P O T E N T E V I D E N C E : - W H O is Sai Baba?must read

March 14, 2006

mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">W H O is Sai Baba? by R. D. Awle

reproduced and distributed freely, as long as the source is clearly

attributed.] \

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10.0in 10.5in 11.0in" align="center"> Who is Baba? Testimony of the Modern Day

Masters One of the greatest Saints of this century was a woman named

Anandamoyi Ma. (The name translates as

‘Bliss-permeated Mother.’ There’s a photo of her, standing next to Paramahansa

Yogananda, in Autobiography of a Yogi.) She was so pure and filled with God

that she was widely considered to be a Divine Incarnation herself: there seemed

to be nothing in her but God, and her words were Truth itself. According to one

of her closest Western devotees, over the years she had often been asked, “Who

is this Sathya Sai Baba we keep hearing about?” But for many years she never

gave an answer. In the last year of her life, however, the question came up

again, and this time she gave the following response: “This body will speak on

this question only once; don’t ask again. Sathya Sai Baba is the most

powerful incarnation of God ever to come to the Earth. And there won’t be

another at His level for another sixty centuries.”6

1"> That amazing testimony was recently strengthened for me when I went

to one of Anandamoyi Ma’s ashrams in the Himalayas. When I shared the preceding

quote with a Swami there7, he said that Anandamoyi Ma had then added, “It’s no

wonder

you keep hearing about Sai Baba. He is the Avatar of this Yuga!” (Avatar means

Incarnation of God; a Yuga is an era lasting many thousands of years.)

Other Saints have given similar testimony. Shortly before he left his physical

body behind, Paramahansa

Yogananda was approached by one of his close American disciples, a woman.

“Master,” she said, “I know you are planning on leaving your body. You must

take me with you! You are my God!” “Nonsense,” replied Yogananda.

“God is God; I am your Guru.” “But Master, if you leave without me,

I will

commit suicide!” “Enough of that foolishness! God Himself is now

incarnate on Earth, in South India. His name is Sai Baba. When I leave you are

going to live with Him.” (His prediction proved correct; after Yogananda’s

death, that devotee spent the rest of her life at Sai Baba’s ashram.)8

edn3" href="http://www.saibaba-aclearview.com/contents2.html#_edn3"

name="_ednref3"> Mata Amritanandamayi (also known as Ammachi),

Herself considered to be an incarnation of the Divine Mother, was once asked,

“Who is Sai Baba?” She replied, “

normal">Avatar. Perfect from birth.”9 On the day after Sai Baba’s

birth (November 23, 1926), Sri Aurobindo, another great Saint of this century,

broke a long period

of silence to announce, “Twenty-fourth November, 1926, was the descent of

Krishna into the physical. A power infallible shall lead the thought, in

earthly hearts kindle the Immortal’s Fire, even the multitude shall hear the

voice!”10 It seems obvious at this point that his announcement of Krishna’s

physical re-embodiment was referring to the birth of Sathya Sai Baba.

Mother Krishnabai,

the Self-Realized disciple of Swami Ramdas (the great Saint from Kerala), told

her devotees, “Sai Baba is an Avatar, a full incarnation of Krishna. He is

Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva together in one form!” She recommended they spend as

much time in His presence as possible.11

#ff6600"> Swami Satchidananda, the Enlightened sage who currently runs

Anandashram in Kerala, was recently asked about the allegations against Sai

Baba. He replied, “Forget about it. He is God!”12 Karunamayi

(also known as Vijayeshwari Devi, considered by many to be a living incarnation

of the Goddess Sarasvati) recently told one of her close devotees, "Sai Baba and

Amma [meaning herself] are both watching over you." Apparently she also knows

who Baba is! Yogi Ramsuratkumar made it clear on numerous occasions

that Sai Baba is an incarnation of God. He often asked visitors from Baba’s

ashram, “You’ve left God to see this beggar?”13 (Of course, that “beggar” was

himself merged in the all-pervading Consciousness; the beauty of his attainment

was matched only by his humility.)

Shiva Balayogi, another of the great Gurus of the last century, was once asked

about Sai Baba. He replied, “Sathya Sai Baba is an Avatar.”14

Master El Moya

mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt"> and Master Kuthumi, two of the great Ascended

Masters behind the founding of the Theosophical Movement, also declared Sai

Baba to be an Avatar. According to author Howard Murphet, in the book “The

Light Will Set You Free” these Masters have stated, “Avatar Sai Baba is

carrying the Divine consciousness in the world today.”15 Maitreya,

the mysterious Master who has been miraculously appearing before people in

various places around the globe throughout the last two decades, has said

(through his spokesman, Benjamin Creme) that He (Maitreya) is the planetary

Avatar, while Sai Baba is the Universal Avatar.16 Testimony from

Gopalakrishna Baba

mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">, Devi Amma, "Little Heart" and Vasantha Sai

appears later in the website.

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10.5in 11.0in"> Mohammed’s Prophecy

1"> As mentioned in Part 1, there is a prophecy written by Mohammed

which clearly predicts the coming of Sathya Sai Baba. In God Descends to

Earth, Sanjay Kant states:

9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in"> According to an article published in

“Two World’s” Magazine of London, an Iranian writer was irresistibly drawn to a

huge volume in Tehran. This book, called The Ocean of Light, is in 25 volumes.

It is claimed to be the collection of the discourses of Prophet Mohammed.

Volume 13 of these discourses is called “Mehedi Moud” in Arabic, meaning “The

Great Teacher that was promised.”17 The detailed description

Mohammed gives of this “Great Teacher” and “Master of the World” fits Sathya Sai

Baba perfectly: “His hair will be profuse. There will be a gap between His

front teeth. He will have a mole on his left cheek. He will not have a beard

but will be clean shaven. His clothing will be like a flame.” (Sai Baba wears

orange.) “His body will be small.” (Sai Baba is barely five feet tall.) “His

legs and feet will be like those of a young girl.” (Baba’s feet are unusually

small.) “He will give gifts that are light in weight.” (Baba most frequently

gives rings, pendants and watches.) “He will go around among his devotees and

touch their heads with his hand. Many of His devotees will have a dot on their

forehead. They will gather under a large tree.” (For many years in His

Whitefield

ashram, Baba gave darshan under a large tree.) “So as not to be deceived, you

should know that the Master of the World will bring things out of His body,

through His mouth.” (For many years - including the last three - on the holy

day of Maha Shivaratri, Sai Baba has brought forth out of His mouth a ‘Shiva

Linam’, an egg-sized sacred stone which had formed within His body.) “All the

teachings of all religions of the world will be in his heart from birth. All

the science and knowledge of the world from the beginning of time will be in

his heart.” (In interviews with scientists and professors over the years, Baba

has amply demonstrated full mastery of all fields of knowledge.) “All things

which you will ask of God, He (the Master of the World) will give you. All the

treasures are under his feet. Every eye that sees him will be happy, not only

humans but disembodied souls. He will live 95 years.” (Sai Baba has said that

His current incarnation

will last for 95 years; this means he will leave his present body around 2020

A.D.) “In the last 20 years of his life he will be the ‘King of the whole

world’, but at that time only two-thirds of the people of the world will

believe in him.”18 (Sai Baba has literally millions of devotees worldwide. At

His 70th birthday party, over three million people came to celebrate.)

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1"> I recently met an Iranian man who told me that he has studied

The Ocean of Light in detail, in the original, and assured me that the

preceding quotes are indeed in the prophecy (along with others which point

directly to Sai Baba). After years of study, he is personally certain that the

prophecy refers only to Sathya Sai Baba.

11.0in" align="left"> Baba Takes Venkateshwara’s Place I was recently

a partial witness to an incident which provides another powerful clue to Baba’s

identity. One of the most famous shrines in India is the hilltop temple to

Lord Venkateshwara (a form of Vishnu), in Tirupathi, Tamil Nadu. Venkateshwara

is considered by many Hindus to be the Supreme Lord, and the idol in this temple

is known all over India for the powerful blessings it bestows. As with many of

the sub-sects in Hinduism, there is an understandable quality of exclusivity in

the devotees of that shrine, especially among the priests who perform the

worship; for generations their families have been single-mindedly devoted to

Venkateshwara alone. One day in

late November, 1998, the priests were performing a special pada puja (foot

worship) ceremony to the Venkateshwara idol, when suddenly the idol’s feet were

transformed before their eyes into the feet of a living man. Looking up, they

beheld, in place of the Venkateshwara idol, the living form of Sathya Sai Baba.

