Miracle of the two Sai Babas

Some think that almost anything is a miracle

A Swedish lady called Lena who I know well was at Prashanthi Nilayam in early 1989 and met an Australian couple before they had yet had their first glimpse of Sai Baba. The man had dreamt of Sai Baba often and had come to see him with huge expectations. At their very first darshan, Baba went straight out towards the man, spoke to him and made him vibhuthi. But at the canteen afterwards the man was very disappointed indeed because, he claimed, it was not Sai Baba at all! He had been misled to believe that this person was Sai Baba and had travelled all the way from Australia for nothing etc. etc. But that evening he went for 15 mins. meditation and entered the temple for the first time. There he saw the life-size picture of his Sai Baba, Shirdi Sai, and began to realise that he had come to the right place after all! This incident finally convinced Lena herself of the Divinity of Sathya Sai Baba too!

Images seen in the Prashanti temple

Comment: So the man mistakenly thought he was visiting Shirdi Sai Baba. This alone indicates that he was confused and easily misled, since the two Sai Babas are easily distinguishable and their ashrams are in entirely different parts of India. Did he – and his wife too – just go to Prashanti Nilayam without ANY prior investigation of the issue?  Leaving that aside now, one must wonder what on earth is so remarkable about seeing from the temple pictures that he was simply visiting another person also calling himself Sai Baba? Obviously the man was perplexed by his blunder but probably decided to make the best of his errors and stay on.

To be finally convinced of Sathya Sai Baba’s divinity (as Lena was) on such extremely weak grounds is, however, not untypical. As coordinator for the Norwegian Sai Organization nearly two decades – and also during visits to conferences and long stays the ashrams – I met a considerable number of persons who had decided as if by a whim that he must be God because of something they interpreted as a mystical message or sign from him, things which could easily be explained in other ways. But the inner and even outer pressures to want to be recognised by him, accepted by God and feel good etc. are very considerable, especially if a person has travelled so far and has built up hopes or expectations of experiencing the miracles which are so widely reported in countless ill-written hagiographies, as well as in fanciful video interviews and films.

See how the guru trap works in Sathya Sai Baba’s case in the following:-

• THE TRAP OF ‘DOUBLETHINK’ IN SPIRITUALITY OR RELIGION How one becomes indoctrinated through a ‘doublethink’ system of dual interpretation – worldly vs. otherworldly.
• THE SPIRITUAL ‘MIRROR TRAP’ as used by Sathya Sai Baba to avert scrutiny of himself and confuse followers into self-programming of his doctrine. This idea is the mechanism of denial used by devotees – that Sai Baba is only what we imagine him to be
• BELIEVERS’ SYSTEMATIC MISINTERPRETATION OF SATHYA SAI BABA’S SIMPLE WORDS
  how followers learn ‘correct’ interpretations of Sai Baba’s words and actions from others, the standard but often highly mistaken answers to all doubts