In plain words
In those days Bābā used to call Mahalsāpati ‘Choṭābhāyi’. One day Mahalsāpati got up and looked: even the old cloths were not there. Only the bare plank stood there, in the air! On that plank Sai Bābā was swinging, like a cradle. ‘It is not that old cloth that carries My weight. My own power is bearing the weight of My body.’ So He made it known, and then: ‘Mahalsāpati! You must not tell anyone. In Patri some say I am a brāhmin, some that I am a Muslim, still others that I am a Patel; in this way they talk in all sorts of ways. In truth, I was born in the village of Patri to a brāhmin couple named Devagiramma and Gaṅgābhavāḍya,’ He revealed. Then and there Mahalsāpati spoke thus in praise of Bābā:
Born in the village of Patri, dwelling in Dvārakāmāyi, the God who grants His devotees' wishes, Sāinātha: to Him I bow.
‘Do not tell this secret to anyone,’ Bābā warned. For in those days, in Shirdi, and in fact in Maharashtra, hatred had arisen between Hindus and Muslims, and they used to torment one another. So Bābā said that among Muslims He was a Muslim and among Hindus a Hindu. What is more: ‘Do not call Me a Hindu. Do not call Me a Muslim,’ He made Mahalsāpati promise. Bābā went on telling some secrets of that kind to only one or two people. In no Avatāra was the principle of God known to all. In the Rāma Avatāra He told His own principle to no one but Lakṣmaṇa. The reason: Lakṣmaṇa was always at Rāma's heels, at His side, under His roof. It is impossible to describe Lakṣmaṇa's sacrifice as being like this or like that. ‘There is a great kingdom. There are my mother and father. There are my wife and children, but these I do not need. I need my Rāma. So I shall give up anything at all and go with Rāma,’ he came to Sumitrā and pleaded. Even his mother's name, what a good name it is! Sumitrā means ‘a good friend’. As Lakṣmaṇa bowed and was leaving, she said, ‘My son! The forest where Rāma is, that alone is Ayodhyā for you; this Ayodhyā without Rāma is the forest for us.’