The Apostles of Shirdi Sai Baba-Upasani Baba(Part-4)

OM SAI RAM...Happy Baba's Day..


In the previous post you have read about conversion of grihasta upasani baba to sanyasi.Here by i am further continuing with the previous post.To read previous posts click on the links below:

The Apostles Of Shirdi Sai Baba - Upasani Baba (Part -1)
The Apostles Of Shirdi Sai Baba - Upasani Baba (Part -2)
The Apostles Of Shirdi Sai Baba - Upasani Baba (Part -3)


Here it goes:

Upasani did not like this restriction as he still thought himself to ba a grihasta.His thoughts ,ideals and nature had not changed and his views and sentiments at Shirdi were the same as those he had before he came to Shirdi .Baba's attempt was to change these feelings .When he was informed that his wife was seriously ill Upasani sought Baba's permission to go to Satana.Baba held him back saying :'You had better remain here .You can do nothing there ."Some days later a letter came to Upasani informing him of his wife's death .He said :"Now that my wife is dead what is the good of remaining here in Shirdi ?" .He had hoped that his wife would share the glory and joy of sainthood .

On the midnight of july 25,1914 ,Upasani left Shirdi after a stay of three years .He went to Nagpur and then to Kharagpur many hundereds of miles away .Baba accomplished his plan for Upasani only in part .Narasimha Swamiji says:'A tree grew from the seedsown but it did not shoot up in the way in which such a tree should shoot up .On the other hand ,it had a bend and a bend of its own .Upasani 's older tendencies ,idiosyncrasies and ideas through modified by what he picked up in Shirdi were remoulding him and the result was to develop a Upasani Baba working on lines reminiscent of Shirdi but in a direction totally different from Sai Baba 's ." At one time Baba had an idea that somebody might be found to carry on his work after his death .When some of his devotees asked him "Are you going to leave the world without entrusting your full powers and possessions to anyone ?' Baba replied : " What ! Will there be not same man coming ?' This remark coupled with the specia treatment of Upasani by Baba made some people believe that Baba hoped to groom Upasani as his successor .
However ,the course prescribed by Baba ,namely ,thinking only of Sai Baba ,was not fully possible for Upasani whose contacts with the outside world could never be obliterated .He kept on pursuring his intellectual studies and wrote 17 poems in Sanskrit in praise of Baba in 1912.He kept up his intellectuality and his learings as important assets .Baba did not want intellectuality .For a disciple it was an obstacle in the pursuit of self realisation .He had to forget he was learned as it would bolster his egoism .He must begin with himself as a zero and think and work for Baba and nothing else .Baba achived this with his guru but it was not possible with Upasani at Shirdi .

He would not forget his sorrows and think of Baba in such a way as to deaden his feelings towards unhappy events and incidents at Shirdi .In order to help him Baba started Upasani worshio in july 1913 . He sent Chand Bai Borker to Khandoba temple to worship Upasani in exactly the same way as she and other devotees worshiped Baba himself.Upasani objected to this and said he did not want to be worshipped .However,the woman devotee went on with the worship and told Upasani that his body did not belong to him but to his devotees. There was opposition to worship of Upasani from some of Baba's devotees and Upasani felt humiliated .All this culminated in his leaving Shirdi even without informing Baba.Baba did not talk of any successor afterwards.On the other hand he told his devotees :"Think of me ,I am there .I am not going away .I shall be active even from my tomb ."

After his wanderings Upasani setteled down in Sakori not far from Shirdi and collected a large number of devotees through his siddhis and collection of moral tales about Sai Baba.People who felt they were in presence of a great saint flocked to him and began to worship him .His fame was at one time so great that his devotees found it difficult to get near to him .Mahatama Gandhi visited him in 1927.

Through him the name of Sai Baba and his teachings spread far and wide and this was his greatest service to the Sai movement .So long as he observed Baba's directions and kept away from women and wealth his influence and power for good was increasing day by day .He reached the pinnacle of his fame in 1927 and 1928.But later ,contrary tendencies were noticed and they began to undermine the foundations laid by Sai Baba.Upasani accumulated wealth in the form of cash ,land and buildings and he began to be seen in the company of women .Narasimha Swamiji says Upasani had 25 wives ,a regular harem with a castle and anthapuram (Women's quarters) in it .He was involved in litigation and aroused antagonisms in many quarters .He went on acquiring women ,first by maring them to images of Krishna ,and when that was stopped by a law passed by the Bombay Legistative Council,by marring them himself .His popularity began to decline following opposition to him in 1934.Narasimha Swamiji says Upasani's popularity reached such a low level that people said they were ashamed to say they had anything to do with him. 
Upasani Baba passed away in 1941.Upasani Baba composed a prayer of deveral hymns on Baba the first verse of which is as follows:
Baba is the original sat chit anand swarup ,the primordial cause of original existence and destruction of the universe .Baba has appeared as a human being as the outcome of the ardent desire of his devotees to see him as such .
In the eight verse Upasani Baba says :"Sai Baba is the unborn ,the veritable Brahman ."

This was all about Upasani Baba !!!