Sathya Sai Baba - A clear view: Part 3

A Lingam, Specially Delivered From the Amarnath Cave

A couple of years ago Baba gave me a special gift, in a highly unusual way; I think you’ll agree the story lends weight to my assertion of Baba’s divinity. A man named Rouf (pronounced “Roof”), who owns one of the shops near Baba's ashram, saw me on the street one day and told me he'd had a “Baba dream” about me, and that he had something to give me. I was a bit put off, but several weeks later finally paid him a visit, and as we sipped sweet tea in his shop, he told me his story:

"Last summer I went on a pilgrimage to some holy places up North. Hardwar, Rishikesh, Kashmir, and then the Amarnath Cave, in Himalayas. It's closed eight months a year from snow, no way to get in. And in this cave, you've heard of it? There's this naturally formed Lingam, a huge one, made of ice. [A Lingam is an elliptical symbol of the Supreme Being, used in the worship of Lord Shiva.] Shiva and Parvati actually lived in this cave - it's one of the holiest shrines in India. So I'm sitting outside this cave - and suddenly these two white birds... What are they called? Doves. Two doves flew out of the cave. And as they flew over my head, one of them dropped something in my lap. And in that moment, I heard, 'This is for Ram Das.'"

"Wait,” I said incredulously. “You heard that inside, from God? Or from the bird?"

"Yes, yes," he replied, with the affirmative Indian head wobble. "The bird."

Rouf reached down and unwrapped a small package, and then held up the precious object: a radiant red Lingam. "Ruby!" he said. "A ruby Lingam."

"A Prema Lingam!” I replied, awed at the beautiful cosmic egg God had given. (Prema means ‘Divine Love’.)

"Yes." Rouf held it up to the light and smiled. "But the problem was," he continued, "I didn't know who is this Ram Das. I had forgot your name. So I prayed for two weeks, every day, "Baba, who is this Lingam for? Who is this Ram Das?" Finally, one night Baba came in my dream. He showed me you, and said, 'This is Ram Das. Give it to him.'"

Rouf handed me the Lingam, which fit beautifully in the palm of my hand. I was speechless - what a bizarre story! Like something out of Tolkein, except the "Lord of the Rings" who had sent this was the supreme Lord of Love, incarnate in human form! What an amazing leela - what a gift!

I held the sacred object to my chest for a while, drawing in its energy, and then said, "You know, Rouf, there's another interesting aspect to this. In the book I'm working on, there's a ladder of concepts you can climb to reach the Truth. Once you climb it, you then step off the ladder onto the Roof - the Supreme Reality, where no mind exists, where no concepts can ever reach. So in my book, the word 'Roof' is equated with the Supreme Being. And this gift has come to me from the 'Rouf'!”

God bless Rouf for passing the Lingam on to me, without the slightest hint of request for payment of any kind. May he ever live up to his high name!

Clearly, Sai Baba stops at nothing to express His love for His devotees... Is it not obvious, He is an incarnation of God?

Baba’s Own Words

And what does Baba Himself say? “The totality of Divine Energy has come unto humanity as Sathya Sai. This is a human form in which every Divine Entity, every Divine Principle, that is to say all the names and forms ascribed by man to God are manifest.”19 He says He is the Father who sent Jesus - but then adds that we are also God, but have forgotten:

“You as body, mind or soul are a dream. But what you really are is pure existence, knowledge, bliss. You are the God of this universe.”20

He declares that He knows the entire past and future of every one of us, as well as our every thought - and frequently proves this assertion by revealing intimate knowledge of the innermost thoughts and personal lives of His devotees. His continuous flow, for over six decades, of miraculous manifestations, and instantaneous healings of ‘incurable’ maladies such as cancer, paralysis and blindness, is, to my knowledge, unparalleled in the history of the world. I’ve also read a number of well-documented accounts of Baba bringing people back from the dead, including a Nepalese woman named Bharosa Adhikari, and an elderly American named Walter Cowan, whose resurrection is beautifully described in My Baba and I, by Dr. John Hislop. Another such account, regarding an Indian devotee named V. Radhakrishna, follows later in the website.

Apparitions

Over the years, many people have reported that Sai Baba has appeared before them in various places around the globe in a living form - yet He has ‘physically’ left India only once. One example is Connie Shaw, the American author and lecturer, who states in her book Wake Up Laughing that Baba has appeared in her home in Colorado over fifty times! At one point He appeared in the middle of the night, waking her from sleep with a tap on the shoulder, to request that she take over the presidency of a local Sai Center. Since the center was mainly comprised of Indians and she felt it would be inappropriate for a Westerner to lead them, she refused His request. The next night He came again, and again she refused. When He appeared for the third consecutive night she finally relented and agreed to lead the center. When she reluctantly told the president of the Center about the apparitions, he confessed that on the same three nights Baba had appeared in his home as well, requesting that he resign so Connie could take his place!

Another example is James Sinclair, an American businessman who had never heard of Sai Baba, and who saw, on two occasions, an orange-robed man with an afro appearing and disappearing in his house in the USA. Inquiring at a spiritual book store if any living Master fit the description, he was shown a photo of Sai Baba, whom he instantly recognized as the man in his home. When Sinclair finally made it to Baba’s ashram, the first thing Baba said to him was, “I came to you twice!”