🚩 Why did Sai Baba grind wheat every morning? — Nobody understood the real reason.
In Shirdi, every dawn brought the same strange sight. Baba would sit inside Dwarkamai, pull out the hand-mill, and silently begin to grind wheat. He never baked roti from it. He never gave the flour to anyone. So why this daily ritual? (For another Dwarkamai lila that teaches the same kind of lesson without saying a word, see the night Baba lit the lamps with water.)
🌾 The day four women tried to take the flour
One day, four women came in to help. As they ground, they whispered to each other — “Baba is just going to give all this flour to us anyway.” When the mill stopped, they divided the flour into four equal portions and took it home.
Baba erupted. “Whose father’s wealth are you dividing?” he shouted. “Take this flour back. Scatter it at the village boundary.”
🪔 Why the village boundary?
At that time, a cholera epidemic was sweeping Shirdi. Villagers later understood — Baba had not been grinding wheat at all. He had been grinding the epidemic itself, pushing it out of the village across the boundary line.
From the day the flour was scattered, cholera began to fade. The deaths stopped. The fear lifted. A grinding ritual that looked like nothing turned out to be the village’s protection.
🌾 The deeper reading
The Satcharitra says Baba kept up this “grinding” work for sixty years. Not wheat — the karma, sorrow and ego of his devotees. The chakki had two stones — karmaand bhakti. Only when both rotated together did the grain (the ego) reduce to flour (surrender).
Whose father's wealth are you dividing? Take it back — scatter it at the village boundary.
— Sai Baba, to the four women
🙏 Frequently asked questions
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🙏 Om Sai Ram.