Greetings

Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is the Sanathana Sarathi, the timeless charioteer, who communicated the Geetha Sastra to Adithya and helped Manu and king Ikshvaku to know it; He was the charioteer of Arjuna during the great battle between good and evil fought out at Kurukshetra. When the rider, Arjuna, was overcome with grief at the prospect of the fight, Krishna instructed him in the science of recognising one's oneness with all, and removed the grief and the fear.

He is the charioteer even now, for every one of us; let me greet you as a fellow-sufferer and a fellow-disciple. We have but to recognise Him and accept Him in that role, holding the reins of discrimination and flourishing the whip of detachment, to direct the horses of the senses along the path of Sathya, asphalted by Dharma and illumined by Prema towards the goal of Santhi.

Arjuna accepted Him in that role; let us do likewise. When worldly attachment hinders the path of duty, when ambition blinds the eyes of sympathy, when hate shuts out the call of love, let us listen to the Geetha. He teaches us from the chariot whereon He is installed. Then He showers His grace, His vision and His power, and we are made heroes fit to fight and win.

This precious book is not a commentary or summary of the Geetha that was taught on the field of Kurukshetra. We need not learn any new language or read any old text to imbibe the lesson that the Lord is eager to teach us now, for victory in the battle we are now waging. This Geethavahini is the same stream, refreshing and re-vitalising, brought by the same divine restorer to revivify man caught in the mesh of modern dialectics, in the pride of modern science, in the cynical scorn of modern superficiality. The teaching here set forth will comfort, console, and confer strength and faith.

Let us listen to these words with as much care and concentration as Arjuna had, even in the turmoil of a battle field, and we too will declare when the book nears its final pages, "My delusion is dissolved; I have become aware of my reality, which is God."

The ancient charioteer who is in you and me has responded to the call of the conflict-ridden hearts; He gave these lessons in the "Sanathana Sarathi" that is published from the Prasanthi Nilayam. Now they are with you, between covers, as a book, which you can read as often as you can or must.

May the faith with which you have started to scan these pages grow from day to day; may you be drawn by the ever widening vista of knowledge which this book reveals to the grand glory of the experience of the Oneness, which is the basis of this manifoldness.

N. Kasturi