Sai Baba the Master - By E.Bhardawaj

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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!

 

Similarly, once the mother of Mr. Sarma had darshan of Sri Samarth on

several occasions, and the most striking instance is as follows. Once Sri

M.B.R. Sarma had completed nine devotional readings of the life Sri Swami

Samarth. That day at noon his mother was resting on a cot in the backyard

of the house. She felt sleepy but thought that if she fell asleep, monkeys

which are rampant there might slip into the house. She opened her eyes and

when she looked about she saw Sri Swami Samarth seated there! But strangely

enough, it did not seem surprising to her. She casually thought, “While the

swamy is seated there how can monkeys enter?” After sometime the same doubt

occurred to her and she again looked at the back and again saw the swamy

sitting there. That happened some four or five times. She also saw some

other holy man sitting by his side but she did not know who it was. Much

later she got up and found nobody there. Where Baba’s devotees are, there

are all saints! That is the purport of this leela.

 

Smt. Susheeladevi and Sri Bhatkal were devotees of Bhagvan Ramana Maharshi

and considered him as their guru. At the time of Bhagwan’s mahasamadhi they

were in Switzerland and could not take his last darshan. A fortnight

afterwards, when they arrived in Madras, they were approached by some

devotees of Sai Baba for donation for the construction of a Sai Mandir.

Smt. Bhatkal told them that her guru was Bhagavan and she had to go to

Tiruvannamalai first. The devotees said that Sri Ramana and Sai Baba were

not different from each other and assured her that she should realize it if

she visited Shirdi. She went to Shirdi on 3-3-1953. There, at Gurusthan she

and her fellow-devotee Smt. Dongre had a vivid darshan of Sri Ramana

Maharshi in Sai Baba’s photograph! She was immensely pleased with the

darshan and stayed at Shirdi for seven days, and read ‘Sri Sai Satcharita’.

 

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