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Sai Baba of Shirdi – A Sufi Saint
This article discusses Sufism (Islamic mysticism) and the Hindu concept of Guru-bhakti, linking both to the spiritual path of devotion for devotees of Sai Baba.
The Sufis focus on personal spirituality. Sai Baba of Shirdi (1838 to 1918 AD) is They believe that God can be found in the regarded by many as a Sufi saint. In his time human heart, an intuition shared by both many of his devotees were Sufi Muslims. Muslim and Hindu mystics, that paradise lay This article examines key teachings of within - if you could find it. As the great Sufism and devotional Hinduism and relates mystic Jalaluddin Rumi put it: it to the teachings of Baba. The common unconditional “The heart is nothing but the sea of thread in both is that light… the place of the vision of God.” surrender to a spiritual Guru is a must for embarking on the spiritual path. The Sufis believe that all existence and all religions were one, merely different The Philosophy manifestations of the same divine reality. What was important was not the empty The Sufi Islamic traditions external ritual of the mosque or evolved over history with a temple, but simply to understand degree of interaction with that divinity can best be reached Hinduism. It is a school that through the gateway of the includes philosophers and human heart - that we all have mystics. paradise within us, if we know where to look. Sufis believe that Sufi teachings are the essence of every religion, The central concept in Sufism is and indeed of the evolution of ‘love’. Sufis believe that, love is humanity as a whole. a projection of the essence of God to the universe. God Sufis focus on the internal or desires to recognize beauty, and more spiritual aspects, such as as if one looks at a mirror to see perfecting one’s faith and oneself, God "looks" at itself fighting one’s own ego (nafs). within the dynamics of nature. Sufism is a very open-minded Since everything is a reflection of God, the philosophy. school of Sufism practices to see the beauty inside the apparent ugly, and to open arms
Shirdi Sai Baba Sansthan (Singapore) 1 April 2006 Saisansthan www.saisansthan.com even to the most evil one. This infinite (maqamat) along a ‘path’ (tariqat) to the tolerance is expressed in the most beautiful goal of union with Reality (fana fi’l-Haqq). way perhaps by the famous Sufi philosopher Mevlana: The Stages
"Come, come, whoever you are. The ‘path’ expounded by the author of the Worshiper, Wanderer, Lover of Leaving; Kitab al-Luma, perhaps the oldest ours is not a caravan of despair. Though you have broken your vows a thousand comprehensive treatise on Sufism, consists times...Come, come again, Come." of the following seven 'stages', each of which (except the first member of the series) Sufism with its Holy Men and visions, is the result of the 'stages' immediately healings and miracles, and its emphasis on preceding it- (l) Repentance (2) abstinence, the individual’s search for direct knowledge (3) renunciation, (4) poverty, (5) patience, of the divine, has remarkable similarities to (6) trust in God, (7) satisfaction. Hinduism, and historically the Sufis acted as 1 a bridge between the two religions . The 'stages' constitute the ascetic and ethical discipline of the Sufi, and must be carefully One of the greatest Sufis Ibn Arabi, who distinguished from the so-called 'states' lived more than 700 years ago expresses the (ahwal, plural of hal), which form a similar universal spirit of the journey: psychological chain. “My heart has become capable of every form: The States It is a pasture for gazelles And a convent for Christian monks The writer quoted above enumerates ten And a temple for idols And the pilgrim’s Ka’ba 'states'- Meditation, nearness to God, love, And the tables of the Torah fear, hope, longing, intimacy, tranquility, And the book of the Koran. contemplation, and certainty. While the I follow the religion of love: 'stages' can be acquired and mastered by Whatever way Love’s camels take, one's own efforts, the 'states' are spiritual That is my religion and my faith” feelings and dispositions over which a man has no control: The Spiritual Path "They descend from God into his heart, The book ‘Mystics of Islam’, by R. A. without his being able to repel them Nicholson, first published in 1914, is a when they come or to retain them when classic and definitive introduction to the they go." message of Sufism. This section discusses excerpts from the book. The Sufi's ‘path’ is not finished until he has traversed all the 'stages,' making himself Mystics of every race and creed have perfect in every one of them before described the progress of the spiritual life as advancing to the next, and has also a Journey or a pilgrimage. The Sufi who sets experienced whatever 'states' it pleases God out to seek God calls himself a ’traveller’ to bestow upon him. Then, and only then, is (salik); he advances by slow ’stages’ he permanently raised to the higher planes of consciousness which Sufis call 'the Gnosis' (ma‘rifat) and ’the Truth’ (haqiqat), 1 ‘The Real Islam’, William Dalrymple, TimeAsia Magazine where the ’seeker’ (talib) becomes the 2004
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’knower’ or ’gnostic’ (‘arif), and realises that the contemplative life. All the Sufi teachers knowledge, knower, and known are One. are agreed that no disciple who neglects this duty will ever learn the rudiments of Sufism. Repentance The principle of mortification is that the nafs should be weaned from those things to Repentance is described as the awakening of which it is accustomed, that it should be the soul from the slumber of heedlessness, encouraged to resist its passions, that its so that the sinner becomes aware of his evil pride should be broken, and that it should be ways and feels contrition for past brought through suffering and tribulation to disobedience. He is not truly penitent, recognise the vileness of its original nature however, unless (1) he at once abandons the and the impurity of its actions. sin or sins of which he is conscious, and (2) firmly resolves that he will never return to The outward methods of mortification, these sins in the future. It he should fail to include fasting, silence, and solitude. keep his vow, he must again turn to God, However, the higher ethical discipline which whose mercy is infinite. A certain well- completes the Path is self-mortification. known Sufi repented seventy