Sai Baba on Womanhood
Phyllis Krystal writes:
My mind flashed back to a most unusual and deeply moving experience which I had been given during meditation.
In the meditation, I had the distinct impression that Baba suddenly appeared to my inner view and was beckoning me to follow him. Despite my complete surprise, without any hesitation I gladly complied and sensed that I was being led to a higher vantage point from which I would have a clear view of the whole world laid out below. I heard his voice in my head saying: 'Now I will show you the real heart by-pass'. I was naturally very puzzled by that statement and wondered whatever it could mean.
He then pointed down at the earth and I was most surprised to see superimposed on it the outline of a huge human figure. It reminded me of the diagrams often used in books on yoga to indicate on the body the positions of the seven chakras represented as wheels of light. Baba proceeded to indicate on the world-sized human body that there was very little connection and communication between the heart chakras and the other six centers; I was able to see very clearly as he traced them with his finger that the pathways were either partially blocked or closed off altogether. Then I began to understand what he had meant for it was obvious that the heart was indeed by-passed at the world level. It then impressed on me that this condition prevents love from flowing out from its natural source in the heart, so it is forced to be expressed through the head, throat, solar plexus or power centre, or the three lower physical centers, particularly the sexual one. I related this world diagram to the individual personal level and realized how correctly and symbolically it it illustrated the condition of so many people living in the world at this present time. I knew many, both men and women, who only think their love or fantasize about it; while others only talk about it and say that they love, but with no real feeling. Then there were those who equate love with the need to control or dominate others; and those whose so-called love is for material possessions. Lastly there are those who confuse sex with love, which (sex) therefore so often lacks it. In all these situations the true emotion is missing and cannot be felt by the recipients, which results in a deep hunger even in family members, and between parents and children.
It was a revelation to me to have this situation presented in such a clear and shocking way. How could compassion, mercy, affection, kindness and all the other gentle ands tender qualities, which are traditionally associated with love, be expressed if the heart is cut off? I was aghast as the full impact of what I'd been shown began to penetrate. So this was the mark of the Kali Yuga, I thought.
Baba continued to indicate that in past ages when men would periodically close off their hearts and thus stifle their compassion and engage in wars and violence, which released the opposite emotion of hate, the majority of woman continued to act out their role as the nurturing, compassionate, maternal and loving members of society. A partial balance was therefore preserved even during that darkest periods of history. However, women's originally strong and loving Shakti role as mothers and nurturing partners with their husbands gradually degenerated into one of abject subservience to men, which further reduced them to becoming only a means of satisfying their husbands' physical desires. Their true role became vitiated and lost its positive balancing power in the world; and caused the loss of contact with the heart that I had just been shown. This condition also leads to a divorce from nature and a replacement of living forces with artificial substitutes. The result is the sorry plight of this loveless world which threatens to become even sorrier unless this trend is reversed soon.
Baba continued to lead me to understand that in recent years the women, particularly in the west, have finally rebelled, not only against being used as objects but as second class citizens, instead of being valued as equally worthwhile human beings. Women are often the first to react to a state of imbalance both in the world and in their personal lives. So when their natural strong function of feeling is more and more suppressed or diverted, they are the ones who suffer most from the lack, both in themselves and in others.
However, in their struggle for liberation from this worsening dilemma, they have mistakenly chosen to act out the role, not of strong loving women, but as carbon copies of men, proclaiming that they are their equals in every way.. and often going to ludicrous extremes to prove their point. The result of their quest for liberation and equality has caused many women to make a conscious decision to by-pass their hearts. In this way they have cut off, suppressed or frozen their emotions, fearing that feelings would be a hinderance in their competition with men.
But throughout our many lifetimes we have undoubtedly reincarnated sometimes as men and at other times as women. In this way we have learned to experience the many variations of each role. Carl Jung gave to the world the terms anima to designate the feminine aspect within men, and animus for the masculine qualities in women. Baba states that he is Shiva /Shakti; both male and female in perfect balance acting through one body, which is the eventual goal to which we are all moving.
