http://www.saibooks.org/newsletters/2002/apr02.htm

Bapu to Baba

By V.K. Narasimhan, Published by Sai Towers Publishing, 3/497, Main Road, Prasanthi Nilayam, 515 134, India, pp. 170

The first edition of Bapu to Baba was published in November 1985, as an offering to Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba on His sixtieth birthday. The present edition is a reprint with a few additional articles on Bhagavan Baba and His global Mission to unify and spiritualise mankind.

The author is a well known journalist with more than half a century of association with leading national dailies. At present, he is the Editor of Bhavana’s Spiritual Journal, Sanathana Sarathi.

The book is a collection of 36 articles which bear testimony to the author’s deep concern for freedom, social justice and moral virtues.

The first article “A Journalist’s Odyssey” is an expansion of the title. He is fortunate to have been born in one of the stirring moments of Indian History. In the 1920s, Gandhi became the moving spirit of the Indian National Movement. As a young boy he was all enthusiasm for whatever Gandhi did.

As a college student, he read the collapse of the capitalist system and the Great Depression that gripped the European countries. The Soviet experiment sounded to be a promising alternative and he became a Marxist with the hope of a better world to be ushered in by the socialist system, “the community of working people enjoying the benefits of science and technology through the social ownership of the means of production.”

Looked at from the Marxist angle, even Gandhiji seemed to be an economic and social reactionary, more concerned with the moral means, than with vital economic social goals.

But the course of history – Stalinist Communism with its aggressive nationalism – did not fulfil the promises of the Marxist ideals. It was found to be more dangerous because of its complete control over the minds and resources of the people.

His critique of communism is worth quoting: “I felt, in particular, that the Communist doctrine of the end justifying the means and their avowed faith in violence as the means of social change were bound to prove self-defeating and could only produce a social and political system in which moral values were subordinate to political and personal ends. Above all, the doctrine of class war and class hatred, on which the entire Communism Movement had been built, seemed to me to be calculated to warp the minds of millions of people and breed an atmosphere of hatred which could not be conducive to the development of a healthy and harmonious social system.”

With this growing awareness, long it was not after he realised that the Gandhian approach to National and international problems was more enduring.

Narasimhan’s career as a journalist – 15 years prior to Independence and 33 years after Independence of the country – made him a personal witness to the universal collapse of morals and self-discipline that rapidly over took the country. He felt the supreme need of the country to recover the spirit of Gandhiji for ordering its life in every department, in Government and outside.

He identified in Bhagawan Baba the authentic spiritual leader from whom emanated the powerful moral force to rejuvenate not only the country but the entire world. Sri Sathya Sai Organization is the true World Body that achieves the unity of mankind in a common goal of love and service to fellowmen.

From: Spiritual Impressions, Puttaparthi, Sai Towers, Mar-Apr. 1997, pag. 70-71

Contents

Foreword
Preface to First Edition
Preface to Second Edition
Preface to Third Edition

Part I: Bapu to Baba
1. A Journalist's Odissey
2. The Unity of Mankind
3. Lamps of Love
4. The Quest for Unity
5. Teaching Should be a Sacred Sadhana
6. Human Values for Europe
7. Schooling for Excellence
8. Of Such is the Kingdom of Sathya Sai
9. Grow them Straight
10. Liberation - The Goal and the Means
11. Jai ! Sadgurudeva !
12. The Paradox Resolved
13. Service and the three Gunas
14. Prasanthi Nilayam Becomes Jyothi Nilayam
15. Silence, Speech and Sadhana
16. Global girdle of Light and Love
17. Awareness and Sadhana
18. With Bhagavan in 'Trayee Brindavan'
19. The Akhanda Bhajan Saga
20. Unto Sai a Witness
21. Baba - The Divine Sadguru
22. The Glory of Krishna and Baba
23. Your Message is Our Life

Part II: Perennial Relevance of the Sai Message
24. Looking Before and After
25. Let Truth Alone Win
26. Democracy and Individual Freedom
27. Moral Quality of the I.A.S.
28. Development-The Forgotten Factor
29. God in Man's Image
30. Practising Swami's Teachings
31. The Spiritual Path
32. A New Beginning
34. The Way to Happiness
34. Living for God
35. Time is God

The book is available at:

Sai Towers Publishing
http://puttaparthi.info/shopping/shp/bookdetail.asp?itemid=B1010

Sri Sathya Sai Book and Information Centre, Toronto, Canada
http://www.saibooks.org/

Sri Sathya Sai Books, UK
http://www.srisathyasaibooks.org.uk/

Sathya Sai Book Shop, Switzerland
http://beaskund.helloyou.ws/sathya/index.html

Jai Sai Ram Books
http://www.jaisairambooks.com/JaiSaiRamBooks.html