WHO IS SAI BABA? - An inspiring talk by David Jevons

[Guest guest]

The following talk was given by David Jevons in February 1996 to a Positive

Living Group who used to meet in a church in Bournemouth, Dorset, in England. 

Only a few of the audience had heard about Sai Baba and none of them were

familiar with his teachings.  David always used to approach these meetings with

great tact and reservation.  The story that he had to tell was just so amazing

that many in the audience found it hard to accept the story that he was

telling.  They might believe one aspect of it, but then David would say

something about Sai Baba, which completely blew their minds, and they wound up

by rejecting everything that he had said.  David found this to be particularly

true when talking to people who held firm beliefs in one religion or another.

The whole topic was just too threatening for them unless he spoke in the

vaguest of terms. This talk reflects not just David’s own path to recognising

the divine nature of Sai Baba but also the path that all spiritual seekers have

to walk, because it asks a question that we all have to ask and to answer if we

are serious about our spiritual evolution.  Sai Baba says, “You are as close to

God as you are to your self.”  So when we ask “Who is Sai Baba?” we are really

asking “Who am I?” for in as much as we ask questions about ourselves we are

asking questions about God.  Sai Baba constantly reminds us that we are no

different from God.

yes">  Why do we find this so hard to believe? 

WHO IS SAI BABA?

I will begin by reminding you that what I am about to share with you are my own

experiences, are the understandings that I have developed over the past fifteen

or so years through my own relationship with Sri Sathya Sai Baba.  My purpose in

disseminating this information is not to proselytise or publicise Sai Baba. 

That is the last thing that I want to do.  That is the last thing that Sai Baba

would want me to do!  We are all walking different paths towards the Godhead and

if you are happy with your chosen path, then my earnest desire is that this

information will serve to help you to walk that path more efficaciously.  If,

however, you are in the state that I was in fifteen years ago and are

dissatisfied with your understanding

of the nature of God and the reality of life on this plane of Earth, if you

believe that a greater truth exists than is generally recognised today, then I

invite you to investigate with me the phenomenon that is Sai Baba.  My wife and

I have journeyed out to India many times to visit Sai Baba and we have been

privileged to have several personal interviews with him.  We have also spoken

to many of his close devotees and have obtained valuable insights from them

about his life and his teachings.  It is from this viewpoint alone that we feel

qualified to talk about Sai Baba.

There are books written about Sai Baba in practically every major language of

our world.  Sai Baba isn’t just an Indian phenomenon.  He is a universal

phenomenon.  From Russia to Argentina, from Australia to Alaska, there are Sai

Baba centres all over the world.  When I attended the celebrations at his

ashram in Puttaparthi, India a few years ago, held to mark his 70th birthday,

in the carnival-like procession which wound past the dais on which he was

sitting on the morning of his birthday there were the flags of over 130

countries flying, held by devotees from Sai Baba centres in those countries. 

It was a graphic demonstration to all those who were privileged to be there of

the fact that he now has over 50 million followers in countries all over the

world and that this number is growing in leaps and bounds as each year passes

and more and more people get to hear about him.

The very fact that I am talking to you about Sai Baba is also significant

because, until recently, it was not permitted for any of his devotees either to

advertise or to give public talks about him or in any way to publicise his

divine mission.  So you could only get to hear about Sai Baba either by

visiting a Sai Baba Centre or else by talking to someone who had had some

personal experience of him.  In my case it was the latter path, but I have to

tell you that it has taken me almost fifteen years from first hearing about Sai

Baba to being able to understand even a little of his divine mission.  Why have

devotees been forbidden from publicising Sai Baba?

yes">  Swami says that it has been done so as to restrict the numbers coming to

visit him, so that those souls who over many past lives have been trying to

draw close to the Godhead may have the first opportunity in this lifetime to

have access to him before the massive crowds start to arrive, when he will

literally only be a small orange speck amidst hundreds of thousands of people. 

