sai baba introduction
Look,here comes the crazy fakir again
The shopkeepers turned and looked up the street at the tall,gaunt youth who was striding towards them, energetic but aloof , speaking no body.
No one knew who he was. He had first appeared in little town of shirdi as lad about as a lad of about sixteen in 1872, as wanderning fakirs do, none knowing whence or why.He wandered away again, roamed about for while, and then came back and spent the rest of life there. During his earlier visit he lived under a neem tree , sitting there in daytime ,sleeping on the bare ground at night , eating what little food the charitable townfolk gave him. When he stop wandering and settled down at shirdi , he went first to a little hindu temple there , intending to make it his abode but the custodian
Mahalsapathy who later become one of his closest disciples , regarded him as a Muslim fakir and refuses him as admission , bidding him go to the mosque to live . He did so, and the little mud walled
mosque remained his home.
He spoke with the holy men, hindu or muslim who occasionaly passed through the town, and the one of them had told the townsfolk watch that yong fakir he is a jewel on a dunghill.
But they they had not taken much notice. It seemed more likely to them that he was a bit cracked. He did not mix with them -scarely spoke. He sometimes said namaz (the ritualistic Islamic prayer that he has to said five times a day), but very soledom .he had queen habits of his own too he kept a fire burning perpetually in the little mosque more like a Parsi than a Muslim and he burned little oil lamps there.
Except for a handful of food, oil for the lamps was the only thing he needed and he used to go to go to the shopkeppers to beg it. That was what he must coming for now. One of them nudged the others let's have some fun with him let's refuse to give him oil.
A sprinkling of sightseers gathered round. Refused oil , the young fakir turned and went back with no words of complaint or besseching.
Let's follow him back and see what he will do someone suggested. The old herd instinct of baiting the outsiders was at work.
They soon saw. Arrived back at mosque the fakir picked up a mud pot of water that stood there and filled the lamps from it and they burned as with oil.
There was no nudging or tittering now. In sudden awe they fell at his feet and begged him not to curse them for what they have done.
No more talk of crazy fakirs. The people of shirdi belived now in the jewel on the dunghill. They knew that they had a man of power among them. They soon found that he was a saint and teacher with enormous power compassion for those who suffered.
There was no nudging or tittering now. In sudden awe they fell at his feet and begged him not to curse them for what they have done.
No more talk of crazy fakirs. The people of shirdi belived now in the jewel on the dunghill. They knew that they had a man of power among them. They soon found that he was a saint and teacher with enormous power compassion for those who suffered.
Nevertheless, he remained bizarre, a man of mystery. Nobody knew his name. Sai baba is not name. Sai (pronounced approximately like 'sigh') is a Persian word for 'saint' and Baba is hindi term of of endearment and respect meaning 'father' . Nobody knew why he chose shirdi as his abode. Rather a village then a town, six miles from the naearest Railway station, not previously a spritiual centre and yet remained there for nearly half a century.
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