Foreword
by N. Kasturi
Dear
Reader!
The
Bhagavatha is a dialogue between a person under
the sentence of death and a great saint, who prepared him
to meet it. We are all under a sentence of death; our
hearts, like muffled drums, are beating funeral marches
to the grave. Some reach it late, some soon. We require
the counsel of a great saint, to prepare us too, for
meeting death and witness the horizon beyond.
The
Bhagavatha is a Ganga, emerging from the
Lord, and merging in Him, after a long journey through
geographic descriptions, historic annals, philosophic
disquisitions, hagiological narratives, epistemologic
enquiries, and after fertilising the vast valleys of
human minds, with the pure pellucid waters of
Krishna-episodes.
Bhagavân
has come again as Sathya Sai for the revival of
dharma among men; one important aspect of that
revival is the re-establishment of reverence for the
ancient spiritual texts, like the Bible, the
Koran, the Zend-Avesta, the
Tripitaka,
the Vedas
and the Bhagavatha. Reverence can spring at the
present time, only when the inner meaning of the
statements and stories is explained in clear, simple,
charming style by the very person who inspired the
original scripture.
Here,
in this book, we have His version of that voluminous
textbook of bhakti,
which Vyâsa
composed at the suggestion of sage Nârada,
so that he may win peace and equanimity.
This is
not just a book, dear reader. It is a balm, a key, a
mantra - to soften, solve and save, to loosen the
bonds, to liberate from grief and pain, thirst and
tutelage.
Open it
with humility, read it with diligence, revere it with
devotion, observe its lessons with steadfastness and
reach the goal that Vyâsa reached and
Nârada attained, that S'uka taught
and Parîkchit learnt. What greater
recompense can man hope for? [See also
SSS
- IV: Words with wings, part
b]
Translated
by N. Kasturi.
Prasanthi Nilayam, Guru Pournima,
18-7-1970.
contents
of this Vahini
| next
page