15 years later - Reliving the life and teachings of Sathya Sai

Every year, as the Aradhana Day of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba approaches on April 24, His memories seem to grow more potent. I had my first darshan of Baba in March 1973, when he visited Shimla. Though I was a child, my heart knew that I had seen God. My eyes welled up with tears. The experience was overwhelming and extremely overpowering. So potent is that memory that I can still see Him in my mind’s eye, sitting at the edge of the stage on the Ridge at Shimla, playfully holding an unopened flower bud in his hands. When he walked, it felt as if his feet never touched the ground. He seemed to float on a blanket of air. I grew up with Baba as my invisible companion and my confidante. I had a picture of Him in a yellow robe, stuck to the inside of my cupboard. I would see him and talk to him whenever I opened my cupboard, several times a day.

In my teenage years, I had phases of ups and downs in feeling His closeness. After I got married and had children, it was really hard to go to Puttaparthi. Darshan rules were really strict there, and managing small children, while sitting for long hours, waiting for Baba, was not easy by any standards. But luckily, I was able to maintain my internal connection with Him.

In the years to come, I saw a beautiful relationship develop as my husband, Sanjay, and our sons developed a deep connection with Him. Our sons studied in Baba’s school in Grades 11-12.

When Baba or Swami, as we lovingly addressed Him, was hospitalised in March 2011, his devotees prayed that he would recover soon. When the news of Baba’s passing on to the higher realms was finally declared, on 24^th April, 2011, it was heartbreaking. His devotees were shattered. It felt as if we had been orphaned. The pain that I felt at that time is inexplicable.

It was only later that all of us realised that he had distanced himself from us all and was giving us time to accept that He would be completing his earthly sojourn. He was preparing us all to let go of his physical form. He encouraged us to look within and find divinity inside us. Baba said, “I am in you, with you, around you, beside you … I am always with you!”

A few months hence, I lost my mother, and four years later, my father too passed on. But the pain I felt at Baba’s leaving us was the most potent.

It took a long time to learn to live with the feeling that Baba was no longer in the physical body. And it was much later that I started to understand that He is always with me. I realised that he never wanted us to be attached to his physical form. He wanted us to recognise and experience that He is always with us, in us, around us…

We have always been taught that God is everywhere. But it’s another thing to experience it. When He was in the physical body, we would say, Baba is in the mandir, He is coming for darshan, He has gone to the boys’ school, He is in Whitefield, etc. But now, He is everywhere. He is with each one of us. Each one of us has his/her own personal Swami. We do not have to vie for his attention. Rather, he is waiting for our attention! He wants us to think of him, connect with him. Just like the devotee pines for God, God too is in search of a true devotee. God also waits for his devotees to think of Him, come to Him … It’s like the wiring is there, we just have to turn on the switch, and the bulb shall glow!

It's been fifteen years since we bid a tearful, heartbreaking farewell to the physical form of our beloved Lord. The pain of His shedding the mortal coil was coupled with a regret of not having spent enough time with Him while He chose to walk the Earth. At the same time, the memories of beautiful times spent in His proximity, His smile, His frown, His anger, His admonition, His love, His touch, His words, and the very aura of His presence are memories that still send shivers down my spine.

His love, His endearing smile, was something to die for. But He did not want us to die for Him. He wanted us to live for Him, to love Him, to love His uncertainty, to love His Divinity as well as His humanness. He said that we should not try to understand Him; rather, we should just experience Him and enjoy Him. He said that we should recognise Him within ourselves as well as in all others … the profundity of His statements never fails to overawe me! Words that He spoke so effortlessly … were laden with much wisdom and Divinity.

There is so much He has left behind for us to absorb, assimilate and emulate, that one birth is not enough to take it all in. And the essence of His teachings is inscribed on His Mahasamadhi – “Love All, Serve all.” As we sit in His Sannidhi and reminisce about His love and teachings … it is overwhelming. He said, “Manav Seva is Madhav Seva!” These are the teachings we endeavour to emulate in our lives.

A picture of Swami in the little Temple in our home reads, “Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is the Head of this family - A silent listener in every conversation; an unseen guest at every meal.” Though I wonder why it says ‘guest’, because He is the head of our family, He is not a guest, but the host here!

Baba gave a beautiful explanation of the word ‘watch’. He said that whenever you look at the WATCH, remember to Watch your Actions, Thoughts, Character and Heart.

If we can watch all these and stay in control of them, we can never go wrong. I always feel that one is first answerable to one’s own conscience and later answerable to anyone else. The Lord resident within us is privy to all our thoughts, words and deeds. If ever an undesirable thought crosses the mind, the inner voice gives a sharp admonition! But we must be tuned in to listen to the inner voice.

We were among the blessed ones to have known and experienced divinity in its tangible, human form. We are blessed that we can still feel His proximity, His love and even hear his rebukes. He makes His presence felt all the time.

Each day, we reinforce the presence of Swami within us and pledge yet again to live our lives as His instruments, because He wanted us to live for Him, not die for Him! Jai Sairam!

Published in the Daily Guardian on 23. 04.2026 https://epaper.thedailyguardian.com/2026/04/22/e-paper-today-delhi-23-april-2026/

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