Part of the Task
Scribed five decades back by a devotee uniquely blessed to be with both Shirdi Baba and Sathya Sai, the article captures the expression of the Divine’s ultimate love for His flock. In both incarnations, Baba repeatedly has taken over illnesses of devotees to lighten their burden.
“Death came with a dagger to kill Dada; but, I struggled with him [death] and brought him down. Now, Dada is safe.” “Death attempted to snatch Dada Saheb away; but, I did not let him,” thus said Sai Baba at Shirdi. Dada Saheb was the name used by Baba [Shirdi Sai] to refer to Sri G. S. Khaparde, a close devotee who lived in Shirdi.
Bhagavan Sathya Sai Baba declared on the now famous Guru Poornima day, when He doffed in a trice the symptoms of paralysis that He had donned, “This body will never be affected by illness. The suffering that you saw was too much for a devotee so I had to save him by undergoing it Myself.” Soon after, He wrote to a bhakta [devotee], “This is just My usual leela [divine play], My nature; it is part of the task for which I have come—sishtharakshana [protection of a devotee].”
It has been characteristic of Bhagavan Baba, both in this Avatar and in His previous sarira [body] (as Baba refers to the Shirdi Avatar) to take upon Himself the illness of devotees. “I will not allow Nandaram to die now,” He declared, when that bhakta, a grocer at Shirdi, had a mortal fever.
At another time, during an epidemic of plague in Shirdi, Sri Khaparde’s son—Balwant—came down with the fever, causing great anxiety to his mother. But, she was gratified when Baba lifted His elbow and showed her a big bubo in His armpit, a bubo that Balwant had been destined to get. Shirdi Baba had thus changed Balwant’s destiny by taking the boy’s illness upon Himself.
Furthermore, the devotees whose illness Bhagavan takes over are often unaware of the gravity of their afflictions as they are minimized or eliminated through divine intervention. During the Guru Poornima mentioned above, Sathya Sai Baba said that the person whose cerebral thrombosis and heart attacks He had taken over would not be aware of His grace, because he would be moving about normally. “You are all looking for some one who recently has had a stroke of paralysis of the left side, and you are asking me whether it is this person or that! But, you forget that the person from whom I have taken this over is unidentifiable because he has had no illness at all. I have saved him from it,” Sathya Sai Baba declared.
Indeed, Balwant had no bubo; Baba had taken it over! Balwant escaped with a slight fever, which, by Baba’s grace, was enough to satisfy the law of karma [the cosmic law of cause and effect]. This expression of Shirdi Baba’s grace was evident in another episode. Dr. C. Pillai, a devotee of Shirdi Sai, was once suffering great pain from an attack of guinea worms; he requested Kaka Saheb to approach Baba on his [Pillai’s] behalf, and plead with Him to transfer the pain to be spread over the doctor’s ten future births. Kaka Saheb asked Baba to shower His grace on Pillai. Baba said, “Tell him not to worry. I can reduce the period into one birth, why, even ten days.”
Sathya Sai Baba also has assured very often that His anugraha [grace] can overcome the evil influence of all the nine grahas [planets]. Once Shirdi Baba was found wearing two kafnis [robes] one over the other for a few days. When asked, He said that He had assumed the fever that was intended for Tatya Patil, the son of the woman who prepared His food and who endearingly addressed Baba as mama [uncle].
It is only in the context of these incidents and the leelas of the previous as well as this sarira [incarnation] can we fully comprehend the profound significance of the divinely manifested miracle of one eventful Guru Poornima day—July 5, 1963. May we be all worthy of the Siva-Shakti [the male and female aspects of the Divine] who walks as Sathya Sai among us, showering grace on all.
~M. S. Dikshit
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, August 1963
