Sai Baba the Master

[Guest guest]

The God-man and Tradition

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not

come to destroy, but to fulfil.” (Mathew 5:17).

 

So said Jesus Christ. But he was looked upon by the Pharisees, Sadducees

and the Scribes as the violator of the Law. For some of his actions seemed,

to their narrow vision, to contradict the injunctions of the Law. His

apparent flouting of law is only to enable to people to realize the spirit

of it and not convert it into a dead ritual with no relevance to their

spiritual purification. In fact, every God-man or perfect one appears

amidst mankind as the son of Man only to correct the race in its

understanding of the spirit of the Law. So to those of little understanding

he looks a heretic and is ‘persecuted for righteousness sake’; he resisted

not evil (5:39). Indeed he prayed for those who persecuted and crucified

him: “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” So was Mohammed

persecuted and so was the Buddha. And so did each of them lovingly teach the

mankind that hated them, the message of love and devotion.

 

Sai Baba of Shirdi was also looked down by the orthodox among the Hindus

and Moslems alike. The Hindus accused him of being in a Mosque, of being a

moslem, of not observing Hindu rituals, of tolerating Moslem ways of

worship. But some had the ‘eyes to see’ and ‘ears to hear’ the truth of Sai

Baba’s mission and Baba taught them the same lesson which a Christ or

Buddha did, that the spirit of the law was to purify man’s spirit and the

letter of it without the spirit, when observed as a convention, was

wasteful. But an acceptance of such a teaching presupposed immense faith on

the part of his devotees that Baba knew better. Sometimes Baba deliberately

put their faith to test.

 

One day, a poor brahmin approached Baba for money. Baba handed him a

packet of mutton and said to him, “Go and eat it at home with your

children; but don’t open it on the way”. The brahmin did not know what the

packet contained. After taking leave of Baba he could not check his

curiosity. So he sat near a stream and opened it and was shocked to find

mutton in it. In disgust he threw it in the stream. But he was surprised to

see that when it touched the water, it turned into gold and sank into its

depth. The piece of mutton is symbolic of Baba's teaching: it is precious,

though to the orthodox, it looks unworthy.

 

Source: http://www.saibharadwaja.org