The Darshan Line

By Des Geddes

There is only one
Caste,
The Caste of Humanity
There is only one Religion,
The Religion of Love

There is only one
Language,
The Language of the Heart
There is only one
God,
He is Omnipresent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Apr 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499000467

Book preview

THE DARSHAN LINE

DES GEDDES

Copyright © 2014 by Des Geddes.

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 permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 03/29/2014

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgements

Travel Light

Sadhu’s Conference

Christmas Morning

The Drunken Sadhu

Lord of the Skies

There Is Only One

Sweet Baptism

Dog Day’s Night

Helen

Uni and Beyond

The Holy Man and the Moth

Brindavan

Puttaparthi

Mother India

Melbourne

Wake-Up Call

Dolphins of Monkey Mia

Forests of the Sky

Reiki—Universal Life Energy

I Am from the Divine Holy Spirit, Lord

Woman, the First Guru

EHV—Education in Human Values

Divine Madness

Aranachulla

I Am the Deathless Spirit

God the Game Master

The Montessori Teacher

The Snake Sanyasi

Blind Man’s Buff

God the Impressionist

Capricorn Bon Voyage

Hometown

The Healing Chalice

Tintagel

St Kilda by the Sea

Jewel

Apprenticeship

Craftsman

Delta Squadron

Return of the Jedi

Obi-One Kenobi

Ram Ram

Kodaikanal

Mountain Goats

Burning Bush

Letters to Baba Jack

Glossary

About the Author

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In memory of Michael Davies . . .

DEDICATION

When you meet a true Master He will awaken

your heart and show you the secret of

love and happiness.

Kabir

This book is dedicated with humble pranam at the lotus feet of Sathya Sai Baba. It is offered in the fashion of the ancient Hindu practice of returning a small phial of Ganges water to the Holy Mother Ganges herself as the source of all life. As God is the only doer and experiencer in truth, what I have written, he has written through me, and what I have lived, he has lived through me. I hope only that I have been a clear channel and a worthy instrument.

Aum Sai Ram,

Des Geddes

Preface

This book was written firstly for my own self-healing, then as an open communication with Sathya Sai Baba; next it was written for family and friends and, finally, for any spiritual aspirant who might draw inspiration from its pages. It was a labour that turned into sadhana and, for the most part, was a delight to write. I feel that it has been a great blessing to be given the time and opportunity to write this book.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank many people, some of whom may not be mentioned personally for their assistance in the completion of this work.

For her editorial suggestions, proofreading, computer formatting, and encouragement, I wish to thank Moira McCafferty.

For their proofreading, I want to thank Lesley Kirmsee, Deborah Holmes, Margaret Alexander, and Cynthia Harris.

For his diligent and patient computer wizardry, my nephew Michael McTigue.

For his wonderful cover design, enthusiasm, and original photographs, Mark P.

For their much-appreciated encouragement: James and Malak Edgar, Michael and Marilyn Davies, Deborah Holmes, Judy Tremayne, Valerie Ives, Claire East, Connie French, Bruce Calder, Trevor Broadway, Laurie Mahony, Marta Getty, Rosanna Zuanetti, Bert Nager, and my sisters Joan and Sandra.

Also, I want to greatly thank all those who have inspired me, those who have appeared as characters between the pages in this book, and all those who have played a role in my life no matter how minor.

Finally, to my teacher, greatest inspiration, and most-senior partner, Sathya Sai Baba, my heartfelt thanks and eternal gratitude.

Des Geddes

Melbourne, Australia

21 August 2001

Travel Light

Leave early, travel light, arrive safely.

Sathya Sai Baba

Our taxis rode the bumps like rodeo broncos, the drivers snaking in and out of the traffic, past carts, cyclists, autorickshaws, villagers, hens, and Brahman bulls. The traffic before us parted like the Red Sea at our approaching car horns. We, each of us, thought our own thoughts in silence as we neared Sathya Sai Baba’s ashram. Four of us had been before, but for two, it was the first trip.

Outside the car window in the distance, ancient ochre mounds and hills passed like giant orange-clad rishis shimmering in the afternoon heat. Suddenly we were on the outskirts of the village of Puttaparthi, and I wondered what I would feel and experience this time in the presence of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. The answers would not have long to wait. Our taxis turned inside the ashram’s gates and came to a stop in a swirl of dust outside the accommodation office.

I stepped out of the taxi into a crowd of people heading towards Sai Baba’s mandir. Somebody said, ‘It’s darshan time,’ and I found myself irresistibly drawn, being swept along by the crowd, leaving my luggage behind beside the accommodation office door. In a few moments, I found myself on the men’s side of the mandir in an excellent position and seated. Suddenly Sai Baba appeared gliding gracefully like a swan across the sand.