It is rather obvious that we should try to live in our present sex role to the full in order to balance the karma attached to it, instead of repeating our former role as the opposite sex.
Baba continued to impress on my mind that when the heart is by-passed in the world, multitudes of serious problems arise. Crime and violence increase rapidly; materialism resulting in greed and selfishness prevails; sexual deviations become more common; incest and child abuse, various addictions, promiscuity and broken homes are common everyday facts, to mention just a few examples that plague the world at this time.
Looking back over this list, it is obvious that the missing ingredient is love, which is exactly what Baba stresses as being the essential in every part of life. "Start the day with love. Fill the day with love. End the day with love."
I knew with absolute certainty that the grim insight I had been given was only too true, yet I was stunned with such a profoundly disturbing experience. I had often thought about the state of the world, as all concerned people do from time to time. But having this experience while in meditation, when I was wide open and therefore completely vulnerable, meant that I received a different and extended awareness of the situation under Baba's close supervision and direction. The result was that I was fully cognizant of the world scene in every cell, in addition to mind and heart, which made the impact much stronger and more distressing.
It also made me acutely aware that one of the chief reasons why so many young people resort to drugs is an attempt to dull their insights into the depressing and seemingly hopeless state of the world which will directly affect their future if it continues to become even more loveless. Obviously the use of drugs or any other means of escape is not the answer, but what can be done to alleviate the major problems?
"What can we do?" I cried out to Baba.
As if in answer came the memory of his frequent assurances that in past eras, when the world was seriously out of balance and people had strayed too far off the path of Dharma as outlined by the ancient sages, an Avatar was called forth. At such time God took human form in order to infuse all who were willing to receive with Divine Love, which is alone capable of healing the sickness and starvation not only of the body for food, but the heart for pure love. Baba has repeatedly announced that the chief reason for his advent into the world at this particular time is to re-light the lamp of love which has been doused by people's attachment to the body and its teeming desires.
I still vividly recall a group interview in February 1977 when Baba entered the room full of eagerly waiting devotees with a light tripping step and gaily singing a little refrain "Who is Sai Baba? He is love, love love."
"But what can we do?" I persisted. The answer seemed to be that the women of the world need to find a way to reconnect with their own ancient heritage of keepers and protectors of the gift of love to the human race. They must be willing to be channels through whom the love divine can again flow from their hearts and out into the world, to balance men's traditionally more mental and physical involvement in worldly affairs. Women need to accept their Shakti role and complement men instead of aping or competing with them. Only then can they be of equal value with them; and members of both sexes can unite and work harmoniously together instead of competing with each other.
In the west, it has long been the custom for girls to attend school and college and thus receive the same educational advantages as boys, which prepares them to be mentally equipped to enter the work field with men.
Baba also encourages girls in India to attend school and college to be trained as intelligent partners with their husbands and loving and wise guides to their children, this to supply the support which their families need. [The first school founded by Baba was a college for girls in Annatapur]
However, the two cultures are very different with respect to the living arrangements. In India it is the custom for the members of several generations to live all together under one roof, with the new bride joining her husband's family group. In most western countries, both partners of a newly married couple move out of their respective homes and set up a separate household of their own. This custom results in isolation and loneliness both for parents after their grown children have left home and for those children, both single and married, who are faced with the necessity of finding work to support themselves as soon as they leave school or college.
Married women, including mothers of young children, often need to augment the husband's income because if the rapidly escalating cost of living. In addition, many young mothers chose to work as a relief from loneliness and being exclusively with young children all day, which is often a very difficult adjustment after the many varied activities of college. However, they soon discover that assuming the responsibility if two careers places a heavy burden on them.
In addition to the fairly recent trend to identify with men, women have also closed off their hearts to avoid being hurt, disappointed, ridiculed or for many other reasons. But Baba has often stated that it is only the ego which can be hurt or upset. God, who is or true identity, is immune to rejection and lack of love. So by-passing the heart only strengthens the ego and prevents people from remembering that their real heritage is Divine.
