Note: In the the first article in this series,
"Sathya Sai Baba, Avatar," the author focused on Hinduism’s understanding
of avatar as an incarnation of God on Earth and mentioned the criteria
that appear to validate Sathya Sai Baba as a living incarnation of the
Divine in our time. She gave the historical and prophetic background
as well as described the extent and purpose of Sai Baba’s mission.
In the second article in the series on Sathya Sai Baba -- titled "Why Fear
When I Am Here?" -- Mary Lynn recounted some of her personal experiences
with Sai Baba. In this third article, Mary Lynn continues to share
her personal experiences of the avatar’s role in her life.
As I described in the previous article, Sai Baba had given my friend
and me some telling lessons in divine unity, or oneness, on our first visit
to his Brindavan ashram near Bangalore, India. These lessons would
carry over into our lives, alleviating some of our fears and anxieties
– feelings that appear to be endemic in our human condition and actually
originate in our illusion of separateness – according to Buddha’s diagnosis
some 2400 years ago.
For most of us in Sathya Sai Baba’s orbit, synchronistic happenings,
"chance" meetings, and the like gradually reinforce our experience of unity.
I like to call these events "cosmic coincidence"; and repeatedly in the
charmed life of the devotee, Sai Baba uses them to remind us that we are,
in fact, one with our fellow beings and one with him. These "little
miracles" often occur in moments of crisis, times when, as Wordsworth said,
"the world is too much with us," and then Baba lifts the veil of maya,
allowing us to see our pressing problems in the light of a larger reality.
I had a powerful experience of this kind some years ago when my older
son, David, was going through an emotional breakdown. He had moved
to a neighboring county, and since I was not acquainted with any psychologists
or support services there, I was at a loss, floundering in fear and anxiety
for my son. I asked Baba for guidance; the very first thought that
occurred was to call a devotee who lived in this nearby community and whose
son had experienced similar difficulties, and so I did.
She could not recommend a specific psychiatrist but suggested that
I contact a psychologist who had worked with her son in the past.
As matters developed, this therapist responded to my plea for help in such
a way that I realized Baba was indeed guiding me. The psychologist
explained that he was planning to have lunch that day with his best friend
who just happened to be in charge of the county’s Continuing Care services.
This man, he assured me, was a highly spiritual person and a psychiatrist
he could strongly recommend for my son.
We made an appointment, and a week later as we walked into his office
for David’s initial visit, the first things I noticed, which practically
leaped out at me from the psychiatrist’s bookcase, were the familiar, dark-blue-embossed-with-gold
volumes of the Course in Miracles. I found myself thinking,
"Thank you, Baba; obviously this man is a seeker."
But the crowning touch was yet to come. As the psychiatrist
began talking with my son, I noticed four copies of a book right on his
desk in front of him. I took a closer look. They were none
other than The Supremacy of God by Ilon, a series of vedantic
essays which constitute a hymn of praise to Sathya Sai Baba as the avatar
of our age. This particular book, as it happened, was the very one
my younger son had given to his bal vikas (Sunday school) teacher
as a Christmas gift!
As our conversation with the doctor continued, he told us about his
own interest in spiritual matters including his meditation practice and
his vegetarianism; and he explained that he had just finished reading Spirit
and the Mind, a book written by a distinguished devotee of Sai Baba,
Dr. Samuel Sandweiss, a well-known San Diego psychiatrist.
By now it was becoming abundantly clear that Baba had guided us to
a doctor who could not only understand but also fully identify with my
son’s spirituality; and this was a rare, if not unlikely, happening since
many psychiatrists would have seen David’s spiritual life through Freudian
lenses, labeling it "regressive" behavior, and just one more symptom of
his psychosis.
Needless to say, this event was a healing one for my troubled heart.
I could almost hear Baba’s sweet voice as he lifted the veil of illusion
one more time, saying to me softly, reassuringly, "Why fear when I am here?"
This sharing of Sai Baba’s loving intervention in David’s life prompts
me to reveal his part in the lives of the rest of my family; how, as "Shiva"
(the destructive facet of God in Hinduism), he would shatter life structures
and behavior patterns that had outlived their usefulness, setting us on
a new course of growth, healing, and expansion.
