Shirdi on caste race and creed.

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SRI SAI BABA OF SHIRDI HIS RACE, CASTE AND CREED

by B. V. Narasimhaswami

Prejudice and sentiments die hard. Even the great Adi Sankara Acharya

ordered a Harijan who came near Him at Kasi to " go away " . The Harijan

then

requested the Acharya to explain whether his objection was to one

earthly

body approaching another or whether he wanted the Atman in the one to

go

away from the Atman in the other. The Acharya perceiving that a great

Janana

in the form of that Harijan had come to rebuke his prejudices

declared that

even a Harijan with Janana was his revered Sadguru. Sai Baba never

considered any caste or species as capable of polluting HIM even by

touch.

Finding a poor harijan ready to leave Shirdi.Baba put his arm round

his neck

and tried to stop him. Differences of caste can have no place in the

heart

of one whose Atmic realisation was evident by his morning Dhyana on

the

basis of " An at hag " " Maim Allah hum " which are the equivalents

of " Aham

Brahma Asmi " .

 

Baba was regularly demolishing ttie idea of difference (in all other

matters

also) which fettered the advance of his Sadhaka devotee. 'It is a

popular

fallacy that we are different from each other and that our properties

are

separate. This is an error. You are I, I am you. Knock down this

Telis wall.

Then we see each dearly face to face (i.e., as being the same Atman) "

" Inquire into all the scriptures; and see if the Atman is one of

many " . It

is the sad irony of fate that of a Baba who spoke thus and lived thus

yet

some people still anxiously explore the parentage to discoverhis

caste.

 

One can easily understand the deserved who worship images or other

objects

to avoid the control of iconoclasts, and generally, Mahomedanism is

identified with iconoclasticism. But of Baba, it is well known that HE

objected to the conversion of any one from his religion to any other

religion, that He bade his visitors stick not only to their own

religion but

also to their sampradaya, theirguru, their mantra, their observances,

their

scruples, their images, and objects of worship and that HE actually

insisted

on His devotees visiting the temples and images that they usually

visited

for worship and that HE presented to some a lingam and to some

padukas,

coins, and pictures for worship. He expressly told His devotees that

though

Nirakara worship was praise worthy, yet as a concession to the

weakness of

the vast majority to whom Nirakara worship is an impossibility, any

customary object might beused for worship and meditation-including

Baba's

own physical form for those who found that most suitable.

 

Thousands have found that Baba answers in his Sookshma for (as

Apantaratma

or as Parmatma) prayers earnestly addressed to Him for temporal and

spiritual welfare. And still the question is raised, " is HE a Hindu or

Moslem? " In the words of the late Rao Bahadur S. B. Dhumal in reply

to an

European Dt. Magistrate who raised this question about 1910, we may

well

answer: " Sai Baba is neitherthe one, northe other. Hs is above both. "

 

Sai Baba repeatedly declared thathe was not the eight span body-the I

was

the Antaratma in all creatures.

Antaratma Chemakarkar Sarvo Bhootasaya-stitiahi (SaiSudha-Oct-1940)