The Sai Baba of Shirdi – God or Guru or both
I start this column in
complete reverence to His Holiness Sri Shankaracharya of Dwaraka Peeth Swami
Swaroopanand Saraswathi and with the blessings of Sri Shirdi Sai Baba.
In
the last few days, there is a lot of hullabaloo happening on Shri Sai Baba of
Shirdi with Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswathi of Dwarka Peeth
exhorting Sai devotees on June 23 not to treat Sai Baba as God and to stop
worshipping him.
The
devotees of Sai Baba felt outraged and there was wide spread condemnation of
Shankaracharya’s words. Saidham Charitable Trust filed a PIL in Supreme Court on
17th September seeking its intervention in the matter and to direct
the Centre to restrain people from making derogatory remarks on Shirdi Sai and
to prevent Swamiji or his disciples from removing Sai Baba’s idols from any of
the temples across the country.
As an ordinary devotee
of Shirdi Sai, I
would like to put forth a few of the thoughts about what I feel Sai Baba is all
about after having read and understood a bit from Shri Sai Satcharitra, the Holy book of Sai Baba devotees, a condensed
version with 51 chapters. I wish Swamiji goes through Satcharitra once to
understand why Shirdi Sai has won so many devotees in the last 100 years or
more.
It
is a known fact that the Vedas and other revered Hindu religious scriptures like
Bhagavad Gita (which I recite
regularly) and Srimad Bhagavatham are
difficult to understand even for a learned Sanskrit scholar, leave alone a
common man. They require the guidance of a guru. The underlying theme in all those scriptures is only one: There is a supreme Personality called God
who is running this universe at His Will. That man must have a selfless attitude,
serve all and be not enamored of these worldly things as they are not
permanent. This one concept is driven into the minds of all Sai devotees,
in a simple and easy to understand manner through Sai Satcharitra which gives a detailed way of how Sai lived in
Shirdi.
In
today’s world of exploding information, there are many so called ‘swamijis’ and
gurus from various religions who are capable of delivering lectures on religion
and God continuously for hours without a break, but they themselves are not in
a position to follow what they preach to people. We have seen several instances
in which the most revered ‘swamijis’ were caught in compromising positions and
also becoming slaves to what the devotees offered them. A guru has to follow what he preaches and his life should be his
message.
India
is a great country where several saints were born to rid people of their blind
beliefs and to show them the right path. A
saint is not necessarily a person in saffron or white robes or a person with
religious back ground. A saint can
be anyone who lives the life of an altruist in a spotless manner wishing for
the overall good of an entire society and to whom the whole society looks up to
for guidance on righteous, just and peaceful living.
Each
chapter of Sai Satchharitra gives a great message from the vedas which even lay
people can understand easily as they are illustrated through real life experiences.
To say that Sai was a Muslim or Hindu is baseless as no one knew where he was
born or to whom and when. In any case
God doesn’t have a specific religion; it is we who created various religions to
suit to our requirements from time to time.
Here
are a few points that can be highlighted from Shri Sai Satcharitra for the
benefit of non-devotees of Shirdi Sai.
1. Unlike some so called gurus who
claim to be God themselves (and have a ‘hundi’ for ‘collections’) Shirdi Sai
never claimed that he was God. He always said that he was a servant of God. The
present temple in which his Samadhi is located was actually a temple constructed
for Lord Krishna under his supervision by his devotees.
2. “Have no fear. Hold on to true
knowledge and focus your mind on yourself. You will definitely be protected”
was his message from Chapter One.
3. He never accumulated wealth and
donated on the same day he received it from people who visited him. This is
mentioned in Chapter 14. He discouraged his devotees from offering him gifts/money
as he never had any desire to possess any material things. Contrast this with
‘swamijis’ who lead a 5-star life with devotees’ money with several crores
worth of properties in the name of their Trusts.
