By : K.R.S. Iyer
The desire for power has created many things in the world. Science has come as a desire for power; and it has created power. But indiscriminate use of power is destroying humanity. A devotee asked Sri Narasimha Swamiji, “If you were born again, what would you like to become? “He said, “Never a lawyer again. Rather, I would like to become a plumber.” Swamiji always felt that science would overpower nature and destroy all its mysteries.
Sri Narasimha Swamiji used to feed the sparrows with wheat at the backyard of All India Sai Samaj every morning. One day, he told us a story. A very unusual idea occurred to Frederick of Prussia. He was in the country when he saw sparrows eating some grains of wheat. He thought that these small birds consumed a million pecks of wheat a year and this cannot be allowed. They must be either conquered or destroyed. Since it was difficult to terminate them, he promised a price for each dead sparrow. All Prussians became hunters and soon there were no more sparrows in the country. What a great Viceroy?
Frederick was happy. He celebrated the event as a great conquest over nature. But the gloating ceased when in the following year he was told the caterpillars and locusts had eaten the crops because without sparrows the whole rhythm of life was destroyed. Sparrows go on eating caterpillars and locusts. There being no sparrows, the whole crop was destroyed by caterpillars. Then it was necessary to bring the sparrows from abroad. And the King said, “I certainly made a mistake. God knows what he is doing.”
Science tries to penetrate nature to get more power, and there are many systems which penetrate your innermost being – but again the goal is to get more power. Whether you become powerful in a scientific way, or you become in psychic way, it makes no difference.
Sri Narasimha Swamiji has concluded that a Sai devotee should always be in deep harmony that there is no question of conflict. He is always in love with the Universe and never seek power. He asks, “How to be in such a total surrender that I do not move in any way against the whole or separate from the whole, so that I can move with the river of life. And wherever the river of life goes, I can go with it.”
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