Satsang Is Sai Baba a Breaker or Builder? By Sri Narasimha Swamiji

Satsang Is Sai Baba a Breaker or Builder? By Sri Narasimha Swamiji

Is Sai Baba a Breaker or Builder?
By Sri Narasimha Swamiji
Worth Living
Believe that life is worth living-and you will see that it is so.
- J. P. Vaswani
All people are informed of Sai Baba's glorious nature and deeds, his
wonderful help in matters of this world and beyond, some exclaim, "Why do
you ask me to give up my old loyalties to my Ishta Devata Rama and Krishna
and my guru with his guru mantra and sadhanas ?" Some even go further and
condemn what they call the creation of a new cult with a new god through
"violent methods of propaganda and proselytism so foreign to the satvic
ideals of "Hinduism." Let us pause to analyze and examine each of these
objections.

The first sets of objectors are using leading or misleading questions. "Have
you left off beating your mother? Answer yes or no", if put to a witness who
has not admitted that he ever beat his mother, is usually quoted as an
example of this objectionable question. The short answer to this set of
questioners is that neither Baba, nor any true devotee of his ever asks
people to give up their loyalties to their gods, gurus or guru sampradayas
etc. but in spite of this declaration, these objectors often repeat their
question, though some are satisfied when the following facts are narrated to
them.

Baba did not wish Hindus to give up their religion, to embrace Islam or
Christianity. Once a Hindu recently converted to Islam was brought to Baba
who asked him then, "Have you given up the father that begot you and taken
another father?"
Baba first dissuaded Hindus, who ran up to worship him and directed them to
go back and worship the stone gods, which their fathers worshipped and
allowed them finally to worship him in addition to and not in substitution
of their old gods. When a man approached Baba with the fear tucking at his
heart that he was doing gurudroham to his former guru in approaching a new
guru, Baba sent him away. Where another approached him with the same fear,
Baba expressly told him that one's previous gurus and guru mantra and guru
sampradaya etc., should not be given up, however little their apparent merit
and however great the merits of other gurus might be or seem.

To a third man, who had already obtained gurumantram from his guru and yet
light-heartedly applied to Baba to make himself the guru, Baba's answer was
that no guru was necessary and all that the man had to do was to dive within
him and see himself-Adwaitic line being evidently that man's hereditary or
chosen marga. Baba generally added the assurance that by intensifying one's
own guru, be that guru even a mere potsherd, one is sure to achieve one's
objects, including even moksha.

http://www.saileelas.org/magazines/saipadananda/april1999.htm#IsSaiBabaaBrea
kerorBuilder