Miraculous powers of Shirdi Sai Baba

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Water jars are kept in mosques for people to wash their feet before entering

the sacred precincts. In the dusk the villagers saw Baba take water from the

jars and pour it into his lamps. Then he lit the lamps and they burned. They

continued to burn, and the watchers realised that the fakir had turned the

water into oil. In consternation they fell at his feet, and prayed that he

would not put a curse on them for the way they had treated him. This was the

first miracle Sai Baba performed before the public, and it was the match that

lit the fire which became a beacon drawing thousands of men to him from afar.

Many became his devotees. He used his miraculous powers to cure their ailments,

to help them in their day-to-day problems, to protect them from danger wherever

they happened to be, and to draw them towards a spiritual way of

life. A great many found their sense of values changing. Some surrendered

themselves entirely to the divine will which they saw in Baba, gave up their

worldly lives, and came to live at Shirdi as close disciples. Sai Baba taught

them according to their needs and capacities. Learned pundits who thought him

illiterate found that he could discourse on spiritual philosophy and interpret

the sacred writings of India more profoundly and clearly than anyone else they

had ever known. But always he led his disciples along the Bhakti marga, the

radiant pathway of divine love, self-surrender and devotion. Loving care of

his devotees was the ruling motif of all Baba's actions and many of them have

stated that in his presence they always felt a spiritual exaltation. They

forgot their pains, their cares and their anxieties. They felt completely safe

and the hours passed unnoticed in blissful happiness. One devotee, a

Parsi woman, wrote: "Other saints forget their bodies and surroundings, and then

return to them, but Sai Baba was constantly both in and outside the material

world. Others seem to take pains and make efforts to read the contents of

people's minds, or to tell them their past history, but with Sai Baba no effort

was needed. He was always in the all-knowing state." Many quaint, amusing and

illuminating stories are told about him in the volumes on his life and

teachings. But for our purposes there are just a few points we might note. One

object of the fire he kept burning always at the mosque was to provide a ready

supply of ash. This he called udhi, and used it for many kinds of miraculous

purposes, particularly for curing ailments. The miracles he performed cover the

full range of siddhis, or supernormal powers, as expressed in such spiritual and

yogic classics as the Srimad Bhagavata and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Many

times he proved

to his devotees that he knew what they were thinking and saying and doing when

hundreds of miles away from him. Frequently in crises he appeared wherever he

was needed, either in his own form or apparently in some other body - a beggar,

a hermit, a workman, a dog, a cat or something else. There was plentiful

evidence that he could project himself through space and take any material form

he chose. Those who were in the best position to know, his nearest disciples,

had no doubts whatever on this point. Baba gave visions to people, as for

instance, the visiting high Brahmin who was dubious about going into the Moslem

mosque. From outside the mosque the Brahmin saw Sai Baba as the God-form he

worshipped, Sri Rama. So convincing was this vision of Rama that he rushed in

and fell at Baba's feet. Other types of miracle include the giving of

protection at a distance - protection against accident, plague, ill-fortune and

imminent death; the granting of issue to

those who were childless or desired to have a son; appearing to people in dreams

with advice and help in their problems. Like Jesus, Baba was able to cast out

evil spirits from those obsessed and cure the most terrible diseases, such as

blindness, palsy and leprosy. For instance he allowed Bagoji, a man with

advanced leprosy, to come and shampoo his legs. People were afraid that Baba

would himself be infected, but on the contrary Bagoji was completely cured of

his leprosy, only scars and marks remaining. By the end of last century, in

spite of India's primitive communications at that time, Sai Baba's fame was

snowballing rapidly. The high peak was reached by about 1910 when an endless

stream of visitors began to flow in from Bombay and other places. Pomp and

ceremony were thrust upon the rugged, unsophisticated old saint. Loaded down

with jewellery, seated in a silver chariot with fine horses and elephants, he

was taken in grand

and colourful procession through the streets. Baba, it is said, disliked all

this show, but he submitted to it to please the people. Yet despite the royal

treatment and the riches offered him, he continued to beg his food as of old;

perhaps this was to show that humility is more than ever necessary when wealth

and pomp and power are striving to seduce the soul of man. Extracts from: The

Incredible Sai Baba, by Arthur Osborne.

Arun Reddy Nukala

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