Success Begets Success
How the benefits associated with devotion helped Baba’s circle of worship expand.
Sai BabaSpiritual studyVolume 1
The chapter
As people began to experience help, healing and spiritual benefit through Sai Baba’s worship, the movement that had started in Shirdi began to spread beyond the village. Individual visitors brought flowers, sandal paste, food and offerings, while Baba’s reputation travelled through the surrounding region and then to more distant places.
From individual devotion to a shared ritual
At first there was no fixed or organised form of worship. K. G. Bhishma, a devoted worshipper of Vithoba and an accomplished kirtankar, prepared arati verses for Sai Baba on lines familiar from Pandharpur worship. The verses, sent to Nana Saheb Chandorkar for approval, gave devotees a common language of prayer and helped shape a regular practice.
The next step was congregational worship, with a pujari available for morning, evening, night and noon aratis. Hari Vinayak Sathe sent Megha to Shirdi for this purpose. Megha was an orthodox Shiva devotee and initially refused because he believed Baba was a Muslim. Baba drove him away when he first approached, but illness and reflection brought Megha back in a humbler spirit.
Megha’s transformation
Once Megha accepted Baba, his devotion became wholehearted. He regarded Baba as Shiva and regularly fetched Godavari water from a distance and bilva leaves for the worship. The man who had once objected to worshipping Baba became one of its most devoted servants. His change showed how direct contact with Baba could overcome inherited religious prejudice and turn an obstacle into a foundation for wider devotion.
The growth of a public darbar
Ramakrishna Ayi, a gifted and energetic devotee, gave the expanding worship a grand public form. She arranged the chavadi on the model of a royal court, with silver whisks, maces, umbrellas, candelabras, gardens, a carriage, a palanquin and a horse. Musicians, pandits, kirtankars, acrobats and other visitors were drawn to Shirdi, and Baba allowed the ceremony to develop in the manner devotees desired.
From around 1908 Baba began asking visitors for dakshina. The amounts varied according to the person, sometimes a few rupees and sometimes much more. He did not retain the money. Each evening he distributed the day’s collections to devotees, dependants, religious performers, travellers and the poor. His gifts supported people such as Tatya Patil, Lakshmi Bai, Bade Baba and Ramachandra Patil, while food and daily doles enabled large numbers of beggars to be fed.
What this account invites us to reflect on
The chapter presents the expansion of Sai worship as a movement carried by transformed people. Ritual, music, service, generosity and the overcoming of prejudice all became vehicles through which Baba’s influence reached a wider community, while Baba himself remained inwardly unattached to the wealth and splendour surrounding him.
Editorial note: This page is a concise paraphrase for web presentation and does not reproduce the complete chapter. Please consult the original PDF for the full account and wording.