Letters to Swami

February 7, 2008

The late John Hislop writes in his book, "Seeking Divinity", page 92:

If you have sent letters to Swami, there might be some doubt in your mind as to whether or not Swami reads all those letters. I can tell you that no matter how tall the stack of letters, Swami reads every single one.

He does not sleep, because how can total awareness ever become unaware? He rests in his room, but He does not sleep. He draws the blinds so that the light does not attract people. If people thought He was awake, they would come out of their places, sit in front of Swami's house, and look up at his window. So He draws the shades quite tightly and then He reads all His mail. In the morning, the trusted boys take these letters down and burn every one of them.

Nobody sees the letters except Swami. They are not kept, they are burned.

Sometimes there would be too many letters to read, so He would bring them down in the morning. This particular day, I was sitting on the bench, and Swami came in. Instead of sitting on the chair as He usually does to open His letters, He sat on the floor.

When Swami looks at His mail, He usually sits in the chair. By the time He finishes, the floor is covered with scraps of torn paper. He tears open the envelope and pulls out the letter. On this occasion, since Swami was sitting on the floor and I was sitting on the bench at a higher level, I immediately got off the bench and sat on the floor, too. Swami said, "Hislop,why did you do that? Why are you sitting on the floor?" So I said, "Swami, a devotee is never supposed to sit at a higher level than the guru". Swami said, "Nonsense, Hislop, sit on the bench." So I sat on the bench.

He started to open letters. He looked at me, and said, "Hislop, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that I do not really read these letters." Swami is peculiar in the way He "reads" letters. He would open one letter, touch it, fold it in half, look at it, and throw it away. The next one, He would just touch, and He would not even open it. Then He would come to one, pull out the entire letter, and spend two or three minutes reading the whole thing very carefully.

Why one like that and not the others, I have no idea. But at any rate, He said, "I know Hislop. You think that I am not reading those letters". He said, "I'll show you. You come over here and sit beside Me." So I did. He took half a dozen letters and said, "Now this letter is from a certain place and it has a certain date on it and it starts out in this particular way." He would say this about the letter before it was opened. Then He would tear open the letter, hand it to me, I would look at it and see that what He said was exactly true. This was done about half a dozen times.

Om Sai Ram

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