Baba’s worship at the Shirdi Mosque went on and gathered strength day by day. What appeared as the second impediment tended only to increase the devotee’s attachment through Viraha and admiration and helped Baba’s mission. It must be noted here that the worship mentioned here is individual worship; each one going to Baba and placing flowers on his feet and treating him as God, Avatar or Guru. Baba followed the rule applicable for Gnanis; “Avoid honors as poison; ever welcome indignity, as nectar”.

The second impediment is more interesting. Baba had both Hindu and Muslim features in his body and in his actions and practice. His mission in life was to unify Hindus and Muslims into one compact mass with common religious, spiritual and worldly interests. As he had a Hindu Guru, namely, Gopal Rao Deshmukh alias Venkatesa or Venkusa, he was considered fitted to guide his Hindu followers. According to public opinion, to guide his Muslim followers, initiation into Islamic scripture by a Maulana was essential. So, his destiny had to be fulfilled by his getting a second Guru, a Muslim. Jawar Ali Maulana was a distinguished Maulana of the last century, residing some time at Rahata. He had extraordinary ability and learning, but had disagreed with his followers at Rahata. He came to Shirdi and noted that Baba had large Hindu followers who worshipped him, and that too in a mosque. He called upon Baba to come out of the Mosque and asked him whether he knew the Koran and the Shariat. Baba had learnt neither. So Jawar Ali Maulana ordered him to accompany him to Rahata and Baba was living there with his Guru for about two months. The Guru initiated him into the mysteries of Islamic spiritual literature. Baba did humble seva to his Guru, carrying water pots, fetching firewood, lighting up fire, and doing hard physical labor, which others would complain of. But in the case of Baba, he accepted his position as the disciple of Jawar Ali with perfect sincerity and underwent with sweet complacency the entire ordeal and the course of training given to him. The villagers of Shirdi headed by Mahlsapathy who were very anxious to have Baba back again permanently settled at Shirdi requested the Maulana to allow them to take Sai Baba with them. The Maulana agreed this to on the condition that along with Baba he should also be taken to Shirdi, and that both he and Baba should be fed and supported by the villagers of Shirdi. So both came and lived at the Shirdi Mosque. Some time later, Jawar Ali was drawn deliberately into a dispute with Devadas, a noted Hindu saint, living in a chavadi at Shirdi. During debate, Devads’s questions cornered Jawar Ali. The latter had to make so many admissions that the surrounding spectators were bursted to laughter. Jawar Ali, offended by this humiliation, left Shirdi and did not return there forever.

The Hindus were no doubt the majority in the village, but the actual worshipers were only a handful. A few muscular Muslims, standing at the entrance to the Mosque, planned to threaten and stop this haram. Accordingly, one morning, a very stout, muscular, powerful and well-built Muslim by name Tambuli and four or five others went up to the entrance to the Mosque and stood there with clubs. The chief worshiper Mahlsapathy was a very slim, meek, and apparently cowardly sort of person, and they hoped to stop his pooja by their threats. Tambuli went and explained to Mahlsapathy the exact position, namely, that he ran the risk of being clubbed by the Muslims if he entered the Mosque and do pooja. Mahlsapathy in his great shock and grief prayed to Khandoba and hit upon an alternative. He went up to the compound wall of the mosque. By Avahana he invoked Baba on the compound wall. Without entering into the Mosque, he placed all the pooja articles that he had brought on a plate on the ground. After such invocation or Avahana, he went on applying water, flowers and scents to the wall. Baba noted this and asked him what he was doing. Mahlsapathy explained that the Muslims threatened to beat any one who would enter into the Mosque and worship Baba with sandal paste. Then Baba judged the situation very correctly and said, ‘Come in and proceed with your pooja. Apply your sandal paste here, there and anywhere. Let me see who will beat you’. So saying he dashed his satka, a short club, which he had in his hand on the ground. It made a thunderous sound. On hearing it the few Muslims at the entrance trembled. They found that they would have to reckon with Baba himself if they wished to pursue their plan. Baba, individually and physically, would be more than a match for them. Besides, Baba was a weird personality who could turn water in oil, and they had therefore still greater fear in trying to oppose Baba. So they retreated quietly. Mahlsapathy entered and carried on the worship. Mahlsapathy feared that they might attack him on his way back home, and he told Baba about his fears. Baba then gave him the assurance that no one can attack him not merely in this janma, but in future janmas also, and do him harm and Baba would see to his safety. Thus assured Mahlsapathy who finished his pooja and was not molested. Thus all joined in Baba’s worship.