Baba also teaches that most human love is selfish and contracting in contrast to Divine love which is unselfish and expanding, thus supplying an answer to the question of what we devotees can do as individuals and as a group to alleviate the imbalance in the world caused by the heart by-pass.
We, who are so blessed by being aware of his advent at this time of stress, can ask him to activate his counterpart in our hearts, through which to infuse our homes, jobs and everyone we meet with his expanding unselfish love. Its healing current is the only force capable of re-connecting the world-heart, and hence our human hearts, so that love may flow once again through the world.
I would like to share how he has set this process in motion in my daily life. In March 1971, the plane in which my husband and I were traveling from Bombay to London was hijacked. I thought I heard Baba's voice telling me to send love to the hijackers. They were so threatening that I was utterly incapable of obeying. Instead, I telepathically asked Baba to allow his love to flow into me and I would gratefully direct it to them.
Eight years later, in a private interview, with Dr Bhagawantan interpreting, Baba;s first words were: "And how was the hijacking, Mrs Krystal?" His question took me so by surprise that I was sure that I must have misunderstood and asked him to repeat it, which he obligingly did, word for word, as I had heard. Instead of waiting for my reply, he turned to Dr Bagawantam and said in English, "The plane was filled with my love". Then, turning back to me he said, "Wasn't it, Mrs Krystal?" I was profoundly grateful after all those years, to have his assurance that I had not imagined hearing his directions.
That situation was indeed a d desperate one, but it is not necessary to wait for a crisis to force us to remember to ask Baba to beam his love though us to help dissipate the hate and negativity in the world.
Women have an important role to play on the world stage at this critical time. However Baba says that they are endowed with more spiritual assets then men. Consequently they are better equipped for their role as purveyors of love in this love-starved word. But we women will fail if we try and use what Baba calls contraction love. EWe can only succeed if, like the Gopis of old, we allow Baba to fills us so full of his expansion love that we infuse everything and everyone we meet with its healing balm, which is the only cure for the heart by-pass.
This is the text of a piece by Phyllis Krystal in 'Full Flame' Infinite Scenario, which collects the best writings of those close to Swami over the years.
My mind flashed back to a most unusual and deeply moving experience which I had been given during meditation.
In the meditation, I had the distinct impression that Baba suddenly appeared to my inner view and was beckoning me to follow him. Despite my complete surprise, without any hesitation I gladly complied and sensed that I was being led to a higher vantage point from which I would have a clear view of the whole world laid out below. I heard his voice in my head saying: 'Now I will show you the real heart by-pass'. I was naturally very puzzled by that statement and wondered whatever it could mean.
He then pointed down at the earth and I was most surprised to see superimposed on it the outline of a huge human figure. It reminded me of the diagrams often used in books on yoga to indicate on the body the positions of the seven chakras represented as wheels of light. Baba proceeded to indicate on the world-sized human body that there was very little connection and communication between the heart chakras and the other six centers; I was able to see very clearly as he traced them with his finger that the pathways were either partially blocked or closed off altogether. Then I began to understand what he had meant for it was obvious that the heart was indeed by-passed at the world level. It then impressed on me that this condition prevents love from flowing out from its natural source in the heart, so it is forced to be expressed through the head, throat, solar plexus or power centre, or the three lower physical centers, particularly the sexual one. I related this world diagram to the individual personal level and realized how correctly and symbolically it it illustrated the condition of so many people living in the world at this present time. I knew many, both men and women, who only think their love or fantasize about it; while others only talk about it and say that they love, but with no real feeling. Then there were those who equate love with the need to control or dominate others; and those whose so-called love is for material possessions. Lastly there are those who confuse sex with love, which (sex) therefore so often lacks it. In all these situations the true emotion is missing and cannot be felt by the recipients, which results in a deep hunger even in family members, and between parents and children.
It was a revelation to me to have this situation presented in such a clear and shocking way. How could compassion, mercy, affection, kindness and all the other gentle ands tender qualities, which are traditionally associated with love, be expressed if the heart is cut off? I was aghast as the full impact of what I'd been shown began to penetrate. So this was the mark of the Kali Yuga, I thought.
