Who is Sri Sai Baba of Shirdi?

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WHO IS SRI SAI BABA OF SHIRDI?

By Shri H.H.NARASIMHASWAMIJI

(Founder)

All India Sai Samaj (Regd.), Madras - 600 004.

 

 

SAI BABA OF Shirdi is a name to conjure with. In fact, his name is used as

a sacred and powerful mantra by thousands of persons. He is not a

non-historic or remote personality, but one who was with us in the flesh

till 1918, moving familiarly with tens of thousands and that for decades. A

short account of Sri Sai Baba will be interesting and will also prove in

many cases the turning point in the lives of numerous readers, as it has

done in the past.

 

2. Of Sai Baba’s birth, parentage, and antecedents, no person that we have

met can give any account. But Baba himself gave some hints which have been

verified and worked upon. He seems to have been born some time between 1820

and 1850 A.D. in the village Pathri, in the Nizam’s State. His parents were

Brahmins who handed him over at a tender age to a fakir. After the fakir’s

death, some five years later, the child passed in the care of his Guru Deva,

Gopal Rau Deshmukh, a great bhakta of God Venkateswara of Tirupati. After a

splendid period of ten years of intense love and devotion towards his

Guru-God, the boy obtained the Guru’s grace. As directed by the Guru, he

went westward and came to Shirdi in the Bombay Presidency (Ahmednagar

District), and after some wanderings, settled and spent the rest of his life

there. He passed away on the 15th October, 1918 (3 p.m. Vijaya Dasami Day,

after Ekadasi began). The tomb erected over his remains is now the Sai

Mandir attracting the devotion of persons from all parts of the country.

 

3. Nobody dies: least of all, a self realized soul like Sai Baba.

Atmagnanis or Jivanmuktas are said to become Vidhehamuktas or nirakara

Parabrahmam when the fleshy sheath is cast off. Exceptions to this rule are

mentioned in the Brahmasutras. Bhrugu, Narada, and other eminent

devotee-gnanis have, instead of merging in the Absolute when they cast off

the body, continued to remain in their subtle body (Sukshma sarira, which

however could be rendered gross and visible or sthula at will) in order to

co-operate with divine leelas, rendering service to humanity. These are

styled apantaratmas. Sai Baba is now an apantaratma. Before shuffling off

his mortal coil, he said that his devotees need not be sad or frightened at

his casting off his fleshy gown (kupni), and that wherever and whenever any

devotee should think of him, he would be present and attend to him. This

has been found indeed to be true by innumerable persons; and earnest souls

can still take Baba at his word and prove its truth from their own

experience.

 

4. Sai Baba, the soul of truth and reality has never spoken untruth.

‘Anrutam noktapurvam me nacha vakshya kadachana’ (Untruth, I have never

uttered nor will I utter it at any time), was the remark of Ayodhya Rama as

also of this Shirdi Rama.

 

5. The early decades spent by Baba at Shirdi are almost wholly forgotten.

He was first living under a margosa tree leading the life of a perfect

ascetic. Next, he removed to a dilapidated mosque in the village, and

resided there to the end of his life. He had nothing that he could call

‘mine’. For thirty years and more, he was leading the life of holy poverty,

and then his devotees whom he affectionately termed his children, pressed

the pomp and show of royalty upon him. For the last ten years of his life,

he appeared as a prince though he behaved throughout like a poor fakir, who

either owned nothing or everything in the world. His was the life of

perfect celibacy (naishtika rahmacharya with astalitha urdhvarethus), a fact

which was beaming out of his brilliant tiger like eyes. His virtues were

numerous - Ananthakalyanaguna - and would naturally sink into the heart of

those coming in contact with him, and thus raise them gradually on the

highest. ‘Apana sarika karita tatkal’, is a saying of Tukaram, which means

that great souls raise the devotees to their own level; vide Bhagavata,

where Lord Krishna says, ‘Though devotees do not wish to be one with me, I

pull them unto myself’.

 

6. Amongst his qualities, the most notable was, of course, love - uniform,

all embracing, intense love, showered on all and at all times, without any

idea of the extent of sacrifice involved or any idea of recompense - truly

maternal love at its highest. God is love and the means to reach God is

also love. Baba was nothing but the embodiment of love. This love was

perpetually manifesting itself in every act, word, and thought of his,

though at times hidden by his ascetic modes of life. In the beginning he

would move and talk with none except under strict necessity. However, when

there was any suffering in the village, he would run to relieve it and would

accept no recompense.

