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Shirdi Sai - Parthi Sai Title Photo
  Volume 3 - Issue 3
MAR 2005
 

 
 


THE DIVINE STORY OF

SHIRDI SAI PARTHI SAI - Part III
(Continued from the previous issue)

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The husband leaves home, constantly chanting the Name of the Lord, without looking back even once. He is determined to go to the forest, meditate, have the Lord’s Darshan, and merge in Him. The children are bewildered and start crying. Devagiri Amma is confused and torn between two minds. On the one hand she wants to follow her husband. On the other hand she is drawn towards her children. She decides that she will leave her children to the care of someone else and go behind her husband, despite the advanced stage of her pregnancy. She goes to the house of a neighbour and knocks on her door.

SCENE 5



 

D.AMMA: Radhabai, Radhabai, … [to children] you wait here.


RADHABAI: Devagiri Amma! What happened? Have you quarrelled with your husband? Are you going to your mother’s place?

D.AMMA: No. My husband is disappointed that he did not get the Darshan of Parvathi and Parameshwara. So he is going in search of God! My duty is to be by my husband’s side and serve him. I am therefore going with him.

RADHABAI: Devagiri Amma, think carefully. It is not good for you to go in your present state. At least for the sake of these young children here, please change your decision.

D.AMMA: God Himself has decided that I should go in this manner. No one can change His decision! Lady, help me please, and take my two children to my mother’s house.

RADHABAI: Alright, I shall do so.

D.AMMA: Please! Please do me this great favour!

The children cry as Devagiri Amma leaves them and goes behind her husband. He keeps on chanting Om Namah Sivayah! He does not look back even once, though Devagiri Amma repeatedly calls out to him. He enters a forest and his wife continues to trail him; but she finds it more and more difficult. Meanwhile she develops labour pains. At this juncture a fierce storm breaks out. The lady takes shelter under a tree. There a baby boy is born. The storm abates. Devagiri Amma carefully wraps up the baby, places it in a safe dry spot and leaves, going in search of her husband.

 





 

 

 

ACT II
SCENE 1



 

A horse drawn cart is going through the forest and approaches the spot where Devagiri Amma has abandoned her new-born baby. In the cart are travelling a man and a lady, Mr. And Mrs Patel. They hear the baby crying.


MRS PATEL: Please, let us stop for a moment. I hear a baby crying.

 

PATEL: [to the driver] Ismail, stop the cart. …….[to his wife] Yes, I also hear the crying. Come, let us go and see.

 

MRS PATEL: Somewhere here……….I heard the crying sound coming from somewhere here.
 


 
 

 

PATEL: Yes, me too.

MRS PATEL: Over there! The sound seems to be coming from there!

PATEL: Yes indeed!

RS PATEL: Look! The baby is here! It is a new-born!! ……Strange! There is no one around.


PATEL: Yes, no one seems to be around. Is it a boy or a girl?

MRS PATEL: What does it matter? Either way, it is a mother’s child!

PATEL: It is a boy!

MRS PATEL:
This is a new-born baby. It must have been born just a short while ago. How did the mother have the heart to leave the baby like this and go?

PATEL: This baby is God’s gift to us, since we have no children of our own.

MRS. PATEL: If we had not come, this baby would have been in great danger! …… Shall we take this baby and bring it up?

PATEL: Yes. Our bad days are over; from today, this baby is our child.

 

Devagiri Amma is overwhelmed by the vision of the Lord and His


The Patels are overjoyed. They pick up the baby, and take it to their home. Most affectionately, they bring the boy up. This is the young Shirdi Sai. A few years pass.

SCENE 2

 

Mrs. Patel is engaged in worship at home. She is looking for the lamp, as she wants to light it.

MRS. PATEL: I had kept it here but don’t see it now. Where could it have gone?

The lady sees that the boy has taken the lamp away and is trying to light it in some other place.

 

 


 

MRS. PATEL: Child, What are you trying to do? Is this the place to light the lamp?

YOUNG SAI: Why not?

MRS. PATEL: The lamp should be lit only in the altar, before God. You can’t do it where you want and when you want.

YOUNG SAI: Mother, God is everywhere, and all the time! Both the lamp and light are God, are they not? Where there is light, there is GOD!

MRS.PATEL:
Child, how do you know all these things?

YOUNG SAI: I know! You should not ask how!!

PATEL: Did you hear? How nicely our son explains!! This is not just due to the merits of his earlier births; it is something much beyond. No one can explain in this manner at such a tender age! Come, …… come my dear!

The lady continues with her worship. Meanwhile, Young Sai is distributing Prasaadam to his friends.

 

 
 

YOUNG SAI: You,…… you too, …….hold out your hand,…....OK, now pray and then eat.

MRS.PATEL:
Oh no! What is it that you are doing my child! Can one eat before offering to God? Is it not wrong? Will not God get angry?

YOUNG SAI: No mother, God won’t be angry. God is above anger, sorrow, love, attachment, revenge and such petty feelings. He is just a Witness!

 

MRS.PATEL: Great, you and your high-flown philosophy!

YOUNG SAI: No mother, this is not high philosophy. It is the Truth. Don’t they say that God is everywhere? He IS everywhere! He is in us too. When we eat this Prasaadam or when some other being eats it, it is really God who eats! Mother, what I am doing is not wrong.

MRS.PATEL
(to husband): Did you hear what he said?

PATEL: What he is saying are not just words but the very essence of the scriptures! Only the Wise can understand the meaning of those words.

 

 


 

MRS PATEL: This boy baffles me. Shouldn’t one go by tradition, rituals, and culture? (Slips and is about to fall; but recovers, assisted by husband.)


PATEL: What happened?

MRS PATEL: God saved me! Otherwise, I would have been badly injured.

YOUNG SAI: Mother, do you now follow? You said that God saved you. But it was father who held you and prevented you from falling down. That means God is in father also. That is why they say God is everywhere!

MRS PATEL: Only now am I able to understand what you said. Tiny fingers may light the lamp but the lamp can illumine a whole mountain! How nicely a small one like you could explain a Truth as vast as the very ocean! Come on, have this; take this Prasaadam! All of you also have Prasaadam. When you eat, I shall take it that the Lord Himself has partaken of the offering ……….. Oh God, what else can I say?!


 

TO BE CONTINUED... ...

 
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