Book of the week - So Many Ways to Love

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So Many Ways to Love

By Elizabeth BensonSai Towers Publishing; 200180 pagesISBN: 81-86822-92-5

 

This book is about the life of a person who grew up in New Zealand in a large

family in a small town and how she went through different phases of life.  She

experienced love through different relationships and was frustrated and

disappointed, until she reached out to Sri Sathya Sai Baba.  As most of us go

through the journey of life with it's pleasures and pains and still never

experience ever-lasting peace and joy until we take refuge in god, the author

did the same.  She writes about the new direction, attitude and bliss she found

with His grace and guidance on every day basis. The author describes very

honestly about her disappointments from the social world and admits being

overpowered by inner enemies, especially the anger and ego.  She narrates her

frequent visits to different religious institutions during her travels between

New Zealand and Australia in search of Self-fulfillment on the path of

spirituality.  She describes how

much love she experienced on her first visit to Sri Sathya Sai Baba.  After

experiencing Sri Sai Baba's grace and blessings, she learnt how to accept

people as they are without becoming critical.  She also got herself more active

in selfless activities in the society.  She discovered a new purpose in life and

found harmony with all living beings. The book reflects on the life of a person

who was disappointed from the physical relationships in the society until

finally she finds long lasting love at the feet of Sri Sai Baba.  She finds

once again the world as a university to educate and transform us by following

Baba's principle teaching of  "LOVE ALL, SERVE ALL."  The book will help the

readers to inspire and transform into positive human beings – who will be loved

by the society and the Creator, the God.

http://www.saibooks.org/newsletters/2001/aug01.htm

 

 

A devotee who was greatly attached to his guru and rightly regarded him as an

avatar of God was confused when Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba was also claimed

as the avatar of God. How can there be two avatars as contemporaries, he

wondered. He put the problem before Baba Himself. Bhagawan clarified: "Your

guru is Vyakti Nath ie., the Avatar for selected individuals; I am Loka Nath

ie., the Avatar for the whole world."

 

Indeed the sweep of Bhagawan's loving grace is so wide that it touches and draws

thousands of ordinary people (with latent propensities for spiritual progress

and self realisation) across the five continents into His fold.

 

One of those who was so drawn to Bhagawan was the author of this book. She was

born in a small town in New Zealand in a middle class family who could not

afford to send her beyond the local high school. But she was given so much love

that she was quite happy. However somewhere in her heart there was a feeling

that love can be even deeper in its intensity and much wider in its scope.

 

Life teaches her that it is indeed so and with expanding love she leads a happy

enough married life with her drunkard husband and her three children for more

than two decades.

 

But the inherent thirst for true love helps her to cut her ties with her husband

and move on. She had embraced Catholic Christianity after her marriage and after

leaving her husband attended a spiritualist church. Gradually at her own pace

she progresses with self analysis of her attitudes and approaches to people and

problems.

 

Life presents experiences even involving a spirit of a man who died long long

ago. She learns to love more and more beings due to her expanding empathy and

even experiences some supernaturally glorious moments of truly divine love.

 

In 1995 it was time enough to come to Prasanthi Nilayam and have Bhagawan's

physical darshan. She has inner views of His omnipresence though not

interviews. However she experiences His divine love through so many people and

miraculous incidents, and tries to share it with others through service

activities.

 

This is a useful book for all average spiritual aspirants. There are no

spiritual peaks that they can only gaze at but not hope to scale. It is a

spiritual travelogue which they can enjoy and use for their own travels in the

inner realms of the soul.

(Spiritual Impressions, Jul-Aug 2001, pag. 62)

 

 

The book is available at:

 

Sai Towers Publishinghttp://puttaparthi.info/shopping/shp/bookdetail.asp?itemid=B1058

 

Sri Sathya Sai Book and Information Centre, Toronto, Canada

http://www.saibooks.org/

 

Jai Sai Ram Books

http://www.jaisairambooks.com/JaiSaiRamBooks.html

 

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