Sai Baba the Master by E.Bharadwaja

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Sri Sai Baba - A Sketch of His Life (I)

 

 

 

Sai Baba, one of the foremost saints of modern India, lived in the

little

village of Shirdi in the State of Maharashtra for sixty years and

elevated

it to the status of a great spiritual center. He never stirred out of

that

village during this long period except for visits to two villages,

Neemgaon and Rahata, three miles on either side of Shirdi. He never

preached, toured, nor discoursed. He never advertised himself. He

rather

shunned and discouraged unnecessary publicity. Yet by the sheer

brilliance

of his spiritual fire he did draw innumerable devotees to him from all

over the country, irrespective of their caste or creed. When he took

samadhi in 1918 (i.e., left off his physical body) he never installed

anyone as a successor to his spiritual throne at Shirdi. Yet his very

power to mould and develop his devotees spiritually is such that even

more

than 50 years after his samadhi, Sai Baba is still a dynamic spiritual

force which countless Indians invoke for their spiritual and material

welfare. No wonder many of the new borns in our country are named

after

this great God-man and hundreds of his shrines have been built and are

being visited by his devotees all over India. Many more are in the

offing.

Many books have been written of him in various Indian languages.

 

What is of special relevance to present day India in Sai Baba’s gospel

and

example is that religious and communal differences are meaningless in

matters of the spirit.

 

Yet surprising as it may sound, a god-man of his stature and fame is

without a name. No one knows his original name, time and place of

birth,

his religion and caste, not even of his parents. He never revealed the

same to anybody. ‘Sai Baba’, the name by which he came to be known, is

what has been used by one of his first devotees to greet him on his

second

arrival at Shirdi. ‘Sai’ means ‘saint’ and ‘Baba’ means ‘father’. The

name

is thus just an expression of love and reverence due to such a

spiritual

giant as he, and is not a personal name. He allowed himself to be

addressed as such, ever since.

 

All that we definitely know of Sai Baba is that his arrival at Shirdi

was

very sudden. One day he appeared as a boy of sixteen or seventeen,

seated

under a neem (or margosa) tree in the outskirts of the village of

Shirdi,

about the year 1854 1. However, even this date is not definitely

noted.

 

(To be contd....)

 

Source http://www.saibharadwaja.org)