Professor of Geology & Chemistry in College of Engineering, Deccan Gymkhana, age 53, Brahmin, Poona.
10th, 20th, 25th, 28th May 1936.
All this was not uttered by Sai Baba, at one breath to me or within my hearing. But the various hints I got from his example and dealings with many and his occasional words when put together amount to this. And commonsense points in the same direction. In my opinion, mere talk of Viveka and Vairagya without power of knowing what there is to experience or enjoy and what the things are that one is to renounce is childish and leads to self-delusion and deluding others. It is bookish wisdom and not real, not one that can stand the strain of actual life. People talking merely of these, without power to be really filled with them prove hypocrites. When Baba said, 'I am in each dog, pig and cat', he was feeling himself to be inside the cats etc., in question and could state what they felt and what treatment they got. But others say it because it is found in the Gita, etc., and they believe it to be true. But in point of feeling and realisation, they say what they do not feel. This leads to hypocrisy.
Baba's real nature and greatness are seen from an incident known to me. I realised that Baba was God from the devotees' point of view, and yet, a man seen in the flesh and with limitations to which an individual embodied soul is subject. The two co-exist and are both true - each in its way. But my friends (i.e., some of the devotees) at Shirdi did not agree with me or relish this view of mine. They once talked of 6 crores of islanders in Dwaraka at Shree Krishna's time and I then disputed that estimate of the population, as now we are about 33 crores in all in India and India is so overpopulated that we have to tread on each other's heels. Then they asked me if I would agree to abide by Baba's decision on the matter. I agreed. We all went to Baba.
Madhava Rao and other devotees asked Baba: Baba, are the Puranas true?
Sai Baba: Yes, True.
Devotees: What about Rama and Krishna?
Sai Baba: They were great souls. Gods they were. Avatars.
Devotees: This Narke will not accept all that. He says you are not God.
Sai Baba: What he says is true. But I am your father and you should not speak like that. You have to get your benefit and everything from me.
Sai Baba thus admitted his limitation. He was God no doubt, in the experience of the devotee. But because the devotee felt that, Sai Baba did not assert himself to be, in fact, nothing but God; he did not draw logical corollaries from it, nor use that position to help himself to the wealth etc., of the devotees. Sai Baba did not use the fact of his devotees viewing him as God to declare for Antinomianism, i.e., setting himself up as above law. On the other hand, Sai Baba never disobeyed either the moral law or the law as it prevails in the country. He was never indecent in dress or behaviour and was very reserved with women.