So we are now at the beginning of a period of time when there will be a growing

worldwide interest in Sai Baba and his mission.  So if you feel the need to go

and see him and to try to get close to him, don’t leave it for too long a time

or you may be too late!

I believe that you can approach the phenomenon that is Sai Baba on three

different levels.  You can choose whichever level you feel is appropriate for

you.  The choice is not a question of right or wrong, of greater or lesser soul

consciousness.  It is more a question of the nature of your esoteric or exoteric

philosophical doctrine at the time.  I will warn you in advance, though, that

you may find it hard to accept some of the things that I am going to mention. 

I say this advisedly because, fifteen years ago, I was in the very same

position that many of you will be in.  Some of the stories of what Sai Baba has

done are beyond human understanding, if only because he operates beyond

time and space, because he is not bound by our scientific rules.  You will hear

stories about some people’s experiences with this amazing man, which will

stretch your credulity.  All that I can ask of you is that you just stay open,

that you do not feel the need either to accept or to reject what I say, that

you just let my message reside in your consciousness, and see how it germinates

in the weeks and months to come.  For some people the response is very quick.  I

gave a talk about Sai Baba recently and a month later a person who had attended

that talk phoned to say that he was just about to leave for India to go to see

Sai Baba as a direct result of my talk!  For other people, who are attached to

a formless, nameless God, the very concept of a manifest God is

quite abhorrent.  So, all that I can do is to ask you to walk the middle path

and to allow your conscience not your conditioning to decide the truth of what

I am about to share with you.

One of the levels on which you can relate to Sai Baba is that of seeing him as a

great spiritual teacher.  There are, of course, many spiritual teachers in the

world today, especially in India, each with their bands of disciples and

devoted followers, who all extol the virtues of their particular guru.  Often

they tend to repeat the stories of the miraculous healings, of the psychic

manifestations, of the incomprehensible powers and attributes of their gurus,

rather than simply talking about their spiritual teachings, about the message

that they are trying to give to Humanity.  This was exactly what happened to me

fifteen years ago.  I heard only the stories about Sai

Baba’s miracles, about his divine powers, about how he could manifest anything

with a wave of his hand, and this simply put me off him because I believed,

wrongly as it turned out, that this was just window dressing, designed to

attract the spiritually gullible.  Some years were to pass by before I actually

allowed myself to read some of Sai Baba’s teachings and to become aware of his

spiritual message.  I should perhaps point out here that I have been a follower

of the Western Esoteric Tradition for almost thirty years.  Nevertheless, much

to my amazement, I found that Sai Baba’s teachings were almost identical to my

own understandings and slowly I began to embrace the Eastern as well as the

Western Esoteric Tradition and grew to realise that they are really one and the

same thing.  As Sai Baba talked about

the Vedas and The Bhagavad Gita and the all-pervading Law of Karma, as he

reiterated the steps that Humanity must take in order to transform itself and

to restore morality and right action in society, and so save itself from

self-destruction, I knew that I was hearing Infinite Truth.  I knew that I had

to go to India and to find out more about Sai Baba.

In 1989 I had stopped the channelling process that had been a part of my life

for almost twenty years.  I had stopped channelling because I realised that it

was causing separation between my God and me.  I was relying on an intermediary

for the source of wisdom rather than on the Creator of All Life Himself.  The

channelling process had become a prop on which I was leaning for spiritual

support, in just the same way that a Christian relies on his or her priest to

explain the mysteries of life.  Of course, at some stage in our lives, as we

walk the path towards spiritual wakefulness, we all need the help of

intermediaries, but as we discover that we are no different

from God, that a part of God dwells within us, that we have a direct link to

God, then, we realise that we no longer need an intermediary.  I saw this very

clearly and just stopped the channelling process.  For me it was like being

born again.  It was like starting a new life.  I found the whole experience of

questing for God very exciting, if only because I had no ideas as to what I

would find.  Almost inevitably my quest took me out to see Sai Baba, because I

identified so strongly with his teachings.  I have to admit, though, that in

the very beginning my quest did not run smoothly.  I had to overcome a lot of

prejudices and preferences. 

