Kakasaheb was extremely lucky to have spent
time with Shri Sai and along with the highest form of
blessings he received some articles, all of which except one
are with the family.
Kafni
Baba
had given one of his kafnis' to Kaka Saheb Dixit with
instructions to wear it while performing the daily pooja. It
some how disappeared from the Dixit Wada in 1946.
Silver Miniature
Padukas Baba also gave him a
miniature silver Padukas kept in a small silver dabbi. As per
Baba instructions, Kaka used to always carry them in his
pocket. The casket (dabbi) has Hanuman carving on the cover
top.
Wooden Padukas
Baba always used to say that one must follow all
the rituals given in the Shashtas. Kaka Saheb wanted to keep
Baba's paduka in his Dev Ghar. However as per the Shashtras'
leather articles are not allowed in the pooja ghar ( prayer
room.)
Baba used to always wear leather
Padukas (foot wear). Kaka therefore got one pair of padukas
made of Shisham Wood and asked Baba to touch it and give him
back with blessings. Baba did as per Kaka's wishes and this
pair of blessed padukas is still with us.
Sai Baba's Portrait painted by the
Famous Painter And Sai Devotee Late Shri Shyamrao
Jaykar.
Sai Baba did not
permit anyone to take his photographs. If anyone dared to do
so without his permission the Frame would be either blank or
without Baba. Saibaba on a rare occasion permitted Shri
Shyamrao Jaykar (an eminent Painter of those times) to paint
His Portrait.
The Late Shri Shyamrao Jaykar normally used
to paint portraits of royal family members and British Lords,
and in 1913 Rao Bahadur Moreshwar W. Pradhan requested him to
visit Shirdi for making Baba's portrait.
Baba was not so famous at that time. Even
Mr. Jaykar was unaware about the power of
'Fakir' and during his journey to Shirdi was thinking that the
visit is going to be futile. Had been to some royal place, he
would have earned a handsome amount.
After reaching Shirdi they went to
Dwarkamai for Baba's Darshan. The first sentence Baba uttered
was why he was in Shirdi. He should have gone to some royal
place and painted their portraits. What was the use of taking
out a portrait of a humble fakir like him?
However on Shyama's intervention Baba
finally decided to sit in front of Jaykar and allowed him to
paint three portraits one after other. After finishing his
first portrait Shri Jaykar took it to Dwaraka Mai to show it
to Baba, who asked him to present it to Kaka Saheb Dixit on
Baba's behalf.
This unique portrait of Sai Baba has been
in our Pooja Room since 1913. It may be noted here that only
Shri Jaykar got rare honor of painting three portraits of Sai
Baba by making him sit in front of him. All other paintings
have been made after Baba's samadhi, based on either these
paintings or Baba's photographs of the painting.
Shri Pradhan bought the remaining two
paintings and they were lying with his family members in the
folded canvas form for a very long time. Amazingly, around
1970, Shri Pradhan's son and grandson, both, got the same
dream in the same night. Baba appeared in
their dream and instructed them to deliver the portraits to
our house. And thus we got one more blessed portrait of Baba.
It is displayed on our home page of our website.
ACTIVITIES OF
OUR TRUST
At present the trust
carries out three fold activities –
Spiritual, Social and Charitable.
SPIRITUAL ACTIVITIES:
Every Thursday Baba's Aartis are performed
twice, in the morning (8.30 am) and in the evening (6.30
p.m.). Both the Aartis are attended by
large number of devotees who come even from far off places.
A small Sai prayer extracted from the Kakad
Aartis that is performed in the Shirdi Temple follows evening
Aarti. This is followed by a discourse on one of the adhyas of
Shri Sai Saccharitra or on the life of one of the close
devotees of Shri Sai Baba.
Prasad is distributed to all the bhaktas
who are present. Annually bhaktas gather on
occasion of Ram Navmi, Guru Purnima and Dassera on which
Aarti's are performed. Either Bhajans or Kirtans follows this.
The function ends with distribution of Maha Prasad.
On 2 November 1909 Late Shri Kaka Saheb
Dixit had his first darshan of Shri Sai Baba in Shirdi, and in
memory of that every year, 2nd November is celebrated as Guru
Samparpan Diwas by us in a big way.
