47. Maheshwarananda said that one should not waste time, but one should fully concentrate only on Sathya Sai Baba
When I came to Maheshwarananda for the first time, he was quite friendly and polite with me, but I felt he was not very interested in communication, because he devoted all his time to meditation practices. He politely said he was busy now and could not talk to me, and he asked me to come to him the next day.
Intuitively, I felt that he hoped I would not come. But the next day I did come. Realizing that he could not get rid of me, he asked why I had come and what I needed. I told him that I was from Russia, and that I had read his book. I also mentioned I was seriously interested in the practices of yoga, meditation, mantra and studying Sanskrit.
In the early ‘90s, quite a few people came to the ashram from Russia, and maybe he wanted to pay attention to the Russian person, maybe he was interested in the fact that I practiced mantras and Kriya Yoga. Whatever it was, he allowed me to come to him at any time. Gradually, very good friendly relations were established between us, although he was much older than me.
Maheshwarananda was an amazingly modest man. He told all his visitors, “you have a unique opportunity to see Sathya Sai Baba, feel his great energy of love, perhaps even communicate with him personally, there is no need to waste time in unnecessary communication. You should seize the precious opportunity and fully concentrate on Sathya Sai Baba alone.”
48. Even the sacred Himalayas could not compare to the divine power of Sathya Sai Baba
Maheshwarananda was born in northern India. At an early age he was initiated into traditional monasticism. Almost all his life he traveled the Himalayas, visited ashrams, talked with philosophers and yogis. This is how his life would have passed in traveling through the sacred Himalayas, if not for the meeting with Sathya Sai Baba.
Maheshwarananda told me that around the middle of the ‘70s, he learned about Sathya Sai Baba. In 1978, he first came to Puttaparthi. It was an absolutely unforgettable experience where Maheshwarananda realized his whole life had been in preparation for such a time as this. This was the most important meeting of his life, and he felt divine energies emanating from Sathya Sai Baba.
Maheshwarananda literally told me with tears in his eyes that even the sacred Himalayas could never compare with the divine power of Sathya Sai Baba. In 1978, he lived in Puttaparthi for a month and then returned to northern India, to the Himalayas. Four years later, in 1982, Maheshwarananda once again came to Puttaparthi with the thought that he would never leave Sathya Sai Baba again. To his great joy, Sathya Sai Baba blessed him to stay at the ashram forever.