Satya Sai Baba - A Biography

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This Biography of Satya Sai Baba is excerpted from Howard Murphet’s “Sai Baba: Man of MIracles”.

[To get miraculous vibuthi from Prasanthi Nilayam, please make a love offering of over $30 US in the form of a personal check to Shri Sathya Sai Central Trust. This is simply a donation, not a payment. The Vibuthi comes with the receipt one is sent for a donation/love offering & is the children’s and Satya’s way of thanking the donor. The Vibuthi itself cannot be bought, it simply comes with the receipt. The children at Prasanthi Nilayam make lovely paper folders with mantras written by hand all over them. Within that is a small amount of miraculous Vibuthi. One American dollar is worth 47 rupees in India which helps pay for Satya’s many charities, his large feeding program, orphanage, etc. The address for donations is Satya Sai Baba, Prasanthi Nilayam PO, Anantapur District, Andhra Pradesh 515134 INDIA.]

A BIOGRAPHY OF SATYA SAI BABA

Satya Sai Baba was born as Satyanarayana in Puttaparti, about a quarter of a mile from his main Ashram. We can start with Satya’s paternal grandfather Kondama Raju. He is remembered chiefly for the devout religious life he led and for his temple to the goddess Satyabhama. He was also an outstanding musician and actor and took leading parts in the village religious dramas and operas. One version of the Ramayana sung as a series of songs Kondama Raju knew by heart. Kondama lived to be 110, dying in 1950.

Twenty four years before Kondama died, in the year 1926, at the home of Kondama’s elsest son Pedda Raju, Satyanarayan was born amidst wonderous signs and miracles.. Satyanarayan was preceded by one brother and two sisters. His mother Easwaramma was amazed at the occurances in her house when she was carrying her next child. The big tamboura leaning against the livingroom wall would sometimes twang in the middle of the night when no one was there. The maddala (drum) on the floor would throb in rythmn as if an expert musician were playing it.

The year 1926 was known as Akshaya, meaning the “Never-declining, Ever-full” year, and November 23 (the day Satya Sai Baba was born) is always a day to be devoted to the worship of Shiva. Moreover in this year a certain positioning of the stars made the day even more auspicious. The villagers were out chanting the names of Shiva when the rising sun climbed over the Chitravati River. Satyanarayan was born at this moment.

Soon after Satya’s birth the baby was placed on the floor on top of some bedclothes. The cloth around the baby began to move in a peculiar way. The women attending his mother immediately looked under the cloth -- there was a live cobra! But the snake did not harm the child. Sai Baba of Shirdi (the previous incarnation of Satya Sai Baba) often appeared to his followers in the form of a cobra. The cobra also is one of the many symbols of Shiva.

As happens with many Hindu families, some of the members of the family are not vegetarian. Satya was a natural vegetarian with a tender heart for all living things. He even objected to the local yearly bull races where the animals were pushed beyond endurance and sometimes broke their legs trying to run on sandy soil during the competition.

Satya never turned any beggars away from his mother’s house. He would see to it that they always got something to eat.

Satya began school in his little village and was very bright and quick with learning as well as popular among the other school children. He started to become famous among the other students for helping them with their little day to day needs. As is still true in India, a pen or pencil is a very precious object since it can mean an extra expense for the entire family or even, as is true in the West, something that one’s teacher would require for the day.

Well, just like small children everywhere, one’s papers, books and writing tools are not always the first thing on one’s mind early in the morning when children play with each other in the school yard. Satya became well known as a good friend to ask for a new pencil or pen when the original became lost. He would produce all kinds of items from the palm of his hand. Needless to say, he attracted a gentle crowd of happy children from an early age.

Often, at his Higher Elementary School at Bukkapatnam (about two and one-half miles from Puttaparthi) he would come to school a little early and perform puja (Hindu offerings to Shiva, etc. where incense, essential oil, ghee flame and other wonderful, scented objects are waved in the air, purifying all the surroudings) for the other children.

If one of the children was sick he would produce from thin air “herbs from the HImalayas” to help them get better.

At thirteen, a series of incredible wonderous events was to change the life of this amazing little boy and influence the entire world with his miraculous charities and abilities.

Satya’s father expected him to become a government officer, but the events of his life were to take him far beyond that ambition. One day, at dusk, when walking in the school yard, Satyanarayan lept into the air with an exclamation, falling down into the dusk until his friends carried him unconscious to his bed.

He remained unconscious for about 24 hours and when he finally awoke he was a changed person. He had become a yogi, fully. He seldom spoke, would go into a deep stiff samadhi, hardly breathing. He would quoite long Sanskrit passages from the Vedas and speak on them with wisdom far beyond his young years. He described far off places of pilgrimage to which he had never been.

Satyanarayan become Satya Sai Baba. Numerous attempts to change him back to the amiable little boy who attended school and was so good at his studies all failed. Satyanarayan stayed home from school, giving dharshan in his mother and father’s living room. At one point his father, a little disappointed at his son’s absence from school, shouted at him, asking what he thought he was.

His son replied, “I am Sai Baba. I have come to ward off your troubles; keep your houses clean and pure. Venkavadhoota prayed that I be born in your family, so I came.” Venkavadhoota was a family ancestor who had been looked upon as a great yogi and guru by the people of hundreds of villages surrounding the area.

Sai Baba, of course, was the now deceased Sai Baba of Shirdi. Satya Sai Baba is said to be his reincarnation. Sai Baba of Shirdi was famous for keeping a continuous yagya fire burning 24 hours a day. Yagya fires are the source of Vibuthi ash for which Satya Sai Baba is famous for producing from his hands.

Yagya is a form of Agni Hotra or Vedic fire ceremony where one takes a copper pyramidic container (upside down) and fills it with dried cow dung. While chanting mantras one alternates between pouring ghee (clarified unsalted butter), herbs, rice, flowers and other prescribed objects into the fire. It is an incredibly purifying ceremony. Cow dung has been shown to decrease the effects of radiation on the human body by the way.

[To Be Continued......]