Gurupurnima Message from Shirdi Sai Sansthan

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Devotees are often heard to be saying that Shri Sainath Maharaj or

Baba is either angry with them or is not taking care of them as

before for reasons which they fail to understand. Such an attitude

indicates a highly personalized approach. It is a unique feature of

the Sai faith that the devotees get highly emotionally attached to

Him even though he has no more physical presence. Psychologically

they depend a lot on Shri Shirdi Sai for solace, guidance and more

importantly for getting a solution to their day to day mundane

problems. For most of the devotees He is a part of their lives. They

worship Him, they read about Him, they meditate on Him, they do

Naamjaap, they talk about Him a lot without getting tired and the

hold Lungers and even donate alms to beggars in his name. Some of

the ardent devotees even before taking any food or drink offer it to

Baba mentally. Like children they collect all sorts of photographs,

trinkets and other articles related to Baba. Such activities are a

pointer to the fact that they are ever in search of Baba in their

mind and soul and wish to establish an intense relationship with Him.

 

It has been observed that a devotee when he first enters into the

fold of Shri Sai Baba's divine and magnanimous personality gets

attracted to him in a very short time which ordinary human reasoning

can not explain. When Baba was there in Shirdi many of the devotees

used to go into a spiritual trance or sort of emotional hype at the

very look at Baba. Such examples find a depiction in Shri Sai

Satcharitra and many other books like Khaparde's diary etc. Such was

the attraction of the master that when a non believer like Balasaheb

Bhate met Baba for the first time he just decided to stay back and

settle down in Shirdi forever and later resigned from the government

service only to serve Baba for the rest of his life.

 

Most of the devotees hold Baba's relation with them as their most

prized possession. Baba before departing from his physical

embodiment had assured his devotees that he would continue to

protect them from his invisible abode. He had even said that

whenever His devotees would call him earnestly he would make his

presence felt in some way or the other and also render help to

remove their difficulties. Incidents happening in the lives of most

of the devotees after Baba had taken Samadhi show that Baba

continues to keep his promise.

 

Thus Shri Sainath Maharaj continues to render love, assurance,

protection and faith to all his devotees. At times being busy

tackling their earthly problems, the devotees are not in a position

to remember Baba as much as they used to do earlier. In such a

situation, they feel an emotional vacuum in them. Lets just

understand this sense of void in the devotee when the feeling

towards the Sadguru reduces in its intensity through the example of

the sun and the sunlight. The light rays continuously emanate from

the sun and the sunlight falls on earth. When the sky is clouded the

Sun's rays cannot be seen. Similarly, Baba's love and protection

towards devotees flows continuously but some of the devotees do not

experience it when their life is engulfed by worldly clouds.

 

Sai Nath maharaj often used to tell devotees at Shirdi in no

uncertain terms that whosoever prays to him intensely and intimately

would certainly receive His grace, help and experience. Once the

teacher - pupil emotional rapport is established, the pupil is bound

to go through a series of alternative emotional experiences.

Sometimes he will feel flooded with loving emotions towards his

master and sometimes he will feel a sense of emotional void. This

bipolar emotional situation is not due to the change in the mood of

the master as perceived by devotees because a perfect master is a

perfect soul. The reason for such a feeling in the devotee lies in

the devotee himself. Hence, whenever such a situation comes the

devotee should not get bogged down under his own emotional pressures

and feel frustrated. Instead he should pray Baba to stabilize his

emotions towards Him. Every devotee should try to understand that a

perfect master has a thousand things to do for benefit of

innumerable number of devotees at the same time. Therefore to expect

that the emotional impulses of each devotee would be immediately

reciprocated by the master is not the correct approach. Such an

unstable mental state of the devotee indicates a lack of faith in

the master. If the devotee is convinced that the Sadguru is always

busy in helping a large number of His devotees, at the same time, he

(the devotee) should take care to see that he does not disturb the

master for frivolous issues. The master is best left to carry on His

magnificent and universal work. This understanding on the part of

the devotee will make the master comfortable