In 1988 on my third visit to India, our group was fortunate enough
to have an interview with Baba on Halloween day, and and I was blessed
to have some personal attention from him. As he looked at the photo
of my younger son which I was holding out to him, Baba took it in his hand
and remarked, "I know him." Then he asked, "How is he?" Visions
of my son, 19 at the time, struggling with his addiction to pot and drifting
through college without purpose, swam through my mind. But I realized
Baba knew all this; I had to cut to the chase, and so I responded, "He
is fine, Baba, but he needs direction. Will you please help?"
I can still hear his soothing, sweet voice as he reassured me, "Yes,
yes, I will bless . . . " and then he placed his hand on my head and admonished
me, "Be happy!"
As I look back now, some seven years later, I realize this interview
was not only a peak experience in my life, but also a watershed moment,
a turning point. Within months of my return from that trip, my husband
would suggest, and I would agree, that we sell our Santa Barbara home of
twenty-one years and move to Ojai where I was teaching at the time at World
University. Within a year of our move I would get a divorce; and
now, five years later as I look back on this dizzying turn of events, it
is clear that Baba simply closed the book on a portion of my karmic debt.
In effect he had told me, "Time for chapter two – time to move on."
And so I did. I gave up my pretense-of-a-marriage and all the
trappings that went with it – my beautiful middle-class home with all the
amenities, and my comfortable "tea party" spirituality. I now live
in a thirty-seven-foot trailer with my new partner (as of last August,
my husband), Mickel, a dynamic, younger man who happens to be a devotee
of Sathya Sai Baba, too. Not only is he very much involved in changing
the world from the perspective of primal therapy and pre- and perinatal
psychology, but also I know that he is Baba’s gift to me, a catalyst for
my own inner growth. From the very early days of our relationship
I began undergoing spontaneous "primals" (catharses), tapping into my unfinished
trauma issues from childhood and birth.
Another whole article could be devoted to this dramatic process which
has now been unfolding in me for the past four years. Suffice it
to say that in the course of this roller-coaster ride of transformation
I have left the uptight, lady-like "do-gooder" far behind. In a word,
I have reincarnated as a revolutionary!
In the life Mickel and I share, we write together, we give Primal
Breathwork workshops together, we publish a journal for the International
Primal Association. Together we play an active role in the vast underground
movement now under way to midwife the new paradigm. Indeed, our connection
with the Rose Garden is just one in a series of synchronistic events
which have brought us in touch with an ever growing network of souls --
each of us a unique voice, and yet, together, one harmonious chorus – involved
in awakening our society for the millennium and beyond.
And what of my younger son for whom I had asked "direction?"
More magic. After graduating from U.C. Santa Cruz with his B.S. in
biology, he is now enrolled at Sonoma State University in one of the most
prestigious teaching credential programs in California – if not the U.S.
He was one of only fifty (out of two-hundred-fifty applicants) to be accepted
and is now looking forward to a teaching career on the high school level.
But what is most magical of all is that he just "happens" to be attending
the same school where my husband received his M.A. a year ago, and is,
in fact, living in the same student trailer park, just across the way.
This has permitted him to be with us and to participate in our monthly
Primal Breathwork workshops. Not only has Peter been able to seize
these precious opportunities for self-healing by re-experiencing and releasing
the pain around his life traumas, including birth – but also, to do so
in a uniquely loving way, when you consider that his own mother happens
to be one of the facilitators.
And what of my ex-husband? The magic continues. I can
truthfully report that the divorce served as a wake-up call for this good
man. He was forced to confront his neurotic patterns, and he did
so in therapy. He now has a new partner, a wonderful woman who shares
many of his interests, and they are creating a new life together.
The cosmic frosting on the cake in all this for me is that the four of
us are good friends; in fact, we spent Thanksgiving together!
Such is the ineffable mercy, love, and power of this avatar, Sathya
Sai Baba.
