Nanda Deep

Nanda Deep between the neem and bodhi trees

may pause for a moment and remember that this was where Baba asked his devotees to wait, since he preferred to enter Lendi alone.
This is the main feature of Lendi: the perpetually burning lamp between two trees that Baba is said to have planted, a neem and a bodhi. As the trees were touched by Baba and planted close to where he sat and the lamp that he lit, the area serves as a focus for worship, including pradakshina.
Between the neem tree and the bodhi tree is Nanda Deep ("lamp of bliss", also known as Akhanda Deep - "perpetually burning lamp"), the lamp that was originally lit by Baba. Later, Baba instructed Abdul Baba to see that it was kept burning.
The lamp as we see it now was built by the Sansthan and the area has been paved. In Baba's time the lamp was sunk into a small pit and protected from the wind by some zinc sheets and later some pieces of cloth, making a kind of tent with the lamp in the centre.
Nanda Deep was a place where Baba liked to sit in contemplation. Abdul Baba says that Baba would sit on the ground close to the lamp, but not in a place from where he could actually see the lamp. It seems, therefore, that Baba was not using this lamp for its light or flame (since it was covered). Just as the lamp itself was concealed, exactly what Baba was doing here is also veiled from us.

One of the four new gateways into the temple complex;
this one is beside Lendi

One of Abdul's duties was to keep two buckets of water by the lamp. After sitting, Baba would apparently take these, and in a ritualistic and rather mysterious way, throw the water in all four directions around the lamp. In his Life of Sai Baba Narasimhaswami observes, "He seemed to be blessing devotees in each direction and warding off evils that may be threatening them." This, however, is conjecture, and again we cannot be sure why Baba did this.

The statueof Shyam Sunder placed on his samadhi

A few feet from Nanda Deep is a small Dattatreya shrine erected in 1976. Close by is the small samadhi of Shyam Sunder the horse.


The Well
A little beyond Nanda Deep and slightly to the left is a well. This well is of interest as it was dug by Baba and some of his devotees, and it was from here that Baba got his drinking water. Baba even gave this well a nick-name,