I felt such joy at seeing him again; tears began to roll down my cheeks. I was home in the safest place in the world. Home on the sands of Puttaparthi, and it felt so, so good.

How different it had been five years earlier when I had seen him first. Then I had thought of him as a kind of Indian Jimi Hendrix, whom I would visit for a few days and then would get on with the greater adventure of India. How wrong I had been then. In a very short time, he was, for me, a God-man, a modern Christ of India, and my teacher and Zen master.

Now inside the mandir again, singing bhajans with the other devotees, I was blissfully conscious of the proximity of Sai Baba, but oblivious to time. Only later as we filed out of the mandir into the encroaching darkness did anxiety begin to arise in me. Where was my luggage? Where would I sleep? Where were my companions? These perennial questions of man began to churn around inside my head, my anxiety increasing with each step that I took into the deepening night.

‘Oh my god,’ I thought to myself as I realised the accommodation office was closed. It was dark, cold, crowded, and Christmas to boot. My anxiety broke into a full gallop. Where was my luggage? Where would I find a bed? Where were my companions? How would I find them?

Suddenly I found myself walking towards the accommodation sheds at the rear of the ashram. Then after asking directions a couple of times, I eventually found myself there and timidly walked through the door. There, to my amazement, my friends who had laid my mattress out with mosquito net in place greeted me. My luggage was safe and sound beside the bed. I thanked them for their thoughtfulness and apologised for my lack of consideration.

Later, in my PJs, in bed with the lights turned off, I thought about the events of the day. Firstly, I had received a warm welcome back to Puttaparthi, for which I had been very grateful. Next and more importantly, I felt I had received an instruction which went something like this: ‘In the house of the Lord, the abode of highest peace, the first priority was to know God, was one’s relationship with Sathya Sai Baba.’ It reminded me of the first commandment which is to love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole heart, and your whole soul and the biblical injunction to ‘seek ye first the kingdom of God’. Worldly concerns and anxieties such as ‘Where is my luggage?’ and ‘Where are my friends?’ were not to weigh heavily in the ashram but to be placed second.

This did not mean we were to abdicate worldly concerns in our daily lives but merely to lighten their load by not obsessively worrying about them. For, as I was to learn over many years, to know God was to bring the spiritual consciousness into everyday affairs, relationships, sexuality, marriage, money, and work. This was the task to bring heaven to earth, to ground God in our day-to-day lives, to spiritualise the earth—not transcend it. As the rune oracle says, God only enters into more or less equal partnerships. He or she expects us to grow into maturity, to engage in co-om-it-in-the-moment or commitment in grounding the spiritual consciousness here and now in our everyday affairs.

But that night, I was largely unaware of the layers of the onion. That night, I thought of what Sai Baba had said about travelling light, about having the minimal physical, emotional, and mental baggage in our lives. I thought about concentrating on Sai Baba while I was in the ashram. ‘Travel light,’ I repeated to myself, closed my eyes, and went to sleep.

Sadhu’s Conference

Whoever wants to sit with God, let him sit

in the presence of saints.

Rumi

You are not doing service for others. You are doing it

always for yourselves, to the God in you, the

God who is equally present in others.

Sathya Sai Baba

Love all, serve all. By serving all, you become God.

God is love—serve others.

Sathya Sai Baba

This morning, a brotherhood of sadhus, or orange-robed holy men and women from all over India, started arriving by various forms of weird and wonderful transport at the ashram—everything from buses to cars to autorickshaws to their own two feet. They were at Prashanti Nilayam for a conference with Sai Baba which was to last several days. They were there to receive Sai Baba’s teachings and to engage in dialogue. They were there to pay him homage and respect.

Throughout the day, the sadhus continued arriving alone or in small groups until by day’s end they had all been fed and accommodated within the ashram. Then after breakfast the next morning, several hundred of them assembled en masse inside the Poornachandra, or the ashram’s public hall, awaiting the beginning of the conference. It was inspiring and amazing to see so many sadhus in one place at one time.

People staying in the ashram had been given an open invitation to attend the sessions between Sai Baba and the sadhus in the assembly hall. Although the discourses were in Telegu, there were some English translations.

So we all filed into the Poornachandra and sat cross-legged on the marble-tiled floor. We were packed in tightly so as many people as possible could fit into the auditorium. Then the conference began with the obligatory blessings, consecrations, and welcoming speeches and settled down with the main participants occupying centre stage. Sai Baba and the sadhus sat on an elevated stage about fifty metres away. Sai was sitting in his ornate chair, giving animated discourse to the sadhus who sat at his feet. Apparently, he was inviting them to come out of their caves and forests and take their wisdom into the world.

