I FIRST SAW SAI BABA WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN OF 24. I had the privilege of spending much of 1977 at His lotus feet and visited Him annually for the following eleven years. Around a thousand or so darshans later, in 1997, I still had no group or personal interview. When I stated this fact, it elicited strong and varied responses from Sai devotees. Such responses included sympathy, confusion, questions about what I may or may not have done in this life or the previous one, gratitude for one’s good fortune, anxiety about one’s future prospects of physical contact with the Avatar, and so forth.
Swami! Interview Pleeeeeease!
All these reactions have gone through my mind as well. Despite my best efforts, the coveted interview eluded me. When my father and I visited Swami, my father received an interview alone on the first day. I took a group to Puttaparthi once, and only a few members were selected for interviews–but not me. I was the president of a local Sai Center for four years. I attended every darshan possible during my visits and joined several groups at the Ashram. And I begged…
It would be unfair to say that Swami ignored me during those ten years. I attended two Summer Courses, and He spoke to me occasionally in the darshan lines. Once, He tossed me a plum from the Prasad tray in Whitefield. He blessed my marriage by sprinkling vibhuti on our wedding rings, and He let my wife and I become donors for a room in the Ashram, which assured us accommodation throughout our lives. From a distance, He blessed me with health, wealth, love, and good work. But mostly, His sacred gift was a burning yearning in my heart for Him.
However, the unspoken precondition in my heart for a lifetime of devotion to Swami was an interview.
A Change of Guru?
Eleven years after my first darshan in 1988, I stopped visiting Puttaparthi and became closely associated with another spiritual teacher living in India. The physical attention I received was a balm for my aching heart. I thought that perhaps my sadguru was not Sathya Sai Baba because He kept me at arm’s length. I put the entire dilemma at Swami’s feet. During the next ten years, when I was with the other teacher, Swami kept coming into my dreams at critical moments, and I felt guided by His invisible hand. I learned much in the university of life.
In December 1997, I received a book on the life of Krishna and found myself reading it passionately and wanting to see Swami again. The life of Krishna and the life of Sai felt so similar to me. I unconsciously avoided reading books on Sai during those ten years because of the painful yearning in my heart. I read how Krishna sent Uddhava to the Gopis to alleviate their anguish by teaching them about Krishna’s universal presence in their hearts. Something clicked in my mind. Maybe there was a solution to my suffering, but it was not the interview. I resolved to visit Sai Baba the following month.
Invitation to The Heart
However, this was not going to be an easy trip. The unfamiliar heat in India, low-grade flu, and loneliness set in. The discipline of silence increased the pressure. I tried to move up my departure date from India, but the airline refused to cooperate. I was caught in the clutches of the Avatar! Swami provided timely compensation for my suffering by giving me glances, taking my letters, letting me touch His robe, showering sacred turmeric rice, and other gifts of grace. I read a book a day from among the many writings of senior devotees relating their inspiring experiences with Sai. I called my wife every two days from the new long-distance phones in the Ashram.
When my mind wanders to worldly matters, I remind myself that there is nothing I would rather do than see His form or hear His name.
The emotional dam broke after two weeks when my sore throat robbed me of two nights’ sleep. I went to darshan dispirited, secured a corner, front-row spot, and sat. Swami came by and glanced at my face, chest, and again at my face. From that moment onward, I had no more throat pain. This miracle of love burst through my consciousness and made me feel that perhaps Swami loved me and was doing the needful all along, despite His seeming preoccupation with everything and everyone but me.
With two days left before returning home to the USA, I made a final appeal for an interview. I had a corner spot on the front row again. The man beside me, a resident of the Ashram, told me he heard Swami say to another Ashram resident: Those who will have an interview with this Avatar have been selected before the beginning of time! Undaunted, I prepared my speech. Swami made a wide arc around my spot, and I said, “Leaving in two days, Swami!” when He returned to the line. Swami simply said, “Yes, yes.” I was crushed.
