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Understanding Divinity Sai Baba of Shirdi Tadviddhi Pranipaatena Pariprashnena Sevaya, Upadekshyanti Te Gnyanam Gnyaninastattwadarshinah (The Bhagavad Gita, 4-34) The masters of knowledge who have seen the truth will impart to thee this knowledge; learn it through humble homage and service and by repeated questioning. (tr. Mahatma Gandhi) The above Shloka was central to a discussion between Sai Baba and his disciple Nanasaheb Chandorkar. Sai Baba interpreted this Shloka from the Bhagavad Gita to mean a complete surrender of the devotee with full faith in his sadguru.In this and in many of his leelas, that is, the stories recounted by his devotees, the centrality of faith to the religious life becomes apparent. Such faith can be taken to mean faith in God as the Supreme Being central to the religious consciousness of the devotee. However it is clear from many of Sai Baba’s discourses that such faith can also be taken to mean faith in the guru as the one capable of imparting true knowledge about the self and about God. It was perhaps on account of this that Sai Baba was very reluctant to give darsana to those who came to see him without faith and with hearts full of skepticism. However many such people on meeting him overcame their skeptical concerns and left Shirdi full of a new faith. It might also be said that perhaps one reason for Sai Baba’s ever increasing number of devotees lay in the experience of such devotees that prayer to Sai Baba yields tangible worldly results in such practical matters as healing of deseases, employment, money, desire for progeny, as well as, in terms of conferring moral and spiritual benefits. In keeping with the centrality of faith to religious consciousness it seems essential to start any discussion on the life of religious saints in a spirit of faith or at least in a spirit akin to that of the faithful. For that reason alone Sai Baba is significant as one who evoked faith in the minds of millions of devotees in the beginning of the twentieth century which might be aptly characterized as the age of skeptcism. In the post-enlightenment age of science, and, in the historical context of colonialism and modern civilization such faith was itself a slightly inexplicable phenomenon. With the celebration of science and reason it can be said that the world saw a widespread decline of religious ways of life and thought. This led to difficulties in inculcating morality in those who no longer lived the religious life. Despite the efforts of philosophers to recreate ethical life independently of religion there have been theoretical and practical problems associated with the inculcation of morality in the modern 98
man. In that sense itself Sai Baba’s life which evoked faith and devotion in the minds of the faithful presents an argument and inspiration for leading the good human life. Sai Baba’s birth and life have become to millions a symbol of a life free from individual attachments, religious commitments and ideological constraints. The very first fact of freedom was his freedom from a name. This was no small fact. For in India in the late 1800’s and early1900’s a name was the multiple marker of identity: place in social hierarchy, status, occupation, caste, religion etc. Sai Baba, even before he came to be recognized as a saint, was not identified by any such reference to his family, social heritage etc. He was Indian and he was a human being. This however led to no identity crisis but to a life in which the early years were spent like a yogi in gaining self realization and the later years were spent in imparting such knowledge of the self to his devotees. There exists very little verifiable information about the early life of Sai Baba about his individual identity, his parentage, family, caste, region or religion. In contrast a relatively larger corpus of information is available about his life in Shirdi especially after 1910. The most important source of information about the life of Sai Baba of Shirdi is Sri Sai Saccarita a devotional biography in Marathi by Govind Raghunath Dadholkar. This book pertains to events and miracles which the author witnessed himself in the last eight years of the saint’s life in Shirdi, that is, between 1910 and 1918. What is most important about this text is that its preparation began with the full approval of Sai Baba who himself blessed the undertaking. The book was published eleven years after Sai Baba died that is in 1929. The English translation of this book with the title Sri Sai Satcharita was published much later in 1944. There is some dispute among scholars as to whether this book is a verbatim translation of the earlier work though it claims to be so. The Shri Sai Satcharita clarifies that Sai Baba suddenly appeared in Shirdi at about the age of sixteen and stayed there for three years. After that he disappeared for some time. He reappeared in Aurangabad and came to Shirdi again with the marriage party of Chand Patil when he was about twenty years old. He stayed in Shirdi after that for about sixty years and took mahasamadhi in the year 1918. The years in which he lived were years in which the Indian politics was both, colonized and, internally divided along lines of caste, creed and religion. Perhaps the second fact of Sai Baba’s freedom came from being a saint without a clear commitment to any one organized religions. Baba, it could be said fairly, was free of any commitment to an organized sectarian religion for it was impossible to say if he was a Hindu or a Muslim. The 1961 census of India reported that “no one knew whether he was a Hindu or Muslim”. [1] He lived in a mosque and spent most of his life sitting by its wall. His mantra was Allah Maalik or God is the Master. On the festival of Id he permitted Muslims to say their prayers at his mosque. Once he permitted the keeping of the tabut [2] at his masjid for four days during a Mohurrum festival. He got it removed without demur on the fifth day. He distributed food to the poor as prasada. In this exercise called a bhandara he himself cooked and served non vegetarian and vegetarian food to members of both religious groups. Yet he discoursed on the Bhagavad Gita as noted above. He advised his devotee Kaka Saheb Dixit to read daily two works of Shri Eknath: Bhagawat and Bhavartha Ramayana. In terms of his discussions with orthodox Hindu followers he seemed to possess considerable knowledge of Vedanta. In his leelas he is recorded as frequently referring to the karma of past lives and the transmigration of souls. Sai Baba was adept at many yogic practices. He was well versed in six processes including Dhauti (stomach cleaning), Khandayog (separating his limbs and joining them again) and Samadhi (meditation) etc. He had a dhuni or sacred fire burning at all times in the masjid. He did various things contrary to the Muslim religion: blowing of the conch and bells, oblation in the fire, singing of bhajans, giving of food as prasada to devotees, and permitting devotees to worship him at his feet by means of water (arghya) etc. He 99
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Imaging Sai
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a le Sheela Chamaria Patel re chan
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‘Imaging Sai’ is an art exhibit
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OurDNA is not our Destiny Our faith
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the tangible “If formless meditat
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atin khan Born 1969, in West Bengal
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gouri sahni Gouri Sahni interested
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Meena sansanwal Born 1971, Meena ho
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ompal sansanwal Born 1963 Ompal hol
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Raghu vyas Born 1956 at Basohli, a
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sanatan dinda Born 1971 in Bengal,
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sudip roy A graduate from the Gover
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jagmohan bangani Born at Uttarakhan
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manish pushkale Born 1973 at Bhopal
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paul bhonsle Born into Christian Fa
Page 54: sarla chandra Born 1943, Sarla Chan
Page 58: sidharth Born 1956 Punjab, Sidharth
Page 62: Vilas kulkarni Born 1967 at Dharwar
Page 66: ankit patel Born 1957 in Surat, Ank
Page 70: durga kainthola Durga did her gradu
Page 74: sheela chamaria Sheela studied for
Page 78: tamal bhattacharya Born 1974 in Ben
Page 83 and 84: within and without ‘With meditati
Page 86: aruna vasudev A well known filmmake
Page 90: kota neelima Kota Neelima has been
Page 94: shuvaprasanna Born 1947 in Calcutta
Page 98 and 99: the image the idea and the saint Ar
Page 100 and 101: The Tangible “If formless meditat
Page 104 and 105: seemed to participate in both forms
Page 106 and 107: Bajaj Capital is one of India’s p
Page 108: Art Positive the brain child of its
Page 111 and 112: Index Ankit Patel..................
Page 114 and 115: Ananya Banerjee Ankit Patel Om Pal
Page 116: F-213/B, Old MB Road, Lado Sarai Ne
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