My first three visits to Sai Baba’s ashram were really icebreakers!  He

completely ignored me, which was probably the best thing that he could have

done, because I was still questioning both him and his mission on every level

of my being.  In an interview on a subsequent visit Sai Baba told me that I

think too much!  I operate from my head rather than from my heart.  I spent the

whole time that I was in his ashram reading, listening and watching, in fact

just concentrating on being, on tuning in to the energy that was present

there.  Gradually, as the seeds that he had sown within me began to grow and

flourish, my western resistance broke down and something deep inside me began

to respond to his presence.

 Perhaps the best way to tell you about the essence of Sai Baba’s teachings is

to reproduce a pamphlet that has been produced by the Sri Sathya Sai

Organisation of the UK and which lists, amongst other things, the objectives of

the Organisation and the methods to be adopted to attain them.  I will begin by

saying that Sai Baba himself has clearly stated, on many occasions, that he has

not come to start a new religion.  He does not want people to follow him, to

worship him, to create a new cult around him.  No, he wants them to follow the

God that is in them, to pursue the spiritual path or religion, which they have

chosen, but to pursue it more conscientiously, more devotedly.

yes">  The emblem of the Sai Baba World Organisation is the Sarva Dharma which

includes the symbols of the six major religions of the world and, indeed, when

you visit his ashram you will find people from all the major world religions

there, be they Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jew, Buddhist or Zoroastrian. 

Furthermore, the sacred days of all of the major world religions, not just of

Hinduism, are observed in the ashram.  One of Sai Baba’s favourite sayings is

that there is only one race, the Race of Humanity.  Cultures and creeds may

differ but race is one.  He is a totally universal teacher.  His mission is

simply to bring about the spiritual regeneration of Humanity by demonstrating

and teaching the principles of Truth, Love, Peace, Right Conduct and

Non-violence.  He says, “I know who I am; I have come to help you realise who you are.”

The principle objectives of The Sai Organisation are:

1. To help the individual -:

a) to be aware of the Divinity which is inherent in him and to conduct himself accordingly.

b) to translate into practice in daily life divine love and perfection and, therefore,

c) to fill one’s life with joy, harmony, beauty, grace, human excellence and lasting happiness.

2. To ensure that all human relations are governed by the principles of Truth,

Right Conduct, Love, Peace and Non-violence.

3. To make devotees of any religion more sincere and dedicated in the practice

of their respective religion by understanding properly the true spirit of that

religion.  

These objectives are to be obtained in the following manner-:

1. By observing the four principles laid down by Sai Baba, namely -

a) There is only ONE religion, the religion of love.

b) There is only ONE caste, the caste of humanity.

c) There is only ONE language, the language of love.

d) There is only ONE God and that God is omnipresent.

2. By constant remembrance of God and looking upon all beings as only a

manifestation of Divinity in different forms and shapes.

3. By underlining the essential unity of all religions and securing proper

understanding of all religions as being based on Love.

4. By looking upon all work as service dedicated to the Divine.

5. By bringing to bear upon all of life’s problems attitudes flowing from Divine

Love, such as understanding, compassion, tolerance, helpfulness etc.

6. By basing all actions on love of Divinity, fear of sin and steadfast

observance of morality in society.

7. By engaging in spiritual, educational and service activities, both at the

individual and the community level, in an organised and systematic manner,

without expecting any material reward or appreciation, but solely as a means of

winning God’s Love and Grace.  

