Do We Need Each Other? Reflecting on Aradhana Day
Hineh mah tov umah na’im shevet achim gam yachad
Behold how good and how pleasing it is for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity!
-Book of Psalms 133:1
I’ll never forget the moment I realized that Baba was leaving His physical body for good. I was sitting in a coffeeshop, frantically scouring the internet for some sign of hope. But then I saw that relatives had been summoned. I called my mother, dabbing at my tears with a rough paper napkin. “If it’s time, then it’s time,” she said. “It’s His will. It would be selfish for you to want Him to stay.”
I remember how the news shook the global Sai community like an earthquake. From the other side of the world, I wondered, what will we do without You? Surely, devotees would be more united in the wake of this. Don’t we need each other?
Fifteen years later, having witnessed the fragmentation in our spiritual fraternity both locally and globally, I wonder if we have forgotten how much the Divine parent loves to see His children united, bound together in love of God and each other.
As for me, I am still training my stubborn individual will to submit to the Divine Will. Nowhere is this more difficult for me than in learning how to be part of a community. In our highly individualized modern lives, siloed away with our devices, buttressed by “therapyspeak”, we tend to seek comfort and ease. This often means avoiding people, and all the friction and inconvenience they entail.
An introvert by nature, I love my own company. I like quiet and order at home, everything in its place. I’m sensitive and irritable, with nerves that vibrate long and loud after a disturbance. Recently, some poorly chosen words from a fellow believer lived at the forefront of my thoughts for days. I considered quitting. I didn’t. I don’t think it would be pleasing to God that I avoid all contact with the faithful, just because they sometimes vex me.
Do we actually need a sangha, a group of fellow practitioners? I don’t know what the “payoff” is in tangible terms. Psychologists and anthropologists have studied and written about the benefits of community at length. All I know is that it is pleasing to God if I suspend my own limitations and try to love beyond myself.
Where do we seek the living Lord now? I doubt that a Divine revelation will appear in my phone, performance review, or bank account. Maybe He is just on the other side of my triggers. He might show Himself in a reconciled disagreement, a magnanimous gesture, or the forgiveness of a slight. I’ve discovered that “Sai Ram” can also be expressed as “I’m sorry”, “thank you”, and “I’m here for you”.
Always consider the faults of others, however big, to be insignificant and negligible. Always consider your own faults, however insignificant and negligible, to be big, and feel sad and repentant. By these means, you avoid developing bigger faults and defects and you acquire the qualities of brotherliness and forbearance.
-Prema Vahini, Chp 19
Is this the foundation of the Divine legacy? Maybe He lives on through us: an expansive, robust, healthy, loving community that serves as one heart with many hands.
It’s possible that all of our differences are just kindling, cultural and relational friction meant to eventually spark love, not conflict. Maybe the only way we can truly see our way in this age is to stand next to each other, like thousands of tiny candles arranged to light up the world with a mighty radiance. Maybe our dissonances are destined to resolve into harmonies, with a resonance outlasting the notes of our mortal lives.
Behold! How pleasing it is to Him that we live together in love.