Conversation with Shirdi Sai Baba

Conversation with Shirdi Sai Baba.

Sai Baba of Shirdi did not write any books. All that is available is records of a number of conversations between him and his devotees preserved in various biographical accounts. The following is a conversation which a devotee, Nana Govind Chandorkar, a Deputy Collector who was a traditionally well read orthodox person, had with Shirdi Sai Baba.

Nana: Baba, I am fed up with this samsAra. It is only nissAra (thast without content). Please help me cut the bonds which bind me to it. What appears as pleasant in the beginning ends in misery. Fate tosses us hither and thither. I don't see an iota of happiness in this samsAra.

Baba: Nana, you are prattling like a mad man. What you say is only partially true. You have misunderstood the truth. The samsAra will exist as long as the body exists. No one can escape from it. How can you? Even I am under its clutches. The samsAra is varied and different. It is the work of Desire and Anger. All the vagaries of the mind and the body constitute samsAra. By running away and hiding yourself in a forest you cannot escape it. What you are now has been brought on you by yourself. You are only experiencing the fruits of your actions done by you in your previous lives. It is by that cause the effect of the appearance of this body has taken place. This is called deha-prArabdha. The soul gets a body just to experience the consequences of actions of its own previous lives. Without experiencing the consequences of prArabdha karma one cannot leave this world. Why do people look different? Why, in fact, do various living beings look different? It is all because of the karma of previous lives. A rich man's dog rolls in joy on a cushioned sofa. A poor man's dog rots at the street corner. The difference is because of prArabdha.

Sources:-saibaba.ws