Perfect Masters
De Simple Silence.
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[modifier] Shri Sai Baba Of Shirdi
« I am not this figure of three and a half cubits clad in a Kupni. »
« Those who see Sai Baba in Shirdi do not know Him. »
Who is Sai Baba ? When was he born ? And where ? Who were his parents ? To what caste or community he belonged ? These are questions which must, for ever, remain unanswered. He is eternal. He is omnipresent. He was found in other places when he was physically present in Shirdi. He claims the same love as a son, from his devotees and He remains, spiritually speaking, the Father of all. As for his religion, the Hindus, Moslems, Christians, Sikhs, and Parsis worship Him.
What can be definitely stated is that he came as a lad in 1858, to Shirdi, a village in Ahmednagar district, not far from Kopergaon railway station. He appeared in a gown with a scarf round his head, begging for food, and treating the sick with herbs under a neem (margosa) tree in the village. He laid out a garden, called Lendi garden, and dug a well in the heart of the garden. This well saved the trouble of having to walk miles away to the Godavary to bathe or fetch fresh water. He was always chanting the Lord’s name.
Then he moved to a dilapidated mosque in the village. He called this mosque Dwarka Mayee and also Brahmin’s mosque. Here he lighted a fire which is kept burning even now. He abandoned medicine, in treating his patients, and administered the ashes, which he called ‘Udi’ which were taken from this fire. This ‘Udi’ is found, from experience, to be a sovereign remedy for all kinds of ills and it helps in good purposes.
As other mosques have, Dwarka Mayee has a spacious yard at the entrance, and at another end of the yard, a flight of steps leading to a room with a verandah. Sai Baba remained in the room and the fire can be seen glowing at the other end of the verandah. A coloured portrait of Baba may be seen on the spot where he used to sit. A holder containing ashes is fixed near the portrait.
Near the entrance, a huge stone is found under the wall of the yard. Sai Baba sat on this stone and spoke to the people words of wisdom. At first the villagers gathered and listened to him. Then others, having heard of his saintliness, came from far and near to hear him. He made them all have faith in one God and understand that all were His children. The great God expected His children to love and help each other, live in peace and brotherliness and grow in goodness. Shirdi was peopled then, as now, with Hindus and Moslems. Sai Baba was regarded as a common elder by both communities. He advised them to follow what their particular religions had taught them, but they should,. on no account, quarrel like little babies. He showed amazing proficiency in Hindu and Islamic scriptures. He taught these and many other things to the gathering and blest them. Some of His sayings are given below :
« You look to me and I look to you. »
« Why should you fear when I am here ? »
« Cast all your burdens on me and I shall bear them. »
« There shall be no want in the house of my devotee. »
« The grace of Sai Baba is his who asks for it. »
« I shall be ever active and vigorous even after leaving this physical body. »
« I grant people what they want in the hope that they will ask for what I want to give them. »
Sai Baba performed miracles to benefit his devotees and strengthen their devotion. He cured many of their diseases and also granted them favours of all kinds, as : employment, promotion, marriage, children, etc. Sai Baba’s fame spread throughout Maharashtra and brought near him men like Lokmanya Tilak, Sir Roger Curtis, Revenue Officer, who later on became Governor of Bombay, Sir Pheroz Mehta, etc. But He loved the masses. He transforms the gratitude of his beneficiaries into devotion to God, and raises them in spiritual life. That has been Sai Baba’s method in kindling divine consciousness in his devotees. He bade them all trust in the power, wisdom, and infinite mercy of God and always do the right. Baba is absolutely informal and forgiving, his blessings are patent, and the approach to him is unconventional. His teachings are plain and simple. But He teaches more effectively by making his devotee undergo experience. For instance, a particular aspirant thought within himself if Baba could tell him the nature of bliss. That devotee was thrown into ineffable ecstasy that he could know for himself by experience more soundly than by reading volumes or listening to lectures. To have the experience of Baba means to come in for a favour and a beginning made henceforth for a better life in every sense of the term.
