By: Sri Narasimha Swamiji
Sai Maharaj lived at Shirdi physically up to 1918 and from his ‘samadhi’ he is blessing all eternally. In his life, three short lines have packed quite a punch, as in the Brihadaranyak Upanishad 1:3:28: ‘Asatoma sadgamaya; Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya; Mrtyor ma amrtam gamaya’ – Lead me from reality to the truth;/ Lead me from darkness to light;/ May I be led from death to immortality. Sai Baba always highlighted devotees on these three lines.
Asat, reality, in the first line, refers to all we perceive with our five senses. We may look at varied designs of jewelry. Still, without the underlying gold as their true essence, they are devoid of independent existence – this is a pure Vedantic view fully endorsed by Sai Maharaj. Therefore, we have two truths, one relative, contingent; the other, unconditional, independently existing and ultimate, called sat. Sai Baba called the relative truth, ‘Maya’ as the playhouse of infinite forms, which is deceptive as well as unreal.
The second line – ‘Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya’ asks for liberation from avidya, the darkness of tamas, unknowing of the Jyoti, the inner light. The enlightened, awakening state is a process where the opening of the jnana chakshu, eyes of wisdom, (the Third Eye) breaks through the veil of maya and perceives sat. The contrast between asat and sat is that the former is caught in the web of Maya’s multiplicity, whereas ‘sat’ sees the underlying unity, oneness. While ‘asat’ is caught in the diversity of jewelry forms, ‘sat’ knows all is gold.
When you see through it, you can enjoy it without getting caught up in it. But this does not imply indifference or forsaking all that the world has to offer, rather, an invitation to a deeper and more meaningful engagement.
The third line – ‘Mrityorma Amritam Gamaya’ differentiates mortality from immortality. Here Sai Maharaj wants us to get help from the Chandogya Upanishad, 7:24:1, where “verily the infinite is the same as the immortal, the finite is the same as the mortal.” In other words, we must realize Sai Parabrahman.
Though they might seem the same, the difference between infinity or eternity, and everlasting lies in time. Everlasting means extended time, whereas eternity is beyond time, non-temporal. The aspirant here asks to be by Sainath Prabhu, saved from death, which is the end of life in time, to a state of timelessness, where the spirit of Sai Maharaj resides all the time. Yet, infinity always exists also in each present moment.
This prayer asks for an opening to a window of ‘Ananta’, blessed eternity; for us to be led from ‘ahamkara’, the limited skin encapsulated ego that fears mortality, to the immortality that is by nature – spacious consciousness. The emphasis is on going beyond one’s history and
autobiography caught in death-dread, towards one’s essential nature, the indestructible, ever-existing spirit.
This Upanishadic prayer is an appeal to devotees of Sai Baba, for transformation, a liberation from the entanglements in the web of time and space to one beyond these.
Our existence happens in two dimensions: ‘samsaric’, horizontal, relative to things, people, and events; and ‘nirvanic’, the vertical one. An enlightened state takes cognizance of both realities, which are not mutually exclusive but touch each other and are perceived by us in moments of awe.
Guided by Sai Baba, these lines of the Upanishad do not imply a pessimistic view but a holistic one: ‘Be in the world but know that you are not of the world.’
The essence of the first and the third lines lies in the second one, the liberation from the misapprehension of the clouded tamasic ‘Maya’ to seeing through the unclouded lens of ‘Jyoti’, the inner light.
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