I don’t think that many people, no matter what is the nature of their spiritual

beliefs, would find conflict with a single one of those principles and

objectives.  This is what I find to be so wonderful about Sai Baba’s

teachings.  They are totally universal.  Above all, though, Sai Baba is

constantly reminding us of our divine birthright.  He is forever saying, “I am

God and you are God, the only difference is that I know it.”  He reminds us

that we have forgotten who we really are.  He warns us that we should not

identify with our physical body and its associated egocentric personality,

which are to be compared to passing clouds, since they are only with us for a

short lifespan and then disappear for ever.  We should identify with our divine

spirit or Atma, the aspect of the Godhead that dwells within us and which is

with us for eternity.  As such, when we do this, we will discover that we, like

him, are capable of manifesting all the powers of the Godhead.  The reason why

we, and the world as a whole, are suffering is because we have forgotten our

divine birthright.  Many people are choosing to behave like animals rather than

like human beings and one of the main purposes of Sai Baba’s mission is to

demonstrate for us the reality of correct human

relationship, is to help us to recognise and to respect the divine aspect that

is present in every single human being.  

 For me, personally, one of Sai Baba’s most significant teachings is that God is

omnipresent, that is to say that God is within us, around us and above us at all

times.  He says that human beings can be likened to fish swimming in water,

where the water can be considered as God.  Using this analogy we can see that

God is all around us as well as being inside us and that without God we cannot

live, move and have our being.  Without God we can achieve nothing.  We cannot

do anything without God knowing of it.  It has always amazed me how so many

people today can adopt the attitude that communing with and worshipping God is

something that they can only do in a church or temple and that when they leave

that church or temple they have somehow separated themselves from God and so

are free to behave in any way that they choose, sometimes in a very ungodly

way, because God does not know what they are doing.  Sai Baba says that this is

not so.  God is omnipresent and, therefore, life around you is simply God

resounding, reacting and reflecting upon you at all times, without exception.

Everything that happens to you each day is, in reality, simply God communicating

with you.  My wife and I call this experience ‘universal feedback’, which means,

quite simply, that the universe is reflecting back to us the appropriateness of

our thoughts, words and deeds.  This is yet another manifestation of the great

cosmic Law of Karma, which can best be understood by using the analogy of

Nature, that is to say that as you sow, so you shall reap.  Good actions or

good seeds can only grow into good fruits, whereas bad actions or bad seeds can

only grow into bad fruits.  If you understand this fact you will understand the

nature of suffering and will realise that the

individual, not God, is the cause of all human suffering.  So no one suffers by

chance, by an act of fate. There is no such thing as an accidental death.  Sai

Baba says that everything that happens to us on the face of this Earth is a

direct result of our own actions, either in this or in past lives.  So never

look at a tragedy from the viewpoint of just one moment in time.  It is rather

like trying to understand a film from looking at just a few frames in the

middle of the film.  We have no way of knowing what frames have gone before and

what frames are coming afterwards.  We cannot hope to understand the film from

that limited viewpoint. 

It is the same with life.  We need to be aware of the continuity of all our

lives - past, present and future - before we will be in a position to judge the

appropriateness of our karma.

We have all lived hundreds of lives.  We keep on coming back to the Earth in

this eternal cycle of birth and death and this leads me directly to another of

Sai Baba’s teachings, which is that we have it within our power to end this

cycle and to remove the need to take birth again on the plane of Earth.  Sai

Baba has come on the Earth at this time specifically to remind us that many

human souls are nearing the end of their time in this school of life called

Earth and that it is within their power to merge with the Source of All Life

from which they separated aeons of time ago.  Amongst all evolved souls there

are usually to be found feelings of weariness with physical life and by

weariness I don’t mean that they

don’t enjoy life but that they are tired of having to go through the trauma of

birth and death in order to live in a world where so much suffering exists,

where people deny the reality of God, where people are interested only in the

advancement and the aggrandisement of the self, regardless of the cost to

people around them.  So there is a strong desire to return home to the Source,

which is God, and to break free from the cycle of rebirth.  Sai Baba says that

his very presence on the Earth at this time will provide the impetus for many

souls to make that final jump in consciousness, to balance their karma and to

achieve their soul’s deep yearning, to merge with the Source of All Life.  If

we follow his living example, if we live righteous lives, if we love all and

serve all, if we draw close to the living God within us, then, we can become

one with

that God.  

