Shirdi sai baba

Nowadays Sai Baba of Shirdi (d. Oct 15, 1918) is no doubt the most popular saint of India, mirroring the archetype of the holy man. His portraits are ubiquitous, and he has a place in almost all family altars and pūjā rooms. Since 1977 he has been the subject of several films and, more recently, of television serials. His temples and shrines are found throughout the country, and Shirdi in the Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra has become a national pilgrimage center. Venerated as a wondrous miracle worker by millions across the subcontinent, his tomb is visited year round by crowds of people from all walks of life, primarily Hindus, but also Muslims, especially at festival times and on the anniversary of his death. He is worshipped by the Hindu masses as not only a god-realized person but also the full embodiment of divinity, a satpuruṣa. His temples are found even outside of India – in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore – as the saint has many devotees in the Hindu diaspora and also among Westerners. 

Sai Baba was an eclectic Sufi ascetic, a faqīr (lit. poor), part and parcel of the pluralistic religious landscape of the Deccan. He lived most of his life in a dilapidated mosque (masjid) in the village of Shirdi, advocating a spirituality accommodating Sufism  and Hindu devotionalism ( bhakti ), above and beyond caste strictures and the orthodoxies of institutionalized religions. To quote his words, "All Gods are one. There is no difference between a Hindu and a Mohammadan. Mosque and temple are the same" (Narasimha Swami, 41942, 262). When pressed on whether he was a Hindu or Muslim, he would get angry and even insult people. During an interrogation by a legal officer, he is reported to have said that his creed or religion was "Kabīr," the famous 15th-century Sant of Benares. As other integrative mystics, Sai Baba viewed Kabīr as his model and more than once identified himself with him, even saying that Kabīr was his guru . 

The Life 

Sai Baba's early life is enmeshed in uncertainty; no historical evidence is available concerning the time and place of his birth, the identity of his parents, and his religious upbringing and training. Apparently, he first appeared in Shirdi at age 16, dressed in the white garb of a faqīr. Even his actual name is unknown, since Sai Baba is an appellative that was attached to him by local people. When he was young, he was simply addressed as Sai (sāī being a term of Persian origin often attributed to Muslim ascetics meaning "holy one"). The epithet Baba (from bābā, a common term ascribed to respected seniors and holy men meaning "father") was added later on. 

Among the sources on the saint's life, the Śrī Sāī Saccarita (The True Life of Lord Sai) is regarded by Hindus as the most authoritative repository of his life and deeds. This hagiography is revered as a sacred book (pothī) by all bhaktas, who read/recite its chapters as part of their daily worship. It was composed in Marathi by G.R. Dabholkar (1859-1929), who started working on it while Sai Baba was still alive, having obtained his permission and blessings. Divided into 51 chapters (plus an epilogue and an epitome), the Śrī Sāī Saccarita is written in traditional ovī verse form and comprises more than 9,300 verses. G.R. Dabholkar conceived his work in the trail of the Maharashtrian Vārkarī Sampradāy, explicitly linking Sai Baba to it and praising Shirdi as a modern Pandharpur. The actual model of the Śrī Sāī Saccarita is the Marathi Gurucaritra (Life of the Master) written by Sarasvatī Gaṅgādhar around the mid-16th century, the gospel for all devotees of the god Dattātreya. Like many Hindus, G.R. Dabholkar thought Sai Baba to be a manifestation of Dattātreya, a synthetic deity revered as an immortal yogī , guru, and avatāra , even accommodating Islamic tenets. 

The legend prevalent among Hindu followers – construed from occasional utterances of Sai Baba himself – is that he was born to a Brahman couple around 1838 in the village of Pathri, in the then niẓām’s (Muslim ruler) dominions. In his infancy, his parents would have given him away to a faqīr and his wife. At the death of her husband, when the child was only four or five, his widow-mother would have left him with one Venkusha in the village of Selu, located 15 km northwest of Pathri. Venkusha – possibly a bhakta of the god Veṅkaṭeśvara of Tirupati – is identified with a Brahman guru with whom young Sai would have stayed for 12 years (a number symbolic of completion). Before dying, Venkusha gifted him with a brick – his dīkṣā (consecration) – which he treasured until the end of his life (it was accidentally broken by a devotee just a few days before his demise, an episode that the saint interpreted as an omen of his own "breaking apart"). Sai Baba would have then led the life of an itinerant faqīr until reaching Shirdi around 1854. 

