DEVOTEES' EXPERIENCES OF SRI SAI BABA BY H.H. NARASIMHA SWAMIJI - PART II

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Sairam,Devotees Experiences - C.G.NarkeBABA'S GURUOf His guru, hardly

anything is known. I have heard Him saying `My Guru is a Brahmin.

Baba held real Brafimins in high esteem. He has said "Brahmins earn

much 'Pica', (Le., Punya, Apurva or merit) by their ways". A disciple

is very different from a devotee. The Guru is connected by a close

and intimate tie with and has every responsibility for the

disciple. He has no such close tie with a devotee and is not bound

to bear all his sins and sorrows. Sai Baba had no disciple. The

disciple must serve his master to carry out all his wishes strictly

and to the letter. As Sai said, "I would tremble to come into the

presence of My Guru". There was no one prepared to serve Him in that

way at Shirdi, It seems He asked "Who dares to call himself My

disciple? Who can serve Me adequately and satisfactorily?" But, of

devotees. Sai Baba had a large number. These He looked after,

encouraged and protected and gave by example and occasional gestures,

directions etc., some instruction. Sai Baba's method of teaching

or rather improving the devotee who came to Him was not oral

instruction. His moral tales and a few directions, occasionally

given were, no doubt, teaching through the ear. But these were

exceptional and their effect was very little compared with His main

traditional method. According to Sai Baba's traditions, the

disciple or devotee that comes to the feet of the Guru in complete

self-surrender has to be no doubt pure, chaste and virtuous. But he

need not necessarily to go on with any active practice of Japa or

meditation. On the other hand, Japa, meditation or any other

intellectual process which carries with it the consciousness and

assertion, "I am doing this" is a handicap. All sense of the

devotees' or disciples' Ahankara, Ego or little self has to be wiped

out, swept out of the memory and mind - as it is an obstruction to

the Guru's task. The Guru does not teach. He radiates

influence. That influence is poured in and absorbed with full

benefit by the soul which has completely surrendered itself, blotting

out the self, but is obstructed by the exercise of intelligence by

reliance on self exertion and by every species of self-consciousness

and self-assertion.This great truth, all observant persons visiting

Sai Baba, would have noticed or learnt. Sai Baba's words to some

devotees were "be by me and keep quiet. I will do the rest", i.e.,

secretly or invisibly. Of course, Faith in Him is a pre-

requisite. But one had merely to see Him and stay by Him a while

and at once was endowed with faith. Baba gave experience to each

devotee - experience of Baba's vast powers of His looking into the

heart, into the distant regions of space and time, past or future and

then and there infused faith.One had not merely to swallow everything

on trust. The solid benefit, temporal or spiritual reaped by the

devotee and his feeling that he is under the eye and power of Baba

always wherever he may go and whatever he may do, give him an

ineradicable basis for his further spiritual and temporal guidance.

Baba is the power that controls this world's goods and our fate here

and now - as well as our experience and fate in the future. In this

world and many unseen worlds -unseen at present. So the duty of a

devotee or an aspirant is only (1) to keep himself fit for this

Guru's grace i.e,, chaste, pure, simple and virtuous, and (2) to look

trustfully and sincerely and to raise him to various experiences,

higher and higher in range, till at last he is taken to the distant

goal whatever that might be. "One step enough for me" is the proper

attitude now. He need not take trouble to decide complicated,

metaphysical and philosophical problems about ultimate destiny. He is

yet ill prepared to solve them. The Guru will lift him, endow him

with higher powers, vaster knowledge and increasing realisation of

truth. And the end is safe in the Guru's hands.All this was not

uttered by Sai Baba, at one breath to me or within my hearing. But

the various hints I got from His example and dealings with many and

His occasional words when put together amount to this. And

commonsense points in the same direction. In my opinion, mere talk of

Viveka and Vairagya without power of knowing what there is to

experience or enjoy and what the things are that one is to renounce

is childish and leads to self-delusion and deluding others. It is

bookish wisdom and not real, not one that can stand the strain of

actual life. People talking merely of these, without power to be

really filled with them prove hypocrites. When Baba said, 'I am in

each dog, pig and cat', He was feeling Himself in the inside of the

cats etc., in question and could state what they felt and what

treatment they got. But others say it because it is found in the

Gita, etc., and they believe it to be true. But in point of feeling

and realisation, they say what they do not feel. This leads to

hypocrisy.Baba's real nature and greatness are seen from an incident

known to me. I realised that Baba was God from the devotees' point of

view, and yet, a man seen in the flesh and with limitations to which

an individual embodied soul is subject. The two co-exist and are both

true - each in its way. But my friends (i.e., some of the devotees)

at Shirdl did not agree with me or relish this view of mine. They

once talked of 6 crores of islanders in Dwaraka at Shree Krishnas'

time and I then disputed that estimate of the population, as now we

are about 33 crores in all in India and India is so over populated

that we have to tread on each other's heels. Then they asked me if I

would agree to abide by Baba's decision on the matter. I agreed. We

all went to Baba.Madhava Rao and other devotees asked Baba - Baba,

are the Puranas true?Sai Baba: Yes, True.Devotees: What

about Rama and Krishna?Sal Baba: They were great souls. Gods they

were. Avatars.Devotees: This Narke will not accept all that. He says

You are not God.Sai Baba: What he says is true. But I am your father

and you should not speak like that. You have to get your benefit and

everything from Me.Sai Baba thus admitted His limitation. He was God

no doubt, in the experience of the devotee. But because the devotee

felt that, Sai Baba did not assert Himself to be, in fact, nothing

but God; He did not draw logical corollaries from it, nor use that

position to help Himself to the wealth etc., of the devotees. Sai

Baba did not use the fact of His devotees viewing Him as God to

declare for Antinomianism,i.Le., setting Himself up as above law. On

the other hand, Sai Baba never disobeyed either the moral law or the

law as it prevails in the country. He was never indecent in dress or

behaviour and was very reserved with women.

 

-- to be contd

 

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