In answer to the many false rumors that are presently circulating

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 fulfilment. 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.