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124 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
basic and primary tool of all therapists, allowing us to extend beyond ourselves to merge with the other, experience the other’s pain, and finally dissolve that pain with love’s life-giving force. Love is far more than a psychological feeling; it is said by Sai Baba to be the most basic principle of all creation—the principle that created, preserves and sustains the entire cosmos. This basic universal principle is also our own inner nature; it triumphs over suffering; it survives the grave—it extends us into eternity.
The following letter, written in English by Sathya Sai Baba to the students of his men’s Science and Arts College at Brindavan, describes in poetry a closeness not conceived of by Western psychology— a pure form of love experienced as oneness beyond duality. This oneness has an intriguing dimension. Although Sai Baba has had no formal education past age thirteen, and has lived all his life in a remote Indian village, observers report that he speaks all the major languages of the world. Sai Baba says that this represents his oneness with all knowledge. In this poem we see his profound grasp of the English language.
My dear boys,
Accept my blessing and love.
The footstep is the token of arrival
and departure:
and every farewell echo rings with expectation. Wakefulness and slumber lie in the eye together; and then when blindness comes deeper grows the vision. In the mind cohere thing
and nothing both; and on this bank of blankness
memory tells . . . beads. Life is a drawing-in of breath
and a giving-up:
the footstep is the token of..............................
My boys,
The bird with you, the
wing with me.