The Wondrous Saint Sai Baba - A Saint of Maharastra

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1. A SAINT OF MAHARASTRA

 

Thou seemest human and divine,

The highest, holiest manhood, Thou.

 

—In Memoriam,

 

Who is Sai Baba? Few raise this question. They call (him a Satpurusha, and

believe that they understand, what (that is. But some do ask; and some

answer must be given.

 

At the very outset, however, one encounters obstacles of various sorts.

Apart from those ultra-rationalists to whom the name Satpurusha carries with

it associations of superstition, miracle-mongering and money-swindling,

there are overzealous votaries to whom ft Is presumption, if not sacrilege,

to attempt to understand a Satpurusha. One of this latter type approached

this writer as he began his first study of saints in the Maharashtra and

said, "My dear man, you want to study and understand a Satpurusha! Give it

up, I tell you, give it up. You cannot understand a Satpurusha. It Is simply

impossible". To the speaker, a Satpurusha was suffused with the Infinite

glory and perfection of Godhead; and as God Is declared to be absolute and

unknowable learned Ignorance was to be pitied if it dared to gaze at and

study the effulgent Satpurusha with a view to paint him in true colours with

weak works, In matter-moulded forms of speech. It may be conceded that

personality—even one's own—Is so difficult to grasp and describe that a

saint's is sure to present greater difficulties. One may, however, hope that

the presentation of a sketch after a well-conducted inquiry may be of some

use to earnest seekers after Truth.

 

As a Youth :

If biography of saints is difficult, that of Sai Baba is attended with

difficulties almost insuperable. A cloud of mystery hangs over all the

affairs of his life and completely veils off his birth, parentage and early

life. None knows anything about that period. As though he had dropped from

another planet, he suddenly appeared at Shirdi (in the Ahmadnagar district)

as a lad of sixteen. Moving about hither and thither for a while the young

fakir settled at Shirdi taking his residence at first in a hollow under a

neem tree and finally at the local mosque. None could discover if he was

adopting any Sadhanas, But one fine day, when there was no oil in his lamps,

he caused a flutter by keeping them burning all night with water alone

evidently converting water into oil. He also nursed patients and

administered medicines compounded by himself to all and sundry—of course,

gratis. But soon he dropped that practice and gave patients and .people in

distress bits of ashes from the perpetual gee that he kept up; and devils

and diseases, infirmities and troubles of all sorts were removed.

 

Stream of Visitors :

 

His blessings (Anugraha) were constantly sought and given, of course

gratis, and proved efficacious in obtaining Issue for the issueless, service

for the unemployed. No wonder that he who was first contemptuously ignored

as the "crazy fakir" became the centre of attraction at Shirdi drawing

crowds from far and near. Among those came a Collector's Chitnis, Nana Saheb

Chandorkar, and a constable, Das Ganu, now well-known as a Kirtankar, who

went about .giving a glowing picture everywhere of the greatness of the

Shirdi saint. Bombay then began pouring its flood of pious Visitors and

curiosity hunters into Shirdi, with a persistence and force that quite

transformed the village and its forms of worship.

 

Scattered Money :

 

Among the visitors we find Mrs. and Mr. Curtis (Sir George Seymour Curtis),

Revenue Commissioner, and Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak. With the advent of

this flood of visitors, a large stream of wealth and material for pompous

display poured in. The former "poor fakir' was turned (against his will)

into a Maharaj or Prince, with silver palanquin, State umbrella, a car, a

horse and preceded by a procession of bearers of silver mace, and all other

princely paraphernalia. The income that flowed (chiefly by way of dakshina)

was, during the last decade of Sai Baba's life, many thousands of rupees

every month. But all this pomp and all this wealth served only to set off

Baba's humility, holy poverty, non-attachment and purity of life. He

literally scattered the moneys flowing into his hands amongst those who

gathered around him.

 

Every morning he began and every evening he ended as a poor pauper fakir;

but during the day abundance of money would flow in, and would be quickly

disposed of, so much so that during the last two years of his life,

income-tax was levied on those who were daily and regular recipients of his

favours. Yet up to the very end of his life, Baba's sustenance was the

begged bread and vegetable, his raiment was a ragged kupni and a skull cloth

and his residence was the baw floor of the mosque.

 

A Frequent Marvel :

 

Other features of this saint that struck even casual observers were his

unaccountable and marvellous knowledge of things and events far removed from

him in the matter of time and space, and a remarkable power to foretell

coming events or to force events to come to pass in accordanca with his

supreme will. Visitors noted with surprise that he was frequently mentioning

either expressly or by allusion their inmost secret thoughts, their remote

past, past of which they had lost all memory and incidents that occurred

hundred of mile away from his residence which none could possibly have

communicated to him. "He speaks as one seated in my heart (Antaryami)", was

a remark that frequently escaped from the lips of the visitors and devotees.

His power to carry out anything that he wanted was equal to his beneficence

and mercy that were as wide as they were deep, knowing no limitations or

distinctions of caste, colour or creed. No wonder that even the proudest

intellects bowed in submission before him and failed to find any other or

more adequate name to express the possession of such wisdom, power and

beneficence than God!

 

Even after he left the body :

 

Dewan Bahadur G. S. Khaparde, Member of the Council of State said of him in

a preface to a short English sketch of Baba, "Sri Sai Baba fulfilled my idea

of God on earth". In fact, he and a host of men of learning, wealth and

position vied with each other in serving at Baba's durbar, in carrying fans

or other paraphernalia at the Aratis and procession at which Sai Baba was

worshipped as an incarnation of God, or as God himself. And even now, though

several years have rolled away since Sai Baba's body was placed in the tomb

at Shirdi, the Aratis and processions continue and the eager throng of

ladies and gentlemen, Hindus and Muslims, rich and poor, scholars and

rustics still serve at the durbar of Sai and declare in the following words

of Bedil, the Sufi of Sind, that Baba is really alive and that they have

indubitable personal experience of their own of his kindly interest and

intervention in their daily life.

 

"These men do never die,

They become the Praised Once.

They shed mercy on the world with myriad hands;

They help the helpless.

They aid the depressed.

They leave not those that follow them when the time of danger comes.

They are men only in name.

In reality, they are God Himself.

These solitary ones are marvellous".

 

 

(Adopted from the Book The Wondrous Saint Sai Baba - by Pujyasri

Narasimhaswamiji)