I wish I could write about Sai, the mind says. Writing about Sai is a wonderful experience and a blessing and I need to spend time writing about Sai. How do I do that? Let me block my calendar and let me research topics about Sai that have not been written well or have not been explored. Mind starts running wildly, like a horse galloping towards the unknown.
Slow down, Slow down! Another voice reverberates from the heart. Haven’t you read Satcharitra? What does it say?
Many a times I have read Satcharitra. I have read it in English, I have read it in Telugu and I have also read many other books on Sai, which is why I want to create a version of all things brought together. Even in Satcharitra, hemadpant argues that Sai is like an ocean and each person can pick and choose the gems and pearls that they could collect and write on them. See, I clearly remember this chapter.
Alright, did you forget anything else?
The mind gets confused. Is this a trick question? There are a lot of things that are said inside Sai Satcharitra. Baba asked for faith and patience. Baba asked devotee to be humble, to surrender to baba and to give up the sense of doership. Ah! is that it? When a devotee surrends to baba, he doesn't question baba. He simply follows him. Like the story where Kaka sahib dikshit was ready to kill a goat because baba said so. Or the story where baba himself demonstrates how a good disciple should be when he found his guru. Or the words that baba himself said to hemadpant to give up the sense of doership and that he could only write sai satcharitra when he gives up his ego and let baba enter him and write his own story.
The voice nods in agreement. The darkness lifts and light enters. You realize in that moment that writing about sai is not a thing that you decide and do. You surrender and then you wait for him to enter and do his work. You don’t write things, you simply prepare yourself to get out of the way and let Sai come in and write the things he wishes to write and share with his devotees. The sense of “I” and the sense of doership should be exterminated and its not easy. The only path to achieve that is to read about sai in Satcharitra, think of all things, good and bad as being done by him and to train your mind to keep chanting the name of Sai. If you have faith and if you have patience, he will make your heart ready to host him and then he does the work.
So, o, my vain self, let go of the desire to write about Sai. Instead, let in the desire of Sai entering into your heart and writing about his leela’s for his devotees.
Omsairam!
