An article published by Bhavan’s Journal in 1975 giving an analytical judgment of the Phenomenon called Sathya Sai Baba holds good even today after 36 winters, when we are into the 86th year of His Advent. Recapping those glorious days, of trudging the road with Sai Baba for 28 years, Prof. N. Kasturi summed up calling Him “The Inscrutable”. Read on…
The world has lived with a unique human Phenomenon for 50 years now! Millions are celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the Advent of this Person, on November 23, 1975. I have spent 28 years in the bracing climate of His Presence, the cool, comforting, but, none-the-less vital and vibrating aura of this Phenomenon. I have witnessed the waves of gratitude that surge round His Feet, from hearts reinforced by the impact of His Love, minds cleansed by the imprint of His Power, brains rendered wholesome by the intake of His Wisdom and bodies strengthened and straightened by contact with His Compassion.
Arthur Osborne summarized all that he had to say about the Sai Baba of Shirdi in two words: “The Incredible.” Dr. S. Bhagavantam ventured to summarise his experiences of the Sai Baba I am writing about in two other words, “The Inexplicable.” As a scientist who has dedicated himself to the study and propagation of physics, he had to confess that this Sai Baba is a law unto Himself, Who cannot be construed by any of the known categories of physics or even metaphysics.
Dr. Bhagavantam has the integrity of a scientist, who accepts the existence of the inexplicable and asserts that a fact can never be fiction, however vehemently it is ignored or denied by those who would not or dare not see.
I have experienced Baba in almost every phase of His multifaceted personality. He has cured intractable illness; He has infused confidence and courage; He has brightened the intellect revealing unsuspected sources of joy and power; He has opened several satisfying opportunities for offering skills and strength at the service of fellowmen.
He has allowed me to share in the wonder aroused atbthe manifestations of His Love in distant lands like Uganda, and nearer home in many parts of India. I have witnessed emanations of vibhuti, nectar, gems, slips of paper on which warnings, counsels, and teachings for the recipients are written, and eats, from pictures of this Sai Baba, in homes and shrines in places hundreds of miles away from where His physical frame resides. I have met and discussed with people who have welcomed Baba into their homes, sat around Him and talked with Him for hours, sung songs which He taught them – all this, when I knew He was hundreds of miles away.
Baba says, “No one can come to Me unless I call him.” And, I know hundreds of instances where cynics, agnostics, atheists, rationalists, fanatics of various creeds, patients suffering from various complexes, manias and intellectual anaemia, arthritis, apoplexy etc. have been called by Him and directed along the path of Sadhana to the understanding of their innate Divinity. How does He call them? By arousing curiosity, awakening interest, assuring cure, alerting during dreams, advising through friends or acquaintances, administering some warning or desire which He alone can avoid or fulfill.
Arnold Schulman toured India and even met Him; he returned to New York, happy in the conviction that in India every Guru is a ‘crook’ and every pupil, a ‘psychopathic patient’ – or at least a sizeable majority! Now, here was a person whom Baba decided to call and correct.
He implanted in his mind an idea which Schulman himself tried to dismiss as impossible, undesirable, impracticable, and even insane! It was “to write a book on one of those Gurus, the person he had discarded with a shrug, the Sathya Sai!” When he finally arrived before Him, after many hesitations and heart-searchings, Baba told him, “I wanted you to come not for the sake of the book-the book is publicity; I do not need publicity; I need you, you!” That is the measure of His Grace.
Those who believe in only things that they can see with their limited and perverted vision or experience with their prejudiced minds or infer as true on the basis of their perverted, polluted logic, are denied the joy and elevation of spirit that all can win by contact with Baba. They do not know that syllogisms cannot contain the Incredible, that laboratories cannot compress the Inexplicable into a formula and that science deals only with the tangible, the measurable, and the calculable. But, there are worlds, and worlds of emotions, ambitions, yearnings, exultations, adorations and a host of emanations from beyond the region of the senses and the intellect, which we ignore at our peril.
Baba is engaged in the fundamental task of discovering and defusing the germs of anxiety, restlessness, fear, doubt and distress that injure the individual and, through Him, society and ultimately, entire mankind. He has been busy with the Avataric Schedule from His very childhood; and on the fiftieth anniversary of His Advent, millions are offering Him the homage of gratitude. Millions are awaiting the healing touch, the kindling smile, the illumining word and the Divine vibration that His Presence arouses.
If I am asked to summarise what I have known and felt, during the 28-year-long road through which He has led me, I can only follow Arthur Osborne and Dr. Bhagavantam and reply in two words “The Inscrutable.”
