This is a letter from Howard Murphet, the writer of "Sai Baba- Man of Miracles" Dear XXXXXX, I felt through your well-expressed letter that you were at the crossroads and not sure which way to go and so it was, that I felt compelled to help you if I could. My good friends or some of them in the Sai movement have expressed the opinion that the present time and what is taking place really is the dividing of the ways, "the sifting out of the chaff from the grain', or what the Bible might call the dividing of the sheep from the goats. However way we see it, is a difficult time for some people, especially for the fairly new comers among the following of Sai Baba. You say you have read some of my books so you know perhaps that I am probably the first from the Western world to come to Sathya Sai Baba as a Western skeptic and stay with Him or near Him for some six years in India in order to solve the problem of His true Identity and why He was here in the world. After returning to the west I have been back many times, pulled by the strong magnet of the Divine Love and fascination of One I decided was an Avatar of God. He taught me what an Avatar is. His relationship to ordinary human beings in the world and how His Purpose was to lead those who are ready, to their own inner Guru or the God within. I did not immediately except Him as an Avatar, but after He taught me in a humble manner what an Avatar is and how we are all Avatars, descendants from God without being aware of it. As I stayed on I became more and more certain that He was indeed an Avatar. This is not based on the fact that He materialises things. I know that there are others in India who have the siddhis for materialisation. Some of them are masters on the right hand path, others on the left hand path or the black magicians. In most cases they have trained servants in the astral realm who carry things for them as they desire. I mean material objects such as trinkets, food and so on. So, you might say the fact that Swami materialises things is really no proof that He is an Avatar of God. He goes much further than that and He does what only one bearing the Christ-consciousness or the Divine-consciousness on earth can do and I have witnessed many of these phenomena. One is the conversion of one type of matter to another which labels him as a Master or Matter. One such which I was witness of was the conversion of a hard piece of granite rock into edible candy while the rock was never out of my sight. I examined it before and afterwards ate some of it! Only the Divine One can do such a thing as that. Another thing done when necessary was in convert a bucket of ordinary water drawn from it well nearby into a bucketful of petrol by stirring the water with His forefinger, then it was poured into the petrol tank of the car and the car went on the journey using the petrol that Swami had converted from the water. These and other juggling of the atoms of change one type of matter to another are things that convinces one of His Divine consciousness which is the Master of matter being able to create it and convert it and destroy it. When He produces a Shivalingam from inside Himself which I saw Him do as long ago as 1966, if there is nobody present worthy of receiving the lingam, that is one who will faithfully do regular pujas required to keep the lingam auspicious He dematerialises it, in other words He sends it back to the unmanifest. This might be called the destruction of matter. You must have read about all of this or some of it in my books, yet the greatest of His miracles is the Divine Love by which He brings about a deep change in the nature of people, his followers. I experienced this also in 1966 on the first occasion when I was alone with Sai Baba. I have described this inner change which might be called the birth of the Christ-child within one. We are born of course with the embryo of the Divine Child within us but this initiation that Swami gives things about the actual birth of the Christ within, then, it is that we begin to know the meaning of true Love and the feeling of oneness with our brother man. This comes about gradually through the years after what I have called the birth of the Christ-child or the initiation into the Divine Life. Many,many people throughout the years have been changed in this way, this deep rooted inner change that is really your first footstep on the path of the homeward journey. Then there is the great compassion of Sai Baba which requires miraculous action for its fulfilment. You may have read in one of my books that some years ago in fact in 1982 when I was diagnosed as having an incurable disease I prayed very earnestly to Sai Baba ,my Guru. I was in a beautiful room in the Adelaide Hills while Sai Baba in the body was of course at that time in India at His ashram. My prayer was so intense that after a sleep on a couch while the sun was shining through the windows I woke up to see Swami's Hand and Arm as it circled over me and I knew hat He had come, that this was a healing gesture. I saw it in that brief time between being asleep and fully awake when as you might have heard, everybody has a short period of clairvoyance. When that short period has passed His Hand and Body disappeared from my vision but He was still there in the room and I knew this by the unbelievably soul-moving sense of the luminous in the room, In fact the room was filled by it and it penetrated the wall to where my wife was sitting in the breakfast room and then when Swami left, the luminous went too. This is what the ancient Romans called "sense of the Presence of the Divine" (the luminous or lumina). Well, I knew that I was cured of the disease and all tests afterwards proved that this was so. People I know who have the clairvoyant vision see Swami's subtle form almost every day and He has the power to appear in more than one place at a time. When He was younger He used to go into a trance in order to make these necessary out of-the-body journeys to help people, but for many years now He carries on in His body whatever He was doing while sending out of subtle form wherever it is required to do this work in helping mankind. Of this I've had many proofs and I have no doubt whatsoever about it. Through these experiences and my contemplation of them I have come to a firm, unshakeable conviction that we have with us in Sathya Sai Baba one of the greatest Avatars of all time. As for these petty and ridiculous allegations about God, one whom we should have measure with the measuring tape of the ordinary human mind I myself pay no heed to them whatsoever. They arise through the activities of some egos, anxious either to bring the Great One down to their own level so that their own personal egos may grow as they try to climb the ladder of Divinity and at the same time they are serving the dark forces, that are baffling hard today against the great Light that the Avatar is shedding on earth. And I know too, that He is being supported by man workers in the forcefield of light such as the Ascended Masters, two of them whom I had much to do when I was researching the biographies of the outward founders of the Theosophical Movement. They are Master El Moya and Master Kuthumi who are two of the most powerful masters behind the launching of the Theosophical Society last century. The purpose of which in their own words was 'to turn the crest wave of intellectual thought that was being enlarged by the rapid growth of science during the latter half of last century to turn this, at least some of it towards spiritual shores instead of letting it all break on the rocks of materialism. These two great Ascended Masters have given the weight of their spiritual perception and deep knowledge to confirm what I myself and many others throughout the world feel beyond doubt that we are greatly honoured to have an Avatar of such calibre as Sai Baba on the earth amongst us today. The two Masters stated in the book "The Light Will Set You Free" that Avatar Sai Baba is carrying the Divine-consciousness in the world today." Another great Indian saint and seer whom you may have read about in the book Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahamsa Yogananda i.e. Ananda Mayi Ma whose photo is in the book has stated to a Sai devotee that "Sai Baba is not only a great Avatar, but the Greatest that has ever walked the earth." No doubt many people may waiver and other faithless ones may turn away from the Avatar but it will not change His Mission which is to raise the consciousness of enough people in the world to bring about the quantum leap of the consciousness of humanity from the third to the fifth dimension and thus start the new Sathya Yuga. I can only tell you my dear Richard my own convictions in this matter and let you make your own decision as to which road to travel. One leads to the Light and other to the darkness through which the world has suffered during the long centuries of the Kali Yuga. It is entirely your choice of course, but I pray that you make the right one and lead as many others as you can to do the same. Those working against the Avatar, unless they go to the unredeemable level of becoming demonic will someday in some life come back to the Divine Feet. This I pray and for this I send them my Love. God bless you, Sai Ram Howard Murphet