We distribute free copies Shri Sai
Saccharitra pothies in English, Marathi, Gujarati and Hindi
languages published by Shirdi Sansthan of Shri Sai Baba,
We also publish 'SAI ANANTA' a Marathi
quarterly magazine.
We plan to setup a meditation center along
with a library and a Prayer room at our existing premises.
SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
Every year, around Ram Navmi day, more than 40000
Sai Bhaktas undertake 8 to 9 days pad-yatra from Mumbai to
Shirdi. They begin the yatra on Gudi Padwa day and reach
Shirdi on Ram Navmi. Two years ago, some of the Pad Yatris,
who have been participating in the Yatra for number of years,
approached us with a request to make some arrangement for
drinking water at two critical spots. The first spot is about
a kilometer before the crossing for Kasara station.
From Karadi there is steep and long
climbing stretch till this point and in this entire stretch
drinking water is not available. Second spot is the place
where some of the palkhis turn towards Kasara village and camp
there for afternoon halt for pooja and lunch.
Honoring this request, we started
providing not only water but also some
light snacks and fresh Limbu Sharbat at these spots. Near the
Kasara Village we also station two water tankers so that the
Yatris can take bath there. We also organize
free medical check-up camp from time time for Sai devotees.
We have also started taking Sai Devotees
to excursions to the places, which are connected to Sai Baba
or his close Devotees and whose name are mentioned in Shri Sai
Sacchritra.
We have good collection of religious books
including on Sufism and we also subscribe to many periodicals
on Shri Shirdi Sai Baba. All these books and periodicals are
available for the interested Devotees.
CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES
In a small way we have started some
charitable activities like providing
financial helps for education and medical assistance to poor
people.
GURU SAMARPAN DIWAS
There is an interesting story behind starting of
celebrating 2nd November as Guru Samarpan Diwas. Once in the
first half of the year 2003, I had an honor of accompanying
Shri Satpathiji (Guruji) to Shirdi. After attending the
evening Aarti, as we were passing near Dixitwada (presently
the Museum). Guruji suddenly stopped there for a moment and
asked me to give him details regarding following two
events/subject.
The date on which Kaka Saheb had his first
Darshan of Shri Sai Baba in Shirdi and where in Sai
Saccharitra is it mentioned that Sai Baba once told Kaka Saheb
that in his next incarnation Baba would appear as a child of 8
years. I very promptly
agreed to provide these details to him at my earliest, but
later on I realized that it was going to be a big research
project for me and I may have to churn a number of books to
get the required information.
I have no hesitation in admitting that my
knowledge regarding Shri Sai Saccharitra was very shallow
despite having an old copy of the same in our Devghar. We were
also having a book 'Sainche Sat Chhritra" Written by Col.
Nimbalkar in our house, which was presented to me by
him in the year 1996. It appears that Col, Nimbalkar
fully knew my disinterest in reading books and therefore on a
small paper he noted down the page numbers on which Kaka
Saheb's name was mentioned.
He must have wanted me to at least read
those pages. These were the only two bools on Si Baba in our
house to start my research project. Reaching Mumbai from
Shirdi I became extremely busy with my routing office work and
totally forgot about the project. I am really very lucky
person to always get sleep as soon as I lay down in my
bed.
But after about two weeks latter from my
Shirdi visit, once I was unable to get any sleep till 2O'clock
in the night. And suddenly I remembered about my promise to
Shri Guruji. I got up from my bed, entered our Devghar and
decided to make a beginning to Herculean task of my research
work. Our Devghar is always full of positive vibrations mainly
due to presence of a unique and live portrait of Shri Sai Baba
painted by Late Shyamrao Jaykar in the year 1913; I bowed
before Sai Baba and sought his blessings. The first book that
I picked up on that night was the same one, which was
presented to me by Col. Nimbalkar. I sat in front of Baba's
portrait and once again bowed before him to get his
blessings.
It was a great surprise that I opened the
book from the last page I saw a chronological tabulation of
events that took place in Shirdi. It only took me a minute or
so to get the date on which Kaka Saheb Had his First
darshan
of Shri Sai Baba. That day was 2nd
November 1909. I never expected that the first part of my
research would get over so easily and quickly. I thanked Baba
for that, went to bed and got very sound sleep that night.
