New Year Message 2020

Generally speaking, three categories of devotees, from Shirdi and outside, used to visit Shri Sai Baba. The largest number of them were householders, who were mostly married and took care of their families. The second category consisted of people like Bade Baba and Abdul, who had families and took care of them even when being religious practitioners under Sai Baba. The third category of devotees were purely religious persons of various faiths, who visited Baba. Some of them were mendicant Fakirs and Sadhus whose number was very small in comparison to the first category.

Shri Sai Baba helped the devotees of all the three categories in accordance with their beliefs and needs. However, most of His time and energy was spent in advising, guiding and helping the first category of devotees, both materially and spiritually. These were devotees who had families. He did so not only for one generation alone but for two to three generations thereafter. Going through the vast literature on Shirdi Sai Baba, one can easily discern that He considered the family as the basic and largest component of the social fabric. As a realised soul He saw the spark of divinity in every soul and, therefore, tried to evolve the best qualities in each person who came in contact with Him. He took a lot of care of the children, in particular, as they were the future of the society. Sai Baba never made anyone feel that having a family and going through the worldly trials and tribulations was an inferior state of life than that of a Fakir or Sadhu’s way of living. He tried to improve the mental quality and calibre of all the family members. It is worth noticing that when a member of any family visited Baba, on subsequent visits, he brought other family members and friends with him to Shirdi for taking Baba’s darshan. Baba’s relation with all these people was like a member of the family whereas they all knew that He was a realised soul and spiritual Guru. Such was the magnificent and spiritual greatness of Shri Sai that all components of the society were drawn towards Him and followed Him for generations. Even today, most of the devotees of Baba and their family members feel the same way. Some call him God or Avatar, some as Sadguru or saint and address Him with different epithets. In quintessence, He can be defined as a true lover of God as He loved and helped whosoever came to Him – the creation of God. A human embodiment playing the role of God and for God without any ego or ambition.