Sai Baba came to Shirdi- that seems to be the starting point. From where he came, where he was born, the time of his birth, who his parents were, and what his creed and religion-all these important facts, important from a worldly point of view, are shrouded in complete mystery. It was a mystery which Sai baba took delight in perpetuating. To the many queries that were put to him from time to time regarding his birth and parentage, the Saint of Shirdi returned evasive replies; at best, he sometimes spoke in parables which if taken too literally, resulted in a mass of contradictory beliefs and theories, each set of people believing what they wanted to believe. The Hindus thought him to be an avtar of some Godhead; the Muslims said that he was a pir sent by Allah to liberate men. To one man he was the avtar of Dattatreya; to another he was Akalkote Maharaj incarnated. Each individual saw in this unique Saint the personification of his own favorite deity, and incarnation of his own chosen ideal, and worshiped him as such. Through all this maze of contrary beliefs, Baba lived unperturbed with perhaps a glint of humor in his eyes for the perplexity which these unimportant speculations about his caste and creed roused in those who surrounded him. For Baba was full of keen sense of humor. Though he had attained to the highest kingship in the realm of the spirit, he was not like many another yogi absorbed in the contemplation of his blissful state. He always walked, talked, and laughed with his many devotees. He loved fun and loved to poke fun at the discrepancies of human nature, though his humor was always tempered with tenderness. His durbar in Shirdi in those glorious days when he was in the body was a veritable abode of joy, and in no sense did it resemble a gloomy cloister bereft of laughter and sunshine. The Saint of Shirdi baffled his admirers. No one definitely knew whether he was a Hindu or Muslim. He dressed like a muslim and bore the caste marks of a Hindu! he celebrated with the same childlike eclat the festivals of both the communities! If the Hindu protagonists felt a pride of possession in the thought that true to their customs Baba was always burning the sacred fire, or dhuni, before him, they were also reluctantly compelled to admit that after all he lived in a masjid. He quoted the Koran and delighted his Muslim worshippers and then made them look askance at his profound knowledge of the Hindu sastras. He called himself a fakir, and on his lips reverberated constantly the incantation Allah Malik. But, then, he called himself a pure Brahmin too and showed a remarkable proficiency in all yogic practices. It was a magnificent tribute to his luminous presence that the most orthodox members of both the communities prostrated themselves at his feet. Perhaps, such a phenomenon is yet unknown in the history of this vast and bewildering country of ours when the same veneration and with mutual toleration of each other's mode of worship. Sai Baba in his infinite wisdom saw how imperative it was to harmonize people, for he grievously hated all dissensions and was never so hurt as when he found people arguing and quarreling. That Rama( the God of Hindus) and Rahim ( the God of Muslims) were one and the same was his constant counsel to his followers. In Shirdi in those days a remarkable spirit of love and brotherhood prevailed, for all communities had found a common and unifying interest in the Divine personality of Shri Sai Baba. Could this not be one of the important reasons why Baba set about deliberately baffling his followers whether he was a Hindu or a Muslim ? So, who is Sai Baba ? people ask to this day, and to those who seek for a superficial classification of the Saint as subscribing to this or that creed there is still no satisfactory solution to this problem. But those few who have assimilated the teachings of the great Master realize that "Sai is not this three and a half cubic feet of visible body residing in Shirdi," as Baba himself was fond of repeating, but a glorious being who had transcended the limitations of time and space to become one with the all-absorbing and all-loving Divine. To such a one, what did it matter how and where he was born, or what his nationality was.! Once in reply to this same query Baba said: " I have no residence. I am an attributeless absolute. By the action of karma, I got embroiled and came to a body. My name is embodied dehi. The world is my abode. Brahman is my father and maya my mother. By their interlocking, I got this body." "Those who think I reside at Shirdi do not know the real Sai," he chided, "for I am formless and everywhere." Like the late Sage of Arunachala, Bhagavan Ramana, whose life is yet another saga of spiritual magnificence, Baba also constantly encouraged enquiry into true Nature of the Self. The similarity of approach between these two great teachers is significant. Bhagavan Ramana's "Who am I ? " has become the pivot of his teachings. Sai Baba six decades ago never got tired of telling his followers to think who they were. He often said "Who am I - Whence ? Night and day think on this." This was one of the most important injunctions of the Master and will be developed further in another chapter. To return once again to the question of his birth and parentage, it would not be amiss to point out that Baba is one of the very rare saints of whose birth and parentage there is absolutely no record. There has not been a single chronicler or individual who has ever been able to cast any light on these events. All that is known is that Sai Baba first came to Shirdi when he was a lad of sixteen and lived there for three years. Then suddenly he disappeared for some time and after a gap of four years appeared in the Nizam's state near Aurangabad, from where he again returned to Shirdi around the year 1858. After that he resided in the place of his choice for an unbroken period of sixty years until he attained his maha samadhi in 1918. But, when and where was this young lad of sixteen born, where did he come from? No one knew. Can it be that he was not born at all in ordinary human way ? Could he not be a mahatma , a great avatar, who willed himself a body because he wanted to fulfill a mission, because he wanted to "lad lakhs of people to the subhra marga [sacred path]" ? A daring conception, no doubt; but then one is justified in wondering why there is not a single solitary clue about the birth and parentage of the elusive Saint of Shirdi. Nor is the speculation a mere figment of the author's imagination. It is a well established fact of spiritual lore that when a jiva reaches Nirvana or attains liberation, he transcends his material body. No yogi dies in the ordinary sense of the word. His mission is self-alloted and springs from the source of his free and redeemed spirit. Such a one's passing from amongst us is said to be a conscious and voluntary act, so that when a liberated being leaves the world, he is not said to have died, but to have "given up his body." If, then, in the tradition of spiritual wisdom it is believed that great sages are not overcome by death but will themselves to die, it is not irrational to envisage not to go through the ordinary physiological process of birth. Shri Aurobindo, one of the greatest seers of our times, has hinted at the above possibility in one of his writings which is quoted below : A soul wishing to enter a body or form for itself a body and take part in a divine life upon earth might be assisted to do so or be even provided with such a form by this method of direct transmutation without passing through birth by sex process or undergoing any degradation or any of the heavy limitations in the growth and developments of its mind and material body inevitable to our present way of existence. The question of the birth of Sai Baba cannot, however be profitably solved now. It is sufficient to come within the orbit of his radiant influence, which shines as effulgently today as it did 60 years ago, when he was alive and residing in Shirdi. The master taught by precept and practice and by the power and glory of his mere presence the way of life that leads to a radical transformation in the inward man. True, he taught only through the medium of the spoken word in the agelong tradition of many of India's old gurus but that spoken word had in it the luster and the strength to pierce through the limitations of time and distance and has spread far and wide, even to the remotest recesses of our villages. Sai Baba's teachings and life have especially captured the imagination of Maharastrians and South Indians among whom alone there are millions of devotees at the present day. But even in other parts of India there is no dearth of Sai bhaktas . Curiously enough, the influence of this maha yogi is growing and spreading more and more, instead of waning with the passage of years. Though himself a great jnani and an able exponent of metaphysical subtleties, Baba was preeminently the savior of the poor and the simple and the so-called ignorant mass of humanity. Shri Aurobindo talks of divine love that is also personal. "It is not like the ordinary personal human love depending on any return from the person, " he says. "It is personal but not egoistic; it goes from the real being in the one to the real being in the other." This is the kind of love that Baba has for humanity. He is even today actively burning with compassion for the misery and the sorrows that seems to have found an asylum on this earth. A glance into his eyes, and somehow one seems to hear the Christlike utterances of intense compassion echoing back through the passage of years: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."