Sai Baba sang songs of Kabir and danced with bells round his ankles in the chavadi in Shirdi. Any pilgrim to Shirdi may see the chavadi, the stone which formed Baba’s seat in the yard, and the sacred fire. On Thursday evenings a procession carrying Baba’s picture starts from the chavadi goes round Dwarakamoyee and Samadhi Mandir and returns.
Sai Baba collected dakshina from his devotees, part of which he gave away to others and with the balance he bought provisions for food which he cooked himself and fed hundreds of people every day. But he ate what he begged as food from particular houses. Sai Baba is not at all interested in what one has, but in what one is prepared to give and gives away. He sang and danced, or sat in meditation. He almost never slept. He laboured ceaselessly for the benefit of all till the last particle of energy was left in him. On the 15th October 1918 (Ekadasi following Vijaya Dasami) he departed from the body made of flesh, blood and bones and attained Mahasamadhi. His remains lie enshrined in a building in Shirdi constructed for Lord Krishna by Gopal Rao Bhutty, a multimillionaire of Nagpur and devotee of Sai Baba. This mandir is called Samadhi Mandir. The torn gown, shoes, walking stick and other articles used by Sai Baba are preserved in a room in this Mandir.
Hindus, Moslems, Sikhs, Christians and Parsees unite in a common bond of worship in the Samadhi Mandir. Communal harmony paving the way to universal brotherhood is Sai Baba’s contribution to the spiritual regeneration of the present race of humanity. His mission, was to awaken the masses and the intelligentsia from their moral and spiritual apathy.
[modifier] Shri Upasani Maharaj
The belief is held, at any rate in India, that the way to spiritual progress of a woman lies through man and that a woman cannot by herself do anything towards her own spiritual uplift. Lord Buddha who raised the standard of revolt against Vedic religion innovated the order of « Bhikshunis » (nuns) in our country. Among other things, the personal charms with which Nature has endowed her expose the woman to a considerable amount of risk, as the poet has observed that « beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. » Woman is, again, exposed to same temptations as man.
Under these circumstances, it become inevitable that the path to the spiritual regeneration of woman solely by her unaided efforts had to be shown by man. This might appear strange ; but truth is stranger than fiction. It was given to the Perfect Master Shri Upasani Maharaj of Sakori (Maharashtra State) to show woman how to break down her shackles all by herself. An account of the life of Shri Upasani Maharaj may therefore prove not only of some interest, but of value in this connection. In his pre-ascetic life, Maharaj was known as Pundit Kashinath of Satane in Maharashtra. Born on the 15th May, 1870, of Govind Shastri and Rukmani Bai, Pundit Kashinath came of an orthodox Brahmin family of Sanskrit scholars, his grandfather Gopala Shastri was a Pundit himself and in his later life he became a monk. After perfunctory schooling, Kashinath left home when he was only fourteen or fifteen and sought sanctuary in a cave eight miles off Nasik, for eight years.
In 1900, he was traced and brought home and persuaded to enter the life of a householder. Till 1910, he practised successfully as an Ayurvedic doctor at Sangli and edited with renown a medical journal entitled Bheshaja Ratnamala. In 1910, he contacted at Nagpur Shri Narayan Maharaj of Khedgaon. The Maharaj had even at that early stage discerned the greatness of the Pundit. He was later on directed by Kulkurni Maharaj of Rahuri to go to Shri SAI BABA. The Pundit met on the 27th June, 1911, Sai Baba for the first time at Shirdi.
That meeting proved to be the turning point in his career. Pundit Kashinath had undergone for a period of four years, with a brief interval, his apprenticeship under the strict vigilance of Lord Sai Nath. It was a period of fiery ordeal accompanied by fasting, blindness for some time, physical mortification, insult and other forms of austerity. Out of that fiery furnace, Maharaj emerged as the purest gold, being thoroughly smelted of the last particle of dross that might have clung to him. Lord Sai Nath Himself called him « Maharaj » and declared before His devotees that He was leaving the « Keys of the Treasury » in the hands of Shri Upasani Maharaj.
