FROM DEPENDENCE TO INDEPENDENCE
A post graduate in Arts from Ravenshaw College, Odisha, India, Mr. B. K. Misra taught English literature for 13 years in various universities including seven years in his alma mater. In 1966, he came into Bhagawan’s fold under amazing circumstances, and since then longed to serve at His Lotus Feet in Prasanthi Nilayam. His dream was fulfilled in 1980 when he joined the Sri Sathya Sai Higher Secondary School, where he serves till date even after retirement.
His earlier articles on Radio Sai include Be Human, Educating Your Heart, Feeling Sorry In Their Sorrow, and Sai Anandam.
Swami always used to reprimand devotees, more often students, for ignoring His spiritual presence within them and attaching too much importance to the external Swami. The message was clear: spiritualise your life.
When ‘God’ Became an Accessible and Beautiful Experience…
We can do that only when transformation starts from within and when God within becomes a palpable experience. But God walking and talking spread such a magical world of sweetness around us that we hardly bothered about an inner world. It was this walking-and-talking God who brought humanity together, redefined our relationships, chartered out the road to loving and serving all and showed us the possibility that we can really make this world a much better place to live in by resetting our allegiances and by walking with God.
Swami so fondly asked us not to follow Him, for we can’t walk in His steps; not to walk in front of Him, for He won’t walk in our steps, but to ‘walk with Me and be My friend’. The stunning realisation that God can be a friend, talking to us and walking with us changed our perception of God completely. This humble God, a bundle of beauty, power and grace, came to help us realise that He is only a mirror of what lies inside of us.
His extended tours, His ever-increasing personal involvement in the lives of devotees through many service projects and individual ministrations, His eloquent talks and of course the incredible miracles flowing from His Presence opened a new era of faith and devotion which mankind had lost in building up a material civilisation. His purity, simplicity and universality created such an aura around Him that whoever was touched by it felt blessed.
He gently showed the scientists and intellectuals that there is a more humbling dimension to human understanding, that omniscience and omni-felicity are a reality, that all religions have a much greater universal face than we wanted to believe and that the globe can become a single home for the Homo sapiens if we dare to take God’s hand and walk with Him. All this He achieved by just being what He was – a very loving, caring and unpretentious God who loved to share our lives. Humanity needed a palpable God and He was that.
Once We Grow Up, We Can Go Up
But He decided to shake us from taking God for granted, and apparently left us to ourselves. We sorely missed Him after His unexpected physical exit. Before we graduated into seeing the ‘inner God’, He gave the playing field to us.
But it is also a way to teach the children that there will always come a time when they have to do a few things themselves. Dependence has to grow into independence without being antithetical to it. Independence is the fulfilment of dependence, taken to a higher level. Just as Jesus asked, “Which son is dearer to the Father – the one who says ‘Father, father’ and prefers to live in His presence or the one who goes out and does Father’s work?” “Surely, the son who does Father’s work,” the Lord affirmed. This could be the next stage of our dependence on Him. Just as God’s Presence and Absence are inclusive of each other and each vitalises the other, the two stages of devotion are inclusive of each other. Swami wants to show us that ‘absence of God’ is a fallacy and a mental construct.
Krishna sent Uddhava to Brindavan to recognise this fallacy. Though Krishna was physically absent from Brindavan, for the Gopis He was present in every bush, in every bud, in every ripple of Yamuna and in every particle of dust He walked on. Uddhava thought Radha must have been devastated after Krishna left, but he realised that he was sent to learn the next stage of devotion from her.
Swami said Radha remained in such an exalted stage that in a few years she shed her body. The same thing happened to Meera too. Legends say that she simply melted away into Krishna. Her inner Krishna was so much more real that her physical body lost its separate existence. Her complete dependence brought her complete independence. These stages are indicated in the Gita as well.
After Krishna explained to Arjuna why he should not quit the battle, He said, “Arjuna, now I have told you all, but you may do whatever you desire” (Chapter 18-63) and Arjuna replies, “I will always do whatever You tell me to” (Chapter 18-73). Krishna knew Arjuna was ready for ‘doing the Father’s work’. So He told him, “Give up all your confusions and all other allegiances and do My work. I will free you from all binding consequences.” That is complete freedom. Isn’t it a classic instance of complete dependence leading to complete independence?
In the second chapter Arjuna had told Krishna, “I am Your disciple. Teach me what I should do”. After teaching him the secrets of life over 17 chapters Krishna gave him the right of choice. Arjuna was not an ordinary student and so he told Krishna that he was ready to completely obey Him. Swami has left behind a whole Gita composed over eight decades of living a life for us. He demonstrated in His life every word He spoke. We must now be able to say, “Lord, I completely obey You” (Karishye Vachanam Tava).