Baba’s sayings about self enquiry
Para Number in the Book ‘BCS”, About Gaze inside
119. (Q)- “Baba, who are you? Whence?”
A.: (Baba. in the mood of Absolute). I have no residence. I am the attributeless, Absolute-Nirguna,
(Again, in the mood of Duality). “By the action of Karma I got embroiled and came to a body. My name is “The embodied-Dehi”. The world is my abode. Brahman is my father, and Maya my mother. By their interlocking I got this body. The world is mutable, evanescent.”
B. (To Appa K) “Allah or The Nirguna (Parabrahma) became saguna Parabrahma (known as) Mohiniraja at Nivas. Go and bow before him. God manifests all his powers for the benefit of his devotees”, (cf.145)
Who am I? Who are We?
- A. Baba often said, “Who are we? Night and day think on this.” About 1915 R.A Tarkhad, Managing Director of a mill, got into a compartment at Manmad in the dark and was fighting for a seat with a police constable, who was there. When R.A.T. arrived at Shirdi.
Baba– “With whom were you persisting in contest this morning?, Bhav (brother), we should not engage in contest with such people! “Who are We?” This we must enquire into.
R.A.T saw first, Baba’s reference to the social inequality of the disputing parties, and later on, the Vedantic meaning of the words, i.e., the unity of those parties in Brahman.
B. Baba to Bala Bhav ( i.e., Sitaram Dev) – “We have only to see (i.e., know) our self.”
- In October 1917 ? Baba spoke to a Bombay Lady.
Baba : Mother, what do you want? Ask for it.
Lady: Let me be free from the whirl of births and deaths.
Baba (laughing): Is this all you want? What! have you come to die?
Lady (shocked): Baba, I do not at all understand you
Baba: Think who you are.
Lady: I do not understand.
Baba (pointing to her husband): He will tell you.
Then the lady went with her husband to her lodgings and asked him what Baba meant.
Husband: “Baba’s words are mysterious. I cannot be sure I have made out his meaning. Probably he means something like this. The Jiva goes on reincarnating any number of times till it gets Sakshatkar i.e., sees or realises God. Baba is God. But people seeing him do not get full faith and do not see him i.e., feel him to be God; and hence they do not get Mukti.
One must learn from the sastras, that essentially Jiva and Siva are one. You think yourself to be a Jiva is it not?”
Lady: Yes.
Husband: Baba and the Sastras want you to regard youself as Siva or God.
Lady: No. No. I am a petty sinner-a Jiva and not the great God Siva.
Husband: “No doubt that is your feeling. But Baba means that by constantly regarding yourself as God, your deeply ingrained belief that you are only a finite Jiva will be removed. This process continued, may be through numerous births and strengthened and helped by contact with saints will give you the firm belief that you are Brahman. That must be Baba’s meaning.
(The pair agian returned to Dwaraka Mai)
Baba- “Mother, I have listened (from here) to all that your husband told you. Keep that in mind.”
- To know me, constantly think ‘Who am I?, by Sravana and Manana. Who are we? What are we? Where am I? Where are you? Where is all the world?
Think, think on all your husband said (viz., that, in reality, you are not different from God).
- We must see our Self.
"I draw to Me, My man from far off or even across the seven Seas to Shirdi, like a sparrow with a string fastened to its feet"-Shirdi Sai Baba, Indian Spiritual Guru-God 