It is interesting to note that during his novitiate under Lord Sai Nath, Maharaj was tormented by lust and he sought BABA’s direction to overcome the temptation. Sai Baba reminded him of how Sriman Narayana had alone remained Purushottama and that all other individuals were but His consorts and that he should also try to perceive the inner Self in every individual and should not be carried away by external charms. BABA advised him the practice to cover his body in a saree and mix among women as one of them and behave in similar ways. Devotees of Shri Upasani Maharaj may see in Sakori Ashram photo of Upasani Maharaj in a woman’s garments.
The life of Upasani Maharaj and the doings of lord Sri Krishna contain very valuable lessons to earnest spiritual aspirants. Lord Krishna has been thoroughly misunderstood and misinterpreted by superficial critics in regard to His dealings with the « Gopis ». Shri Upasani Maharaj had, when he lived, to be defended in Court by B. V. Narasimhaswamiji for what was considered to be a breach of the law in married life. The mistake that is committed in understanding these personalities consists in our judging them to remain on the same level as we do. Most of us are not capable of perceiving the individuals beyond their physical bodies, or of resisting the temptations of the sex. Pilgrims to Sakori Ashram had sought the help of Upasani Maharaj in overcoming lust and he had unreservedly assisted them in this. He also showed by his example that a woman is not to be regarded in any way different from man and that she has as much right to do spiritual work as man.
After his training under Lord Sai Nath, Upasani Maharaj left Shirdi and visited among other places Kharagpur, Amraoti, Nagpore etc., until he settled down in a burning ghat of Sakori village. In his lecture tours Upasani Maharaj disseminated spiritual culture by addressing his devotees. He preached about the relative and absolute aspects of Reality and of the innumerable conflicts and problems of man at all stages. It is significant that Maharaj had chosen the burning ghat as the site of the Ashram. It at once symbolises the perishable nature of the physical body as emphatically as it does the eternal nature of that Inner Self which the aspirant is taught to perceive in his efforts to subdue the lower self.
Devotees of Maharaj cleared the spot of unwanted trees and bushes and built a palatial Ashram for him. Maharaj left the physical body on the 24th December, 1941. The founder of the Sakori Ashram was alone a man. The Mother Superior of this famous Convent is today SATI GODAVARI MATA who is a source of inspiration to all earnest aspirants. There she continues to carry on with the assistance of the. « Kanyas » the work of spiritual regeneration of the womanhood of the world, which was started by Shri Upasani Maharaj.
His sermons are read and expanded in the « sthan » everyday by the Kanyas. Kanyas are nuns who have dedicated their lives to work for spiritual regeneration.
[modifier] Hazrat Baba Tajuddin
Forgiveness is essentially a divine quality and is inherent in almost everyone of us, but in varying degrees. As the Poet has aptly put it: "To err is human, to forgive divine." Forgiveness is reckoned in spritual parlance as "remission of sin."
While a volume of ideas is current concerning "remission of sin," absolution, etc., it is indisputable that a Perfect Master is empowered to absolve an individual, to any extent. That power is, however, sparingly exercised. It is very rarely in spiritual history that one comes across a Buddha or a Christ or a Sankara or a Ramanuja who aimed at mass uplift, irrespective of the forces they release against themselves by such actions. The Law of Karma is inviolable and the results of actions, good or bad, have to be faced squarely and endured individually or vicariously. A Guru has to undergo the necessary expiation of the Karma of his Chela until that Chela attains to a position on a par with his Guru. It naturally follows, that by lavishly bestowing favours on a mass scale, these Masters had to take the responsibility for their actions on their own shoulders and to undergo the necessary amount of suffering. Herein lies the explanation for the life of hardship, pains and penalties of every description, that God-men had to lead whenever they had incarnated through the Ages, in order to serve us.
