It was only after I got off the phone that I realized what had happened. Sai Baba had answered my request by providing me with enough money to buy a good used car. But I still could not believe he was God. Nevertheless, I took the check to the bank and, after cashing it, went to a good used car dealership in nearby El Toro, and bought a bizarrely bright orange 1975 Chevrolet Citation. Actually, I felt as if I was pulled towards that car parked way in the back of the lot. Beams of morning sunlight were bouncing off it as I headed toward it. The salesman was eager to show me other late-models and more expensive vehicles. However, the weird persimmon color car that I ordinarily would never have been attracted to, just kept me fascinated. Although it was 15 years old, it looked like it had never been driven before and the original interior was fresh as new. In a daze, I agreed to buy it, registered it, and drove it off the lot.
I felt like I’d been given wings. On the way home I realized the whole initial transaction had cost me exactly $1200, the amount of the check—even that was a miracle in high-priced Orange County. After getting my job I had to make two more payments because the car was priced at $2,700. But the fact that the dealership gave me, a person with zero money in the bank, zero plastic, and a minimum-wage job, credit is also inconceivable. But there I was, behind the wheel of a well-maintained car on my way to the biggest adventure of my life.
By now, I had read the book, The Ultimate Experience exactly four times looking for “mistakes”, ways to prove that the author was a fraud and that nothing she wrote could be true about God walking on the earth in the remote village of Puttaparthi in South India. So when I got back to my apartment I decided to read this book once more. I was determined to understand how this phenomenon of asking Sai Baba for a car and getting a check from a woman who claimed God had told her to send me money had happened. I immediately went to the table where the book was. I picked it up and opened it. Before I could read a word a photo tumbled out of the pages.
I had not placed any photo in the book. What is going on? I wondered. The photo had fallen on to the floor backside up. I reached down, picked up the picture and turned it over. I was shocked! It was a photo of Sai Baba standing beside the car I had just purchased.
As I stood there in the middle of my flat holding the picture of Sai Baba beside my 1975 Chevrolet Citation (a car most likely never manufactured or sold in India), I began to shake with the magnitude of my discovery. I knew then that he was definitely God and I fell to my knees and wept. I cried with joy and with relief. Suddenly, becoming aware of the fact that the nebulous God I’d been yearning to believe in all of my life was actually here on Planet Earth filled me with humility, with wonder, and with ineffable emotions.
When I went next door and told N what had happened she coolly said, “Sometimes Baba gives a second miracle if you doubt the first one.” That was me, Doubting Terry.
Before long, I sold nearly all my possessions to help finance my trip to see him. I put a few things in storage, again, took leave from work, gave a poetry reading for the Laguna Poets who paid me $500 US dollars, and before I knew it I was off to India. That was 23 years ago. I am still in awe. And I am still in India!
A SHORT STORY OF SATHYA SAI BABA OF INDIA
For His Eminence Tso Ser Thri Rinpoche who I had the great good fortune to teach English to while he visited Puttaparthi on several occasions and who asked me to write a story for him explaining who Sathya Sai Baba is.
Sathya Sai Baba is a Poorna Avatar. In Hinduism, a Poorna Avatar is the full embodiment of all that is—God, or Absolute Consciousness, as some call It. An Avatar is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, can turn sky into earth and earth into sky. The Avatar comes from time to time in answer to the prayers of saints and holy persons; the Divine Incarnation takes the form of a human being in order to walk among us to uplift, comfort, heal, and most importantly perhaps to transform. Lord Buddha was an Avatar, as was Lord Jesus. The main purpose, therefore of Absolute Consciousness taking a body and coming to earth, is to minister to suffering humanity.
Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba walked the earth for 85 years and outwardly appeared to be a mere human. However, multitudes experienced his divine powers and claimed him as their Guru and their God.
And though he left his body on April 24, of 2011, according to his followers, he never left his devotees and his mission continues. Crowds from all over the world still throng to Puttaparthi to take darshan (to see God) at his Mahasamadhi where his body was laid to rest. This tomb is engraved with the essence of his teaching, “Love all. Serve all.” The words Sai Baba mean: “Mother-Father God.” It is said, that as a mother, he loves unconditionally and as a father, he punishes when necessary.
Historically, God has incarnated in many forms before. In this Incarnation, as Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi, The Lord was born Sathyanarayana Raju, into a Hindu, Telugu-speaking family on November 23, 1926. The once rural village of Puttaparthi where the divine birth took place is located in Anantapur District in the state of Andhra Pradesh, South India. It lies in a desert-like valley surrounded by rocky hills and mountains. At the time of Sai Baba’s birth, tigers dwelled in the caves of the mountains and scorpions, cobras, and stinging red ants were plentiful. A beautiful, fresh river, Chittravathi, ran through the village and cool breezes swept across the golden sands of the river.
When his mother Eswaramma was pregnant with him, many mysterious events occurred. For instance, during the nights musical instruments, particularly the maddala and tambura, could be heard throughout the village. They played on their own in synchronicity and harmony, beginning and stopping as if on cue. Rumors spread as people speculated on the cause. There was gossip that the unborn child could be heard talking in the womb.
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The father, Sri Pedda Venkappa Raju, baffled by these inexplicable events, went to the nearby village of Bukka Patnam to consult with an astrologer whose divinations he trusted. When asked why such mysterious things were occurring, the astrologer replied, “It is due to the power of the Divine. These happenings make the people happy.” Sri Pedda Venkappa Raju could not have imagined then how many millions of people, decades later, would be made happy hearing stories about the events preceding Sathya Sai Baba’s birth. Nor could the young father have known that millions of persons of all religions and from all around the world would be worshipping his son as God Almighty.
Not long after consulting the astrologer, on November 23, 1926, a Monday, the Divine Incarnation was born. His mother, Eswaramma, had an easy delivery and the family was thrilled to behold the beauty of the baby. It was the month of Karthika, the month of Lord Shiva. The parents named the boy Sathyanaraya because they were devoted to Lord Sathyanarayana and they believed that this Deity was responsible for granting Eswaramma her wish to have another son. The baby, who had an older brother and sister when he arrived, was called Sathya, which means Truth.
Sri Aurobindo in his book, Sri Aurobindo on Himself and the Mother, wrote: "November 24, 1926, was the descent of Krishna (One of Sathya Sai Baba’s former Incarnations) into the physical. A power infallible shall lead the thought and earthly hearts kindle the Immortal's Fire. Even the multitude shall hear the voice."
It happened that Sri Aurobindo was in a meditative trance during the birth of Sathya Sai Baba. But on the 24th the Pondicherry Master came out of the trance to tell his devotees the news.
More mysteries and paranormal experiences occurred soon after the re-born Krishna’s arrival. One day little Sathya was sleeping on a mat on the floor. His mother sat beside him. Suddenly the baby’s mat began rocking; it was being raised and lowered by something underneath. The mat was lifted up very slowly and those present were astonished to see that the rocking was being done by a cobra. The snake vanished instantaneously into thin air as soon as the mat was lifted.
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