Minds of the Great (November 1976)

 

What is the distinguishing mark of a great person?  How can we differentiate between the ordinary people and great perso­nalities?  If we look at both of them, we will apparantly find no difference between them like ordinary people, the great people also appear to have only two eyes and not more. Of course, if we want to speak figuratively, we may say that only the great personalities have the active inner eye, which perceives the God within themselves, which the other ordinary people are not able to see; but apart from this apparent imaginary difference, we cannot ordinarily find any physical difference between the ordinary people and the great personalities; but still they are called great people.  It is because of their great minds that people become great and are known to be great people.

The next question that arises is, what are the special features of the minds of the great?  In the drama known as Uttarrama-charita the poet has described the minds of the great as follows:-

Bhavbhuti, the author of the above drama, says, "Who can know the minds of the great, which are harder than the Vajra and which are more soft than the flower?"

Vajra is the misile of God badra. ft is supposed to be very strong and hard because - it was with this misile that India clipped off the wings of the mountains, who were formerly moving from place to place and causing nuisance to the people on the earth.  Vajia was therefore a standard of hardness and in order to show the hardness of the minds of the great, the poet says that they are even harder than Vajra.

The poet has also compared the minds of the great with a flower.  Just as he has taken the Vajra as a standard for hardness, similarly he has taken the flower as the standard of softness.  The flowers are no doubt very tender.  When they are plucked, they fade in no time.  They can be crushed very easily.  The heat is not their only enemy; but even the cold affects them adversely.  One Sanskrit shloka says:-

There is danger to the trees from (stormy) wind.  Similarly, there is danger to the lotus flowers, from the cold.  The tender­ness of the flowers is thus their special quality; but the poet says that the minds of the great are even more tender than the flowers!  Though thus it appears to be paradoxical, the minds of the great are harder than the Vajra and softer than the flowers!

 

There are various facts of the character and minds of the great.  One more trait of their mind has been described in another shloka as follows:

"This is my man and this is a stranger, these are the considerations of the narrow-minded people. Those who have got a very liberal mind, consider the whole world as their family." This is the meaning of the above shloka.  The terminology that we have used so far is, 'the minds of the great', while in the above shloka the poet has called those people as 'liberal minded people'.  Of course, for all practical purposes liberal-minded people, who consider the whole world as their family are also people with great minds and they also stand in line with the people having great minds.

If we look to the world history so far, we see that we have not yet crossed the border of national patriotism.  The leaders and dictators of all nations are fostering the love for their own country among the citizens of their country.  They are always appealing to them for sacrificing everything for the uplift of their own country.  This has no doubt resulted in producing patriotism for their mother country among the masses; but at the same time it has also resulted in generating a feeling of no concern about their neighbouring countries, if not a feeling of despise or hatred for them.  Under such circumstances, it is mighty difficult to get people, who will think about other countries as their own and will consider the whole world as their family, as explained in the shloka quoted above.

In spite of the extreme stress laid on nationalism by the political leaders, the great thinkers and philosophers of the world have considered the pros and cons of the wars between different countries of the world and the general unrest in the world.  As a solution to end all the economic and political woes of the world, they have made a proposal of a world state.  Though the idea of a world state is very attractive and an apparant solution to end all the tensions in the world, it has so far remained only an Utopain idea; but it may be recalled that this same idea is embo­died in the saying U3§%3

Our late Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru,  was a person  having a  broad   outlook and liberal views.  He spoke about non-alliance and neutrality of nations whenever possible and preached about international peace throughout his life.   He was a great figure in the international  field and his ideas to establish lasting world peace were received with great concern in all the international conferances,  that he attended during his life time; but due to the difference in theory and practice all his thoughts and preachings melted away, as he could not establish a lasting peace even with his immediate neighbours viz. China and Pakistan.  When Chou En Lia, the Prime Minister of China, came to India, Panditji gave the slogan of   "Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai"; but this myth was very soon exploded when China stabbed India in the back by launching an attack on our country from the North-East.

The further history, how Panditji took a great shock because of this incident and almost broke completely when he saw the defeat of his own principles before his very eyes in his own life time, is known to everybody and need not be traced here.  What we have to bear in mind is that the great minds or master minds with broad outlook are very rare in the international field and in the present day politics when the national pride has reached its zenith, it is difficult to generate such minds any more.

Because Panditji was an international figure, he voiced forth his ideas in public speeches in the international field; but though he was somewhat influenced by the western ideas, he was mainly a product of the India culture.  Dnyaneshwar, who was an advocate of the local languages, has wrote  meaning that this whole world is my home.  This may appear to be an expression of the Sanskrit saying  in Marathi; but he was a saint having a great mind and his behaviour during the short span of his life, shows his humbleness and liberal mindedness.  It will thus be seen that the ideas of the world state existed in India in the past ages and that inheritance was placed before the world by Panditji in a presentable form.

If we look to the life and behaviour of Shri Sai Baba, we feel that this principle of considering the whole world as his family, embodied in our Sanskrit and Prakrit literature was mas­tered completely by him.  He was sitting in the Masjid, but was maintaining an everlasting fire.  He was bringing together all the Hindus during their festivals.  He had combined in him the Hindu, Muslim and Parsee faith and tried to bring them all together. His command over the Quran and the Sanskrit scriptures is well-known and because of that he could establish real secularism in Shirdi in his own lifetime.

We, the Sai devotees, will be celebrating the Diwali festival this year as we do it every year.  In the villages, this festival was being celebrated by all the people irrespective of their caste and creed. The people of the so called upper classes, used to cook the sweet dishes -and entertain all others with them.  Even the religion was not a bar.  The people of other religious also would be called for the feast and entertained as other neighbours; but of late some political leaders made the people specially conscious of their caste and creed with the ulti­mate aim of stabilizing their leadership and.this has disrupted the tranquility of the village life.  The city life is not so interdepen­dent as that in the village and therefore a general tendency to remain aloof from the neighbours is also growing enormously in the cities.  Of course, the people in the cities are getting rather over-conscious of their privacy and they do not like to be disturbed by anybody.  All these circumstances have resulted in disrupting our social and political field; but this should not dishearten the Sai devotees.  They will always get enough inspiration from the life and teachings of Shri Sai Baba. 

Though Shri Sai Baba wanted all people to obtain Mukti (relief from the eternal cycle of birth and death) and though for that purpose He wanted that all should serve God and remember Him, still He did not want His devotees to renounce the worldly life. He wanted them to live this life quite happily, so that all their desires get fulfilled and they become free from desires.  He was himself joining the 'people in all the religious and social festivals; but was never distinguishing between persons and persons.  We, the Sai devotees should therefore bring into practice the teachings of Shri Sai Baba by celebrating this Diwali along with all our friends of different castes and creeds and thus try to cultivate the principle of considering the whole world as one's own family.  The minds of the great personalities, like Shri Sai Baba, have various facets and we, his followers have to try to imbibe in us slowly and slowly the traits of that master mind. Though the end of the world feuds is still far out of site, still the beginning has to be made, sometime or the other and as the beginning of all big things is usually small, celebration of Diwali in the above manner by the Sai devotees may prove to be the beginning of some international fraternity, as the Sai devotees of many castes and creeds are spread all over the world.