Lord Sainath had led a rigorous and disciplined life in a neglected hamlet in Ahmednager District in Western India. It fell to the lot of his contemporary, another Perfect Master, Hazrat Baba Tajuddin who carried on in Central India the same mission, for which Sri Sai Baba had incarnated. It is believed by the devotees of the Perfect Masters mentioned in this book that Tajuddin Baba had carried on his work in perfect harmony and understanding with the rest of the Masters among whom Sri Sai Baba was considered to be the Chief.
The peculiar feature of Baba Tajuddin is that despite his rough exterior, he considered no one bad enough to be lost altogether, and forgave delinquents with a magnanimity that is not only incomparable but is simply incredible. Litigants, criminals, sufferers from chronic ailments, physical or mental, candidates doubtful of their results in their examinations, and people on whom society may be said to have turned its back, sought for his intercession in their difficulties, and not one of them was sent back without the favour being granted. The belief is current that such miracles happen even now, that is to say, long after he had left the flesh, in favour of those who sincerely pray for his aid. For this purpose, many pilgrims are found to visit his tomb near Nagpur even to this day.
Among the responsibilities of the Perfect Masters in their work, one is that they have to carry on their mission with whatever materials they may find. This they are obliged to do by keeping their less developed co-workers secure from their Karmic commitments, by various kinds of adjustments or by vicarious suffering. Baba Tajuddin preferred to undergo vacarious suffering. An account of his life may prove of engrossing interest to all earnest spiritual aspirants.
Born on the [17th] January, 1861, as the only child of Mahomed Badruddin, a Subhedar of the Madras Regiment settled in Kamptee, Central Provinces (Madhya Pradesh), Tajuddin Baba was said to have remained silent for long as a baby and was, according to the prevailing custom, branded on the forehead and temples to be aroused to consciousness. Having lost his father before he was barely one year old and his mother at the age of eight, Tajuddin was brought up by his maternal uncle and grandmother. Till his fifteenth year, he learnt Arabic, Urdu and a little English and enrolled at the age of 18 as a sepoy in the 8th Madras Regiment. As the Regiment lay encamped at Saugor, he was reported to have been lured by a voice that led him to meet Hazrat Dawood Christi a renowned Saint, in the depth of the woods in the vicinity. That meeting proved to be the turning point in Tajuddin Baba's career. He left military service, became dazed and passed for a man out of mind. His grandmother brought him back to Kamptee and tried all manner of treatments to restore him to normal condition, until she passed away. He was teased by children who threw stones at him. Far from retaliating, he revelled in the sport by collecting the stones in heaps. Gleams of spirituality broke through his apparently demented condition in the form of miraculous favours that he bestowed on those who appealed to him for help. In view of his valuable assistance in temporal affairs, the mad Fakir was spared the teasing by urchins. But he made up his mind to live among the lunatics. One day in 1889, he walked stark naked in a tennis court maintained by the English Club in Kamptee. This led to his arrest and incarceration in the lunatic asylum at Nagpur, where he is said to have spent eighteen long years.
Dr. Abdul Majid Khan, under whose care the asylum was maintained, has left us a faithful record of Baba's life during this period. To mention only a single incident out of the innumerable strange events that had occurred at this time, Baba refused any preferential treatment and insisted on carrying heavy loads on his head, like other inmates. The loads lifted themselves right above his head and followed Baba wherever he went. Multitude of visitors poured into this lunatic asylum to have his darshan despite a nominal fee charged by the authorities for this favour. Among those who visited was Bi-Amma, a woman of extraordinary spirituality, who came to him under the direction of Hazrat Dawood Christi. Tajuddin Baba seemed highly pleased with her devotion, and she also grew in spirituality after her contact with Baba, and led a very valuable life until she passed away and was buried at Waki, a suburb of Nagpur.
