What was Sai Baba's lesson about slander and gossip, and how did he teach it?

Sai Baba used a powerful, real-life analogy to teach about the foul nature of slander. He pointed to a village sow eating excrement and directly compared its tongue to the tongue of someone who gossips, saying it "picks through people's excrement" and "rages against brothers and kin." As described in Chapter 19, this incident was a direct and timely lesson for a devotee who had been engaging in slander. Baba taught that one who partakes in such behavior wastes the precious human birth they have been given and cannot find true happiness. The text notes that the devotee was deeply stung by this lesson, proving its effectiveness in piercing the heart.