travel abroad, including to India. Among the great flow of new information, information about Sathya Sai Baba was especially attractive. I felt his amazing spiritual power and began to feel his invisible presence in my life. With eyes closed in meditation, I felt he was the one to hear all my thoughts and know all my feelings.
My first trip to India took place in 1993. This trip was completely spontaneous. At that time, I had been studying yoga, meditation, and Vedic philosophy for more than ten years. I could not even imagine that one could easily go to India and meet Sathya Sai Baba; it all seemed too fantastic.
Suddenly, circumstances literally spun around me. Several of my acquaintances, unexpectedly, decided to go to India and two weeks before their departure they invited me to join them. I first came to this fabulous country for six months. At the beginning of the journey, we visited the ashram of Yogi Ramaiah, a unique teacher of Kriya Yoga, who lived in the very south of India. After living there for some time, I moved to Sathya Sai Baba's ashram.
2. "I am a mirror"
There are a lot of spiritual teachers, yogis, miracle workers, gurus, and mystics in India. Sathya Sai Baba is the most famous and, at the same time, the most mysterious Indian guru of the twentieth century. Who is this Sai Baba? This is a very difficult question to answer as many people have many opinions. I’ve noticed people sometimes like to attribute the qualities and properties that they want to see or can hold with their intellectual understanding.
Sathya Sai Baba often said: "I am a mirror that reflects your inner world." Such excellent and perfect words. Some saw him as God, and some as a cunning magician; each one saw only what he or she was ready to understand and accept. I do not wish to fantasize about this complex topic, instead, let everyone follow their own intuitive feeling; let everyone find their own answer, for themselves, to the question: who is Sathya Sai Baba? It is hardly possible to understand this with the mind, for this you need to go into the depths of your spiritual heart and gain understanding there.
It is not so important for me who Sathya Sai Baba is, but what I can learn from him. There is a famous saying of Sathya Sai Baba’s, which is written in his books, and I was lucky, several times, to directly hear these wise words from his mouth: “Yes, I am God, but you are also Gods, the difference is that I remember that I am God, and you forgot. Every person is God, the difference is only in the degree to which you realize your true, divine nature.” These words of Sathya Sai Baba most exhaustively clarify how he perceived himself and all people.
There is an ancient Japanese proverb which says: "Buddha is not like a rice cake in a picture, but Buddha is like a real cake that can satisfy your hunger." I think this wisdom is perfectly applicable to the teachings of Sathya Sai Baba. What is important is not outward worship of him as a great philosopher and miracle worker, but a careful study of his life, which contains a magnificent message that can change the life of each of us.
His life is a great example of the manifestation of the infinite creative potential that resides in the heart of everyone. God is the totality of all individual souls; we are all one in God. Each person carries a great potential for divine creativity. It is this truth that Sathya Sai Baba perfectly embodied in his own life.
3. Who is the "one" who asks the question? Who is the "one" who wants the answer?
After Sathya Sai Baba left his body in 2011, I felt compelled to share some of the stories, which I’d been fortunate enough to witness, as well as recall the many manifestations of his miraculous power, which I’ve experienced first-hand.
Sathya Sai Baba once told me: “Now you are sitting in my room, but the time will come when this room will be inside your heart, and you will tell other people about our communication.”
Sathya Sai Baba is a world teacher outside of any traditions, schools, and trends. His teachings unite all world religions and philosophical systems. He established his ashram in southern India, and today the ashram remains a unique spiritual space of unity and love. This is a place where people of different worldviews can come. All visitors feel completely comfortable, like they would at home.
I think it's hard to even imagine any other ashram in which divine love, openness and universality would be manifested to such a clear degree. In the ashram of Sathya Sai Baba, the unity of all mankind, the brotherhood and sisterhood of all people is especially felt.
The essence of Sai Baba's philosophy is the study of the richest spiritual world of the soul. The only obvious thing is that the "I" exists, the deep sense of self-existence is a completely obvious and universal experience for everyone.
Self-existence does not require any evidence or beliefs, it is an experience that is fully inherent in everyone, regardless of gender, age, nationality, ethnic culture, social status, level of education or religiosity.
Who is the "one" who thinks? Who is the "one" who speaks? Who is the "one" who does the action? Who perceives the world around them? People talk about being happy or suffering, but they often forget to define who this mysterious “I” is that experiences happiness and suffering.
The question of who "I" am always precedes any other question. Who is the "one" who asks the question? Who is the "one" who wants the answer? Who is the "one" who wants to be free from suffering and find happiness? Who is the "one" who seeks to know the truth? People focus their attention on the goal they want to achieve, but often forget to find out who the “I” is that is
