Saintliness of the Saints

There are many good things that Saints do that shows their Sainthood. Being equal to God they are ever engaged in welfare of others. To that end they behave like mother for the devotees that completely surrender to them. They foster their devotees like a child. Their primary goal is to make their devotees happy. Like a mother who speaks soft to her children, however at times to bring her children on the right path she also does not stop from chiding them. So do the Saints. Not only that, to bring devotee out of calamity Saints suffer themselves. When devotee completely surrenders to them, they treat their devotee’s difficulty as their own.

There was a couple Mr. and Mrs. Khaparde from Amaravati who were completely surrendered to Saibaba. Frequently, they used to visit Shirdi for offering their services to Baba. During one of the visits when Mrs. Khaparde and young son of Khapardes were staying in Shirdi, son caught a high fever which culminated into bubonic plague. The mother was terrified and was thinking of going back to Amaravati for treatment. Out of the habit of taking permission of Baba to leave Shirdi she went to meet Baba when he was out for evening rounds. In a trembling tone she explained about her son’s condition. Baba speaking softly assured her not to worry and consider the difficulty as a passing cloud and that her son will soon get out of fever. Then he lifted his Kafni up to his waist and showed her four big bubos developed on his waist. He said that his devotee’s difficulties are His and so he suffers for his devotees.

Such is a saintliness of Saints. To bring their devotee on the right path and to develop faith in them they even suffer for their devotees.

Baba chose Shri Govind Raghunath Dabholkar alias “Hemadpant” as His instrument to write His such stories so that devotees who couldn’t get direct darshan of Baba can get closer to direct experience by reading His stories.

Resolution that can transform the life

They say that Sant sang i.e. association with Saints is the most beneficial association that helps to purify all sins of this and previous birth and sets one on the path of happy and joyful life devoid of fear, worries, sorrow.

Jaggery and its sweetness can never be separated. In the same way God and Saints are one. They can never be separated.

However usually Saints are few and so it’s not easy to find them. They say that even to recognize and get associated with a Saint one needs to have savings of merit (punya). Saints are full of love. So it may not be possible to recognize or understand a Saint by applying a logic that is used in worldly affairs. Logic and love do not go hand in hand. Love knows no logic. Mother, out of her love, overlooks the faults of her children. It’s very difficult for a mother to digest criticism on her child. She is ever ready to forgive all mistakes of her child. Saints are like mother. However to become their child is not that easy. To become a child of a Saint one has to accept a Saint as mother. Then only one can experience their motherly love.

The land of Maharashtra is called Santbhumi (land of saints) because this is a land that numerous saints chose to be their Karmabhumi (the land of major time of activity). The lineage of Saints starts from Saint Dnyaneshwar followed by Saint Namdev, Saint Janabai, Saint Eknath, Shri Nrusimha Saraswati, Saint Tukaram, Saint Samartha Ramdas, Saint Akkalkot Swami Maharaj, Saint Manik Prabhu, Saint Bahinabai, Saint Gajanan Maharaj, Saint Saibaba, Saint Gondavalekar Maharaj to name a few. All these saints lived their life for welfare of others. They lived simple life but their principles were lofty yet easy to follow.

These saints left their legacy through their stories. In fact these stories are nothing but literal incarnations of those saints. Reading these stories is the best way to establish a close relation with them. Through these stories one gets to know how these Saints lived their life, how their devotees got benefited through their association.

Saints assure that one who reads their stories regularly will eventually find all his/her desires fulfilled. What’s needed is Shraddha (faith in what Saints say) and Saburi (patience).

Here are names of some of popular Saints, the place where they stayed for most of their life and the title of their divine story book.

Name of Saint	Place	Prominent Divine story book
Shri Samarth Sadguru Sainath Maharaj	Shirdi, Maharashtra	Shri Sai Satcharit
Shri Gajanan Maharaj	Shegaon, Maharashtra	Shri Gajanan Vijay (the book that contains above shlokas)
Shripad ShriVallabh	Pithikapur, Andhra Pradesh	Shripad Shri Vallabh Charitamrut
Shri Nrusimh Saraswati	Gangapur, Karnataka	Shri Gurucharitra written by Saraswati Gangadhar
		Shri Saptashati Gurucharitra Saar, summary of Gurucharitra written by Shri Vasudevanand Saraswati (Tembe Swami)