Sai Baba the Master by E.Bharadwaja

[Guest guest]

Baba did not always cure a man’s ailment simply by his word. He often

advocated a course of treatment which actually contradicted all known

medical opinion and which in common experience, was sure to aggravate the

ailment. Once Shriman Booty had an attack of cholera. Dr. Pillai’s efforts

to cure it had failed and he had recourse to the master-physician, Sai

Baba. Baba then prescribed him an infusion of almonds, walnuts and pista

(a dry fruit) boiled in sugar and milk as his diet! This would, in common

parlance, be considered fatal to such a patient. But the disease was cured

by it. So too, Kaka Mahajani once suffered from violent diarrhoea. But he

had to attend on Baba. So he kept a pot of water by his side and was often

hurrying out to answer nature’s call. He did not ask Baba for the cure

because he had implicit faith that Baba knew all his needs. At that time

the construction of the pavement of the musjid was going on. Suddenly,

Baba, in his characteristic unaccountable manner, burst into a wild fury.

Every one ran away and Kaka Mahajani was about to do the same. But Baba

held him back by the hand, forced him to sit there, picked up a handful of

groundnuts (or peanuts as some would call them) from a bag (left behind by

one of those who ran away from there), blew off the chaff and gave the

clean nuts to Kaka. He told Kaka to eat them and then continued his

furious outburst of abuse. Baba too ate some of the nuts, drank a little

water from a pitcher and gave the rest to Kaka and told him to drink it.

When he did, fearing the worst aggravation of the ailment, Baba said to

him, “Now your diarrhoea has stopped!” Indeed, it did. Something that

should have aggravated the disease has actually cured it.

 

Once Nana had a painful boil on his buttock. Though he had immense faith

in the power of Sai Baba to cure it, he knew too well that very often Baba

took the suffering on himself. So he preferred to suffer. The doctors

finally decided that it must be surgically opened. This prospect

frightened Nana very much. For, “It is a difficult one to operate”, said

the surgeon, “and is even dangerous; however, don’t get panicky. I’ll come

tomorrow”. That night Nana slept with Baba’s picture under his pillow! The

next day, fifteen minutes before the operation was to commence, Nana was

lying on his face on the bed. Suddenly a tile fell from the roof and, of

all places, it hit the boil on Nana’s buttock. It made Nana groan, but it

burst the boil and expelled all the bad blood. The doctor examined it and

told Nana that there was no need to operate it. Nana could have jumped

with joy. After a few days Nana visited Sai Baba, and the first words that

Baba spoke were, “I removed Nana’s boil with my finger”!

 

Sometimes Baba’s methods of effecting cures were less direct. Perhaps he

sometimes felt it necessary for his kiddies to toughen through a process

of suffering which he could well gauge to be neither too serious nor too

painful. Especially, he seems to have taken care to see that the suffering

raised the mental grit or courage of the patient. To this end he often

ordered the patient to go away from him so that psychologically, he might

get used to depend on Baba’s grace and not on Baba’s proximity.

 

 

 

(To be contd....)

 

Source http://www.saibharadwaja.org)