WORSHIP AND DEVOTION

WORSHIP AND DEVOTION Why does man worship a higher power? the doctrine of devotion Puja and upasana-the nine modes of worship-guru Worship-Sai worship in particularunification of Indian Faith-Baba's mission-conclusion. When some terrible and oppressive need arises such as ravenous hunger or serious illness or discomfort, then we look out for some help from some powerful personage that can overcome the calamity and give us relief. It is intuitive impulse that leads man to worship. Man worships a higher power because it is his feeling that, that power can give and will be induced to give man what he needs and save him from trouble. This is true whether the power is an invisible God or a visible man or image. According to the doctrine of devotion (bhakti), it is the spirit and faith with which an object is worshipped that matter and not the object itself and hence the objects without Vibuthi also can be and are worshipped. According to higher systems of thought, every object in the universe is a manifestation of God and therefore might be worshipped. The Upanishads recommend the worship of the mother, the father, the teacher and the guest. The father, the mother and the teacher naturally evoke great respect and the child has to depend upon them and is at their mercy. The Upanishads recognise and feel God through the mother and father, its producers and to the Acharya, Deva who produces its mental body or understanding or wisdom. Even ordinary Gurus and parents without special powers are worshipped. But if any particular Guru happens to be possessed of noble virtues or of siddhis, super human or extraordinary powers, then he is worshipped more naturally and readily not only by the mass but by the intelligentsia, the critics etc. In the case of Sai Baba, his perfect purity, asceticism, general benevolence, harmlessness, non-attachment and other virtues evoked the respects of the

saints. Mahalsapathy and his friends regarded Baba as a saint, an Acharya or Guru Deva, long before Baba exhibited any siddhi power. However so far as the general mass was concerned, it was the fact that he turned water into oil that provoked worship. The persistence of the mass idea that his siddhis were evidence of divine power and therefore marked him out as a Gurudeva for worship could not be combated or resisted. When people began to show him great regard and wanted to worship him, he wished to avoid it in the interests of his own peaceful and quite life and objected to his worship. When in 1886, exercising his wonderful power or siddhi of swechch a marana (dying at will) he left the body and returned to it after three days, he evidently confirmed the idea that there was a mission for him to fulfill to benefit thousands and thousands of people connected with him directly or remotely through rinanubandha and the very society and populations of India amongst whom he was born and was living. He felt that he could also do something for the uplift of humanity. PUJA AND UPASANA The most common form of worship in our country is by doing pooja to the deity whom we call as our Ista devatha or God. "We say a person is doing pooja when he offers flowers, water, food, scents and praise to a person or an image of a divine being. He utters words mostly mantras and slokas and his mind turns to their meanings, simultaneously using speech and thought, He merges himself in the object of worship mentally attaining a feeling of perfect bliss. The ordinary man has to remember that his gentle plant of devotion has to be grown and tended and hedged with considerable care. For that purpose, the regular forms of worship and the usual directions for the growth of devotion by attending poojas, Bhajans and other ceremonies must be followed for a long time. The nine modes of worship mentioned in the

Bhagavata and stressed by Sai Baba often have to be attended to and followed. They are-1) Sravana-listening to accounts of the deeds of God, his Avataras and Saints 2) Kirtana-reciting these or repeating God's name and praise and singing them individually or in groups. 3) Smarana-constanly uttering God's name. 4) Pada Sevanam-falling at the feet of God, saints, etc. 5) Archana-(formal) worship (eg.) with flowers, water, good food, scents all the 16 upacharas etc. 6) Vandana-prostration before God and the saints. 7) Dasya-service (eg.) Doing every work for God and the saints. 8) Sakhyaremaining in the company of God or saint. 9) Atma Nivedana-surrender of the self i.e. forgetting oneself entirely in the contemplation of God after formally offering the self as a gift to God. Bhakthi is not achieved by the offer of money to God or by mere learning or by age or beauty of a person. God does not want any of these. God wants only our hearts. One is a hunter or Vaideek Brahmin, young or old, learned or illiterate, a high caste person or the son of a slave, a brave man or a coward, a wealthy person or a poor one-none of these are the reasons for God's help and flavour. God is pleased by bhakthi alone and Bhakthi can capture Him. The hunter Kannappa had no Achara or religious course of conduct. The elephant Gajendra who was granted moksha or salvation by Lord Mahavishnu had no education at all. Vidura (favourite of Lord Krishna) in whose house Lord Krishna drank milk had no qualification in respect of caste. Ugrasena, the king of Yadhavas, had no manliness, He was a great coward. Kubja (who also was favoured by Lord Krishna) had no beauty at all. Sudhama or Kuchela who was favoured by Lord Krishna had no wealth at all. All these well known Bhakthas received great help or favour from Krishna on account of their Bhakthi.

