Sathya Sai Baba. Supernatural Experiences and Divine Transformation. Book Three
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7. Holy Night of Shiva and materialization of the Lingam
By the time I first met Sathya Sai Baba in ‘90s, I was already aware of various yoga traditions and spiritual teachers. I was seriously practicing meditation and studying Vedic philosophy. Back in Moscow, when I saw the video recording of Sathya Sai Baba and learned the stories of his amazing life, I instantly felt his colossal energy and power.
Several of my friends told me he is the Avatar of our age. It was difficult for me to understand what this meant, but it was clear that Sathya Sai Baba was a supreme being incomprehensible to my mind.
At that time, I was a Shaivite. Lord Shiva was for me the personification of all higher realizations and transcendental wisdom. When I first saw videos of Sathya Sai Baba and heard stories about his life, I felt he must be the incarnation of Lord Shiva.
One of the most important holidays celebrated in the ashram is Shiva's sacred night, Shivaratri. The exact date of this holiday is calculated according to the lunar calendar. That is why in different years the holiday is celebrated on different days. Most often this happens in the second half of February or in the first half of March.
The symbolism of the holiday is very deep. On this sacred night the wedding of God Shiva and Goddess Parvati takes place. The wedding of the Gods means the unity of Absolute Consciousness and Cosmic Energy, as well as the unity of the spiritual and material in the life of every person. In various yoga traditions, this is considered the most important night for the practice of meditation.
For many years on the sacred night of Shivaratri, Sathya Sai Baba materialized from his mouth a golden Lingam. A Lingam is an egg-shaped object made of stone or metal alloy. It’s a symbol of cosmic egg, source of the entire universe.
There are many videos of Sathya Sai Baba performing this miracle of materialization. Outwardly, it looked as if a golden egg inexplicably popped out of his mouth, but in fact, at first it materialized in his stomach as a clot of divine light. Then the energy rose up through his body and only in the mouth it turned into an egg-shaped golden Lingam.
In the early 70s, on the sacred night of Shivaratri, Sathya Sai Baba again materialized a Lingam. After that, he said, “this is the great Lingam, which was described in ancient times by the sage Kapila.” He then addressed the audience and affirmed all the people present, saying they were there at the time of the birth of this Lingam because they had reached the highest point of their development and were now freed from the cycle of birth and death.
I heard this amazing story from those who were directly present at this event. Think about it, people came to this Shivaratri festival with nothing foretold about such an unusual event about to happen only to become witnesses to Sathya Sai Baba materializing a wonderful Lingam from his mouth and being told they each had reached the highest point of their development upon seeing this great object of power and had now found liberation from the cycle of birth and death.
How to relate to these strange and mysterious words? Is it possible to just attend the Shivaratri festival and gain complete liberation? Such statements can only be made by Sathya Sai Baba, who is the highest divine incarnation. His words possess absolute divine power.
8. Mystery of the Cosmic Egg
In many parts of India there are temples of Shiva, in which Lingams of various shapes and sizes are placed on the altars, from the smallest that can fit in the palm of your hand to gigantic ones, the size of an entire house.
Lingam worship is one of the most mysterious aspects of Vedic mysticism. There are many speculations and misunderstandings around the symbolism of the Lingam. The Lingam outwardly looks like a golden egg. The egg is a symbol of the "cosmic source" from which the entire universe emerged.
Probably in the symbolism of the Lingam, we can see the simple and uncomplicated figurative thinking of those ancient people who first noticed how life appeared from a chicken, ostrich, or crocodile egg. Birds and reptiles produce offspring from the egg, so it is obvious that this reproductive form has become a prototype of the great cosmic source of vitality. The symbolism of the cosmic egg has manifested into the framework of many cultures of the world, including ancient Slavic legends and myths.
Over the years, Sathya Sai Baba has materialized many different Lingams for the Shivaratri festival, thereby proclaiming the significance of this tradition.
Quite often, after Sathya Sai Baba materialized another wonderful Lingam, he made a speech in which he explained the deep symbolic meaning of this greatest object of power.
The egg-shaped form of the Lingam is the absolute divine consciousness. Of course, God cannot be limited by form, but it is the perfect form of the Lingam that can serve as an image of absolute perfection.
Sathya Sai Baba performed all sorts of amazing miracles; the birth of Lingams was one of them. I so often saw the manifestation of his
The Lingam is a symbol of the divine source of all things in the universe. The Lingams materialized by Sathya Sai Baba were of different materials, and they appeared as gold or silver. It would be a big mistake to assume that these objects are metal in the usual sense of the word. These Lingams were not man-made, they appeared from the depths of the divine consciousness, therefore they could be made from materials not of earthly origin at all.
When I first saw a materialized object, I was extremely surprised. Subsequently, when I managed to see a huge number of such objects and a large number of times to witness the very process of materialization, I ceased to be surprised at this. I think it is necessary to keep the amazing miracles of Sathya Sai Baba in your memory, but first of all, you need to see in them their deep, symbolic meaning.
Let's ask ourselves why Sathya Sai Baba materialized various objects so much? What was their meaning? It is unlikely that anyone will be able to understand the Avatar's intent – we can only speculate. All the objects that Sathya Sai Baba materialized first appeared in his mind as thought forms.