 

7. ‘Saisangatve nissangatvam’ was the other exception to his rule of

asceticism. Where there were saints or holy people, he would be found in

their company. Some of these saints like Janaki Das and Devi Das were the

first to discover his merits; and in the early eighties of the 19th

century, some of them revealed the fact that Baba was like a diamond lying

on a dung hill, and that the world would one day discover what a great Rama

Bhakta he was. The world has since discovered that fact, and more, has

identified him with Rama, Krishna, Maruthi, Datta, etc.

 

8. At the time of his arrival at Shirdi, Baba appears to have been a

thorough adept in the prema marga, the path of love and evidently possessed

of all power, which naturally issues from such love. He seldom cared to use

his power, but once, a manifestation was wrung out of him. The shopkeepers

who supplied him gratis with oil, one day refused the supply, and gathered

in a scoffing mood to see what the ‘mad fakir’, as they styled him, would do

without oil for his lamps. Baba simply filled up his empty earthen lamps

with water, and the wicks inserted in the water were burning all night!

This gave a rude shock to the villagers’ notion that Baba was negligible and

mad fakir.

 

9. Baba however was never negligible. From the very beginning, he was

always helping humanity at first by dispensing medicines and later by

dispensing ‘udhi’ i.e., vibuthi or ashes from the fire that he always kept

burning by him. Udhi has played a very important part in the grace shown by

Baba to people all these years, and it is still being sought and used by

people all over the country. But, as Baba explained, it is not the Udhi

itself that works the wonder. {“What can the udhi do? Nevertheless, take

the udhi as it is wanted”, said Baba to G.G.Narke} The devotees’ bhakti

(faith and devotion), for instance, has always to take its part in the good

results produced by the udhi. The udhi was generally the material with

which His blessings were issued. The udhi is the cup enshrining the really

valuable blessings of Baba. But these blessings often came and do come

without the udhi.

 

10. When people came to him, he would give them the udhi and say ‘Allh bale

karege’ (i.e. God will bless) and everything he uttered proved effective.

Once he said ‘I go on speaking things here, and things happen there.’ Baba’

s words were words of authority. When he said that there should be water on

a waterless rock, water was found there.{Charter 350}. When he addressed

the elements they obeyed him. Fire, water, and air were seen by several

devotees to obey his orders. He ordered high flames to sink down and they

did. He ordered the rain and storm to cease and they ceased. He willed a

cool breeze to blow near the fire on a blazing summer day and cool breeze

blew there.{Charters 341.4} The dead were revived. The heart of every one

present or absent, he knew without effort and he could control it. He was

realized to be a sarvantharyami. He himself declared,

 

‘Aham Atma hi Chandorkar

Sarva bhutasaya sthitah’

 

i.e. ‘O, Chandorkar, I am in the hearts of all creatures’.

 

11. Of the many ‘miracles’ performed by Baba and witnessed by many eminently

respectable persons (many of them still living), it is sufficient to give

but a few instances to show how and why they were resorted to. Baba

identifying himself with God and gods declared that there was never any

miracle performed by him. Really, there are no ‘miracles’ in the universe

if ‘miracles’ mean the violation of the laws of Nature or of God. People

begin to generalize about the laws of Nature from the few facts known to

them and when a strange phenomenon suddenly appears in apparent

contradiction of their artificial ‘law of Nature’, it is declared to be

‘miracle’ - a violation of the so called law. A truly scientific mind would

rather add the new fact to the old facts and try to remould the old law so

as to include the new fact observed. Mankind is not omniscient. One day,

the science of the future will give scientific explanations for the

so-called ‘miracles’ of all times.

 

12. But beyond the miracles of Baba, there is one bright, marvelous fact,

worthy of people’s adoration and that is, his golden heart of love with its

message of universal love. Baba loved all - Hindus, Moslems, Christians,

and Buddhists, the learned and the illiterate, the poor and the rich, the

priest and the criminal - alike. His message to all his devotees is ‘Love

ye, one another, as I love you all’.

 

13. Baba declared that if people hated one another, his heart was smarting

with pain and sorrow and if persons forgave enemies and endured the

ill-treatment, he was highly please. This is the most valuable lesson for

this day and for all time. A story is told in Bhagavatha of the world going

as a cow to Brahma, groaning under the weight of the cruel Asuras harassing

innocent people. That is just the spectacle all over the world to day.