Thus the first obstruction was removed.

Such a change could not continue for long without obstruction. The Koran forbids worship of anything except the Impersonal God in a Mosque. The Muslims, though few and poor at Shirdi, raised their protest against such worship. He himself might have felt at first the inappropriateness of his being worshipped; and next the worship being carried on in a Mosque by the mass of Hindus according to Hindu custom like the din, the bustle, the noise, music, and the sacred rituals all of which would be totally unwarranted in a Mosque. Even his being smeared with sandal paste would strike any Muslim as extremely unorthodox and reprehensible. Abdul Rangari of Thana when visiting Baba noted that sandal paste was being applied by Hindus to his forehead, and he told Baba, ‘what is this? The Hindus are applying sandal paste to your forehead. This is not the custom among the Muslims’. Baba had to pacify him by pointing out that he had to bend to circumstances. Baba’s words were “Jaisa Desh Aiysa Vesh.” This means, ‘While in Rome, be a Roman’. Baba also told Rangari that he himself was a devotee of Allah. But if the Hindus wished to please themselves by worshiping him, why not allow them to do so? To other similar objectors Baba pointed out that if Hindus worshipped a Muslim in a Mosque then there was no loss to Islam but only loss to Hinduism. That seemed a very reasonable argument and contented many. But some were still dissatisfied with the pooja that was being done to him. Some of the more vigorous opponents of his puja went to consult the Sangamnare Kazi for finding a remedy. That Kazi found that the only chance of obstructing this unorthodox haram pooja was by threat of force.

Falsehood displeases the God of truth. Baba is of the opinion that there was no necessity to curse them. Next he pointed out to them how unsocial and wicked their conduct was. The lights were needed for the use of all who visited the mosque and the public would be inconvenienced if there were no lights. He told them that they have come to the Mosque to enjoy the scene of Baba remaining in darkness. They admitted the fact. He then pointed out that God would punish persons who took delight in others’ miseries instead of sympathizing with them. God is mother to all and loves all equally. If you hurt a child and tell the mother that you have hurt the child, will the mother be pleased? Thus they had displeased God by coming to rejoice in his miserable plight or supposed miserable plight in the absence of lamp oil. He asked them not to take pleasure in other’s distress.

They promised.

After giving them excellent pieces of advice, which was so badly needed by them and by many people now. The effect of this incident was marvelous.

The contemptible Pagal fakir, as they called him, was turned overnight into the hero or the weird magician or the holy Sadhu of the place.

Baba was practically ignored and treated by most of the villagers as an unknown fakir. Suddenly one day an incident occurred which brought a complete change in the situation. In the Mosque, wherein he lived, He is in the habit of lighting three or four lamps (deepams) made of clay. Normally, only during night, both Hindus and Muslims will light lamps in their places of worship. So, he went round begging for oil from Vanis or, oil vendors. There were only two such shops supplied him with oil at free of cost. The oil makers also supplied him with oil. One day, it struck these people that either they should make Baba realize their importance or should have some fun at his expense, they told him in a mocking tone that they had no oil.

Baba had to return to his mosque with his oil pot empty. It was already dusk. The people, who refused oil, came behind him to see what he was going to do in the darkness and thereby have some fun. Baba took some water from the water jar and shaking up the little bit of oil sticking at the bottom of the tin, drank it up. Then he took pure water from the water pot and filled his four earthen lamps with it. He placed a cotton wick in every lamp and struck up a match and lighted it. The spectators thought at first that cotton soaked in water could not possibly be lit up. But to their great surprise, the lamps were lit up and went on burning the whole night.

