Sweetness is That: Divine Experiences with Sathya Sai Baba

By Maryam Smith

Sweetness Is That: Divine Experiences with Sathya Sai Baba details the author's awe-inspiring experiences with a man considered by many to be the Avatar of the age. She recounts the course of her long search for awakening that began with studying the Fourth Way method and culminated in a call by Sri Sathya Sai Baba, when she found herself entering a spiritual realm she'd never imagined possible. In this frank, reflective account, Smith shares stories of the years she lived in two worlds—one earthly, the other divine—and takes the reader along with her on a journey at once unique, universal, and precious. The author recounts extraordinary miraculous experiences by the author similar to mystical experiences one reads about in old spiritual texts. This book is a must read for spiritual seekers of our modern times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781735662510

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Copyright © 2020 by Maryam Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

Cover design: Irina French

www.irinafrench.com

Editing: Kelly Luce

First printed: November 2020

Published by BookBaby Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-73566-250-3

eBook ISBN: 978-1-73566-251-0

Dedicated to the Lord beyond Time, beyond mind, who manifested Himself as

Sri Sathya Sai Baba as our contemporary.

How blessed have we been.

Contents

Preface

The Calling

Return to San Francisco

First Interview

After First Interview

He Did Not Forget

Notes on Amrit

Amrit

Divine Sai Baba

Second Interview

After Second Interview

God

The Fourth Way

Difficulties

Atman

Third Interview

Experiences

At My Father’s House

Afterthoughts

Preface

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God. G. K. Chesterton

Earthly life is a platform for self-realization and self-transformation. A seeker who embarks on a spiritual journey will inevitably share findings and gifts of grace received with others on the same path who struggle with existence as spiritual beings.

Humanity has always been in need of those who have experienced higher states of consciousness that help us see the world in a new way. What one gains from inner transformation ultimately benefits all.

This book is a collection of notes and journals of my remarkable experiences with Sathya Sai Baba since He entered my life in 1995. It was fifteen years ago that I conceived of the idea to compile these writings into a book. I have combined accounts of these experiences with a synthesis of spiritual thoughts that help one towards awakening. The spiritual concepts are not new. The experiences are, however, novel.

Millions of people have witnessed mind-boggling feats by Sathya Sai Baba. Thousands of books have been and continue to be written about Him by devotees who were the recipients of His Love and miracles. These books are primarily published by Sathya Sai Trust and only a handful become available to the public in the West. One aim of writing this book is to make it accessible to non-devotee readers in the West.

There are other goals for this book. One is to share the joy of some of my blessings and enlightening experiences in these dark times. And to evoke feelings for the readers as they walk with me into the magical world I was allowed to enter.

My aim is not to provide spiritual entertainment or to add yet another book to the outpouring of current mystic literature, but to instill hope and inspiration in readers and to reawaken interest around the mysteries of the Divine and our primordial relationship to It.

It is also an endeavor in showing my gratitude to Sri Sathya Sai Baba. I want to document for posterity, for any future exploration, the power, the love, and the plays of the Avatar Sri Sathya Sai Baba, the extraordinary force who lived amongst us in physical form from 1926 until 2011.

Most available spiritual autobiographies or biographies I have read offer a romanticized version of spiritual achievements, a distillation of the glories of the journey. In some the protagonist is portrayed as having reached a constant state of bliss and unshakable stability in faith once a breakthrough in conscious awareness is made. Little is spoken of the sediments of hardship and the inner struggles of the process unique to the individual and the journey itself. Fluctuations in understanding or faith and specific challenges are rarely detailed.

I found it easier and was enthused to write about the marvels of divine memories that brought tears of remembrance. Speaking of the pain, personal shortcomings and agonies for all to read was a challenge. But it would be inauthentic to bypass them. And so, in these chapters I give a candid account of a more integrated landscape of light and dark, ecstasies and despondencies.

To a devotee who was writing a book on Him, He said: only write the truth, a guideline I have followed in this project. All that is written here is true. No confabulations, no exaggerations, no embellishments, only unadulterated narration. Some of these experiences may strike the reader as so otherworldly that they may be considered workings of my imagination. I need to add I have enjoyed good mental health throughout my life. And none of these experiences or revelations were caused by the use of psychoactive substances. I have not used any in my life; I have partaken only of the divine nectar that makes one Maast (divinely drunk.)

Some spiritual teachers such as Paramahamsa Yogananda are so pure and their experiences so beautiful that they cannot be imitated; one can just enjoy the gift and legacy of their writings as smelling a beautiful rose. I hope my story, if nothing else, is another rose in the playful garden of the Divine to bring fragrance to the weary but hopeful ones.

