On the authors personal contact and experience with the Hindu spiritual leader Sathya Sai Baba, b. 1926.

As Woodstock and the Apollo moon landing lit up the skies of history, Tal Brooke flew to New Delhi, quickly becoming immersed in the vast subcontinent of India as he pursued a radical pilgrimage of consciousness. After quickly exhausting the "Grand Tour" of landmarks popularized by the spiritual tourists of the West, Brooke plunged into wilderness India, and the journey shifted into high gear. From their first meeting, Brooke was heralded by Sai Baba, India's greatest miracle-working godman, as the inner-circle disciple who, like Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, would help trigger the explosion of India's ancient mystical tradition into the Western world.

Acclaimed travel writer and self-described 'spiritual nomad', Bill Aitken tells us why so many - royalty, wealthy industrialists, influential politicians, as well as the poor - flock to Puttaparthi. Sai Baba's message, he reveals, can be summed up in one word: love. It is as simple as it is profound, not unlike how his devotees see the Sai himself - the embodiment of deep spirituality wedded to simplicity, elegance and grace. Yet, the Sai phenomenon is less about producing vibhuti from thin air and more about modern-day miracles - miracles like free schools and universities, super-speciality hospitals which provide free treatment to all and revolutionary projects like the one which has brought drinking water to a million villagers in drought-prone Rayalseema. Aitken's study is neither a hagiographic exercise in myth-making nor a dry, objective account of the Sai's life. While never shy of expressing his deep love and reverence for Sai Baba, he squarely confronts the controversies and criticisms which inevitably dog those who claim acquaintance with the holy.

A vast and diversified religious movement originating from Sai Baba of Shirdi, is often referred to as "the Sai Baba movement." Through the chronological presentation of Sai Baba's life, light is shed on the various ways in which the important guru figures in this movement came to be linked to the saint of Shirdi.

This book contains a series of articles which take a critical look at various religious and paranormal phenomena.

In this biographical study, Antonio Rigopoulos explores the fundamental role of a hagiographer within a charismatic religious movement: in this case, the postsectarian, cosmopolitan community of the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba. The guru's hagiographer, Narayan Kasturi, was already a distinguished litterateur by the time he first met Sathya Sai Baba in 1948. The two lived together at the guru's hermitage more or less continuously from 1954 up until Kasturi's death, in 1987. Despite Kasturi's influential hagiography, Sathyam Sivam Sundaram, little scholarly attention has been paid to the hagiographer himself and his importance to the movement. In detailing Kasturi's relationship to Sathya Sai Baba, Rigopoulos emphasizes that the hagiographer's work was not subordinate to the guru's definition of himself. Rather, his discourses with the holy man had a reciprocal and reinforcing influence, resulting in the construction of a unified canon. Furthermore, Kasturi's ability to perform a variety of functions as a hagiographer successfully mediated the relationship between the guru and his followers. Drawing on years of research on the movement as well as interviews with Kasturi himself, this book deepens our understanding of this important pan-Indian figure and his charismatic religious movement.

This unique and thrilling book is a compilation of almost all available materials published in the press during 1972-95 on various events and matters connected with Sri Sathya Sai Baba, the greatest of the spiritual Masters of the contemporary world. These press reports had created many controversies about this renowned Godman. The compiler has presented convincing replies to those controversies and made a thorough critical assessment of all the press reports on Baba.

"There is a mystical dimension that runs through all aspects of life. Eventually every human endeavor directly encounters an impenetrable mystery where knowledge turns into ignorance and control into wonder. Indeed, no matter how much science or technology may advance, the essential mystery of life will never change. The reason why is simple: Reality is always greater than our conceptions of it."--Back cover

A highly personal meditation on the nature and meaning of suffering. An adequate explanation of suffering is perhaps the most intractable issue in the study of religion and philosophy, and the answer to the question “Why me?” has eluded not only those who are the victims of suffering, but those who sympathize with them and try to understand and explain their suffering. In this highly personal account, Arvind Sharma shares his story of becoming the victim of a severe road accident and his gradual recovery from a fractured knee, which included a hospital stay, surgeries, unexpected setbacks, and a lengthy process of rehabilitation. In the second and most substantial part of the book, Sharma attempts to intellectually come to terms with his experience and to reflect on how the experience of suffering in one form or another is a universal condition of human existence. “This book reads like a spiritual handbook on the problems of suffering and evil, which can be overwhelming. It is filled with wisdom of various traditions on the viscous question of theodicy, but is balanced by sprightly humor. The difficult subject is made accessible through personal reflections and philosophical and religious insights. Once I started reading, I had to finish it—it was captivating and inspiring.” — Veena R. Howard, author of Gandhi’s Ascetic Activism: Renunciation and Social Action “This fascinating and highly personal book offers a rare window into how events in the lives of scholars can shape their work and worldview. It is a valuable contribution to the wider discourse on the embodied and embedded nature of scholarly work: that it does not occur in a vacuum or from some imagined ‘objective’ Archimedean standpoint.” — Jeffery D. Long, author of A Vision for Hinduism: Beyond Hindu Nationalism