Spirituality and the human
Astrology and the Vedas teach that the Moon is the presiding deity of the Mind. The 4th Dimension is known through the mind. It is the mind that perceives this world, and it is the mind that cloaks the world with illusion. Many live in their own self-created world views. The recent series of Super Moons raises questions about the Moon and its energies, aspects and functions as shown in Astrology. How does the Moon provide a pathway to the 4th Dimension in astrology?
This coming Full Moon on 10 August – called a ‘super moon’ on account of perigree (closest to Earth) which will occur on 10 August. As the Hierarchy – in the messages of Cosmic Sai Baba, Jalarm and Alcheringa – recommends meditation on full moon days, we offer a reflection on this coming “super moon” and the astrological significance surrounding this.
Swedenborg was a respected academic who methodically described the spiritual world, and left a strange collection of works which captivated the most eminent thinkers. Swedenborg derived inspiration from dreams and visions, and claimed to be able to visit heaven and hell at will. His works were widely read after his death and highly regarded by poets, writers and mystics such as Blake, Baudelaire, Strindberg, Balzac, Yeats, Jung, and William James.
The question, “What is a Saint?” arose recently, for a description of a saintly person was encountered. That description was really a listing of what discouraged happiness in a saintly person. It went something like this: “discourage happiness due to wealth and family, possessions, marriage and sexuality, or material longevity“. That gave me pause. I had to stop and think, What is a saint? And so this website has come about.
I suppose there are many things you can say about saints. I’d like to open a window not just to the plaster saints, halos and statues, but also to the saints and saintly people from other religions. Why shouldn’t great saints, (or the sant tradition in Northern India), mystics and muslim pirs be excluded from consideration as saints? Don’t they inspire people too?
So there is my first conclusion about saints. They inspire.
Saints come from all traditions. Most of the well known saints come from the Christian faith. Hinduism has saints also: think of the guru’s who are entombed alive, and continue to guide their devotees when the body no longer exists. In the north of India, there is the Sant tradition, which includes men and women, poets and philosophers. We might also consider gurus from the Sikh tradition. Would you call them saintly people, the ten gurus of Sikhism? Then we might look to those who died for their faith, martyrs. Pope John Paul II made hundreds of saints; he simply proclaimed them martrys for the faith, and that was it!
Martyrdom was a little more serious than a simple proclamation: St Thomas More, Henry VII’s Chancellor, was executed for refusing to take the oath of supremacy of the Crown in the relationship between the kingdom and the church in England. Martin Luther is another well known dissenter, as was the more modern Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was shot at the altar while celebrating the rites of the Christian Church.
There are others we might consider saints: the great artists Michaelangelo and Rembrandt. Others might include Fra Angelico, and the great composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Poets and pilgrims are also mentioned as saintly persons. What is the character of a saintly person, a spiritual beacon? What attracts us to them?
We might say they are role models of duty, devotion and discipline. Many people are termed saintly for they bear their lot in life without complaining; said to be long-suffering. Some are said to be exemplars: they set an example to follow in adherence to faith and practice of devotion. Some might aver that saintly persons are people who found that self-effulgent light, within, without, and shared the pathway to the light for others to follow. Thomas à Kempis and his work, Imitation of Christ is one such example followed through the ages. The Sufi mystic Kabir and his poems are honoured by Sikhs and Hindus.
Pilgrimages to Shrines of Saints are common in many religions. Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, and people of the Jewish faith all go on pilgrimages. Pilgrimages are an exercise of faith; people go to the shrine or temple, in order to obtain spiritual benefits. One ancient pilgrimage has recently been promoted as a film, starring Martin Sheen. This is called The Way. Thomas Avery is an American ophthalmologist who goes to France following the death of his adult son, Daniel, killed in the Pyrenees during a storm while walking the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James), a Catholic pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. Tom’s purpose is initially to retrieve his son’s body. However, in a combination of grief and homage to his son, Tom decides to walk the ancient spiritual trail where his son died, taking Daniel’s ashes with him.
