Sai Baba the Master

[Guest guest]

The period of four years was very eventful to Kasinath. It is punctuated

with the bitterest tears and the sweetest joy. Once, for example, Sai said

to Kasinath, “I shall be coming there (to the Khandoba temple), but if I go

over there, will you recognize me?” Kasinath used to cook his own food,

offer it first to Sai Baba and then partake of it. One day, a black dog

followed him and craved for the food but Kasinath thought of feeding it

only after offering it to Sai. On his arrival at the mosque Sai said, “Why

come so far? I was there!” Kasinath could not understand it. Sai explained,

“I sat there looking at you till you finished cooking.”

 

Kasinath said, “But there was none except a black dog!”

 

“Yes, I was that!” replied Sai Baba.

 

Kasinath decided not to repeat the error of not recognizing Baba when he

visited him. But the next day he found a sudra (low caste) beggar staring

at his broth yearningly as he cooked. Being caste conscious, Kasinath drove

him away with harsh words. But when he brought the meals to Sai, the latter

was furious and refused to accept the offering because he (in the form of

the sudra) was driven away without food. The words of Sai, “Wherever you

may look, I am there”, were deeply impressed on Kasinath’s heart.

Henceforth he lived in a keener awareness of the omnipresence of his Guru

God.

 

There were bitter times too. For instance Sai Baba took away all the money

that Kasinath had brought with him demanding dakshina from him repeatedly.

His clothes became rags in course of time, but Sai never allowed him to put

on the new cloths which his brother had sent him. Baba was teaching him

practically the significance of his own statement, “What man gives never

lasts; what God gives never wears out.”

 

Kasinath sometimes experienced extreme aversion for food and he used to

throw it away to dogs and other creatures. Sometimes he saw Sai Baba when

the latter went out of the Dwaraka Mai on his daily rounds. Baba always

assured him, “I am always with you, you need not fear anything. The more

you suffer now, the more excellent and happy your future will be.” Pivoted

on such trust in his guru, he stopped eating altogether for one year during

1913-14. Strangely enough, though he was lean and without food, he was

doing hard work like grinding or working in road-laying or ploughing

fields! On a full moon day in July-August, 1913 Sai Baba indicated the

nearing completion of his spiritual dispensation of Kasinath when he

ordered his devotees to worship the latter in the temple even as Sai Baba

was worshipped in the mosque.