Shraddha and Saburi

For his devotees Baba has set two cardinal principles in the path of devotion. The first one is “Shraddha”, which means devotional faith and the other one is “Saburi”, which means tolerance with patience. Shraddha or devotional faith is the most difficult state of mind to achieve. The seed of faith takes a lot of time to generate and to grow. It may take years or even a few lives. Full faith in Baba does not come, as quickly as one desires it to be like Shravan, Kirtan, Poojan, Dhyana, etc. Faith or surrender means leaving everything on Baba – body, mind and soul. If one is sincere enough and is fully surrendered to Baba then He will control his desires and conduct. Under these circumstances neither he should work nor seek anything himself but leave everything to Baba in totality. Then, if he is prepared to bear the consequence of this state of utter inaction then Baba will certainly control his conduct and give him the type of Shraddha he seeks.

Saburi is an essential factor for the generation, sustenance and growth of devotion. Both faith and patience are complementary to each other. Faith without patience will bring loss of faith at frequent intervals of time and will not allow its growth. Similarly, only patience without actual faith is an exercise in futility. A balance in both will bring about even growth of both in a person.

Faith means trying to do what has been asked us to do by Baba and resist from doing what has been forbidden by Him. Even if we fail a number of times it does not matter, the main point is whether one is using our God given faculties to their maximum limits.

When we want to use our faculties, time and energy for getting close to Baba we have to cut down on many other activities. Therefore, the person who wants closeness with Baba should always try to reduce the non-productive, capricious and non-essential activities like addiction of any type, uncontrolled thoughts, speech or action, etc. Such improvements will not only gradually control the mind but will also save time and energy for more purposive and creative activities, like study on Sri Sainath, meditation on Baba and His worship in any form. The devotees should always try to improve their inner qualities of patience, faith, tolerance, egolessness, and gradually, his closeness with Baba will increase. But, the most important two qualities which are fundamental, as often said by Baba, are : Shraddha and Saburi.

[Excerpts from MAHA SAMADHI DIWAS MESSAGE  (1999) by Dr. Satpathy]