“If you want full darshan,” He told

them, “come to Whitefield next week!” Baba then disappeared, leaving

Venkateshwara in His place. I was in Sai Baba’s Whitefield Ashram on

December 6th, 1998, the day the priests from Tirupathi, dozens of them, arrived

to receive the full darshan of the living God who had appeared before them in

their shrine. (To help the Western reader understand the dynamics of the

event, it might be a bit like

a group of Catholic Bishops coming to bow before a Protestant, and acknowledging

that Christ was incarnate in that form...) Hundreds of Thousands of Angels

And then there’s the experience I had at Baba’s ashram in 1996. In the

middle of His Christmas discourse, Baba waved His hand and materialized a small

gold-covered book - bringing a gasp of amazement from the crowd of 50,000, me

among them! (I was seated very close to Baba - and was certain it was a

genuine miracle.) That night at around 9 o’clock I heard that Baba had

announced earlier that angels would be flying above the ashram that evening. I

looked into the sky, but didn’t see anything unusual, so guessed I’d missed the

show. However, a couple of nights later, two friends came running up to me on

the street and said, “Ram Das, the angels are back! Come on, you’ve got to see

them!” So I followed them up to a rooftop, away from the lights of the ashram,

lay down and looked up... And in the sky above us was one of

the

most astonishing sights I’ve ever seen: hundreds of thousands of self-luminous

beings flying through the air, zipping around at great speed in what seemed to

be an ecstatic dance of joy! They looked a little like shooting stars - yet

they were closer to the Earth, and moving not in straight lines (as asteroids,

or any similar phenomena would be) but in curves and curlicues. Considering

Baba's earlier announcement, I didn’t see any reason to doubt that these

glowing beings were indeed angels, celestial helpers in His world mission: no

other phenomena I knew of could explain the sight. Sometimes two would pair up

for a while as they zipped about, and they

seemed to be pouring forth from some invisible gate above the ashram, where I

guessed they had maybe just received Baba’s darshan and instructions for their

work... The event had an unquestionably supernatural exuberance about it that

left all three of us gasping in amazement. It was probably the most inspiring

sight I’ve ever witnessed, ringing out more clearly than a thousand manifested

rings the divine identity of Sathya Sai Baba. Why would so

many angels congregate in such an extraordinary way, other than to have the

darshan of God? The Amrit-Oozing Amulets

10.0pt"> In an orphanage in South India, there is an ongoing miracle

pertaining to two thumb-nail sized slivers of porcelain, one bearing the

likeness of Sathya Sai Baba, the second depicting Shirdi Sai Baba. Given to

the manager of the orphanage by Sai Baba over twenty years ago, they have been

miraculously oozing amrit (a honey-like jasmine nectar) ever since. I decided

to visit the place, and see the famous miracle for myself. The manager of the

orphanage scooped one of the amulets out of a dish with a spoon, and put it in

the palm of my right hand. It was nothing but a thin piece of

porcelain with Baba’s face painted on it - there was no place for any mechanism

to hide. I watched like a hawk as a few drops of amrit trickled from the

amulet into my palm - but this meant nothing, it had just been sitting in a

dish of amrit. Yet amrit continued trickling from it until my palm was full,

and with the spoon, the manager scooped the amrit from that hand and poured it

into my left palm. As amrit continued to trickle from the amulet over a period

of several minutes, he repeated this procedure four times, until finally my left

hand was overflowing with amrit - and the amrit was still trickling into my

right palm! Even the most adamant skeptic, witnessing what I saw that day,

would have to admit it was a miracle. (I tasted the nectar: it’s definitely

not of this world!) A Lingam, Specially Delivered From the Amarnath Cave

1"> A couple of years ago Baba gave me a special gift, in a highly

unusual way; I think you’ll agree the story lends weight to my assertion of

Baba’s divinity. A man named Rouf (pronounced “Roof”), who owns one of the

shops near Baba's ashram, saw me on the street one day and told me he'd had a

“Baba dream” about me, and that he had something to give me. I was a bit put

off, but

several weeks later finally paid him a visit, and as we sipped sweet tea in his

shop, he told me his story: "Last summer I went on a pilgrimage to

some holy places up North. Hardwar, Rishikesh, Kashmir, and then the Amarnath

Cave, in Himalayas. It's closed eight months a year from snow, no way to get

in. And in this cave, you've heard of it? There's this naturally formed

Lingam, a huge one, made of ice.

[A Lingam is an elliptical symbol of the Supreme Being, used in the worship of

Lord Shiva.] Shiva and Parvati actually lived in this cave - it's one of the

holiest shrines in India. So I'm sitting outside this cave - and suddenly

these two white birds... What are they called? Doves. Two doves

flew out of the cave. And as they flew over my head, one of them dropped

something in my lap. And in that moment, I heard, 'This is for Ram Das.'"

"Wait,” I said incredulously. “You heard that inside, from God? Or

from the bird?"

black"> "Yes, yes," he replied, with the affirmative Indian head

wobble. "The bird." Rouf reached down and unwrapped a small

package, and then held up the precious object: a radiant red Lingam. "Ruby!"

he said. "A ruby Lingam." "A Prema Lingam!” I replied, awed at the

beautiful cosmic egg God had given. (Prema means ‘Divine Love’.)

"Yes." Rouf held it up to the light and smiled. "But the problem was," he

continued, "I didn't know who is this Ram Das. I had forgot your name. So I

prayed for two weeks, every day, "Baba, who is this Lingam for? Who is this

Ram Das?" Finally, one night Baba came in my dream. He showed me you, and

said, 'This is Ram Das. Give it to him.'" Rouf handed me the Lingam,

which fit beautifully in the palm of my hand. I was speechless - what a bizarre

story! Like something out of Tolkein, except the "Lord of the Rings" who had

sent this was the supreme Lord of Love, incarnate in human form! What an

amazing leela - what a gift! I held the sacred object to my chest for

a while, drawing in its energy, and then said, "You know, Rouf, there's another

interesting aspect to this. In the book I'm working on, there's a ladder of

concepts you can climb to reach the Truth. Once you climb it, you then step

off the ladder onto the Roof - the Supreme Reality, where no mind exists, where

no concepts can ever reach. So in my book, the word 'Roof' is equated with the

Supreme Being. And this gift has come to me from the 'Rouf'!” God

bless Rouf for passing the Lingam on to me, without the slightest hint of

request for payment of any kind. May he

ever live up to his high name! Clearly, Sai Baba stops at nothing to

express His love for His devotees... Is it not obvious, He is an incarnation

of God?

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11.0in">Baba’s Own Words And what does Baba Himself say? “The

totality of Divine Energy has come unto humanity as Sathya Sai. This is a

human form in which every Divine Entity, every Divine Principle, that is to say

all the names and forms ascribed by man to God are

manifest.”19 He says He is the Father who sent Jesus - but then adds that we

are also God, but have forgotten:

mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt"> “You as body, mind or soul are a dream. But what

you really are is pure existence, knowledge, bliss. You are the God of this

universe.”20 He declares that He knows the entire past and

future of every one of us, as well as our every thought - and frequently proves

this assertion by revealing intimate knowledge of the

innermost thoughts and personal lives of His devotees. His continuous flow, for

over six decades, of miraculous manifestations, and instantaneous healings of

‘incurable’ maladies such as cancer, paralysis and blindness, is, to my

knowledge, unparalleled in the history of the world. I’ve also read a number

of well-documented accounts of Baba bringing people back from the dead,

including a Nepalese woman named Bharosa Adhikari, and an elderly American

named Walter Cowan, whose resurrection is beautifully described in My Baba and

I, by Dr. John Hislop. Another such account, regarding an Indian devotee named

V. Radhakrishna, follows later in the website.

5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in"> Apparitions

1"> Over the years, many people have reported that Sai Baba has

appeared before them in various places around the globe in a living form - yet

He has ‘physically’ left India only once. One example is Connie Shaw, the

American author and lecturer, who states in her book Wake Up Laughing that Baba

has appeared in her home in Colorado over fifty times! At one point He appeared

in the middle of the night, waking her from sleep with a tap on the shoulder, to

request that she take over the presidency of a local Sai Center. Since the

center was mainly comprised of Indians and she felt it would be inappropriate

for a Westerner to lead them, she refused His request. The next night He came

again, and again she refused. When He appeared for the third consecutive night

she finally relented and agreed to lead the center. When she reluctantly told

the president of the Center about the apparitions, he confessed that on the

same three nights Baba had appeared in his home as well, requesting that he

resign so Connie could take his place!

mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt"> Another example is James Sinclair, an

American businessman who had never heard of Sai Baba, and who saw, on two

occasions, an orange-robed man with an afro appearing and disappearing in his

house in the USA. Inquiring at a spiritual book store if any living Master fit

the description, he was shown a photo of Sai Baba, whom he instantly recognized

as the man in his home. When Sinclair finally made it to Baba’s ashram, the

first thing Baba said to him was, “I came to you twice!”

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10.0in 10.5in 11.0in"> Four Great Miracle Stories Here are four

representative stories, from among the thousands I’ve heard and read, which

reveal a glimpse of Sai Baba’s divine power, compassion and sense of humor.

The first is the account of Bhagwandas Daswani, a prosperous

businessman of Hong Kong (reprinted from Face to Face with God, by V.I.K. Sarin,

former senior journalist at one of India’s leading newspapers): “On

May 10, 1977, I was struck with a massive heart attack. I was admitted to the

Queen Mary Hospital on May 11, and I learned later that at 4 a.m. on the same

day Baba had called my son, who was studying in Swami’s College at Whitefield,

and told him, “Go to Hong Kong immediately, as your father is having a little

heart trouble.”

10.0pt"> Daswani said, “I actually died for two minutes and was revived

by doctors.” Although Daswani came around, there was no improvement in

his condition and he was confined to the Intensive Care Unit. On May 20, he

suffered a relapse and started hemorrhaging from the anus. He was losing about

four pints of blood a day. He had drips in both arms and a pad over his heart.

The hemorrhaging continued for three days and by May 24, his family had lost

hope for his life, and so had the team of doctors. “On the morning of

May 25, at exactly 4:10 a.m.,” recalled Daswani, “Sathya Sai Baba walked through

the wall of the room and sat on the bed. He showered vibhuti all over me. The

vibhuti came pouring out of his hand in a never-ending flow. With the vibhuti

bath I suddenly felt a surge of strength all through my body. I was completely

baffled by the appearance of Baba in the room, and thought I was dreaming or

hallucinating. I therefore said, ‘Baba are you really here or am I dreaming?’

He said, ‘I am here all right. What would you like

me to do?’ I said, ‘Just put me on that couch over there next to the bed, so

that I know I am not dreaming.’ He then lifted me up as though I was a feather

and placed me on the couch. The drips in my arm remained intact, nothing was

disturbed. Baba then left the same way as he had come. “I then rang

the night bell to call

the staff nurse. A horde of nurses came rushing into the room. Their

astonishment was beyond description. ‘How did you get here?’ they asked. ‘I

walked,’ I said, aware that it would be impossible for them to believe the

truth. ‘Who has been in here? And what is all this dust all over the bed, and

all over you?’ they asked. I said, ‘Don’t ask me. Just collect that dust and

put it in a paper bag for me.’ They did this and collected one and a half

kilograms of

normal">vibhuti. “I began to improve rapidly after this, and the

doctors and the staff kept questioning me as to what had happened. Finally an

Indian doctor showed up and he said to me, ‘Look, I am an Indian. You can tell

me what happened.’ I told him, and he kept my secret. On

May 29 I was able to walk by myself to another ward. I made a complete

recovery, and what is more, my diabetes has disappeared and my blood sugar is

normal. I owe my eternal gratitude to Bhagavan Baba.”21

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9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in"> Here is the testimony of Kitty Lamonte of

Scotland (as related in Divine Glory, by V. Balu & Shakuntala Balu)

black">: “My story begins sometime last summer, when I first became

aware of Baba. I was invited to visit some Indian friends of a friend of mine

and they talked so lovingly and honestly about Baba that I decided to read more

about him. I read ‘The Holy Man and the Psychiatrist’ [by Samuel Sandweiss],

and in fact used it almost like a Bible, in that I read the writings of Baba

everyday.

