Glimpse of Swami - A Day like No Other

This happened more than a decade and half ago. It was one serene morning in the hallowed hamlet of Puttaparthi. As the Sun cleared the dispiriting clutter of the night with its pleasantly penetrating rays of soothing morning light, Bhagavan, with His divine darshan, had filled the devotees’ hearts with the warmth of His love. The bhajans ended as usual, at nine-thirty, and Swami retired to His room. The Ashram, again, was enveloped in powerful silence.

As the devotees dispersed carrying the serenity of the blissful morning in the chalices of their hearts, their minds and senses were submerged with only one thought: ‘when can I have the Lord’s darshan again?’ To hear the darshan music once more waft through the silent settings of Prasanthi Mandir and still their bliss-seeking souls, they knew they will have to wait at least five hours.

This would be true, had it been any other day. But on this day they were in for a pleasant surprise. It was eleven thirty in the morning and quite unexpectedly they heard the siren of the police pilot that precedes Swamis’ convoy! Suddenly there was excitement everywhere; it was as if the ashram was in one instant catapulted into fifth gear. Swami was on one of His ‘unscheduled’ drives around the Mandir, when at times He would go as far as the Super Specialty Hospital, located about five kilometers away.

But where exactly was He going that day? “Will He visit the Hostel?”, “or the Hospital?”, or “the School?” or “is it just a drive?” The guessing game was on in everyone’s mind. Either side of the road was bursting with devotees somehow trying to carve a little space for their necks so that they would not miss this bonus blessing of the day. All the children of the Easwaramma High School and students from the Hostel lined up on either side of the road. As His car reached near the hostel, it slowed down, and His hands were raised in blessing for all the beaming faces that thrust themselves to have a precious glimpse.

At that time, Sai Geetha, Swami’s pet-elephant, had a huge vaulted roofed enclosure right in front of the Senior Boys’ Hostel. Apparently, hearing the sound of the siren, she rushed towards the gate and had it not been for her caretaker, she would have crushed it. She was out on the road even before the boys lined up. She seemed unduly excited that day, making it difficult for her mahout to hold her in check. Swami’s car approached and Sai Geetha moved forward. Everyone there, who had seen Sai Geetha raise her trunk in salutation whenever she saw Swami, were witness that day to an unusual scene. Her stocky trunk lay heavily on the bonnet of the car. She refused to budge despite urgings. Her ears were flapping at an alarming rate; she seemed disturbed.

The glass door beside Swami slid down noiselessly and before anyone could crowd around, her trunk slickly slid off the bonnet into the window and ever so gently touched Swami’s cheek and hair. It was such a delicate, charming and sweet sight. A silence descended over the gathering. No one wanted to miss even a minutest mini-second of the divine play. Something subtle transpired between the two – maybe a message understood only by the truly pure-hearted - and she slowly withdrew her trunk from the window of the car. Next, at a signal from Swami, the boy seated in the front seat swiftly opened the door.

Swami stepped out of the car and immediately the flapping ears stilled to a gentle wave. She undulated backward as Swami moved towards her, murmuring endearments while her trunk reached to caress His feet. He touched her and the ones closest could see a ripple run across her huge frame as she rejoiced at the blessing. Only the ones in the closest proximity heard the sweet conversation between Sai and His beloved Geetha. Swami, in His sweet Telugu, spoke to her softly.

“Come on Geetha, I have to go,” He said, patting her trunk.

She protested softly and her trunk rose to lie on the bonnet again. It was a very loud “No!”

“I want to go Geetha, come on, come on, move,” said Swami, reaching up to stroke her cheek. And suddenly a diamond glistened, a dew drop that was the coalescence of her love for Him, a silent expression of her feelings: a tear found its way down the very cheek upon which His hand rested. As the students and devotees watched, more tears coursed down and wet His hand. He looked up at her and nodded understandingly. Her ears stood still, unmoving, her massive domed-head drooping.

“Okay, okay, I will not go!” said Swami sympathetically.

Immediately the ears moved a whisker. She had not stirred an inch. Perhaps she did not want to break the contact. Perhaps, she did not want her Lord to remove His hand. She stood motionless with her head bowed listening to her master.

“Go, go back to your shed,” said Swami, patting her and lowering His hand. She shook her head gently. It was again a big “No”.

“Will you go back if I return to the ashram?” asked Swami.

She stepped back a fraction – but only a fraction - her trunk still lay on the bonnet.

“Okay, okay, I will not go, I am going back to the ashram. Are you happy?” He asked her.

She visibly trembled with joy and replied in her own language in the affirmative. He, of course, understood.

