FROM LIFE OF SRI SHIRDI SAI BABA BY NARASIMHA SWAMI

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FROM " LIFE OF SRI SHIRDI SAI BABA " BY NARASIMHA SWAMI

 

……“Regarding birth of a child, death of son-in-law, etc., about which

Chandorkar was anxious to make Baba work on his behalf, Baba declared that they

were the result of previous karma and could not be altered. In a sense that is

true. Certain births and certain deaths are all fixed by series of antecedent

events, but yet Baba is able to mould 'these and shape these at certain stages

and modify these for the benefit of the concerned devotees. When talking of Dr.

Chidambaram Pillai, Baba explained the correct doctrine. Dr. Pillai had intense

suffering from guinea worm. He told a friend to go and report to Baba that his

sufferings were intolerable and to request Baba to transfer these sufferings to

some ten later births of his and leave him free from the sufferings in this

janma. When this was reported to Baba, the latter sent for Pillai and told him,

‘What! you want ten janmas? What has to be endured in ten janmas can be

crushed into ten days by

the power of satpurushas.' So Baba ordered him to remain with his legs

outstretched at Dwarakamayee and he told him that a crow would come and peck at

his wound and cure him. In a few minutes, Abdul, Baba’s permanent attendant,

carelessly put his foot down upon Pillai’s wound and crushed all the guinea

worms out of it, merely by accident as he (Pillai) would have thought. But

nothing done at the Mosque to Pillai could be considered as an accident, and

Baba said that Abdul was the crow, and that no further crow was wanted to peck

at Pillai’'s wound. Pillai was then asked to go home, and in ten days, the

entire suffering from guinea worm was cured.

 

In another case, that of Bhimaji, who had serious chest disease, asthma,

tuberculosis, etc., Baba first told Shama, ‘Shama, in bringing this thief to

me what a load of responsibility you are placing on me!’ Baba meant that the

tuberculosis, asthma, etc., from which Bhimaji suffered were the result of

Bhiinaji’s karma in a previous janma consisting of theft. Bhimaji felt

Baba’s declaration a blow. At once he surrendered himself to Baba and said,

‘Helper of the helpless! I am helpless. Pray show thy pity and grace to me’.

Then Baba’s tone changed. Baba told him, ‘The Fakir (God) is merciful, and

your disease will be cured’. He was suffering from the results of a karma, but

that could be mitigated, and so the man was sent to live and sleep in a wet

verandah. Bhimaji did so. There, he had two very dreadful dreams. In one dream,

he was mercilessly birched by a school master. For, in the dream he fancied he

was a boy and the master was

birching him. So, he felt the pain in the dream and he roared out. In the

second dream, it was even worse. He felt that some one was placing a stone

roller and rolling it over his breast. He suffered all the horror of instant

death approaching him. All the pain of a hanging sentence and whipping sentence

were endured by this man in the course of one night. Baba thus changed the

punishments which he had earned by his previous karma, and told him that he was

thus free from karmic effects. He then recovered his health. The above instances

go to show that most of our conceptions about karma are nebulous and ungrounded,

and that the safest course for us to follow would be to be guided by the dicta

of Satpurushas like Sai Baba.â€â€¦â€¦