Sai Baba’s popularity

Sai Baba of Shirdi has a striking influence on members of our community. I have seen many Zoroastrians wearing his ring and going to Shirdi to visit his samadhi. Many of my friends living abroad have plans to visit both Udvada and Shirdi. They keep Baba’s photograph in their homes and light a divo before it.

Sai Baba’s popularity is phenomenal and universal, his shrine a center of pilgrimage to which people from all over the world throng to receive his blessings, tell him their troubles and thank him for timely help in solving their problems. Is this because they find flaws in their own religion?

Sai Baba never preached conversion. He roundly scolded anyone who did so by saying: "If you are not faithful to your own father, how can you be so to another? Be faithful to the religion of your birth and follow its tenets. For God is the one and only one, but there are many paths to reach him. Follow that path you have chosen and reach your goal. Ram and Rahim are one. Why do you fight over who is superior?”

Sai Baba incarnated on earth to join mankind in a bond of love and fellowship — not to separate people and lead them astray. A modern-day saint born in the times of our fathers, his message has freshness and a certain appeal to devotees. To date people do not know whether he was a Hindu or a Muslim. His path was that of the mystic and his goal was to realize God as a spiritual force, not as a bone of contention to fight and kill one another over, as is happening in the world today.

Our own Zoroastrian community has split into two sections — orthodox and liberal. Suddenly a new group of people has risen to enforce their outdated version of our noble and secular religion. Their shrill voices of hatred and damnation for those who do not listen to their version of the faith grow louder by the day! Priests are "defrocked” and ridiculed because they choose to recite our prayers for those who opt for cremation. Navjotes of children whose mothers are married to non-Parsis are frowned upon and the families terrorized so that they have to seek police protection against these goons.

These self-proclaimed messiahs of our simple and beautiful religion are dividing our community as never before. By using bombastic language and even going to the extent of belittling our Prophet, these orthodox masters of hypocrisy have only one purpose — personal aggrandizement and a malignant power to cow Parsis into abject submission, even against their will and common sense.

It is in this context that Sai Baba’s message is important: "Love one another. Even in animals you will find my presence. Sab ka malik ek hai (Every-body’s master is one). I have come to rejuvenate your beliefs in the supreme power and presence of one God. Do not fight and kill one another over which prophet is more superior. They are all the same. They speak of the same God we all believe in. Live and let live.”

Personally speaking, I believe I am a better Zoroastrian because of my belief in Sai Baba’s teachings. So are those around the world who are blessed by honoring a saint of Sai Baba’s stature.

GOOLOO MEHTA

gooloomehta@hotmail.com