Category: Sai Baba

Stage -1

Very late in his life, Baba revealed to Mahlsapathy an interesting fact. He disclosed that his parents were from Patri in the Nizam’s State, India. Patri is part of Parvani taluk, near Manwath. Sai Baba added that when he was still a tender child, his parents handed him over to a fakir. The fakir brought him up. Sai Baba occasionally showed his interest in Patri and Parvani when people from those parts came to him, by questioning them about the residents of those places. This is practically all that, we  have about the birth and parentage of Sri Sai Baba.

Stage -2

But who ever his parents were, it is quite important to remember that from his earliest infancy, he experienced a true vairagi or jnani detachment. He had all the associations or dissociation needed for this. Having no parents or kinsmen, and being brought up by a fakir, he easily picked up his foster-father’s vairagya and spiritual turn of mind.

Even that fakir passed away within four or five years after taking charge of him. The fakir directed his wife to take the young Baba, and  leave him in charge of a noted saintly zamindar, Gopal Rao Deshmukh at Selu.

Stage -3

Young Baba was left under the care of Gopal Rao Deshmukh. He spent the best and most impressionable part of his life at Selu. Selu had a fort and castle, where the Deshmukh resided.

The young boy was very greatly attached to his master, and the master in turn was deeply interested in the boy. The boy stayed with the master at all times. He was present, whether the master was in the field or at puja, and whether he was in the garden or in the Court.

Education:

Baba seems to have had no formal education given to him at any time. He had no book study. There were no masters, either in the regional language (which must have been Marathi or Telugu) or in any other language.

But real education of the highest sort, he had in plenty. This Deshmukh, was an extremely pious devotee greatly attached  to Tirupati Venkatesa, whose image he worshipped daily in his own castle. He  was rich, liberal, and patronised learning and piety. Hence an abundance of real education could be picked up by the young child Baba, when attending on his  master.

Perfect chastity and thorough self-control were the leading characteristics of his Guru. Invariable rectitude and perfect truthfulness also defined him. Generosity and serviceability to all became transplanted and took deep root in the disciple, Sai Baba.

Stage- 4

Sai was very young, when he first came Shirdi. In the beginning he left Shirdi off and on, and returned to it. The date of his first arrival at Shirdi cannot be fixed.

On one of his later visit to Shirdi, possibly the final one, Baba arrived on the momentous occasion of Chand Bhai Patel’s advent to Shirdi.

Chand Bhai Patel was a rich and influential village Patel or Headman, of Dhupkeda village in the Nizam’s State, not far from Shirdi. His wife’s nephew was to be married to a bride at Shirdi. In 1872, he arrived with a huge marriage procession. Sai Baba accompanied Patel on that occasion from Dhupkeda to Shirdi. Sai Baba stayed there until Mahasamathi.

After that time, except for two months when he was under Jawar Ali Maulana, Sai Baba never left Shirdi but only made a few occasional visits off and on to the neighbouring villages of Rahata or Nimgam, from which he immediately returned to Shirdi.

So His final residence was Shirdi, from about 1872 till the end of his life in 1918.