Sai Baba the Master

[Guest guest]

In those days devotees started flocking to Shirdi from big cities like

Bombay and they brought with them sweetmeat and other delicacies. Baba

often gave these to Tatya, sometimes even waiting for him for hours.

Strangely enough, he never gave any such dainties to Mahalsapathy (who was

one of the poorest and dearest of his devotees) as though he wanted him to

learn to keep his palate under control.

 

After the morning ‘breakfast’ Baba used to go for his forenoon stroll to

the garden Lendibaugh. Devotees followed him wherever he went but no one

was allowed to enter the garden when he did. What he used to do there

remained a mystery to many for a long time. The only one who was allowed to

attend on him there was his moslem devotee Abdul Baba. He seems to have

been one of the chosen devotees of Baba. For, his coming to Baba was

characterized by a special gesture from the Godman. Let us listen to Abdul’

s own account of it:

 

“I came to Shirdi forty-five years ago from Nanded, on the banks of the

river Tapti. I was under the care of the fakir Amiruddin of Nanded. Sai

Baba appeared in the dream of that fakir and, delivering two mangoes to

him, directed him to give those fruits to me and to send me to Shirdi.

Accordingly, the fakir gave me the fruits and bade me to go to Sai Baba of

Shirdi. I came here in my twentieth year.Baba welcomed me saying, ‘My crow

has come’. Baba directed me to devote myself entirely to his service. From

the beginning, I lighted and fed with oil the five perpetual lamps, i.e.,

those at Lendi, musjid, chavadi and other places.

 

I used to look after the Lendi and the ever-burning light maintained by

Baba there. It was, in those days, placed in a hollow in the earth, scooped

to the depth of about two feet and protected with a cover from being blown

out. There was a pandal. A zinc sheet was the top of the pandal. Some

twenty curtains were tied all round, to form something like a tent. I

remained in it and looked after the lamp in the centre of it. That light is

shifted from its place now, very slightly, and is put in a raised pillar of

bricks and mortar containing an enclosed chamber for it. At Lendibaugh,

Baba would sit close to the light. He sat behind the lamp-post and not in

front of it. The lamp was not visible to him. I never saw him gazing at it.

I filled two buckets with water and placed them near him. This water, he

would scatter all around that lamp. He would get up from the light and walk

a few yards in each direction and go on gazing in that (cardinal)

direction. I do not know why he did like that or whether he uttered any

mantra while doing so.”

 

Source: http://www.saibharadwaja.org