Sathya Sai Speaks 1961 · Experience
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Experience
6 April 1961, Tirupati
Professor Kasturi's English.
1- 2The spiritual aspirant should see the power inherent in the idol A spiritual seeker once approached a for guidance. The gave him an idol of and also necessary instructions for daily worship. But the seeker found that, even after some months of meticulous worship, he did not get any spiritual reward or elation. So he reported his dissatisfaction, and the gave him another idol, this time of , and asked him to have another try. The disciple came after another six months demanding another idol, because even had failed him. This time, he got a idol, which he duly installed in his domestic shrine. The two previous idols were standing, dust-ridden and neglected, on the window sill. One day, while ritual worship of the Goddess was going on, the disciple found that the perfumed smoke from the incense stick was being wafted by the breeze toward the idol of on the window sill. He got wild that the ungrateful stone-hearted God who was deaf to his powerful entreaties should get the perfume intended for his latest idol! So he took a piece of cloth and tied it round the face of , closing up the nostrils that were inhaling the perfume. Just at that moment, to his immense surprise appeared in His Splendour and Glory before the seeker! The man was dumb-founded. He did not know how the ill-treatment had induced to give him . But what had really happened? The seeker for the first time believed that the idol was alive, conscious, full of life ( -full), and it was that belief which forced him to tie the bandage to the nose. The moment he realised that the idol was full of consciousness (), he got the Realisation he was struggling for. Therefore, the spiritual aspirant should see not the stone, which is the material stuff of the idol, but the Power that is inherent in it, that is symbolised by it, the same Power that is inherent in his own heart and that pervades and transcends all creation.