A discriminating friend gently asks why a new book on Shri Sai Baba of Shirdi was considered necessary when there are books galore on this saint in English and many regional languages. The answer is that Shri Sai Baba is a shoreless Ocean and not even a million divers can empty it. Each diver will garner what he considers precious without emptying the treasure lying at the bottom of the ocean. The present author is persuaded to think that he would bring to view many an uncut diamond still lying embedded in Baba's vast and capacious bosom. The author's approach in the present volume is not the common, uncritical posture generally met with in writings on saints and other god-men.
The mystery about Sai Baba's birth and parents will always remain unravelled. Even his name 'Sai Baba' is a mystery. What his name was, nobody knows. That he sported the name 'Sai Baba' is all that is known.
But Sai Baba stands out as probably the only saint who begged his food to the last although, after 1910, he was feted and feasted as a monarch.
Though a Sanyasi, he cooked and fed by his own hands the hungry and the destitute in the village. He even swept the Masjid with his own hands and stitched his own clothes. Early in his life at Shirdi, he administered medicines to the ailing and the sick. In one case, when he found that his regimen was not adhered to and, therefore, the patient suffered, he switched over to Udi, the sovereign remedy for all physical and non-physical ills. Udi was another name for Baba's will power.
Some thirty-two years before his Maha Nirvana, when all had taken him for dead, Baba had established and demonstrated his full control over Prana as he came out of his Samadhi hale and hearty at the stroke of time.
His eccentricity was a mask to keep troublesome and curious people away.
Not even the mightiest in the land could slight Baba or take liberties with him. He showed the officious and arrogant Mr. Curtis, the then Revenue Commissioner, his barren wife and the then District Collector, their place in life when they sought an immediate and exclusive audience with him one day. And yet, he was the meekest of the meek. He refused to attend Court when summoned. A Commission had, therefore, to be appointed to examine him as a witness ina theft case. His replies to the Commission were a class by themselves. When questioned about his age, his answer was 'ancient'. When asked whether he knew the accused, he replied '/know everyone.'
Baba never made a vulgar demonstration of his stupendous powers. He showed them to those only whose souls hungered for them in their spiritual advancement. His powers were neither sleights of the hands nor spells of hypnotism. They were the subtlest manipulations of Prana, open to all who practiced Raja-Yoga as expounded by Swami Vivekananda in his book of lectures on Raja-Yoga.
Sai Baba gave no sermons, nor wrote any books on religion of philosophy and yet he knew and practiced true religion. He was truly the most incomparable saint who ever trod this earth.
In the present volume, the author earnestly endeavours to lay bare Baba's underlying philosophy of life and to bring out the divinely human facets of Baba's colourful and unique personality.
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