A letter from Howard Murphet

[Guest guest]

Dear Devotees, My good friends - or some of them - in the Sai movement have

expressed the opinion that the present time is really the dividing of the ways,

"the sifting of the chaff from the grain", or what the Bible might call the

dividing of the sheep from the goats. Whichever the way we see it, this is a

difficult time for some people, especially for those followers of Sai Baba who

are fairly new.

Many of you will have read some of my books, so you know perhaps that I am

probably the first from the Western world to come to Sathya Sai Baba. I came as

a Western skeptic and stayed with Him, or near Him, for some six years, trying

to solve the problem of His identity and why He is here in the world.

 

I returned to the West, but I have been back many times, pulled by the strong

magnet of what an Avatar is. I have studied His relationship to ordinary human

beings in the world, and how His purpose is to lead those who are ready to

their own inner Guru, or the God within. I did not immediately accept Him as an

Avatar, but did so after He taught me, in a humble manner, what an Avatar is,

and how we are all Avatars, descendants from God, without being aware of it. As

I stayed on, I became more and more certain that He was indeed an Avatar. This

is not based on the fact that He materialises things.

 

I know that there are others in India who have the siddhis (occult powers) for

materialisation. Some of them are masters on the right path, others on the left

hand path of the black magicians. In most cases they have trained servants in

the astral realm who carry things for them, as they desire. I mean material

objects such as trinkets, food and so on. So you might say that the fact that

Swami materialises things is really no proof that He is an Avatar of God.

 

In His case, though, He goes further than that. He does what only a Being

bearing the Christ consciousness, or the Divine consciousness on earth can do,

and I have witnessed many of these phenomena. One instance is the conversion of

one type of matter to another, which labels Him as a 'Master of matter'. One

such instance that I was witness to, was the conversion of a piece of granite

rock into edible candy, while the rock never left my sight. I examined it

before, and afterwards ate some of it. Only the Divine One can do such a thing

as that. Another He did, when the necessity arose, was to convert a bucket of

ordinary water, drawn from a well nearby, into a bucketful of petrol by

stirring the water with His forefinger. It was then poured into the petrol-tank

of the car, and the car continued on the journey, using the petrol that Swami

had converted from water.

 

These incidents, and other juggling of the atoms to change one type of matter to

another, are things that convince me of His divine consciousness, which shows

that He is the Master of matter - being able to create it, convert it, and

destroy it. When He produces a Sivalingam from inside Himself - which I saw Him

do as long ago as 1966 - if there is nobody present worthy of receiving the

lingam, then He dematerialises it. This happens when there is no one who will

faithfully do the regular pujas (rituals) that are required to keep the lingam

auspicious. In other words, He then sends it back to the unmanifest. This might

be called the destruction of matter.

 

You must have read about all of this in my books, yet the greatest of His

miracles is the Divine Love by which he brings about a deep change in the

nature of people, His followers. I have described this inner change which might

be called the 'birth of the divine Child within us', or the initiation into

Divine Life. Many, many people, throughout the years, have been changed in this

way, this deep-rooted inner change is really your first step on the homeward

journey.

 

Then there is the great compassion of Sai Baba, which requires miraculous action

for its fulfillment. You have read in one of my books that some years ago - in

fact in 1982 - when I was diagnosed as having an incurable disease, I prayed

very earnestly to Sai Baba, my Guru. I was in a beautiful room in the Adelaide

Hills, while Sai Baba (in the body) was of course at that time in India at His

ashram. My prayer was so intense that after a sleep on a couch where the sun

was shining through the windows, I woke up to see Swami's head and arm as it

circled over me, and I knew that He had come and that this was a healing

gesture. I saw it in that brief time between sleep and being fully awake,

which, as you may have heard, is a time when everybody has a short period of

clairvoyance. When that short period passed, His hand and body disappeared from

my vision, but He was still there in the room. I knew this by the unbelievably

soul-moving sense of the luminous in the room. In

fact the room was filled by it, and it penetrated the wall to where my wife was

sitting in the breakfast room, and then when Swami left, the luminosity went

too. This is what ancient Romans called "sense of the Presence of the Divine"

(the luminous or lumina). Well, I knew then that I was cured of the disease,

and tests afterwards proved that this was so.

 

There are people I know who have had the clairvoyant vision of Swami's subtle

form, almost every day, and He has the power to appear in more than one place

at a time. When He was younger, He used to go into a trance in order to make

the necessary out-of-body journeys to help people. But, for many years now, He

carries on with whatever He is doing, while sending out a subtle form to do

whatever is required for accomplishing His work of helping mankind. Of this I

have had many proofs, and I have no doubt whatsoever about it. Through these

experiences and my contemplation of them, I have come to a firm, unshakable

conviction that we have with us, in Sathya Sai Baba, one of the greatest

Avatars of all time.

 

All these petty and ridiculous allegations that are circulating about One who is

God - One whom we should realise cannot be measured with the measuring tape of

the ordinary human mind - I find myself paying no heed to whatsoever. They

arise through the activities of some egos, anxious either to bring the Great

One down to their own level, so that their own personal egos may grow, as they

try to climb the ladder of Divinity. At the same time, they are serving the

dark forces that are battling hard today against the Light that the Avatar is

shedding on earth.

 

I know, too, that He is being supported by many workers in the force-field of

light, such as the Ascended Masters, two of whom I had much to do with while I

was researching the biographies of the outward founders of the Theosophical

Movement. They are Master El Moya and Master Kuthumi, who are two of the most

powerful masters behind the launching of the Theosophical society in the last

century. Their purpose, in their own words, was "to turn the crest wave of

intellectual thought, that was being enlarged by the rapid growth of science

during the latter half of the last century, to turn this - or at least some of

it - towards the spiritual shores instead of letting it all break on the rocks

of materialism."

 

These two great Ascended Masters have given the weight of their spiritual

perception and knowledge, to confirm what I myself, and many others throughout

the world, have experienced. I feel beyond doubt that we are greatly honoured

to have an Avatar of the calibre of Sai Baba on earth amongst us today. The two

Masters stated in the book, 'The Light will Set You Free' that, "Avatar Sai Baba

is carrying the Divine Consciousness in the world today."

 

Another great Indian saint and seer, about whom you have all read in the

"Autobiography of a Yogi", by Paramahamsa Yogananada, is Ananda Mayi Ma, whose

photo is in the book. She has stated to a Sai devotee that, "Sai Baba is not

only a great Avatar, but the Greatest that has ever walked the earth."

 

No doubt many people may waver, and other faithless ones may turn away from the

Avatar, but it will not change His mission, which is to raise the consciousness

of people in the world. When enough of them have evolved, it will bring about a

quantum leap in the consciousness of humanity, and thus start the new Age of

Truth (the Sathya Yuga).

 

I can only tell you my own convictions in this matter, and let you make your own

decision as to which road to travel. One leads to the Light, and the other to

the darkness through which the world has suffered during the long centuries of

the Kali Yuga. It is entirely your choice of course, but I pray that you may

make the right one, and lead as many others as you can to choose likewise.

Those working against the Avatar, unless they go to the unredeemable level of

being demonic, will some day, in some life, come back to the Divine Feet. This

I pray for as I send them my love. God bless you, Sai Ram.

 

Howard Murphet, through whose books countless people have been drawn to Sathya

Sai Baba, is now 95 years of age. He has been blind now for many years, but

still writes, using a Dictaphone from which others then transcribe.

http://www.saibaba.ws/articles1/lettermurphet.htm

collection: preetham sai p.v.

mangalore,india.