“At this time I had something of a drinking problem and was consuming

far more alcohol than was good for me, but was unable to stop. I decided that I

would enlist the help of Baba, so for three nights I sat there with the book,

Baba’s photograph and the whisky. I poured my drink on the 27th

November, at 11:45 p.m. and sat down to watch T.V. I put my hand on the book,

looked at the photograph and said, ‘You really will have to help me to stop

this.’ There was an almighty noise and the glass exploded into a

million bits. It went everywhere in the room, it was under tables, on top of

books in a bookcase and some

of it was found by my housekeeper the following day, under the cushion I had

been sitting on. . . . “The most interesting thing for me happened

two days later. I was on a train and had not been able to

get the sound of this exploding glass out of my mind, when a voice in my head

said, “Did you notice that not a bit of it touched you?” I cannot tell you the

feeling of absolute joy I experienced at that moment. I suddenly realised that

only a miracle could have stopped this glass from damaging me very badly. It

was no more than a foot away from my face.

COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt"> “I have now made a firm

commitment to Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, never to drink alcohol again.”22

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8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in" align="center"> One day Baba

called a poor Muslim family in for an interview, and along with them, one Hindu

man. (The person who told me this story heard it directly from the Hindu man.)

A boy in the family was distraught because his two

best friends had gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and his parents couldn’t afford

to send him along. (As a consolation, they’d brought him to see Sai Baba.)

Baba started the interview by saying to the boy, “So, you want to go to Mecca.”

The boy burst into tears, and Baba then turned and spoke to the others for a

while. The boy continued crying, and finally Baba turned to him and said, “You

really want to go to Mecca, don’t you!” Baba then tapped the wall of the

interview room with His hand, and the wall disappeared - and in its place, a

street scene from Saudi Arabia appeared. “Look, there are your two friends.

Now go! You have half an hour.” The boy walked into the street scene... and

the wall

reappeared. Baba spoke with the stunned family for another half an

hour, and then tapped the wall again. The street scene reappeared - and the

boy walked back into the interview room, proudly carrying some souvenirs from

Mecca!

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month later, when his friends returned home, the boy’s parents asked them, “How

long was he with you?” Confirming the boy’s account, his friends replied, “Two

weeks.”

1"> (Clearly Baba is a Master of both time and space - as well as being

That which is beyond time and space! That’s the fourth story I’ve heard about

Sai Baba instantly transporting someone to a distant land through His interview

room wall.) \ Here is an account of the resurrection of V.

Radhakrishna, as told by V.I.K. Sarin in Face to Face with God:

black">“The miracle took place in 1953. Radhakrishna was seriously ill with

gastric ulcers and other complications, when he visited Puttaparthi [from his

home town of Kuppam] in the hope that Baba would cure him. He was accompanied

by his wife Radhamma and daughter Vijaya. On arrival at the ashram he was put

straight to bed. Baba, who was then only 27 years old, visited him but made no

attempt to heal him. Radhakrishna complained that he would rather die than

continue to suffer the extreme pain he was in. Baba smiled but made no

comments.

6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in">

A few days later Radhakrishna went into a coma and his wife and daughter, who

were at the bedside, heard the “death rattle” in his throat. Swami came and

examined him, but still did nothing. An hour later Radhakrishna’s breathing

stopped. He turned blue, and then went cold and stiff. A male nurse

pronounced him dead. Baba examined him again. “Don’t worry,” he said.

“Everything will be all right.” But he still made no attempt to revive him.

The faith of the wife and daughter was put to severe test. The following day

they sat loyally by the bedside anxiously awaiting any signs of returning life.

But there was no indication of revival. Somehow the two women managed to cling

on to a vestige of faith that in His own way and in His own time Swami would

revive Radhakrishna. On the morning of the third day the body turned dark,

quite stiff and began

to smell. It was suggested to Radhamma that the “corpse” should be removed from

the ashram, but she refused adamantly to countenance such action without the

authority of Baba. His aides asked for instructions as to whether the body

should be sent back to Kuppam or be cremated at Puttaparthi. Baba replied

enigmatically, “We’ll see.” The two

women were in despair. They went to Baba and pleaded with Him. He simply said,

“Have no fear. I am here.” He did, however, promise to visit their room and

examine Radhakrishna later. An hour went by, then two and there was no sign of

Baba. It was then that Radhamma and Vijaya gave up hope. Then, suddenly, Swami

appeared in the doorway of their room, calm and smiling. The two women burst

into tears, like Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, weeping before their

Lord who, they thought, had come too late. Gently He asked them to

leave the room, and as they moved out He closed the door behind them. They do

not know - nor anyone else knows till this day - what really transpired in the

next few minutes in that room where only Swami and the dead man were present.

But in just a few minutes, Baba opened the door and beckoned the women in

there, to see their loved one sitting up in bed and smiling! The stiffness of

death had vanished and his natural colour was returning. Baba said to him,

“Talk to them, they were worried.” Radhakrishna, with a puzzled look said,

“Why are you worried? I am all right!” He was not aware that he had been in a

deathly coma. Swami then said to Radhamma, “I have given your husband back to

you. Now give him a hot drink.” Thereupon He blessed the family and left.

The next day the patient was strong enough to walk. On the third day he wrote

a seven-page letter to a relative in Italy. A few days after that the whole

family returned to their home in Kuppam. Not only was Radhakrishna raised from

the dead, but the gastric ulcers and the other complications were completely

healed. It was a repetition of the raising of Lazarus.”23

-.5in 0in blank 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in

6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in"> A Word About

Baba’s Manifestations Many Western scientists and researchers have

investigated Baba’s miraculous powers, and declared them to be genuine. Baba

is probably most famous for His materializations of rings – and the

frequent manifestations of vibhuti, kumkum and amrit which appear on His

photographs in various places around the globe. [The photos below show

examples of such manifestations from devotees' homes around the world.]

LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; tab-stops: dotted -1.0in -.5in 0in blank 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in

3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in

9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in" align="center"> Yet vibhuti

manifestations are only the beginning: He’s manifested thousands of items,

including deity statues, japa malas, lingams, gems, fine watches, all kinds of

jewelry, photographs, puja items, at least one crucifix, and various kinds of

food - sometimes in huge quantities. (When they first emerge from the ether,

many of the deity statues are literally too hot to handle, as if the metal had

just begun to cool from its molten state.) Baba often makes such items

miraculously appear on the altars of His devotees in various locations around

the world - and then later causes vibhuti or kumkum to form on them.

11.0in" align="justify"> I’ve heard that He once materialized a live

monkey in His interview room. He assures us that these

manifestations are no mere magic, nor even the siddhi of being able to

psychically move objects from one place to another. His miracles occur by

God’s power, the same power that created the universe: the ability to will into

being anything He wishes. (This has been proven on a number of occasions, such

as the time a devotee handed Him a leaf and He returned the same leaf coated in

gold, or the time he manifested an apple for a couple who had been trying

unsuccessfully to have a child: when cut in two, the ‘apple’ turned out to be a

passion-fruit on the inside. The couple ate it, and nine months later had their

first child.)

1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in

8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in" align="justify"> False

Materializations? Some people have accused Baba of “faking”

materializations, saying, for instance, that they have seen Him clandestinely

pull a ring from under His cushion and then wave His hand

and pretend to miraculously manifest the ring. Although these stories may just

be more lies from the jealous ones, let’s assume, for the sake of discussion,

that Baba does occasionally throw some cheap magic tricks in among His

miracles, and allows a few devotees to glimpse His sleight of hand. What could

be the reason for it?

10.0pt; mso-tab-count: 1">First of all, there could be many devotees whom Baba

wishes to bless with a faith-enhancing gift, who are simply not karmically ripe

enough to receive a divinely manifested object. (Most souls in this age are

immersed in dense worldly ignorance, and are neither spiritually ready nor

karmically deserving to witness genuine miracles.) So, although Baba

definitely has the power to manifest anything He wishes, and transform one

object into another with a single puff of His breath (something He has proved

time and time again for decades), for certain souls He might instead engage in

a bit of beginner’s magic, and pull a ring from under His cushion rather than

materializing it.

mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-tab-count: 1">This would enable those devotees

to receive the gifts from His hand that they craved, thereby giving their faith

a boost, while satisfying the requirements of the Law of Karma. By

allowing one or more devotees to glimpse the trick, my guess is that Baba would

simply be exposing a doubt that was already lurking within their minds, bringing

it to the surface so it could be faced directly - and in the process giving them

a severe test. I imagine He might be saying,

normal">‘So, you claim to be My devotee! But after all these years of

experiencing my omniscience and omnipresence and witnessing my miracles first

hand, and after hearing and reading thousands of accounts of the healings and

blessings I have bestowed on others - you still doubt Me? Then perhaps you are

not worthy to be My devotee. Here, you see? I am a fake! I

have pulled the ring from under the cushion! Now, isn’t it best you leave Me

and begin denouncing Me to the world? Then other immature souls will also stay

away. V e r y happy!’ When the doubting devotee is thus

challenged, he will either make the choice to leave Baba, or else receive the

grace to remember Baba’s Divinity, infinite power and mischievous nature - and

then cast aside all doubts and emerge with fully renewed faith.

mso-tab-count: 1">Using such a test, Baba can filter out devotees whose faith is

only ‘miracle deep’ and shallow in true devotion and understanding, while

retaining more mature devotees whose faith and devotion are based on a profound

soul experience of who He is - a faith unshakable by such leelas. (I would

guess that only those of the second variety are ready for the full-out quest

for Self-Realization, the ultimate Gift, the one Baba took birth to give.)

mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-tab-count: 1"> Another possible

outcome: by shocking a devotee out of his ‘miracle-based faith’, Baba’s tricky

test could serve as a wake up call from the duality laden Guru-disciple dream,

breaking the devotee’s attachment to worship of the external Guru, and leaving

him with no recourse but to put all his focus on the non-dual Atman - which is,

after all, the true spiritual goal. Through that sudden shift of focus onto the

Self

within, the devotee just might find Baba in a whole new way; it could even

propel him all the way to Enlightenment - to the permanent realization that

Paramatma Sai is his own indwelling ‘I’. And

remember, to bring us to Enlightenment is the Guru's one essential task - their

very raison d'etre - and they will accomplish that task 'by any means

necessary', including lying, trickery, the breaking of taboos, and any other

available method of shocking us out of our complacency and making us thoroughly

miserable in our spiritual egos! (Sometimes a painful whack from Zen

Master Baba can be far more valuable than a miracle...)

