Sai Baba the Master by E.Bharadwaja

[Guest guest]

At first Sai Baba prescribed and gave medicines to the ailing visitors

who

sought his help but never charged nor accepted any money for the same.

Not

only that; if he found that there was none to look after or nurse the

patient, he would himself be the nurse and serve him. Once it so

happened

that his patient failed to observe the rules of diet, etc., that Sai

Baba

had prescribed and henceforth Baba gave up administering medicine and

gave

only his ‘udi’ or holy ashes for their relief.

 

Raghuji Gannapat Scinde Patel refers to this incident in his account:

“As

soon as Baba came to Shirdi, one Amanbhai, a Moslem gave him food.

That

Amabhai was visiting my mavusi’s (grand mother’s) house occasionally.

Her

son Ganapat Hari Kanade, aged thirty five, had leprosy and fever.

Amanbhai

told her that a holy man had come to his house and that he could treat

her

son. Then Baba came in and saw the patient and told Ganapat to catch a

cobra courageously, as the cobra would not bite a leper. Ganapat

caught a

cobra and out of its poison, the medicine was prepared and given to

Ganapat. He began to improve in a few days. But he did not observe

Baba’s

injunction to avoid sex-pleasures. So Baba stopped giving him further

treatment. The disease developed and Ganapat died.

 

Baba came to this very house to treat my younger brother Bhagoji, who

was

suffering from fever, at a very critical period, when death was

imminent.

Baba gave him some medicine and further had him branded with red-hot

irons

(one on each temple and one on the back). Bhagoji recovered his

health,

escaped death and fever.”

 

Young ‘Sai Baba’ (even this title was not conferred on him by that

time)

stayed under the neem tree for about three years but suddenly left

Shirdi.

No one knew where he went or why. After a year or so, he again

returned to

Shirdi and stayed on there till his mahasamadhi in 1918 i.e., for

sixty

years.

 

Where Saibaba was during the interval between his first and second

visits

to Shirdi is not definitely known. However, some vague hints are given

by

some devotees. For instance, Amoolchand Chandrabhan Seth of Rahata

says.

“My elder cousin Khusal Bhav who died on 5-11-1918 has told me that

Sai

Baba lived in a chavadi (now in ruins) at Rahata for some months or

so;

that previously Sai Baba lived with a Moslem saint Ali (Akbar Ali

perhaps)

whose portrait is still kept in our gin i.e., ‘Rahatekar’s gin’ near

Wadia

Park at Ahmednagar; that Daulu Sait had seen Baba with the saint at

Ahmednagar and that Baba came from Ahmednagar to live at Rahata and

then

went to live at Shirdi.” (“Devotees’ Experiences”)

 

 

(To be contd....)

 

Source http://www.saibharadwaja.org)