WONDEROUS SAINT SRI SAIBABA-PART 3

BY PUJYA SRI NARASIMHASWAMY JI

SAINTS SEE MUCH FARTHER



WHEN FAVOURS ARE REFUSED :
The ways of saints are often mysterious. The favours they grant or sometimes perplexing as also their refusals; and it takes quite a long time for the votary to realise that they see much farther.
Prof. G. G. Narke mentions several incidents of that type in his statement on Sri Sai Baba.

Here is one :
"In 1914 or thereabouts a rich old gentleman of Harda came with a lady to Shirdi. He was suffering from T. B. consumption. During the space of one month there was noticeable improvement in his health. So he made Shirdi his residence. At the end of the second month, he grew worse and his end seemed to be approaching. One day the ladies of his house and their friends told me that his condition was critical and there was no senior male to go and ask Baba for help and some one to ask for the Udhi. I went up. Baba told me that the man would be better for quitting this earth. "What can the Udhi do? Anyhow take the Udhi and give it, as it is wanted . So I took and gave the Udhi but, of course , refrained from intimating Baba's words to any one ."

Saved from Pain :
"The condition grew worse. Then another of has relations arrived and went to Baba and told him of the imminent death. Baba appears to have said "How can he die? In the morning he will come to life," This was taken unto meaning that the old man would not quit his body. So they placed lamps all round the corpse and waited till noon. Life was not restored to the corpse. Funeral ceremonies followed. The Harda gentleman's relations thought that Baba had given them false hopes and went away from Shirdi. For three years they did not return to Shirdi".

"Then one day a relative of the deceased saw Baba in a dream, with, with the deceased's head over his own and Baba disclosed the lungs in rotten state, and said "From the torture of all this, I have saved him." Thereafter, he and his relations renewed their visits to Shirdi. Baba's words "How can he die? He will come to life'' , evidently referred to survival of human personality after death and taking up new forms of life in fresh bodies.