| Sai Baba, Sri-Sai-Baba-of-Shirdi a personification of spiritual perfection and an epitome of compassion, lived in the small village of Shirdi in the province of Maharashtra (India) for sixty years. Like most of the perfect saints, he left no authentic record of his parentage and early life before arriving at Shirdi. In fact, in the aspect of his spiritual brilliance such queries do not bear much relevance. |
| He reached Shirdi as a nameless entity. One of the individuals who first got in touch with him at Shirdi addressed him spontaneously as ‘Sai’ which means Savior, Master or Saint. ‘Baba’ means father as an aspect of fear. In the Divine play it was designed as such, that He subtly inspired this person to address Him by this figure, which was most appropriate for His self-assigned mission. |
| All that we definitely know of Sai Baba is that his arrival at Shirdi was anonymous. He was first acknowledged in the fringes of the village Shirdi, seated under a ‘name’ (margosa) tree, around the year 1854. Yet, even this date is not definitely noted. Sai Baba of these younger days remained a stranger staying under the neem tree for some fourth dimension and then abruptly he left Shirdi to get back again sometime in 1858, and stayed on there till he passed on his gross physical structure in the twelvemonth 1918. The second advent of Baba of Shirdi, around 1858 was interestingly quite different from the inaugural. This time he went with a wedding procession as guest of honor. On the arrival at Shirdi, he was at once realized by someone as the same anonymous saintly personality who used to be invested under the neem tree a few years earlier and, greeted Him as “YA SAI” Welcome SAI! |
| In the early days of his stay at Shirdi, he spent his time either wandering on the outskirts of the small town and neighboring thorny jungle or sitting under the neem tree totally self absorbed. The first lot of villagers who regarded this saintly figure were Mhalsapati, Tatya Kote, Bayyaji Bai and a few others. Voyage Bai felt deeply moved by this Divine Saint, and with her motherly instinct she used to take the air miles on end into the hobo camps in search of him, carrying food in a basket on her brain. Often she found Sai Baba sitting under some tree in deep meditation, calm and still. She would boldly approach him, swear out the meal and take back home. |
| After some time as though out of compassion for her, Sai Baba ceased wandering and went into a dilapidated mosque in the fringes of the small town. He brought up to this mosque, where He resided till the death, as ‘Dwarkamai’ (Dwarka was the spot where Lord Shri Krishna stayed to fulfill His divine Advent). This mosque ‘Dwarkamai’ – abode of Sai Baba became Mother of Mercy for all the time to do. |
| He delivered a body of athlete built and in his earlier days he was fond of wrestling. Some other view of Sai Baba’s personality was his love of song and dance. In those early years of his lifetime he employed to travel to ‘Takia’, the public night shelter for Moslem visitors to the small town. They're in the company of sojourning devotees and fakirs, he applied to dance and sing in divine bliss, with small tinkles tied around his ankles. The songs he sang were mostly in Persian or Arabic. Sometimes he sang some popular songs of Kabir. |
| He donned a long shirt – ‘Kafni’ and tied a cloth around his head, and twisted it into a flowing plait like manner behind his left ear. He applied a bit of sackcloth for his seat and slept on it with a brick as his pillow. He always declared that Fakiri (Holy poverty) was far superior to worldly richness. He was no ordinary fakir but an ‘Avatar’ (incarnation) of a very high order. But His external appearance was of simple, illiterate, moody, emphatic – at times fiery and abusive and at times full of compassion and love. In the moments of towering rage people with him believed it was ungovernable rage. But his anger never prevented his compassion, dealing with the fans. His anger was obviously directed at unseen forces. He ordained all these simple traits only to hide His real identity as the God incarnate. Under the cover of simplicity He silently worked for the spiritual transformation and liberation of innumerable souls – human organisms and beasts alike, who were drawn to Him, by an unseen strength. |
| He begged for alms and shared what he found with his devotees and all the animals around him. He never went on any food in reserve for the next repast. He kept up the ‘Dhuni’ – the perpetual sacred fire and gave out its ash – ‘Udi’ as a token of His divine grace to all who came to Him for aid. Baba would ask for ‘Dakshina’ (money offered with reverence to the ‘Guru’ or the master) from some of those who got to visit him. This was not because he needed their money only for deeper significance, which the devotees realized at, an appropriate time. Baba used to freely hand out all the money that was received in the form of Dakshina to the destitute, miserable, sick and needy the very same day. This was one of Baba’s methods for proving out the devotees' attachments to worthy things and a willingness to give up. |
| He plowed up the village common land and put up a flower garden thereon, he watered the plants, carrying pots full of water on his shoulders. In the later years he spent a few hours in this land garden which he himself had put out in the former days. He was every moment doing a double consciousness, one actively utilizing the apparent Ego called ‘Sai Baba‘ dealing with other egos in temporal and spiritual affairs, and the other – entirely superseding all egos as the Universal Ego or Over soul. |
| He was the common man’s God. He was with them, he slept and fed with them. Baba had a great sense of wit. He dealt a ‘Chillum’ (clay pipe for smoking) indiscriminately with them to compose off the cast superiority and orthodoxy in their heads. He had no pretensions of any sort. He was always very playful in the bearing of minors. Baba used to feed the fakirs and devotees and even cook for them. Saibaba‘s perfect purity, benevolence, non-attachment, compassion and other virtues evoked deep reverence in the villagers close to him. His divinity could not conceal itself for long. Initially, when people desired to worship him formally, Baba protested and dissuaded them. But gradually he allowed it with the prescience that it would become the means for temporal and spiritual benefits to one thousand thousands of mortals for all time to come. |
| The Dwarkamai of Sai Baba was open to all, regardless of caste, creed and religious belief. As the days passed devotees from all walkways of life started streaming into Shirdi. The village Shirdi was fast assuming prominence. As the gifts and presentations flowed in, the pomp and grandeur of Sai worship also increased. But Baba’s life of a fakir remained calm, undisturbed, unaltered and there is the Saint’s spiritual glory. He was His divine mission through His pure self in a human incarnation. The vast energy that was evident in the body of Sai was moving in a mystical way, creating and recreating itself everywhere beyond the comprehension of time and place. |
| This fountainhead of unsurpassed spiritual glory sheds His gross body on 15th October 1918. Every branch, every bone and pore of his body was permeated with divine perfume. Barber claimed that though one day his physical body will not exist his remains will communicate with all those who look for him with inner longings. His self-allotted labor of love in His physical body was perhaps over. Today He continues to work ever vigorously as the ‘Sai Spirit’. |
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