The Calling

This life that the Friend lent me, one day I will see His face and surrender to Him. Hafiz

The formless God assumes all forms to bless bhaktas (devotees.) Sathya Sai Baba

And He is the Supreme, above His servants, and He sends keepers over you. The Quran, Surah al An’am

He came to me in a dream:

I am in a marketplace (bazaar). It looks like an Eastern country but doesn’t seem familiar. A mysterious dark man wearing a white turban is silently pulling at my arm to go with him. I resist. Without saying a word he gently puts me on his shoulders and walks towards some closed curtains.

The curtains part by themselves and he places me on a large raised platform. Several people are already standing in line waiting. I am at the end of this line. Suddenly from the right side, a small man with a jovial face and intense eyes and nicely coiffed black hair, dressed in white, comes on to the platform as if gliding in the air. He begins speaking to those standing in line before me on this stage, as if giving a discourse.

He speaks with each person in the line. He puts His hand on the head of the person standing next to me as if blessing her.

When my turn comes, it seems I am alone with Him. I feel the importance and gravity of His presence and a strange sense of timelessness. He speaks to me: It is getting from bad to worse, and rapidly removes a watch from His wrist and gives it to me. The watch, on His wrist looked made of gold studded with precious gems and diamonds but in my hands its bands changed to white silk entwined with gold threads, its face diamond studded.

As I woke up the words ‘Sai Baba’ echoed in my head. It was 5th of September 1995. All I remembered from His talk were several references to the number three.

I began thinking about how many times I’d heard Sai Baba’s name from different sources in recent weeks. In hindsight it was a barrage of hints. The penny had not dropped so He had to appear Himself, in a dream.

Examples of these hints include: Whilst looking for an apartment the first note that caught my eyes on the noticeboard at school was one let by a woman who introduced herself as a Sai Baba devotee when I met her. As she showed me the place she began talking about Sai Baba and His miracles. She also mentioned a group of people were going to India that December to see Sai Baba. I wondered why this stranger was telling me about her spiritual life and her guru. However, the information about the group leaving for India stayed with me, as I loved to travel.

A relative I had been in regular contact with for the first time asked me if I had heard of a Sai Baba. He described Sai Baba’s power to produce holy ash from thin air, which I inwardly thought of as a common practice by holy men in India.

An acquaintance I had not had contact with for many years crossed my path one day. He began speaking of a man who was a Sai Baba devotee and about Sai Baba who performed many miracles and offered the devotee’s contact information.

Most strangely, one day whilst browsing a used bookstore with a friend in San Francisco, where I lived at the time, a book about Sai Baba printed in the 60’s fell to the ground in front of us. It opened to a picture of Baba as a young man with His characteristic bushy hair and with His quotations on love and service. My friend told me that this was the Sai Baba I had been hearing a lot about lately. Again I was dismissive and considered the book an outdated hippie book talking of love. I also did not like that hairstyle! Later, as events unraveled, I was amused by His sense of humor, appearing with coiffed hair and knowing of my reaction to His hair! The Divine will go to any length when trying to attract a devotee and will see to every detail.

I had been reading about spiritual masters and the study of spiritual paths and systems of awakening interested me since my teens. I had never heard of Sai Baba. He had said, You will not see even the corner of My robe unless I will it. It was time and I was being called.

As I received this series of indirect messages and hints, my mother, who had just returned from Iran and was visiting me, brought a copy of the Quran translated into Farsi (Persian) with a beautiful ornate cover design. She was by choice a Christian and this was the first time she had given me the Quran as a gift. I began reading it at night before bedtime, from the beginning to the end. I was awestruck by the beauty, simplicity and power of the passages that in Arabic are written as poems.

There are many translations of the Quran and as with any religious scripture alterations are made over time to the original text. Despite this, the Quran maintains its unique potency, creating intense feelings towards the Divine in the reader. After finishing the last surah (chapter that varies in length from several pages to several words; surahs are revelations received by prophet Muhammad from Allah), I spontaneously spoke to the Unseen, deep from my heart: God, I want to know you. I’d never communed with God so passionately although I had been moved by many spiritual writings.

Baba came to my dream the night of this cry of the heart.

After the dream I began to see a thread connecting all these recent events and decided to read about Sai Baba. These incidents were too significant to ignore. At the time I was studying for my psychology master’s degree at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. This school offers courses based on integration of Eastern philosophy, primarily that of India and Western psychological concepts. I went to the library to find a book on Sai Baba. The only book I found there had a picture of Baba on its cover in His later years. The photo closely resembled the man I saw in the dream.

I read some passages here and there recounting numerous miracles of His that surprisingly did not affect me; nor did I doubt them. What intrigued me was reading that He often materialized watches for His devotees!

A strong desire took hold of me to go to India to see Sai Baba. My plans for that Christmas were to visit my mother in London. I remembered the woman offering the rental, who had talked of a group going to India in December. I contacted her about the practical aspects of visiting India and decided to go to India for Christmas.