4. He constantly reminded people that
all religions are one and we should respect each other. He promoted harmony
between people of two major religions.
5. By planting trees and developing
Lendi baug, he emphasized the importance of trees for the well-being of humans.
6. He encouraged people to believe in
themselves and do their duty without longing for results. This is on the lines
of what Krishna told Arjuna in Gita.
7. Through a nice example, he
illustrated the fact that happiness is not in your possessions but in your
heart as can be understood from 20th Chapter which mentions about Eesaavaasyopanishat. Man should be
satisfied with whatever gains he makes in the right way and should bear in mind
that God has bestowed on him whatever he deserved.
8. He emphasized that all moving and
non-moving are nothing but His manifestation thereby promoting universal
harmony.
9. He conducted himself in such a way
that people, irrespective of their castes, loved him equally. This is mentioned
in Chapter 7.
10. He
never stopped a leper from serving him closely which shows how much compassion he had even
on those who were treated as untouchables by others.
11. He
lived by begging from a few selected houses. He never had reservations when dogs, cats and crows ate from
the same bowl in which he begged and ate. This clearly shows what levels of
equality of mind he has reached. Here it is pertinent to mention the Gita sloka
which Baba lived by practically
Vidya-
vinaya- sampanne
Brahmane
gavi hastini
Suni
caiva swa-pake cha
Panditah
sama-darsinah(B.G - Chapter 5 Verse 18)
12. In the 16th and 17th
chapters, he showed how man should be devoid of material possessions to be able
to realize the Absolute Reality.
13. In the 39th Chapter, he made it
clear that just reading religious scriptures was not sufficient. One has to
approach a right Guru and also apply his mind in understanding the same through
self-inquiry.
14.In the 46th chapter through the
story of two goats, he made people realize that man has to pay for his deeds either
in this life or the next. Even the Gita says that there is life after death of
the body and the soul goes through different stages.
Though
each chapter has got its own message, only the ones which are found to be
useful to any person, irrespective of which religion one followed, have been
mentioned above.
I
would mention about two important shlokas that are very
relevant in this context. Keeping aside the argument whether Sai Baba is not God or not, are we not from the culture which gave the shlok matrudevo bhava,
pitrudevo bhava, acharyadevo bhava, atithidevo bhava from Taittiriya Upanishad? Ours
is country which believes and worships one’s mother, father, teacher and guest
as God. So if people worship Shirdi Sai as God treating him as either a guru or
God and in the process are getting purified through devotion on his form, I see
no reason why they should be discouraged from doing so.
Secondly,
Lord Krishna said:
Yo yo yam yam tanum bhaktah
sraddhayarcitum icchati
tasya tasyacalam sraddham
tam eva vidadhamy aham
(I am in everyone's heart as the Supersoul. As soon as one desires to
worship the demigods, I make his faith steady so that he can devote himself to
some particular deity)
God is given a form as
per one’s choice though He is formless and is present in everything and
everywhere which Shirdi Sai Baba taught at all times. People worship God as
per their choice and desire something from worship. As long as the desires are
fulfilled, they cling to that form of God. If not they change their faith and replace the form.
God has given intelligence to every individual and he/she is free to choose
whom he/she worships and keeps his/her faith in.
Whether the God in
which one believes and worships leads him to the Absolute Reality or not
depends on one’s steadfastness and devotion as no one can claim to have seen
God. Till then let every man/woman pray to his/her own God and I am sure God
himself would have no issues with that as long as people live in harmony and
are at peace with every other soul, moving or non-moving.
The Sai Baba of Shirdi
definitely has no problem whether people worshiped Him or not and He never
complains. He promised that He would take care of the ones who believe in Him. He
seems to be keeping up His promise because of which there are lakhs of His
devotees today across the globe.
One final word – There cannot be God without
devotees and there cannot be devotees when there is no God just as we can’t separate
the property of sweetness from sugar. Both are strongly and inseparably connected.
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