the yogic practices. After all what might happen? I may get punished a little, but Baba is not a hangman!!
This entry is to highlight the futility of such practices that Baba followers like me foolishly follow.
This is supposed to be the way in which the famous oracle at Delphi responded too! Once upon a time, a powerful king - King Croesus of Lydia planned to wage a war on another powerful kingdom, the king of Persia in order to annex it. He was a little unsure and nervous of the result so he approached the Delphic oracle and asked whether it was wise for him to wage a war on the other king. "If Croesus went to war with Cyrus, he would destroy a powerful kingdom!" was the response of the oracle. Hence with a new found confidence and strong courage the king proceeded boldly to wage a war. However to his dismay he was thoroughly routed and his kingdom was destroyed. Afterward, his life being spared, Croesus wrote a bitterly complaining letter to the Oracle. His letter was answered by the priests at Delphi, who claimed that the Oracle had been right In going to war Croesus had destroyed a powerful kingdom indeed - his own!
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