Sai Baba, in both his public talks and his private interviews, is constantly

reminding his audience that in spite of all the miraculous powers that he

manifests we are no different from him.  All of these powers are latent within

us too.  We are God.  We are no different from God.  He says “I am I, and you

are you, but we are one.”  So we should not just look at our physical bodies

and the inherent and very obvious differences in them, because we are not our

bodies.  We were never born and so we will never die.

yes">  We are immortal beings, aspects of the One God, and all that we are doing

when we incarnate upon the Earth and take on a human form is to put on a coat

which we will discard when we return to the plane of our true existence.  So we

should never get attached to our coat, to our physical body and its associated

senses and feelings, because it is going to wear out and die.  We should always

be in control of our body, we should always be its master not its servant.  Sai

Baba often uses the analogy of a chariot and horses.  The chariot is our body,

the horses are our senses, and it is obvious that the driver in the chariot

should be firmly in control otherwise the horses could run away and could

damage or even destroy the chariot.  

The greatest gift that Sai Baba has given me, however, is to make me aware of my

own divinity.  My Christian upbringing taught me that God was in Heaven and Man

was on Earth and that there was this great divide between the two, a divide

that could only be bridged by God sending His son down to Earth to make contact

with and to redeem Mankind.  I was never very happy either with this

understanding or with the doctrine of original sin and could never understand

why, if God created us, He wasn’t more involved with His creations on the

Earth!  Sai Baba teaches that God does not reside in a heaven, or in a church

or temple, for that matter.  God is everywhere, in all of

Creation, at all times.  There is only one God and that God is omnipresent,

omniscient and omnipotent. Sai Baba demonstrates this fact himself.  I will

talk about his ‘miracles’ in a minute, but it is apparent that he can present

himself in whatever form he likes, in as many places as he likes, and all at

the same time.  He can appear in the form of any human being.  He can appear in

the form of two, three or even four human beings at the same time.  He is a

living demonstration of the fact that God dwells in everything, that all is

one.  There is only one Race - the Race of Humanity - and that Race is divine. 

Inside every human being is the perfection of the divine.  We are truly no

different from God and the more we align ourselves with the force of God that

dwells within us, the more we become God.  

Another level on which you can relate to Sai Baba is through recognising him as

the avatar of the Age in which we live.  In Indian theology an avatar is

regarded as a direct incarnation of the Divine, who comes on Earth to close one

Age, or Yuga, and to inaugurate another.  In Judaic or Christian theology this

great being is known as the Messiah.  Almost every religion in the world today

embraces the concept of the return of a divine messenger who comes with the

express purpose of raising human consciousness, of teaching Humanity how to

discriminate between right and wrong, between truth and falsehood.  Indian

theology teaches that the purpose of the avatar taking

human form is threefold, namely, to protect and re-establish dharma, which

translates roughly as right action or right conduct, to protect the devotees

that have kept faith with the Lord and to punish the evil-doers.  The avatar,

whilst not removing Humanity’s karma, prevents it from destroying itself, for

example, in some great nuclear holocaust.  There have been a succession of

avatars, many unknown to us today.  Indian theology teaches that there are both

full and partial avatars or, as they are sometimes called, major and minor

avatars.  Minor avatars are beings like Jesus, the Buddha and Mohammed.  Major

avatars are beings like Rama, Krishna and, some people feel, Sai Baba.  One of

the distinguishing features between a

major and a minor avatar is that major avatars are born with all of their

miraculous powers latent within them, whereas minor avatars acquire their

powers whilst in physical incarnation by following certain spiritual

disciplines.  It is therefore interesting to note that Sai Baba at the age of

six was already exhibiting his miraculous powers and by the age of twelve was a

fully realised soul, whereas Jesus only exhibited his powers during his

ministry, after he had visited India as a young man and had studied at various

esoteric schools there.  

