Sai Bhagvatham

Book excerpt: Sai Bhagvatham is a story of man’s engagement with God. The book uses over a thousand personal spiritual experiences and anecdotes that record inner experiences of persons wrestling with their religious circumstances. The experiences, drawn from all religious traditions, are evocative of how the divine engages with man. The experiences with Sri Sathya Sai Baba are juxtaposed with the narratives of spiritual experiences recorded by seekers over the millennia. The experiences with Sai are uncannily similar to the universal experiences of man with God; they mirror man’s journey to the Divine. The spiritual journey with Sai is tangible, poignant, accessible, and more intense than recorded before. Sai is relentless in the pursuit of his purpose, transformation of man, however much man falters, vacillates, resists, struggles, or even tries to escape. Sai demonstrates that in the relationship of man with the Divine, God is actively engaged with man; he is not an impassive bystander. The engagement of man with God is planned and activated by God, it progresses based upon the responses of man, and the engagement stimulates the transformation of man. Man, in his engagement with God, asks the ‘why’ questions, seeking to comprehend and explain God. He is also reflective, attempting to understand himself, and realize who he really is. The diverse and innumerable first person incidents with Sri Sathya Sai Baba create a vivid characterization of the persona of Sai, hence the use of Bhagvatham in the title.