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 17^th 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 16^th and 17^th chapters, he showed how man should be devoid of material possessions to be able to realize the Absolute Reality.

13. In the 39^th 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 46^th 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:( BG – Chapter 7 Verse 21)

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.