Tribute to Sai Baba

Paidi Venkateswarlu

The author of this article gives little factual information about Sai Baba. In India he is so well known that it is not necessary. Foreign readers are referred to 'The Incredible Sai Baba'* Briefly: he was a great saint living at the turn of the century — died in 1918. He had both Hindu and Muslim disciples, refusing to say that he belonged to either religion. He wrote nothing (which is perhaps why he is so little known outside India) but worked an extraordinary profusion of miracles. Like the Maharshi, he appointed no successor but remained himself the guru after death. He still appears in dreams and visions to those who turn to him with true devotion, answers their prayers, cures sickness, grants boons, removes obstacles. This explains why, with no organised propaganda and no institution in his name, his devotees are far more numerous now than in his lifetime.
_________________________
* The Incredible Sai Baba by Arthur Osborne, published by Orient Longmans, Calcutta, and Rider & Co., London.

Man is in quest of God and God is in search of man from all eternity. The quest for God differs from man to man. The highest function of every religion is to provide a path leading back to our original Home from which we have strayed away. Indeed, each religion has various paths, those in one being similar to those in another. Whatever the path may be, the goal or destination is the same for all; God-realization or Self-realization.

Self-realization or Moksha or Salvation¹ or Fana or Nirvana are different names of the identical state ultimately to be reached. It is very difficult to reach this goal without a guide. As the Kathopanishad puts it:

"O Ignorant Men! Awake! Arise! Approach a Supreme Guru who will dispel your darkness! The path is as hard and sharp as a razor's edge. And never stop till the goal is reached."
_________________________
1 - Eastern writers are apt to presume this, but actually 'salvation' is used by Christian writers to indicate a state short of Nirvana, where the separate individual being still exists, although beatified. (Editor.)

The great saint, Kabir, also says "Who but a Guru will rescue you?" Jalaluddin Rumi, a great Persian Sufi saint says "This path can be trodden only through an intermediary, the guru. But he alone is a guru who is dead to self and is established in Identity. He is one who is above the shariyat (formal religious obligations). He can help in the path of fariquat (experiences leading to realization of God). So, seek such a one, that you may attain union with the Lord."

Kabir again says, "I was floating along the current of the World and its traditions. On the way, I met the true Guru who showed me the path to Light." "The Body is a poisonous creeper, the Guru is a storehouse of nectar; even though a Guru could be found only at the cost of your head, you should consider the bargain cheap." "The true Guru is a valiant knight. He shoots with full force and strikes from navel to crown; the wound is not visible outwardly, but the inside is shattered to bits."

The Guru Gita declares: "Difficult it is to renounce sense-objects, difficult is the vision of Truth, difficult is the attainment of Self-realization, without the grace of the Guru."

There are gurus and gurus these days. Every man who can perform miracles or has attained some powers or who can gather a group of disciples calls himself a Guru. How can one who has not himself realized, enable others to realise the Self? Says the Guru Gita again: "The Guru who has no knowledge, who is a liar and a hypocrite should be shunned. He does not know how to bring peace to himself. How can he bring it to others?" It is like the blind leading the blind which ultimately results in both of them falling into a ditch of darkness.

That is why the scriptures have laid down the qualities needed for a Guru. They are (1) he must be very able and discriminating (2) he must be full of spiritual wisdom (3) he must be pure and clear-sighted; (4) he must always be imperturbable and good-natured; (5) he must speak little and be free from the six enemies: lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride and jealousy; (6) his conduct must be upright, free from lust and acquisitiveness and, most important of all (7) he must be self-controlled and in fact, Self-realized, so that he can show God to others who seek Him.

First and foremost, a Guru must be Self-realized. The Upanishads say that one who knows the Brahman becomes the Brahman. There are degrees of realization. These are said to be Gurus, Sat-Gurus and Samartha Sat-Gurus. There are also Swamijis, Saints and Sages. Gurus are on the fourth plane; Sat-Gurus on the fifth and sixth; and Samartha Sat-Gurus on the seventh plane and beyond². This last category are as rare as the flowering of an aloe. Sri Sai Baba, Bhagavan Ramana and Sri Ramakrishna are recent examples of this class.-----------------
_________________________
2 - This is a far from simple question. It will be taken up in a later issue of The Mountain Path. For the time being the author's statements are merely recorded.

Sri Sai Baba has really no name. Many such surprises occur in his life. He declared: "They call me Sai Baba. My father's name is also Sai Baba. My Guru is Venkusa. My religion is Kabir. My caste is Parvardhitar (God)." He meant to say that He is nameless and that all names belong to Him. He is birthless and deathless and hence fatherless: He is above all religions, hence all religions belong to Him; and He is above the castes.

The word 'Sai' is Persian and means a saint or a fakir, and the word 'Baba' is the Hindi for father, so that the whole name means 'the Saintly Father'. It was simply a term of endearment and respect.

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa says, "'Sai' is the name given to a person who has reached the highest stage of 'Paramahamsa' of our Scriptures." A Paramahamsa is none other than the Avadhuta whose characteristics are delineated in detail in the Avadhuta Gita.

