It's a common practice for Sai devotees to seek guidance from Baba through SS. On one occasion while praying to Baba to show me the way, I opened SS and the story of Mr. Cholkar's sugarless tea came up. I understood what Baba was asking me to do. But it wasn't easy. Even the thought of missing my tea at breakfast was most uneasy and unsettling for me as I was addicted to it probably as much as Mr. Cholkar and would get headaches through the day without it. But since it was Baba's order to get my wish fulfilled, I made up my mind and heart to forgo my tea for a fortnight on the condition that when I start having it again, Baba must be with me to enjoy every sip of the tea. Within that fortnight my wish did get fulfilled. But after the vow period when I had my tea, I did not relish it at all partly because my mind was preoccupied with my personal circumstances and partly because by that time Baba had helped me get over my addiction to it. I even forgot about the invitation I had given to Baba 2 weeks ago and had my tea disinterestedly. But did Baba forget? He kept His promise through a dream wherein I saw Him sitting down on the open muddy ground. I wondered what was He doing sitting down there. He picked up His cup from the saucer placed on the ground and began to take loud, noisy sips. Oh! Baba was having tea!! I leave it to the readers to think how much I would have enjoyed my tea with breakfast the following morning !!!
Baba blesses us through dreams.
Ever since my son started eating solids he had always been underweight. As a mother I tried everything possible on earth to help him gain some weight....doctors, dietitians, child health nurses, home remedies- but nothing ever worked. At the beginning of MP2, I had a dream in which I saw a happy, healthy-looking baba with chubby cheeks. I was very happy to see a healthy baba but in the 1st instance couldn't understand the dream completely. Was that for me or my son or both since we both had health issues? Later on, when the dream flashed again in my mind I realized Baba was blessing health to my son as His face was so "happy" which translates to my son's name in Hindi. If Baba gave me this dream it had to come true. But how? I had no clue. All these years I had been struggling to the max to see him growing like other kids and was left exhausted every time with no results at all. In December, we went to Brisbane Baba's temple on my birthday and while my heart was crying to Baba, He seemed to be very happy to see me and even offered my favorite ladoo prasad which I, like a sulking child, didn't take. I couldn't understand why was He smiling so much. At that time, my son's weight, at the age of 6, had come down to the 4th percentile (an all-time low). I was lost in my problems and told Baba that this was my worst birthday ever. Little did I know that Baba had already started working on the dream. Before coming to the temple, we had met a pediatric-trained dietitian who introduced major changes in his daily diet. Not just that, Baba had already planned to send the real medicine through His agent, a very devoted Sai sister in our group. The same night baba made her message me. Almost drowned in my problems, I shared my sorrows with her. May Sai bless her abundantly, the next day she went to Baba temple, got his teerath, and posted to me at the earliest. I started giving Baba's teerath twice daily to my son and he gained 4 kgs in just a month! From the 4th percentile, his weight jumped up to the 40th percentile within a month. Everybody in the town started turning their heads around and telling that he had started looking very different! Any guesses why baba was smiling at the temple? πOm Sai Ram π Thank you Baba π Always keep us all worthy of your love. Om Sri Sai Nathay namah,
Looking at Baba's picture is looking at Baba Himself.
When I started my MP journey in 2019, I had only one idol of Baba in orange that I had bought from Shirdi. Somehow I also had the desire to have an idol in white. How Baba manifests our desires and wishes in a dream first and then in (perceived) reality is the experience of umpteen devotees of Sai Baba. As I slept, I saw myself passing through a makeshift stall of a lady selling religious items and idols. Baba's small white idol suddenly catches my attention and the lady tells me to take it. I feel very happy to take it with me. I also receive a picture of Baba and wonder if it is really true that looking at Baba's picture is the same as looking at Baba and if Baba really looks back at us..? Just then baba starts moving Himself actively in the picture and settles my doubting mind to rest. Around the same time when I had this dream, an MP devotee was sending Baba to 108 houses after her wish was fulfilled. According to her, those lucky houses were the ones chosen by Baba Himself. My joy knew no bounds when I was told that Baba would be coming to my house too. Very soon on a Thursday, the exact white idol of Baba that I had held in my hands in my dream a few days ago actually graced the temple of my home.