But this is not a call to "guru" worship; nor is it an attempt to
proselytize any one. I have simply shared my truth. As Sai
Baba has said, there are as many paths to God as there are individuals
in this world, for He/She approaches us in whatever form, and on whatever
path, we may choose. I do sincerely believe that each one of us,
whatever our religious persuasion, is capable of taking that "one step"
toward God that Baba speaks of; and that with the inevitable force of cosmic
law, He/She will then take "ten steps" towards us. As Jesus Christ
assured us 2000 years ago, we are all children of God; and in this age,
as Sai Baba has said, each one of us is a divine being – we have simply
"forgotten" our true nature, having chosen to play the cosmic game of hide-and-seek
in a human form.
And once we do take that step, once we surrender to the Divine, our
"schooling" accelerates in earnest. We find that we have been looking
at life through the wrong end of the telescope, that the usual rules no
longer apply. To explain this in my own terms: as I review my life,
it becomes increasingly clear to me that only those experiences which inspired
love and awareness of divine unity have had any meaning and value.
The downers, difficulties, trials and losses that I suffered are now perceived
as unique opportunities which the universe, God, or in my case, Sai Baba,
seized upon to awaken me.
So, indeed, what is good? What is bad? Most often what
the world considers "good" has the effect of prolonging the delusion; while
the "bad" removes it. As seekers on whatever the path, we are blessed
to know that by surrendering to our higher self we can live with this cosmic
paradox, and thus be empowered to weave whole cloth out of the warp and
the woof, the seeming ups and downs of our lives.
More and more, life in this world appears to be a gigantic "koan,"
unsolvable by the mind; solvable, in fact, only by love. As Sai Baba
has reassured us, "It is the heart that reaches the goal. Follow
the heart! A pure heart seeks beyond the intellect. It gets
inspired."
This is the transformation that God, as our divine psychotherapist,
is bringing about in each of us, slowly, gently, and surely removing the
blocks to love’s awareness.
Some recommended books about Sri Sathya Sai
Baba:
Sandweiss, Samuel H. (1975). Sai Baba: The Holy Man and the Psychiatrist.
San Diego, CA: Birth Day Publishing.
Krystal, Phyllis. (1985). Sai Baba: The Ultimate Experience.
Los Angeles: Aura Books.
Warner, Judy. (Ed.) (1990). Transformation of the Heart. York
Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, Inc.
For these books, as well as a list of many now available about
Sai Baba, and for information concerning planning a trip to Sai Baba’s
ashram, the reader is encouraged to contact: The Sathya Sai Book Center
of America; 305 West First Street, Tustin, California 92680.
Phone: (714) 669-0522 or Fax: (714) 669-9138. An additional source
of helpful information concerning groups planning a trip to Sai Baba’s
ashram is your local Sathya Sai Baba Center. If there is not a Sai
center in your community, the Book Center will be able to direct you to
a listing of centers in your area.
Copyright © 1998 by Mary Lynn Adzema
*
This article was originally published in The
Rose Garden.
MARY LYNN ADZEMA is a long-time devotee
of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. She has an M.A. in Consciousness Psychology, an A.B.D. in Philosophy, and over
thirty-years involvement in yogic and Eastern
spiritual practices. She wrote a chapter for and co-edited a book about
the experiences of Sai Baba devotees titled Transformation of the Heart.
She has taught psychology at the
university level and has published on the topics of psychology and spirituality. Mary Lynn
has received training with Stanislav Grof in holotropic breathwork and with
various people in primal therapy. Having served with the International Primal
Association on it Board of Directors and as Assistant
Editor of the publications, Primal Renaissance: The Journal of Primal
Psychology, a professional journal of psychology, and Primal
Spirit: The Deeper Wave of the New Age, a magazine; she now serves as
Assistant Editor of those some publications in their reincarnation on this
website, and as consulting editor for Primal Spirit
website in its umbrella-role for those publications plus all its other
facets. Most importantly, she serves as Assistant Director of the newly
opened Primal Spirit Center for Human
Evolution, offering primal breathwork, primal therapy, a community of
healing -- to name its major intentions. Mary Lynn's extended bio can be
found at Mary Lynn Adzema's Writings. She can
be contacted at P.O. Box 1348, Guerneville, CA 95446-1348; phone:
(707) 869-9008; e-mail: marylynn@primalspirit.com.