Alternatively, Venkusha is interpreted as Venku Shah, identifying him as a Sufi master (pīr). After a few years of staying with him, young Sai would have left Selu in the company of another faqīr, perhaps Roshan Shah Miyan. With this faqīr as his guru, Sai would have traveled along the Godāvarī River to Paithan and Aurangabad. In the course of their wanderings, they eventually reached Shirdi; here his teacher would have died, and Sai Baba would have buried him under a nīm tree, a spot that locals revere as the tomb of his guru (gurusthān). This site, however, is commonly believed to be the burial ground of the guru from one of Sai Baba's previous lives, even identified with Kabīr. 

After staying in Shirdi for either a few months or two to three years, Sai Baba would have left the village. He would have come back to reside in it permanently around 1858 or as late as 1872. There are hints that prior to his definite settlement in Shirdi, he resided in Aurangabad. G.S. Khaparde (1854-1938) – member of the central legislative assembly, who served as an aide to Lokmanya Tilak – in an entry of his Shirdi diary dated Dec 30, 1911, reports:

"He…told a small tale calculated to impress the virtue of patience. He said he went to Aurangabad in one of his wanderings and saw a Fakir sitting in a Musjid near which there was a very tall tamarind tree. The Fakir would not let him enter the Musjid first but ultimately consented to his putting up in it. The Fakir depended entirely on a piece of cake that an old woman used to supply him at midday. Sayin Maharaj volunteered to beg for him and kept him supplied amply with food for twelve years and then thought of leaving the place. The old Fakir shed tears at parting and had to be consoled with soft words. Sayin Maharaj visited him four years later and found him there doing well. The Fakir then came here a few years ago and lodged at the Chawadi [travelers' resting-place]. Mother Baba Fakir looked after him. From what was said I gathered that Sayin Baba stayed twelve years to instruct the Aurangabad Fakir and set him up fully in the spiritual world" (Khaparde, n.d., 38).

Sai Baba would have finally returned to Shirdi with the wedding party of Chand Patil, a Muslim whom he had helped by clairvoyantly locating his lost mare. When he alighted near the local Khaṇḍobā Temple, Mhalsapati, the temple's priest – to become one of his earliest devotees – greeted him with the words Yā Sāī (“Welcome, Sāī”), thus bestowing upon him the appellative by which he was to become known. Apparently, he would have wanted to reside in the Khaṇḍobā Temple, but Mhalsapati, having identified him as a faqīr from his attire, did not permit it and advised him to go and stay at the dilapidated mosque. 

Before settling at the old masjid, young Sai lived in solitude in the woods in the outskirts of the village. For some time, he also took residence underneath a nīm tree in Shirdi, the same site that is revered as Sai Baba's gurusthān. In the early days, he only interacted with other ascetics and the few locals who offered him food on his daily rounds of begging. Because of his lonely, even weird demeanor of alternating prolonged silence and ecstatic moods, many considered him to be crazy (pāgal; madness). Yet his erratic, unconventional behavior was part and parcel of his sainthood. 

When villagers became ill, he sometimes acted as a doctor (ḥakīm); he collected herbs and inexpensive drugs from local shops and applied them to the sick. He is said to have cured snakebites, leprosy by using snake poison, and "rotting eyes" with bibā (washermen’s marking nut) as an alkaline aseptic. Later on, Sai Baba started administering the ash (udī) of the sacred fire (dhūnī), which he constantly kept burning inside the masjid. While giving the udī to the sick, he would bless them by saying Allā acchā karegā (“Allāh will cure”) or Allā bhalā karegā (“Allāh will do good”), thus referring all power and glory to god and not himself. Sai Baba practiced the Sufi exercise of ḏikr (“remembrance”), the constant recollection of the name of Allāh. Although he occasionally used to repeat other divine names (Islamic, such as Ḥaqq, as well as Hindu, such as Hari), the texts inform us that he resorted to the remembrance of Allāh Mālik (Allāh the Sovereign) – one of the 99 beautiful names of Allāh. He performed a mental, interiorized form of recollection, typically when seated in contemplation in front of the dhūnī as well as during his night vigils. 