Let go of body consciousness if you want to be one with Him.
Body consciousness works at different levels for different people. For long I had yearned to experience hugging my divine father. The desire at one point was so strong that Baba actually came into the dream to cuddle me! Alas, the consciousness of this gross body overpowered my love and desire and as I saw Him coming quickly toward me, I got scared thinking, 'Oh! He has really come to hug me ' and I turned my back to Him and disappeared. Once awake, I realized what had happened. My urge to cuddle Him still lurked inside my soul somewhere. Later, in 2019 when I visited India, I decided to visit Baba's temple at Lodhi Road. I had always wanted to visit this temple as there's something very special about His 'pratima' there. As I entered the temple and stood before Him, I had a surge of emotions and I begged Baba to come and hug me anyhow. My heart ached for my Supreme Father's embrace and I stood there waiting for Him. But nothing happened and after a while, I had to follow my husband out of the temple with my heart still pining for Baba's hug. We then visited quite a few temples of Baba in the north and every time I met him I questioned him like an adamant child, " Baba why did you not hug me?" Little did I know of His perfect plans. π We visited my in-laws in Ambala and I asked my sister-in-law to take me to the Sai temple there. As soon as I entered the temple and saw Baba, I was PULLED to Him almost involuntarily. My arms spread around him and before my mind or senses could understand what was happening, I was hugging Him and crying in ecstasy in His lap. Oblivious to the surroundings, the peeping temple workers, and my sister-in-law who watched on, I was unable to separate myself from my baba. This time there was no body-consciousness but the most divine unison with my Baba. It was only later that I realized that Baba's plan was to not just fulfill my intense desire to hug Him but also to give direction to my sister-in-law who had never known Baba's leelas before. Baba aroused His love in her heart and she got enrolled in Baba's darbar and Mahaparayan.
Baba let our hearts pine for your love always and may all our desires melt in your feet. Love you, Baba π❤❤
Call Him once with faith and devotion and He runs to help and free us from our worries.
When I returned to classrooms as a casual teacher almost 5 years after the birth of my son, I realized that being totally out of touch with my profession had pushed back my skills by several years and it would be ages before I could gain the confidence that I had in the past. We all have our good days and bad. On one such bad day, I, unintentionally, said something before the students which I immediately realized could be very easily misunderstood, reported, and cost me my job. Scared, I turned inside my heart to Baba and prayed to Him to save me as only He knew my intentions. I immediately lit a lamp in the temple of my heart and kept it burning till home time. Once back home, I lit the lamp again, this time in the temple of my home, and prayed with all my sincerity to save me. When a bhakt is in trouble and cries out to Baba, is He far behind? At night, I had a dream in which I saw Him exactly as in the given picture. The only difference was that in the dream, it wasn't His picture but He sitting. I then heard a loud voice that said, "Don't worry a jot". I knew that after getting an assurance from Baba, I had nothing to be afraid of and it proved true with time. Of course, I learned my lesson to be more careful in the future in tricky situations.
