Gita means song. But
the Gita is no ordinary song. It is the divine song of
emancipation. It is given by God to free us of the illusions that have kept us
bound. The Gita celebrates our highest truth, the atma.
Atma means self.
But atma also means God. Atma is our God-self,
our true self. And since God is always one, atma is the one
true self of everyone and everything. Illusion makes it appear as the many. Our
destiny is to dispel the clouds of illusion so that our truth is revealed and
the atma is realized. That is self-knowledge.
When
self-knowledge comes, the illusion of separate beings and separate objects
goes, and is replaced by unity consciousness.
In
every major age, God comes as avatar and teaches the Gita to
initiate us into self-knowledge and dispel the veils which hide our divine
nature. 5000 years ago, God came as Krishna, to render this song of truth at a
time of great moral decline. At that time, He gave the Gita in
order to rescue Arjuna, and through him all of mankind, from the fog of
illusion and attachment.
In
this age, He has come again as Sai Baba, to give this sacred teaching at
another time of great turmoil and deteriorating values. The malady He is
treating is the same, and the remedy He prescribes is also the same, stemming
from the same ancient wisdom. But, being the very source of eternal wisdom, He knows how to transmit it in a way which makes it come alive today and be meaningful in this present age.
This
age is different in many ways from Krishna's age. In this age, the forces of
good and evil are not only battling in the same family, but they are battling
inside of every being. Baba tells us that if the Lord were to come today, sword
in hand, to stamp out all traces of evil, no one alive would escape or
survive.
He
comes, instead, as the inner director. Following his guidance, we must fight
our own inner battles, conquer our own inner enemies, and gain the ultimate
victory of salvation and awakening.
Continued....
Love.
