Sai Baba the Master

[Guest guest]

Immediately after lunch, Baba sent his devotees away to their lodgings and

often spent sometime alone. No one went to him at that time as he was

thought to be in his mystic meditation. However, very few devotees happened

to enter the musjid at that hour, i.e., between 12 noon and 2 p.m. and

noticed that Baba was engaged in a very strange mystic rite. Das Ganu

Maharaj describes it thus: “Baba was occasionally doing something strange

between 1 and 2 p.m. at the mosque with a cloth screen in front of him and

when he was alone. He would take out of a pouch ten or fifteen old coins.

They were of various values and descriptions, i.e., three paise, one anna,

two, four and eight anna pieces and one rupee coins. He would rub his

finger tips constantly yet gently against their surfaces (whether with or

without mantra, I cannot say). Their surfaces had all become worn out and

smooth. He would say, as he rubbed his finger against the coins, ‘This is

Nana’s, this is Bapu’s, this is Kaka’s’, etc. If anyone approached him, he

put them back in the pouch and hid them.”

 

At about 2.30 p.m. or so, devotees and visitors again assembled in the

mosque and put all their petitions before him. Towards evening Baba just

walked in the front-yard of the mosque, and stood for sometime near the

outer wall, leaning against it and talking to the passers-by along the

road. The place is marked now with his padukas there. At about five, he

again went to the Lendi and returned at sunset when devotees performed

arti.

 

Then Baba spent some time with devotees narrating some parables. Then he

gave the daily gifts of money to beggars and some devotees there by

emptying his pockets of the day’s collections of dakshina. Then he sent all

home, for the evening meal. Some people used to stay on with him a little

longer. And at night, they would all return to their lodgings leaving Baba

to rest. There is a strange incident connected with Baba’s method of

sleeping. At first Baba kept a sack-cloth as his seat during the day and as

a bed at night. Several sheets of cloth later came to be added to it as

gifts from devotees.

 

Source: http://www.saibharadwaja.org