Miraculous powers of Shirdi Sai Baba

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Miraculous powers of Shirdi Sai Baba

Water jars are kept in mosques for people to wash their feet before entering

the sacred precincts. In the dusk the villagers saw Baba take water from the

jars and pour it into his lamps. Then he lit the lamps and they burned. They

continued to burn, and the watchers realised that the fakir had turned the

water into oil. In consternation they fell at his feet, and prayed that he

would not put a curse on them for the way they had treated him. This was the

first miracle Sai Baba performed before the public, and it was the match that

lit the fire which became a beacon drawing thousands of men to him from afar.

Many became his devotees. He used his miraculous powers to cure their ailments,

to help them in their day-to-day problems, to protect them from danger wherever

they happened to be, and to draw them towards a spiritual way of life. A

great many found their sense of values changing. Some surrendered themselves

entirely to the divine will which they saw in Baba, gave up their worldly

lives, and came to live at Shirdi as close disciples. Sai Baba taught them

according to their needs and capacities. Learned pundits who thought him

illiterate found that he could discourse on spiritual philosophy and interpret

the sacred writings of India more profoundly and clearly than anyone else they

had ever known. But always he led his disciples along the Bhakti marga, the

radiant pathway of divine love, self-surrender and devotion. Loving care of

his devotees was the ruling motif of all Baba's actions and many of them have

stated that in his presence they always felt a spiritual exaltation. They

forgot their pains, their cares and their anxieties. They felt completely safe

and the hours passed unnoticed in blissful happiness. One devotee, a Parsi

woman, wrote: "Other saints

forget their bodies and surroundings, and then return to them, but Sai Baba was

constantly both in and outside the material world. Others seem to take pains

and make efforts to read the contents of people's minds, or to tell them their

past history, but with Sai Baba no effort was needed. He was always in the

all-knowing state." Many quaint, amusing and illuminating stories are told

about him in the volumes on his life and teachings. But for our purposes there

are just a few points we might note. One object of the fire he kept burning

always at the mosque was to provide a ready supply of ash. This he called udhi,

and used it for many kinds of miraculous purposes, particularly for curing

ailments. The miracles he performed cover the full range of siddhis, or

supernormal powers, as expressed in such spiritual and yogic classics as the

Srimad Bhagavata and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Many times he proved to his

devotees that he knew what

they were thinking and saying and doing when hundreds of miles away from him.

Frequently in crises he appeared wherever he was needed, either in his own form

or apparently in some other body - a beggar, a hermit, a workman, a dog, a cat

or something else. There was plentiful evidence that he could project himself

through space and take any material form he chose. Those who were in the best

position to know, his nearest disciples, had no doubts whatever on this point.

Baba gave visions to people, as for instance, the visiting high Brahmin who

was dubious about going into the Moslem mosque. From outside the mosque the

Brahmin saw Sai Baba as the God-form he worshipped, Sri Rama. So convincing was

this vision of Rama that he rushed in and fell at Baba's feet. Other types of

miracle include the giving of protection at a distance - protection against

accident, plague, ill-fortune and imminent death; the granting of issue to

those who were childless or desired to

have a son; appearing to people in dreams with advice and help in their

problems. Like Jesus, Baba was able to cast out evil spirits from those

obsessed and cure the most terrible diseases, such as blindness, palsy and

leprosy. For instance he allowed Bagoji, a man with advanced leprosy, to come

and shampoo his legs. People were afraid that Baba would himself be infected,

but on the contrary Bagoji was completely cured of his leprosy, only scars and

marks remaining. By the end of last century, in spite of India's primitive

communications at that time, Sai Baba's fame was snowballing rapidly. The high

peak was reached by about 1910 when an endless stream of visitors began to flow

in from Bombay and other places. Pomp and ceremony were thrust upon the rugged,

unsophisticated old saint. Loaded down with jewellery, seated in a silver

chariot with fine horses and elephants, he was taken in grand and colourful

procession through the

streets. Baba, it is said, disliked all this show, but he submitted to it to

please the people. Yet despite the royal treatment and the riches offered him,

he continued to beg his food as of old; perhaps this was to show that humility

is more than ever necessary when wealth and pomp and power are striving to

seduce the soul of man. Extracts from: The Incredible Sai Baba, by Arthur

Osborne.

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