Sai Baba, a personification of spiritual perfection and an epitome of compassion , lived in the little
He reached Shirdi as a nameless entity. One of the persons who first came in contact with him at Shirdi addressed him spontaneously as ‘Sai’ which means Savior, Master or Saint. ‘Baba’ means father as an expression of reverence. In the Divine play it was designed as such, that He subtly inspired this person to call Him by this name, which was most appropriate for His self-allotted mission.
All that we definitely know of Sai Baba is that his arrival at Shirdi was anonymous. He was first noticed in the outskirts of the village Shirdi, seated under a ‘neem’ (margosa) tree, about the year 1854. However, even this date is not definitely noted. Sai Baba of these younger days remained a stranger staying under the neem tree for some time and then suddenly he left Shirdi to come back again sometime in 1858, and stayed on there till he left his gross body in the year 1918.
The second advent of Baba at Shirdi, around 1858 was interestingly quite different from the first. This time he accompanied a wedding procession as guest of honor. On the arrival at Shirdi, he was immediately recognized by someone as the sameanonymous saintly personality who used to be seated under the neem tree a few years earlier and, greeted Him as “Ya Sai” – Welcome Sai.
In the early days of his stay at Shirdi he spent his time either wandering in the outskirts of village and neighboring thorny jungles or sitting under the neem tree totally self absorbed. The first set of villagers who regarded this saintly figure were Mhalsapati, Tatya Kote, Bayyaji Bai and few others. Bayyaji Bai felt deeply motivated by this Divine Saint, and with her motherly instinct she used to walk miles on end into the jungles in search of him, carrying food in a basket on her head. Often she found Sai Baba sitting under some tree in deep meditation, calm and motionless. She would boldly approach him, serve the meal and return home.
After sometime as though out of compassion for her, Sai Baba ceased wandering and moved into a dilapidatedmosque in the outskirts of the village. He referred to this mosque, where He resided till the end, as ‘Dwarkamai’ (Dwarka was the place where Lord Shri Krishna stayed to fulfill His divine Advent). This mosque ‘Dwarkamai’ – abode of Sai Baba became Mother of Mercy for all the time to come.
He had a body of athlete built and in his earlier days he was fond of wrestling. Another aspect of Sai Baba’s personality was his love for song and dance. In those early years of his life he used to go to ‘Takia’ , the public night shelter for moslem visitors to the village. There in the company of sojourning devotees and fakirs, he used to dance and sing in divine bliss, with small tinkles tied around his ankles. The songs he sang were mostly in Persian or Arabic. Sometimes he sang some popular songs of Kabir.
He donned a long shirt – ‘Kafni’ and tied a cloth around his head, and twisted it into a flowing plait like manner behind his left ear. He used a piece of sackcloth for his seat and slept on it with a brick as his pillow. He always declared that Fakiri (Holy poverty) was far superior to worldly richness. He was no ordinary fakir but an ‘Avatar ’ (incarnation) of a very high order. But His external appearance was of simple, illiterate, moody, emphatic – at times fiery and abusive and at times full of compassion and love. In the moments of towering rage people with him thought it was ungovernable rage. But his anger never prevented his compassion dealing with the devotees. His anger was evidently directed at unseen forces. He enacted all these simple traits only to hide His real identity as the God incarnate. Under the cover of simplicity He silently worked for the spiritual transformation and liberation of innumerable souls – human beings and animals alike, who were drawn to Him, by an unseen forces.
He begged for alms and shared what he got with his devotees and all the creatures around him. He never kept any food in reserve for the next meal. He maintained the ‘Dhuni’ – the perpetual sacred fire and distributed its ash – ‘Udi’ as token of His divine grace to all who came to Him for help.
Baba would ask for ‘Dakshina’ (money offered with reverence to the ‘Guru’ or the master) from some of those who came to see him. This was not because he needed their money but for deeper significance, which the devotees realized at, an appropriate time.
Baba used to freely distribute all the money that was received in the form ofDakshina to the destitute, poor, sick and needy the very same day. This was one of Baba's methods for testing out the devotees attachments to worthy things and willingness to surrender.
