• In :
• Personal Growth

August 2003

By Saina Bedi

Saina Bedi is Vice President, Global Legal Solution Inc. and Managing Director, Pavitrata Creations Pvt. ltd. She produces a TV show titled Galti Kiski, for DD National, based on real life stories adapted from the book What Went Wrong by Kiran Bedi

Being Kiran Bedi’s daughter and Shirdi Sai Baba’s unflinching devotee, Saina Bedi knows God has a plan for her.

I don’t know much about past life but I do know that my devotion to Sai Baba of Shirdi goes much beyond everything. I feel that being born as Kiran Bedi’s daughter meant I was born for a purpose. There has to be a reason why I was linked with everything pure and good. I think there is a connection between all this.

When I was a child, my mother used to keep busy. She had a life of her own, so when she was busy with her own self, I was alone with my own self too. Therefore as a child, I started going inwards. Discos, parties and all that was not what I fancied.

And then one day I met Satpathyji (C.B. Satpathy, a police officer who has inspired the consecration of many Shirdi Sai temples) who was a guru-bhai to my mother. I really don’t know what happened then. I started going to the Sai temple at Lodhi Road in Delhi, and with time, it kept growing stronger. And I kept going deeper.

My name was Sukriti then. At one of my visits to the Sai temple near Mehrauli, I met a fakir who kept telling me you are Saina. I told him: “No babaji, my name is Sukriti.” Despite my insisting, he took me to the vibhuti corner in the temple and told me things about my life that were one hundred per cent true.

Then he just walked down, never to come back. I went back and touched Sai Baba’s feet. I begged him to clarify things and just then a tape started playing… ‘Jai Sai Naam’. That was message enough.

For me, Baba means ‘purity of thought, deed and intention’. If I believe in him then I aught to uphold these three. And no harm will come to me because he is watching me. Baba tests his favourites the most. Nothing comes easy to them. He tests you before he accepts you. I believe he is there. I know he is there. If I try to prove his existence, then I am questioning him. So I don’t get into all that.

But I also have a strong ‘I’ that is not ego but self-respect that Baba has taught me to value. I would only surrender it to someone worth it. And people who really are worth it will not ask you for it because they want you to maintain it. But it has to be a humble fairness to yourself and others.

A lot of people wonder at my claim of being married to Sai Baba. Of course, I do look married with a tikka and the beads I wear. But I love red. I love to be full. I don’t ‘like’ jewellery, but I can’t see myself blank. What I am really looking for is Saina ka Sai. Someone who would personify Baba to me. And I really feel it’s going to be through Baba himself.

I am a passionate person and it is the thought, the feeling that dictates me. I don’t want to get married to just about anyone, or just because I am 28, or simply because I want to get married. It has to be much more than that. Baba used to walk and walk and walk and I want to walk a lot too. So I want someone like that who can walk along with me.

People see me with men because it is a man’s world and I am working amongst them all the time. But I am least bothered and Baba has given me that conviction. We have to discover our own truth. I just know that we simply have 24 hours to deal with them with the kind of purity that I have been talking of. For instance, I am not the best at making strategies, nor do I always do the right things. But I have to ensure that what I have done in the past 24 hours, have I done it with that purity of thought, action and intent? That’s Baba for me.

But still I don’t know what is ‘happiness’ or ‘peace’. They are mere words. With my mother’s life I have seen the gloomiest and the brightest parts of life. So I know that at the end of the day sunshine wins. You just have to keep looking at the sun. Besides, my mother is a positive person so there is never any negativity in my life.

I want to ask some of the more popular gurus today, how their teaching is making daily life simpler and better. In our daily lives we are exposed to so much. There is not much peace and we have to cope with that.

So I want to create a little place for spiritual books, candles, lights, full of small and simple sermons. I want a place that can accommodate people from all walks of life, of all ages.