Dating it in 1886, the sources report the story of his apparent death, of his temporary "going to Allāh" for three full days. Though the Śrī Sāī Saccarita (44.64) argues that he went into a 72-hour samādhi (yogic absorption) to deal with an acute asthmatic attack, most interpreters view this episode as a turning point in his life. Be that as it may, in time his saintly behavior and special powers started attracting the attention of many people, even beyond the boundaries of Shirdi. 

Although Sai Baba did not emphasize the miraculous, but mainly dispensed individual blessings (āśīrvād, baraka), his fame as a wonder worker possessing siddhis grew. From around 1890, people from the Bombay area and other parts of Maharashtra started coming to Shirdi, and his popularity increased more and more from 1900 onward. He himself acknowledged that he had vast powers and was not to be judged by his height (1.60 meter). The hagiographies present us with a wealth of prodigies (camatkār, karāmāt) operated by him; from turning water into oil – supposedly his first public miracle – to averting death, from warding off cholera and plague epidemics to commanding nature, and from dismembering his body at will to being ubiquitous. In particular, the sources insist on Sai Baba’s clairvoyance and omniscience (antarajñāna). Among the plethora of miracles, reported in the literature is the vicarious taking upon himself of the suffering of particular individuals; the transfer of a disease such as bubonic plague from a devotee to himself proved a most spectacular feat. 

Besides resorting to the saint as a healer, childless couples would turn to Sai Baba to ask for offspring. This kind of request was and still is one of the most common. He would typically dispense blessings and udī, coupled with a symbol of fertility such as a coconut, mango, or tamarind fruit. Sai Baba’s whole persona, and his glances and gestures, conveyed an immediate experience of the sacred. As the old villagers of Shirdi told me when I interviewed them in October 1985, being in his presence gave them the awesome feeling of being in the presence of god. Though he insisted he was just a devotee of the almighty, a plain faqīr, on occasions he would utter "I am Allāh," and he also identified himself with many gods of the Hindu pantheon. 

His charisma and powers inevitably led the local people to want to worship him. The majority of his followers were Hindus and, despite his faqīr appearance and the fact that he dwelled in a mosque, they wished to honor him as a deity and offer him pūjās. Sai Baba's Sufi character tended to be either downplayed or not recognized by his Hindu bhaktas, who claimed him as one of their fold. In the early years, he resisted such acts of worship. In time, however, he consented to the devotion of his followers and accommodated himself to Hindu rituals. At first he allowed a simple, individual form of worship. But from around 1908 on, it became a congregational one, with the ceremonies of morning, midday, and evening āratīs (the honoring of a deity with the circling of a flame); the offering of eatables (naivedya); and the chanting of devotional hymns (bhajans). Though he refused to be taken on a palanquin (pālkhī), he permitted his bhaktas to accompany him in procession with all ritual paraphernalia along the streets of the village. In 1913, when he allowed a Hindu to smear sandal paste over his face and hands, he told one Abdul Rangari: "Jaisā deś taisā veś [‘As the country, so the custom,’ equivalent of ‘While in Rome, do as the Romans do’]. Baba also said, ‘Instead of worshipping their own God, they are worshipping me. Why should I object and displease them? I myself am a devotee of God’" (Narasimha Swami, vol. III, 31980-1985, 179).

The Muslim minority was forced to accept the situation. Through his authority, Sai Baba succeeded in creating an atmosphere of communal harmony between Hindus and Muslims. The saint rejected the idea of conversion, advocated universality, and recommended interreligious brotherhood true to his conviction that all religions are but particular paths leading to one ineffable goal. For this reason, he renamed the masjid Dvārkāmāī ("Many-gated Mother"), stressing the fact that people of all castes and creeds were welcome to come. 

Among his Muslim followers, mention should be made of at least one noticeable individual: the faqīr Abdul (1871-1954) – Sai Baba's faithful servant – who first arrived in Shirdi in 1889, and whose tomb is located near his master’s temple. Abdul lived with Sai Baba for a continuous period of 29 years and left behind a notebook, containing his notes of the saint's utterances taken while reading the Qurʾān at his presence in the masjid. The notebook was translated from Urdu into English and carefully analyzed by the late M. Warren (1999). Abdul's records show how Sai Baba was conversant with Islam theology and had a comprehensive knowledge of Sufism, its brotherhoods, and hierarchies of saints. 

