Sathya Sai Newsletter

In September 1999 I went to India
with a group from the center to see Sai
Baba. The experiences and interviews
during that trip changed my life forever. I
immediately became fully devoted to Swami
and made changes in my lifestyle to bring
me into alignment with his teachings and
expectations.
After the trip, I attended the center more
regularly and began participating in the
center’s service activities. The songs sung
at the meetings to unknown deities had no
meaning to me. I found reading the English
translations in a songbook distracting, so I
made up and sang my own words of love to
Swami, using the music of the bhajans as they
were being sung. (Nowadays, many centers
have a screen projecting the song words, with
their English translations, which is helpful
and inclusive).
At the time, the center devotional
program would occasionally include “Love
Is My Form” or a couple of other English
songs, but this was infrequent and limited
to only one English song per meeting. So,
when I would attend, I would consistently
complain internally to Swami, asking why
was there no singing of English songs, when
everyone spoke English.
My thought was that the singers were
performing a service when they sang. They
were singing to uplift the group, which could
be done in either language. At that early
point it was entirely too intimidating for me
to consider leading an English song, as I had
never sung publicly.
Michael: When my wife, Susan, first
introduced me to a Sai center in early
1999, I was unimpressed and not inclined
to go back. The center felt very strange to
me, even though I had spent several years
with a Zen Buddhist sangha (community),
and many visits with a Native American
(Lakota) medicine man, participating in holy
ceremonies in South Dakota.
I look back at my confusion, which
stemmed from experiencing unfamiliar
and baffling sights, such as an altar with
unfamiliar religious icons, an empty chair,
a picture of feet with slippers that people
touched and kissed, study circles making
references to foreign writings, songs sung in
foreign languages, and so on.
I wonder how much more comfortable
I might have felt if the rituals had been
explained by an official. I regularly saw
Americans come once – and not come
back. Now I wonder how many American
newcomers might have experienced what I
did and had no desire to return. I returned
only because of Susan.
Susan first went to Puttaparthi with a
group in late 1999; they had three interviews
in ten days. The group returned home very
united by their experiences and decided to
meet monthly to render service and enjoy
a potluck meal and share Sai experiences. I
joined these activities. Although I still had
no clue who Sai Baba was, I immediately felt
at home with the group. I felt these were the
kind of people I wanted to be with.
The personal interaction with the lovely
and loving people in the group that Susan
38 Sathya Sai Newsletter, USA