IN UPASANI BABA'S SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
A very high praise to him is found in Sai Leela Masik and Sai literature written by a few years after Baba shed his mortal coil. His (Upasani's) very great service to Sai Baba is the fact that through him myriads, if not lakhs, of people came to know about and worship Sai Baba. Sri Upasani Baba was widely regarded, as a wonderful saint with vast and miraculous powers that could help individuals and even nations, and that was why Mahatma Gandhi with a view to secure national welfare approached him about 1927. The fame of Sri Upasani Baba was at one time so great (1920-1934) that people found it difficult even to get access to him. About 1930 he visited the house of Sri Sait Govind Banathwalla at Volkeswar, Mumbai, and he sat up on an upper storey, and people wanting to take darshan of him had to climb up by one flight of steps and get down by another flight of steps. This procession of darshan by pilgrims went on from 1 p.m. till 9 p.m. Such was the vast mass that wanted to take
Upasani's darshan at Mumbai. In a city like Mumbai tens of thousands were attracted to him, one may safely assume that throughout Maharashtra, Upasani's fame drew lakhs of people to him, and Sai Baba, as his Guru, was introduced to lakhs of people as the cause and source of Upasani Baba's greatness and powers, "If the chela is so great, how much greater must be the Guru" people said.
Sri Upasani was born of a very orthodox set of Brahmins, who were village priests, that is, priests in the village of Satana. His grandfather Sri Gopal Sastri had left the village to stay at Baroda, as the Raja's Court adviser in religious as well as literary matters for a number of years. Gopal Sastri was also the adviser to many Petty States on matters of Religion and was author of several books, none of which has probably printed. Govind Sastri, the father of Upasani, though a good scholar, had to earn bread for the family by being a copyist of in Dhulia Civil Court. Upasani was one of the five sons of Govinda Sastri, and stayed with his grandfather Gopal Sastri at Satana. The family during the time that we are considering was really not very well off. The earnings of village priests being very small, they had just enough to eat and get along.
Kasinath Govinda Upasani Sastri, which is the real name of Upasani Baba, was born in 1870, (May 15) and his early education was practically nil. He was sent to elementary school and very early in that period, a merciless master named Gharpure birched him severely. The boy cried and roaring with pain went to the Village Munsif to lodge a complaint. There the matter ended and his education also ended. He could have picked up the rudiments of the Purohit's learning necessary for carrying on the work of the village Purohit, but Kasinath did not care to do so. On the other hand he had a strong dislike for any education, and so was treated as a very dull boy and an exception to the family traditions of love of learning. His elder brother, Balakrishna Sastri, was highly advanced in Sanskrit study and became a Professor of Sanskrit in the Fergusson College, Poona and was an Examiner for Sanskrit in B.A., in the Bombay University. But Kasinath was treated by everyone as good for nothing, and
yet according to old and senseless customs, his parents insisted upon getting him married in spite of his protests, at the age of 14 (i.e., 1883) to a girl of 8, who died in a year (1885). He was again married in 1885 to another girl who also died a year later. The home was already bitter; this marriage obligation tied round his neck made it worse. So, he hated home and took to running away from home. At first he returned after a short stay outside. His later ramblings were prolonged. None of these is worth mentioning except the following. In one of his long tours (in 1890), he was attracted by his habit of yoga or control of breath and meditation, and love of solitude, to Boerghad Hill. There he could see from a great distance that in the midst of a forest, the hill projected from the forest and disclosed a natural cave or cavern. There was luckily a tree near it. As he approached it, he discovered that he could climb up into the cave with the help of the tree growing adjoining it
and sending one of its branches into the cave. He thought that this was excellent for his meditation. He sat up in the cave and tried to meditate. At first he thought he would like to see what his starvation (for there was no chance of getting food in the folorn cave) would end in, and wished to see death coming and taking him away. This of course, was absurd. When death came, he might have no power to see death coming even if death had a visible form (of Nachikethas in Mythology)
He spent days without food or drink, and finally before he became unconscious started nama japa of God, and his body was there in a fixed posture for an unknown period, and, due to lack of food, his muscles and skin were shrunk. He woke up to find that he was still alive, and there was the feeling of thirst. To quench it, he could not discover the means. Luckily, the kind of heavens poured down rain in short time, and that rain, coming down the cavern, pured a mass of water into the cave that collected close to him.
Written by: HH Pujyasri B V Narasimha Swamiji in Life of Sai Baba
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