Hatred, destruction, plunder, and absolute disregard for truth and virtue,

are the predominant features in the daily history of the world to-day. Man’

s claws and teeth are red with the gore of brother man; and the criminal is

not apologetic but blatant. Civilisation is in imminent danger of being

submerged in pools of human blood and devastating fire leaving the human

form a fossil to be discovered within some rocks by some later race. The

only thing that can avert this doom is love, a revival of the very ancient

message to Asuras from God ‘Dayadhwam’ i.e., ‘Be merciful’.

 

14. Baba’s whole life was an illustration of how this divine message could

be carried out in life, and the more Baba’s message is heeded, circulated,

and preached, the greater is the hope for humanity avoiding the threatened

catastrophe. Incidentally, it may be noted that while the Kshtriyabalam of

Akbar failed, the Brahmatejobalam of Baba is steadily achieving the benefit

of the people. ‘Dikbalam Kshatriyabalam Brahmatejobalam balam’ - Fie upon

Kshatriya’s power, Spiritual power alone is power’, was said by the Kind

Viswamitra when he found that all the arrows showered by him upon Vasishta

were of no avail, by reason of the Brahmadanda which Vasishta had placed by

his side as a protection. ’Ekena brahmadandena astrah sarvah vinishkrtah’.

 

15. One species of miraculous achievements wrought by Baba for the benefit

of his devotees is the blessing given for issue. Whenever Baba blessed

anybody and said that there would be issue, invariably the lady brought

forth the child, either male or female, in twelve months, exactly as stated

by Baba. Here are a few examples: Damodar S. Rasane had two wives, but no

issue. His horoscope showed a papi or cruel planet in the putrasthana and

astrologers declared that he would have no issue in this birth. But Baba

gave him four mango fruits and directed him to give them to his junior wife.

Baba assured him that he was going to have eight children through that wife,

the first two being males. The lady ate the fruits and had just eight

children, with their sexes as mentioned by Baba. This would remind one of

the issue less monarch Dasaratha, consulting his Kulaguru Vasishta.

According to the directions of this Guru, Aswamedha and Puthrakameshti yagas

were celebrated on a grand scale (even though it was not stated that there

was any papi in the putrasthana of Dasaratha) and four sons were brought

forth by his queens. In Rasane’s case, there was no Vasishta nor were any

yagas. Evidently, Vasishta, Vamadeva, Risyasringa, Bhrugu, Puthrakameshti

and Aswamedha were all inside Sai Baba who declared that the devotee would

have eight children.

 

16. Another case is more interesting. One Scindhe had seven daughters and

no sons. He went up to the temple of Dattatreya at Gangapur, 200 miles away

from Shirdi, and prayed there for male issue. He vowed that if he were

granted a son within twelve months, he would bring the child to Gangapur and

make his offerings. He had his prayers answered and obtained a son in

twelve months. But, for about six years, he did not go to Gangapur at all.

Then he came to Shirdi. Baba looked at him and spoke fiercely, ‘Are you so

conceited and stiff-necked? Where was there any male progeny in your

prarabdhakarma? I tore up this body (pointing to his own body) and gave you

a male child in answer to your prayer’. This was not only occasion when

Baba declared that he had overridden the workings of prarabdhakarma. A

third case is interesting from another standpoint. A pleader of Akkalkote

had reviled and mocked at Baba in his student days and had subsequently lost

his only son. Fancying that the loss was the result of his irreverence

towards Baba, he came to Shirdi. Baba blessed him and declared that he

(Baba) himself would fetch the soul of the deceased son and place him within

the womb of the Vakil’s wife. In twelve months thereafter, she was

delivered of a male child.

 

17. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that it was the blessings for issue

more than anything else that made the educated, especially from towns, to go

to Baba. One Gopal Rao Gundu, A Revenue Inspector, who had two wives but no

issue, sought and obtained Baba’s blessings and the fruit of those

blessings, a son. He broadcast the kindness of Baba and his wonderful

powers abroad, and a large number of educated people including Deputy

Collectors, Collectors, and political leaders like Lokamanya Tilak, flocked

to Shirdi.