Sai Baba would receive visitors and devotees inside the mosque. He usually held three sittings: two in the morning and one in the afternoon. He would never preach but rather interacted with the people present and offered personal advice. Especially in his late years, he told short stories, pithy riddles, and parables, not at all easy to understand, and which he did not necessarily care to explain. He never spoke much and sometimes would keep silent the whole day. His behavior was unpredictable; he could be most affectionate and loving but also wrathful, to the point of hurling stones at some undesired persons. The rules of purity and pollution meant nothing to him, and he often deliberately broke them in order to impart a lesson to his more orthodox Hindu followers. A brethren of the poor, he enjoyed the company of downtrodden individuals such as untouchables and lepers and shared the begged food with them as well as with dogs and other stray animals. 

A peculiar habit that he inaugurated in 1908 was that of requesting money as dakṣiṇā (sacrificial salary). Saying that it was Allāh's will, he asked for small amounts that in the evening he redistributed among the needy, thus keeping true to his vow of poverty. Unlike most renouncers, he never feared any contamination from the coins he gathered. He often wished to convey a spiritual teaching through the symbolism of the number of ānās (a former currency unit) or rupees he asked for; thus, when he requested two coins, he intended that his devotee should offer him the couplet of niṣṭhā and saburī, faith and patience. Sometimes his demand of dakṣiṇā was motivated by karmic reasons, namely, because of an unfulfilled vow or in order to repay a debt. In time, many people became eager to voluntarily offer money to him since the saint remarked that he would benefit the donor with a much higher reward, spiritually as well as materially. He did not accept money from everybody, however, but only from selected persons. 

From around 1915, Sai Baba's health started deteriorating. He had asthma and difficulty breathing and needed the help of his devotees to go out on his rounds of begging. Nonetheless, until the end, he never relaxed his faqīr lifestyle. In his last years, he complained that he could find no rest as people troubled him with requests for petty things. Few were interested in what he was really eager to offer: the precious treasure of divine love and god realization. Shortly before his demise, he sent Kasim, the son of Bade Baba (d. 1925) – a faqīr whom he particularly favored – to go and see the Sufi saint Shamsuddin Miyan of Aurangabad so as to inform him of his imminent death. He gave Kasim 250 rupees, ordering him to hand them over to Shamsuddin Miyan so that the latter could make arrangements for mawlūd (refrains to be sung in honor of the prophet Muḥammad), qawwālī (devotional songs), and nyās (feeding of the poor). He also asked Kasim to go and see Banne Miyan (d. 1921), another Sufi of Aurangabad, with the message that Allāh was taking his life away. Evidently, he must have had contacts with these Aurangabad Sufis from his early years. Sai Baba breathed his last breath on Oct 15, 1918. This day happened to be daśaharā, the festival celebrating Rāma's victory over the demon Rāvaṇa. He remained lucid up to the very end, and his passing away, reclining on the lap of his old devotee Bayajibai, was a serene one. 

The "Hinduization" of Sai Baba's cult became complete soon after his death. This process must be viewed in the broader context of the growing assertion of Brahmanical Hinduism in Maharashtra. From 1918 to 1922, the faqīr Abdul still acted in the role of custodian of Sai Baba's tomb. But in 1922, the influential devotee Hari Sitaram Dikshit (1864-1926), a high-caste Brahman, set up a public trust through the Ahmednagar district court to administer the shrine following Hindu rules. Abdul lost his position and was persuaded to file a countersuit, declaring that he was the legal heir to Sai Baba, and that the public trust was illegal. He lost the case, however, and was deprived of all authority. The shrine became a Hindu temple, the Samādhi Mandir, and in 1954 a huge white marble mūrti of the saint was installed behind the tomb. 

Sai Baba assured his devotees of his enduring presence even after his death. The Śrī Sāī Saccarita quotes these words of his: "Even when I am no more, trust my words as the truth. My bones will give you an assurance from my grave. Not me alone, but even my tomb will speak to you. He who surrenders to it whole-heartedly, with him will it sway. Do not worry that I will be lost to you. You will hear my bones speaking to you of matters of your own interest. Only remember me, always, with a heart that is trusting. Worship me selflessly and you will achieve your highest weal" (Dabholkar, 1999, 414).

