Sri Sathya Sai Speaks

Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is the Timeless Charioteer (Sanathana Sarathi), who communicated the Gita scripture to Aditya (Sun God) and helped Manu (the first law-giver) and King Ikshvaku to know it. He was Arjuna’s charioteer during the great battle between good and evil fought at Kurukshetra. When the rider, Arjuna, was overcome with grief at the prospect of the fight, Krishna instructed him in the science of recognizing one’s Oneness with all and removed the grief and the fear. Krishna is the charioteer even now, for every one of us; let me greet you as a fellow sufferer and a fellow disciple. We have but to recognize Him and accept Him in that role, holding the reins of discrimination and flourishing the whip of detachment, to direct the horses of the senses along the path of truth (sathya), asphalted by righteousness (dharma), and illumined by love (prema) toward the goal of peace (santhi). Arjuna accepted Him in that role; let us do likewise. When worldly attachment hinders the path of duty, when ambition blinds the eyes of sympathy, when hate shuts out the call of love, let us listen to the Gita. Krishna teaches us from the chariot whereon He is installed. Then, He showers His grace, His vision and His power, and we are made heroes fit to fight and win.

This precious book is not a commentary or summary of the Bhagavad Gita that was taught on the field of Kurukshetra. We need not learn any new language or read any old text to imbibe the lesson that the Lord is eager to teach us now, for victory in the battle we are now waging. This Stream of Divine Song (Gita Vahini) is the same stream, refreshing and revitalizing, brought by the same divine Restorer to revivify man caught in the mesh of modern dialectics, in the pride of modern science, in the cynical scorn of modern superficiality. The teaching set forth here will comfort, console, and confer strength and faith.

Let us listen to these words with as much care and concentration as Arjuna had, even in the turmoil of a battle field, and we too will declare when the book nears its final pages, “My delusion is dissolved; I have become aware of My Reality, which is God.” The Ancient Charioteer who is in you and me has responded to the call of the conflict-ridden hearts; He gave these lessons in the “Sanathana Sarathi”, which is published from the Abode of Peace (Prasanthi Nilayam). Now they are with you, between covers, as a book, which you can read as often as you can or must.

May the faith with which you have started to scan these pages grow from day to day; may you be drawn by the ever-widening vista of knowledge that this book reveals to the grand glory of the experience of the Oneness that is the basis of this manifoldness.

N. KASTURI

Editor, Sanathana Sarathi

Gokulashtami, 08 September 1966