When Baba was not immersed in meditation, he went out, met people and enquired about their ailments. He used to pick up herbs or got cheap drugs from shops. With these, he cured their illness in the body of the villagers. His knowledge of medicine and surgery appears to have been extraordinary. He cured not merely snake bite but also leprosy with snake venom and rotting eyes with Bibba, that is, washerman’s marking nut as an antiseptic alkali. He pulled out the rotting eyeballs of a patient, washed them, sterilized them with Bibba, replaced the eyeballs and the disease was cured. He never accepted any payment for his medical or other services.

He also rendered other kinds of services. He ploughed up the village common land, the very land on which his Samadhi Mandir now stands, and raised a flower garden thereon. He carried on his shoulders pots filled with water from the well and watered the plants. He distributed the flowers and leaves freely to various Hindu temples and to Muslim holy places and never made any unenviable distinction between Hindu and Muslim places of worship. As for as He is concerned, differences of caste, creed, position and learning, were non-existent or meaningless. All persons were children of a common father or mother, and he felt a maternal or paternal interest in all of them and helped them. So, he expected and accepted no recompense. Leaving aside an incident or two remembered by some of the villagers about his early years, this is all the history of the early years of Baba.

Baba, looking like a Fakir possessed of the most extraordinary super human powers. He became a well-recognized Samartha Sadguru. He had a very large following of people of all classes from the highest to the lowest and from all places, from Bombay to Hyderabad, from Konkon to Ahmadabad, and finally from all over India.

In his earliest days, even up to 1890, Baba had a youthful love of art and music. At nights he often went to the Takia, the resting place for visiting Muslims. There, with his very sweet and appealing voice, He sang songs mostly of Kabir or songs in Persian or Arabic, which the local people could not understand. He tied tinkles to his ankles and danced in joy while he was singing his songs with engrossed devotion. Baba’s attachment was to Allah, or Hari, that is to a Personal God. But the impersonal Nirakara, whom the mystics including Kabir sang in their songs, had also seized his heart. Later in his older age, He mentioned several times, Sakara must necessarily have a strong appeal to youth as it has to the mass of mankind and he never lost sight of the Sakara or Personal God in his worship and songs. Generally speaking his worship was mostly mental and not through external forms. He seldom performed the five Namazes, never bending on the knees and rising, as most Muslims do. He was a skillful man in concentration and he had reached the perfection of Manolaya on the Atman, the merger of the self in the Self. That is why he could say, “Maim Allah Hum. I am God.” His worship never took him away from his social contacts with his thought and activity was service, absolutely selfless service.

Baba’s earliest years at Shirdi were passed in complete obscurity. He was a poor fakir; his name itself was not known. Sai Baba being merely a term of respect applied to wandering hermits of the Muslim faith. Therefore, very few incidents of this period of his life are known. Thus known incidents are all significant as proving that Baba was a real fakir of sterling merit. Baba himself has observed that fakirs also are now seldom dispassionate, that is possessed of vairagya and it is hard to find a good fakir. Baba had no home. Fakirs have none. Hermits are, therefore, to reside either at a tree-foot or chavadi or temple or other public places. When he came into Shirdi, Baba visited Khandoba temple at the outskirts of the village. He was astonished to see such a solitary and calm place. He exclaimed, ‘What a nice place this, for ascetics like me to live in’. Mahlsapathy, the man then in charge of the temple objected to this and said that no Mohammedan would be allowed to put his foot into the Khandoba temple. He was evidently thinking that Baba was a Muslim and that he would break the images and defiles the temple. But Baba was just the opposite. He had the same regard for temples and mosques, always wanted people to carry on their religious faith in their accustomed ways, and would never hurt the religious susceptibilities of any person. Baba, noticing Mahlsapathy’s attitude, left the place, and went to the gode neem tree, which he used as his halting place off and on. He went about the village and the surrounding lands and had no particular arrangements for food. Luckily the village head, Ganapat Rao Patil Kothe and his wife Bayaji Bai, were greatly attracted by Baba’s personality, and from the very beginning of his stay there, they undertook to feed him even when he was running about.

Gradually he gave up roaming and then went about the streets, halted at four or five houses and from there collected whatever food was given to him. For his stay and sleep, the decaying mosque of the village was the only place, and it soon became his residence. He was not in the habit of deserting society and living in mountain caves and deserts.

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