PHILOSOPHY OF SAI BABA

Sai Baba was a great saint who lived in Shirdi (Distt. Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India) from the year 1854 till 1918 when be entered Mahasamadhi.

Sai Baba never preached, nor did lie deliver any sermons. Neither has Sai Baba any philosophical compositions to his credit. Hence he was not theoretically a philosopher as were Kapila and Sankara, or Kaul and Hegel or Whitehead and Russell. And yet his way of life has influenced far many people than have a thousand books of arm-chair philosophers.

Baba had no needs and no desire for anything material. If he was living, it was not for himself, but wholly in order to do good to others. Only for this purpose he maintained his body, but for the physical sheath itself he didn't care a whit. This completely selfless fakir was even in unison with God, and that is whv his very presence had an elevating, influence on those who came for his darshan, and that darshan taken even once, was enough to transform even a casual visitor - an atheist into a believer, a pessimist into an optimist, a sinner into a God's man.

Philosophers have written dissertations and treatises, but these by themselves have not changed the world. A great philosophy moulds a certain Man of Destiny who, by his deeds brings about great reforms and even revolutions. Philosophies of Ramdas and Marx moulded Shivaji and Lenin, whose actions brought about major changes in the people's way of life. Sai Baba was such a man of action -- a living embodiment of many former philosophies. Therefore by 'philosophy of Sai Baba', we mean his way of life which exemplified certain priciples.

'Sarvam Vishnumayam Jagat' is the central principle of vedanta. This may be called Universalism. Sai Baba lived by this principle. He had indentified himself with all creatures -- not only human beings but even birds and beasts, reptiles aid insects. Not for him was the man-woman distinction. Naturally woman was not an object of enticement for Baba.

Differences of caste, creed and religion are man-made and therefore artificial. Hence those differences had no place in the eyes of Sai Baba. That Sai Baba never revealed his own caste and religion has a deep significance. It is that he didn't want these labels, to be, attached to him. In spite of this, some research scholars have made pedantic efforts to ascribe him a certain caste and religion. Such attempts only tend to destroy the very basis of the present social philosophy of Bharat.

Another important principle -brought in practice by Sai Baba was that of equality once a person stepped into his Dwarkamai a dilapidated mosque where be lived. He was neither rich nor poor, neither a Raja nor Praja (subjects), neither a landlord nor a labourer. Actually people coming to him forget these differences of wealth and position. The common meals which Sai Baba cooked and served with his own bands in Dwarkamai was an object-lesson in equality. It was just for this reason that Baba never consented to be a Guru and never made anv disciples, for this institution of Gurus leads to ownership and property rights which Baba strictly opposed. He wanted Shirdi affairs to be run in a spirit of democratic socialism.

All this will show that Baba was a prophet of Modern India and a hundred years back he put into practice the principles of democracy, socialism and secularism which form the bulwork of our constitution today. That is Sai Baba's philosophy, if it can be so called.

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