Professor of Geology & Chemistry in College of Engineering, Deccan Gymkhana, age 53, Brahmin, Poona.
10th, 20th, 25th, 28th May 1936.
Baba's Guru
Of his guru, hardly anything is known. I have heard him say i.e., 'my Guru is a Brahmin.' Baba held real Brahmins in high esteem. He has said "Brahmins earn much 'Pica', (i.e., Punya, Apurva or merit) by their ways". A disciple is very different from a devotee. The Guru is connected by a close and intimate tie with and has every responsibility for the disciple. He has no such close tie with a devotee and is not bound to bear all his sins and sorrows. Sai Baba had no disciple. The disciple must serve his master to carry out all his wishes strictly and to the letter. As Sai said, "I would tremble to come into the presence of my Guru". There was no one prepared to serve him in that way at Shirdi. It seems he asked, "Who dares to call himself my disciple? Who can serve me adequately and satisfactorily?" Hut, of devotees, Sai Baba had a large number. These he looked after, encouraged and protected and gave by example and occasional gestures, directions etc., some instruction. Sai Baba's method of teaching or rather improving the devotee who came to him was not oral instruction. His moral tales and a few directions, occasionally given were, no doubt, leaching through the ear. But these were exceptional and their effect was very little compared with his main traditional method. According to Sai Baba's traditions, the disciple or devotee that comes to the feet of the Guru in complete self-surrender has to be no doubt pure, chaste and virtuous. But he need not necessarily to go on with any active practice of Japa or meditation. On the other hand, Japa, meditation or any other intellectual process which carries with it the consciousness and assertion, "I am doing this", is a handicap. All sense of the devotees' or disciples' Ahankara, Ego or little self has to be wiped out, swept out of the memory and mind - as it is an obstruction to the Guru's task. The Guru does not teach. He radiates influence. That influence is poured in and absorbed with full benefit by the soul which has completely surrendered itself, blotting out the self, but is obstructed by the exercise of intelligence by reliance on self-exertion and by every species of self-consciousness and self-assertion.
So the duty of a devotee or an aspirant is only (1) to keep himself fit for his Guru's grace i.e., chaste, pure, simple and virtuous, and (2) to look trustfully and sincerely and to raise him to various experiences, higher and higher in range, till at last he is taken to the distant goal whatever that might be. "One step enough for me" is the proper attitude now. He need not take trouble to decide complicated, metaphysical and philosophical problems about ultimate destiny. He is yet ill prepared to solve them. The Guru will lift him, endow him with higher powers, vaster knowledge and increasing realisation of truth. And the end is safe in the Guru's hands.