Thyagaraja had these songs from Me . . .

Can anyone fathom the Truth Of  His Reality, The beginningless, endless, timeless nature of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai? One can only revel in His greater glory, delving in that Eternal Bliss…Ms Kamala Sarathy, an old timer, narrates her story, as to how Bhagawan dispelled her small, but serious doubts, establishing in greater faith…

The first time I went – in fact for the first three or four days – I was rather upset, because all the songs of Thyagaraja used to be altered, so that the name ‘Rama’ would be changed to ‘Baba’. Being a student of classical music, I did not very much like that. It created rather a conflict in me. But that time my violin master was with us, and he, who was a classical musician, became impressed with Baba’s music so I decided to let it be, thinking that perhaps Baba was as great as Rama and that therefore it was alright to change the names. Later I became convinced that Baba was as great as Rama.

When I first came to Puttaparthi, Swami used to sing many songs of classical Indian music as an experienced, trained singer. Our family and the Kuppam family were born trained in music, but still Swami would sometimes correct us, also on the text of the songs and the timing of the music. He was a very good singer. My late music teacher, Mr. Chidambara Iyer, who was a violinist with All India Radio in Delhi once went with me to Swami, and was much impressed with His outstanding knowledge of music, although He had never had a music teacher. Sometimes He would sing some rare compositions of Thyagaraja that only learned musicians would know.

Curious was he, my music teacher asked Him once: ‘Where did You learn these songs?’ Baba then answered: ‘Thyagaraja had these songs from Me, Thyagaraja was inspired by Rama’, meaning that Swami was the origin of Thyagaraja’s music.