TEXT-ALIGN: justify; tab-stops: dotted -1.0in -.5in 0in blank .5in 1.0in 1.5in

2.0in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in

9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in"> One thing to keep in mind:

intentionally bringing up doubts in the devotees’ minds is a time-tested

technique used by many Gurus; I have personally experienced it with Ammachi,

and also read about Neem Karoli Baba using the same method. What better way to

bring the devotee face to face with his own Doubting Thomas, and challenge him

to rise above all doubts into the true Atmic quest, into unflinching faith,

surrender and Divine Love?

4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in

10.5in 11.0in"> Knowing Baba’s playful Krishna nature, I certainly

wouldn’t put it past Him to be playing a few games with His materialization

leelas. He is, after all, an embodiment of Mahamaya, the Creatrix of the whole

cosmic illusion, the One who is fooling all beings! Yet He is also the supreme

Truth, and

the supreme bliss - and if we can learn to enjoy His mischievous games as much

as He does, without insisting He play by our rules, I believe we’ll have gone a

long way towards attaining that bliss, which is our true eternal nature.

I know a young man from Mexico who witnessed what he thought was a fake

materialization done by Baba. He went into anguish over the doubt it created

in his mind, and secretly prayed that Baba would clear it away with something

truly

‘unfakable’, such as making water pour out of His hand! The next day Baba

called him in for a private interview, rolled up His sleeve and held out His

down-turned hand - and suddenly, a stream of water poured out of His palm like

water from a tap! My friends, is it wise to doubt Him?

6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in"> For

those who have studied Sai Baba in depth and witnessed His materializations

first hand, there can be no doubt that the vast majority of them are bona fide

miracles. I and many of my friends have seen numerous unquestionably-genuine

miracles up close: necklaces and watches literally popping out of the air

beneath Baba’s hand, right before our eyes. And there are thousands of

believable stories. My fiancé's parents know an American woman for whom Baba

once materialized a gold bangle during an

interview. When she tried to put it on it was too small, and wouldn’t fit over

her hand, so Baba took it back, held it up for all to see, and blew on it - and

the bangle instantly expanded to a much larger size, which easily fit over her

hand! But then she said, “Swami, now it’s too big - it’ll fall off!” So He

bent over and blew on it again - and the bangle instantly shrank into a perfect

fit around her wrist.

7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in"> (Can any of you

guys do that?) I recently heard a story about a young Australian

whose group was called for an interview. He had forgotten his yellow ‘group

scarf’

mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-tab-count: 1">, and in a panic considered

running back to his room - he went half-way towards the exit, and then changed

his mind and decided to risk being turned away at the interview room door.

Baba graciously let him in, sans scarf, and during the course of the interview

Baba materialized a ring for him, with the usual photo of Baba’s face on it,

which was passed around for all to see. After the interview, the young man

went back to his room and took a nap, and when he woke up, he discovered that

the photo on the ring had undergone a miraculous transformation: Baba was now

pictured wearing a yellow scarf around His neck! (I heard the story from

someone who was in the ashram at the time and saw the transformed ring

himself.) Do tell, doubters, how did Baba "fake" that

one?

4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in

11.0in"> One thing to keep in mind: the gifts Baba give reflect the

qualities of the people to whom they are given. Furthermore, what we see in

the Sai Mirror (and receive therefrom) reflects primarily our own minds. Baba

often manifests diamond rings

10.0pt; mso-tab-count: 1">, with surprisingly large diamonds set beautifully in

gold; some of these rings have been valued at over a quarter of a million

dollars. Yet one man, who has now taken to globally scandalizing Baba, also

received a ring from Him - and when he took it to a jeweler for valuation, he

was told it was not a diamond at all but merely a well-cut lump of glass! Is

it any wonder Baba gave such a ring to one who would prove a completely false

devotee?

3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in

10.0in 10.5in 11.0in"> Of this I am sure: if Baba does occasionally

engage in a bit of ‘sleight of hand’, it is only another piece of His maya -

specifically designed to create negative rumors that will test His devotees and

keep unripe souls from recognizing Who He is. Those who think they have ‘caught

the magician at his tricks’ have actually been fooled by the Avatar’s maya,

1">and in the process proved themselves as yet unworthy to behold the glory of

the living Incarnation of God. His True Mission In understanding

Baba's miracles, it's important to remember His own words on the subject: He

says that in comparison with His true mission, His miracles are “like a

mosquito on an elephant’s back.” He repeats what Shirdi Sai Baba said so

often: “I give them what they want, so they will want what I have to give!” He

says He has come not to manifest rings or bless us with promotions and healings

- the purpose for His incarnation is to usher in a new age of Divine Peace on

Earth, and establish divine

qualities in our hearts: “This Sai has come in order to achieve the supreme

task of uniting the entire mankind as one family through the bond of

brotherhood, of affirming and illumining the Atmic Reality of each being in

order to reveal the Divine, which is the basis on which the entire Cosmos

rests. This Sai has come to instruct all to recognize the common Divine

Heritage that binds man to man, so that man can rid himself of the animal and

rise into the Divine, which is his goal. This Sai has come to show that Love -

Prema - is the easiest way to reach the Divine.”24 Baba says He has

come to “avert the crisis that has come upon humanity”, and usher in a new age

of divine wisdom upon the Earth, a golden age of Love, peace and understanding

- and He assures us that He will succeed. In the mid-1980’s He told His

students that He would be working directly with the minds of Ronald Reagan and

Mikhail Gorbachev to bring about a change in the world. I would guess it is no

mere co-incidence that the fall of global communism occurred less than ten years

after that statement was made!

yes"> (As Baba said in the ’70s when asked about Communism, “Communists? Come

you next!”) Now Baba has thousands of devotees from the former communist

nations, spreading His message of Divine Love where such words were forbidden

for decades. Surely Baba’s work has made the world a better place; the Earth,

by His plan, grown a hair closer to Planet Peace. Perhaps it will be with

Prema Sai, Baba’s next incarnation - due to be born in some lucky South Indian

manger around 2028 - that the global level of spiritual knowledge will reach

critical mass, and the Earth and its atmosphere finally be divinely

transformed, into a Paramatma-sphere. May the day come soon! A Taste of His

Teachings Baba’s teachings cover many viewpoints, and seem to

primarily be a resounding, world-emboldening ‘Yes!’ to all legitimate spiritual

paths and the basic truths of all religions. Most of Baba’s teachings focus on

love - love for God and for all beings - as the essential core of spirituality:

“Start the day with Love. Spend the day with Love. Fill the day with Love.

End the day with Love. This is the way to God!” And this Love is to be given

to everyone, always, without

exception: “Love all, serve all! Help ever, hurt never!” Yet as I

explored His teachings more deeply, I found that He is also a Master of

advaithic philosophy, and a strong exponent of the jnana path (the path of

Atmic wisdom).

yes"> “The main aim of human life is to acquire the knowledge of the Atman.

This is the true Purushartha [goal of life]. Human life will find fulfillment

only if this goal is attained.”

mso-special-character: footnote">25 The various approaches are beautifully

balanced in His discourses, with devotion and Atmic abidance given equal

importance. Baba also stresses the

practice of what He calls the five primary human values, namely, Love, Truth,

Peace, Righteousness, and Non-violence. In many of His discourses He asks us

to dedicate all our actions to God and live in tireless selfless service to

humanity. He also lays importance on the practice of kindness, and the use of

sweet speech under all circumstances, saying, “You cannot always oblige; but

you can always speak obligingly.”

mso-bidi-font-style: italic"> Baba advocates daily meditation for all, as well

as repetition of God’s Names with love, devotional singing, and the practice of

seeing and serving God within everyone, laying particular emphasis on continual

remembrance of the Divine Reality. “Spirituality means constant integrated

awareness.”

10.0pt"> Interestingly, He does not encourage His non-Hindu devotees to

become Hindus, but rather, to use His teachings to become the best Christians,

Jews, Muslims or Buddhists they can be. Many of the devotional songs sung at

Baba’s ashrams contain the names of Allah, Jesus, Zaroaster, Mahavir, Moses,

Guru Nanak and the Buddha, in addition to the Hindu Avatars. It seems to be a

clear a way of saying, ‘Hear, O world!

The Lord is One!’ “There is only one Religion, the Religion of Love.

1.5in 2.0in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in

8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in" align="center"> There is only one

caste, the caste of Humanity. There is only one language, the language of the

Heart.

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..5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in

7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in" align="center">There is

only one God, and He is omnipresent.” As an aid to the

realization of His primary teaching - that we are God - He often recommends use

of the mantra ‘So Ham’ (meaning “I am He”,

or “I am God”). He has also offered His devotees the following

maha-affirmation: I am God! I am God! I am not different from God!

10.0pt">I am the eternal undifferentiated Absolute! Grief and anxiety cannot

effect me. I am always content. Fear cannot enter me. I am Satchidananda! I

am pure Existence, Knowledge and Bliss. I am Omnipotent! I am all-powerful;

nothing is impossible for me!

