NAMA JAPA - FIRST STEP TOWARDS SPIRITUAL JOURNEY

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NAMA JAPA IS FIRST STEP

IN UPASANI BABA’S SPIRITUAL JOURNEY

A very high praise to him is found in Sai Leela Masik and Sai literature written

by a few years after Baba shed his mortal coil. His (Upasani’s) very great

service to Sai Baba is the fact that through him myriads, if not lakhs, of

people came to know about and worship Sai Baba. Sri Upasani Baba was widely

regarded, as a wonderful saint with vast and miraculous powers that could help

individuals and even nations, and that was why Mahatma Gandhi with a view to

secure national welfare approached him about 1927. The fame of Sri Upasani Baba

was at one time so great (1920-1934) that people found it difficult even to get

access to him. About 1930 he visited the house of Sri Sait Govind Banathwalla

at Volkeswar, Mumbai, and he sat up on an upper storey, and people wanting to

take darshan of him had to climb up by one flight of steps and get down by

another flight of steps. This procession of darshan by pilgrims went on from 1

p.m. till 9 p.m. Such was the vast mass that

wanted to take Upasani’s darshan at Mumbai. In a city like Mumbai tens of

thousands were attracted to him, one may safely assume that throughout

Maharashtra, Upasani’s fame drew lakhs of people to him, and Sai Baba, as his

Guru, was introduced to lakhs of people as the cause and source of Upasani

Baba’s greatness and powers, "If the chela is so great, how much greater must

be the Guru" people said.

Sri Upasani was born of a very orthodox set of Brahmins, who were village

priests, that is, priests in the village of Satana. His grandfather Sri Gopal

Sastri had left the village to stay at Baroda, as the Raja’s Court adviser in

religious as well as literary matters for a number of years. Gopal Sastri was

also the adviser to many Petty States on matters of Religion and was author of

several books, none of which has probably printed. Govind Sastri, the father of

Upasani, though a good scholar, had to earn bread for the family by being a

copyist of in Dhulia Civil Court. Upasani was one of the five sons of Govinda

Sastri, and stayed with his grandfather Gopal Sastri at Satana. The family

during the time that we are considering was really not very well off. The

earnings of village priests being very small, they had just enough to eat and

get along.

Kasinath Govinda Upasani Sastri, which is the real name of Upasani Baba, was

born in 1870, (May 15) and his early education was practically nil. He was sent

to elementary school and very early in that period, a merciless master named

Gharpure birched him severely. The boy cried and roaring with pain went to the

Village Munsif to lodge a complaint. There the matter ended and his education

also ended. He could have picked up the rudiments of the Purohit’s learning

necessary for carrying on the work of the village Purohit, but Kasinath did not

care to do so. On the other hand he had a strong dislike for any education, and

so was treated as a very dull boy and an exception to the family traditions of

love of learning. His elder brother, Balakrishna Sastri, was highly advanced in

Sanskrit study and became a Professor of Sanskrit in the Fergusson College,

Poona and was an Examiner for Sanskrit in B.A., in the Bombay University. But

Kasinath was treated by everyone as good

for nothing, and yet according to old and senseless customs, his parents

insisted upon getting him married in spite of his protests, at the age of 14

(i.e., 1883) to a girl of 8, who died in a year (1885). He was again married in

1885 to another girl who also died a year later. The home was already bitter;

this marriage obligation tied round his neck made it worse. So, he hated home

and took to running away from home. At first he returned after a short stay

outside. His later ramblings were prolonged. None of these is worth mentioning

except the following. In one of his long tours (in 1890), he was attracted by

his habit of yoga or control of breath and meditation, and love of solitude, to

Boerghad Hill. There he could see from a great distance that in the midst of a

forest, the hill projected from the forest and disclosed a natural cave or

cavern. There was luckily a tree near it. As he approached it, he discovered

that he could climb up into the cave with the help of the tree

growing adjoining it and sending one of its branches into the cave. He thought

that this was excellent for his meditation. He sat up in the cave and tried to

meditate. At first he thought he would like to see what his starvation (for

there was no chance of getting food in the folorn cave) would end in, and

wished to see death coming and taking him away. This of course, was absurd.

When death came, he might have no power to see death coming even if death had a

visible form (of Nachikethas in Mythology)

He spent days without food or drink, and finally before he became unconscious

started nama japa of God, and his body was there in a fixed posture for an

unknown period, and, due to lack of food, his muscles and skin were shrunk. He

woke up to find that he was still alive, and there was the feeling of thirst.

To quench it, he could not discover the means. Luckily, the kind of heavens

poured down rain in short time, and that rain, coming down the cavern, pured a

mass of water into the cave that collected close to him.

Written by: HH Pujyasri B V Narasimha Swamiji in Life of Sai Baba

 

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