Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
Swami Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
Sarva Dharma Symbol All-Weather Sticker
The drawing at the top of this page was made by Mary Graham after the original drawn on the back of an envelope by Swami Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba in 1972. Its title is The Sarva Dharma Symbol and it is part of The Divine Proportion, a coloring book for children that was developed at Adwaitha Hermitage.
Swami Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is all that God is. The Sarva Dharma Symbol He gave for Mankind to treasure in the heart and to place the principle It proclaims into practice. Its origin is Divine. Its message is the unity of all man’s religions and of all beings. The Sarva Dharma Symbol proclaims the essential and complete Divine Message for this and for all ages:
You are Mine,
I am yours,
Rest in Me in Peace.
The Sarva Dharma Symbol employs a primal geometry called Divine Proportion, Golden Section or Golden Proportion. It’s basis is the pentagon, the sides of which relate to its diagonals as the the Divine Proportion relationship.
The Divine Proportion symbolizes the universal and invariable standard of perfection and beauty. It is a special relationship between two differently sized elements of one thing: for example, between the long side and the short side of a rectangle. Not all relationships may be called the Divine Proportion. Only one relationship, or proportion, may be called by this Name. And that is when the elements of the one thing are related to one another as 1 is to 1.6, or more precisely, as 1 is to 1.6180339… . The Divine Proportion is represented by the Greek letter phi.
For example, when the short side of a rectangle is 6,765 feet and the long side is 10,946 feet, these two differently sized elements of one thing — a rectangle — are related to one another as the Divine Proportion. The sides of this rectangle have the proportion or ratio (relationship) of 1:1.6 and the rectangle is called a Golden Rectangle.
There is a technical way to describe the Divine Proportion: that point at which an entity differentiates itself such that one element is to the other element as the entity is to the one element. For example, the Divine Proportion is that point at which a line divides such that the long segment is to the short segment as the whole line is to the long segment:
a : b : : a + b : a
We use the Divine Proportion when we want to indicate the Divinely Beautiful, the Sublimely Potent, the Supremely Holy. All over the world, since the beginning, the Divine Proportion is used for this purpose. The Divine Proportion is Ursprache, Original/Universal Language. Greek temple facades, Gothic cathedral ground plans, elevations and windows, European and other stationaries, Japanese tea gardens and the Boeing 747 are engineered from the Divine Proportion.
The Divine Proportion organizes plants and animals and even rivers. It is not a man-made ratio or a man-made standard of Beauty. The Divine Proportion is primal, Ur-, the Loveliness and Harmony God is and uses to create the Cosmos. He sets the Divine Proportion at the root of the world. The world issues from the Divine Proportion. The Divine Proportion is independent of human whim and artifice. It is the Ur-Form or Arche-Type by means of which Life has to become manifest. Without the Divine Proportion, there is no Cosmos, no Life. The Divine Proportion is the Logos, the power and depth of God identically in both reason and reality.
The Divine Proportion is not something we can argue about or dismiss if we want to. It is prior to and subsumes all whether we recognize that It is and does or not. It is the Logos. Vocatus Atque Non Vocatus, Deus Aderit: Called or uncalled, God is present. The words are from the Delphic Oracle and were inscribed by Carl Jung over the door to his house.
We should therefore revere the Sarva Dharma Symbol and imbibe its meaning. The Sarva Dharma Symbol defines the lineaments of world peace, unity and prosperity. Politics, economics, sociology and psychology on their own or together cannot bring forth those desirable outcomes. The Divine Proportion points to, motivates toward and in some sense is those outcomes. It is the proper “ecology of mind,” to use Gregory Bateson’s term for a desirable eschatological end-state. We must be little Divine Proportions, little presences of Sublime Beauty, which is Bliss . . . God. We will have a happy and worthwhile life, and all of our desires will be fulfilled, if we do this one thing. Such is the wonder, the beneficence of Swami’s gift, the Sarva Dharma Symbol.
The Sarva Dharma Symbol is the inspiration for a re-formation of the academic curriculum named Quintivium: An Integration Of Inquiry and here.
Βασιλεία του Θεού
Kingdom of God
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
Om Sai Ram
Is there an explaination from Swami about the fact that the first Sarva Dharma is not include the David star from the Jewish tradition?
Many blessings
Siri Kar Singh
Om Sai Ram
Dear Siri Kar Singh,
Thank you for commenting and for this important question. The answer is yes, many years ago.
In the mid-late 1970s, a US American named Dr. Sam Sandweiss (a psychiatrist), told me that he asked Swami “Where is the Star of David in the Sarva Dharma Symbol.” Swami, Sam told me, pointed to the Cross. Sam told me he said to Swami, “That is not enough.”
Near the same time, a US American Theosophist named John/Jack Hislop, considered then by many as the first President of what has become the US SSBO, brought to Swami a request from a group of devotees in New York who were dissatisfied with the Sarva Dharma Symbol. Swami replied, OK, let them make a proposal.
Shortly thereafter, Jack brought Swami a redesigned Sarva Dharma Symbol. A Star of David was added to the circle of five symbols Swami originally drew. Swami approved this revision and instructed Hislop that it could be used in The USofA only, only on a voluntary basis, and not made official. Hislop and his people agreed to those terms, albeit some of them declared their revision official and mandatory for US American devotees.
I am a US American. When first I saw this revision — in the early 1980s — I was outraged. The numbers were wrong, an abomination really. At once I tracked down what had happened. This took time given communications tech of the day and my regular work schedule (public transit bus driver). I raised the alarm as far and as widely as I could in The USofA. I became persona non grata very quickly among US American devotees.
Yet, a decade or more later the revised Sarva Dharma Symbol disappeared from official US SSBO communications.
Judaism has not existed since 70AD. What persons who claim that name practice is Talmudism, which is, as all the world now sees, very un-pretty. The Star of David is a symbol of a non-sovereign nation state.
Christianity descends from Seers of Tibet and consummates Hebrew Prophetic Religion.
Best wishes to you and yours,
David
adwaitha-hermitage.net