TEXT-ALIGN: center; tab-stops: dotted -1.0in -.5in 0in blank .5in 1.0in 1.5in

2.0in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in

9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in" align="center">I am Omniscient! I am

all-knowing; there is nothing which is not known to me.

5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in

11.0in" align="center">I am Omnipresent! I am present everywhere. I pervade

this universe! I am Krishna! I am Christ! I am Buddha!

10.0in 10.5in 11.0in" align="center">I am Sai! I am Sai! I am Sai! I am God!

I am God! I am God!

by R. D. Awle

This material may be downloaded, reproduced and distributed freely, as long as

the source is clearly attributed.]

Brings words and photos together (easily) with PhotoMail - it's free and works with Mail.

March 15, 2006

Dear Anoop Kumar

That was one fascinating artile! Thanks for sharing it. It was very

thrilling to read the testimony of so many saints and sages on Sai

Baba. There wont be an Avatar of this power in another 60 centuries,

as Anandamoyi Ma told!!! Very thrilling!!!

Sai Ram

unnikrishnan

, anoop kumar <saianoop999

wrote:

>

> P O T E N T E V I D E N C E :

>

> W H O is Sai Baba?

>

> Who is Baba? Testimony of the Modern Day Masters One

of the greatest Saints of this century was a woman named Anandamoyi

Ma. (The name translates as `Bliss-permeated Mother.' There's a

photo of her, standing next to Paramahansa Yogananda, in

Autobiography of a Yogi.) She was so pure and filled with God that

she was widely considered to be a Divine Incarnation herself: there

seemed to be nothing in her but God, and her words were Truth

itself. According to one of her closest Western devotees, over the

years she had often been asked, "Who is this Sathya Sai Baba we keep

hearing about?" But for many years she never gave an answer. In

the last year of her life, however, the question came up again, and

this time she gave the following response: "This body will speak on

this question only once; don't ask again. Sathya Sai Baba is the

most powerful incarnation of God ever to come to the Earth. And

there won't be another at His level for another sixty centuries."6

> That amazing testimony was recently strengthened for

me when I went to one of Anandamoyi Ma's ashrams in the Himalayas.

When I shared the preceding quote with a Swami there7, he said that

Anandamoyi Ma had then added, "It's no wonder you keep hearing about

Sai Baba. He is the Avatar of this Yuga!" (Avatar means

Incarnation of God; a Yuga is an era lasting many thousands of

years.)

> Other Saints have given similar testimony. Shortly

before he left his physical body behind, Paramahansa Yogananda was

approached by one of his close American disciples, a

woman. "Master," she said, "I know you are planning on leaving your

body. You must take me with you! You are my God!"

> "Nonsense," replied Yogananda. "God is God; I am your

Guru."

> "But Master, if you leave without me, I will commit

suicide!"

> "Enough of that foolishness! God Himself is now

incarnate on Earth, in South India. His name is Sai Baba. When I

leave you are going to live with Him." (His prediction proved

correct; after Yogananda's death, that devotee spent the rest of her

life at Sai Baba's ashram.)8

> Mata Amritanandamayi (also known as Ammachi), Herself

considered to be an incarnation of the Divine Mother, was once

asked, "Who is Sai Baba?" She replied, "Avatar. Perfect from

birth."9

> On the day after Sai Baba's birth (November 23, 1926),

Sri Aurobindo, another great Saint of this century, broke a long

period of silence to announce, "Twenty-fourth November, 1926, was

the descent of Krishna into the physical. A power infallible shall

lead the thought, in earthly hearts kindle the Immortal's Fire, even

the multitude shall hear the voice!"10 It seems obvious at this

point that his announcement of Krishna's physical re-embodiment was

referring to the birth of Sathya Sai Baba.

> Mother Krishnabai, the Self-Realized disciple of Swami

Ramdas (the great Saint from Kerala), told her devotees, "Sai Baba

is an Avatar, a full incarnation of Krishna. He is Brahma, Vishnu

and Shiva together in one form!" She recommended they spend as much

time in His presence as possible.11

> Swami Satchidananda, the Enlightened sage who currently

runs Anandashram in Kerala, was recently asked about the allegations

against Sai Baba. He replied, "Forget about it. He is God!"12

> Karunamayi (also known as Vijayeshwari Devi,

considered by many to be a living incarnation of the Goddess

Sarasvati) recently told one of her close devotees, "Sai Baba and

Amma [meaning herself] are both watching over you." Apparently she

also knows who Baba is!

> Yogi Ramsuratkumar made it clear on numerous occasions

that Sai Baba is an incarnation of God. He often asked visitors

from Baba's ashram, "You've left God to see this beggar?"13 (Of

course, that "beggar" was himself merged in the all-pervading

Consciousness; the beauty of his attainment was matched only by his

humility.)

> Shiva Balayogi, another of the great Gurus of the last

century, was once asked about Sai Baba. He replied, "Sathya Sai

Baba is an Avatar."14

> Master El Moya and Master Kuthumi, two of the great

Ascended Masters behind the founding of the Theosophical Movement,

also declared Sai Baba to be an Avatar. According to author Howard

Murphet, in the book "The Light Will Set You Free" these Masters

have stated, "Avatar Sai Baba is carrying the Divine consciousness

in the world today."15

> Maitreya, the mysterious Master who has been

miraculously appearing before people in various places around the

globe throughout the last two decades, has said (through his

spokesman, Benjamin Creme) that He (Maitreya) is the planetary

Avatar, while Sai Baba is the Universal Avatar.16

> Testimony from Gopalakrishna Baba, Devi Amma, "Little

Heart" and Vasantha Sai appears later in the website.

>

> Mohammed's Prophecy

> As mentioned in Part 1, there is a prophecy written by

Mohammed which clearly predicts the coming of Sathya Sai Baba. In

God Descends to Earth, Sanjay Kant states:

>

> According to an article published in "Two World's"

Magazine of London, an Iranian writer was irresistibly drawn to a

huge volume in Tehran. This book, called The Ocean of Light, is in

25 volumes. It is claimed to be the collection of the discourses of

Prophet Mohammed. Volume 13 of these discourses is called "Mehedi

Moud" in Arabic, meaning "The Great Teacher that was promised."17

>

> The detailed description Mohammed gives of this "Great

Teacher" and "Master of the World" fits Sathya Sai Baba

perfectly: "His hair will be profuse. There will be a gap between

His front teeth. He will have a mole on his left cheek. He will

not have a beard but will be clean shaven. His clothing will be

like a flame." (Sai Baba wears orange.) "His body will be small."

(Sai Baba is barely five feet tall.) "His legs and feet will be

like those of a young girl." (Baba's feet are unusually

small.) "He will give gifts that are light in weight." (Baba most

frequently gives rings, pendants and watches.) "He will go around

among his devotees and touch their heads with his hand. Many of His

devotees will have a dot on their forehead. They will gather under

a large tree." (For many years in His Whitefield ashram, Baba gave

darshan under a large tree.) "So as not to be deceived, you should

know that the Master of the World will bring things out of His body,

through

> His mouth." (For many years - including the last three - on the

holy day of Maha Shivaratri, Sai Baba has brought forth out of His

mouth a `Shiva Linam', an egg-sized sacred stone which had formed

within His body.) "All the teachings of all religions of the world

will be in his heart from birth. All the science and knowledge of

the world from the beginning of time will be in his heart." (In

interviews with scientists and professors over the years, Baba has

amply demonstrated full mastery of all fields of knowledge.) "All

things which you will ask of God, He (the Master of the World) will

give you. All the treasures are under his feet. Every eye that

sees him will be happy, not only humans but disembodied souls. He

will live 95 years." (Sai Baba has said that His current incarnation

will last for 95 years; this means he will leave his present body

around 2020 A.D.) "In the last 20 years of his life he will be

the `King of the whole world', but at that time only two-thirds

> of the people of the world will believe in him."18 (Sai Baba has

literally millions of devotees worldwide. At His 70th birthday

party, over three million people came to celebrate.)

>

> I recently met an Iranian man who told me that he has

studied The Ocean of Light in detail, in the original, and assured

me that the preceding quotes are indeed in the prophecy (along with

others which point directly to Sai Baba). After years of study, he

is personally certain that the prophecy refers only to Sathya Sai

Baba.

>

> Baba Takes Venkateshwara's Place

> I was recently a partial witness to an incident which

provides another powerful clue to Baba's identity. One of the most

famous shrines in India is the hilltop temple to Lord Venkateshwara

(a form of Vishnu), in Tirupathi, Tamil Nadu. Venkateshwara is

considered by many Hindus to be the Supreme Lord, and the idol in

this temple is known all over India for the powerful blessings it

bestows. As with many of the sub-sects in Hinduism, there is an

understandable quality of exclusivity in the devotees of that

shrine, especially among the priests who perform the worship; for

generations their families have been single-mindedly devoted to

Venkateshwara alone. One day in late November, 1998, the priests

were performing a special pada puja (foot worship) ceremony to the

Venkateshwara idol, when suddenly the idol's feet were transformed

before their eyes into the feet of a living man. Looking up, they

beheld, in place of the Venkateshwara idol, the living form of

Sathya Sai

> Baba. "If you want full darshan," He told them, "come to

Whitefield next week!" Baba then disappeared, leaving Venkateshwara

in His place.

> I was in Sai Baba's Whitefield Ashram on December 6th,

1998, the day the priests from Tirupathi, dozens of them, arrived to

receive the full darshan of the living God who had appeared before

them in their shrine. (To help the Western reader understand the

dynamics of the event, it might be a bit like a group of Catholic

Bishops coming to bow before a Protestant, and acknowledging that

Christ was incarnate in that form...)

>

> Hundreds of Thousands of Angels

> And then there's the experience I had at Baba's ashram

in 1996. In the middle of His Christmas discourse, Baba waved His

hand and materialized a small gold-covered book - bringing a gasp of

amazement from the crowd of 50,000, me among them! (I was seated

very close to Baba - and was certain it was a genuine miracle.) That

night at around 9 o'clock I heard that Baba had announced earlier

that angels would be flying above the ashram that evening. I looked

into the sky, but didn't see anything unusual, so guessed I'd missed

the show. However, a couple of nights later, two friends came

running up to me on the street and said, "Ram Das, the angels are

back! Come on, you've got to see them!" So I followed them up to a

rooftop, away from the lights of the ashram, lay down and looked

up...

