Due to all the villagers that couldn’t wait to come and see the baby, Sri Pedda Venkappa Raju requested that non-vegetarian foods be prepared for a celebratory lunch. He wanted the mixed community to be happy and fully enjoy the foods they liked. Mother Eswaramma prepared a variety of non-vegetarian foods but when she went to serve the guests all the meat dishes were turned into vegetarian dishes! The guests were in awe of an event they could not understand. They, of course, did not realize who this baby was. As it later came to be revealed, Sathya would never tolerate the raising of animals for butchering and eating. To him, an animal was a precious being to be loved and allowed to live out its own destiny.
The ladies of the village could not get enough of the charming baby. They visited the Raju household every chance they got. Even the men collected at the home to play with him. He delighted everyone including other children.
One pious woman, Subbamma, the wife of the village head, Lakshminarayana Rao, adored baby Sathya. She was childless and Sathya would run to her the minute he heard her voice. This gave Subbamma great comfort and joy. Before long it became obvious that the child had adopted her as his foster mother. She was childless no more as little Sathya’s many playmates would gather at her house and partake of the sweets and savories she served them. But she herself would feed Sathya with her own hand. On a particular day when she was serving him her pakoras (fried savories) she also offered him some water. She said, “Open your mouth, Sathya, I will pour water. When he opened his mouth, Subbamma could see the entire universe inside in all its cosmic splendor. At the site of this, she fell into ecstasy and she bowed at his feet, clinging to them and washing them with tears of joy. Subbamma knew now that her Sathya was no ordinary child. She realized that he was the Lord God Incarnate and she fell into ecstasy. Her bliss lasted for many days.
Indeed, the villagers observed that their new resident was a rare child. He only wanted to make others happy; he never asked for anything; and he was content with whatever he was given. However, he would never eat non-vegetarian food; so in order not to disrupt his immediate family, Sathya decided to take his meals at his paternal grandfather’s house because Kondama Raju believed in the Divinity of his grandson and non-vegetarian food was never served to him.
Grandfather Raju understood that the child would never hurt animals and disliked any kind of violence. In fact, Sathya would run and save chickens from being butchered whenever he could. He petted dogs and consoled them whenever they were abused. His days were filled with loving service to the members of his family and the village society he lived in. When it came time for him to enter school, he walked to Bukkha Patnam—about eight kilometers away— returned home to prepare food for his grandfather who he enjoyed cooking for, and then went back to school again. Later, Sathya was sent to the village of Uravakonda to live with his brother who was a teacher. The parents thought Sathya was old enough for further studies.
But on March 8, 1940, when he was 14, Sathya was stung by a scorpion. Suddenly, he lost consciousness for several hours. When he regained consciousness, he exhibited strange behavior which continued for the next few days. He alternated between laughing and weeping, speaking eloquently then falling silent. He began to sing verses in Sanskrit, a language of which he had no prior knowledge. Doctors believed his actions were caused by hysteria. His parents didn’t know what to think. They brought Sathya back to Puttaparthi. But his family and others noticed that the scorpion sting had changed him. He seemed removed from them, as if in deep meditation. More and more he withdrew into himself and ignored those around him. Where had the vivacious, charming Sathya gone? There were whispers that he had become possessed by a Muslim ghost.
In fact, in his most recent past life Sathya had been Sai Baba of Shirdi, a Muslim God man, who had devotees who were Hindus as well as Muslims. Shirdi Sai Baba had left his body eight years before Sathya’s birth. Perhaps none in Puttaparthi knew this. But many of those who had prophesized the birth of Sathya Sai Baba, including Nostradamus and the Prophet Mohammed, did predict the descent of the Lord God on earth at this point in time. And, respectively, they described his physical attributes and the work he would do.
After the scorpion sting, Sathya’s parents thought that he might have gone mad, or was possessed by a demon. Various “remedies” were employed, one such being the burning of his skull with a branding-iron like tool by an exorcist in Kadiri. But Sathya was unmoved. He withstood the pain with patience and no complaint.
On May 23, 1940 he came out of his inward state and gathered the people around him. Back to his charming, outgoing self, he began materializing objects out to the delight of all who sat in front of him. Seeing his son behaving like a magician, Sathya’s father became infuriated and demanded, “Who do you think you are? If you don’t answer, I shall hit you! Come out with it—are you possessed, a lunatic, an incarnation, a deity or a devil? Who are you?”
Sathya replied calmly, “Do you not know who I am? I am Sai Baba. I descended because the Venkavadhoota (the family saint of the Raju family) prayed for my descent.” The Lord’s reply was firm and deliberate. The ring of truth in it was unmistakable. He kept on muttering to himself throughout that day, talking about his code of conduct and his lineage—“Apastamba Sutra, Bharadwaja Gotra,”
Meantime, Sri Pedda Venkappa Raju did not accept his son’s story. He felt that the boy was still possessed by the spirit of the Muslim saint who, it had been deduced, was none other than Sai Baba of Shirdi. So the distraught father took action. He believed that a Muslim priest’s intercession could cure Sathya so he found such a priest in Penukonda, a village several kilometers away from Puttaparthi. Sri Pedda Venkappa Raju took Sathya there and requested the Muslim priest to exorcise his son. The priest, who happened to be a Government official, declared Sathya a “lunatic”.
Once he announced that he was Sai Baba, he persisted in saying that he was on the earth to transform the wicked and to usher in a Golden Age. He explained that he had come in answer to the prayers of saints and sages. Finally, the young Sathya went off to live alone and apart from his family to whom he declared he no longer belonged. Now, he said, he belonged to everyone and he began his work of uplifting the world. His paternal grandfather and one of his early school teachers were among his first devotees.
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