Sai BAba of Shirdi

excerpt from chapter 5 

It was this trip to Puttaparthy that I came across a tiny hole in the wall restaurant called a “dhaba” ..run by an ancient fellow who cooked meals for “Indian prices.  The disparities between the western style and Indian style restaurants was palpable. 

The original photograph of Sai Baba of Shirdi hung on the splattered and exhaust worn walls in the restaurant’s dining room, the size of a small bedroom. The smallest kitchen was in the next room through an open door way. The cooking smells and grease had permeated the walls through the decades. The photograph of Shirdi Sai Baba hung by the entrance to the restaurant and struck me the moment I passed in front of  it. 

I asked the proprietor if I could take a photograph of the photograph. The proprietor laughed and told me I could but prefaced his permission with the words “no one has ever successfully taken a photograph of that Photograph” They always turn out grey” he went on and told me the story of the photograph of its history and rarity. The specialness of the photograph so the proprietor told me is the depiction of the Linga at the heart centre. That it is an original photograph taken by the original photographer when Shirdi Sai Baba was alive. The story was, as he excitedly told me, his family, who were long time devotees who lived in Shirdi, were very close with the photographer who they received the original photograph from. That it was one of a kind. Not many originals exist as it was taken and developed by one of the 1st cameras around the turn of the century.  

This photograph answered many questions about my inner experiences..in the years previous  It was the hardest and most humbling ....and the seva i was involved in was soul destroying without the dreams of both Satya Sai Baba and Sai Baba of Shirdi.  

His true image His true energy..cannot emit or create, inflict or exacerbate a wound it can only soothe it dissolve it heal it and honour it. The current is between Himself and the person viewing the photograph.  

now I have my say, with His Blessing  the depth of the betrayals in many devotees hearts the goal is to soothe those wounds. 

"Here is a camera if you turn the camera towards Swami and turn on the switch you see the image of Swami. In the same way use the mind. The mind is the "lens" of concentration turn it toward Brahman and turn on the switch of intellect and you will have a picture of Brahman immediately. Our body is a camera, mind is the lens, our feeling is the picture, intellect is the switch our vision is divine.  Once you turn your vision godward, god will come to you" Satya Sai Baba.

 I received this reflective photograph of Satya Sai Baba immediately upon returning to puttaparthy from Shirdi India..