> And in the sky above us was one of the most

astonishing sights I've ever seen: hundreds of thousands of self-

luminous beings flying through the air, zipping around at great

speed in what seemed to be an ecstatic dance of joy! They looked a

little like shooting stars - yet they were closer to the Earth, and

moving not in straight lines (as asteroids, or any similar phenomena

would be) but in curves and curlicues. Considering Baba's earlier

announcement, I didn't see any reason to doubt that these glowing

beings were indeed angels, celestial helpers in His world mission:

no other phenomena I knew of could explain the sight. Sometimes two

would pair up for a while as they zipped about, and they seemed to

be pouring forth from some invisible gate above the ashram, where I

guessed they had maybe just received Baba's darshan and instructions

for their work... The event had an unquestionably supernatural

exuberance about it that left all three of us gasping in amazement.

> It was probably the most inspiring sight I've ever witnessed,

ringing out more clearly than a thousand manifested rings the divine

identity of Sathya Sai Baba.

> Why would so many angels congregate in such an

extraordinary way, other than to have the darshan of God?

>

> The Amrit-Oozing Amulets In an orphanage in South

India, there is an ongoing miracle pertaining to two thumb-nail

sized slivers of porcelain, one bearing the likeness of Sathya Sai

Baba, the second depicting Shirdi Sai Baba. Given to the manager of

the orphanage by Sai Baba over twenty years ago, they have been

miraculously oozing amrit (a honey-like jasmine nectar) ever since.

I decided to visit the place, and see the famous miracle for

myself. The manager of the orphanage scooped one of the amulets out

of a dish with a spoon, and put it in the palm of my right hand. It

was nothing but a thin piece of porcelain with Baba's face painted

on it - there was no place for any mechanism to hide. I watched

like a hawk as a few drops of amrit trickled from the amulet into my

palm - but this meant nothing, it had just been sitting in a dish of

amrit. Yet amrit continued trickling from it until my palm was

full, and with the spoon, the manager scooped the amrit from that

> hand and poured it into my left palm. As amrit continued to

trickle from the amulet over a period of several minutes, he

repeated this procedure four times, until finally my left hand was

overflowing with amrit - and the amrit was still trickling into my

right palm! Even the most adamant skeptic, witnessing what I saw

that day, would have to admit it was a miracle. (I tasted the

nectar: it's definitely not of this world!)

>

> A Lingam, Specially Delivered From the Amarnath Cave

A couple of years ago Baba gave me a special gift, in a highly

unusual way; I think you'll agree the story lends weight to my

assertion of Baba's divinity. A man named Rouf (pronounced "Roof"),

who owns one of the shops near Baba's ashram, saw me on the street

one day and told me he'd had a "Baba dream" about me, and that he

had something to give me. I was a bit put off, but several weeks

later finally paid him a visit, and as we sipped sweet tea in his

shop, he told me his story:

> "Last summer I went on a pilgrimage to some holy

places up North. Hardwar, Rishikesh, Kashmir, and then the Amarnath

Cave, in Himalayas. It's closed eight months a year from snow, no

way to get in. And in this cave, you've heard of it? There's this

naturally formed Lingam, a huge one, made of ice. [A Lingam is an

elliptical symbol of the Supreme Being, used in the worship of Lord

Shiva.] Shiva and Parvati actually lived in this cave - it's one of

the holiest shrines in India. So I'm sitting outside this cave -

and suddenly these two white birds... What are they called? Doves.

Two doves flew out of the cave. And as they flew over my head, one

of them dropped something in my lap. And in that moment, I

heard, 'This is for Ram Das.'"

> "Wait," I said incredulously. "You heard that inside,

from God? Or from the bird?"

> "Yes, yes," he replied, with the affirmative Indian

head wobble. "The bird."

> Rouf reached down and unwrapped a small package, and

then held up the precious object: a radiant red Lingam. "Ruby!" he

said. "A ruby Lingam."

> "A Prema Lingam!" I replied, awed at the beautiful

cosmic egg God had given. (Prema means `Divine Love'.)

> "Yes." Rouf held it up to the light and smiled. "But

the problem was," he continued, "I didn't know who is this Ram Das.

I had forgot your name. So I prayed for two weeks, every

day, "Baba, who is this Lingam for? Who is this Ram Das?" Finally,

one night Baba came in my dream. He showed me you, and said, 'This

is Ram Das. Give it to him.'"

> Rouf handed me the Lingam, which fit beautifully in

the palm of my hand. I was speechless - what a bizarre story! Like

something out of Tolkein, except the "Lord of the Rings" who had

sent this was the supreme Lord of Love, incarnate in human form!

What an amazing leela - what a gift!

> I held the sacred object to my chest for a while,

drawing in its energy, and then said, "You know, Rouf, there's

another interesting aspect to this. In the book I'm working on,

there's a ladder of concepts you can climb to reach the Truth. Once

you climb it, you then step off the ladder onto the Roof - the

Supreme Reality, where no mind exists, where no concepts can ever

reach. So in my book, the word 'Roof' is equated with the Supreme

Being. And this gift has come to me from the 'Rouf'!"

> God bless Rouf for passing the Lingam on to me,

without the slightest hint of request for payment of any kind. May

he ever live up to his high name!

> Clearly, Sai Baba stops at nothing to express His love

for His devotees... Is it not obvious, He is an incarnation of God?

>

> Baba's Own Words And what does Baba Himself say? "The

totality of Divine Energy has come unto humanity as Sathya Sai.

This is a human form in which every Divine Entity, every Divine

Principle, that is to say all the names and forms ascribed by man to

God are manifest."19 He says He is the Father who sent Jesus - but

then adds that we are also God, but have forgotten:

>

> "You as body, mind or soul are a dream. But what you really are

is pure existence, knowledge, bliss. You are the God of this

universe."20

>

> He declares that He knows the entire past and future

of every one of us, as well as our every thought - and frequently

proves this assertion by revealing intimate knowledge of the

innermost thoughts and personal lives of His devotees. His

continuous flow, for over six decades, of miraculous manifestations,

and instantaneous healings of `incurable' maladies such as cancer,

paralysis and blindness, is, to my knowledge, unparalleled in the

history of the world. I've also read a number of well-documented

accounts of Baba bringing people back from the dead, including a

Nepalese woman named Bharosa Adhikari, and an elderly American named

Walter Cowan, whose resurrection is beautifully described in My Baba

and I, by Dr. John Hislop. Another such account, regarding an Indian

devotee named V. Radhakrishna, follows later in the website.

>

> Apparitions

> Over the years, many people have reported that Sai

Baba has appeared before them in various places around the globe in

a living form - yet He has `physically' left India only once. One

example is Connie Shaw, the American author and lecturer, who states

in her book Wake Up Laughing that Baba has appeared in her home in

Colorado over fifty times! At one point He appeared in the middle

of the night, waking her from sleep with a tap on the shoulder, to

request that she take over the presidency of a local Sai Center.

Since the center was mainly comprised of Indians and she felt it

would be inappropriate for a Westerner to lead them, she refused His

request. The next night He came again, and again she refused. When

He appeared for the third consecutive night she finally relented and

agreed to lead the center. When she reluctantly told the president

of the Center about the apparitions, he confessed that on the same

three nights Baba had appeared in his home as well,

> requesting that he resign so Connie could take his place!

> Another example is James Sinclair, an American

businessman who had never heard of Sai Baba, and who saw, on two

occasions, an orange-robed man with an afro appearing and

disappearing in his house in the USA. Inquiring at a spiritual book

store if any living Master fit the description, he was shown a photo

of Sai Baba, whom he instantly recognized as the man in his home.

When Sinclair finally made it to Baba's ashram, the first thing Baba

said to him was, "I came to you twice!"

>

> Four Great Miracle Stories Here are four

representative stories, from among the thousands I've heard and

read, which reveal a glimpse of Sai Baba's divine power, compassion

and sense of humor. The first is the account of Bhagwandas Daswani,

a prosperous businessman of Hong Kong (reprinted from Face to Face

with God, by V.I.K. Sarin, former senior journalist at one of

India's leading newspapers):

>

> "On May 10, 1977, I was struck with a massive heart

attack. I was admitted to the Queen Mary Hospital on May 11, and I

learned later that at 4 a.m. on the same day Baba had called my son,

who was studying in Swami's College at Whitefield, and told him, "Go

to Hong Kong immediately, as your father is having a little heart

trouble."

> Daswani said, "I actually died for two minutes and was

revived by doctors."

> Although Daswani came around, there was no improvement

in his condition and he was confined to the Intensive Care Unit. On

May 20, he suffered a relapse and started hemorrhaging from the

anus. He was losing about four pints of blood a day. He had drips

in both arms and a pad over his heart. The hemorrhaging continued

for three days and by May 24, his family had lost hope for his life,

and so had the team of doctors.

> "On the morning of May 25, at exactly 4:10 a.m.,"

recalled Daswani, "Sathya Sai Baba walked through the wall of the

room and sat on the bed. He showered vibhuti all over me. The

vibhuti came pouring out of his hand in a never-ending flow. With

the vibhuti bath I suddenly felt a surge of strength all through my

body. I was completely baffled by the appearance of Baba in the

room, and thought I was dreaming or hallucinating. I therefore

said, `Baba are you really here or am I dreaming?' He said, `I am

here all right. What would you like me to do?' I said, `Just put

me on that couch over there next to the bed, so that I know I am not

dreaming.' He then lifted me up as though I was a feather and

placed me on the couch. The drips in my arm remained intact,

nothing was disturbed. Baba then left the same way as he had come.

> "I then rang the night bell to call the staff nurse.

