7.3 - Unification and Purification of Hinduism

For example,Siva is the essence or heart of Vishnu and Vishnu is the heart or essence of Siva. It is a faith that any one who makes the slightest difference between the two goes to Hell. There are many similar authorities. But why go to authorities? Does any one think that God, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, who is responsible for the creation, maintenance and dissolution of the universe can be many? If there are many, the universe will be chaos, not a cosmos. The above are functions or aspects of one and the same God. Baba always impressed this silently on all the people. We have the opposite ideal deeply ingrained in us. We are bodies, we think. So we think Siva, Vishnu and Brahma are embodied beings, murthis with eyes, legs, nose and crown. It is absolutely essential for the seeker after salvation to discard these and consequent differences. So Baba stressed unity just as even Srimad Bhagavata stresses unity. The Vedas on which all schools rely seem to support the idea of multiplicity of Gods and in fact multiplicity of objects in the universe.
The Vedas affirm the existence of duality and that duality is but an illusion. Refuting that duality at the end, the Vedas are satisfied. Baba did not stop with stating the principles on which all could be brought to a common basis. He went further and worked out the actual unity of the groups by brining men from different groups and making them all form one solid block of Sai devotees under his own care. Those who came to him saw in him their only God, recognized him as their Guru deva.
They had that highest religious sentiment. There was no possibility of their tearing themselves off into divisions, though their original loyalties were maintained in other respects. Baba hated intolerance and made people tolerate each other’s views and peculiarities. He did not allow Hindus under him to fight against Muslim devotees. He removed disparities and made them work in unison as fellow devotees, as brothers in Sai faith.

Thus, he worked out not merely the unification of Hinduism but also the unification of Hinduism with the other great religion in India, namely, Islam. When the essentials of Sufism are put forward, it is difficult to say whether those essentials do not constitute real worship according to the Bhagavata doctrine as well as esoteric Christian doctrine. Sai Baba is both a perfect Sufi and a Parama Bhagavata following the Bhagavata or Parama Guru of the Guru Gita embodied in Skanda Purana. The one thing that religions must agree upon is that God, the Supreme Power, is SAT CHIT ANANDA; the highest bliss that man can know is represented to be GOD, and GOD is, therefore, the ultimate goal of all religious striving, and every effort should be made by every sincere and honest seeker of truth to realize this real Sat Chit Ananda as the basis of the Universe and the basis of his own personality. All personalities will, therefore, finally merge in the one grand personality, Paramatama, that is God, which is Love. This is the essence of Baba’s teaching and practice and is well fitted to be the basis of unification of all faiths in India and in the world.