According to the ancient and revered custom,Hemadpant begins with the work,Shri Sai Satcharitra,with various salutations.
1} First he makes obeisance to the God Ganesh to remove all the obstacles and make the work a success,and says that Shri Sai is the God Ganesh.
2} Then,to the goddess Saraswati to inspire him to write the work and says that Shri Sai is one with this goddess,an that he himself is singing his own life.
3} Then to the Gods;Brahma,Vishnu and Shankar- the creating preserving and destroying deities respectively,and says that Sainath is one with them and he the great teacher,will carry us across the river of worldly existence.
4} Then to his tutelary deity Narayan Adinath,who manifested himself in Konkan-the land reclaimed by Parshurama from the sea;and to the adipurush of the family.
5} Then to Bharadwaj muni,into whose gotra he was born and also to various Rishis,Yagyavalkya,Bhrugu,Parashar,Narad,Vedvyas,Sanak,Sanandan,Sanatkumar,Shuka,Shounak,
Vishwamitra,Vasistha,Valmiki,Vamdev,Jaimini,Vaishampayan,Nava Yogindra etc;and also modern saints such as Nivrutti, Sopan, Dayananddev, Muktabai, Janardan, Eknath, Namdev, Tukaram, Kanha and Narahari etc.
6} Then to his grandfather Sadashiv,father Raghunath,his mother who left him in his infancy; to his paternal aunt,who brought him up and to his loving elder brother.
7} Then to the readers and prays them to give their whole and undivided attention to his work.
8} And lastly to his guru Shri Sainath- an incarnation of guru Shri Dattatreya,who his is sole refuge and who will make him realize,that Brahma is the reality and the world an illusion; and incidentally to all the beings,in whom the lord dwells.
After describing in brief the various modes of devotion according to Parashar,Vyasa and Shandilya etc; the author goes on to relate the following story:
"It was sometime after 1910 that I went,one fine morning,to the Mosque in Shirdi for worshiping Sai baba.I was wonder-struck to see the following phenomenon.After washing his mouth and face,Sai baba began to make preparations for grinding wheat.He spread a sack on the floor,and there on set a hand- mill.He took some quantity of wheat in a winnowing fan,and then,drawing up the sleeeves of his kafni and taking hold of the peg of the hand-mill,started grinding the wheat,by putting a few handfuls of wheat in the upper opening of the mill and rotated it.I thought "what business baba had with the grinding of wheat,when he possessed nothing and stored nothing,as he lived on alms!Some people who had come there thought likewise,but none had the courage to ask baba what he was doing.Immediately,this news of baba's grinding wheat spread into the village,and at once men and women ran to the mosque and flocked there to see,what he was doing.Four bold women,from the crowd,forced their way up and pushing baba aside,took forcibly the peg into their hands,and singing Baba's miracles they started grinding.At first Baba was enraged,but on seeing the women's love and devotion,he was much pleased and began to smile.While they were grinding they began to think that baba had no house,no property,no children none to look after and he lived on alms,and therefore he did not require any wheat-flour for making bread.What will he do with this big quantity of flour?Perhaps as baba is very kind he'll distribute the flour amongst us.
Thinking in this way and while singing,they finished the grinding and after putting the hand-mill aside,they divided the flour into 4 portions and began to remove them by taking one portion per head.Baba who was calm till now,got wild and started abusing them saying "ladies have you gone mad?"Have I borrowed any wheat from you,so that you can safely take the flour?Now do this,take the flour and throw it on the village borders.On hearing this the women felt abashed and amongst themselves,went to the outskirts of the village and spread the flour,as directed by baba.I asked the Shirdi people "what was this that baba did?"They replied that,as the cholera epidemic was spreading in the village,this was baba's remedy against the same.It was not wheat that was ground,but cholera itself was ground to pieces and pushed out of the village.From this time onwards,the cholera epidemic subsided and the people of the village were happy.I was much pleased to know all this,but at the same time my curiosity was also aroused.I began to ask myself.What earthly connection was there between wheat flour and cholera?What was the casual relation between the two,and how to reconcile them?The incident seems to be inexplicable.I should write something on this and sing to my heart's content Baba's sweet miraculous doings.
PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF GRINDING:
Apart from the meaning,which the people of Shirdi put on this incident of grinding wheat,there is,we think a philosophical significance too.Baba lived in Shirdi for about 60 years and during this long period,he did the business of grinding almost everyday-not however the wheat alone,but the sins,the mental and physical afflictions and miseries of his innumerable devotees.The 2 stones of his mill consisted of devotion and deeds.The former being the lower one and latter being the upper one.The handle with which Baba worked consisted of meditation.It was the firm conviction of baba that self-realization is not possible,unless there is the prior act of grinding of all our impulses,desires,sins.
This reminds us of a similar story of Kabir,who seeing a woman grinding corn said to his master,Nipatniranjan I am weeping because I feel the agony of being crushed under this wheel of worldly existence,like the corn in the hand mill.Nipatniranjan replied do not be afraid,hold fast to the handle of knowledge of this mill,as I do and do not wander far away from the same,but turn inward to the centre,and you are sure to be saved.
BOW TO SHRI SAI-PEACE BE TO ALL.