In 1907, Raja Raghujirao of Nagpur prayed Baba to come out of the asylum and on Baba's acceding to the request, the Raja was glad to furnish a security of Rs. 2,000 to the Government for the release. Tajuddin later declined the offer of life in a palace at Shakerdara by the Raja. Baba preferred roaming about in the jungles until he settled at Waki. Here, large numbers of people wanting various kinds of favours come to him. He grouped them in departments around his residence. He directed those who needed recovery from diseases to asemble under a tree which he called 'the hospital,' candidates desiring success in the examination to meet under a mango tree which he called 'the school,' those who had litigation and financial troubles to gather at another spot called 'Court of Justice,' and those who prayed for spiritual progress to congregate in 'the Mosque,' while those women he wished to help in self-control and discipline were directed to march to a place called 'the parade ground' and perform drill. He poured forth his blessings in abundance on each one of the groups with sure and unerring results. In order to accommodate and attend to the convenience of these pilgrims, a satellite town had developed and this formed the nucleus of a suburb of Nagpur. Here he lived till he passed away on 17th August, 1925, when, according to a report in « The Times of India », Bombay, the stone image of the household Deity of Raja Raghujirao was said to have shed tears of grief.
Hazrat Baba Tajuddin had incarnated to bless us all, to relieve us of our temporal distress, to confer on us material prosperity and then to transform our gratitude into devotion to God. He stabilised the faith of those in whom faith in God seemed for a moment shaken by difficulties or dangers. In doing this work he had naturally to undergo enormous suffering and sacrifice. This is precisely what Sai Baba has been doing in Western India. A Perfect Master like Tajuddin Baba blossoms like a rose in a bush of thorns.
[modifier] Shri Narayan Maharaj of Khedgaon
The belief current mostly in our country [India] is that occult powers may be developed by invoking particular Deities through intense devotional and formal worship. Instances of this kind are not lacking particularly in some of the temples, Mutts, (monasteries) and even private houses. These powers can be developed also by means of selfless service or cultivating particular virtues like truth-telling, chastity or silence. The essential condition for the proper maintenance and growth of such powers is that they should not be exploited to serve selfish ends, but that they should be dedicated, whole and entire, to the service of the universe. The prospects of deriving powers by this method are brighter in the case of an unmarried person, as the responsibilities of leading a single life come to almost little or nothing, and, hence the temptation to utilise occult powers for selfish ends is also by far less than in the case of a householder.
Sadguru Shri Narayan Maharaj had incarnated to dispel the false notion that a Perfect Master need necessarily be orthodox or unconventional, or that formal worship is fit only for immature or undeveloped minds. In order to establish this truth, it became necessary for him to lead an orthodox life and incarnate in a family that was traditionally orthodox. Sri Bhimasankara and his son Sivaram, his illustrious ancestors, who had lived at Sindgi, a village in Karnatak, were ardent devotees of His Holiness the Jagatguru at Humpi. They had the gift of composing hymns in honour of their Gurudev in Mahrathi and Kanarese languages. In June 1885, Sri Narayan was born at Bhagalkot as the youngest son of Sri Ghima Rao and Srimati Lakhmi Devi. Sri Narayan became an orphan in his infancy and the family migrated to Hyderabad to live under the protection of Kashinath, the elder brother. Later, his prosperous maternal uncle who was living at Nargund brought up Shri Narayan and made him heir to his fortunes. Once Narayan visited a cave in a jungle near the house and had darshan of a Yogi who was seated on a plank suspended by chains and lighted by four lamps and guarded by a serpent. Narayan spent his time in Sandhya, Suryanamskara, meditation, etc. The refusal of his grandmother, one day when he was nine years old to give him clarified butter supplied the pretext for Sri Narayan to leave the house and remain untraced for seven years.