Many followers believe that Sai Baba was connected to other Maharashtrian saints, either as their successor/avatāra or as part of a team, a holy network of sorts. Hindus think that as a manifestation of the guru-god Dattātreya, he was linked to Akkalkot Maharaj (d. 1878) or Gajanan Maharaj (d. 1910) of Shegaon. The Parsi saint Meher Baba (1894-1969) declared that Sai Baba was one of the five quṭbs (perfect masters) of his time, together with two Sufis – Tajuddin Baba (1861-1925) of Nagpur and the female saint Babajan (d. 1931) of Pune – and two Hindus, Narayana Maharaj (1885-1945) of Kedgaon and Upasni Baba (1870-1941) of Sakuri. 

Beginning in the 1920s, Sai Baba's cult crossed the borders of Maharashtra and reached Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and other southern states. By the end of the 1950s, his fame as a miracle worker had spread all over India. Especially from the 1970s on, we witness the building of innumerable shrines and temples dedicated to him and an ever-growing flux of pilgrims pouring into Shirdi. To date, his fame knows no decay and is expanding in the Hindu diaspora. 

It should be noted that Sai Baba never nominated any successor; there was no dīkṣā and no guruparamparā (the establishment of a lineage of teachers). Although there were significant figures who were connected to him – such as Upasni Baba, a Brahman disciple who was to found his own āśrama in the nearby village of Sakuri, and Meher Baba, whom Sai Baba acknowledged as Parvardigar ("God-Almighty Sustainer") – he did not appoint any heir. Indeed, he never indicated an intention of promoting any lineage or religious institution. He rather assured his followers that he would be with them always. To some, he confided that he would be with them in future rebirths as he had done in the past. Through the years, the idea that Sai Baba might reincarnate and "come back" has led to various claims. The most successful was the one made by the recently passed away god-man Sathya Sai Baba (1926-2011) of Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, whose followers in both India and the West are in the millions; born as Ratnakaram Satyanarayana Raju, he declared himself to be Sai Baba as early as 1940 or 1943. According to his prophecy, about eight years after his death, he will be reborn as Prema Sai Baba in the Mandya district of the state of Karnataka. 

The Teachings 

Through his charisma and exemplary life, Sai Baba communicated beyond words the oneness of god and the brotherhood of men, the mystical recognition of the unity of being, of reality as a unified whole (waḥdat al-wujūd, advaita). With few exceptions, he did not ask the people who came to him to become ascetics; rather, he advised them to lead a simple, orderly life. In order to achieve the supreme goal, he stressed the need of devotion toward god or the guru, to the point of surrendering one's body and mind to him. 

He read no books and never wrote a single word, he preached no sermons and gave no public discourses. His instructions were brief and direct, attuned with one's receptivity. He was fond of telling short, symbolic stories to the people who assembled at the masjid. According to M.V. Kamath and V.B. Kher, Sai Baba "began to speak in parables and symbology from 1910 as the number of his visitors began to grow in volume" (Kamath & Kher, 1991, 9). In an entry of his diary dated Dec 12, 1910, G.S. Khaparde notes: "We all went to see Sayin Saheb later on. I was a bit late and missed a very interesting story told by him. He teaches in parables. It was about a man having a very beautiful horse, which, do what he could, would not go in pair. It was taken all round and given all the usual training, to no purpose. At last a widwan [vidvān, learned person] suggested its being taken to the place from which it was originally brought. This was done and then the horse went all right in the harness and became very useful. I heard the fragment of the parable" (Khaparde, n.d., 11). Here the horse appears to be symbolic of the human being, of his or her unsettled mind and wavering senses. The person trying to discipline the horse is one who has realized the need of putting the mind and senses in check but cannot achieve this end. The vidvān is the guru, who solves the situation by offering the right advice; the horse must be taken to his original place, which is god. When taken back to the source, the creature becomes calm and useful, since in god alone can one find peace and fulfillment. 

Sai Baba himself figures as protagonist in several stories. Here is an example: "A person rode on a camel. It passed excreta. I gathered all the excreta and ate them up. My belly was puffed up – swollen. I felt listless. Then the rider took pity upon me. He gave me four grains of Bengal gram (caṇā, [bot.] Cicer arietinum) and I ate them and drank water. Thus my vehement turbulence ceased. My swollen belly subsided. Now hereafter it will be cured" (Narasimha Swami, 41942, 276). I would interpret the camel as god's grace, and what he passes out is the manure of love. As a good disciple, Sai Baba gathers the manure and eats it avidly, to the point of indigestion; this intoxication of divine love leaves him stupefied. The rider of the camel is the guru. As a doctor, he cures the indigestion of his pupil by administering the right medicine. The four grains of Bengal gram symbolize the four elements that make up one's individuality, namely, the mind (manas), the intellect (buddhi), the reasoning faculty (citta), and the ego principle (ahaṃkāra). Once these have been brought to their normal state, the ecstatic languor ceases, and the pupil can be led to discover that his ordinary condition is itself pure and perfect. The meaning of the tale is that an intense love of god is the royal path to liberation. In a similar story, the nine balls of stool passed out by a quadruped are said to represent navavidhabhakti, the nine forms of devotion (see Narasimha Swami, 41942, 23). 