Baba expresses Himself too through dreams
Giving snan to Baba is every devotee's delight and so it was (is and always will be) for me too. But as frail humans sometimes we fail our Baba when we are deluded by the practical side of life and thereby put faith in the back seat. Owing to the detection of a certain heavy metal in my blood, I had become overly conscious of whatever I was putting in my body. Though the main culprit responsible for toxicity was found, there was a high chance that there were more such chemical-loaded things that had to be found and discarded. As mentioned in SS by Baba," mind will think what the worst enemy won't ", my mindset went out on roaming mode and settled on Baba's orange-painted idol that I got from Shirdi. My primary thought was that the paint on Baba was most likely toxic so drinking His teerath was probably not right. The thought became a conviction in no time and I decided to get rid of it for me and for Baba too as He shouldn't be wearing toxic colors on His body. I tried various natural ways to remove the paint but ended up making Him patchy. Determined as I was to get rid of it, I told Him that I would have to try something harsher to clean Him completely. I decided to try nail polish remover believing that it was a stone idol and would not harm it in any way. To my utter disappointment and astonishment, as I scrubbed the idol with the nail polish remover it started melting at certain spots. Baba's kafni started getting torn and soon there was a small hole behind the heel of His resting foot. Out of this hole, a powder-like substance that had been filled in the base of the idol to make it heavy as a stone started falling out. All these years, I had believed that the idol was made of stone but it was not. It was made of plastic. The more the powder came out, the bigger the hole got. Even Baba's heel broke. Though I managed to take out most of the paint, I was in a terrible shock. What had I done to my Baba? How can I be so ruthless to Him? The guilt in me suddenly grew very big for I had done irreparable damage to my Baba's idol that had always been so close to my heart for all the experiences Baba had given me through it. I had heard that we should not have broken idols of God at home. But He was my Baba and if anyone in the family gets a broken leg, we do not throw them out. Instead, we tend to them with even more love and care. So I decided to never replace it or part with it till Baba Himself wanted to. I begged a thousand pardons from Him but did not know how to make up for it. One of these nights, I had a dream where the pooja was about to begin and Baba's sitting idol was placed among other articles of worship. I light the wick which is somewhere on the idol of Baba and I'm shocked to see Baba's idol half-melted in a matter of seconds. Perhaps it was Baba's way of telling me what I had done to Him in utter foolishness. Until I found a better solution, I placed two artificial flowers behind Baba's broken heel to cover the hole. Baba didn't take very long to tell me how He felt about the new arrangement. In the dream, I saw Him shaking his foot backward as if He was a bit itchy or not comfortable. Soon I fixed a piece of cloth as a mat so He could comfortably move His foot back if He wanted. Just as the hole got covered at the surface with the mat, the guilt in me got covered with a slight sense of relief. Many days later, I got a message from a Sai sister. While reading SS, she got Baba's message of 'geru' for me. She told me that if I had any question in my mind, then this was Baba's answer to it- "geru". I told her that I did not have any questions at that point but if Baba had given the message, He would tell me what it was for. The same night, just after her message, I read a leela of Baba where He appeared as a fakir in an orange kafni. All of a sudden, my orange idol of Baba flashed in my mind, and with it, all that I had done to it. Now I realized what the message "geru" was for. I had been wanting to offer a dress to Baba in Shirdi for a very long time. I had torn Baba's kafni with the nail polish remover so I had to dress Him back in as close to His original orange clothes as possible. I was told that His dresses in Samadhi Mandir are chosen by a lucky draw and a devotee's name is withdrawn only by His will. Otherwise, it is forwarded to some other temple. With His blessings, I offered the dress, and oh! the joy I felt when I was told that He had accepted to adorn it for Madhyan aarti cannot be expressed in words. It's only our Baba who not only forgives us for our mistakes but also rewards our true repentance in a way that we experience His supreme love. Aanant koti brahmaand nayak rajadiraj yogiraj Sree satchitanad maharaj ki jai.
Baba informs us through dreams
One day while playing football at school, my son got a ligament torn in his foot. To rule out a fracture, an x-ray was done but as the report was to be received by the doctor the next day, he gave him a moon boot to offload the injured area and crutches to help him walk. As soon as my son woke up the next morning, he said that he had Baba in the dream telling him that he would need the crutches. When I heard this, my spirits were dampened as I thought that Baba meant to tell me that the report would show a fracture. In about an hour, I got a call from the doctor that there was no fracture so he didn't need the moon boot but would need to use crutches for a few days. I thanked Baba heaps for the blessing but also wondered how despite our misinterpreting Baba out of ignorance, He still loves us and helps us whenever we need Him. There is no end to our Baba's mercy for His children.