 

18. In 1886, Baba died his first death. One day when sitting along with his

devotee Mahisapathy in the Dwaraka Mayi (as his mosque was named by him),

Baba said that he was going to Allah and that consequently for three days

his body was to be looked after for, after that period, he might return to

the body, and that in case he did not do so, the body should be interred

near the mosque. Presently Baba’s body became a corpse. An inquest was

held over the same and the officer holding the inquest insisted on

Mahlsapathy burying the body. But Mahlsapathy vehemently opposed the

proposal and succeeded in preventing the internment. On the fourth day,

Baba’s body revived and for thirty-two years thereafter, Baba worked through

that living fleshy case and finally left it on the 15th October, 1981, with

the same prescience and clear control over all the circumstances which he

showed in 1886. This leaving of the body at will and returning to it at

pleasure is an art, a siddhi, described in the Yoga Sastras; and Baba’s

exercise of such powers convinced and would convince many of the truth of

the Sastras. ‘Dharmasamsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge’ (i.e. ‘I am

born in each age for establishing Dharma’) said Krishna of Dwapara Yuga to

Arjuna. And this divinity of the twentieth century A.D. in Kaliyuga, like

other men of God (Devatmas) of the same period, has frequently by his

conduct proved the truth of, and confirmed, the belief in Dharma and

Sastras.

 

19. One noticeable feature of Baba’s life after his return to the body was

that he began to encourage the arrival of bhaktas to his feet. Evidently

the object of his return to his body was to carry out his mission more fully

and for a longer period on earth, especially with reference to the devotees

and others bound to him by former ties, rinanubandha. This is well

illustrated by his call to Narayana Govind Chandorkar, B.A., Personal

Assistant to the Collector of Ahmednagar, to come to his feet.

 

20. When N.G.Chandorkar or ‘Nana’ as Baba affectionately called him, was

halting at Kopergaon, Baba sent word to him repeatedly to come to Shirdi for

a visit. Nana after much hesitation came up to Shirdi and asked Baba why he

was sent for. Baba replied that for four previous births, Nana had been

intimate with Baba and that therefore in this life also, he should get into

similar close contact. Again Nana hesitated. But Baba, by the exercise of

his wonderful powers and his kindness especially, filled Nana’s heart with

faith and gratitude for numerous miraculous favours showered upon him. On

one occasion when Chandorkar was stranded on a hot day on a waterless hill

(Harischndra Hill) unable to climb up or get down, he suddenly exclaimed;

‘If Baba were here, he would give me water’. Baba who was then at Shirdi,

forty miles away, mentioned to the people there that Nana was thirsty and

should be provided with a palmful of water. At that time, a Bhil appeared

on that hill and pointed out a palmful of water to Chandorkar, under the

very rock over which the latter was seated. Later when Nana visited Shirdi,

Baba informed him that it was ;he who provided water on the waterless rock.

Similarly, on another occasion, when the thirsty Chandorkar prayed to Baba

in the midst of a forest for tea being given him after he should emerge from

the forest, tea was suddenly provided in the middle of the night in a

forlorn place. Again when Nana’s daughter was undergoing the tortures of

prolonged parturition, Baba sent a gosavi from Shirdi with udhi to be used

for easing the parturition. The gosavi wanted to know how he could go to

Jamnere, which was N.G.C’s camp, across thirty miles of country road from

the railway without funds, Baba simply answered that everything would be

provided. At the station, the gosavi found a tonga and a liveried peon

waiting for him, professing to have been sent by Sri Chandorkar. When the

gosavi went up in that tonga and delivered the udhi, its use was quickly

followed by safe and comfortable delivery. Then he mentioned the tonga, the

horse and the liveried peon to Chandorkar, who wondered, as he had not sent

any of these and nobody else could have sent these. Both the gosavi and NGC

wondered at Baba’s power to provide everything he wanted at any place and at

any time and at the depth of Baba’s love for his devotees.

 

21. Nana had innumerable proofs of Baba’s vast, nay, unlimited powers, his

perpetual watch over his beloved devotees, his invariable kindness towards

all that approached him, and summed them all up in the phrase that Baba was

omnipotent, omniscient and universally kind. No word aptly expresses the

sum total of these attributes except ‘God’. Chandorkar was convinced that

Baba was God and worshipped him as God; and by reason of Chandorkar’s vast

influence, Baba’s greatness and glory became known to all in various parts

of Maharashtra.

 

22. One Ganpat Rao Sahasrabuddhe, a constable attending on NGC was similarly

turned in to a devout Bhakta and made to quit Government service (in 1905)

substituting therefore the service of God or Baba. Sri Sahasrabuddhe has

thence forward been known as Dass Ganu Maharaj and as a Kirtankar-devotee of

Baba all through these forty years. By his powerful Harikathas and his

talents, he has carried Baba to the homes of tens of thousands in

Maharashtra. His works on Baba are the earliest authorities on the life of

Baba. The above mentioned two gentlemen with others like H.S.Dixit and Anna

Dabolkar, may be regarded as Baba’s apostles who carried the faith in Baba

to the length and breadth of Maharashtra.