Pilgrimages and yatras aside, we might say that saints are departed individuals of recognised sanctity who are venerated in a religious environment. Death of the saint is no barrier to communion with or veneration of the saint. The saint may be said to have restored the image and likeness of God, and to be in the company of the Divine (or closely united) and whose intercession or benefices or teachings has efficacious results. This might relate to one or another aspect of any saint in any religious tradition. Saints inspire. You might say that they give us a “hand up” on the ladder of divine ascent, as do saintly persons.
Some of the material herein has had a previous incarnation: Spiritual Stars of the Golden Age. The Spiritual Stars have moved home six times since their inception in 2001. And more saints, pirs and heroes of humanity have been added since then. Let’s hope that this website inspires you to look deeply into the lives of saints and saintly persons, for your inspiration!
You may browse the articles in the Saint’s category here, or choose from below:
In the morning, I pass a lot of coconut sellers. And garland sellers on the roadside. Many people were going in with coconuts; a crowd in front of the Ganesh temple. Look inside the temple, yes, there is Vighneshwara with his three broad lines across the forehead. Turn and look at the shrine for the Nagas and the Navagrahas, the planets. It’s a huge tree rising from that shrine.
Love permeates. I wanted to say “Love permeates every corner of this universe” but there are no corners in this universe. “Corners” in the universe are simply my imagination and application of limits to what I can perceive and not perceive. I know there are parallel universes, multiple universes, multiple times, multiple time-lines and no-time. Love is. Love is in all that we can perceive, and in all that we cannot know or perceive in this our limited individuality.
Consolations? I am borrowing from the Old Testament Prophets in the Hebrew Bible. (Hebrew Bible, I hear you ask? The book itself is composite and the larger part of it (in fact, nearly all of it) comes from the Hebrews, the forerunners of modern day Judaism. It is proper and correct to call it the Hebrew Bible. It never was the Christian Bible, and biblical scholars along with Wikipedia are now getting us all to refer to the book by its proper name. I have to say, I concur. ) Here, we look to Consolations in two remarkably different sacred sources.
It behooves all who come to take care of the belly or delhi belly will ensue. During a short bout of “delhi belly” we are taken via the gamut of Sai’s teachings on what it means to be a devotee, and what it means to love, and to be taken up into the Ocean of Love, the Ocean of Sai. Coconut water and Curd rice are the recommended dietary course during a bout of “delhi belly”.
The energy we create around ourselves is most important, for it makes the world we live in. Yad bhavati, tad bhavatum, as Swami often told in his discourses – as the feeling, so the result. We also apply this to the principle of timelines and how everyone will get into the Golden Age as per the teachings of Sri Sathya Sai Baba.
Art and the artist. Can art open a window to the divine for us? Does not great music lift us up to the celestial heights? Can art and the work of artisans – forever seeking the flame of the spirit within – lead us to seek that selfsame flame within? We engage in conversation with sacred art and new works of art.
In Puttaparthi, few if any speak of Sai Baba and 2012. On the internet, it is a different story. There are those who publish an alleged interview, claiming Sai Baba told, this, that and the other about the vibratory state of the planet.
A warm wind raises the dust in Main Road as I walk towards the ashram in the early morn. Methinks a warm day is coming.
Each and every day is ordinary; Prashanti Nilayam is here, everything is offered for your spiritual progess, and Swami has left his form; but everyone in Prashanti and Puttaparthi township says, “Nothing has changed, Swami is still here!”
It is the time of the Holi festival, and Sai Kulwant Hall is gaily decorated, with reflective strips, blue, red, green, silver and gold hanging down from the roof. The Sathya Sai Organisation of Bihar and Jharkand are pleased to offer a Holi Celebration of Divine Love in Prashanthi Nilayam. One of the banners reads Khelo Holi with Sai Sannaaidi.
We come here for our transformation; this is the workshop. The car comes in, the engine gets checked, the repairs are made, the oil is topped up, the new parts are fitted to the car, we are sent back out. Everything here is offered for our spiritual progress – I was reminded of this early this morning. I walked outside in the early morning dark to see people sitting on chairs outside in the cool of the morning, and devotees were walking past at 4AM to go inside for prayers, OMKAR, Nagasankirtan, like this. The Omkar bell goes every morning, I have heard it often, this trip.
