Vinayak Daji Bhave

I was a clerk in 1932 in the B.B.C.I.Rly.Co. on Rs.90 per month. I was anxious to find a guru and read Guru Gita from 13-4-32 for one month. I had not found any guru or obtained a vision of Datta in that period as I had hoped to find. Then, one Thursday sacred to the guru I went to a Datta temple. There is an image of Datta in that temple. But, when I went there in the place of that image, a samãdhi neatly sculptured was what I saw. Next morning, I went to a friend’s house and opened Anna Dabholkar’s book on Sai Baba and my eye lighted on the picture of Sai samãdhi found in that book - a picture I had not seen before. That was an exact picture of the tomb I saw at the Datta temple. So, I inferred that Sai baba was to be my guru. For a time, I took his udhi and read some books about him. But I soon got dissatisfied. A tomb is not a guru. I wanted a living guru to go to and to commune with. So again recognising that the devoted study or parayana of Guru Gita was the surest method of obtaining a guru, I began my parayana once again and went on with it for a week. Then I saw Narayan Maharaj of Khedgaon in my dream. Inferring that he was to be my guru, I went to Khedgaon. There, at night, I had a dream in which Narayan Maharaj appeared and told me “I and Sai Baba are not different from each other. Why do you not go there?” I replied that there was none to direct me. I woke. Later, I went to Shirdi and took Sai Baba as my guru. My palm was read by one sãdhu and he said ‘Sai Baba is your guru’. In 1933, my son had plague and he recovered by the use of Baba’s udhi alone.

My sister had given away a silver cup and Rs.100 to one Dutta Maharaj, who promised that she would have Ram darshan. She did not get any Ramasakshatkar and she feared that the Maharaj would not return the silver cup. I told her that if she vowed to make a gift of it to Sai Baba’s Sansthan, in case the Maharaj returned it, Sai would make the Maharaj return it. She vowed so; the cup and Rs.100 were returned and her vow was fulfilled by presenting it to the Sansthan. Her name is Durgabai Kakatkar. I knew of Sai Baba even in 1916. My mother Annapoornabai Daji Bhave went to Shirdi. There when she tried to enter the mosque, Sai Baba prevented her saying it would pollute the mosque. When she returned to yeola, she received a card from Yootmal that her daughter-in-law (i.e., my brother’s wife) had died on a particular date which was the day before my mother’s visit to the Shirdi mosque. She had to observe ten day’s pollution from that day and was under 10 days pollution when she was at Shirdi. She did not know it then. But Baba knew it evidently.

At my mother’s death, we offered the rice ball “pinda” but no crows would touch it. My sister then vowed that she would send 50 rupees to Sai Baba’s tomb if crows should come and take the pinda. Then the crows came and ate the pinda.