Miraculous powers of Shridi Sai Baba

[Guest guest]

Light and Love, Merry Cristmas to all

Water jars are kept in mosques for people to wash their feet before entering

the sacred precincts. In the dusk the villagers saw Baba take water from the

jars and pour it into his lamps. Then he lit the lamps and they burned. They

continued to burn, and the watchers realised that the fakir had turned the

water into oil. In consternation they fell at his feet, and prayed that he

would not put a curse on them for the way they had treated him.

 

This was the first miracle Sai Baba performed before the public, and it was

the match that lit the fire which became a beacon drawing thousands of men to

him from afar. Many became his devotees. He used his miraculous powers to cure

their ailments, to help them in their day-to-day problems, to protect them from

danger wherever they happened to be, and to draw them towards a spiritual way of

life.

 

A great many found their sense of values changing. Some surrendered

themselves entirely to the divine will which they saw in Baba, gave up their

worldly lives, and came to live at Shirdi as close disciples. Sai Baba taught

them according to their needs and capacities. Learned pundits who thought him

illiterate found that he could discourse on spiritual philosophy and interpret

the sacred writings of India more profoundly and clearly than anyone else they

had ever known. But always he led his disciples along the Bhakti marga, the

radiant pathway of divine love, self-surrender and devotion.

 

Loving care of his devotees was the ruling motif of all Baba's actions and

many of them have stated that in his presence they always felt a spiritual

exaltation. They forgot their pains, their cares and their anxieties. They felt

completely safe and the hours passed unnoticed in blissful happiness.

 

One devotee, a Parsi woman, wrote: "Other saints forget their bodies and

surroundings, and then return to them, but Sai Baba was constantly both in and

outside the material world. Others seem to take pains and make efforts to read

the contents of people's minds, or to tell them their past history, but with

Sai Baba no effort was needed. He was always in the all-knowing state."

 

Many quaint, amusing and illuminating stories are told about him in the

volumes on his life and teachings. But for our purposes there are just a few

points we might note. One object of the fire he kept burning always at the

mosque was to provide a ready supply of ash. This he called udhi, and used it

for many kinds of miraculous purposes, particularly for curing ailments. The

miracles he performed cover the full range of siddhis, or supernormal powers,

as expressed in such spiritual and yogic classics as the Srimad Bhagavata and

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.

 

Many times he proved to his devotees that he knew what they were thinking

and saying and doing when hundreds of miles away from him. Frequently in crises

he appeared wherever he was needed, either in his own form or apparently in some

other body - a beggar, a hermit, a workman, a dog, a cat or something else.

There was plentiful evidence that he could project himself through space and

take any material form he chose. Those who were in the best position to know,

his nearest disciples, had no doubts whatever on this point.

 

Baba gave visions to people, as for instance, the visiting high Brahmin who

was dubious about going into the Moslem mosque. From outside the mosque the

Brahmin saw Sai Baba as the God-form he worshipped, Sri Rama. So convincing was

this vision of Rama that he rushed in and fell at Baba's feet. Other types of

miracle include the giving of protection at a distance - protection against

accident, plague, ill-fortune and imminent death; the granting of issue to

those who were childless or desired to have a son; appearing to people in

dreams with advice and help in their problems.

 

Like Jesus, Baba was able to cast out evil spirits from those obsessed and

cure the most terrible diseases, such as blindness, palsy and leprosy. For

instance he allowed Bagoji, a man with advanced leprosy, to come and shampoo

his legs. People were afraid that Baba would himself be infected, but on the

contrary Bagoji was completely cured of his leprosy, only scars and marks

remaining.

 

By the end of last century, in spite of India's primitive communications at

that time, Sai Baba's fame was snowballing rapidly. The high peak was reached

by about 1910 when an endless stream of visitors began to flow in from Bombay

and other places. Pomp and ceremony were thrust upon the rugged,

unsophisticated old saint. Loaded down with jewellery, seated in a silver

chariot with fine horses and elephants, he was taken in grand and colourful

procession through the streets.

 

Baba, it is said, disliked all this show, but he submitted to it to please

the people. Yet despite the royal treatment and the riches offered him, he

continued to beg his food as of old; perhaps this was to show that humility is

more than ever necessary when wealth and pomp and power are striving to seduce

the soul of man.

 

Extracts from: The Incredible Sai Baba, by Arthur Osborne. (Rider & Co.,

London).

 

Bow to Sai -Reet