Who is Sai Baba?

Sri Satya Sai Baba was born Satyanarayan Raju in 1926 in the village of Puttaparthi, Andra Pradesh, India. At the age of 14 he had a series of strange experiences, which his family and others believed at the time to be demonic possession. Soon after one of these, Satyanarayan asserted that the spirit of a guru known as Sai Baba of Shirdi, Maharashtra, who had died more than twenty years earlier, had come into him. Shirdi Sai Baba (1856 –1918) was admired in his lifetime for his austere lifestyle and particularly for the miracles that were attributed to him.

During the later period of his life, he claimed to be God and was venerated as such by his followers. Satyanarayan, who appropriated the name Satya Sai Baba, likewise claims to be God. In support of his claim, Satyanarayan began early on to work the ‘miracles’ for which he has since become renowned and which have led to a growing number of followers.

The ‘miracles’ include materializing sugar candy, flowers, vibhuti (sacred ash) and other presents for his devotees. They also include healing the sick and knowing the thoughts of his disciples whatever be the distance between them. His followers even claim that Sai Baba has restored two dead men to life.

These ‘miracles’ are adduced as proof of Sai Baba’s divinity and specifically of his ability to create out of nothing. He says: "It is beyond you to know how or why I create things.…the objects that I create, I create them by My Will, the same way I created the universe." Sai Baba claims to be a full avatar or ‘incarnation’ of God, greater than Jesus and founders of the world religions. In his own words: "Buddha, Christ, Mohammed and others were not avatars. They had some divine power... My power is infinite."

Despite his claim to divinity and to infinite power, Sai Baba maintains that he did not come on earth to establish a religion. Rather he sees his mission as being to restore the dharma – the proper and original inner transformation which is the heart and purpose of all genuine religion. As an expression of his recognition of on-going role of existing religious traditions, his logo contains the symbols of Cross, Crescent and Star, Star of David as well as the Hindu Aum and the Buddhist Wheel.

Satya Sai Baba has prophesied that he will leave his present body in the year 2022, when he would be 96 years of age. But he will immediately be reborn for a third time as an avatar named Prema Sai Baba. He has specified that this final appearance will take place in the Mandya district of Karnataka State.