Baba continued to indicate that in past ages when men would periodically close off their hearts and thus stifle their compassion and engage in wars and violence, which released the opposite emotion of hate, the majority of woman continued to act out their role as the nurturing, compassionate, maternal and loving members of society. A partial balance was therefore preserved even during that darkest periods of history. However, women's originally strong and loving Shakti role as mothers and nurturing partners with their husbands gradually degenerated into one of abject subservience to men, which further reduced them to becoming only a means of satisfying their husbands' physical desires. Their true role became vitiated and lost its positive balancing power in the world; and caused the loss of contact with the heart that I had just been shown. This condition also leads to a divorce from nature and a replacement of living forces with artificial substitutes. The result is the sorry plight of this loveless world which threatens to become even sorrier unless this trend is reversed soon.
Baba continued to lead me to understand that in recent years the women, particularly in the west, have finally rebelled, not only against being used as objects but as second class citizens, instead of being valued as equally worthwhile human beings. Women are often the first to react to a state of imbalance both in the world and in their personal lives. So when their natural strong function of feeling is more and more suppressed or diverted, they are the ones who suffer most from the lack, both in themselves and in others.
However, in their struggle for liberation from this worsening dilemma, they have mistakenly chosen to act out the role, not of strong loving women, but as carbon copies of men, proclaiming that they are their equals in every way.. and often going to ludicrous extremes to prove their point. The result of their quest for liberation and equality has caused many women to make a conscious decision to by-pass their hearts. In this way they have cut off, suppressed or frozen their emotions, fearing that feelings would be a hinderance in their competition with men.
But throughout our many lifetimes we have undoubtedly reincarnated sometimes as men and at other times as women. In this way we have learned to experience the many variations of each role. Carl Jung gave to the world the terms anima to designate the feminine aspect within men, and animus for the masculine qualities in women. Baba states that he is Shiva /Shakti; both male and female in perfect balance acting through one body, which is the eventual goal to which we are all moving.
It is rather obvious that we should try to live in our present sex role to the full in order to balance the karma attached to it, instead of repeating our former role as the opposite sex.
Baba continued to impress on my mind that when the heart is by-passed in the world, multitudes of serious problems arise. Crime and violence increase rapidly; materialism resulting in greed and selfishness prevails; sexual deviations become more common; incest and child abuse, various addictions, promiscuity and broken homes are common everyday facts, to mention just a few examples that plague the world at this time.
Looking back over this list, it is obvious that the missing ingredient is love, which is exactly what Baba stresses as being the essential in every part of life. "Start the day with love. Fill the day with love. End the day with love."
I knew with absolute certainty that the grim insight I had been given was only too true, yet I was stunned with such a profoundly disturbing experience. I had often thought about the state of the world, as all concerned people do from time to time. But having this experience while in meditation, when I was wide open and therefore completely vulnerable, meant that I received a different and extended awareness of the situation under Baba's close supervision and direction. The result was that I was fully cognizant of the world scene in every cell, in addition to mind and heart, which made the impact much stronger and more distressing.
It also made me acutely aware that one of the chief reasons why so many young people resort to drugs is an attempt to dull their insights into the depressing and seemingly hopeless state of the world which will directly affect their future if it continues to become even more loveless. Obviously the use of drugs or any other means of escape is not the answer, but what can be done to alleviate the major problems?
"What can we do?" I cried out to Baba.
As if in answer came the memory of his frequent assurances that in past eras, when the world was seriously out of balance and people had strayed too far off the path of Dharma as outlined by the ancient sages, an Avatar was called forth. At such time God took human form in order to infuse all who were willing to receive with Divine Love, which is alone capable of healing the sickness and starvation not only of the body for food, but the heart for pure love. Baba has repeatedly announced that the chief reason for his advent into the world at this particular time is to re-light the lamp of love which has been doused by people's attachment to the body and its teeming desires.
I still vividly recall a group interview in February 1977 when Baba entered the room full of eagerly waiting devotees with a light tripping step and gaily singing a little refrain "Who is Sai Baba? He is love, love love."