Baba instructs through dreams
Dreams are Baba's important means of conveying a message or an instruction to his devotees. All we need to do is pay close attention to the details to interpret them as accurately as possible to carry out Baba's instructions. In the dream I had a few weeks ago I saw Baba's idol shaking vigorously. I tell my son to look and Baba's idle shakes hard once again. Suddenly Baba stirs his arm in his cooking handi (pot) which makes an empty sound. He does that again and again there's the sound of his handi being empty. There's a group of people in the next room and I start yelling out to them to come and see that Baba is hungry and we need to feed him. The group takes Baba out of there for a feed. In the dream, my mum's house is next door and I feel happy that Baba will get yummy food to eat. From this dream what I understood was that Baba was definitely asking for annadaan (mass feeding ) as his handi was empty. The first time he stirred his hand was His order to me to do some seva on my son's birthday which was around the corner and the second time when he moved his hand in his handi was an order for annadaan by the group that I'm a member of. My understanding was that my mum's house next door was indicative of the region we needed to do it in i.e. in /around Chandigarh (my hometown) and Baba's handi indicated His Prasadalaya. Thus I concluded that Baba was asking for annadaan in a Sai temple in or around Chandigarh but I wasn't sure 'when' as our Sai Parivar group generally does this kind of seva on a religious occasion and there wasn't any shortly. I discussed the dream and Baba's instructions with the Sai sister who organizes all the seva for our group and we decided to do annadaan on Swami Samarth's anniversary date (30 April) which was only 3-4 days away. Since her inquiries didn't get attended to adequately in Chandigarh Sai Temple, she made inquiries with other Sai temples of the region - Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana, and Delhi but faced the same problem everywhere. No bookings were available for 30 April even after trying hard in several Sai temples. When she didn't get any booking for this date we took it as Baba's wish and decided to do it at the earliest possible in Lodhi Road temple, a temple close to the heart of many devotees in our group. But we were still not sure if we would get an early date as the bookings are done sometimes weeks in advance. The next morning as an assurance of His blessing, Baba gave his Lodhi Road darshan twice- once in the video of Baba's mangal snan that appeared on my Facebook and the second time in a post in our group. Soon after Sai sister called and informed me of the availability on May 6 (Friday) morning for annadaan at Lodhi Road. Once confirmed, Baba's dream was communicated to Sai Parivar members who donated generously to the noble cause. I must mention that when I communicated my dream to the group, I felt that it was not very important to mention my mum's house as I couldn't find a greater relevance than what I mentioned. But I'm glad I did as anything and everything related to Baba will always be meaningful and I also felt that someone might be able to interpret closer to what Baba had wanted to imply. Hardly a day or two had passed when another Sai sister shared the thought given by Baba during her prayers. As she visualized the dream and my mum's house in it, Baba flashed 'Mother's Day' (May 8) as an answer to 'when' the annadaan must be done. Now that we could fill in the missing dots, Baba's plan became a lot clearer and we booked another annadaan on Mother's Day in collaboration with Chandigarh Sai Temple workers who fed the poor by taking food to the slums. On the occasion, new saris were also distributed among the poor mothers as gifts to make their day special. The pictures and videos of the seva showed the vast, ugly extent of hunger prevalent in the colony of the underprivileged. As I had invited Baba too to partake in the feast at either/ both the places, I was quite keen to know if Baba had accepted the invitation. But I wasn't sure how to confirm that. Then I left it to Baba and thought that if anything strange was reported, it would be Baba's way of telling that he was present there and had a good feed too. When my Sai sister who organized the seva told me that a poor man had to be turned away as his hunger was insatiable even after eating 15 pooris with matar paneer and kept asking for more, I understood that it probably was our Baba and really wished He was fed as much more as He wanted. After this blissful seva we still had some surplus left so we offered our little service to the cows (gau mata) as well. Indeed Baba had a reason to get our group working through the dream as in a matter of days more than 1000 people were fed along with an equal number of holy mother cows. All this was made possible by Baba through a single dream that set the ball rolling.