GURU WORSHIP: Guru means the dispeller of darkness or ignorance. Guru may also be defined as one who imparts information or gives training to another. The object of seeking a Guru may be temporal or spiritual. Persons who lead highly moral lives naturally affect their neighbour hood, and all persons who corns in contact with them rise in their grade of morality and spirituality. Some of them may get into the position of Gurus for others, in Baba's marga called the Guru Marga, the Guru provides everything, including food, safety and protection to the sishyas. A person is likely to make a very good advance: alike in temporal and spiritual matters if he has perfect faith even in an ordinary Guru. The most important thing is the faith of Sishya and not so much the merit of the Guru. Books do not solve. Surrender to a loving Guru and love towards that Guru alone can solve problems. Faith in him is the thing needful. Studies do not sacrifice-without a guru, there is no realisation, when the Bhakthas are fit for further progress, they will get their gurus. It is not the truth that sishyas always go out to find the guru. The reverse is often true. SAI WORSHIP IN PARTICULAR : The worship of Sai Baba expanded and assumed vast proportions during his life time. This however did not stop with 1918 but continued to expand further and further not merely as to the forms and modes of worship and also in respect of the populations and areas covered and further extended in its inwardness and heightened its results. There arc over a hundred institutions named after Sai, carrying on Sai Pooja, Sai Bhajan, Sai Prachar etc. called often Sai Samajs or Sammelans, Bhajan groups etc. Most of them have Sai Mandirs. In Madras city alone, we have the Mylapore All India Sai Samaj Mandir. the Guindy Sai Mandir, Sai Baba Bhaktha Samaj Mandir at Shenoy

Nagar etc. At Kurnool, Nellore, Coimbatore, Ventrapragada, Tenali, Bangalore, Ulsoor, Cuddappah, Poona, Calcutta, Delhi, Garkhal (Simla hills) etc. and other places there are notable Sai Mandirs attracting thousands of people to worship there. Sri Sai Baba has ordained all this expansion. Though Baba first objected his worship, His gradual permission of his worship has been specially stressed that Baba allowed his own worship with the prescience that it would be the means for providing temporal and spiritual benefits to millions of individuals and also the means of solving India's national problems of communal and religious unity. Kabir Guru Nanak and others tried to establish the bedrock of ideas on which Indian unification in religion could be accomplished Baba declared on one occasion that in a former jamna, he was Kabir, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, etc. who came to know about him felt that they were before a higher influence and that they could all approach and reach God through him. They willingly made him their Gurudeva or protector. Some of them treated Him as their God. The result was that Sai, by allowing his worship to be done at the mosque by different people with varying sets of ideas was drawing all the mysticism, the common essence of all religion and thus building up a united community engaged in common worship which ultimately could include atleast the whole of India. Sai devotion means tolerance towards all, faith in God and in Sai as Guru and the acceptance of the basic principles found in all religions Sai allowed the Hindus to adopt their puranic method of worship and treat him either as an Avatar or Istadeva or a gurudeva white he allowed the muslims approaching him to read their Koran and the Shariat at the Mosque treating him as an Avalia or a Saint with remarkable powers. Offerings brought to Baba were distributed by him to all after Fatia was pronounced in true Muslim fashion. Though Baba did

not himself perform the fuse namaz everyday he encouraged the orthodx muslims to do so at his place Baba was displeased when any religious Intolerance was exhibited Baba expressly declared that when devotees were quarrelling amongst themselves, he was feeling great pain whereas if they all put up with each other and pulled on amicably, he felt happy. His message was t: Love one another even as I love you". Baba's love and wonderful power of reading and controlling hearts was mainly responsible for the almost perfect concord between Hindus and Muslims that always reigned at Shirdi. When Baba's picture was carried in procession through all the streets including the neighbourhood or the muslims, no one felt the least, repulsion or objection. To many a Hindu Baba was identified with various Gods or Avataras. Each man saw in Baba, sometimes the very forn of the deity that he wanted to worship. He was Sai-chit-Ananda. Thus he was Shiva to Mehga, Rama to South African doctor and Madrasi Ramadssini, Krishna or Vital to Krishna Bhakthas, Maruti to Maruti Bhakthas, etc. Baba on the other hand allowed people and even directed people to go to particular temples to worship the images there and he presented lingas, padukas, coins and pictures to devotees as fit objects of worship-especially his own pictures. While unifying India on that basis, he is the grantor to millions of individual devotees of all their cherished or most ardently longed for objects. BABA'S MISSION AND UNIFICATION OF INDIAN FAITH: The term 'Mission' is drived from the Latin root 'Mitto' meaning 'send'. So a missionary is one who is sent with a message or direction by God Jesus's mission was. by his own death sacrificing himself on the cross to absolve mankind from hereditary or original sin. His death was considered a sacrifice on behalf of entire humanity. The idea of missionary is practically

