In his lectures, Sathya Sai Baba often spoke about the spiritual power of the practice of chanting the holy name of Jesus Christ. During one of the Christmas lectures, Sathya Sai Baba quoted wonderful words from the Apostolic Letters, which say that everyone who prays with the name of Jesus Christ will be heard and saved.
Sathya Sai Baba said there is a wonderful and simple way to practice the prayer of Jesus Christ, which is the constant repetition of his name: «Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.»
Sathya Sai Baba said at the very beginning of the spiritual path, it is difficult for a person to repeat a short prayer, i.e., just the name of Jesus, because the mind requires something more complex. Therefore, you can practice a longer version of this prayer: «Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.»
Sathya Sai Baba said if any other words of the Jesus Prayer appear in your heart, then trust your feeling, for God will guide you along the right path through intuition. The prayer that is more suitable for you can resound in your heart.
There are various assumptions about what the prayer to Jesus Christ looked like at the very beginning of the development of the Christian tradition. There is an assumption that the first generation of Christians prayed to Jesus Christ by saying his holy name: «Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,» or «Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ.»
This original form of prayer and meditation in the name of Jesus Christ is identical to that which Sathya Sai Baba spoke about. It is this simplest form of meditation that invokes presence and blessing in the strongest way. In this version of the prayer, you do not ask for anything, you simply chant the holy names.
In later times, a prayer arose that sounded like this: «Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.» Much later, the last words: «Have mercy on me a sinner,» were added to this great prayer. This completely absurd phrase that speaks of «sinfulness» is contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ himself, who preached the divinity of every person.
Of course, on the path of life we all make mistakes, but fixing our attention on sin is extremely wrong. We make mistakes, which we learn from, and then we move on in our spiritual development. All possible mistakes made on the path of life are experiences from which lessons are learned with gratitude. If you fix your attention on the fact that you are allegedly sinful, then by doing so you direct your energy there and create an even greater opportunity for aggravating sin, thus forgetting about your original divinity.
One of the greatest spiritual teachers of India in the 19th century, Ramakrishna, said the greatest sin is to consider a person a sinner, because every person is divine.
Sathya Sai Baba also preached that every person is divine and can discover his nature as a son or daughter of God and even reach the same level of union with God as himself.