What was Sai Baba's teaching on slander, and what real-life example did he use to illustrate the foulness of this habit?

Sai Baba taught that slander, while seemingly harmful, can paradoxically benefit the slandered person by pointing out their faults and averting future calamities. As Chapter 19 describes, a slanderer is like someone who cleans dirt with their tongue. To drive this point home, Baba used a powerful and visceral example. He pointed out a village sow eating excrement and compared its tongue to that of a person who rages against others and speaks ill of them. This event, as narrated in Chapter 19, deeply stung the devotee who had been gossiping, making him realize the repulsiveness of his actions and how such behavior wastes the precious human birth.