SATHYA SAI BABA LEAVES HIS BODY

The Eternal dissolves into Eternity

It was April 24, 2011, about 10:30 a.m. on an overcast but hot day when I heard the news that my beloved guru, Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba had left his body. For me, it marked the beginning of the Golden Age. He had always said that his mission was to transform people so that they would love and serve each other and violence would become obsolete.  I felt he had instilled his teachings in the hearts of his devotees and as a result his mission would continue through them.  

He had been in the hospital for many days and devotees waited around the clock for reports on his condition. I was standing in his Andhra Pradesh ashram, Prasanthi Nilayam, when it was announced that Swami had left his body and entered Maha Samadhi (the conscious departure from the physical body of a realized soul, and the shrine where the physical body is buried). Like millions of his devotees, I accepted the will of the God I believe him to be.  I watched as some people dropped 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’s form was exiting.

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 most discourses with the words, “Embodiments of Love.” 

Born Sathyanarayana Raju on November 23, 1926 in the village of Puttaparthi, at 14, he announced that he was an avatar, God in human form, and the reincarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba.  In that year he began his mission: To restore righteousness in a world gone astray.  He taught, “This Sai has come in order to achieve the supreme task of uniting the entire mankind as one family through the bond of brotherhood, of affirming and illuminating the Atmic Reality (The Divine Self) of each being, to reveal the Divine which is the basis on which the entire cosmos rests, and of instructing all to recognize the common Divine Heritage that binds man to man, so that man can rid himself of the animal and rise up to the Divine, which is the goal.”

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 recognize his humanitarian contributions. Meantime, Radio Sai Global Harmony reports: “His numerous service projects, be it free hospitals, free schools and colleges, free drinking water supply projects, or free housing projects, all stand testimony to His selfless love and compassion for the needy and less privileged. True to His declaration, “My Life is My Message,” He has inspired and continues in his subtle form to inspire millions of His devotees worldwide by His personal example to live the ideal that “Service to man is service to God.” 

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.

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.

My editor at Deccan Herald, Bangalore, India office, requested this article from me on April 24, 2011 the day Sai Baba discarded his body.  With a few modifications, it appeared early the next morning just as you have read it here.