Sai Enables Your Fruit of Former Faith to the Present Faith
"The omniscient Baba knowing that he was a disciple of another Guru, assured him fearlessness and confirmed his faith in his own Guru." – Shri Sai Satcharitra Ch 26
A more recent instance occurring at Kumbakonam may be repeated. A staunch Vaishnavite Brahmin was worshipping God as Tirupati Venkatesa and refused to pay any regard to any other form. He was ailing from very acute and painful Sciatica and Rheumatism. His son-in-law gave him Baba's udhi and asked him to repeat Sai Baba's name with faith. At first, he resisted this attempt to subvert his faith in Venkatesa, as he termed it. But necessity is the mother of faith.
One night, when the pain in his body could not be endured any further, he suddenly took Baba's udhi and applied it to his legs thrice, calling on Sai Baba to remove his pain. The effect was instantaneous. The pain was off. Sleep that he could never obtain instantly supervened. He woke up in the morning freed from sciatica and was able to walk. He first thought that Venkatesa had led him into faith in Baba. He finally discovered that Baba was Venkatesa. Baba's Guru being Venkatesa, or one that had merged his self in Venkatesa. In fact, there is only one God, however necessary it may be to start one's faith in God by localizing God and attaching a particular form and name to Him.
Sai enables men ultimately to see that the fruit of former faith is the present faith, that Sai is no other than the Old Ishta Devata and guru and that the unifying and harmonizing influence molding their lives and selves points and leads to that ultimate unity-Sai-Chit-Ananda. Such experience has come to several. Reader, if it has not come to you yet, you also may get it one day. It is your own God who draws you through the Sai form.
(Source: Saipadananda April 1999)
