WONDEROUS SAINT SRI SAI BABA-PART 1

BY PUJYA SRI NARASIMHASWAMY JI



A SAINT OF MAHARASTRA
Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, Thou.
—In Memoriam,

Who is Sai Baba? Few raise this question. They call (him a Satpurusha, and believe that they understand, what (that is. But some do ask; and some answer must be given.
At the very outset, however, one encounters obstacles of various sorts. Apart from those ultra-rationalists to whom the name Satpurusha carries with it associations of supersti¬tion, miracle-mongering and money-swindling, there are overzealous votaries to whom it Is presumption, if not sacrilege, to attempt to understand a Satpurusha. One of this latter type approached this writer as he began his first study of saints in the Maharashtra and said, "My dear man, you want to study and understand a Satpurusha! Give it up, I tell you, give it up. You cannot understand a Satpurusha. It Is simply impossible". To the speaker, a Satpurusha was suffused with the Infinite glory and perfection of Godhead; and as God Is declared to be absolute and unknowable learned Ignorance was to be pitied if it dared to gaze at and study the effulgent Satpurusha with a view to paint him in true colours with weak works, In matter-moulded forms of speech. It may be conceded that personality—even one's own—Is so difficult to grasp and describe that a saint's is sure to present greater difficulties. One may, however, hope that the presentation of a sketch after a well-conducted inquiry may be of some use to earnest seekers after Truth.

As a Youth :
If biography of saints is difficult, that of Sai Baba is attended with difficulties almost insuperable. A cloud of mystery hangs over all the affairs of his life and completely veils off his birth, parentage and early life. None knows anything about that period. As though he had dropped from another planet, he suddenly appeared at Shirdi (in the Ahmadnagar district) as a lad of sixteen. Moving about hither and thither for a while the young fakir settled at Shirdi taking his residence at first in a hollow under a neem tree and finally at the local mosque. None could discover if he was adopting any Sadhanas, But one fine day, when there was no oil in his lamps, he caused a flutter by keeping them burning all night with water alone evidently converting water into oil. He also nursed patients and administered medicines compounded by himself to all and sundry—of course, gratis. But soon he dropped that practice and gave patients and .people in distress bits of ashes from the perpetual gee that he kept up; and devils and diseases, infirmities and troubles of all sorts were removed.

Stream of Visitors :
His blessings (Anugraha) were constantly sought and given, of course gratis, and proved efficacious in obtaining Issue for the issueless, service for the unemployed. No wonder that he who was first contemptuously ignored as the "crazy fakir" became the centre of attraction at Shirdi drawing crowds from far and near. Among those came a Collector's Chitnis, Nana Saheb Chandorkar, and a constable, Das Ganu, now well-known as a Kirtankar, who went about .giving a glowing picture everywhere of the greatness of the Shirdi saint. Bombay then began pouring its flood of pious Visitors and curiosity hunters into Shirdi, with a persistence and force that quite transformed the village and its forms of worship.

Scattered Money :
Among the visitors we find Mrs. and Mr. Curtis (Sir George Seymour Curtis), Revenue Commissioner, and Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak. With the advent of this flood of visitors, a large stream of wealth and material for pompous display poured in. The former "poor fakir' was turned (against his will) into a Maharaj or Prince, with silver palanquin, State umbrella, a car, a horse and preceded by a procession of bearers of silver mace, and all other princely paraphernalia. The income that flowed (chiefly by way of dakshina) was, during the last decade of Sai Baba's life, many thousands of rupees every month. But all this pomp and all this wealth served only to set off Baba's humility, holy poverty, non-attachment and purity of life. He literally scattered the moneys flowing into his hands amongst those who gathered around him.
Every morning he began and every evening he ended as a poor pauper fakir; but during the day abundance of money would flow in, and would be quickly disposed of, so much so that during the last two years of his life, income-tax was levied on those who were daily and regular recipients of his favours. Yet up to the very end of his life, Baba's sustenance was the begged bread and vegetable, his raiment was a ragged kupni and a skull cloth and his residence was the baw floor of the mosque.

A Frequent Marvel :
Other features of this saint that struck even casual observers were his unaccountable and marvellous knowledge of things and events far removed from him in the matter of time and space, and a remarkable power to foretell coming events or to force events to come to pass in accordanca with his supreme will. Visitors noted with surprise that he was frequently mentioning either expressly or by allusion their inmost secret thoughts, their remote past, past of which they had lost all memory and incidents that occurred hundred of mile away from his residence which none could possibly have communicated to him. "He speaks as one seated in my heart (Antaryami)", was a remark that frequently escaped from the lips of the visitors and devotees. His power to carry out anything that he wanted was equal to his beneficence and mercy that were as wide as they were deep, knowing no limitations or distinctions of caste, colour or creed. No wonder that even the proudest intellects bowed in submission before him and failed to find any other or more adequate name to express the possession of such wisdom, power and beneficence than God!

Even after he left the body :
Dewan Bahadur G. S. Khaparde, Member of the Council of State said of him in a preface to a short English sketch of Baba, "Sri Sai Baba fulfilled my idea of God on earth". In fact, he and a host of men of learning, wealth and position vied with each other in serving at Baba's durbar, in carrying fans or other paraphernalia at the Aratis and procession at which Sai Baba was worshipped as an incarnation of God, or as God himself. And even now, though several years have rolled away since Sai Baba's body was placed in the tomb at Shirdi, the Aratis and processions continue and the eager throng of ladies and gentlemen, Hindus and Muslims, rich and poor, scholars and rustics still serve at the durbar of Sai and declare in the following words of Bedil, the Sufi of Sind, that Baba is really alive and that they have indubitable personal experience of their own of his kindly interest and intervention in their daily life.
"These men do never die,
They become the Praised Once.
They shed mercy on the world with myriad hands;
They help the helpless.
They aid the depressed.
They leave not those that follow them when the time of danger comes.
They are men only in name.
In reality, they are God Himself.
These solitary ones are marvellous".

Personal Experiences :
The study of such a life, however difficult it may be, must certainly be very attractive to the lover of truth—more especially if he is anxious to turn his discoveries to practical account for the betterment of his own temporal and spiritual condition. To aid one in such a study is the aim of this writer or compiler of experiences, in this and the following articles. Many derive more pleasure and even benefit from chewing chopped sugarcane than by sipping the milled juice. And many desire to have the personal experiences of Sai's devotees with all the crispness, the colour and warmth that characterise their narration to a fellow-devotee or sympathetic listener; and these they would be loathe to exchange for the cold second-hand conclusions extracted there from in this writer's mental mill. Hence it is now proposed to introduce Sai Baba to the readers (especially the public outside the Bombay Presidency) through a series of striking yet credible and candid revelations of experience of several devotees whose credentials are beyond cavil.