Shirdi Sai Baba Stories,Leelas and Teachings.: B.V Narsimha Swamiji-Chapter 14.

Dear all,

In continuation with biography of Pujya Shri B.V Narsimha Swamiji ,today I am uploading new Chapter-3 (part-3) but I shall number it as chapter14 keeping the sequence of the post .This post gives the details how Narsimha swamiji after having darshan of Baba started his mission of Sai prachar and how Baba Himself helped Swami ji in his work .Here Swami ji comes in contact with close bhakta of Baba and continue his work of writing about Shirdi Sai Baba .Readers who have missed earlier parts of biography can read by clicking on the links which are given below here at the end of post chapter by chapter .Jai Sai Ram

Chapter -14
BABA HIMSELF FAVOURS THE MOVEMENT

The task of collecting facts about Sai Baba was by no means easy. While not much information was readily available, it was difficult to find unbiased sources of information.
As a rule, as Narasimha Swamiji writes at pg.97 of his book ‘The Sage of Sakori’, devotees are not the best observers of the powers and doings of their Gurus, from the chronicler’s view point.

“Their cordiality, love of exaggeration, over sensitiveness in trying to avoid anything like strict examination of seeming miracles and mysteries, and usual want of the scientific attitude of training” account for the unreliability of their testimony.

After statements had been obtained from devotees and others, there arose the further difficulty of removing the grain from the chaff, or sifting and arranging all the mass of evidence collected, and of presenting what, after enquiry and investigations, could be accepted as true and beyond reasonable doubt.

Those who have read Narasimha Swamiji’s biographies of Ramana Maharishi, Upasini Maharaj and Sai Baba and his accounts of the numerous devotees of Sai Baba can only marvel at the amount of trouble Narasimha Swamiji must have taken in collecting and processing the information and producing the final narration strictly in accordance with the norms of scientific and objective inquiry.

Only one blessed with Divine grace could have summoned to his aid the enormous patience, perseverance and faith without which the task undertaken would not have become and accomplished fact.
Narasimha Swamiji himself has narrated as follows:-

“For collecting experience of devotees who were directly blessed by Sai Baba, I received many invitations. On one such assignment I went to Pune and was introduced to the Rasanes. As I was taking down notes of their experiences, Sri Narayan Purushotham Avasthi, son of Justice Sri P.R.Avasthi of Gwalior, came in and took me to his father, who was a great devotee of Sai Baba.

The moment he learnt of my mission,Justice Sri P.R.Avasthi, the sincere soul that he is,was overjoyed and,treated me as he would treat an old and dear friend,he placed himself and his influence entirely at my disposal.He introduced me to about sixty devotees of Sai Baba who had personal experiences of Sai Baba’s greatness.

Most of these devotees were ignorant of English and could speak only in Marathi, which was unfamiliar to me at the time.Justice Sri Avasthi’s knowledge of Marathi and English was of great service to me as his influence and zeal to serve the cause of devotion to Baba in collecting,editing and publishing information about Baba.

From the very beginning,I was determined to collect,test and sift such materials, to arrange them on their strength, that is,on their inherent reliability and credibility,and compile a biography of Baba that would benefit earnest souls all over India if not also beyond.

For many months I was engaged in this work with the invaluable help of Justice Sri Avasthi who interpreted to me Hemadpant’s ‘Sri Sai Satcharita, Sri Sai Lila Masik and other Marathi publications on Sai Baba. He was a great help to me in this way for one year or so vigorously that at the end of that period,I found that I could read and translate the Marathi book myself without his help,with occasional reference to a dictionary.

This itself was proof of Sai Baba’s grace flowing towards me.But fresh evidence of his grace became manifest off and on the course of this work.

Spiritual experiences, especially the sadhaka’s experiences with his Guru or with God, are so intensely personal and unique to him, touch such inner depths of his soul, and are so intimate that they (the spiritual experiences) are not to be communicated to anybody, much less to strangers. But, as it happened, barring a few, everyone of Baba’s devotees whom we approached was very soon impelled to unlock the portals of his heart and let us into his secret experiences.

A Public Prosecutor, who was an intimate friend of Justice Sri Avasthi, began, within a few minutes of his introduction to me,to unburden himself and relate his innermost experiences disclosing facts which he had not till then revealed even to his best friend, Justice Sri Avasthi.

