Sai Baba the Master by E.Bharadwaja

[Guest guest]

It should be mentioned here that Sri Gadge Maharaj, besides

ministering

spiritually to countless devotees, has also left behind several

charitable

and educational institutions in Gujarat and Maharashtra.

 

This account gives us an inkling of what Baba was and did even during

the

interval between his first and second arrival at Shirdi.

 

The second advent of Baba at Shirdi is interesting to note. Chand

Patil

was a wealthy gentleman of Dhoop village in Aurangabad district. On

one of

his trips to Aurangabad, the horse which he was riding strayed and

could

not be found. He was very fond of the animal and so he searched for it

carefully for two months, but he could not find it. At last, while he

was

returning home by walk, carrying the saddle with him as a memento of

the

animal, he saw a fakir sitting under a tree by the road. The fakir

wore a

long gown, and a cap and had a small stick in his hand. He beckoned to

Chand Patil to come and rest in the shade of the tree for a while and

enquired of him, why he carried the saddle and what he was searching

for.

When Chand Patil told him of his missing animal, the fakir smiled and

asked him to search for it near a stream. Chand Patil was surprised to

see

the animal in the same spot where he could not find it a little

earlier;

when he returned to the fakir in great joy, the latter told him to

share a

puff from his chilm. The tobacco and the clay-pipe were ready with him

but

he had neither fire to light it, nor water to wet the cloth (through

which

the smoke is to be sucked). Then the fakir struck the ground with his

stick and there emerged a burning ember, from the earth! After

lighting

the pipe with it, the fakir again struck the ground with the stick and

water bubbled from the same spot!! The fakir wetted a piece of cloth

in it

and, using it as a filter, he puffed the smoke and offered it to Chand

Patil. The latter was already stunned by the miraculous power of the

fakir

and he accepted the clay pipe as a sign of blessing from the powerful

saint. Then he touched the feet of the fakir in reverence and begged

him

to grace his house with his visit. The fakir agreed and followed Chand

Patil to his house.

After some time, when the Patil had to attend the marriage of one of

his

nephews at Shirdi, he requested the fakir to grace the occasion.

Accordingly the whole party arrived at Shirdi. The bullock carts

halted at

the outskirts of the village. When the fakir alighted from one of

these,

Mahalsapathy, a priest in the village temple, recognized the great

saint

to be the same as the lad who appeared sitting under the neam tree a

few

years earlier and greeted him with the words “Ya Sai” (“Welcome

Saint”). Henceforth, he came to be known as ‘Sai Baba’ (‘Saint father

’).

 

(To be contd....)

 

Source http://www.saibharadwaja.org)