As my understanding of His ways increased with time, I have come to realize over and over that I, or the ego-self, believes it makes decisions when it comes to Sai but ultimately the decisions were His. He directed the life show or play of those He chose. I was pulled to visit a country and culture I had no interest in; yet it felt right to go and as soon as I could.

The two-day long journey to India took its toll; I had not planned it carefully. Foregoing sleep at the layover in Singapore where most pilgrims stay overnight, I had travel exhaustion that presented like cold symptoms.

I arrived in India on my birthday, December 17th. Although this was my first trip travelling to this land and feeling poorly, I felt strangely at ease; engulfed by a sense of joy and peace. The intense sights, smells of India on arrival did not unsettle me. I had no expectations or even questions prepared to ask Sai Baba, and no plans for my trip. This was uncharacteristic of me and very unlike other trips I had taken. As if I was called by an Unknown for an urgent matter!

Puttaparthi, where Sai Baba was born and lived, is a village in the state of Andhra Pradesh in Southern India. One could catch a flight from Bangalore to Puttaparthi airport, a small airport that Sai Baba had built for the convenience of devotees to avoid the three-hour drive from Bangalore.

The bus drive from the small airport to His ashram Prashanti Nilayam (Abode of supreme Peace) took us through lovely untouched landscapes that brought back childhood memories of rural places in Iran. The tree-lined wide main road on approach to the village where His ashram is located is flanked by beautiful large buildings in pink and blue. I later learnt these building are different colleges of higher education and hostels for His students.

As we drove on this road it struck me that I had seen this place before in my dreams nearly twenty years before! The buildings, crowds of people walking or riding rikshas (small doorless vehicles) in both directions as if with a purpose, the commotion, were all elements of these dreams that have now taken shape in reality. This dream repeated itself so often that naturally I questioned where this place might be. All I could tell from the dream was it felt to be a school or university area.

I was so moved by this recollection and the feeling one gets when a past dream comes true, that I told an Indian woman sitting next to me that I had seen the place in my dreams years ago. She commented, You are very blessed.

What is so blessed about a dream coming true, I thought? As I learnt later any unusual, prophetic occurrence related to Baba is considered a blessing. I had no preconception about Him, that He is considered God Itself or an Avatar. I had no idea the enormity of what had entered my life.

I checked into a hotel outside the ashram to be able to rest and did not go inside the ashram. Still suffering from exhaustion and malaise, I lay on the bed in the dimly lit hotel room. My body and senses struggled to repair themselves. They did not care too much for the foreign environment.

It was getting darker. Trying to switch off the light on the wall above my head, I felt too weak to reach it and gave up. But as if in an altered or dream like state, I became aware of an Indian woman with a scarf around her shoulders tied with a circular metallic disk in the front helping me hold my arm up so I could reach the switch. Somehow the light was switched off.

As I was in and out of sleep, I would see the face of Sai Baba filling up the room looking at me lovingly. These apparitions would come and go throughout the night. Although these did not seem like hallucinations, I did not become frightened or try to examine them – I was too tired.

The next day I had enough strength to go inside the ashram. I was surprised to see some women and men wearing color-coded scarves with the Sarva Dharma emblem on a metal disc in the front of the scarf just like the scarf the woman in my vision wore. The Sarva Dharma is the symbol of the Sathya Sai Organization depicting the five major religions with a Lotus Pillar in the center. These devotees are called Seva Dals (volunteer workers), devotees who volunteer work in different capacities. They are mostly Indian and Nepalese devotees who work for the Sai organization throughout India.

Seva Dals arrive from various parts of the country and conduct their volunteer services for a fixed period of time before the duties are taken over by the next group of volunteers. They are vital to the smooth management of the ashram and Sathya Sai organization that runs like clockwork, all for the love of Sai Baba. There are also volunteer doctors from different countries who work for periods of time at His hospitals and medical camps in remote parts of the world where health services are not readily accessible.

The seating assignment for darshan (seeing of a holy person) in the mandir (temple) was an orderly process happening twice daily in the mornings and afternoons. Devotees would line up hours before the darshans; the lines later divided into smaller lines at a particular time.

The person in the front of each line would draw a numbered token determining that line’s seating position. The front lines naturally are sought after by everyone wanting the opportunity to speak with Him or request interviews or just to have a closer view of the Avatar. On my first day there I was unaware of this process and just followed the line I had joined. I ended up seated quite close to the front.

All heads were turned towards His residence and an atmosphere of heightened expectation prevailed. A melodious music began playing indicating His approach. He entered the hall, as if gliding, just as I had seen Him in my dream. He walked silently, looking straight ahead, passing where I sat. I noticed