Particularly when requesting dakṣiṇā, Sai Baba resorted to numerical symbolism: number one stood for Allāh, brahman , or the individual soul (jīva); number two for the virtues of faith (niṣṭhā) and patience (saburī); number four for the ego complex (manas, buddhi, citta, and ahaṃkāra); number five symbolized the senses (indriyas); number six referred to the six internal enemies (ṣaḍripus), namely, lust (kāma), anger (krodha), greed (lobha), delusion (moha), pride (mada), and jealousy (matsara);  and the number nine stood for the nine steps of the bhakti path, namely, śravaṇa (listening to sacred texts), kīrtana (the singing of god's names), smaraṇa (the remembrance of the divine name), pādasevana (the worship of the feet of god or the guru), arcana (ritual worship), vandana (prostrations to god or the guru), dāsya (being a servant of god or the guru), sakhya (being a friend of god or the guru), and ātmanivedana, the actual culmination of the path in which the bhakta surrenders to the beloved, shattering his/her ego. Above all, Sai Baba emphasized the importance of loving one's guru or pīr as god, abandoning oneself totally to him. Concerning his own guru and his full absorption in him, B.V. Narasimha Swami reports that he once stated:

"For twelve years I waited on my guru who is peerless and loving. How can I describe his love to me? When he was dyanastha (i.e., in love-trance) I sat and gazed at him. We were both filled with bliss. I cared not to turn my eye upon anything else. Night and day I poured upon his face with an ardour of love that banished hunger and thirst. The guru’s absence, even for a second, made me restless. I meditated on nothing but the guru, and had no goal, or object, other than the guru. Unceasingly fixed upon him was my mind. Wonderful indeed, the art of my guru! I wanted nothing but the guru and he wanted nothing but this intense love from me. Apparently inactive, he never neglected me, but always protected me by his glance. That guru never blew any mantra into my ear. By his grace, I attained to my present state. Making the guru the sole object of one’s thoughts and aims one attains paramartha, the Supreme Goal. This is the only truth the guru taught me. The four Sadhanas and six Sastras are not necessary. Trusting in the guru fully is enough" (Narasimha Swami, 41942, 60-61). 

From a Hindu perspective, the interiorization of the guru and the realization of his omnipresence is the acme of bhakti. From a Sufi perspective, absorption in the teacher leads to tawakkul, that is, to the perfection of faith in Allāh. 

Sai Baba urged his followers to practice the remembrance of their master and chosen deity's (iṣṭadevatā) name, be it Viṭṭhala or Dattātreya, and even recommended the recollection of his own name. Significantly, he refused the Hindu mode of instruction consisting of a formal initiation through a mantra. As his own guru did not teach this way, he never taught any particular kind of practice (sādhana) or ritual. In the Śrī Sāī Saccarita, G.R. Dabholkar remarks: "Baba prescribed no Yogasanas, no Pranayama, no violent suppression of the sense organs, nor mantra, tantra or yantra pooja. And he did not ever whisper mantra in the ears of his devotees" (Dabholkar, 1999, 158). To Radhabai Deshmukin, a woman who wished to fast until death in order to persuade him to give her a mantra, he refused by saying, "I do not instruct through the ear. Our traditions are different" (Narasimha Swami, 41942, 274). Sai Baba further told her that his guru just asked from him the "two coins" of faith in god (niṣṭhā) and enduring patience (saburī): "Mother, Saburi is courage, do not discard it. It ferries you across to the distant goal. It gives manliness to men, eradicates sin and dejection and overcomes all fear" (Narasimha Swami, 41942, 43). 

Although he was never seen reading a holy text, he encouraged his devotees to delve into their scriptures. To his Muslim followers, he recommended reading the Qurʾān, and by the same token, he prompted his Hindu bhaktas to read the Bhagavadgītā , Pañcadaśī, Yogavasiṣṭha, Adhyātmarāmāyaṇa, Viṣṇusahasranāmastotra, and classics of advaitabhakti Maharashtrian spirituality such as the Jñāneśvarī (Jñāndev), Eknāth Bhāgavata (Eknāth), Dāsabodha, and Gurucaritra. 