I typed out these statements and left the bunch of papers with my friend, Sri G.B.Datar, an advocate at Thane.When I was at Pune, Sri Datar intimated to me that the bunch of papers I had left with him was lost and could not be found in spite of his best efforts.

As I had no copies of these statements,their loss would prove a very serious handicap to the progress of my work. Full of faith in Sai Baba and praying to him for their recovery,I immediately went to Thane. On reaching Sri Datar’s house, I went to his table on which I had placed the papers. In a minute or two, I placed my hand on a bundle among his legal papers and this turned out to be the missing bunch.

More than one devotee warned me against accepting bogus devotees and faked experiences and asked me how I,a stranger to men, manners and language of Maharashtra,hoped to ensure the purity and reliability of the information I received.I knew one and only device.Sai Baba was my guide and he would not allow humbug to pass into my sacred collection.

Least in two cases I received strange and unexpected warnings and revelations indication what I should reject.Some statements were thus wholly rejected and some in part. It was quite obvious to me as also to my Mumbai friends, that Sai Baba was favouring the publication,by me,of his biography and was removing the obstacles thereto,step by step.

Collecting about 15 statements,I began publishing parts of them in English in the columns of the ‘Sunday Times’-Madras in 1937. This account appeared in 30 or 40 issues of that Journal.As the journal had a circulation of 20,000 the initial work of creating among the devout public all over India an interest in Sai Baba got off to a very good start.

This publicity had a further good result.A highly placed friend remarked to me that these experiences,by themselves, produced a very unfavourable impression,because they made Baba look like sort of a juggler with rare powers rather than a great soul.

When I replied, ‘What about Sri Krishna’s miracles?’ he said,’Oh, but they are part of Sri Krishna’s nature’. ‘Exactly’, I retorted’ so are the miracles of Baba are part of Baba’s nature’. ‘That is what is left out of your articles’, my friend pointed out.

My friend was right.He is pure and holy person,not afflicted with jealousy or hatred of saints other than his own Guru.He represents a group that, in its desire to stress metaphysical and ultimate truths,is apt to underrate the importance of miracles to those who are just beginning their spiritual life.

So I felt that the entire defect was that I was producing the separate bricks lent to me by each devotee in the shape of his experience.Hardly any of these devotees had a conception of what the edifice was into which his brick had to be fitted. Hardly any of them knew the real nature of Baba.So I appealed to Baba himself much as Sri Ramakrishna complained to Kali Matha that a learned pandit should represent her as a ‘tamasic’ deity.

I felt an inner warning that I should abandon thinking in English and in terms of newspaper articles and that I should try to write out a reliable but orthodox biography of the saint in my own mother tongue.

As I began that task, even in the earliest chapters,Baba’s nature, his powers, their nature, his Guru and what his Guru did for him all these came up for consideration.

And I discovered passages in baba’s sayings (utterances, discourses) which, read with passages from the scriptures, showed how Baba’s Guru was saturated with divinity,how indeed, that Guru was God himself, how that Guru-God’s self was poured (super-imposed) upon Baba leading to Baba’s merger in the Divine and the consequent manifestation of miraculous powers.

Baba was taught and what Baba taught are conveyed by means of radiation or unseen influence came to me in flashes to fill up the picture of Baba,which I was trying to draw.
For the first time, so far as I knew,a clearly intelligible picture of Baba’s nature, his powers and the course of his life materialized and were presented by me in ‘Introduction to Sai Baba’.

The first edition of this was published in November 1939 and ,within eleven months, a third edition was published and rapidly circulated.

The experiences of the devotees as narrated by them have also been published as parts I and II in support of much that is contained in the ‘Introduction to Sai Baba’.This ‘Introduction to Sai Baba’was later rendered into all the languages of the south-Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu. These facts are clear evidence that Sai Baba was in favour of the spread of the Sai Bhakti movement.

One striking fact supporting the above conclusion is that thousands upon thousands of people became devotees of Baba in the South within the space of a few months. Meetings were held where ‘arathis’ were conducted and a few words about Sai Baba were said.

Baba’s support of the movement can be seen also by the fact that many people from all parts of the country who became his devotees have had several experiences of their own which they communicated to me.These have been published under the title “Devotees Experiences”.

Chapters Posted:

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