Passage 8

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In plain words

In the trinity of Sai Avatāras, the first is Shirdi Sai, the second Parthi Sai, and the one yet to come is Prema Sai. That is the chief one. That is the one who makes all one. Prema alone makes everything one. Now there is no oneness at all; it is all division... division... division! If we ask anyone, “Where have you come from?”, one says, ‘We have come from Karnataka’; another says, ‘We are from Andhra Pradesh’; yet another says, ‘We are from Tamil Nadu.’ But when Prema comes, there is no such difference. All become one. Then there is one ‘caste’, one ‘culture’, one ‘country’. Bhārata is everyone’s home. Now our Puttaparthi, Prasanthi Nilayam, has become the home of all.

We must all be as one. When I went to East Africa, I did not tell Idi Amin, “I have come from Andhra Pradesh” or “I have come from Karnataka”; I said, “Mine is India.” If in this way everyone goes on doing as they say, all will be greatly benefited. Very soon all of India will become one. All differences will disappear. Persons may differ, studies may differ, the languages spoken may differ, but one ‘country’, one ‘caste’, one ‘culture’: all must become one. Only then will we all be able to live as ‘brothers and sisters’. Today’s festival teaches that to develop such oneness is the chief aim of the people of Bhārata. Our sacred histories of Bhārata, such as the Rāmāyaṇa, teach about this very oneness.

In the Rāmāyaṇa, Sumitrā had placed on the terrace the bowl of pāyasa King Daśaratha had given her, and while she was drying her hair in the sun, an eagle came and carried the bowl away. Fearing what Daśaratha and the sage Vasiṣṭha would say of her carelessness, she came down and told Kausalyā and Kaikeyī what had happened. Unlike co-wives today, the three of them in those days lived in great love and harmony, like sisters of one family.