For many years I have been practicing Sanskrit mantras and Christian prayers at the same time. Some of the prayers I repeated were from church prayer books, and some I received from the elders. I felt the practice of Christian prayer has amazing energy power. In parallel with this, I have always liked Sanskrit mantras.
At some point, I began to think about how to properly combine the practice of Christian prayer with mantras. I was filled with doubts about whether it was even possible to combine two such different practices.
At that time, I was living in Puttaparthi, and I learned about another interesting Sanskrit hymn called Narayana Upanishad. I began to carefully read this sacred text; it made a great impression on me, both in content and in the beauty of its sound.
Among the many Vedic texts, Sathya Sai Baba singled out Narayana Upanishad in particular, so all the students at his university carefully studied it and even learned it by heart.
The Narayana Upanishad is a small scripture, profound in its philosophical content, amazing in its rhythm and poetic style. I came into contact with this text at the very time when I was thinking about how I could combine Christian prayer with mantra practices.
I came to the mandir, and as usual the evening program began when Sathya Sai Baba came out and sat down in his chair. One of the lecturers at the university began the lecture. At this time Sathya Sai Baba was attentively looking into the hall and closely scrutinizing all those present.
At some point Sathya Sai Baba looked at me. There were quite a lot of people in the mandir, and I was sitting close to the center, and if Sathya Sai Baba looked at me, it could be easily noticed. It began to seem to me that he was reading my thoughts, and subsequent events confirmed I was not mistaken.
Suddenly, Sathya Sai Baba interrupted the lecture and invited a college student to come to the middle of the temple; everyone present was silent in anticipation. A microphone was placed in front of the student, and the boy sang the Narayana Upanishad as a memento. This event literally shocked me because I was sitting and thinking about Narayana Upanishad.
After that, the teacher came out to the microphone and said it was no coincidence that Sathya Sai Baba asked this student to sing the Narayana Upanishad. The teacher said, “there is one important detail, it is that this boy is not a Hindu.” Outwardly, he looked quite like a Hindu; in fact, he was an Iranian, was born in a Muslim family, and together with his family he moved to India a long time ago.
Being an Iranian and a Muslim, this student practiced the prayers of the Islamic religion every day, performed Namaz, however, this did not prevent him from studying Sanskrit and Vedic philosophy, as well as chanting the Narayana Upanishad daily. For me it was a complete revelation, it was a clear and exhaustive answer to my doubts.
Sathya Sai Baba had the colossal ability to literally scan the minds of the thousands of people who sat before him. Every action, every gesture he made was always a response to the thoughts, doubts, and questions of someone present.