Shraddha, Seva, Saburi .. or the lack of it ..

"Shree Satchit-ananda Sat-guru Sainath Maharaj ki jay" resonated through the air as I added myself to the long human queue which kept growing like Hanuman's tail, with each one there with a sole purpose in mind, getting Baba's blessings. Shirdi over the past century has attracted more and more believers of divinity towards it making it one of the most visited pilgrimage places in India. Sai Baba, the saint or an incarnation of the Lord, whatever you may want to call him, lived a life that championed 3 principles - Shraddha (Faith), Seva (Service), Saburi (Patience). These were the basic ideals that had me calling to Baba's Darbar.

As I entered the temple with a devout mind and a countenance filled with serenity, I was greeted with a television showing live pictures of the devotees worshiping Baba and the priests assisting them. These priests lacked even an iota of faith on their faces. It wasn't worship for them, just "work"ship. "Shraddha" for once seemed to have given up on "Maya".

Seva or Service is what Baba epitomized in his divine existence. He spent his life by being a servant of humanity. Feeding poor people, cleaning streets was his way of life. But none of his devotees seemed to have taken a heed to this. The place outside the Temple premises is full of litter and waste thrown by the same devotees. It just prompts me to modify an age old adage to "Cleanliness is just inside Godliness".

Saburi or Patience is what made some people Baba's greatest devotees. An ideal that seems to be have being long forgotten. The queue heading towards Baba seemed to follow no rules. The strength at which you could push determined how fast you reached Baba.

Whatever I wrote above may sound cliched and habituated to many people. But it is something that has created a disinclination in me to visit these "commercialised" Temples and to better realize divinity in the comforts and silence of my room reinstating my belief in the Ishopanishad which says,

Ishavasyam idam sarvam yat kinca jagatyam jagat

(within this entire universe, all the animate and inanimate are pervaded by the Lord, are the statement of the Lord)

The irony of the situation is that people worship and live by Baba's "idols" rather than His "ideals". A problem which is common to many a great personalities of the past. Gautam Buddha asked his followers not to worship anyone and his followers started worshiping him. Swami Vivekananda asked his disciples not to accept any statement as true until you verify it for yourself and his followers accept him as the final authority on everything. If only people could understand simple things these great people lived and died for, most of the problems of the world would be solved. We all would have being more "humans" than just "beings". What I came to Shirdi was for was Shraddha (Fatih), Seva (Service), Saburi (Patience) and what I saw was just a lack of these.

---

Chetan Bhadricha