times and fell Self-mortification, as advanced Sufis back into sin seventy times before he made understand it, is a moral transmutation of the lasting repentance. inner man. The lower self can and should be purged of its attributes, which are wholly Sufi Teacher evil. These attributes - ignorance, pride, envy, uncharitableness, etc. - are If the ‘seeker’ follows the general rule, he extinguished, and replaced by the opposite will take a director (Sheykh, Pir, Murshid), qualities, when the will is surrendered to i.e. a holy man of ripe experience and God and when the mind is concentrated on profound knowledge, whose least word is Him. Therefore the Sufi concept of 'dying to absolute law to his disciples. A 'seeker' who self' is really 'living in God'. attempts to traverse the ‘Path’ without assistance receives little sympathy. He is ‘Dhikr’ or Recollection likened to a tree that for want of the gardener's care brings forth 'none or bitter The term dhikr-’recollection’ – signifies fruit.' 'mentioning,' 'remembering,' or simply 'thinking of'. The Sufis made a practice of Removing the Nafs repeating the name of God or some religious formula, e.g. “Glory to Allah” (subhan The Sufi teachers gradually built up a Allah), accompanying the mechanical system of asceticism and moral culture intonation with an intense concentration of which is founded on the fact that there is in every faculty upon the single word or man an element of evil - the lower or phrase; and they attach great value to this appetitive soul. This evil self, the seat of irregular litany, which enables them to enjoy passion and lust, is called nafs. It constitutes uninterrupted communion with God. the great obstacle to the attainment of union Recollection may be either spoken or silent, with God. but it is best, that tongue and mind should co-operate. Mortification of the nafs is the chief work of devotion, and leads, directly or indirectly, to A Sufi gives us a gist of the matter:
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"The first stage of dhikr is to forget self, And in the Vedic tradition the guru is such a and the last stage is the effacement of being. The guru becomes for us a visible the worshipper in the act of worship, without consciousness of worship, and God. God reveals Himself through the guru. such absorption in the object of worship as precludes return to the subject The guru thus becomes the linking factor, a thereof." channel for putting the wandering, lost individual Soul, back into contact with its Hindu Perspective – Guru-Bhakti source, God, the Universal Soul. And just as the guru is a channel for the individual soul Here is what Swami Chidananda says about to re-link itself with God, even so, if we can Guru-bhakti: create a channel between ourselves and our guru, then that channel will become the God is an unknown entity. We have not seen effecting means of receiving from the guru God. We have not touched, nor tasted, nor guru-kripa, all that the guru is the smelt Him. We’ ve only heard about Him. knowledge of the guru, the sanctity of the We can only infer Him. We can only guru, the purity of the guru, the spirituality imagine Him. of the guru.
But then, if we are able to see in a human And that channel is called guru-bhakti. That individual manifestations of holiness, of is why the Svetasvatara Upanishad states: sanctity, of purity, of sublimity, of nobility, of goodness, of loftiness of conduct, “If you have supreme devotion to God character, nature, sentiment, thought, feeling and the same kind of devotion to your and action, if we see something out of the guru, then to you, the essence, the ordinary something extraordinary, subtle truths of the scriptures become something special, a manifestation of those revealed.” qualities that we have been taught to associate only with God then we say: “If Thus it is that through guru-bhakti the such a human being can exist, God must seeker, the disciple, creates an effective link, exist. Otherwise, from whence do these a connection, a channel which enables the qualities come which we do not normally guru to share with the disciple what the guru see in anyone?” When we see this divinity, has been endowed with from God. this holiness, this sanctity, we begin to realise: So, we have to provide a way for the guru to give what he wishes to give. And that is “Yes, God I have not seen, but through guru-bhakti, devotion, where there godliness I have seen. All the qualities is no place for the ego. If the thought comes, attributed to God by the scriptures, by “I have got great guru-bhakti,” then finished, saints and sages, in all religious that bhakti becomes cancelled, it is nullified. contexts those I see in an unusual You yourself must become the very measure, in an extraordinary measure, embodiment of that love, that devotion. in this being. Because I have seen this There should be no awareness of some being and this being is known to me, I being, some person having that quality of am assured that God is. I know there devotion. Then it becomes a subtle spiritual must be a God.” ego. The very purpose of the existence of the guru is to remove the separatist I-
Shirdi Sai Baba Sansthan (Singapore) 4 April 2006 Saisansthan www.saisansthan.com consciousness, the consciousness of being a sentiment. It is true guru-bhakti which has separate being or entity, and if guru-bhakti immense strength and sattvic (pure, higher) becomes a means of boosting and sustaining determination, behind it. Guru-bhakti is that ego, egoism, then it loses its purpose divine power, it is divine force, not merely and becomes self-defeating. silly human sentiment, not merely emotion. Vivekananda came down heavily Thus true guru-bhakti is egoless, humble. upon mere sentiment and emotion. The gopis of Vrindavan did not know that they were great devotees of Krishna. They Sai Baba of Shirdi as a Sufi Master said: Sai Baba is an incredible enigma. Baba, who “All we know is that He is the one object some devotees call the CEO among Perfect to be adored. We don’t know anything Masters – never advocated any general else. We cannot do anything but adore spiritual rules. This was in the larger Him. We are that adoration. It is our very interests of catering to humanity at large i.e., self. We are not different from that. Take to devotees at different stages of evolution. it away from us and we will die, we will Baba had a rich repertoire of spiritual skill- cease to exist.” sets and was an epitome of compassion.