A few days passed there after and again on
one night the thing of not getting the sleep up to 2 o'clock
repeated. I thought it to be the alarm for starting the second
part of my research project.
All rituals performed in earlier occasion
were repeated. However this time I had to use some logic to
get the answer. I thought that the mention of next incarnation
would be mostly in tone of those Adhyays, which are related to
his Baba's nirvan. And therefore I picked up Hemadpant's Sai
Sacchritra and started glancing from Adhyay 42.
It took me about 5 minutes to locate the
required information in Adhayay 43 ovi 139. Here it is
mentioned that Baba had once told that in his next incarnation
he would appear as a child of 8-year age. For a moment I was
happy that I got the answer but next moment became unhappy, as
the name of Kaka Saheb was nowhere mentioned here.
Immediately I decided to see the
interpretation (tika) of this Ovi in Col. Nimbalkar's book and
he has given reference of page 2 of Preface (upodhvadhat) of
original Sai Saccharitra written by Hemadpant.
Here it is mentioned by Kaka Saheb that
once Baba told him that in his next incarnation he would be
born as an 8-year child. I never expected that the research
would get over so quickly and so easily. It is for the first
time I realized the meaning of Shraddha and Saburi.
However I could not sleep in anxiety to
convey the results of my research to shri
Guruji .In the same morning I contacted Shri Guruji on
telephone at about 8 o'clock. Shri Guruji responded with the
following words; 'So Bhau, you have now started reading books
on Shri Sai Baba. Please keep it up. I want you to take lead
in getting this day of 2nd November celebrated every year at
Vile Parle as GURU SAMARPAN DIWAS.
It is quite obvious that he knew both the
answers and the basic objective were to drive me towards Saism
by reading the available literature. I accepted his command of
celebrating 'GURU SAMARPAN DIWAS' conditionally and the
condition was that he would be present and preside the
function every year.
BHIVPURI
Bhivpuri village has the rare honor of having the first
ever temple of Shirdi Sai Baba. Bhivpuri Road is a central
railway station near the Karjat (kalyan Pune track).
Late Shri Keshavrao
Pradhan was working in a commercial firm of Bombay. The Firm
had a good business in the Nasik, Kopergaon and Ahemadnagar
area. Shri Pradhan used to frequently tour these areas for
collecting outstanding amounts. One of the friends of Shri
Pradhan was a close devotee of Sainath Maharaj and he used to
make frequent trips to Shirdi for Baba's darshan. Many time he
used to request Shri Pradhan to come with him to Dwarkamai in
Shirdi for Sai darshan. Since Shri Pradhan was agnostic, he
uses to always ignore his invitation.
Once both of them were in Shirdi and Shri
Keshavrao's friend went for Sai Baba's darshan whereas
Keshavrao remained in his room. Baba asked his friend to call
Keshavrao. Shri Keshavrao agreed to accept the invitation on
one condition that he would not bow before Baba (for
nanaskar).
The very first site of Baba made
tremendous impact on him and he forgot everything and went on
steering Baba. Baba asked him to give him all the money, which
he was carrying as Dakshina to him. He had Rs. 2000, which he
had collected from his firm's clients. He, without any
hesitation, gave the entire amount to Baba.
He had no money to purchase his return
ticket to Bombay. But some stranger readily agreed to help
him. Shri Keshavrao's assured him that he would return back
the money to him by Money Order and noted down the stranger's
address. After coming back to Bhivpuri he had no courage to
attend his office as he had no money to deposit the collected
amount in his office and therefore posted a sick leave
application to his office.
After some days the office deputed one of
his close friends to visit Keshavrao's house and enquire about
his health. The friend found that Keshavrao was in normal
health and asked him the reason of not attending the office.
Keshavrao gave him all the facts about not attending the
office.
At that time, to Keshavrao's surprise, his
friend told him that the amount of Rs. 2000 had been deposited
long back by someone. This strengthened Shri Keshavrao's faith
in Baba and he became an ardent devotee of Shri Sai Baba.
The Money Order to the stranger's addresses was
also returned back with a remark that there is no such person
on the address given.
