My editor at The Deccan Herald, Bangalore, India office, requested this article from me on April 24, 2011 the day Sai Baba died. It appeared early the next morning.
A devotee recalls...
You are also a God, Baba told his disciples
By Terry Reis Kennedy
It was about 10:30 am, an overcast but hot day when I heard the news that my beloved guru Sri Sathya Sai Baba had died. For me, it marked the beginning of the Golden Age. He had always said that he would usher in the golden age. So, for me, he had done just that.
I was standing in his Andhra Pradesh ashram, Prasanthi Nilayam, when it was announced that Swami had left his body and entered maha samadhi. Like millions of his devotees, I accepted the will of the God I believe him to be. I watched as some people shed quiet tears and many expressed disbelief. My heart swelled with gratitude that I had been graced to live in his physical presence for 21 years. He had not only saved my life; he had given me a life. He is locked deep in my heart, alive and well.
The fact that it was Easter Sunday made me smile. Swami always had a sense of the comic, no matter how serious the occasion. And now, as the world was celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Swami was making his exit.
Sai Baba’s teachings are simple and esoteric all at once. He taught that we are all one, in fact, that we are all God. He insisted that there was only one caste, the caste of humanity, and that there was only one religion, the religion of Love. He began every discourse with the words, “embodiments of the divine.”
His mission, in his own words, was: To restore righteousness to the world and to bring mankind into the golden age. He came, he said, in response to the prayers and yearnings of saints and sages from all faiths.
According to reports, he performed many miracles—from the unimaginable to the seemingly trivial — such as healing the sick and manifesting trinkets to make his devotees happy, he said. He predicted that “No one will fully understand my powers.” However, not only his devotees but skeptics and scientists have tried.
Many people have attempted to convince others that he is, in fact, evil. All this talk about him, negative and positive, did not seem to interest him. He simply carried on his mission.
Even his detractors often recognized his humanitarian contributions. He built free general as well as super specialty hospitals, free schools, colleges, and universities. He created free drinking water projects. In fact, many said he did what the government of India could not or would not do—bring water and human values to the poor and bereft.
Thousands of books have been written about his many miracles by people from every religion and walk of life. Of his miracles he said, “I give you what you want, so that you will want what I have to give—mainly liberation itself.”
According to some of his devotees, the best way to experience Sai Baba is to privately ask him, from your heart, to reveal to you who he is. Then you can come to your own conclusions.
But it is declared by his followers that Sai Baba walked among us to teach us that we too can become a Jesus, a Buddha, or a Mohammed. We are, he consistently pointed out, God too—only we have not yet become aware of this fact.
So what will happen now that our beloved Baba is no longer with us in human form? I believe his mission will continue; his devotees will carry on as he instructed. For instance, the worldwide Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organization will undertake service activities that will benefit their communities. Individual devotees will carry on their own service projects.
I, for one, will continue the work Baba wanted me to do: Communicating his love to those who are unloved, bringing hope to those who are hopeless, and leading the afflicted out of their pain.