“Good girl, good girl,” said Swami.

Sai is Overpowered by Sai Geetha’s Love

He then turned to the students and accepted a handkerchief. Turning back to her, He wiped her tears and looking at the boys again, He said aloud casually, “I had planned to go to Brindavan (Bangalore) today.”

The words came out of the blue! Dumbstruck, the boys just stared at Him. The exhilaration with which they were enjoying the divine romance just vaporized! The boys just ‘blinked’, for want of a better expression. “Swami was going to Brindavan? And none of us knew? No message, no hint whatsoever. We would have lost Swami?” All the boys stood there with their hands folded and heads baffled.

His gaze ran over all the boys. Using the same handkerchief to wipe His hand, Swami continued, “I wanted to go quietly without much ado, but look at her.” His eyes glanced at her and so did another hundred. “She knew it, she sensed it. She somehow figured out Swami was leaving and she was crying, Paapam (poor thing!)” He looked back at her, His eyes tracing her trunk which was now at His Feet. Some of the boys dropped their gaze and saw that she had gently moved aside the robe resting on the earth and was caressing the Lotus Feet. He gently, yet firmly, pushed her and she withdrew her worship.

“See ra, see!” He commented looking at the boys as He sat in the car. “She loves Swami so much that she can feel Swami’s feelings. She came to Swami when she was a small baby, so many years have passed, but see? Her love has only increased – expansion love. That is devotion.”

Devotion Turns ‘My Mind’ and ‘His Mind’ into ‘One Mind’

If you can feel for the Lord in every cell of your being; if you pine for Him every single second of your life; if nothing else interests you in this world except His form and proximity, then ‘my mind’ and ‘His mind’ will no longer exist, but will all become ‘One awareness’. You are then in perfect sync with God, just like Sai Geetha. Isn’t it incredible to see an animal having so much love for the Lord?

You can find parallels only in the ancient epics: in Hanuman, the greatest monkey-devotee of Lord Rama; or in Jatayu, the bird which sacrificed her life fighting for Mother Sita; or the cows of Gokul which became lifeless without food and drink if Krishna did not accompany them to the pastoral groves. You need not read the scriptures and imagine in your mind’s eye those beautiful scenes from the Bhagavatham to fill yourself with divine bliss. It is enough to just see Sai with His Geetha. The same divine leela is being replayed in this age. How fortunate we are! Sai Geetha’s life is a demonstration for all humanity of that pinnacle of deep love and surrender which every devotee of the Lord should one day ascend.

It was Time for the Sacred Saga to Unfold…

It was on a trip along with few devotees to the Muddumalai forest in 1962 that Swami first noticed the tender and tiny toy of joy that Sai Geetha was then. His love and affection for this infant elephant that had lost her mother immediately after her birth, was phenomenal. When the forest officers offered the elephant calf to Swami, He gladly accepted.

Soon arrangements were made and the little lady arrived in Puttaparthi in an airy and comfy vehicle escorted by four Sai volunteers. And since then the motherless child has never missed her parents. In fact, the love and warmth she has received, no other being in the whole animal kingdom - nay, the living kingdom - can dream of. She was blessed with a mother who made all other mothers in the world pale by comparison.

Yes, with Sai Geetha and Swami, from the beginning it has been a sweet mother-child relationship in every way. It was Swami who named her, fed and fondled her everyday, found medical experts to check on her, appointed people and allotted tasks to take care of her every need, and as a hardly three-feet cute kid she followed Swami everywhere, even into the interview room!

Years later, Swami confirmed this to Sri B. N. Narasimha Murthy when He said, “What you have seen is nothing, she used to come to my room along with me!” Her first living space was, in fact, right next to Swami’s bedroom.

A small shed with a thick cushion of sand-bed was constructed attached to the Prasanthi Mandir on the western side wall and Swami could see her anytime from His bedroom. Sai Geetha grew, enveloped in His loving and guarding grace, into a disciplined and devoted soul. She was an example to emulate even as a kid.

Daily ‘Appointment’ with God

Recalling the fun ’n’ frolic days of Sai Geetha, Mrs. Geetha Mohan Ram, who came to Swami as early as 1943, says:

“I have wonderful memories of Sai Geetha, the baby elephant, when she was first brought to Puttaparthi. We, the children, would follow her everywhere in the days of old when hardly a few hundred people would be present in the ashram. We were always amazed at her one-pointed devotion to Swami and her excitement as soon as she could sense His presence even from a distance. Swami, in those days, would quite often visit her shed and she would ‘know’ Swami was coming even before we had spotted Him.

