Is Sai Baba a Breaker or Builder?

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Is Sai Baba a Breaker or Builder?

 

By Sri Narasimha Swamiji

 

Worth Living

Believe that life is worth living-and you will see that it is so.

- J. P. Vaswani

All people are informed of Sai Baba's glorious nature and deeds, his

wonderful help in matters of this world and beyond, some exclaim, " Why do

you ask me to give up my old loyalties to my Ishta Devata Rama and Krishna

and my guru with his guru mantra and sadhanas ? " Some even go further and

condemn what they call the creation of a new cult with a new god through

" violent methods of propaganda and proselytism so foreign to the satvic

ideals of " Hinduism. " Let us pause to analyze and examine each of these

objections.

 

The first sets of objectors are using leading or misleading questions. " Have

you left off beating your mother? Answer yes or no " , if put to a witness who

has not admitted that he ever beat his mother, is usually quoted as an

example of this objectionable question. The short answer to this set of

questioners is that neither Baba, nor any true devotee of his ever asks

people to give up their loyalties to their gods, gurus or guru sampradayas

etc. but in spite of this declaration, these objectors often repeat their

question, though some are satisfied when the following facts are narrated to

them.

 

Baba did not wish Hindus to give up their religion, to embrace Islam or

Christianity. Once a Hindu recently converted to Islam was brought to Baba

who asked him then, " Have you given up the father that begot you and taken

another father? "

Baba first dissuaded Hindus, who ran up to worship him and directed them to

go back and worship the stone gods, which their fathers worshipped and

allowed them finally to worship him in addition to and not in substitution

of their old gods. When a man approached Baba with the fear tucking at his

heart that he was doing gurudroham to his former guru in approaching a new

guru, Baba sent him away. Where another approached him with the same fear,

Baba expressly told him that one's previous gurus and guru mantra and guru

sampradaya etc., should not be given up, however little their apparent merit

and however great the merits of other gurus might be or seem.

 

To a third man, who had already obtained gurumantram from his guru and yet

light-heartedly applied to Baba to make himself the guru, Baba's answer was

that no guru was necessary and all that the man had to do was to dive within

him and see himself-Adwaitic line being evidently that man's hereditary or

chosen marga. Baba generally added the assurance that by intensifying one's

own guru, be that guru even a mere potsherd, one is sure to achieve one's

objects, including even moksha.

 

http://www.saileelas.org/magazines/saipadananda/april1999.htm#IsSaiBabaaBrea

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