Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Independence and Indian Culture - Sri Sai Master's message on our Independence day!

Jai Sai Master!

Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought to; Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith let us; to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it- Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States (1809-1865)

We are celebrating our 65th year of Independence tomorrow. Many of us, may not give much importance to the word "freedom", as we have not yet experienced the same or we do not bother much of it. This is more so, as we have not understood what it means to us and we continue to live in our own small world, with boundaries and with fear and anxiety and other issues. 

Our country which lost its freedom around 12th century got its freedom in the year 1947 August 15th. Every country has a special character and so is India. India is known as land of spirituality and purely due to this, our country survived many an onslaught. Probably this is the only country where many religions are co-existing, peacefully, although we see some ups and downs here and there. On the whole, we embrace any religion or any faith, which is a hall mark of spiritual independence, the biggest factor for any country to stay on top. If one observers carefully, even though the Muslim kings died and their influence died, their religion stayed mostly due to Mahatmas like Hazrat Khwaja Moiddin Chisti and his disciples. Many Hindus visit these famous darga and they serve there too.

One of the tall leaders of freedom struggle, Sri Balagangadhar Tilak paid visits to Shegaon and Shirdi and took blessings of Sri Gajanan Maharaj and Sri Shirdi Sai Baba. When Sri Tilak asked Sri Shirdi Sai Baba on freedom, Sri Sai Baba told him that he did enough selflessly and told him to sleep. Sri Sai Baba also indicated that someone else who is responsible for that would come. As indicated, Mahathma Gandhi came after Sri Tilak died and he lead from the front the independence movement. Lord Krishna appeared to Sri Aurobindo when he was jailed and on Lord's command, an Ashram was constructed at Pondicherry and became a realised soul.