How are you different from the saints and gurus of yore and from the contemporary ones?

Just look at me and you will know the difference. (Laughs)

I dress like any normal person. Yet, I have renounced everything. And I am more knowledgeable than most saints.

Basically I am a management man, whereas most of the spiritual leaders did/do not have any worldly exposure. Even saints like Ramakrishna Paramahamsa who attained high levels of spirituality were ignorant in worldly ways. It is recorded that Kali (A Hindu deity; pronounced Kaali) told Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, ‘Son, you are spiritually evolved, no doubt. But these worldly people are cleverer than you are. They will trick you into conferring on them your grace. Transfer your powers to Vivekananda who is shrewder than you.’

Assume an illiterate person bags a lottery prize of ten crores. His lack of knowledge will prevent him from using that money wisely. Sycophants can easily fool a gullible person. In fact, by the time that ten crores reach him, he will be taken for a ride. This is how society is.

Penance yields grace. Grace by itself can achieve nothing. One must have the worldly knowledge to manage it. Grace is the language of the skies. Management is related to the world. Arunagirinatha (a Saivite saint) sang, ‘Muruga, you granted me rich knowledge. And then, you granted me the bliss of Your Love.’ It is God who mellows us enough to love Him. This stage is relevant to all Mahaans. But there is one aspect beyond that. The knowledge we have acquired must be used in the service of the Lord who granted it to us.

Take Samratchana and Ramarajya (spiritual complex). There are so many opportunities to do service. Before I give you any task, I must enrich your skills. Otherwise the work will suffer. Your thoughts are noble, you have come to render service, and you are in the good books of God, no doubt. But you must have the requisite skills for that job. If a small organization like ours cannot function without necessary skills, how can an unskilled person serve God’s mission? If you understand this comparison, you will comprehend why Lord Siva chose Siva Shankar Baba to serve Him in this Kaliyuga.

I do not deny that there have been and are great saints. God delegates tasks based on each one’s capacity.

Paramacharya explains in his book ‘Deivathin Kural’(God’s Voice): ‘Veda Ratchanam (preserving the Vedas) is an arduous task. I have devoted my entire lifetime to it’. His main portfolio was VedaRatchanam. Towards this, he motivated people to adopt the lifestyle of their ancestors, study Vedas and bequeath that experience to posterity.

I have often asked Ram Surat Kumar (a yogi who lived in Thiruvannamalai hills near Chennai) what his task was. He used to reply, ‘My father (Lord Annamalaiyar) has not given this beggar (he would always refer to himself that way) any work. He has asked me to sit here’. And that is what the yogi did for thirty-five years. Some rich people built an Ashram for him; else he was happy with chanting ‘Sri Rama Jayam’ (Victory to Sri Rama)

A switch on the Main board controls the flow of electric current. A transformer elsewhere supplies power to this switchboard. This transformer gets its supply from electricity projects like SriPerumbudur, Neyveli Lignite or Kundha Hydroelectric project. But all we see is the glowing light, the working microphone. We do not see the process.

Mahaans like Ram Surat Kumar are passive energy (matter, Shiva principle). God does not give them active roles. He occupies them in penance. I am dynamic energy (Shakthi). God engages us to accomplish His task. He has equipped me with the power of penance. I store it like generator fuel and use it for my portfolio management. If you observe the lives of Mahaan, you will understand each one has his way of working.

Vivekananda asked the Mahaan Bhavahari Baba, “I am rendering service to mankind. You are idle. Can you not do some service or start a movement?” to which Bhavahari Baba replied, “Let me relate a story. A thief was caught red-handed. The public cut his nose. Ashamed of his disfigurement, he hid himself in a forest. A group of woodcutters, taking him to be some saint, started glorifying him. In course of time, the congregation grew in numbers. One of them started imploring ‘the saint’ to accept him as his disciple. His pleas for a mantra intensified until one day the ‘saint’ took him aside, cut off his nose and said, ‘This is how I became a saint’. Narrating this story, Bhavahari Baba told Vivekananda, ‘Do you want me to lead one such group?’  ”

When you look into the working patterns and results of various spiritual groups, you will understand why Siva Shankar Baba chose a particular lifestyle, a pattern of dressing, administrative setup and how Samratchana has evolved into a successful institution. You will not understand it otherwise. Future events will help you understand how Siva Shankar Baba has been different from others.

Even now, an elderly person raised a question, ‘You say that the path to Tirupathi will be blocked by natural circumstances and the world will start worshipping the Venkatachalapathy contained in your physical form. Why are you then projecting the idol at Kelambakkam instead of yourself?’ It is a very relevant question.

Why did I change my working pattern?

..... Continues Next week

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