 

23. Baba’s own miraculous personality surviving his release from his

physical body has however been the principal reason for the success of all

this propaganda. His power is still working and by reason of that along,

myriads in Madras and other Presidencies have become firm adherents to, and

worshippers of, Baba. The faith is well grounded in the experience showered

upon them now as liberally and miraculously, as they were showered before

Baba’s passing away. Baba’s figure is occasionally seen by, and his

wondrous powers are manifested to, those that have the necessary faith, at

any place, as Baba has no partiality and his grace cannot be the monopoly of

any person or place. Wonders are being worked by him today at various

places and therefore Sai Mandirs have sprung up in many of them.

 

24. Baba, however, is not a mere worker of miracles. He is a Samartha

Sadguru. He applies miracles or miraculous means to fill with faith and

gratitude the hearts of devotees. Gratitude soon turns into love and then

Baba’s real work is seen. Baba purifies the hearts of all of the dross of

low attachments and their consequences, and gradually raises the devotees’

souls to loftier and still loftier states of being, till they finally merge

into himself. People begin with the notion that Baba is a kind provider of

all that they need and in fact resort to him to have their temporal needs

satisfied. But they discover (at least many do) that Baba is after all

their Ishtamurthi, their own Rama or Siva, the God of their fathers who has

now taken a new shape to carry out the ancient divine plan of the Universe,

and that ‘God fulfils himself in many ways lest one good custom should

corrupt the world’.

 

25. The question is often asked whether Baba was a Hindu or Moslem. The

first remark to make about this question is that the cause for this question

should be looked into before it is answered. There is a strong feeling on

the part of the Hindus that they should not go near a Moslem whose views run

counter to their cherished ideas, and who would destroy their religious

emblems and idols. Similar is the repugnance on the part of the Moslems to

accept purely Hindu traditions which they consider too idolatrous and

unholy. When we come to take an impartial view, we find, whether we are

Hindus or Moslems, that the above question is irrelevant or of very little

importance. First about the irrelevancy. The Sufi and the Orthodox Hindu,

both agree that when a person has reached perfection, i.e., the level of

Brahman, the question of caste does not arise at all. Caste (or ‘Jathi’ as

it is called in vernacular) refers to that which has born and that which has

‘janma’. The self-realiser who is identical with God is not born though his

body was born. But the body is not ‘he’ and there is no need to go into the

question as to whether the body arose from parents who were Hindus or

Moslems, or was trained and brought up among 3ither of them. Sri Sankara’s

well-known phrase about the realized soul is ‘Jati Niti Kula Gotra duuragam

- that it is far above questions of caste, family clan, etc., and Sankara’s

Manisha Panchaka repeatedly closes with the line, ‘Chandaalostu Dwijostu

sadgururityeshau manaishaa mama’ - ‘Let him be a chandala or Brahmin, he

(the realized soul) is my Guru’. What does it matter whether the Kohinoor

is lying on a dung hill or in a palace! The Sufis too have exactly the same

view as regards these distinctions. However, the reason for raising the

question is a strong feeling regarding the necessity of protecting one’s own

religious sentiments adequately from being harassed violently by a person of

an opposite sect. On this matter, it may be pointed out that whether Baba

was a Hindu or a Moslem, he allowed every sect to keep to its own method of

approaching God. To Hindus, he said: ‘Continue your Rama worship, and

worship the stones which your forefathers worshipped’. He even presented

some lingams, silver padukas, pictures and coins for worship by Hindus. To

Moslems, he never gave any of these but allowed them to follow their

nirakara (formless) form of worship as far as it is possible. So the real

cause for raising the question about one being a Hindu or Moslem does not

arise in this case on account of the extreme catholicity of Baba’s views and

practice. But prejudices die hard and in spite of all that is said, persons

still hanker to know whether Baba was a Hindu or a Moslem. It may be

pointed out that though his original antecedents were unknown, his continued

residence for about 50 years in a mosque was considered a sufficient reason

for most people to consider him to be a Moslem. There is a Tamil proverb

that if one drinks anything, even milk, under a Palmyra tree, he will be

taken to have drunk toddy.