In comparing Jesus with Sai Baba it is also interesting to note that Jesus went

through three recognisable stages of awakening his own divinity.  He began his

ministry by saying that he was a messenger of God, then evolved to saying that

he was the son of God and only at the very end of his ministry did he proclaim

that he and his Father were one.  He clearly demonstrated that in the beginning

he was living in a state of duality, of being separate from God.  During his

ministry, when he was overshadowed by the Christ Energy, he grew into the

understanding that there is no duality, that all is one.  Sai Baba, on the

other hand, incarnated with all of his powers.  As a child he could manifest

whatever he chose.  He would pick different types of fruits off one particular

tree no matter what the season.  He could materialise any physical object that

he desired with just a wave of his hand.  He understood things that had never

been taught to him in school.  He knew all the Vedas and the sacred writings of

India although he had never studied them.  He could hold learned discussions

with priests and pundits even though he had only attended his local school.  He

apparently has a full knowledge of everything.

At the age of 14 he revealed who he was and why he had come.  He explained that

he was in the middle of a triple incarnation, the first being to reveal

Divinity, the second being to awaken Divinity and the third being to propagate

Divinity.  His first incarnation had been as Shirdi Sai Baba, when he lived

from 1835 until 1918.  His second incarnation, the present one, as Sathya Sai

Baba, is from 1926 until 2022.  His third incarnation, as Prema Sai Baba, will

be from 2030.  Although the three physical bodies will be different, the

indwelling Divinity is One and the same.  He has

defined the purpose of his incarnation as being to reveal Man to himself, to

restore to him his birthright of divine bliss, to teach him the truth about

love.  Sai Baba states that the avatar always comes when Humanity is on the

brink of destruction, when fear stalks the streets everywhere, when evil

appears to flourish, when righteousness is mocked.  In the eternal cycle of

human evolution we are now experiencing the lowest point of the cycle, the time

when Humanity is the most separated from the Godhead.  It is precisely because

of this that we can draw hope, because the avatar always comes in the time of

the greatest need and, as Sai Baba says “This divine body has not come in

vain.  It will succeed in averting the crisis that has come upon Humanity.  It

is not in the nature of an avatar to fail!”  

Another level on which you can relate to Sai Baba, and I accept that for some

people this level will be very difficult to comprehend, I know that it is for

me, is through the understanding that he is an actual incarnation of the

Godhead, of the Source of All Life, on the Earth.  In doing this, though, one

must not be confused by his name and his form.  God is not the name and the

form.  God only takes name and form because Humanity would find it difficult to

develop faith in the nameless and the formless.  Understanding the Divine in

human form is but a preparation for understanding the nameless and the formless

God.  That is

why avatars incarnate on the Earth, to provide the name and the form that is so

essential for the true seeker, so that they can love, worship, follow and

listen to God and through that devotion progress to the nameless and the

formless God.  In the early days I found this particular concept very difficult

to accept because of my strong esoteric conditioning.  In fact, even after

fifteen years of investigating him, I still do not know who Sai Baba really

is!  I find it very difficult to accept that he, or anyone else for that

matter, is God incarnate, if only because I have always believed in a nameless

and a formless God.  Even today, I am still investigating, I am still trying to

discover the reality of who Sai Baba is and what is his divine mission.

Through a study and an observation of his life, through releasing long-held and

preconceived viewpoints as to the nature of the incarnation of the Divine, I am

now coming to the point when I can at least begin to accept that Sai Baba is

probably more than just a great spiritual teacher.  I have witnessed his

miracles, his manifestations and his healings, I have felt his divine power and

I know the effect that he has had not only on me but on those close to me.  I am

aware of the transformation that he has wrought in my being.  This, surely, is

the only way that one can make a valid assessment of Sai Baba, by asking “How

has Sai Baba transformed me?  Has he influenced

my life for the better?”  Let me share a little personal story with you here. 

