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

[Guest guest]

Sairam,

 

Devotees Experiences – Mrs. Manager

 

 

One noticeable difference between Sri Sai Baba and other saints

struck me. I have moved with other notable saints also. I have seen

them in high Samadhi or trance condition entirely forgetting their

body and course) effacing the narrow notion of the self confined to

the body; and I have seen them later getting conscious of their

surroundings, knowing what is in our hearts and replying to us. But

with Sri Sai Baba, there was this peculiar feature. He had not to go

into trance to achieve anything or to reach any higher position or

knowledge. He was every moment exercising a double consciousness, one

actively utilizing the Ego called Sri Sai Baba and dealing with other

Egos in temporal or spiritual affairs, and the other-entirely

superceeding all Egos and resting in the position of the Universal

Soul or Ego; He was exercising and manifesting all the powers and

features incidental to both the states of consciousness. Other saints

would forget their body and surroundings and then return to it. But

Sri Sai Baba always was in and outside the material world. Others

seemed to take pains and by effort to trace the contents of others'

minds and read their past history. But with Sri Sai Baba this was not

a matter of effort. He was in the all knowing state always. Sai Baba

was one whom some people could not understand at all. He would talk,

e.g., to a hawker about some cloth brought for making Cupnis, higgle

and haggle like the most inveterate shopper at a bazaar, and beat

down the price of the cloth, say from Rs.8 a yard to Rs.5 a yard and

take, say, 40 yds. This made the hasty onlooker conclude that Sai

Baba was parsimonious, and avaricious or at any rate attached to

wealth. A little later, He(i e., Sai Baba) would pay the hawker, and

then He would sometimes pay four times the price settled. Again the

hasty onlooker would conclude that Baba was crazy, touched in the

brain, or needlessly ostentatious in His misplaced charity. In both

cases, the hasty judgements would be wide of the mark and the real

reasons for Sai Baba's conduct would remain mysterious to all except

those whom He meant to enlighten.

It is not merely His power that endeared Him to His devotees. His

loving care combined with those powers made Shirdi, a veritable

paradise to the devotees who went there. Directly we went there, we

felt safe, that nothing could harm us. When I went and sat in is

presence, / always forget my pain-nay the body itself with all

mundane concerns and anxieties. Hours would pass and I would be in

blissful unconsciousness of their passing. That was a unique

experience-shared, I believe, by, all His real devotees. He was all

in all and the All for us. We never could think of His having

limitations. Now that He has passed away, I feel what a terrible loss

it is, as I can no longer pass hours together in blissful

unconsciousness of time and affairs at His feet. We feel we have lost

our soul; our bodies alone are left to us now. Yet it would not be

true to say that He has altogether vanished. He is still living now

and we have ample proof of His powers and protecting care in many

matters of and on; though the assurance we derive from these about

His continuance can never compare with the bliss we felt in His

presence when He was in the physical body. I shall proceed to give

some instances of His active care for us and of the help He has

rendered to us after dropping His physical sheath.

 

 

-- to be contd

 

 

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