that of an agent. In the case of Sai Baba, he declared "God has agents everywhere. They have great powers" Baba added "I also have great powers" implying thereby that he also was an agent of God. He also expressly told D.S, Rasane "I can do nothing except what God orders". Baba had by concentration on God practically every siddhi that one can think of. So his possession of vast powers, was always utilised for the benefit of mankind, promoting individual benefits that were obvious, seen and well understood and general benefits. In Sai Baba's life, we see one marked difference between his life before 1816 and the life thereafter. Before 1886, the main strees of his activities and views appears to be on doing good to those who were near him and connected by rinanubandha (prenatal obligations). He achieved other things also than doing good to the immediate comers. The benefits derived by others, consist in (1) The development and spread of Sai Faith intensively and extensively all over the country. (2) The unification thereby of dharma and religion regardless of existing diversification and divisions of religion, caste, creed, etc. (3) The main benefit is the unification of the Hindu Faith within itself and of Islam within itself and by purification and refine meant on both, the building up of one common central religion or Faith that is fitted to be the world faith. Baba's passing away from earthly life and the return to it in 1886 only shows that his mission remained unfulfilled and therefore he had to get back into the same body to work out the remaining portion of the present life-baba's influence tends more and more to the removal of hatred and the spread of mutual love between religions and groups. CONCLUSION-RESULT OF WORSHIP We should cultivate the habit of doing worship to God and Guru right from childhood. It does'nt matter whether we follow any particular mode of

worship or not. We must set apart at I east a few minutes of everyday both in the morning and evening for silent meditation and worship. This habit will gradually improve our system of worship with concentration and devotion, Within a few years, we will find a notable good change in us which will lead us to be in the company of good persons only, Finally, we will attain our goal and get ourselves free from all sins. Regarding the mode of worship, we may choose any of the nine modes of worship mentioned earlier. Today, in our busy and mechanical life, we may not be able to adopt a particular mode of worship and follow it earnestly everyday. Various problems, worries and other difficulties in our daily life are to be solved. Then only we can peacefully sit for sometime to think of God and meditate. So the easiest and best way of worship is to surrender completely and whole heartedly to our samartha sadguru Sainath Maharaj who will lead us in the correct path and guide us in all walks of our life. He will certainly give us material and spiritual help finally granting us salvation..in this connection we must, remember some of Baba's moral teachings by strongly sticking to Nista and Saburi (Faith and patience with perseverance) "Do not quarrel, retaliate or bandy words against others. Others words will affect them alone and not you. Speak the truth and trmh alone. Observe silence and do your duty. Allah malik God alone is our protector. His will be done and He will lead us to Salvation". Sai devotees follow different modes of worship in various parts of our country. In south India, devotees sing songs in praise of their Ista deva (Kula Deivam) doing abhisekam (Mangala snan) archana and arathi calling sai as a Krishna Sai, Rama Sai. Govinda Sai, Sainatha Subramanyara etc. In Andhra Pradesh, non stop recitation of Sal's Name "Om Sai, Sri Sai Jaya Sai" musically, fitting to any raga is carried on and sung for 7 days or any

number of days This nama smaranam of Sai Baba is done continuously by groups of Sai devotees in turns. North Indian Sai devotees mostly follow the Shirdi Sansthan type of Arathi and worship Baba. Since the arathi song books are available in almost many Indian languages, Sai devotees may try to learn and sing arathi songs at home especially on Thursdays. As Sai devotees, we must make it a point to go to Sai Mandir nearer to our place atleast on Thursday and on 3 imporatant days of the year, namely Sri Sai Rama Navami, Gurupoornima days and Maha Samadhi day. If there is no Sai Mandir in our place, we can worship Sri at home doing Sai astothra pooja and Sahastra Nama pooja if possible. Whenever we happen to go to a new place, we must try to findout if there is a Sai Mandir in that place, and make it a point to have Baba's darsan there, We can also try to collect Sai Literature available in Sai Mandirs and read Sai Sat Charitha and other books on Sai containing devotees and experiences "If you look to me, I look to you", "Why fear when I am here? Cast all your burdens on me, I shall certainly bear them" says Baba. So let us always have Baba wiih us in our heart and mind and get the blessings of our Samartha Sadguru Sainath Maharaj. Bow to Sci Sai. Peace be to all. SAIMANI R. JAYAMANI MADRAS-600 033. Tamil Nadu. (SOURCE SAI MAHIMA JUNE 1990)