A horde of nurses came rushing into the room. Their astonishment

was beyond description. `How did you get here?' they asked. `I

walked,' I said, aware that it would be impossible for them to

believe the truth. `Who has been in here? And what is all this

dust all over the bed, and all over you?' they asked. I

said, `Don't ask me. Just collect that dust and put it in a paper

bag for me.' They did this and collected one and a half kilograms

of vibhuti.

> "I began to improve rapidly after this, and the

doctors and the staff kept questioning me as to what had happened.

Finally an Indian doctor showed up and he said to me, `Look, I am an

Indian. You can tell me what happened.' I told him, and he kept my

secret. On May 29 I was able to walk by myself to another ward. I

made a complete recovery, and what is more, my diabetes has

disappeared and my blood sugar is normal. I owe my eternal

gratitude to Bhagavan Baba."21

>

> \

>

> Here is the testimony of Kitty Lamonte of Scotland (as

related in Divine Glory, by V. Balu & Shakuntala Balu):

> "My story begins sometime last summer, when I first

became aware of Baba. I was invited to visit some Indian friends of

a friend of mine and they talked so lovingly and honestly about Baba

that I decided to read more about him. I read `The Holy Man and the

Psychiatrist' [by Samuel Sandweiss], and in fact used it almost like

a Bible, in that I read the writings of Baba everyday.

> "At this time I had something of a drinking problem

and was consuming far more alcohol than was good for me, but was

unable to stop. I decided that I would enlist the help of Baba, so

for three nights I sat there with the book, Baba's photograph and

the whisky. I poured my drink on the 27th November, at 11:45 p.m.

and sat down to watch T.V. I put my hand on the book, looked at the

photograph and said, `You really will have to help me to stop

this.'

> There was an almighty noise and the glass exploded

into a million bits. It went everywhere in the room, it was under

tables, on top of books in a bookcase and some of it was found by my

housekeeper the following day, under the cushion I had been sitting

on. . . .

> "The most interesting thing for me happened two days

later. I was on a train and had not been able to get the sound of

this exploding glass out of my mind, when a voice in my head

said, "Did you notice that not a bit of it touched you?" I cannot

tell you the feeling of absolute joy I experienced at that moment.

I suddenly realised that only a miracle could have stopped this

glass from damaging me very badly. It was no more than a foot away

from my face.

> "I have now made a firm commitment to Bhagavan Sri

Sathya Sai Baba, never to drink alcohol again."22

>

> \

>

> One day Baba called a poor Muslim family in for an

interview, and along with them, one Hindu man. (The person who told

me this story heard it directly from the Hindu man.) A boy in the

family was distraught because his two best friends had gone on a

pilgrimage to Mecca, and his parents couldn't afford to send him

along. (As a consolation, they'd brought him to see Sai Baba.)

Baba started the interview by saying to the boy, "So, you want to go

to Mecca." The boy burst into tears, and Baba then turned and spoke

to the others for a while. The boy continued crying, and finally

Baba turned to him and said, "You really want to go to Mecca, don't

you!" Baba then tapped the wall of the interview room with His

hand, and the wall disappeared - and in its place, a street scene

from Saudi Arabia appeared. "Look, there are your two friends. Now

go! You have half an hour." The boy walked into the street

scene... and the wall reappeared.

> Baba spoke with the stunned family for another half an

hour, and then tapped the wall again. The street scene reappeared -

and the boy walked back into the interview room, proudly carrying

some souvenirs from Mecca!

> A month later, when his friends returned home, the

boy's parents asked them, "How long was he with you?" Confirming

the boy's account, his friends replied, "Two weeks."

> (Clearly Baba is a Master of both time and space - as

well as being That which is beyond time and space! That's the

fourth story I've heard about Sai Baba instantly transporting

someone to a distant land through His interview room wall.)

>

> \

>

> Here is an account of the resurrection of V.

Radhakrishna, as told by V.I.K. Sarin in Face to Face with God:

>

> "The miracle took place in 1953. Radhakrishna was

seriously ill with gastric ulcers and other complications, when he

visited Puttaparthi [from his home town of Kuppam] in the hope that

Baba would cure him. He was accompanied by his wife Radhamma and

daughter Vijaya. On arrival at the ashram he was put straight to

bed. Baba, who was then only 27 years old, visited him but made no

attempt to heal him. Radhakrishna complained that he would rather

die than continue to suffer the extreme pain he was in. Baba smiled

but made no comments.

> A few days later Radhakrishna went into a coma and his

wife and daughter, who were at the bedside, heard the "death rattle"

in his throat. Swami came and examined him, but still did nothing.

An hour later Radhakrishna's breathing stopped. He turned blue, and

then went cold and stiff. A male nurse pronounced him dead. Baba

examined him again. "Don't worry," he said. "Everything will be all

right." But he still made no attempt to revive him. The faith of

the wife and daughter was put to severe test. The following day

they sat loyally by the bedside anxiously awaiting any signs of

returning life. But there was no indication of revival. Somehow

the two women managed to cling on to a vestige of faith that in His

own way and in His own time Swami would revive Radhakrishna. On the

morning of the third day the body turned dark, quite stiff and began

to smell. It was suggested to Radhamma that the "corpse" should be

removed from the ashram, but she refused adamantly

> to countenance such action without the authority of Baba. His

aides asked for instructions as to whether the body should be sent

back to Kuppam or be cremated at Puttaparthi. Baba replied

enigmatically, "We'll see."

> The two women were in despair. They went to Baba and

pleaded with Him. He simply said, "Have no fear. I am here." He

did, however, promise to visit their room and examine Radhakrishna

later. An hour went by, then two and there was no sign of Baba. It

was then that Radhamma and Vijaya gave up hope. Then, suddenly,

Swami appeared in the doorway of their room, calm and smiling. The

two women burst into tears, like Mary and Martha, the sisters of

Lazarus, weeping before their Lord who, they thought, had come too

late.

> Gently He asked them to leave the room, and as they

moved out He closed the door behind them. They do not know - nor

anyone else knows till this day - what really transpired in the next

few minutes in that room where only Swami and the dead man were

present. But in just a few minutes, Baba opened the door and

beckoned the women in there, to see their loved one sitting up in

bed and smiling! The stiffness of death had vanished and his

natural colour was returning. Baba said to him, "Talk to them, they

were worried." Radhakrishna, with a puzzled look said, "Why are you

worried? I am all right!" He was not aware that he had been in a

deathly coma. Swami then said to Radhamma, "I have given your

husband back to you. Now give him a hot drink." Thereupon He

blessed the family and left. The next day the patient was strong

enough to walk. On the third day he wrote a seven-page letter to a

relative in Italy. A few days after that the whole family returned

to their

> home in Kuppam. Not only was Radhakrishna raised from the dead,

but the gastric ulcers and the other complications were completely

healed. It was a repetition of the raising of Lazarus."23

>

> A Word About Baba's Manifestations Many Western

scientists and researchers have investigated Baba's miraculous

powers, and declared them to be genuine. Baba is probably most

famous for His materializations of rings – and the frequent

manifestations of vibhuti, kumkum and amrit which appear on His

photographs in various places around the globe. [The photos below

show examples of such manifestations from devotees' homes around the

world.]

>

> Yet vibhuti manifestations are only the beginning:

He's manifested thousands of items, including deity statues, japa

malas, lingams, gems, fine watches, all kinds of jewelry,

photographs, puja items, at least one crucifix, and various kinds of

food - sometimes in huge quantities. (When they first emerge from

the ether, many of the deity statues are literally too hot to

handle, as if the metal had just begun to cool from its molten

state.) Baba often makes such items miraculously appear on the

altars of His devotees in various locations around the world - and

then later causes vibhuti or kumkum to form on them.

> I've heard that He once materialized a live monkey

in His interview room.

> He assures us that these manifestations are no mere

magic, nor even the siddhi of being able to psychically move objects

from one place to another. His miracles occur by God's power, the

same power that created the universe: the ability to will into being

anything He wishes. (This has been proven on a number of occasions,

such as the time a devotee handed Him a leaf and He returned the

same leaf coated in gold, or the time he manifested an apple for a

couple who had been trying unsuccessfully to have a child: when cut

in two, the `apple' turned out to be a passion-fruit on the inside.

The couple ate it, and nine months later had their first child.)

>

> False Materializations? Some people have accused

Baba of "faking" materializations, saying, for instance, that they

have seen Him clandestinely pull a ring from under His cushion and

then wave His hand and pretend to miraculously manifest the ring.

Although these stories may just be more lies from the jealous ones,

let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that Baba does

occasionally throw some cheap magic tricks in among His miracles,

and allows a few devotees to glimpse His sleight of hand. What

could be the reason for it?

> First of all, there could be many devotees whom Baba

wishes to bless with a faith-enhancing gift, who are simply not

karmically ripe enough to receive a divinely manifested object.

(Most souls in this age are immersed in dense worldly ignorance, and

are neither spiritually ready nor karmically deserving to witness

genuine miracles.) So, although Baba definitely has the power to

manifest anything He wishes, and transform one object into another

with a single puff of His breath (something He has proved time and

time again for decades), for certain souls He might instead engage

in a bit of beginner's magic, and pull a ring from under His cushion

rather than materializing it. This would enable those devotees to

receive the gifts from His hand that they craved, thereby giving

their faith a boost, while satisfying the requirements of the Law of

Karma.

> By allowing one or more devotees to glimpse the

trick, my guess is that Baba would simply be exposing a doubt that

was already lurking within their minds, bringing it to the surface

so it could be faced directly - and in the process giving them a

severe test. I imagine He might be saying, `So, you claim to be My

devotee! But after all these years of experiencing my omniscience

and omnipresence and witnessing my miracles first hand, and after

hearing and reading thousands of accounts of the healings and

blessings I have bestowed on others - you still doubt Me? Then

perhaps you are not worthy to be My devotee. Here, you see? I am a

fake! I have pulled the ring from under the cushion! Now, isn't it

best you leave Me and begin denouncing Me to the world? Then other

immature souls will also stay away. V e r y happy!'

> When the doubting devotee is thus challenged, he

will either make the choice to leave Baba, or else receive the grace

to remember Baba's Divinity, infinite power and mischievous nature -

and then cast aside all doubts and emerge with fully renewed faith.

