Sai Baba, The Fakir of Allah

Sai Baba

Allah is the Protector of the poor. There is nothing besides Him.
The name of Allah is eternal: Allah is All-in-all!

These words were called out daily by a bearded man wearing a ragged robe in the small village of Shirdi. He would smoke a chillum (clay pipe) in a consecrated mosque while people would stream by to pay their respects to him. As his blessings to each, he would say, "Give me whatever money you have in your pockets." Often he would not even allow them to keep enough to pay their return fare home. Yet by the end of the day, he had given it all away to the poor and would wander the streets to beg for his own food. He would beg only for bhakri (unleavened millet bread) and lived on that alone.

Once a naked child stood before this fakir, who asked the mother, "Daughter, is it a boy or a girl?" Such was his innocence; he would often appear quite ignorant of such things.

This fakir's behavior was not normal, to say the least. However, people who had faith in him gave him whatever he asked, and they considered themselves blessed to do so. He would say, "I only ask from those whom the Fakir points out. In exchange, I have to give them ten times what they give me." The Fakir he spoke of was none other than Almighty God.

Was this ascetic a Hindu or a Muslim? People of every religion and caste in India would seek him out. This holy man belonged to no caste or religion or "ism." He himself was the true fakir, the Emperor of Emperors. Why would people journey hundreds of miles to see him? Because his eyes shone brilliantly with a magnetism that drew them towards him. The light in his eyes attracted thousands to his feet.

Hidden in this extraordinary fakir was the Qutub-e-Irshad of the age — the head of the spiritual hierarchy and the leading Perfect Master of his time. He who held the key to all worlds and universes in his very hands appeared as a ragged beggar in a nondescript village in India. In his hands the conflicting forces of the world's turmoil and the throes of the universes were kept balanced! It may be difficult for a worldly-minded materialist to believe this, but it is a spiritual fact.