Sai Baba the Master by E.Bharadwaja

[Guest guest]

One Tatya Baba Kote writes that before Sai Baba came to live in the

mosque, he lived for some time in a jungle of thorny trees (Babul or

Acacia) and that he was taken to be a madman by the village urchins

who

often stoned him. But he never got angry with them nor protested

against

their waywardness.

 

Thus the birth, parentage, religion, caste and the native place of

Baba

remained a mystery. Many people repeatedly asked him about these

details

but he quietly put them off the point with a smile. Once a thief who

was

arrested by the police told the Dhulia Court that he was given the

valuable articles in his possession by Sai Baba of Shirdi. Then the

Dhulia

court sent a Commissioner to record Baba’s replies to the inquiries.

The

inquiry went on thus:

“What is your Name?”

“They call me Sai baba”.

“Your father’s name?”

“Also Sai Baba”.

“Your guru’s name?”

“Venkusa”.

“Your religion?”

“Kabir”.

“Caste or Community?”

“Parvardigar”(God).

“Your age?”

“Lakhs of years”.

It is evident from these replies that Baba did not look upon himself

as

his body and so he never revealed anything of his early life to any

devotee.

However, once he is reported to have told late Sri Mahalsapathy that

he

was horn in a Brahmin family in the village of Patri and that at an

early

age he was given away by his parents to a fakir. Perhaps we should

take it

as a cryptic and allegorical statement that was characteristic of him.

For

instance, he always referred to God as “the merciful Fakir”, He also

said

once, “I came here (to Shirdi) from Aurangabad. My mama (uncle)

brought me

down here”. He once told Swami Sai Sharananandaji, “I was only eight

years

old when I left my parents and came to the Ganges. (Baba always

referred

to the Godavari River near Kopargaon as ‘Ganges’) Then I came to

Shirdi”.

This is perhaps an instance of Baba identifying himself with

Sripadavallabha the first manifestation of Lord Dattatreya who left

his

home at the early age of eight.

 

 

 

 

Dr. K.B. Gawankar, in his book on Sai Baba, has recorded a few more of

Sai

baba’s reminiscences of his pre-Shirdi days. Once Sai baba told his

devotees, Bade Baba and Bapugir Gosavi, “I grew up in Mahurgad (a holy

place sanctified by the presence of Lord Dattatreya); when people

pestered

me I left for Girnar; there too people troubled me much and I left for

Mount Abu. There too the same thing happened. Then I came to Akkalkot

and

from there to Daulatabad. There Janardana Swami (a great saint) did me

a

lot of seva (i.e. service). Then I went to Pandharpur; from there I

came

to Shirdi”.

 

Dr. Gawankar also records a significant aspect of Sai Baba’s life.

Once

Baba asked Smt. Kasibai Kanitkar, “Did Lord Datta give you anything at

Kopergaon?” “No”, she said.

 

“Do you know Sakharam Maharaj of Angaonkawad? (A famous saint of that

place). He is my guru bandhu. We served the same guru. We planted two

mango saplings there.”

 

Next day, when Smt. Kasibai went to Kopergaon to see the saint Sri

Sakharam Maharaj, he gave her two mangoes and said, “Sai Baba has sent

these for you.”

 

There is a mention in Sri Sakharam’s biography of his frequent

chattings

with “a young fakir” who, according to Gawankar, was undoubtedly Sai

baba

himself. It is also recorded that once Sakharam Maharaj told his

devotees

that he was going to his ‘brother’ and then he proceeded towards the

river

Kamode. Devotees who accompanied him thither saw a fakir on the

opposite

bank of the river. He was the fakir aulia of the Nizampur Dargah. They

saw

each other and exchanged hearty smiles and returned to their

respective

abodes. Dr.Gawankar conjectures that it is possible that the fakir

aulia

was Sai Baba himself. Chronologically, this incident took place

between

Sai Baba’s earlier disappearance at Shirdi and his second and

permanent

arrival there in 1858.

 

How dearly Sai Baba cherished this phase of his life can be seen from

this

incident: Bapusaheb Jog was a devotee of Sri Sakharam Maharaj. On one

of

his visits to the latter’s mutt (monastery) at Angaonkawad, he saw the

two

mango trees that were mentioned earlier by Sri Sai Baba. On one of his

later visits, jog plucked a mango from one of them as an offering to

Sri

Sai Baba but realized his error when he found it to be too unripe.

Then he

purchased two good fruits on his way for Sai Baba. Later when he

offered

the two ripe mangoes Sai Baba would not, take them! He only wanted the

mango that Jog had plucked at Angaonkawad! When Sai Baba took it in

his

hands tears of joy flowed freely from his eyes. Baba examined it and

said,

“It is not yet ripe.” Bapusaheb Jog said, “Yes, Baba.” Sai Baba stared

at

it for a while and with a sportive sparkle in his eye said, “Is it

so?”

and ordered that it should be cut and distributed to all the devotees

assembled there. Everyone was surprised to note that the mango was

indeed

ripe and sweet!