“She would be up early in the morning at three and having been taken for a bath in the River Chitravati by the then caretaker Murali, would arrive looking very neat with the Naamam and Kumkum on her forehead to run around the Prasanthi Nilayam Mandir with us behind her circumambulating the sanctum sanctorum three times every morning. After this, she would patiently wait for Swami to come out near the lotus circle of the old days (where the students’ Vedam group now sit); and as soon as she spotted Swami she would spring forward to garland Him and touch His beloved Feet with her trunk.”

“This has never changed over the years,” Sri Pedda Reddy, her current caretaker confides and continues, “Though her agility, with age, has reduced. Even now, the first thing she does whenever she gets a chance to be in His presence is touch His Feet.”

Her Pure Devotion and the Lord: A Match Made in Heaven

In the early sixties, the regular evening ‘appointment’ of Swami with Sai Geetha was a sight which devotees looked forward to with great anticipation and elation. She would wait at the gate on the ladies’ side (where Swami’s car now enters Sai Kulwant Hall) and if for some reason Darshan was delayed, she would get very impatient. Twisting and twirling her tiny trunk, intermittently flapping her lotus-leaf-sized ears vigorously, and her swift and strong legs jumpy and restless, she would eagerly look at the Mandir unable to bear the delay.When Swami came, it was a divine thrill in totality, not only for Sai Geetha, but for every devotee witnessing the sublime play of pure love. Swami would first walk up to her and she would almost kneel down – her hind legs half-bent and front legs folded to the maximum extent possible. Her height now would be a mere two feet, and she would lift her tiny trunk up and down three times in salutation. After she had offered her prostrations at His feet, she would take a garland, raise her nimble trunk over the five feet frame of her beloved very carefully, and then with lots of glee slip it down Swami’s opulent hair onto His shoulders. Swami, in turn, would flash an enchanting smile, pat her cheeks so affectionately and would start speaking to her softly.

Time would stand still watching the Lord so much at ease with His dear devotee. Like a teacher who is never tired of talking to his best student, the Lord too is most happy to be with His perfect devotee. Swami would then feed her. There would be a bag full of fruits (all offered at the shrine in the Mandir) and a bucket of Teertham (consecrated liquid) for her to drink.

One by one, Swami would put each apple (her favourite) in her mouth and she would want to be fed no other way. “Even to this day,” Sri Pedda Reddy says, “she will not accept fruits from Swami on her trunk, she will insist that Swami put it personally in her mouth. But if it were anybody else, she will either refuse it or accept it only in her trunk.” Just like a child who is most comfortable and secure with her mother, Sai Geetha is in ‘peace and bliss’ only with her Swami.

The Neighbourhood of God

Only after Swami had spent considerable time with her, would she reluctantly let Him go and continue the Darshan every evening. So, this is the drama that used to go on for many years when she was still a ‘teenager’. Those days, she lived just next door and it was as if she was sharing the Mandir with Swami. But as the number of devotees multiplied, Sai Geetha had to be shifted and Swami instructed an ashram officer to erect a shed for her on the northern end of the Mandir facing Bhagavan’s residence, just in front of the Gopuram (where the idols of Lord Rama, Lakshmana and Sita now stand).

Her small enclosure was airy, had a drinking well beside it, but faced the East, which meant Sai Geetha could not see Swami during Darshan. And this is something she could not bear; the face of her home had to face south for her to watch Swami coming in and out of the Mandir. Apparently, Sai Geetha was so upset with the orientation of her new shed that in a rage one day, she brought the whole tin-and-concrete structure down with her massive trunk and sheer muscle power. The officer was, of course, later reprimanded for ineffectively executing Swami’s command and Sai Geetha, in no time, had a new room which faced the South. The happy elephant could now see Swami uninterruptedly directly from her home.

Sai Geetha spent many good years in this home close to the Mandir during the late sixties and early seventies. But when preparations began for the fiftieth birthday celebrations of Bhagavan in 1975, Sai Geetha had to be moved from the Mandir premises to accommodate the mammoth crowd expected. (It was during this birthday that Swami gave darshan to the teeming crowds from a helicopter). Now, she was placed in a big shed in the South West corner of the ashram.

