Sai Baba the Master by E.Bharadwaja

[Guest guest]

Baba has been keeping up his word as illustrated below.

 

In 1971, I started for Mummidivaram (in East Godavari Dt. A.P) to have

darshan of Sri Balayogi on the holy Sivaratri day. On the way I

stopped at

Guntur to see Sri Ranganna Babu, a great devotee of Sri Rama, and

invite

him to visit Vidyanagar. “I shall seek the permission of my guru Sri

Rama

and, if he permits me, I shall go to Vidyanagar. It is not in my hands

to

say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Many eminent people come from Hyderabad, Madras and

other place to take me there but generally Sri Rama does not permit me

to

go”, he replied. I said, “I shall see you again on my way back from

Mummidivaram. You please ask Sri Rama. If he is pleased with the

devotion

of the students at Vidyanagar, he would agree”, and took leave of him.

All

that I could do was to pray to Baba. He demonstrated while he was in

flesh

that he was all the saints and gods. So he should inspire Sri Ranganna

Babu through Sri Rama to visit my place.

 

Again the response was striking. On the third day, I saw Sri Ranganna

Babu

on my return journey. He was the first to great me gleefully, “Sir,

Sri

Rama has permitted me to go with you! ‘Ranganna’, he said, the

students at

Vidyanagar, are doing bhajan with devotion. Go, see them’. And he gave

me

grapes to be distributed to the devotees!” So saying he at once

started

with me. He had spent two days at Vidyanagar, stepped on a plot of

land

and said, “Here would spring up an ashram and a mandir! Great yogis

will

visit this place and great religious ceremonies like yagnas will be

performed here.

 

Another instance: On the evening of 26th July, 1975, we were doing

satsang

at my house. I was reading out to the gathering the chapter entitled,

“Sri

Sai is in All Saints” from my present book on Baba. Just then we had

finished reading the leela (miracle) of Baba’s transfiguration as Sri

Guru

Gholapswami to one Mule Sastry. A small van stopped before my house

and

some one there announced, “The Swami has come!” When I came out I saw

the

saint Sri Samarth Narayana Maharaj of Harihar. He entered our satsang

hall, sat on my mat (darbhasana) and blessed us with his presence for

full

two hours. He too said, “Here will spring up a fine mandir and great

souls

will come and stay here”. Sri Narayana Maharaj is the twelfth

incumbent of

the seat at Harihar and he belongs to the tradition of Sri Samarth

Ramadas, the guru of Shivaji.

 

The same saint afforded us another proof that the strength of devotion of

our group was mainly responsible for the arrival of great saints to

these

parts. From 11-12-1975 to 23-12-1975 he performed a yagna at Vakadu

(four

miles from here). Our group visited him there everyday. On the 20th, a

member of our group was meditating in his presence. The swami then

told

him, “As you people here are doing dhyana and performing satsang and

bhajan with devotion, I happened to come here from afar to perform

this

yagna.” The next day when his disciples were dispersing the crowds, he

said to them, “The disciples of Bharadwaja would be coming here. Let

them

sit here and meditate”. Henceforth none from our group was ever asked

by

his disciples to clear off from that place.

 

Now a few instances to show how Sri Sai Baba had established his claim

over me as his own. Sometime before I came to Vidyanagar (i.e., when I

was

at the ashram of a Mother) I happened to go to Naimisaranya to take

darshan of Sri Ma Anandamayi who was conducting a Bhagawata Saptaha

there.

The Swamiji who was giving the exposition, in the course of his talk

one

day said that only a living sage can lead us to Enlightenment or

liberation and that one who had shed his body, however great, can at

best

bless us with material welfare only. This raised a question regarding

the

efficacy of my devotion to Sri Sai though I did not give it up.

 

Sometime after my arrival at Vidyanagar, an old student of mine in

Hyderabad visited me and invited me to his house in Pune on my next

visit

to Shirdi. I casually agreed. I subsequently visited Shirdi with the

idea

of staying there for a week. But from the second day of my stay at

Shirdi,

all my mind was strongly driving me to visit Pune. Finding it useless

to

confine my body at Shirdi any longer, I at last arrived there. My

friend

was away at his office and I resolved to go round the city before he

returned home. On the way the sight of a flower-shop made me inquire

whether there was any great saint in Pune. A gentleman told me that

there

was Gulavani Maharaj, a disciple of Sri Vasudevananda Saraswathi

(alias

Sri Tembe Swami). I at once visited him with a simple offering. When

he

saw me prostrating, he addressed me, “Oh! You are the child of Sai

Baba”.

Thrilled at this uncanny knowledge, I expressed my doubts about the

efficacy of my devotion to Sri Sai, a saint who had shed his physical

body

more than half a century ago. He said that Sri Sai Baba is not a mere

saint but a manifestation of Lord Dattatreya, that he has been guiding

seekers spiritually even after his mahasamadhi and even manifesting

himself physically before some; that I was, on the right path and that

I

need no other guide.

 

 

Some time later, a saint of about 55 years appeared in my dream.

Though

his form was quite different, I had the vivid feeling that he was Sai

Baba. He embraced me and said thrice, “Why worry that you don’t have a

guru? I am here?”

 

Again, during the holy Navarathri days of 1970, I happened to visit

Puttaparthi with another friend, Mr. E.V.Krishna Rao. As, at that

time, I

was in a hospital laid up with typhoid, the friend took me all the way

from Chirala in a taxi at great expense to himself. On our arrival

there

we were told that Sri Satyasai Baba does not grant interviews during

those

nine days. I was anxious for my friend who incurred heavy expense for

the

trip. I prayed to Sri Sai Baba of Shirdi. That very day Sri Satyasai

Baba

granted us an interview along with two Nepalese and two foreigners! He

told me, “Sri Sai Baba’s grace is ever with you. You need fear

nothing”.

 

I cannot refrain from mentioning another experience. On the holy day

of

Sivarathri in 1975, I had finished my worship. At about 8.30 a.m., I

had a

strong urge to take darshan of one great saint, Sri Venkaiah Avadhuta

at a

village named Golagamudi. I called one of my students, Ramakrishna

whose

father was a devotee of this saint and asked him to join me.

Ramakrishna

said that the saint does not stay in any place for more than three or

four

days and that we had better enquire whether he was in that village.

But I

prayed to Sai, “Baba! I want to take darshan of your manifestation,

Sri

Venkaiah Swami. Please bless me to have his darshan and special

blessings”. I burned incense before Baba’s picture and left for that

village. On our way another bus which was to take us there crossed; we

got

into it. In it there were a few sadhus who carried a stringed musical

instrument which belonged to the saint. They told us that the holy one

came to Nellore some four days earlier and that he decided to stay

there

for full ten days, but at 8.30 a.m., that day, he suddenly started for

Golagamudi. He reached there just half an hour before our arrival.

Owing

to the sudden change of his plans no other devotees visited him and we

two

sat in his presence for full six hours. At the end of it he blessed

us.

 

(To be contd....)

 

Source http://www.saibharadwaja.org)