He ploughed up the village common land and raised a flower garden thereon, he watered the plants, carrying pots full of water on his shoulders. In the later years he spent a few hours in this Lendi garden which he himself had laid out in the early days.
He was every moment exercising a double consciousness, one actively utilizing the apparent Ego called 'Sai Baba' dealing with other egos in temporal and spiritual affairs, and the other - entirely superceding all egos as the Universal Ego or Over soul.
He was the common man’s God. He lived with them, he slept and ate with them. Baba had a keen sense of humour. He shared a ‘chillum’ (clay pipe for smoking) indiscriminately with them to write off the cast superiority and orthodoxy in their minds. He had no pretensions of any kind .He was always very playful in the presence of children. Baba used to feed the fakirs and devotees and even cook for them.
Saibabas perfect purity, benevolence, non -attachment, compassion and other virtues evoked deep reverence in the villagers around him. His divinity could not conceal itself for long. Initially when people wanted to worship him formally, Baba protested and dissuaded them. But gradually he allowed it with the prescience that it would become the means for temporal and spiritual benefits to millions of individuals for all time to come.
The Dwarkamai of Sai Baba was open to all, irrespective of caste, creed and religion. As the days passed devotees from all walks of life started streaming into Shirdi. The village Shirdi was fast assuming prominence. As the gifts and presentations flowed in, the pomp and grandeur of Sai worship also increased. But Baba’s life of a fakir remained calm, undisturbed, unaltered and there is the Saint’s spiritual glory.
He lived His divine mission through His pure self in a human embodiment. The immense energy that was manifest in the body of Sai was moving in a mysterious way, creating and recreating itself every where beyond the comprehension of time and space.
This fountainhead of unsurpassed spiritual glory shed His gross body on 15th October 1918. Every limb, every bone and pore of his body was permeated with divine essence. Baba claimed that though one day his physical body will not exist his remains will communicate with all those who seek him with inner yearnings. His self-allotted labour of love in His physical body was perhaps over. Today He continues to work ever vigorously as the ‘Sai Spirit’.
The mission of Sai Baba is self-allotted and springs from the source of His free and redeemed Spirit. He willed Himself a body because He wanted to fulfil a mission of awakening man to his true self and divine nature. He wanted to lead them to salvation by saving them from delusion and ignorance. He stands there eternally to help out and give solace to His children who are bruised with the miseries of this world through the passage of centuries. Thus His sacred mission is to awaken, elevate, transform and comfort His children. These are the visible acts of Baba. But, He also had a much bigger role to play in the administration of the Universe - in its creation, sustenance and destructions. He saw God in every living being. It was His duty to take the created to the creator - i.e. to evolve human beings to the state of God - which is their real self. (Guruji Shri C. B. Satpathy)
It is amazing that though He is not present in body, ever increasing number of people hear and experience the same blessed, intimate and powerful assurance – ‘’
Sai Baba asserted in plain terms unconditional and complete responsibility for His devotees, His watch over them and the absolute reliance they could place in Him.
His undertaking was complete through the passage of time, life after life He kept an intent watch over His people and drew them to Him at an appointed point of time. Sai Baba was explicit about this – “I draw my people to me from long distances in many ways. It is I who seek them out and bring them to me, they do not come of their own accord. Even though they may be thousands of miles away, I draw them to me like a bird with a string tied to its foot”.
Baba looked after spiritual as well temporal welfare of His devotees. He fully approved of people approaching Him for material gains. He said, “ My men first come to me on account of material benefits only, after they get their hearts desires fulfilled and comfortably placed in life, they follow me and progress further”. His approach was realistic and yet so divine – “I give people what they want in the hope that they will begin to want what I want to give them ”.
Baba worked meticulously on his devotees to transform them. Dasganu an intimate devotee of Sai Baba witnessed that he used to perform strange act occasionally by taking out a few old coins from a purse and rub their surface constantly but gently. As He rubbed them He would take the names of some of His close devotees as – This is Nana’s. This is Kaka’s and so on.
Obviously the coins symbolized devotees on whom He was working spiritually, transmitting His grace and transforming them. Strange is the way of a Master to work with the elements of a man whom He has taken in His hands.
