Spiritual Masters: Sai Baba

Baba spoke in quiet tones. His low voice reverberated around Dwarkamai in the stillness of the afternoon. There were just a few of us around. It had all started when someone asked Baba about the cycle of birth and death. Did it really exist, as we had all been told so often? Was this birth really the result of good and bad deeds accumulated over many, many previous births? Baba had looked around with a slight smile on his face.

"Our desire to think rationally makes us doubt such ideas, does it not?" he asked. "These are all theories until one contemplates within and experiences that divine power which suddenly makes everything crystal clear. I am going to narrate to you a story just as it happened, a story that encompasses many births."

There was a hushed silence all around. This was one of those eternal questions, the answer to which seemed to be within the grasp of only a select few. But here was our Master, truly a realized soul, who would now reveal some of that mystery to us.

A bee flew overhead, its buzzing distinct in the sudden quietness of Dwarkamai. The crows cawed uncaringly outside, oblivious to the sound of Baba’s voice. In the distance could be heard a multitude of sounds signifying a normal day – bullock carts, cowbells, crying babies. It was all in sharp contrast to the special intensity in Baba that day, a desire to communicate something of the knowledge he had.