Name fosters, not the Food

Sai Baba descended in the city of Shirdi in India. We shall see one of his miracles which he performed. It is not worth being awed upon, but we need to understand the reason why he did miracles. He tried to teach us to walk on the path leading to Lord. But, nowadays, we prefer building gold statues and worshipping them. We try to justify the miracles with our meager brains. Siddhis can make anything possible. But, we should not ponder over the powers but rather walk towards the transcendental state. 

Let’s begin.

Sai Baba is sitting under a tree in Shirdi. He is not famous or has no significant followers. A Guru asks his disciple to seek further guidance on the path of spirituality from Sai Baba, who lives in Shirdi. The man travels from South India to Maharashtra. He moves about in Shirdi to search him. 

Then, he sees a person in ragged clothes, eating kaanda-bhakri (onion and chapati). The man thinks, “he can’t be the Guru. No Guru eats tubers”. (Onion and other tubers are considered an aphrodisiac.) He walks ahead. Sai Baba calls him by his name, as he is his acquaintance. The man turns back and gives him a surprised look, thinking, “how does he know my name?” Sai Baba says, “Your Guru has sent you to me. Why are you running away?” The man stands perplexed, thinking, “how can he know everything about me?” 

The man says, “How can you be the Guru, eating tubers?” Sai Baba smiles and says, “If you have some issues with these onions, I can remove them right now.” Sai Baba pulls out his intestines from his mouth, washes them with water, and hangs them on the branches of a tree. The man feels his heart is in his mouth; he trembles in fear. Sai Baba takes the intestines, replaces them in his body, and says, “If you can digest it, you can have it.” 

Sai Baba didn’t indicate the usual process of digestion. It doesn’t mean that we should consume everything, thinking that we can digest it and even expel the waste on the daily basis. If we can remember the presence of the Lord and receive it as the prasad, we can never face any payable consequences. But if we do not fix our mind on the soul, we cannot assimilate the best diet. 

Let’s see another fragment of Adi Shankaracharya’s life. He is the one whom we adore; the one who build several maths to channelize the spiritual energy. 

When he descended to the gross plane of consciousness, he was very hungry. The country faced famine. Then, he found a group of people cooking something. He asked them if they had anything. He extended his palms and drank the soup. It was nothing other than the soul of the boiled bones of a dead dog. 

He drank the soup of bones of a dog and remained the most pious one. And, we try to judge everything, even the dogs. Several people have seen Lord in dogs, as they had the sense of love for eternity. If we do not have that bhava, we cannot see Lord seeing Lord himself.