Shri Keshavrao had a strong desire to
invite Baba to his Bhivpuri house and once in Shirdi he was,
like a small child, insisting Baba to come to his house Baba
used to live in Shirdi only and never used to go beyond
Nimgoan and Rahata. In order to pacify him
Baba gave him his own statue of Plaster of Paris. Baba told
Keshavrao" Go back to your home, construct a temple near your
house and install this statue there. I will always remain near
you. and please do not come back to
Shirdi."
Keshavrao came back to his village but he
was not satisfied, as he wanted Baba's physical presence there
and not his statue. He made another trip to Shirdi despite
Baba's instructions of not to visit Shirdi. On seeing
Keshavrao Baba told him to go back but also promised him that
he would visit him at mid night of a particular day. Baba kept
his promise and appeared near the house of Shri Pradhan on
that midnight and fulfilled the desire of Shri Keshavrao.
It was in 1916 that the temple was
constructed in Bhivpuri and the statue given by Baba was duly
installed there. The Place where Baba appeared in the midnight
now is occupied by a Tulsi Brindavan to keep the sanctity of
the place.
DHUPKHEDA
Dhupkheda is a small village where Shri Sai Baba had spent
almost 6 to 8 years of his life. It is located a small
distance in the southwest direction from Aurangabad (Paithan
Tehsil); Chand Patil was the village head of Dhupkheda.
He had the rare honor of witnessing first
recorded miracle of Sai Baba. Once while going to Aurangabad,
Chand Patil lost his mare. His search for the mare continued
over a period of 6 to 8 weeks without any success. He then
decided to return to his village. He was carrying the saddle
on his shoulders.
After he covered a distance of 12 to 14
miles from Aurangabad, he saw a young fakir sitting below a
mango tree Fakir was wearing a cap, a kafni and dhoti. He had
a satka and chimta with him and was preparing
chillum (earthen pipe). Fakir called him and asked him to take
little rest. Fakir also asked him reason for carrying the
saddle. When he told fakir about his lost mare, he directed
him to go to near by nallah and search there.
When Chand Patil began his search near the
nallah he was surprised to see his mare grazing there. He
returned to the Fakir with his mare and thanked him profusely.
The Fakir then asked Patil to accompany him for smoking the
chillum, which he had already filled with tobacco. Two more
things (fire to start the process of burning and water for
wetting the filtering cloth) were required for the chillum
smoking and neither was available.
To Chand Patil's surprise the fakir
inserted his chimta in the ground and pulled it out a lit
coal. He then placed it on top of the filled chillum and
simultaneously his satka on the ground and water gushed out.
Chand Patil immediately realized that fakir was not any
ordinary person but a man with extra ordinary powers.
He invited fakir to stay with him in his
village Dhupkheda. Thus The Fakir who was none other than Baba
spent some of the years of his life in Dhupkheda. Today in
Dhupkheda one can see Chand Patil's Mazaar, the neem tree
under which Baba used to seat. It has also has a Sai Mandir
and a dilapidated structure belonging to Chand Patil's
family.
SHRI R. B. PURANDARE
Late Shri R.B Purandare from Bandra was a petty
clerk with an income of Rs. 30 per month with which he had to
support a family of five members including his mother, wife,
brother and child.
What he heard about Sai Baba from Das Ganu
and others moved him very deeply and decided to visit Shirdi.
On the day of departure his child was unwell and every body
including his mother advised him not to undertake take risk of
taking a little child with fever to a very great distance –
Bombay to Shirdi. But Purandare had full faith and love
towards Baba.
Baba justified his faith and his love by
completely curing the child immediately after reaching Shirdi
and thus compounding Purandhare's faith in Baba's omniscience
and omnipotence.
Baba not only forced Purandhare to acquire
a piece of land and get his own house constructed but assured
him to guard it as it was located in an isolated area, prone
to theft and robbery. Purandhare initially thought this type
of investment to be beyond his means. This is a strange
instance of Baba's love forcing a man to get a bungalow when
he could hardly afford it.
Once, Purandhare's mother requested Baba
to look after her son. To which Baba's replied, "I have known
him for generations. I have guarded him from his infancy in
front and behind. I will not eat even a bit of food without
him." Benefits conferred on Purandhare were innumerable, and
they varied in their character. All of them were founded upon
Baba's wonderful, unseen guardianship and exercise of
superhuman powers of guarding his dear ward or devotee from
all troubles |