
All the magic light seemed to have died out - that erst-while had given to those thousands of seekers so much courage and hope. The news of his death spread like wild fire in the village of Shirdi, and soon the ashram was filled with men, women and children who had been suddenly plunged into the throes of an agonizing grief. But hardly were these words out of his mouth when the Saint of Shirdi passed away. The last words that he uttered were that he should be taken to an adjoining wada as he did not feel well in the masjid. Quietly and unobtrusively, without any fuss or complaint, Sai Baba released his breath and let his head fall gently on the shoulders of a near disciple. The all-too-brief span of sixty glorious years, the period that he had set himself for his Messiahship, came to an abrupt end, as the blessed one gave up his body on that eventful afternoon. His self-allotted labour of love was perhaps deemed by him in his inscrutable wisdom to have been finished.


On Tuesday the 15th of October at about 2.30 in the heavy hours of the noon the beloved Master suddenly breathed his last. The 15th of October of the year 1918 was a sorrowful and fateful day for the little village of Shirdi.