Using such a test, Baba can filter out devotees whose faith is

only `miracle deep' and shallow in true devotion and understanding,

while retaining more mature devotees whose faith and devotion are

based on a profound soul experience of who He is - a faith

unshakable by such leelas. (I would guess that only those of the

second variety are ready for the full-out quest for Self-

Realization, the ultimate Gift, the one Baba took birth to give.)

> Another possible outcome: by shocking a devotee out

of his `miracle-based faith', Baba's tricky test could serve as a

wake up call from the duality laden Guru-disciple dream, breaking

the devotee's attachment to worship of the external Guru, and

leaving him with no recourse but to put all his focus on the non-

dual Atman - which is, after all, the true spiritual goal. Through

that sudden shift of focus onto the Self within, the devotee just

might find Baba in a whole new way; it could even propel him all the

way to Enlightenment - to the permanent realization that Paramatma

Sai is his own indwelling `I'.

>

> And remember, to bring us to Enlightenment is the

Guru's one essential task - their very raison d'etre - and they will

accomplish that task 'by any means necessary', including lying,

trickery, the breaking of taboos, and any other available method of

shocking us out of our complacency and making us thoroughly

miserable in our spiritual egos!

> (Sometimes a painful whack from Zen Master Baba can

be far more valuable than a miracle...)

> One thing to keep in mind: intentionally bringing up

doubts in the devotees' minds is a time-tested technique used by

many Gurus; I have personally experienced it with Ammachi, and also

read about Neem Karoli Baba using the same method. What better way

to bring the devotee face to face with his own Doubting Thomas, and

challenge him to rise above all doubts into the true Atmic quest,

into unflinching faith, surrender and Divine Love?

> Knowing Baba's playful Krishna nature, I certainly

wouldn't put it past Him to be playing a few games with His

materialization leelas. He is, after all, an embodiment of

Mahamaya, the Creatrix of the whole cosmic illusion, the One who is

fooling all beings! Yet He is also the supreme Truth, and the

supreme bliss - and if we can learn to enjoy His mischievous games

as much as He does, without insisting He play by our rules, I

believe we'll have gone a long way towards attaining that bliss,

which is our true eternal nature.

> I know a young man from Mexico who witnessed what he

thought was a fake materialization done by Baba. He went into

anguish over the doubt it created in his mind, and secretly prayed

that Baba would clear it away with something truly `unfakable', such

as making water pour out of His hand! The next day Baba called him

in for a private interview, rolled up His sleeve and held out His

down-turned hand - and suddenly, a stream of water poured out of His

palm like water from a tap!

> My friends, is it wise to doubt Him?

> For those who have studied Sai Baba in depth and

witnessed His materializations first hand, there can be no doubt

that the vast majority of them are bona fide miracles. I and many

of my friends have seen numerous unquestionably-genuine miracles up

close: necklaces and watches literally popping out of the air

beneath Baba's hand, right before our eyes. And there are thousands

of believable stories. My fiancé's parents know an American woman

for whom Baba once materialized a gold bangle during an interview.

When she tried to put it on it was too small, and wouldn't fit over

her hand, so Baba took it back, held it up for all to see, and blew

on it - and the bangle instantly expanded to a much larger size,

which easily fit over her hand! But then she said, "Swami, now it's

too big - it'll fall off!" So He bent over and blew on it again -

and the bangle instantly shrank into a perfect fit around her wrist.

> (Can any of you guys do that?)

> I recently heard a story about a young Australian

whose group was called for an interview. He had forgotten his

yellow `group scarf', and in a panic considered running back to his

room - he went half-way towards the exit, and then changed his mind

and decided to risk being turned away at the interview room door.

Baba graciously let him in, sans scarf, and during the course of the

interview Baba materialized a ring for him, with the usual photo of

Baba's face on it, which was passed around for all to see. After

the interview, the young man went back to his room and took a nap,

and when he woke up, he discovered that the photo on the ring had

undergone a miraculous transformation: Baba was now pictured wearing

a yellow scarf around His neck! (I heard the story from someone who

was in the ashram at the time and saw the transformed ring himself.)

> Do tell, doubters, how did Baba "fake" that one?

>

> One thing to keep in mind: the gifts Baba give

reflect the qualities of the people to whom they are given.

Furthermore, what we see in the Sai Mirror (and receive therefrom)

reflects primarily our own minds. Baba often manifests diamond

rings, with surprisingly large diamonds set beautifully in gold;

some of these rings have been valued at over a quarter of a million

dollars. Yet one man, who has now taken to globally scandalizing

Baba, also received a ring from Him - and when he took it to a

jeweler for valuation, he was told it was not a diamond at all but

merely a well-cut lump of glass! Is it any wonder Baba gave such a

ring to one who would prove a completely false devotee?

> Of this I am sure: if Baba does occasionally engage

in a bit of `sleight of hand', it is only another piece of His maya -

specifically designed to create negative rumors that will test His

devotees and keep unripe souls from recognizing Who He is. Those

who think they have `caught the magician at his tricks' have

actually been fooled by the Avatar's maya, and in the process proved

themselves as yet unworthy to behold the glory of the living

Incarnation of God.

>

> His True Mission

> In understanding Baba's miracles, it's important to

remember His own words on the subject: He says that in comparison

with His true mission, His miracles are "like a mosquito on an

elephant's back." He repeats what Shirdi Sai Baba said so often: "I

give them what they want, so they will want what I have to give!"

He says He has come not to manifest rings or bless us with

promotions and healings - the purpose for His incarnation is to

usher in a new age of Divine Peace on Earth, and establish divine

qualities in our hearts:

>

> "This Sai has come in order to achieve the supreme task of

uniting the entire mankind as one family through the bond of

brotherhood, of affirming and illumining the Atmic Reality of each

being in order to reveal the Divine, which is the basis on which the

entire Cosmos rests. This Sai has come to instruct all to recognize

the common Divine Heritage that binds man to man, so that man can

rid himself of the animal and rise into the Divine, which is his

goal. This Sai has come to show that Love - Prema - is the easiest

way to reach the Divine."24

>

> Baba says He has come to "avert the crisis that has

come upon humanity", and usher in a new age of divine wisdom upon

the Earth, a golden age of Love, peace and understanding - and He

assures us that He will succeed. In the mid-1980's He told His

students that He would be working directly with the minds of Ronald

Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev to bring about a change in the world.

I would guess it is no mere co-incidence that the fall of global

communism occurred less than ten years after that statement was

made! (As Baba said in the '70s when asked about

Communism, "Communists? Come you next!") Now Baba has thousands of

devotees from the former communist nations, spreading His message of

Divine Love where such words were forbidden for decades. Surely

Baba's work has made the world a better place; the Earth, by His

plan, grown a hair closer to Planet Peace. Perhaps it will be with

Prema Sai, Baba's next incarnation - due to be born in some lucky

South Indian manger

> around 2028 - that the global level of spiritual knowledge will

reach critical mass, and the Earth and its atmosphere finally be

divinely transformed, into a Paramatma-sphere. May the day come

soon!

>

> A Taste of His Teachings Baba's teachings cover many

viewpoints, and seem to primarily be a resounding, world-

emboldening `Yes!' to all legitimate spiritual paths and the basic

truths of all religions. Most of Baba's teachings focus on love -

love for God and for all beings - as the essential core of

spirituality: "Start the day with Love. Spend the day with Love.

Fill the day with Love. End the day with Love. This is the way to

God!" And this Love is to be given to everyone, always, without

exception: "Love all, serve all! Help ever, hurt never!"

> Yet as I explored His teachings more deeply, I found

that He is also a Master of advaithic philosophy, and a strong

exponent of the jnana path (the path of Atmic wisdom). "The main

aim of human life is to acquire the knowledge of the Atman. This is

the true Purushartha [goal of life]. Human life will find

fulfillment only if this goal is attained."25 The various

approaches are beautifully balanced in His discourses, with devotion

and Atmic abidance given equal importance.

> Baba also stresses the practice of what He calls the

five primary human values, namely, Love, Truth, Peace,

Righteousness, and Non-violence. In many of His discourses He asks

us to dedicate all our actions to God and live in tireless selfless

service to humanity. He also lays importance on the practice of

kindness, and the use of sweet speech under all circumstances,

saying, "You cannot always oblige; but you can always speak

obligingly." Baba advocates daily meditation for all, as well as

repetition of God's Names with love, devotional singing, and the

practice of seeing and serving God within everyone, laying

particular emphasis on continual remembrance of the Divine

Reality. "Spirituality means constant integrated awareness."

> Interestingly, He does not encourage His non-Hindu

devotees to become Hindus, but rather, to use His teachings to

become the best Christians, Jews, Muslims or Buddhists they can be.

Many of the devotional songs sung at Baba's ashrams contain the

names of Allah, Jesus, Zaroaster, Mahavir, Moses, Guru Nanak and the

Buddha, in addition to the Hindu Avatars. It seems to be a clear a

way of saying, `Hear, O world! The Lord is One!'

>

> "There is only one Religion, the Religion of Love.

> There is only one caste, the caste of Humanity.

> There is only one language, the language of the Heart.

> There is only one God, and He is omnipresent."

>

> As an aid to the realization of His primary

teaching - that we are God - He often recommends use of the

mantra `So Ham' (meaning "I am He", or "I am God"). He has also

offered His devotees the following maha-affirmation:

>

> I am God! I am God! I am not different from God!

> I am the eternal undifferentiated Absolute!

> Grief and anxiety cannot effect me.

> I am always content. Fear cannot enter me.

> I am Satchidananda! I am pure Existence, Knowledge and Bliss.

> I am Omnipotent! I am all-powerful; nothing is impossible for

me!

> I am Omniscient! I am all-knowing;

> there is nothing which is not known to me.

> I am Omnipresent! I am present everywhere. I pervade this

universe!

> I am Krishna! I am Christ! I am Buddha!

> I am Sai! I am Sai! I am Sai!

> I am God! I am God! I am God!

>

> Brings words and photos together (easily) with

> PhotoMail - it's free and works with Mail.

>

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