Suddenly after about five minutes, to everyone’s surprise, Baba got off his chair and sat cross-legged with the sadhus on the floor. The eloquence of this simple act conveyed so much more than words. As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Baba’s act seemed to say, ‘I do not place myself above you, nor do I detach myself from you. We are all one. There is no distance between us, save what you create. I sit in your midst, I walk among you. My life is my message, expansion is my life. Love all, serve all. All is one.’

It conveyed to the sadhus and the rest of us that ‘as I sit in your midst, you should follow my example and sit in the midst of men, be in society, but not of it’. It encouraged the sadhus too to come out from their caves and forests and be a beacon to men, to share their wisdom with the world. And to all of us, it seemed to say, ‘Embodiments of love, be as you are. Love all, serve all. This is what the world needs.’

The conference continued over the next few days with much learned discussion of the Vedas, much humour, and several discourses from Sai Baba. But to me, nothing encapsulated the conference and its meaning better than Sai Baba’s simple act of leaving his ornate chair and sitting with the sadhus.

Christmas Morning

I have been to the mountain and

seen the Promised Land.

Martin Luther King

Every one of us is the very embodiment of Divinity. Your true being is Sath-Chit-Ananda, representing Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.

You have forgotten this truth.

Sathya Sai Baba

It was Christmas morning. I awoke with the carol ‘Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful’ playing in my head like a CD in a radio station. Only, instead of the words ‘Christ the Saviour was born’, there were the words ‘Sai the saviour was born’, and instead of ‘Oh, come ye to Bethlehem’, there was the line ‘Oh, come ye to Puttaparthi’.

I hummed this carol to myself as I washed and did my morning ablutions. I hummed it as I dressed and made my way outside of the sheds. It was early in the morning, and there was the faintest of mists in the air. All of us Westerners were high on the adrenaline of expectancy. In a few brief moments, we would have darshan with Sathya Sai Baba. We all lit our candles from each other’s flame and marched, singing carols, candle in hand, towards Sai Baba’s residence, as was the custom at Christmas. The lighted candles were symbolic of the light on that first Christmas morn, of the light of the Christ, of the light of Sathya Sai Baba.

He came out on his balcony to greet us. He was dressed in snow-white robes and was silhouetted against the awakening morning sky. He looked down at us with such love in his gaze. We gazed back. Suddenly everyday reality started to fade, and I could hear the sound of glass breaking in the back of my head, the sound of mirrors shattering across eons. All I could see were the eyes of the lover and his look of eternal love.

Instantly I was transported to another level of perception. I knew everything was God, everything was love—every man, woman, and child, every animal, every droplet of water, every patch of sky, every plant and tree, every cell, chromosome, and atom of creation. There was only one—one reality, one life that had created, did constitute, and governed the entire universe. There was only one God; there was no second.

I felt like singing from the rooftops all over the planet. Suddenly I had to get away from the crowd and started walking. I found myself walking up the hill at the far side of the ashram. Every man and woman I passed was God—every rock, every tree, the vibrant orange moon overhead, the rising golden-orbed sun. The emotion welled up in me until it broke like a tidal wave crashing against the shore. I started to shout aloud, ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo, glory to God in the highest,’ tears rolling down my cheeks as I strode along like a crazed prophet up the mountain. Gloria in excelsis Deo to every person that I passed, Gloria in excelsis Deo to the heavens, Gloria in excelsis Deo to the very bowels of the earth.

I knew, as I walked, that on a similar hill thousands of years ago, people had witnessed the birth of Jesus just as ecstatically and had sung out to the heavens of that event. They had sung out, ‘Go tell it on the mountain, Jesus Christ is born.’ Now, here in the twentieth century, the chorus of voices were again singing in gratitude, and praises were again proclaiming, ‘Go tell it on the mountain, over the hill, and far away, Sathya Sai, the Lord of the universe, was born and lives in Puttaparthi today. Come all ye faithful, joyful, and triumphant. Oh, come and adore him, come and adore him, Sai the Lord.’

The Drunken Sadhu

Real meditation is getting absorbed in God as the only thought,

the only goal. God only, only God. Think God,

breathe God, love God, live God.

Sathya Sai Baba

Our Eucharist is spiritual communion with the one God.

Our bread which cometh down from Heaven is Truth.

Our cup is the cross, Our wine the inspiration of love, the draught

our master drank and commended to his followers.

Mary Baker Eddy,

Science and Health with Keys

to the Scriptures

And Jesus took bread, blessed and broke saying ‘Take eat, this is

my body,’ then he took the cup giving thanks, and gave it

to them saying, ‘Drink ye all of it. For this is my blood of the

New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins.’

Matthew 26,

New Testament

As I came down from the mountaintop, I was totally intoxicated, drunk on the experience of what had happened to me. So much so I was almost oblivious to my