Bill Aitken - Sri Sathya Sai Baba: A Life

It is a long road to the feet of the One but thither do we all travel.

Rudyard Kipling in Kim

T o write about the life and times of Sri Sathya Sai Baba is to take on a seemingly impossible task. How does one convey his apparent divine status without inviting either disbelief or incredulity? If written entirely for non-believers, the story will remain half-told. Nor is it fair to reduce well-verified facts of a seemingly miraculous nature into a catalogue of neutral rationalizations. As the mystic-mountaineer W.H. Murray puts it, The aim is not to abrogate reason but raise it. A camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle but vision can. Murray advocates the alchemical art of oneing to help us cross the seemingly unbridgeable gap between our world and the realm of the spirit, thereby harmonizing the lessons of the head with the teachings of the heart.

The only way an itinerant student of religion (as opposed to a Sai devotee) can explain the Sai phenomenon is by resorting to his travellers diary in which, for three weeks each winter over a dozen years, he recorded the hidden wonders of the Deccans topography and its rich theology. The author, to borrow Thomas Carlyles comment on the poet Robert Burns, speaks forth what is in him not from any outward call of vanity but because his heart is too full to be silent.

This historical and theological survey, while seeking to investigate the nimbus surrounding Sathya Sai Baba and Shirdi Sai Baba does not, for the most part, express opinions for or against the fabulous associations that have arisen around their names. What it does attempt, since serious students of the operation of grace want material they can (in Sathya Sai Babas words) watch, study and weigh, is an investigation of its inscrutable source as well as the details of its working on a beneficiary who can vouch for its impact. If, on occasion, this has meant a digression into explanations of how a wandering Scot came to be enamoured of the Deccan and its line of extraordinary exemplars of spiritual grace, I apologize in advance.

I have to thank Shalini Sreenivas for suggesting that this book be written and for supplying material and encouragement to enable its completion. David Davidar at Penguin has regularly lent support to the authors offbeat interests, while to Karthika has fallen the exacting task of making sense of and adding clarity to this numinous excursion. To Himanshu Bhagat I am indebted for his cool overview of largely inscrutable terrain and to Shantanu Ray Choudhary for his invaluable remedial insights. Rajiv Mehrotra kindly helped speed the typescript on its way, aided by Lalita in Delhi and Jayashree in Bangalore. I also need to thank Paras, our faithful and exuberant jungli dog, who enabled deadlines to be met by waking me up each morning. My main inspiration has been the boundless love Rani-ma feels for her guru, Sri Sathya Sai. To the source of that love this book is offered with reverence.

Mussoorie

April 2004