 

 

 

Another reference of Sai baba to his early life relates to his meeting

with his Guru: “I found my master in the chavadi here. His calm,

peaceful,

cheerful and meditative face attracted me, almost bewitched me so much

so

that my eyes were rivetted on his face and even a moment’s separation

made

me uneasy. In His company I used to forget even hunger and thirst. I

served him with all my heart for more than 12 years. The duties I had

imposed on myself for him were very arduous. He never left his seat

for

any purpose, not even to answer the calls of nature. Merged in

mediation,

he entirely forgot that he had a body, mind, etc. He ate, passed urine

and

stool there only, on his seat. I fed him, changed his clothes, swept

and

kept his seat always clean. As a reward for this he gave me his

blessings

saying, ‘Wherever you are, here or even beyond the seven seas, I will

ever

be with you to guard and protect you’…..at the start he had asked me

to

pay his fees (dakshina); and on my asking what his fees were, he

coolly

said that his fee was only two paise and these paise were not the

government currency I had been using. His two paise consisted of two

things, nishta (absolute faith) and saboori (cheerful patience). I

readily

gave him these two paise and though I was very eager to obtain from

his

holy mouth some holy spell or formula which I could go on chanting and

repeating, he whispered nothing in my ears. He simply said, ‘I shall

ever

be with you, protecting you by my mere glance, in the manner of a

tortoise

protecting its young ones.’ The entire credit of all my glory goes to

this

Guru. It is the outcome of his blessings”. 5

 

“On another occasion”, writes Swami Sai Sharananandaji in his book

“Shri

Sai, the Superman”, “He (Sai Baba) said to this writer, ‘My guru’s

name is

Roshan Shah Mia’ ”. The same writer who lived for quite some time with

Sri

Sai baba adds, “Subsequently, I marked that Shri Baba was, from time

to

time, also using the word ‘Roshan’. He used it particularly when he

told

some parables. It seems Roshan Shah thereafter had cast off his mortal

coil (his body) and Baba entombed him under or near the nimb (neem)

tree

at present found in Shirdi Navlkar’s wada or mansion. When the

previous

owner of this wada, R. S. Sathe, wanted to put up a story and terrace,

at

the time of putting up a stair-case he unearthed a tomb with an

under-ground cellar or a cave under the tree. Baba was asked as to

what

should be done about the tomb and the cave. Baba said that the place

belonged to his elders and it should neither be disturbed nor opened

but

it should be covered up with a stone as before”. Some boys playing

hide

and seek removed the stone and found under it, several steps leading

further down. They said that the cave was dark but rather long. Baba

once

told Shri Sai Sharananandji, pointing to a pillar near his dhuni (the

sacred fire) in the mosque (Dwaraka Mai) that there was a cave

thereunder

to which he always confined himself, that once his beard grew so long

that

it reached the ground and swept it; that he never came out except to

meet

some holy or religious man. Throwing light on his life during this

period,

once Sai Baba admonished Sagunmeru Naik, “What? Can’t you put up with

a

day or two days’ starvation? I lived on margosa leaves for twelve long

years!”

 

 

A devotee of Sai Baba, Hari Vinayak Sathe, reports, “Baba told me that

the

tomb close to that (neem) tree was that of his guru. He gave his name.

It

ended with ‘Shah’ or ‘Sah’. Some of Sai baba’s devotees felt that they

heard Baba say that his guru was Venkusa. While ‘Roshan Shah’ is a

Moslem

name, ‘Venkusa’ is a Hindu name. Whether this ambiguity lay in Baba’s

pronunciation or in his giving different answers to the same question

when

put by devotees of diverse temperaments, we cannot determine.

 

Our attempt at tracing the period of discipleship of Baba is already

complicated. On the one hand we have his statement that when his

mother

rejoiced at his birth he himself wondered why she should be so elated,

as

he had always been in existence i.e., as the eternal spirit and he did

not

wrongly identify himself with his body. On the other side we have

references to his discipleship. What is discipleship to one who was

already perfect?

 

Again we cannot be very sure of the literal truth of the story of Baba

’s

discipleship. For he once gave a different account of it altogether.

It is

worth quoting in its entirety:-

 

“Once four of us were studying religious scriptures and we began to

discuss the ways of realizing Brahman. One of us said that we should

elevate ourselves and not depend on others. To this the second replied

that he who controls his mind is blessed, that we should be free from

thoughts and ideas and there is nothing in the world without us. The

third

said that the world of phenomena is always changing, between the Real

and

the unreal. The fourth (i.e., Baba himself) urged that mere learning

is

worthless and added, ‘Let us do our prescribed duty and surrender our

body, mind and five pranas (or life impulses) to the guru’s feet. Guru

is

“God, all-pervading. To get this conviction, strong and unbounded

faith is

necessary.

 

 

Discussing thus we four men began to ramble through the woods in quest

of

God. On the way a labourer met us and asked us where we were going in

the

heat of the day. We did not reveal the object of our quest to him. He

then

warned us of the danger of our losing the way in the woods if we went

without a guide. Finally he said, ‘You may not give out to me your

secret

quest; will you sit down, eat bread, drink water, take rest and then

go!’

But we rejected his offer and walked on. We lost our way. Ultimately,

through sheer luck, we came back to the place from where we started.

 

The labourer met us again and said. “By relying on your own cleverness

you

missed your way; a guide is always necessary to show us the right way

in

all matters. No quest can be successfully carried out on an empty

stomach.

Unless God wills it, no one meets us on the way. Do not reject offers

of

food, (which are to be considered) auspicious signs of success!” He

again

offered us food and asked us to be calm and patient.

 

I was hungry and thirsty and I was moved by the extraordinary love of

the

labourer who looked quite illiterate and of a ‘low’ caste. I thought

that

acceptance of his hospitality was the best beginning of gaining

knowledge.

So I respectfully accepted the food he had offered.

 

Then the guru stood before us and asked. ‘What was the dispute about?’

I

told him everything that had happened. Then he said, ‘Would you like

to

come with me? I will show you what you want, but only he who believes

in

what I say will be successful! I bowed to him reverently and accepted

him

as my guide. But the other three spurned his hospitality and his

guidance

and wandered away. They no longer searched for god but rambled idly in

hunger and thirst.

 

(To be contd....)

 

Source http://www.saibharadwaja.org)