M.V. Saharabuddhe

I learnt of Sai Baba at Rahata in 1931 when I went there taking up the contract (viz.) Nimgaon-Shirdi irrigation and drainage scheme. I came to Shirdi and attended arati. I was greatly impressed. I began to get help from Baba sometimes miraculously. Here are some instances: in 1932, I was digging up the earth and laying drainage pipes, with large number of workmen. One noon I slept on the bund of the channel under a tree. I felt that I was shaken and roused from sleep. Baba then in my sleep said “Get up. A man is being buried, owing to the slipping of the earth. Go and remove him at once”. I woke up, called coolies and cycled up to the place of the accident which was two miles off. I found that the two sides of the trench had come down and buried 20 men. We dug up the earth. All of the buried men escaped with very little hurt. One man was seriously hurt. He was bleeding in the nose and mouth and his eyes bulged out. He wanted to be taken to his home in a cart. That was done. He died there. But for Baba’s rousing me, he would have died in the works and more would have hurt and I would have had great trouble to meet the inquiry. In this case of accident, and inquiry was held by the Collector two months after the event, and I was not taken to task. This is very remarkable help from Baba.

The next help from Baba was in 1933. I was in Poona. Baba appeared in my dream and said that the Shirdi Samsthan Committee wanted me at Shirdi. Out of curiosity, I came to Shirdi, Mr.S.D.Navalkar of that committee (who knew I was the Nimgaon contractor) was inquiring where I was. I met him and he asked me to take up the contract for building the Sabha Mantap. I then put up the iron work now standing here.

In 1936, in my mother’s illness, Baba gave help. She had to undergo a liver operation. Poona is the best place but as there was plague there in 1936, we decided to have the operation at Wai (Satara Dt.), where we were living. Baba came to me in my dream and told me not to have the operation done at Wai but to have it done at Poona. We, therefore, had it done by Dr.Gharpure at the Sassoon Hospital at Poona. The operation was a success and my mother is safe and healthy even now. I am an orthodox Brahmin and therefore averse to things being touched by Moslems and untouchables. Baba told me in a dream not to care for this untouchability so much.

I have recently been elected member of the Sai Samsthan Committee. Baba has shown me in a recent vision that he is in all and is all gods. When I was at Paltan, I had a vision one night of a Satya Narayana image and pandal being put up and worshipped in the Shirdi Samadhi Mantap or front hall. The offerings made to the image, I found, were passing straight on into the tomb to the body of Sai Baba, whom I saw to be seated within the tomb. The tomb had become transparent. To verify the truth of this at least partially, I wrote at once to Shirdi to see if Satya Narayana Pooja was conducted at the time and place mentioned above. I got an answer in the affirmative. Baba has thus shown me that he is Satya Narayana and that pooja to Satyanarayana is pooja to Sai Baba.