Professor of Geology & Chemistry in College of Engineering, Deccan Gymkhana, age 53, Brahmin, Poona.
10th, 20th, 25th, 28th May 1936.
Upadesa, Mantra, Tantra, Etc.
Sai Baba never gave me any mantra, tantra or Upadesa - and so far as I know, he gave these to none. Madhavarao Deshpande has told me of the following incident.
Radhabai Deshmukhin was at Shirdi waiting for a time on Baba and she wanted Upadesa. Finding that he gave her none, she started Satyagraha. She stopped taking food and was determined to be without food until Sai Baba should give her Upadesa. On the fourth day of the fast, Madhavarao taking pity on her condition went and told Sai Baba of it arid requested him to pronounce the name of some God, so that she might take it as her mantropadesa for Japa. Baba then sent for her and told her that giving Upadesa was not in his line, that he following his Guru had different traditions, that his Guru was so powerful that he trembled to go and stand before him, and that the help given by the Guru was invisible and secret and not by oral instruction.
"I do not instruct through the ear. Our traditions are different” was what he said.
Sai Baba never lectured, nor discoursed systematically as others do. He gave hints - very pregnant hints. A word or a sentence or two at a time was all he cared to utter. But from them an observant devotee could build up his own system, lecture or philosophy. It is difficult therefore to be dogmatic if one is asked what are Sai Baba's aims, methods etc. But stray hints were forthcoming.
Aim In Life or Purushartha
Did Sai Baba ask people to aim at Moksha? Did he advocate Viveka and Vairagya? Never have I heard that from his lips.
Reaching God is the aim. That was the way he put it.
i.e., Reaching God, crossing or traversing all the Oceans and Worlds
Getting beyond chains (or limits).
He never (So far as I know) spoke of (Maya) (or the theory that all existence in the sublunary sphere is mere illusion) to my knowledge. He took the commonsense view that this world and the worlds beyond are real, and that we have to make the best of them, here and hereafter.