Five years ago I mentally asked Sai Baba to soften my heart, to make me more

compassionate towards my fellow human beings, because there was a streak in me

that often made me quite indifferent to other people’s sufferings.  On a

subsequent visit to India, as I was sitting in his ashram at Kodaikanal, Sai

Baba walked past me and, with a beautiful smile, lightly touched my fingers

which were extended towards him in a greeting of ‘Namaste’.  I immediately

experienced a feeling of supreme bliss and burst into tears!  But something

inside me had been touched, my heart centre had been opened, and from that day

onwards I felt much more open and compassionate towards my fellow human

beings.  So in just this one aspect alone I know that Sai Baba has had a very

positive effect upon me and has transformed a very fixed part of my nature for

the better.  

The divine powers that Sai Baba manifests are literally quite mind-blowing! 

They cannot be proved or tested by science because they are beyond scientific

understanding at this time.  Of one thing we can be sure, namely, that he is

omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent.  He apparently knows everything that is

going on everywhere in the whole world and, presumably, in all the other worlds

as well.  Let me give you two examples of this fact.  A pregnant lady was

admitted to a hospital in India in the first stages of labour.  Unfortunately

there was only one midwife on duty that night

and she was busy attending other births.  The lady’s labour suddenly accelerated

and she felt the baby coming and cried out for help, but the midwife did not

come.  Desperately she prayed to God for help and to her relief another midwife

came into the room who safely delivered her of her baby, washed it, wrapped it

in clothes and laid it beside her.  Sometime later the original midwife came

back into her room and was amazed to see the baby lying there and asked who had

done this.  The lady told her about the other midwife who had helped her.  The

first midwife then informed her that there was no other midwife on duty that

night, that she was the only one, and asked as to who had done this!  The lady

then described how the

midwife looked, how he was dressed in a red gown and had a mass of fuzzy hair. 

Yes, you have guessed correctly.  She described Sai Baba and later identified

him from a photograph.

I will now give you another amazing example of Sai Baba’s divine powers and I

know that these facts are accurate, if only because I heard the gentleman

concerned, an American called Isaac Tigrett, relate them himself. Isaac was the

founder and owner of The Hard Rock Café chain, which has cafés all around the

world.  When he sold the chain he donated half of the sale price, around $59

million, to Sai Baba for the building of his Super Speciality Hospital in

Puttaparthi in 1991.  You can go and see this magnificent hospital, the second

largest in Asia, when you go to the ashram.  Isaac obviously has a very close

relationship with Sai Baba but the events that I am about to describe took

place in the early days of

that relationship.  During this fifteen-year period he visited Sai Baba many

times before he was granted his first interview. Anyway Isaac described two

occasions in which Sai Baba physically manifested before him in the USA in

order to save his life.  On the first occasion, when he lost control of his car

whilst driving by himself, he went over a cliff top and as his car was plunging

down to certain destruction, Sai Baba appeared in the seat along side him and

put his arm around him in a protective gesture.  When the car impacted at the

bottom it was a total write off but Isaac emerged without a scratch!  Again,

after a drug overdose one night, when Isaac was choking on his own tongue and

faced imminent death, Sai Baba manifested in his room and rolled him over and

cleared his air passage, thus saving his

life again.  One can only marvel at the powers of such a being, which defy all

known scientific laws today. 