"But what can we do?" I persisted. The answer seemed to be that the women of the world need to find a way to reconnect with their own ancient heritage of keepers and protectors of the gift of love to the human race. They must be willing to be channels through whom the love divine can again flow from their hearts and out into the world, to balance men's traditionally more mental and physical involvement in worldly affairs. Women need to accept their Shakti role and complement men instead of aping or competing with them. Only then can they be of equal value with them; and members of both sexes can unite and work harmoniously together instead of competing with each other.
In the west, it has long been the custom for girls to attend school and college and thus receive the same educational advantages as boys, which prepares them to be mentally equipped to enter the work field with men.
Baba also encourages girls in India to attend school and college to be trained as intelligent partners with their husbands and loving and wise guides to their children, this to supply the support which their families need. [The first school founded by Baba was a college for girls in Annatapur]
However, the two cultures are very different with respect to the living arrangements. In India it is the custom for the members of several generations to live all together under one roof, with the new bride joining her husband's family group. In most western countries, both partners of a newly married couple move out of their respective homes and set up a separate household of their own. This custom results in isolation and loneliness both for parents after their grown children have left home and for those children, both single and married, who are faced with the necessity of finding work to support themselves as soon as they leave school or college.
Married women, including mothers of young children, often need to augment the husband's income because if the rapidly escalating cost of living. In addition, many young mothers chose to work as a relief from loneliness and being exclusively with young children all day, which is often a very difficult adjustment after the many varied activities of college. However, they soon discover that assuming the responsibility if two careers places a heavy burden on them.
In addition to the fairly recent trend to identify with men, women have also closed off their hearts to avoid being hurt, disappointed, ridiculed or for many other reasons. But Baba has often stated that it is only the ego which can be hurt or upset. God, who is or true identity, is immune to rejection and lack of love. So by-passing the heart only strengthens the ego and prevents people from remembering that their real heritage is Divine.
Baba also teaches that most human love is selfish and contracting in contrast to Divine love which is unselfish and expanding, thus supplying an answer to the question of what we devotees can do as individuals and as a group to alleviate the imbalance in the world caused by the heart by-pass.
We, who are so blessed by being aware of his advent at this time of stress, can ask him to activate his counterpart in our hearts, through which to infuse our homes, jobs and everyone we meet with his expanding unselfish love. Its healing current is the only force capable of re-connecting the world-heart, and hence our human hearts, so that love may flow once again through the world.
I would like to share how he has set this process in motion in my daily life. In March 1971, the plane in which my husband and I were traveling from Bombay to London was hijacked. I thought I heard Baba's voice telling me to send love to the hijackers. They were so threatening that I was utterly incapable of obeying. Instead, I telepathically asked Baba to allow his love to flow into me and I would gratefully direct it to them.
Eight years later, in a private interview, with Dr Bhagawantan interpreting, Baba;s first words were: "And how was the hijacking, Mrs Krystal?" His question took me so by surprise that I was sure that I must have misunderstood and asked him to repeat it, which he obligingly did, word for word, as I had heard. Instead of waiting for my reply, he turned to Dr Bagawantam and said in English, "The plane was filled with my love". Then, turning back to me he said, "Wasn't it, Mrs Krystal?" I was profoundly grateful after all those years, to have his assurance that I had not imagined hearing his directions.
That situation was indeed a d desperate one, but it is not necessary to wait for a crisis to force us to remember to ask Baba to beam his love though us to help dissipate the hate and negativity in the world.
Women have an important role to play on the world stage at this critical time. However Baba says that they are endowed with more spiritual assets then men. Consequently they are better equipped for their role as purveyors of love in this love-starved word. But we women will fail if we try and use what Baba calls contraction love. EWe can only succeed if, like the Gopis of old, we allow Baba to fills us so full of his expansion love that we infuse everything and everyone we meet with its healing balm, which is the only cure for the heart by-pass.
This is the text of a piece by Phyllis Krystal in 'Full Flame' Infinite Scenario, which collects the best writings of those close to Swami over the years.
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