Our Beloved Sadguru Sainath, please accept our humble prayers on this Holy day of Guruvaar. Baba, every day dawns with your rays of blessing on us and we wish to merge with your Light Supreme. Always we read your words and follow your ways. We consider our present troubles and difficulties are a way to clear our past karma and guide us not adds up any karma here. Whatever comes on our way, we submit everything at your Lotus Feet and offer us the best which we are capable for. Hereafter we consult you before talking any word anybody, before seeing anything, before acting towards anything, so all our actions are yours, all the results are yours and we are mere a tool in your hand. Baba, on this holy day we start our prayers by reading your divine words in Shri Sai Samartha Satcharita.
This was what was said about the departure from Shirdi. This was the same position with me. "None can come here unless I bring him", was what Baba said.
"Unless I so desire who can cross his threshold? Who will get darshan by his own volition or come to Shirdi? "
We can come for darshan only when mercy arises in the heart of Sai Samartha, the embodiment of mercy, in whose hands rest our lives.
If Sai was not inclined, about the coming and the going, he did not grant permission nor gave 'udi'.
If one went to ask for permission, after bowing down, and was given blessings with the udi, it signified permission to leave.
Now I shall narrate to the listeners a novel experience about the udi. Then about the power of devotion of Nevaskar because of the grace of Sai, the Eminent One.
A gentleman from Bandra, Prabhu Kayasth by caste, suffered from insomnia in spite of best of efforts.
The moment he was about to get sleep, within no time his departed father came in his dreams and awakened him, every time.
Making a reference to whatever good or bad incidents that might have happened in earlier life, and to the secret evil and far-fetched thoughts, he used abusive language and bombarded him with that.
Night after night, the same thing happened. Night after night, he lost his sleep. He was depressed. He could not avoid the suffering that was pursuing him.
The gentleman was fed up. He could think of no remedy. He consulted a Sai devotee, if there was any relief.
"We do not know any other remedy. Sai Maharaj is the Eminent One. If you have the same faith, the udi will show its power, " he said.
He implicitly followed the instructions that he was given and experienced the power of the udi accordingly. He no longer had bad dreams.
That friend was a devotee of Sai Samartha due to the merits of his past deeds. After narrating to him the strange powers of udi, he gave him a little of it.
He told him: "When you go to sleep, apply a little on the forehead and put a small packet under pillow. Think of Sree Sai.
Have faith. Then experience this udi's power. It will immediately put an end to your trouble. This is the merit of Udi ".
After he did as he was instructed, he got deep sleep that night. There was not a trace of that bad dream. The gentleman was very delighted.
Then how could that joy of his be described! He kept the packet of udi under his pillow always and remembered Sai daily!
Later he bought a picture of Baba and put it on the wall at the head of his bed, and garlanded it every Thursday. He respectfully worshipped it.
He began to take darshan of the picture; offered garlands on Thursdays, remembered Sai daily. His troubles ceased altogether.
He continued to have faith and carried out his practices strictly. He had abiding welfare. He totally forgot his earlier troubles of insomnia and bad dreams.
This is one example of the effectiveness of udi.
I bow down to Sree Ganesh
I bow down to Sree Saraswati
I bow down to the Guru
I bow down to the Family Deity
I bow down to Sree Sita-Ramachandra
I bow down to Sree Sadguru Sainath.
-(from Shri Sai Samartha Satchrita, Chapter 35, Ovi 153 - 174)