So the Avadhuta is the embodiment of the Brahman. He walks amidst us as Brahman and his precepts are meant to guide us in our day-to-day life.

Sri Sai Baba Himself declared outright: "The Guru is all the Gods. Trust in the Guru fully. That is the only sadhana."

"Listen mother," he said to a lady devotee who asked him for initiation into a mantra: "my Guru never taught me any mantras, so how shall I blow any into your ears? Just remember that the Guru's tortoise-like³ loving glance brings happiness. Do not try to get a mantra or instruction from anybody. Make me the sole object of your thoughts and action, and you will certainly attain Paramartha (the spiritual goal of life). Look at me wholeheartedly and I in turn will look at you wholeheartedly; sitting in this mosque, I speak the pure truth. Neither practice nor scripture is necessary. Have faith and confidence in your Guru. Believe fully that the Guru is the sole actor or doer. Blessed is he who knows the greatness, grandeur and glory of his Guru and thinks him to be Siva, Vishnu, and Brahma (the Trimurthi) and Parabrahman Incarnate."----------
_________________________
3 - For an elucidation of this strange expression see below the description of the three types of initiation. (Editor).

Again he said: "Keep straight on your own course. The World maintains a wall of differentiation between oneself and others, between you and me. Destroy this wall. God is the Supreme Lord. Precious and enduring are His works. Your object will be fulfilled in, due course."

Guru's grace is your only sadhana. Jnana (spiritual knowledge) comes in its wake."

"There are plenty of paths to the Goal from each place. But the way is rugged and beset with tigers and bears. If one has a guide with him there is no difficulty. The tigers and bears move aside. If there is no guide, there is a deep yawning pit on the way and there is the danger of falling into it."

"Stick to your own Guru with unabated faith whatever the merits of other Gurus and however little the merits of your own."

"We must not give up attachment to our own Guru, but firmly rely on him and him alone."

On one occasion, in order to stress the value of faith, he said: "It is not the Guru who makes himself your Guru, but you who regard him as your Guru by having faith in him. Take a bit of broken pot and regard it as your Guru and see whether your goal or aim is reached or not."

On another occasion, however, stressing the power of the Guru, he said: "I know who are my people and I draw them to me even if they are a thousand miles away, like a bird with a string tied to its foot."

One of the many peculiarities of Sai Baba was his habit of asking for money, often specific amounts, sometimes quite small coins. In general no Guru will do this. Sri Ramakrishna could not even touch money; he felt an actual burning from it. Sai Baba's demands for money were usually symbolical.

"Baba wants two ha'pence, faith and patience."

If an aspirant had absolute, undivided faith in him and intense love, regarding him as the sole Actor or Doer in this world, and this world as belonging to him, and if he bore pain and pleasure with equanimity, Sai Baba would be highly pleased with him and bless him.

Nishta is absolute faith in the Guru, complete surrender to the Guru of the whole body, mind, soul and possessions. The Taittiriya Upanishad says, "He who has supreme devotion to God and to the Guru as to God - to that blessed soul these truths reveal themselves."

Sai Baba says, "The Guru is all the Gods. Trust in the Guru fully. That is the only sadhana."

An aspirant should remember his Guru as a lover remembers his beloved who is never out of his mind for a moment.

An aspirant should fix his mind on the Guru as a cow does on its calf while grazing in the forest, not forgetting it even for a moment.

An aspirant should think of his Guru as a beggar thinks of the few coins he has scraped together, which he counts every now and then and does not forget even for a moment.

An aspirant should be attracted to the Guru as a moth is to a flame.

An aspirant should be immersed in love for the Guru like a fish in the water which it cannot leave without dying.

Therefore, faith is nothing but self-effacement which says that:

"So long as I existed in me, the Guru did not;

Now the Guru exists, the 'I' is gone

Narrow is the lane of love, it cannot hold both the ego and the Lord."

Sai Baba says that patience is courage.. It ferries you across to the far shore. It gives manliness, eradicates sin and dejection and overcomes all fear.

An aspirant who has patience bears all the assaults of fate. He endures with equanimity joys and sorrows, pleasures and pains, in fact all the pairs of opposites.

As a matter of fact, all joys and sorrows are due to past karma. One has to reap what one has sown. There is no escape from this, but one can accept it with a calm and quiet mind.

Sai Baba said that worldly joy and sorrow are a mere delusion. A worldly man is forcibly drawn to joy as he believes it to be true happiness, but it is not. It is in accordance with his self-made karma that one man gets delicacies and another stale, left-over food. The latter fancies himself unhappy at that and the former happy; but the result in either case is merely the satisfaction of hunger. Some cover themselves with lace shawls and others with rags; both alike serve merely to cover the body. The pairs of opposites such as joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, are only due to thought. Whenever any idea of joy or sorrow, pain or pleasure, happiness or unhappiness arises in our mind, we must firmly resist it and not give room to it, because it is only a trick played by the mind.

