Discovering Sathya Sai Baba
Craig & Jane are psychic mediums who show psychic readings on television and in person. This article is about their quest to find out the truth about the miracles of Sathya Sai Baba and gain insight into their lives and work as psychics.
I first heard the name of Sathya Sai Baba in 1973 when I was saving money to travel overland to India with my friend Terry. 'You must visit his ashram while in India,' urged a traveller. Incredible things are happening there.' Unfortunately, I couldn't raise the money and abandoned my plans for the trip.
I never spoke or heard the name again until soon after I met Jane in 1988 when her friend, Jim Chivers, gave us some light grey ash (vibhutti) and suggested that we eat a little. (In chapter 1 you read about how Jim Chivers lost his son.) He told us that the ash was considered holy by the Hindus and had been materialized by the Hindu god-man (Avatar) named Sai Baba.
It was soon after this that the dreams started to happen.
Video Psychics Go To India
I had seen a photo of Sathya Sai Baba but knew nothing of his philosophy or the story of his remarkable life and miracles. The photo I saw was of a little man who wears a brilliant orange robe and has a mop of black curly hair like that of Jimi Hendrix. At the time of writing, he's 72 but in the photo, I saw he would have been about 45. I couldn't understand why I should start dreaming about him and why the dreams should be so vivid. These were the most amazing lucid dreams that I'd ever experienced.
My first dream was set in a garage where many cars were being fixed. Clad in his bright saffron orange robes, Sai Baba introduced himself as the chief mechanic and suggested that I come into his workshop and perhaps help a little too. He showed me how to repair car engines.
The dream made no sense.
Baba Dreams
A few weeks later Jane and I were invited to Jim Chiver's retirement party and there we met some of his Indian friends who were devotees of Sai Baba. I was introduced to Babu, an elderly Indian man whose eyes sparkled and voice trembled when he spoke about his guru. I told him about the dream. 'It is a tremendous blessing to have a dream about Swami,' he said. 'Swami is calling you. He often tells his followers that he is like a mechanic of the soul and will call those that need his guidance into his workshop. When Swami comes to you in a dream, it is not like a dream. It is real.'
Babu told me how a few years ago he was completely paralyzed. The doctors had said that his condition was incurable and that he would stay like this for the rest of his life. He would never walk again. Babu prayed to his guru. Day and night he prayed. 'Then one night I saw an orange shimmer in my room,' says Babu. 'I looked again and was overjoyed to see Sai Baba appear in my room as real as you are now sat before me.'
That night the spiritual form touched Babu's feet and by the morning he could move his feet and toes. The next evening he saw Sai Baba again and the vision touched his waist. By the morning he could sit up unaided. On the third night, Sai Baba touched Babu on the head and he could walk unaided. The doctors were amazed at Babu's spontaneous remission. Everyone I spoke to confirmed that he had been paralyzed and had recovered. And perhaps the greatest testimony to truth was the great tears that rolled down this man's face as he told his story. I was certain that Babu was telling the truth.
Although I'd read very little about Sai Baba the dreams kept happening and Jane started having dreams too. 'I saw Sai Baba dressed in blue' Jane told me. 'He asked me to sit beside him and that I was to begin spiritual healing.' He came to us both in our dreams many times and we were each shown remarkable things and given spiritual instruction that greatly helped us with our mediumistic work. I decided to find out more about Sai Baba.
Who is Sathya Sai Baba?
Sathya Sai Baba was born in Puttaparthi, a remote village in southern India, on 23rd November 1926. His parents named the baby Sathyanarayana Raju of the Kshatriya caste. The villagers tell of signs occurring shortly before his birth such as musical instruments playing by themselves and soon after his birth a deadly cobra snake was found in his crib. Remarkably it had not harmed the baby. This event and many others were taken as auguries that a very special person had been born. The cobra is the symbol of Shiva of Hinduism's holy trinity.
One version of the story goes that at the age of 13 the young Sathya was bitten by a scorpion and after a day and night of normality fell into a coma that lasted 24 hours. When he awoke he started quoting long passages of Sanskrit poetry and philosophy that were far beyond the scope of his limited schooling. His frightened parents took him to an exorcist who shaved his head and cut multiple deep crosses into his skull bidding the demons to leave the child. The Exorcist also poured caustic material into the wounds and into the boy's eyes. Finally, Sathyanarayana's parents could not stand to see their son suffer anymore and ordered the exorcist to stop.
Materializing
In May 1940, at the age of 14, the young Sathya was seen by his father materializing candy and fruit out of the air, and many of the crowd that had gathered around the boy were falling to the ground and calling him an incarnation of God. His father became angry at this charade. As the father approached, ready to give the boy a beating, he heard his son announce, 'I am Sai Baba, and I belong to Apastamba SΕ«tra (the school of sage Apastambha) and am of the spiritual lineage of Bharadwaja. I am Sai Baba and I have come to ward off all your troubles. Keep your house clean and pure.'
Another source quotes him as also saying 'My mission in this earthly sojourn shall be to lead man along the path of Dharma (righteousness) back to my feet. I have come to re-establish the Vedic way of life, to reinstate the supremacy of the spirit over matter, and to lead man back to the life of the spirit.'
He also said he was the reincarnation of the holy man Sai Baba of Shirdi, who had died eight years before Sathya Sai Baba's birth. Sathya Sai Baba refers to Shirdi as 'My previous body'. None of the villagers of Puttaparthi had heard of this person. Sai Baba of Shirdi was born a Hindu but lived with a Muslim family. On his head, he wore a piece of cloth called a Kani. Like today's Sai Baba, he could do miracles and, before his death, had predicted where and when he would be reborn in eight years' time.
Lineage
These details corresponded exactly to the time and place of Sai Baba's birth as recorded by Kaka Dikshit in 1918. Many of Sai Baba's first devotes were followers of Sai Baba of Shirdi. Sai Baba even proved his spiritual lineage by recounting events and the details of private conversations spoken during his previous incarnation. He tells us that he will need the third incarnation to complete his work as Prema Sai. He claims to be an Avatar, which broadly means the descent of the Divine principle into the human state. In other words, Sai Baba is the formless God taking form.
If Sai Baba's claim is true, the implication is that he is not just tapping into the source of knowledge but all-knowing. "My power is immeasurable, my truth inexplicable, unfathomable. I am beyond the reach of the most intensive inquiry and meticulous measurement. There is nothing I do not see, nowhere I do not know the way, no problem I cannot solve. My sufficiency is unconditional. I AM the Totality. All of it."
Resources
- This is an extract from my book The Psychic Casebook - Craig Hamilton-Parker Blandford Press ISBN 0-7137-2755-1 (It has recently been republished as Psychic Encounters.)
- The official site for the Sathya Sai Baba Organization
