Sai Baba the Master - By E.Bhardawaj

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Later, at 12-30 noon, Bhaskar visited the swami. The latter told him to

sit aside for a while and come to him a little later. As Bhaskar sat in a

corner, the devotees there told him that a little before his arrival the

swami said to them, “A brahmin is coming here!” It is evident that thereby

the swami was not referring to the formal caste to which Bhaskar belongs

but to his yearning for enlightenment. Later Bhaskar saw the swami and the

latter said to him, “A devotee will join you. Together both of you are

going to look after the work of a temple”. He repeatedly asked Bhaskar,

“What do you want?” “I want only your grace”, Bhaskar said. The swami told

the other devotees, “I had already blessed him! Not only him but I had

blessed his village too; I have granted him lots of devotion and faith”.

Then Bhaskar again offered to bow to the swami and the latter said, “You

have already earned the grace of great ones. Where is the need to bow

again?” Obviously, by ‘great ones’ the swamy meant Sai Baba and the other

saints whom Bhaskar saw with Baba’s grace. When he said that he had blessed

not only Bhaskar but also his village, he was referring to the fact that at

Bhaskar’s house Thursday bhajans and satsang were being conducted and

several people of the village were attending it.

 

Sai Baba secures for us not only the blessings of living saints but also

of those who had long ago passed away. These experiences of devotees also

confirm his oneness with them. We have noted in the Chapter, “Sai Baba is

in all saints” that he had demonstrated his identity with Sri Samarth of

Akkalkot. Even today there seems to be a special affinity between these two

saints as the following experiences indicate.

 

Mrs. R. Venkataratnamma, wife of Sri. R. Surendra Babu, (the then Head

Master, Z.P. High School, Kota) records her experience:

 

“My son, Sarath Babu, a close disciple of Sri Bharadwaja brought a

manuscript copy of the life of Sri Akkalkot Maharaj written by his Master.

He said that I would get peace of mind if I studied and copied out the

biography. So I started copying the script devoutly. After a few days, one

night I had a vivid dream. An unusually tall sadhu with long hands, wearing

a dhothi (loin cloth) appeared. He was holding a brass vessel (i.e. chembu)

in one hand. I had a vivid feeling in the dream that he was Akkalkot

Maharaj. He asked me to give him a seer of milk. He clearly told me that I

owed him that seer. The next moment I woke up. Till then I had no

opportunity to see the photograph of the Maharaj. But later when I saw it,

to my pleasant surprise it exactly tallied with the figure I saw in my

dream.

 

I was at a loss to know why he asked me for milk because I had never vowed

to offer any, either to the Maharaj or Baba. I conveyed my dream to Sri

Bharadwaja who asked me to offer the milk to Baba the next Thursday, saying

there must be some connection which we might not know. The next Thursday

when I was boiling the milk to be offered to Baba, my mother-in-law,

casually asked me why I was doing so. She arrived only on that day, after a

fifteen day’s stay at her daughter’s house. I told her about the dream. She

was surprised and told me that a few days ago when she was away, she fell

ill, and vowed to Sri Sai Baba that she would offer a seer of milk if she

recovered soon. Accordingly she recovered soon and returned home that day.

Only then could I know the purport of the dream. I realized that Sai Baba

and Akkalkot Maharaj are really one in spirit. My mother-in-law vowed to

Sai Baba but Akkalkot Maharaj claimed the offering!

 

(Source : http://www.saibharadwaja.org)