[October 18, 2014] Dr. Nikhil asked: "Swami Sampurnanda says that Sai Baba ate meat and hence, cannot be pious. He also says that Dattatreya is only the second son of sage Atri while the first son was Chandra or Moon and the third son was sage Durvasa. Hence, Saibaba as the incarnation of Dattatreya has no significance and calling Him as God is not correct."
Swami replied: The first point was already answered by Me. Non-vegetarian food is certainly not justified since a co-living being is killed for that purpose. But, God follows the wrong culture also to become friendly with wrong people before diverting them from wrong path. The person, who jumps into the mud pond to uplift the people drowning in it, is also painted with mud. To stop a running bull, you have to catch it and put some steps along with it before controlling it. You should not attribute any intention of such sin to the human incarnation of God entering this human world to save the humanity. There is nobody before us to say that he has seen Sai Baba while eating the meat. Even the audio visual cassette recording such event does not exist. It is only based on the statements of certain people, who often create stories. This story also might have been created by a fan of non-vegetarian food and the psychology in such creation is to establish that there is no sin in the non-vegetarian food, since even Saibaba took it. In fact, there is no sin in the non-vegetarian food because the vegetarian and non-vegetarian foods are one and the same since both contain the same constituents. The actual sin lies in killing a living being for the sake of such food. Even though someone else kills it, you are a share holder of the sin since the killer kills based on the demand of consumer only. The straight question in this topic is that why Saibaba, a non-vegetarian, is not God while Rama, a non-vegetarian is God? Swamiji must answer this simple and straight question.
The second comment is also not correct. It is mentioned in the Bhagavatam that sage Atri did lot of penance to find out the one single God, who alone is doing creation, maintenance and destruction of the world in contrary to the concept that Brahma, the Creator; Vishnu, the Ruler and Shiva, the Destroyer are separate personalities doing these three works independently. Atri did not accept these three separate personalities and hence, all the three were united to appear as the original single God. This single God was born as the three sons of Atri indicating that one single God appeared as the three divine personalities separately. The story says further that the Moon gave His divinity of Brahma and Durvasa gave His divinity of Shiva to Dattatreya and went away. Since then, Dattatreya is treated as the single personality in whom all the three personalities co-exist. Now, the definition of God given by the Veda is fulfilled since one God only is doing all these three works (Yatova imaani bhutaani) and the God is not divided into three but remains as one single God only (Ekamevaadvitiyam...).
This means that same one unimaginable God is appearing as three separate Gods by entering the three different visible energetic forms. Appearance as three does not break the unity as said in the Gita (Avibhaktam Vibhaktheshu). All this is the deep explanation to clarify the doubt of Atri, who represents every Vedic scholar. If you take this as external story only without analysing the inner divine essence, by tomorrow, Swamiji will also say that Adi Shankara is just a young scholar hailing from the family of Nambudri Brahmins staying in Kerala. You can realize Him as the Incarnation of Lord Shiva, only if you view His life and commentaries through inner sense.
At the lotus feet of Shri Datta Swami
-Prasad
