FROM LIFE OF SRI SHIRDI SAI BABA BY NARASIMHA SWAMI

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

 

……“Shirdi Sai’s biography is the practical illustration of what Guru and

Sishya mean and of the principles that govern their conduct and mutual relation.

The marga that Baba followed has puzzled many. Many asked and ask whether he was

a Yogi or a Jnani or a Bhakta or followed any marga peculiarly his own. Several

thought and think that Baba cannot be classed under any of the divisions

applying to saints and sadhus. As a result of study, aided by His own grace, one

sees at last that he was an adept of all the margas, though his chief marga, was

Bhakti marga, the special form of it that it described as Guru Marga in the Guru

Gita, and that Jnana and siddhis including yoga siddhis came in the wake of his

Guru bhakti. These will be made clearer as we advance in the study of Sri

Sai’s Life and of his relation to devotees.

 

Definition: Guru may be defined as one who imparts information or gives training

to another. Any school teacher or moral teacher or the one who teaches the way

to salvation or mukti or even teaches mantras for various religious or secular

purposes, high or low, can be called a Guru.

Derivation: The word Guru is a Sanskrit word and a number of derivations are

found especially in Guru Gita, which is a pad of the Skanda Purana. 'Gu'

generally means 'Guna' and therefore means 'darkness'. 'Ru' denotes the action

of destruction just as fire destroys or removal. So Guru means the dispeller of

darkness or ignorance.

 

Gu karascha Andhakarastu

Ru karah tannirodhakrit

Andhakara Vinasitwat

Guru riti Abhidhiyate

 

Another derivation says that Guru is one who takes you from the Gunas to that

beyond the Gunas that is, Brahman.

 

Arabic and Persian: It is always better especially when dealing with Sai Baba

whose teachings are unique and cosmopolitan to give the word Guru its

equivalents in Arabic and Persian, as used by Sufis, Murshad is the Sufi

equivalent which Baba himself used. For example Baba said My Murshad has taken

me away from this body, which is but my house. This means his Guru had destroyed

his identification of self with the body Dehatma buddhi and made him realise

that He, the Atma, is not the body just as the fire which bums the fuel is

different from the fuel, and the seer is not the seen. The Sufi equivalent for

Sishya is Talib and shakir.

 

Everywhere in the world we find, the usual practice is to have Gurus