The six enemies: lust, anger, covetousness, delusion, pride and jealousy, are equally delusive. They make the unreal appear real. One must conquer them. Then waves of passion will not rise up. Otherwise, they will enslave and destroy us. If they are eliminated and discrimination put in charge, then delusive pleasures and pains, joys and sorrows, gains and losses will no longer affect us.

The aspirant should have patience at all times, even when everything that he loves or values is lost. The Lord says in Srimad Bhagavatam that "if the Lord wants to bless His devotee with His grace and pour His choicest blessings upon him, He will take everything away from him, so that nothing should stand as an obstacle to the blessed union between the devotee and the Lord. A devotee feels the throb of the Lord in good and bad fortune, in pleasant and unpleasant fate, in gain and loss, life and death, and in fact, in everything. That is true patience. That is manliness."

Faith and patience are the manifestations of the grace of the Guru. The more they are developed in the devotee, the more blessed he is, as he silently and surely reaches the abode of the beloved.

There is a common belief that without initiation, there can be no spiritual progress. But this initiation can be either formal or invisible.

Diksha or initiation is the opening of the heart to Divine Consciousness. It can be of three types: (1) By touch, which is compared to a bird sitting on its eggs to hatch them; (2) By sight, which is compared to a fish, merely keeping its eggs in sight; (3) By thought, which is compared to the tortoise, which buries its eggs and merely thinks of them.

The last two methods are those of Sri Sai Baba⁴. 'Look at me wholeheartedly and I will look at you' refers to the second. If an aspirant even thinks of Sai Baba with intense love, Baba turns to him in response; and his response is powerful enough to nurture and guide the aspirant⁵. Baba enters his being and takes charge of his sadhana by pushing him from outside and pulling him from within. This descent of the conscious power of the Guru or of God is essential; without it there is no fulfilment.
_________________________
4 - Also of Sri Ramana Maharshi. (Editor).
5 - The present tense is used because this still remains true. (Editor).

In the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna says:

"Oh Arjuna! Howsoever men approach me, even so do I seek them; all men follow my path from all sides."

Similarly, each devotee saw the deity of his worship in Sri Sai Baba. To some devotees of Lord Rama, he appeared in the physical form of Rama; to Krishna worshippers He showed himself as Lord Krishna; to devotees of Datta He appeared as Lord Dattatreya; to some Christians, like Captain Hate, he appeared as Christ, while some Vittal worshippers saw Lord Pandurang in him and some Siva worshippers Lord Siva. Some devotees he welcomed in the form of their own Gurus.

Just as different rivers, taking their rise in different places, flow from the East, the West, the South and the North to mingle with the same ocean, so devotees of God in various forms found in Sri Sai Baba, an incarnation of Para-Brahman who includes Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Protector) and Siva (the Destroyer).

Sai Baba insisted on the essential unity underlying the varied forms of religion ; and it was the essence that he was concerned with. He declared, "All Gods are One. There is no difference between the Hindu 'Ram' and the Muslim 'Rahim'. The mosque and the temple are the same. Be wise and united. God will protect you." The great Saint, Kabir, also says: " Hari is in the East, Allah is in the West, Look into your heart,. for there you will find both Rahim and Ram."

"All the men and women of the world are His living forms," said Sai Baba. "Kabir is the child of Allah and of Ram; He is my Guru, He is my Pir."⁶
_________________________
6 - Pronounced 'Peer'; a name used by Indian Muslims for 'guru'.

To establish brotherhood among his Hindu and Muslim followers, Sri Sai Baba arranged a 'Sandal Procession' on the birth anniversary of Sri Rama. Shakkar Dalal, a Muslim of Korahli, was in charge of it. A similar procession is taken out in honour of great Muslim saints. Sandal paste, etc., was put in the flat metal dishes and carried with burning incense in procession to the accompaniment of music through the village, and then, after returning to the mosque in which Sai Baba lived, the contents of the dishes were thrown on the Nimbar and walls. So, on the same day, the procession of the Muslim flags by the Hindus and that of the Hindu Sandal by the Muslims were performed simultaneously. This still continues without any obstruction or objection.

Even in his mosque, Sai Baba allowed the Hindus to worship him in their own way. Some Muslim fanatics tried to persuade him to ban the Hindu practice of worshipping a Guru, but he flatly refused. Once a Maulvi pleaded to be allowed to cut the throats of the Hindu worshippers, but Baba told him: "First cut mine and then the others, because it is on account of me and in accordance with my will that they are coming here and worshipping me."

Seeing this firm attitude of Baba's, they gave up their objection.

The Perfect Master not only becomes God but, after achieving God-realization, comes down to the ordinary mortal consciousness of man. Thus he possesses simultaneously God-consciousness and mental-subtle-gross-consciousness. The world is never without such Godmen. Such Supreme Sages of this age have been Bhagavan Ramana, Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Sai Baba.

Lord Krishna declared in the Bhagavatam: "The Sadhus are my heart, as I am theirs. They know only Me and I know only them."

Who is nobler, happier or more blessed than those who bear this relationship with Him, who have fastened Him to the door of their heart with the cord of Love?