I returned to my room and wept. I felt I was wasting my precious time with Swami in this fruitless pursuit. It would have been so easy for Him, just once in a thousand darshans, to give me an interview. I wrote a note to Swami and put it on my altar with the following wish: “Please do not let me leave Prasanthi Nilayam with this unhappy experience in my mind. After ten years of wandering, please bind my heart to You. Somehow, please stay permanently in my heart.” Internally, I had given up the interview as a condition for a lifetime of devotion.
Two darshans passed. On the morning of the final day of my stay, I was ninth in the token line and, miraculously, the second darshan row. Then Swami selected a group for an interview, including the man seated before me. I slipped into the front line. As Swami walked toward my spot, I wept and silently cried out, “Please stay permanently in my heart! Please stay permanently in my heart!” Swami stopped in front of me, placed both feet by my knees, and I held His feet and wept into His robe. The person beside me began to seize the same padnamaskar opportunity, but Swami discouraged him, giving me full attention. This was Swami’s goodbye blessing and the beginning of a new, deeper relationship with Him.
I have come to regard the intense yearning that Swami planted in my heart years ago, and in millions of other hearts just like mine, as the greatest gift of all.
The Blessing of Inner View
Beautiful things have happened since that visit. I occasionally hear the voice of the Lord, the antarvani, in my mind. In the threshold between sleeping and waking, I sometimes see His form. Meditation has also become a lot easier. When my mind wanders to worldly matters, I remind myself that there is nothing I would rather do than see His form or hear His name. Sometimes, I remember that holy padnamaskar on my last day in Prasanthi Nilayam. Though I never got the coveted interview, through my anguish, I was bestowed with an inner view.
Swami has repeatedly promised us that this Avatar will give us devotion, vitality, and liberation. This is an incredible blessing. Once we have the grace of knowing Him in this lifetime, we can surrender to His way. His pull is enormous. The terrible ache in the heart finds relief in inner devotion where nothing else matters. Therefore, may we look first to Him, surrender to His plans for us without preconditions, and receive His gifts of grace.
Postscript: Penned September 22, 2023
I am very grateful to Phil Gosselin, a dear friend, for finding this essay from 1998 in which I had written about my yearning for the interview. It contained many details which I had mostly forgotten. The article triggered a flood of emotions, especially the yearning, which is as strong today as it was back then. I am a clinical psychologist, and my last 25 years have been dedicated to bringing the profound contemplative wisdom of India into modern, scientific psychology. To do that, I immersed myself in Buddhist psychology, which is non-theistic and an easy fit with modern science. Serving Swami in this way felt like my swadharma, my personal dharma, and Swami made it all happen in wonderful and surprising ways. However, my heartache for Swami continued undiminished.
In 2021, just before I turned 69, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a profoundly loving and deep inner voice that said, “You have done your work; now be free.” From that day onward, my life changed. I lost interest in most worldly preoccupations and was catapulted into vanaprastha (life of a recluse or retirement stage of life). Although I still work in the afternoons, I love to get up in the morning, read Swami’s beautiful words, and then meditate on His divine name and form. That is when the heart can finally rest. More than ever, I have come to regard the intense yearning that Swami planted in my heart years ago, and in millions of other hearts just like mine, as the greatest gift of all. It is a pain for which the only medicine is to surrender every shred of selfhood at the feet of the Lord.
May Swami keep us all in His unconditional, pristine, and abiding divine love.
Jai Sai Ram!
Dr. Chris Germer came to Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba over 45 years ago. He is a clinical psychologist and lecturer on psychiatry (part-time) at Harvard Medical School. Chris co-developed the Mindful Self-Compassion training program that has been taught to over 250,000 people worldwide. He has authored or co-authored several landmark books on mindfulness and self-compassion. Dr. Germer is a founding faculty member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion, Harvard Medical School. He still maintains a small online psychotherapy practice.
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First published in Eternal Companion Vol. 2, Iss. 11