They were filled with that love, not with The spiritual remedy he prescribes to his egoistical awareness of that love. devotees in Shri Sai Satcharita (the Holy Book of Sai devotees), be it performing a The greater the growth of devotion and the full weeks recitation of Gods name, or greater the reverence for the guru, the reading of a holy book, or feeding an animal greater is the inflow of the guru’ s grace. The etc. is tailored to the spiritual needs of the greater the desire to carry out the ideals and individual devotees and is absolutely principles of the guru in life and the greater context-specific. the keen eagerness and firm determination to carry out the instructions of the guru Furthermore, while Baba himself was a non- faithfully, meticulously, day after day, in vegetarian, a Yogi and celibate, yet there is one’ s daily activities and life, the greater is no general rule arising from his own life. the inflow of the guru’ s grace. Remember For example, for some he recommended that “Obedience is better than reverence”: celibacy, while for others the life of a householder. Baba did not believe in fasting A disciple was asked to take the guru’s at all. cattle to pasture. He had to be with the cattle all day. The guru did not ask his Loving Devotion wife to prepare any lunch for him, and he did not have permission to drink milk Baba’ s path was a simple one free of any from the cows. So the whole day he rituals that required love and devotion to went hungry, only quenching his thirst him. This could be expressed through with water. Days, months, years passed reading, hearing or singing about his Leelas this way. – his divine stories written in Shri Sai Satcharita. This is the type of guru-bhakti the Hindu scriptures talk about. It is not mere
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Baba’ s words are pregnant with meaning 6. If you make me the sole object of your and never hollow. Hear his stories with thoughts and aims you will gain respect, and think and meditate on them, Paramatma (God). assimilate them. This is the way of 7. If you cast your burden on me, I shall happiness and contentment and will also surely bear it. lead to direct benefits. Baba says: 8. If you seek my advice and help, it shall be given to you at once. “If My stories are listened to, all the 9. There will be no dearth of food or diseases will be got rid of”. clothing in my devotees home. 10. I shall be active and vigorous even from Baba’ s name is the best purifier of our mind. my tomb. My tomb shall bless and speak Chanting Baba’s name (“Sai, Sai”) is the to the needs of my devotees. Even after easiest spiritual practice. Feel real love for my Maha Samadhi, I shall be with you Baba and do all our actions for his sake. the moment you think of me. Pursue formless meditation or on his form. 11. If you look to me, I look to you.
Two of his key sayings are: In Sai Baba’ s own words: “Allah Malik Hai” (God is the Master) “Shradha Saburi” (Have Faith and “Those who are fortunate and whose Patience) demerits have vanished; take to My worship. It is My special characteristic to The Eleven Assurances of Baba free any person, who surrenders completely to Me, and who does 1. Whosoever puts their feet on Shirdi soil, worship Me faithfully, and who remembers Me, and meditates on Me their sufferings will come to an end. constantly. I shall draw out My devotees 2. The wretched and miserable would rise from the jaws of Death.” into plenty of joy and happiness, as soon as they climb the steps of my Samadhi The many miracles which continue to (Mandir). happen to devotees all over the world, so 3. Whatever you do, wherever you may be, many years after his Maha Samadhi (the day ever bear this in mind that I am always he decided to leave his mortal body), are aware of everything you do. testimony to his spiritual stature. Hence, we 4. He who meditates upon me, chants my must take Baba’ s teachings to heart and name and sings about my deeds, I will practice what he told us. increase his devotion, he is transformed and his karma is destroyed. I stay by his Sai Baba is an agent of God. In the Sufi side always. tradition, the devotee attains God through 5. I am the slave of my devotee. I love merger with Baba – Guru is God! devotion. He who loves me most always sees me. He who withdraws his heart from the world and loves me is my true Article contributed by Shirdi Sai Baba Sansthan (Singapore) lover and he merges in me like a river in the sea. I am dependent on him, who To know more about Baba’s Path of Devotion and his sayings visit: thinks of me and eats nothing without http://www.saisansthan.com/The-Path-Of-Devotion.pdf offering to me, such a devotee will To know more about our activities please contact: merge with me. [email protected] or visit our website.
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