But omnipresence and omniscience go much deeper than that.  It means that Sai

Baba knows your every thought, word and deed and, indeed, the thoughts, words

and deeds of the whole of Humanity.  He knows the whole destiny of Humanity,

both past, present and future.  He knows everything that has been and will ever

be.  He is the total consciousness of Humanity.  So although he didn’t incarnate

as the Buddha, as Jesus or as Mohammed, he is them because they merged with the

greater consciousness of which he is a part.  That is why he knows everything

about their lives down to the

minutest detail.  Let me tell you another little story to demonstrate this

fact.  Sai Baba gave a man a ring during an interview but, some time later,

when he was crossing a river on a ferryboat, the ring fell off his finger into

the water and was lost.  He was very upset at the loss of the ring, if only

because Sai Baba had given it to him.  The very next time that he visited the

ashram, Sai Baba said to him “You have lost your ring” and then with a wave of

his hand he manifested the very ring that the man had lost and gave it back to

him.  The man was amazed and said “Swami, how can you do that?” to which Sai

Baba replied, “I am the river, I am the river.”  So what you have to realise is

that when you become one with the

Source of all life you become a part of everything.  That is the birthright

which one day we will inherit.

Apart from his physical manifestations Sai Baba is renowned for his healings. 

It is reported that he has raised several people from the dead and that he has

cured people who were terminally ill and had been deemed to be incurable by

their doctors.  I, personally, have seen people go into his interview room in a

wheelchair and come out of it walking, if a little unsteadily!  He has cured

people of cancer with a wave of his hand and the simple statement “Cancer

cancelled.”  Some people have been cured of an illness simply by being in his

presence at Darshan, others by taking the vibhuti or sacred ash that he has

manifested for them.  Now this doesn’t mean that he cures every person that

comes to him asking to be healed, no matter

how much they believe in him.  All illness is karmic settlement and healing can

only take place when the karma is discharged, when the lesson is learned and

God’s grace is invoked.  Just being in Sai Baba’s presence, receiving his

energies in Darshan, can be a healing process on many levels of being.  He can

also effect healing through a third party.  For example, he has given Ann and I

a lingam to be used for healing.  Sai Baba manifested this lingam for us during

an interview.  The lingam can be likened to an egg-shaped stone.  He told us to

pour water over the lingam, invoking God’s blessing on it, and then to give the

water to sick people to drink.

yes">  We have had some wonderful healings with this water!

I will end, as I began, by reminding you that you have to experience Sai Baba

for yourself.  My experience will not be your experience.  If these words have

inspired you to go and visit him then please make that sacred pilgrimage, but

remember that you cannot go and see him unless he permits it, indeed, you

cannot even dream about Sai Baba unless he permits it!  On one level, of

course, you don’t have to make the long journey to India because Sai Baba is

omnipresent.  He is with you right now, as you read these words, and is noting

your response, to see if you are ready to begin the journey back to the Source

of All Life. 

But for those of you who are prepared to make the journey, perhaps in response

to some deep inner soul yearning, I can tell you that what you will gain by

receiving his Darshan, by feeling his unconditional love, by placing your being

in his divine energy, will be beyond human value.  Sai Baba often uses the

analogy of the ocean and the raindrop.  When you are in the ocean, before

birth, you are part of the ocean, you have no identity, you are the ocean

itself, but then the cosmic wind stirs the waves and you become separated from

the ocean as spray, you become absorbed into the clouds and form into a

raindrop.  For a brief moment in time you think that you are separate from the

ocean, that you have a separate identity and purpose, but then the rain falls

and you return to the ocean.  That is the nature

of human life.  We are temporarily separated from the Source of our being but we

will all return one day to the Source from which we came.  Sai Baba says that

there are four important questions that we all should consider - Who am I? 

Where did I come from?  How long will I be here?  Whither am I going?  Sai Baba

has helped me to both ask and, in part, to answer those questions.  He has made

me aware not just of my own divinity, but of the divinity of all life.   He has

taught me that there is only one God and that that God is omnipresent.  He has

shown me the reality of God in a physical

form on the Earth today.  Above all, he has made me aware of my divine

birthright, the opportunity to attain liberation and to merge with the Godhead,

never to return to this plane of Earth again and to get caught in the cycle of

karmic bondage again.  I commend Sai Baba to you.  Go, see and experience the

transforming power of his unconditional love, which, of course, is the power of

God.

Source: http://www.ramalacentre.com

 

 

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