His striving for the evolution and hapiness of His devotees was strenuous for Him. Invariably He would draw the physical sufferings and illness to Himself for the sake of His children. It was around the year 1912, an epidemic of plague was raging in the region and one of His devotee’s son happened to contact the disease during their visit to Shirdi. The devotee Mrs. G.S. Khaparde was horrified and wanted to leave immediately with the infected son for better medical treatment at
His undertaking is unending till He takes all his lost sheep back home.
Baba's promises in His own name :
· I am Parvardigar (God). I live at Shirdi and everywhere.
· My business is to give blessings.
· I am formless and everywhere, I am in everything, I am in everything and beyond, I fill all space. All you see and not see, taken together is Myself.
· Sai is not only in this three and a half Cubit body. I pervade the universe and transcend it.
· This body is My house. My Guru (Master) has taken Me away from this long ago.
· My love is ever on those who love Me. Whatever you do, wherever you may be, ever bear this in mind that I am always aware of everything you do,
· If one ever meditates on Me, repeats My name, and thus transformed into Me, I stay by his side always.
· If one perpetually thinks of Me and makes Me his sole refuge, I am his debtor.
· If one ever dwells on Me in his mind, and not even taste food before offering it to Me, he who hungers and thirsts after Me, I look after all his concerns.
· If any one thinks of only Me and casts all his burdens on Me, I look after all his concerns.
- No harm shall befall him, who sets his foot on the soil of Shirdi.
- He who touches the steps of My tomb, all his sorrow and suffering shall cease.
- Even after I cast off thos body, I shall ever come running to the help of My devotees.
- Keep faith in Me, and your prayers shall be answered.
- Think of Me as eternally alive, experience this and realise this Truth.
- Name anyone who has sought refuge and has been turned away.
- In whatever form men worship Me, so do I render to them.
- Not in vain is My vow that I shall ever shoulder your burden.
- I am grateful to the one who takes his food only after offering it to me.
- Who surrenders in body, mind and speech to Me, I remain ever indebted to him.
- Blessed is he who has become one with Me.
Sai Baba's was not a theoretical instruction but an invisible influence that transformed the inner self. Baba wrote no philosophy or expounded any doctrine. He would speak in cryptic and highly symbolic manner. Such utterances were like some prophetic commands that gave a powerful impetus to the thoughts and lives of all those who came within His radiance.
He would often speak in parables leaving his devotees to work out the answers:
'A man had a fine horse, but no matter what he did, it would not run in harness. An expert suggested that it should be taken back to the place from where it had come. This was done and it became tractable and useful.' The explanation of the story is that the horse is the ego. As commander of the physical and mental powers of man it is useful but self-willed, and therefore causes endless trouble. Taking it back to its source is re-absorbing it in the spirit or self from which it arises. It is the return to the source, which purifies and enlightens. From there the ego issues forth again no longer an ego but a conscious agent of Spirit.
Another parable goes like this, 'Some robbers came and took away my money. I said nothing but quietly followed them and killed them and recovered my money’. The money is the faculties bestowed to man in his pure and original state, the robbers are the desires, killing them and recovering the wealth is destroying desires and realizing the self.
On one occasion a station master came to him without faith, just to see what the strange wonder worker looked like. On arrival he found Sai Baba washing out mud pots and placing them mouth downward on the ground. He asked him why was he doing that and Baba replied with caustic humour, referring to unreceptive listeners, 'Pots come to me like that, mouth downwards''. He is the giver of everything material or spiritual gains; but the recipients should have full faith and receptivity for the same.
Once a devotee seeing a thick crowd assembled there asked Sai Baba, whether all of them derive full benefit. For reply Baba pointed to a mango tree in full blossom – “What a splendid crop it would be if all the blossom seeds turned into fruit, but do they? Most of them fall off. Very few remain.”
Baba suited His teachings to the needs and capacity of the recipient to absorb it. He had in front of Him a mass, full of imperfections and shortcomings and He spoke to them - 'My Master (The Almighty) told me to give bounteously of material as well as spiritual rewards to His children. His treasury was indeed always open'.
