"... a bearded man wearing a ragged robe would cry out daily in Shirdi village..... people would stream by to pay their respects to him. As his blessings to each,
he would say, "Give me your money. Give me whatever money you have in
your pockets." They would have to let him have all their money; often he would
not even allow the people to keep enough to pay their train fare back home.
Strange was this ragged ascetic who always asked for money, for by the end of
the day he had given it all away to the poor, and would wander the streets to
beg for his food. He would beg only for bhakri – a sweet unleavened millet bread
– he lived on that alone."
The ragged ascetic was none other than Shirdi ke Sai Baba and these are the words of one of his most ardent and famous disciples, Meher Baba...
(http://www.lordmeher.org/index.jsp?pageBase=text.jsp&nextPage=home)
I quote these words because yesterday I was dismayed to read the news that "a devotee of Sai Baba has gifted a throne made of 92 kg gold to Sai
Baba. Apoorva Narayan Reddy, a businessman from Hyderabad, offered a throne which cost him a whopping Rs 9.5 crore."
It happens ever so often - people (especially celebrities) making offerings worth crores of rupees to this or that deity in the form of worthless gold and diamonds. Has it ever crossed their minds that if they spend the same money to help people in that deity"s name, perhaps Lord Balaji or Sai Baba would have been more pleased?
Question of the Week : What would Sai Baba have asked of his devotee? A gold throne worth 9.5 crores? Or the offering of the gratitude of countless people using who could have been fed, educated, healed, assisted to get jobs or given a roof over their heads with those 9.5 crores.
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Gold Throne for a Fakir