In about 1902, he arrived at a Hanumanji temple in Ravivar Gate in Poona City. He begged cooked food from door to door which he washed and ate. At this time, Trayambak Rao Mama Atre of Bopgaum took him away, under inward promptings, to a place called Arvi where he was living. Trayambak Rao's wife Srimati Lakshmi Bai was regarded with great affection and addressed as "mother" by Sri Narayan. A Jagirdar of Pareygar village near Pomalvadi Railway Station was ordered, in a dream, to take Sri Narayan to Gangapur, which he did. Sri Narayan lived at Gangapur under a neem tree by the side of a river. He never left the tree even when the river was swollen in floods during the monsoons. At such times, he would go up the branches and stay there. One day, he entered a Mutt at Gangapur where he met with an old man, who said that he had so long been doing pooja for the welfare of Narayan, and he initiated the youth. He asked Narayan to fetch food for him. Returning to the Mutt, with the food, along with some of its inmates, Narayan found that it was empty. The inmates pleaded ignorance of any such stranger and assured Narayan that it could have been no other than Lord Dattatreya Himself; and having had the darshan of and direct initiation by the Lord, Narayan was twice blest. Narayan who was overcome with joy for the meeting and filled also with sorrow at missing the Lord, in material body returned to the neem tree, where he waited for three days with the food he had brought as commanded by the "old stranger." On the third day, it was revealed to him in a dream that his offering had been accepted and that he could now eat the prasad.
Nana Saheb Deshpande of Supe, a jagirdar, had received commands to take Shri Narayan to live with him. Nana Saheb had lands in Badhani, where a small cottage was bulit for the accommodation of Shri Narayan and himself. This spot was suitable for meditation, but Maharaj had attracted a stream of visitors with whom he conducted Bhajan. One day, he removed the earth at the foot of a fig tree, and revealed to the congregation a wooden image of the Lord's feet covered with fresh floral offerings. After this he is said to have performed miracles solely in the cause of humanity.
Another day, during a walk, Narayan Maharaj came across a rock covered by jungles, about seven miles off Khedgaum Railway Station. This station is situated at a distance of 34 miles from Poona. Narayan Maharaj decided to settle here permanently. In 1912 was acquired the property where a temple dedicated to Lord Dattatreya and a resthouse were constructed. Today, the place is covered with buildings valued at lakhs of rupees and it has become a shrine. Shri Narayan Maharaj organised festivals on Vaishak Sukla Panchami, Guru Poornima, and Dattatreya Jayanthi. These days continue to be observed at Khedgaum even now. Shri Narayan Maharaj had visited Calcutta, and Sri Vasantha Sett, a wealthy businessman of Calcutta, had offered 200 tolas of gold to make images of Shri Dattatreya.
Narayan Maharaj liked Satyanarayan Pooja and it is often performed at Khedgaum. For the past 30 years, the Mutt at Khedgaum has been managed at a cost of Rupees 50 to 60 annually. Here, Shri Narayan Maharaj used to lead a princely life wearing silk garments and costly ornaments, conduct poojas on a grand scale and feed large number of devotees at a time. But Maharaj had remained a strict vegetarian and a poor eater.
Notwithstanding, the refreshingly unconventional and seemingly heterodox ways of Lord Sainath, Shri Narayan Maharaj had directed a Brahmin Yogi like Pundit Kashinath (who later on became Shri Upasani Maharaj), and an earnest seeker after Truth like B. V. Narasimhaswamiji to go to Sai Baba of Shirdi. Avatar Meher Baba used to occasionally direct His devotees to have darshan of Shri Narayan Maharaj whom he regarded as "one of the five Perfect Masters of the Age." Narayan Maharaj passed away on 3rd September, 1945, at Bangalore.
Shri Narayan Maharaj is an example of how an orthodox and devotional-minded personage may yet possess breadth of vision to discern greatness in others who had chosen paths which seemed to be somewhat different from what he had himself followed.
Publisher & Author : P.S.V. Aiyer, Calcutta. 2nd Edition, 1st June 1973
