Sai Baba the Master by E.Bharadwaja

[Guest guest]

At first Sai Baba prescribed and gave medicines to the ailing visitors

who

sought his help but never charged nor accepted any money for the same.

Not

only that; if he found that there was none to look after or nurse the

patient, he would himself be the nurse and serve him. Once it so

happened

that his patient failed to observe the rules of diet, etc., that Sai

Baba

had prescribed and henceforth Baba gave up administering medicine and

gave

only his ‘udi’ or holy ashes for their relief.

 

Raghuji Gannapat Scinde Patel refers to this incident in his account:

“As

soon as Baba came to Shirdi, one Amanbhai, a Moslem gave him food.

That

Amabhai was visiting my mavusi’s (grand mother’s) house occasionally.

Her

son Ganapat Hari Kanade, aged thirty five, had leprosy and fever.

Amanbhai

told her that a holy man had come to his house and that he could treat

her

son. Then Baba came in and saw the patient and told Ganapat to catch a

cobra courageously, as the cobra would not bite a leper. Ganapat

caught a

cobra and out of its poison, the medicine was prepared and given to

Ganapat. He began to improve in a few days. But he did not observe

Baba’s

injunction to avoid sex-pleasures. So Baba stopped giving him further

treatment. The disease developed and Ganapat died.

 

Baba came to this very house to treat my younger brother Bhagoji, who

was

suffering from fever, at a very critical period, when death was

imminent.

Baba gave him some medicine and further had him branded with red-hot

irons

(one on each temple and one on the back). Bhagoji recovered his

health,

escaped death and fever.”

 

Young ‘Sai Baba’ (even this title was not conferred on him by that

time)

stayed under the neem tree for about three years but suddenly left

Shirdi.

No one knew where he went or why. After a year or so, he again

returned to

Shirdi and stayed on there till his mahasamadhi in 1918 i.e., for

sixty

years.

 

Where Saibaba was during the interval between his first and second

visits

to Shirdi is not definitely known. However, some vague hints are given

by

some devotees. For instance, Amoolchand Chandrabhan Seth of Rahata

says.

“My elder cousin Khusal Bhav who died on 5-11-1918 has told me that

Sai

Baba lived in a chavadi (now in ruins) at Rahata for some months or

so;

that previously Sai Baba lived with a Moslem saint Ali (Akbar Ali

perhaps)

whose portrait is still kept in our gin i.e., ‘Rahatekar’s gin’ near

Wadia

Park at Ahmednagar; that Daulu Sait had seen Baba with the saint at

Ahmednagar and that Baba came from Ahmednagar to live at Rahata and

then

went to live at Shirdi.” (“Devotees’ Experiences”)

 

 

 

The Divine Ministration

D.D. Nanasaheb Rasne who served Baba for nearly two decades has told

the

author of a remarkable incident in this period of Baba’s life as

recounted

to him by Saint Gadge Maharaj himself.

 

Sri Gadge Maharaj (alias Sri Guzadi Maharaj) a famous saint of

Maharashtra, was serving in a provision store at Sivagaon Pathadi. One

day

Sai Baba came there from Selu Manvat and begged for roti. When no one

gave

him any, he picked an ear of Jawar from a ripe farm and went away,

munching it. Gadge went home on leave, picked up roti and proceeded in

search of the fakir. At last, he found the latter sitting under a tree

in

a nearby jungle. The fakir demanded, “Why have you come here?”

 

“I noticed that they hadn’t offered you roti, and so I got it for

you.”

 

“Will you give me whatever I demand?”

 

“You may ask for anything except money which I don’t have”.

 

“I need your life. Give it.”

 

“How can I take it out and offer you? Take it by your hand, I am

ready!”

 

The fakir then kept his hand on Gadge’s head in blessing. The latter,

instantly galvanized with intense renunciation, at once went back,

bade

goodbye to his family and rushed to his guru who, in the meanwhile,

went

ahead. When baba saw him he was wild and roared, “Rogue, why have you

come

to trouble me further?”

 

“I cannot part from you!” Gadge submitted.

 

Baba then led him to the nearby tomb of a Moslem saint, commanded

Gadge to

dig a small pit nearby and fill it with two pots-full of water.

Getting

down into that, Baba sipped a little of the water and directed the

other

to do the same. Gadge obeyed and at once grew oblivious of everything

in a

deep yogic trance. By the time he regained his sense, Baba had left.

 

Subsequently, Gadge reached Shirdi. Baba was at the mosque and the

curtains within were lowered. Gadge lifted a curtain up and peeped in.

Baba grew wild and cried, “Bastard, have you come to eat my bones,

having

already eaten my flesh? Why trouble me even after I gave you what I

have?”

When Gadge said that he would not leave him, Baba flung a brick at

him. It

struck the former on his brow, leaving a permanent crescent mark. Baba

then calmed down and said, “You’re fully blessed and will henceforth

be a

sadguru. God will bless you”. Gadge instantly attained perfect

Enlightenment.

