BABA IS FORMLESS AND EVERYWHERE

[Guest guest]

BABA IS FORMLESS AND EVERYWHERE

Baba always walked, talked, and laughed with his many devotees. He loved fun and

loved to poke fun at the discrepancies of human nature, though his humor was

always tempered with tenderness. His durbar in Shirdi in those glorious days

when he was in the body was a veritable abode of joy, and in no sense did it

resemble a gloomy cloister bereft of laughter and sunshine.

The Saint of Shirdi baffled his admirers. No one definitely knew whether he was

a Hindu or Muslim. He dressed like a Muslim and bore the caste marks of a

Hindu! he celebrated with the same childlike eclat the festivals of both the

communities! If the Hindu protagonists felt a pride of possession in the

thought that true to their customs Baba was always burning the sacred fire, or

dhuni, before him, they were also reluctantly compelled to admit that after all

he lived in a Masjid. He quoted the Koran and delighted his Muslim worshippers

and then made them look askance at his profound knowledge of the Hindu Sastras.

 

He called himself a fakir, and on his lips reverberated constantly the

incantation Allah Malik. But, then, he called himself a pure Brahmin too and

showed a remarkable proficiency in all yogic practices. It was a magnificent

tribute to his luminous presence that the most orthodox members of both the

communities prostrated themselves at his feet. Perhaps, such a phenomenon is

yet unknown in the history of this vast and bewildering country of ours when

the same veneration and with mutual toleration of each other's mode of worship.

 

Sai Baba in his infinite wisdom saw how imperative it was to harmonize people,

for he grievously hated all dissensions and was never so hurt as when he found

people arguing and quarreling. That Rama (the God of Hindus) and Rahim ( the

God of Muslims) were one and the same was his constant counsel to his

followers. In Shirdi in those days a remarkable spirit of love and brotherhood

prevailed, for all communities had found a common and unifying interest in the

Divine personality of Shri Sai Baba. Could this not be one of the important

reasons why Baba set about deliberately baffling his followers whether he was a

Hindu or a Muslim ?

So, who is Sai Baba ? people ask to this day, and to those who seek for a

superficial classification of the Saint as subscribing to this or that creed

there is still no satisfactory solution to this problem. But those few who have

assimilated the teachings of the great Master realize that "Sai is not this

three and a half cubic feet of visible body residing in Shirdi," as Baba

himself was fond of repeating, but a glorious being who had transcended the

limitations of time and space to become one with the all-absorbing and

all-loving Divine. To such a one, what did it matter how and where he was born,

or what his nationality was.! Once in reply to this same query Baba said: " I

have no residence. I am an attributeless absolute. By the action of karma, I

got embroiled and came to a body. My name is embodied dehi. The world is my

abode. Brahman is my father and maya my mother. By their interlocking, I got

this body.Those who think I reside

at Shirdi do not know the real Sai," he chided, "for I am formless and everywhere."

(Source: Sai Baba The Saint of Shirdi by Mani Sahukar)

SBC - Internet access at a great low price.