Rocks and Boulders – Not a Barrier

It was in this year that the Sri Sathya Sai Gokulam was inaugurated by Swami and soon Sai Geetha was relocated to live with the cows. For the first time, she was physically far away from her beloved, but that never diminished her devotion for her Lord even by an iota. Narrating a revealing incident during her stay in the Gokulam, Sri Pedda Reddy says:

“It was the year 1976. The primary school and the college buildings were under construction and these structures were coming up at the foot of two hills. The terrain was obviously undulating with big rocks, sharp-edged boulders and thorns. On Swami’s bidding, the engineers had constructed a bund (barrier) which would facilitate the accumulation of water flowing down the hill. It was primarily meant for the buffaloes of the Gokulam to ‘cool off’ and bathe with pleasure. The distance between the Primary School work site, where Swami would visit occasionally to oversee the construction work, and Gokulam, where Sai Geetha lived with other cows, was around four hundred meters. One day, when Swami was on one such inspection tour to the school site, Sai Geetha somehow felt His presence and immediately set herself free and ran in Bhagavan’s direction. Absolutely unmindful of the terrible terrain, she jumped across rocks, bounced on the boulders, cared least for the bund and in minutes crossed the half-kilometer ‘hurdle track’; and once at the feet of Bhagavan, she bowed down obsequiously and was a picture of peace and serenity. Swami was deeply moved with her love and devotion. He lovingly cared for her, caressed her and said to all the devotees around, ‘See her devotion, in comparison you are all dunnapotus (buffaloes).’”

Though an animal, truly Sai Geetha has divine instincts and we, though human by birth, give way to animal instincts many a time. Perhaps, one of the most profound demonstrations of her steadfast dedication and purity of devotion was an event that happened in the eighties.

This was the time when Sai Geetha was staying in the high-rise shed constructed exclusively for her in front of the Senior Boys’ Hostel. She was moved here once the number of cows increased in Gokulam and a greater need was felt to give her more space, and increasing attention. The Central Trust then purchased this additional piece of land in front of the Hostel and thus was born this spacious fifteen-foot enclosure padded with thick beds of sand, surrounded by coconut trees and actually nestled in a mangrove. It had plenty of space for her to rove and relax in. Moreover the adjoining extra land was cultivated for her fodder. Of course, Sai Geetha was bereft of any company here but that is how she wanted her life to be. She was happy when alone, happier with her caretaker and happiest when Swami was beside her.

“She has come only for Swami” - Baba

It was during this time that certain elders mentioned to Swami the idea of sending her to the forest for a short while for breeding. Swami, from the start, never seemed convinced about the proposal. Nevertheless, He gave in, thanks to the dogged persuasion of senior members of the ashram. And so it happened that the reluctant Sai Geetha was sent to the forest along with two caretakers, Vasant Rao and Sathyanarayana. “It was a thirteen-day journey by walking with sufficient periods of rest on the way at various locations,” recollects Sathyanarayana.

“Once we were there,” continues the former mahout, “Sai Geetha was least interested in any elephant of the jungle; she would never go near the elephants of the wild, let alone to find a companion. We used to keep two baby elephants around her to kindle in her the desire to have a ‘family’; but she would allow the small ones to be with her as long as we were around and once we were out of sight, she would disinterestedly drive them away.

“On many nights, she would even quietly escape from the jungle and sure enough, she would be on the road to Puttaparthi. We would follow her big footprints and identification marks left on the soil by the thick iron ring and chain, to find her the next morning, usually six to seven kilometers away. It went on in this fashion for three months; nothing could ever budge her focus from Swami even to a microscopic extent.” The mahouts had exhausted all the options.

“It was at this juncture,” continues Sathyanarayana, “that Swami visited the Mudhumalai forest one fine day, totally unanticipated. The forest had a canal and Swami’s car stopped at the left bank while we were on the right bank. The moment I shouted ‘Swami has come’, Sai Geetha, who was grazing nearby, acted as if possessed by a gigantic force. Without a second thought, she jumped into the canal and started swimming vigorously. Concerned about her, I too jumped and tried to catch hold of her ears or neck, but nothing could stop her that day. If we reached the other shore safely that momentous morning, it was purely His grace.

“Swami immediately opened the door and Sai Geetha was in bliss as Swami fondled her, patted her and enquiringly spoke to her with utmost love and concern. It was as if the mother had found her long-lost daughter. There were bags of fruits for her in the car and Swami lovingly put a few apples in her mouth. Sai Geetha was too overwhelmed with joy to eat; she just let them be in her jaws, did not even chew or swallow them.

“After a few minutes, Swami got inside His car with instructions to me that we should stay on for some more time, and as the car moved off, poor Sai Geetha’s condition became pathetic. She just could not accept it. It was as if she was dropped from heaven into hell in an instant. She spat out all the fruits and started crying loudly. I had never seen anybody so depressed earlier in my life. I too wept. We were helpless. She was inconsolable. Dejected to the hilt, she went on grumbling; and from then on her ‘night escapades’ to Puttaparthi became more frequent..

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