Volume 1: This pictorial survey of the first fifty years of Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s earthly tenure records both the fast moving and exponential spread of his message and mission as well as underlines the unchanging nature of its inspiration, the undying power of Love in the heart.
As the expression of love embodied, Sathya Sai in this book, demonstrates the unshakeable nature of the Divine. From the very first portrait taken in an age when photography was unaffordable to the rural population, the same steady glow of an inner poise which characterized the young master as is witnessed today after eight decades.
Remarkably, this inscrutable youth from the beginning, could look directly and unselfconsciously straight into the camera because being fully conscious of the self the young Sai was unaffected by anything other than that reality residing within him.
Divide into six sections, the first covers the largely unrecorded life of Shirdi Sai Baba in Shirdi. Thereafter the life story of an encore in Puttaparthi unfolds and with the ever increasing archive of photographic material, this first volume had to be limited to 1980, Sathya Sai Baba’s 54th year on earth.
The miscellaneous arrangement of this collection allows Sathya Sai Baba to be seen in a whole range of situations, in a variety of different moods. From close familiarity with the poor and unpossessed to awarding audiences to the rich and powerful, Sathya Sai lives out his message that declares the same inexhaustable source of love fuels all our lives irrespective of our condition or station in it.
It is this one pointed advocacy of the supremacy of love that each of these photographs reflects. Whether in the Himalaya or the Deccan plateau the message is the same, that the Divine is close at hand and to find it we need to look not outside ourselves but turn imwards.
The effect of this book is to build a meditative atmosphere in the viewer and through visual stimulus experience the oneness Sathya Sai’s life exemplifies. We only escape illusion when we are asleep but the Art Baba wishes to teach is that we wake to our unlimited potential. We take birth to celebrate our divine inheritance and Sathya Sai’s presence is a constant reminder of the compassionate state of being which every human being can attain.
Volume 2: Volume two of Sri Sathya Sai’s spiritual journey from 1981 to 2010 witnesses the adventurous outflowing of his mission from backward rural India to some 180 sophisticated countries of the world. Having established and consolidated his base at Prashanthi Nilayam and made his mark by travelling all over India, Sai Baba opened his heart and mission to the whole of humanity. The response was phenomenal. Having activated widespread interest in the traditional fakir figure of Shirdi Sai Baba, he was able then to expand on this compassionate theme in a more modern garb, appealing to an emerging globalized world with its demand for evidence of the oneness of life. His timing was perfect to demonstrate through constancy of being how love is the sole Unifier of Human Aspirations. Baba as exemplar of love’s sovereign hold showed by his presence where the seat of life’s most hallowed mystery lay, not in any particular nation but in our awarness of the sacred nature of selfhood. This central teaching of mankind’s divine potential made any other doctrine superfluous and underlined the truth of his regular assertion: “My life is my message; my message is my Life.”
This message both simple and profound found its way into the array of institutions Sri Sathya Sai founded, his target audience being youth with its idealism and altruism. His Prashanthi Mandir which traditionally had boasted a priviledged scattering of old devotees on its veranda now was crowded by eager students who flocked there after their classes. This change in emphasis was echoed in the increased avian population. Each twilight from the handful of crows who had nested in the palm trees now came thousands of egrets and mynahs to join in the evening aarthi and nest safely in the trees surrounding Baba’s residence. Along with educational institutions powered by human rather than commercial values came super speciality hospitals catering to the poorer sections of society and whose up to date treatment came free of cost. The compassionate bounty of Sathya Sai Baba peaked in the provision of piped drinking water to one thousand villages in the interior of rural Andhra Pradesh, the work being completed in record time. As a boy Baba had been made to carry water on a yoke over his shoulders and his body still bore the weals. He knew better than anyone the sufferings of the poor and the blessings of piped water. Other projects followed and in Tamil Nadu the Sai Ganga Canal bringing water from the river Krishna to the citizens of Chennai was commissioned by Sai Baba.
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