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Om Sree Dattatreyaaya Namah!

Prayer

Guru Madhye Sthitham Vishwam Vishwa Madhye sthitho Guruhu; Gurur-Vishwam Nacha Anyosthi Thasmai Shri Gurave Namaha.

The universe has its being within the Guru; the Guru abides within the universe (as its essence); the Guru is the universe; nothing exists besides him. Salutations to such a Guru.

(Shri Guru \u2013 Gita)

Introduction

My contact with the spiritual tradition of Lord Dattatreya was quite fortuitous, a discovery by chance. When I was collecting material for the comprehensive account of Sai Baba of Shirdi, I came across the experience of one Kusa Bhav.

Kusa Bhav served his Guru, Sri Datta Maharaj and learnt occult skills like mysterious transference of material objects. He could produce sweetmeats from \u201cnowhere\u201d by a wave of his hand with the power of the mantra and distribute the same to amazed devotees aspras ad. At one stage, he started pestering his guru to teach him black magic with which he could harm his opponents who derided him as a charlatan. The wise guru realized that it was not good for either of them to stay together any longer. He directed his disciple to seek spiritual guidance henceforth from Sai Baba of Shirdi and himself retired to the Himalayas to pursue his own spiritual quest for perfection.

When Kusa Bhav arrived at Shirdi, Sai Baba was wild with rage and would not allow him to enter the mosque. He said that the sweetmeats produced by the former were not \u2018created\u2019, as the gullible devotees supposed, but were merely transferred from elsewhere by the power ofmantra. Thus, he said, it amounted to theft and cheating. The sweetmeats thus pollute their devout recipients spiritually and would inspire them, in their turn, to hanker after cheap occult powers instead of seeking spiritual Enlightenment which is the only noble of man\u2019s life. Sai Baba insisted that unless the visitor chose to give up his weird practices and leave off the power at the holy river Godavari, he would not allow the latter to come to him. Kusa Bhav vacillated for some time and, after much inner struggle, had to give in. He went to the Godavari, threw away the iron- bangle on his right hand and, taking the holy water in his palms, he vowed to

Om Sree Dattatreyaaya Namah!

give up all his occult powers as directed by Sai Baba. To his amazement, he discovered that he could no longer produce such material objects by a wave of his hand. Henceforth, Sai Baba allowed him to visit him at the mosque and instructed him to read the Sree Guru Charitra 108 times and visit holy Gangapur now and then. Later, Sai Baba blessed him with the power of obtaining sacred ash by merely thinking about him.

This incident drew my attention to Sree Guru Charitra as a potent means of winning grace of a Perfect Master. Soon I discovered that the Marathi texts which devotees study at Shirdi are those of this holy work. But none of the devotees knew English and I had no occasion to learn its contents for quite some time.

Again, in the course of my study of the life of Sir Sai Baba, I came across incidents which demonstrated the spiritual identity of the great fakir with his equally great contemporary saint, Sree Swami Samarth, more popularly known as Sree Akkalkot Maharaj (1856-1878). Naturally, I was drawn to learn more about the latter and then I came to know that his life was a continuation of that of Sree Nrisimha Saraswathi, the second Avatar of Lord Dattatreya in this age, celebrated in Sree Guru Charitra.

I stumbled upon the subtleties of Dattatreya tradition no less fortuitously. Ever since I visited Shirdi (1963) and studied the marvellous life of Sri Sai Baba, I traveled extensively in search of a Sadguru so that I could dedicate my whole life to his service.

Once I visited Sri Ma Anandamayi at Naimisharanya (Uttar Pradesh) during the

Bhagavat Saptah. At one of the daily expositions of the holy text, the revered

speaker, Sri Akhandananda Saraswathi remarked that only a living Sadguru could lead his devotee to Self-realization and that a Sadguru who had cast off his body, however great he might be, can only fulfill prayers for one\u2019s material good. He spoke in Hindi which I could only understand but cannot speak and so I could not discuss with him. As Sai Baba was no longer available to me in flesh and blood, I wondered what I could do, but I had no chance to get the clarification.

After a few months, I visited Shirdi on a proposed stay of seven days. I wished to obtain Sai Baba\u2019s guidance and clarification in this matter. On the second day, I was very strongly impelled to visit my old student who was working in Pune. I was quite unusual, as I never visited anyone of my friends or kinsfolk. I had to yield to the impulse and I reached Pune. My friend was away at office. So I left my bag in his house and went out, wishing to spend the time in going round the city till my friend\u2019s return. Quite accidentally, I enquired at a wayside florist whether there was any great saint worth visiting in Pune. The shop-keeper directed me to visit Sree Gulvani Maharaj, a direct disciple of Sree Vasudevananda Saraswathi.

Om Sree Dattatreyaaya Namah!