 

Long after, on the eve of his mahasamadhi, Sadguru Gadge Maharaj

visited

Shirdi singing, “Ham jato Amche Gaona” (“I am going to my original

abode”)

.. He swept the village clean, sang Bhajans and told his devotees, “We

shall never meet again. I am going away!” Then he proceeded, singing,

to

the bank of river Narmada and attained mahasamadhi.

 

 

It should be mentioned here that Sri Gadge Maharaj, besides

ministering

spiritually to countless devotees, has also left behind several

charitable

and educational institutions in Gujarat and Maharashtra.

 

This account gives us an inkling of what Baba was and did even during

the

interval between his first and second arrival at Shirdi.

 

The second advent of Baba at Shirdi is interesting to note. Chand

Patil

was a wealthy gentleman of Dhoop village in Aurangabad district. On

one of

his trips to Aurangabad, the horse which he was riding strayed and

could

not be found. He was very fond of the animal and so he searched for it

carefully for two months, but he could not find it. At last, while he

was

returning home by walk, carrying the saddle with him as a memento of

the

animal, he saw a fakir sitting under a tree by the road. The fakir

wore a

long gown, and a cap and had a small stick in his hand. He beckoned to

Chand Patil to come and rest in the shade of the tree for a while and

enquired of him, why he carried the saddle and what he was searching

for.

When Chand Patil told him of his missing animal, the fakir smiled and

asked him to search for it near a stream. Chand Patil was surprised to

see

the animal in the same spot where he could not find it a little

earlier;

when he returned to the fakir in great joy, the latter told him to

share a

puff from his chilm. The tobacco and the clay-pipe were ready with him

but

he had neither fire to light it, nor water to wet the cloth (through

which

the smoke is to be sucked). Then the fakir struck the ground with his

stick and there emerged a burning ember, from the earth! After

lighting

the pipe with it, the fakir again struck the ground with the stick and

water bubbled from the same spot!! The fakir wetted a piece of cloth

in it

and, using it as a filter, he puffed the smoke and offered it to Chand

Patil. The latter was already stunned by the miraculous power of the

fakir

and he accepted the clay pipe as a sign of blessing from the powerful

saint. Then he touched the feet of the fakir in reverence and begged

him

to grace his house with his visit. The fakir agreed and followed Chand

Patil to his house.

After some time, when the Patil had to attend the marriage of one of

his

nephews at Shirdi, he requested the fakir to grace the occasion.

Accordingly the whole party arrived at Shirdi. The bullock carts

halted at

the outskirts of the village. When the fakir alighted from one of

these,

Mahalsapathy, a priest in the village temple, recognized the great

saint

to be the same as the lad who appeared sitting under the neam tree a

few

years earlier and greeted him with the words “Ya Sai” (“Welcome

Saint”). Henceforth, he came to be known as ‘Sai Baba’ (‘Saint father

’).

 

Ramgir Bua, a devotes of Sai Baba writes about Sai Baba’s second

arrival

at Shirdi:-

 

“As a boy I studied in the school at Shirdi. I was a pupil when Sai

Baba

came to Shirdi. He was then accompanied by one Patel of Dhupkheda who

came

to settle the marriage of a girl with Hamid, the son of Aminbhai of

Shirdi. Baba appeared to be 25 or 30 years old at that time. He stayed

there as a guest of Aminbhai. He had long hair flowing down to his

buttocks. He wore a green kufni, a skullcap next to his hair and over

it a

bagawi topi (kashaya or ochre coloured cap): he carried a danda (a

small

baton) in his hand along with a chilm pipe and match box... He got his

bread by begging.” (“Devotees’ Experiences”).

 

Four or five months after his arrival at Shirdi, Baba started wearing

a

white gown and head-dress. Even after his second advent at Shirdi, Sai

baba seemed to have lived under the neem tree for some time and a

particular incident was responsible for Baba’s changing his residence

to

the old dilapidated mosque in the village. The details of the

incidents

that I could gather, are as follows:

 

Once there were very heavy rains at Shirdi and a large portion of it

was

flooded. After a long while some of his very early devotees remembered

the

homeless fakir and wanted to see how he fared and where he took

shelter

from the rain. Mahalsapathy and a few others rushed to the margosa

tree

and were stunned to see that Sai Baba was there under the same tree,

half-reclining, in a state of samadhi. Water flowed all over him. All

the

rubbish and filth gathered over his body. They dared not wake him up

from

that state. A few hours later, when the water had drained away, they

returned to see him still lying on the damp earth; his body and face

were

completely covered with mud deposited by the receding water. They felt

guilty at their gross neglect of his welfare all the time when he was

their sole protector and guide in all their sufferings. Later, when he

returned to the worldly place of consciousness, these devotees

persuaded

him to take shelter in the small, dilapidated mud-built mosque in the

village. Probably the Hindu natives of the village felt that ‘Sai baba

’

was a Moslem and so unfit to take shelter in Hindu temples as did the

other Hindu saints like Janakidas and Devidas. This shift of his abode

seemed to mark a change in his career. He burst into fame not long

after

this event.

 

 

 

(To be contd....)

 

Source http://www.saibharadwaja.org)