By: Suresh Chandra Gupta
Ram, Krishna, Jesus, Mohammad, and Buddha were all ‘Purn-Brahm Parmeshwar’ (God Incarnate) and descended on earth as the Saviour of mankind according to the needs of the time, place, circumstances, and similar other factors. In that very chain, Shri Sai Samarth appeared in Shirdi, grew up there, showed his leelas, and left the world leaving behind his mark which has acquired eternity and which has become the need of the man of today. Sai established no new religion, no creed, or a new school of thought. From looks, he appeared a Muslim but claimed himself to be a pure ‘Brahman’ (a high-class Hindu). If we attribute any particular religion to Baba, we shall be straying from the path shown by him. If we create a new creed in his name, we shall be striking at the very roots of his teachings. Every word and every thought uttered by Baba during his life lived on earth, is a living example of it. Baba was the embodiment of the God whose image we have been carrying in our hearts and mind and yet different from it.
Today, there seems to be a conscious effort on the part of Sai devotees, to trap Baba in the limitations of our age-old beliefs. By doing so we shall be doing injustice to him. To stop the worsening of this situation, thinkers and researchers will have to go deep into the life and leelas of Baba and bring out his true philosophy and thinking. Today it is feared that we may change the peculiar recognition that Sai possessed. As we hail from the Hindu community, we seem to have bound Baba in the age-old ceremonial practices, thoughts, and beliefs of our community and made it our firm conviction that Baba’s real ‘Swaroop’ is that which is established in our minds. We are also not tired of repeating that Baba keeps on changing the Swaroop according to the desires of his bhaktas. For the sake of maintaining the real image of Baba and taking into account the needs of the time, we shall have to raise ourselves above these age-old ways of thinking and change our outlook on Baba. Otherwise, we shall bring down our Baba from the high pedestal he is occupying and merely add his name to the list of already existing Gods, Apostles and Yug Purushas. The devotees of Baba are witness to the fact that even the bones of Baba are ever worried for their welfare, which is a great boon to them.
Today, we have encompassed Baba in the circle of “You shall get what you desire”. Did we ever give it a thought that the above-mentioned words of Baba reflect his concern for his devotees? Whatever words Baba uttered were mainly in the form of educative stories and if we take them away from the background in which they were said and project them according to our interpretation, we might be doing injustice to Baba. Today it is absolutely necessary that a team of scholars should go deep into every word and thought attributed to Baba and bring out its correct meaning and interpretation. Else the danger is that we might distort the real image of Baba and defeat the very purpose for achieving which he came into the world.
Experience shows that many words attributed to Baba today have been coined by devotees like you and me, according to our understanding and we are constantly engaged in the drill of coining more such words. The basis of every word attributed to Baba is either the ‘Shri Sai Satcharitra’ or the books written by a few devotees who lived with Baba in his lifetime which are all available only in the Marathi language, with which the growing number of devotees are not conversant. Every word uttered by Baba in my view, today needs to be given deep thinking, to bring out the real purport and depth of his words. Some authority someday shall have to take the initiative of starting this work which is the need of the day and which would reveal the greatness of this Saint and also maintain his uniqueness.
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