Sri Shirdi Saibaba can also be classified as a Siddhar Saint, due to his characteristics like that of great Siddha Purusha.
Siddhars are considered as divine people, who had attained high spiritual powers through constant meditation, they contain good knowledge in devotional subjects, and they are the devotees of Lord Shiva.
Siddhars contains great powers, and they can take any form or can become invisible from our eyes. They have controlled their senses, and dedicated themselves on worshipping and meditating on the almighty, and they lived for a long span of life, and even if they leave their physical body, but their soul would keep doing lot of good things to the people. Likewise, our Guru Sri Shirdi Saibaba contains the characteristics of Siddhars, and hence he can be praised as “SRI SAI SIDDHAR”.
Sri Shirdi Saibaba once he himself declared that he was a Siddha Purusha. His Guru was also a Siddhar Saint, and through his guidance, he has spent doing lot of hours on doing meditation in a cave, and ate food given by his devotees. Like Siddhars, Saibaba contains divine powers, and sometimes, he has appeared before his devotees like Ram, Krishna and Shiva. But he has utilised his powers only to do goodness to the people. He has even brought rain in the dry regions, provided food to the beggars from an empty vessel, healed the diseases of the people and gave eye sight to the blind people.
Shirdi Saibaba is also believed to be an incarnation of Matsyendra, a 10th century Saint with Bangladesh origin. He was a devotee of Lord Shiva. When he has completed his duties in the earth and went to the holy abode of Lord Shiva, the Mount Kailash, Lord Shiva has allowed him to stay with him only for few hundred years, and as per the orders of Lord Shiva, Sri Matsyendra again took birth as Saibaba during 19th Century AD, and made his abode in Shirdi.
We could found the secrets of his previous births from a famous Hindu Song. In that song, Saibaba is praised as, Dattatendra Matsyendra and Samartendra, and from that, we could be able to know, that Shirdibaba was an incarnation of Dattatreya, Matsyendra and as Swamy Samarth. All these three great Yogis were lived their life as Siddha Purushas. Even the word “SAIBABA” refers to the divine father, which means our great Lord Shiva. Saibaba is already declared as an aspect of Lord Shiva. As we all know, that Lord Shiva is the first and foremost Siddhar in the universe. Being an aspect of Lord Shiva, we could come to a conclusion that Sri Shirdi Saibaba is a great Siddhar, and we must call him as “SRI SHIRDI SAI SHIVSIDDHAR”.
“OM SRI SAINATHSIDDH MAHARAJ KI JAI”
WRITTEN BY
R.HARISHANKAR