35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

‘I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU’
out for Puttaparthi. He did not really believe he’d find any truth to
the outlandish claim.
When they first met and before either had spoken a word, Sathya
Sai Baba waved his hand and materialised two coins for M. K. Raman
– four annas in the old and long-obsolete Raj-era currency. ‘I knew
then that it was true,’ Raman recalled, his creaky old voice quavering
with emotion. A lifetime earlier, he told me, just before his death,
Shirdi Sai Baba had mysteriously demanded of Raman four annas.
As this old Sai Baba, like the new model, never asked for anything,
and rarely even accepted personal gifts, the incident had stuck in
Raman’s mind for fifty years. Such stories are common to the point
of cliché around Sathya Sai Baba.
From 1940 on, Baba devoted himself exclusively to spreading a
simple message of love and selfless work to a burgeoning horde of
followers from all walks of life, from numerous religions, and from
the four corners of the earth, as well as the humble villages of India.
He also continued to display apparently miraculous powers: usually
materialising sacred vibhuti ash, sweets and small objects, but
occasionally performing far more extravagant acts. Incidents, some
well documented, a few even on film, have him creating fairly large
objects, substantial amounts of food, raising the dead, healing the
sick, appearing in two places thousands of kilometres apart at the
same time, and altering at will the laws of time, space and basic
physics.
Having announced that he was the reincarnation of a holy man
almost no one in South India had even heard of, Baba gradually
elaborated on the issue of his identity, claiming at various times to
be an incarnation of the god Vishnu or the god Siva – the two poles
of the Hindu trinity, which is completed by Brahma, the Creator,
the Formless One.
Vishnu is the Sustainer of Life; Siva is the Destroyer of Worlds,
the one who paves the way for new creation. According to Hindu
lore, Vishnu has appeared on earth throughout history in various
forms, including Rama, Krishna and, some say, the Buddha. There
is no account of Siva ever having assumed human form – although
he has appeared as himself occasionally – yet it is an avatar of Siva
that Baba has most frequently hinted himself to be.
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