The sources inform us that Sai Baba helped his influential Brahman devotee Das Ganu (1868-1962) to interpret the first verse of the Īśopaniṣad, on which he was writing a commentary (ŚSS., ch. 20), and he even offered an exegesis of Bhagavadgītā 4.34 to Nanasaheb Chandorkar, another prominent bhakta of his (ŚSS., ch. 39). In this latter case, he put forward an ingenious reading of jñāna (knowledge) as ajñāna (ignorance), exhibiting a familiarity with Vedānta metaphysics that no one suspected he had. A. Osborne reports that "Sai Baba then told Nana to bring the Bhagavad Gita and read a chapter to him each day and Baba would expound it. He did so – but no record was kept" (Osborne, 1970, 13-14). 

Conclusion 

Sai Baba lived his whole life as a genuine faqīr practicing celibacy and detachment, stressing to his last day the lesson of loving god and one's fellow people. In Abdul’s notebook, M. Warren has noted references to the beliefs of the Nizārī Ismā’īlī sect, which in the 19th century was centered in the Bombay Presidency. Following her study, D.-S. Khan has pointed out other similarities. She writes: "Sai Baba’s words quoted in Abdul’s manuscript, such as 'From Needa Aneeda, from Aneeda, Shunya, from Shunya, Shana' etc. correspond – with very few differences – to the same words as listed in the Nizari and Imamshahi genealogies reproduced in the duas [ritual texts]. This is certainly not a coincidence: Sai Baba’s Ismaili connections should be explored as they may be related to the tradition of the Nizari preacher Shah Tahir or the Sayyidkhani line of the Imamshahi main branch. I have started some research on this subject with the help of Zawahir Moir, whom I thank for this invaluable information" (Khan, 2005, 326n9).

Nizārī Ismā’īlīs borrowed extensively from Vaiṣṇava bhakti, both nirguṇa (without attributes) and saguṇa (with attributes), as well as from the yogic movement of the Nāths. In particular, there are affinities with Kabīr and the nirguṇa Sant tradition. As D.S. Khan remarks: "Like them [i.e. the Nizārī pīrs], the Sants seem to have consciously associated a number of Sufi concepts and terminologies with elements drawn from the Nath heritage or from the indigenous idiom of bhakti, without identifying themselves with any of these traditions" (Khan, 2004, 49). 

That Sai Baba may have been connected to Nizārī Ismā’īlīsm is a possibility that awaits further investigation. The socioreligious context of the Deccan favored an accommodation process, namely, the rapprochement between faiths and communities generating what may be called overlapping identities. These identities are not to be conceived as fixed but rather as flexible, adapting themselves over time. To unilaterally emphasize either Sai Baba's Sufi or Hindu identity is therefore an error; so-called Hinduism and Islam have never been monolithic and unchanging essences. As C.W. Ernst points out, we need "to complicate our picture of Hindu-Muslim interaction, not to derive it from predetermined concepts of the essential characteristics of a religion…To understand a multi-century process of inter-civilizational interpretation…it is necessary to take seriously the hermeneutical structures and categories that guided the efforts of those interpreters" (Ernst, 2003, 188).

In this perspective, even M. Warren’s "essentialization" of Hinduism and Islam, as when she argues that "Baba emerged from the dual Maharashtrian Bhakti and Sufi traditions whose goal was to directly experience God" (Warren, 1999, 205), appears inadequate. In Sai Baba's training and experience, Sufism and bhakti were not two separate blocs. His personality is the result of a complex, nondual process of identity development, freely combining Sufi and Hindu elements. 

In conclusion, to accentuate the Islamic nature of Sai Baba in order to restore the balance and counter the Hindu gloss is a merely quantitative way of addressing the inextricably interwoven fabric of Maharashtrian 19th-century popular religion; it presupposes a dualist model in which Sufism and Hinduism face each other as distinct, even antagonistic religious "objects." Sai Baba's teaching of universalism and oneness drew on an integrative culture that had been constitutive of the Deccan for centuries. As he himself pointed out, Kabīr’s legacy stands as the most authoritative paradigm for understanding his figure.