Sai Baba the Master by E.Bharadwaja

[Guest guest]

A devotee of Sai Baba, Hari Vinayak Sathe, reports, “Baba told me that

the

tomb close to that (neem) tree was that of his guru. He gave his name.

It

ended with ‘Shah’ or ‘Sah’. Some of Sai baba’s devotees felt that they

heard Baba say that his guru was Venkusa. While ‘Roshan Shah’ is a

Moslem

name, ‘Venkusa’ is a Hindu name. Whether this ambiguity lay in Baba’s

pronunciation or in his giving different answers to the same question

when

put by devotees of diverse temperaments, we cannot determine.

 

Our attempt at tracing the period of discipleship of Baba is already

complicated. On the one hand we have his statement that when his

mother

rejoiced at his birth he himself wondered why she should be so elated,

as

he had always been in existence i.e., as the eternal spirit and he did

not

wrongly identify himself with his body. On the other side we have

references to his discipleship. What is discipleship to one who was

already perfect?

 

Again we cannot be very sure of the literal truth of the story of Baba

’s

discipleship. For he once gave a different account of it altogether.

It is

worth quoting in its entirety:-

 

“Once four of us were studying religious scriptures and we began to

discuss the ways of realizing Brahman. One of us said that we should

elevate ourselves and not depend on others. To this the second replied

that he who controls his mind is blessed, that we should be free from

thoughts and ideas and there is nothing in the world without us. The

third

said that the world of phenomena is always changing, between the Real

and

the unreal. The fourth (i.e., Baba himself) urged that mere learning

is

worthless and added, ‘Let us do our prescribed duty and surrender our

body, mind and five pranas (or life impulses) to the guru’s feet. Guru

is

“God, all-pervading. To get this conviction, strong and unbounded

faith is

necessary.

 

 

 

 

 

(To be contd....)

 

Source http://www.saibharadwaja.org)