At times when we struggle to feel proximity to Baba, he sends a dream our way that touches us like a fresh whiff of air bringing with it all the love we long for him and all the love he longs for us. As devotees of Baba we know that unless He wills, nobody can enter Shirdi or Dwarkamayi. This is true even in dreams. In many dreams, I've found myself standing outside Dwarkamayi when suddenly I realize that I haven't been in there and there's no time left to do so as it's time for me to leave and I must go. Whatever may be Baba's reasons for not letting me go in, I thank him for at least blessing me with His darshan and of His holy land in dreams. Until Baba decides to meet me outside my dreams. I'd offer my prayer to him through the following verse from Sai Sankalan:
sapno mein aa ke mil jaate ho,
mere Sai bada ehsaan kar jaate ho.
dard bhare dil ki dawa ban jaate ho,
is kadr prem ki dhara baha jaate ho
soti hui band akhiyon se bhi neer baha jate ho,
keh nahi sakti kis kadr khushi de jate ho
jab bin kahe apni nagri ki galiyon ki sair kara laate ho
mere Sai bada ehsaan kar jaate ho.
Aur mangu to bus itna tumse Sai
ik ehsaan aur karna
sapno se nikal, kabhi yu bhi aa kar milna
aur na ho sake to kum se kum ye silsila hi zari rakhna.
Sree Satchitanand Sadguru Sainath Maharaj ki Jaiππππππππππ
Baba's vastra is Baba Himself
How blissful it is to have Baba's dream in the early hours of Thursday...Baba's Day! As I was looking forward to a very busy Thursday of that week, I slept, on Wednesday night, wishing earnestly that I must get up early to do my parayan so I don't have to rush through my prayers mechanically. Wednesday had been very hectic too (till midnight) so despite knowing that there was hardly any possibility of me getting up at 5 am, I set the alarm and dozed off. It's the experience of the devotees that Baba fulfills the earnest desires of their hearts. So at 4 am, I started having some sort of restlessness and couldn't fall asleep back again. As per His command, I woke up, took a bath, and sat down for parayan. After reading my chapters, as I looked at Baba's green dress from Samadhi Mandir, the thought that 'this is not just a dress but Baba Himself ', crossed my mind yet again. I finished my pooja by 6 am and went back to catch up a few winks before everyone got up. As soon as I lay in bed, I quickly slipped into a deep slumber. What followed next was this dream:
I'm at a house beside which several stairs are going downwards. As I run down those stairs, I pass through a huge platform on which, I suddenly realize, is probably a Sai temple. Very eagerly I run back up and excitedly peek inside to confirm that it is Baba's temple. Faster than my overwhelming emotions for Baba, I race towards His altar. There, in front of His idol, I see someone sleeping covered in a green sheet from head to toe, with feet towards me (the front- different direction to His Samadhi in Shirdi). The thought that the sheet is the same, or very similar to the one I have, crossed my mind. Just then I hear the sound of a person breathing loudly, almost snoring. Startled, I wonder if it is Baba snoring! Just then I see some device next to me. The rational mind tries to interfere and tells me that it must be arranged by the temple people to give the sound effect of Baba sleeping. Baba, the one to know the innermost secrets of all, in sleeping and waking states, reads this thought and immediately moves His feet. 'O, so He moves too!! Probably that must also be some advanced technological arrangement by the temple,' the mind reasoned. The omniscient Baba doesn't lose a second to respond to this lowly thought and starts turning and twisting under the sheet vigorously leaving no more room for any thought to occur. With so much movement of Baba, I woke up and realized that it was all a dream through which Baba had not only confirmed and conferred the bliss of He being present in my house in the form of His green dress but also reinforced the lesson of not letting the rational seeking lower mind rule over 'Faith'. Baba, you are the one to give the dream, the bliss, the thought, and the lesson. Please always keep us worthy of your love. My humble prostrations to you. Jai Sai Ram!!