Oh, lover of devotees!

If we study the life and leelas of Shri Shirdi Sai Baba, we come across innumerable anecdotes about Baba’s love for his devotees. Here is one such instance in the words of a staunch devotee of baba, Justice M. B Rege:

It was probably in 1915 during Ramanavami, when intending to go to Shirdi, I went into the Indore cloth bazaar to purchase a present worthy of being presented to Baba. I found a fine lace embroidered muslin shawl of about 5 feet square with embroidered body and 8 or 9 inches of lace border all round. It was very nice and could be folded into 6″x6″x1″ packet. I took it with me to Shirdi and kept it inside my shirt. Devotees usually go and present Baba with cloth in order that the same may be returned to them with Baba’s blessings; and the same is returned to them. In my case, I had made up my mind that if Baba is aware for my love for Him, he should not return the same to me, instead retain it and wear it. When each devotee went and presented his cloth, it would be open and placed on Baba and then at the end, the attendants would call out, “Whose is this” and return the cloth. In order to avoid the return, I had taken my tiny packet and when I bowed to Baba, I slyly shoved the packet under his mattress. When all clothes were taken and returned, none noticed what was beneath the mattress. Baba then got up and said “Clear off all that lies on the mattress and dust it”. When the mattress was removed, there was the muslin packet. Baba picked it up and said “What is this? Muslin!” And spread it out and said “I am not going to return this. This is mine”. He then put it round his body and said to me “Don’t I look nice in this?” I was immensely happy as his loving heart had fulfilled my request for the acceptance and retention of the present as a token of the fact that I was not different from him, that I and he were one. I was not different from him. I and he were rally one.

As quoted in Shri Guru Bhagavat, Vol. 3:

Aahe bhaktabatsala naatha || Guru hey mora praananaatha

Tume hin mora maataapitaa || Tume mora bandhu O bhraataa

Tume saakshee mo’ antarara || Dibyajyoti mora aatmaara

Saarathi mo aatmaa rathare || Aaraadhya mana mandirare

[“Oh, lover of devotees! You are the Master of my soul. You are really like the mother, father, a true friend and a brother. You are the witness of my inner self. You are the divine light of my soul. You are the charioteer seated on the chariot of my heart and the deity in the temple of my mind.”]