6. Shirdi Sai Baba and Sathya Sai Baba
Let's look at some details of the first two incarnations of Sai: Shirdi Sai Baba (1835-1918) and Sathya Sai Baba (1926-2011).
We know very little about the first half of Shirdi Sai Baba's life; in fact, only the second part of his life is well known to researchers. By the end of Shirdi Sai Baba's life, quite a lot of followers gathered around him and became direct witnesses of the events of his life, numerous manifestations of miraculous power, as well as his spiritual instructions.
We will not retell the biography of Shirdi Sai Baba in detail, as a large number of books have been written about his amazing life, deep teachings, and amazing miracles. Let's just delve into a few details.
Most followers believe that he was born into the highest caste of Brahmins – Hindu clerics. Shirdi Sai Baba was born on the banks of the Godavari River in western India on September 28, 1835. Almost immediately after birth, he was orphaned, so the boy was raised by foster parents. They were Muslims who practiced Sufism.
Some biographers claim that his Muslim adoptive parents did not initiate him into Islam, which does not sound very convincing. There are suggestions that from childhood he studied with a Hindu guru, whose name was Venkusa. Being brought up in both the Islamic and Hindu environment, Shirdi Sai Baba was well aware of the religious traditions of both Islam and Hinduism.
Shirdi Sai Baba was well versed in the esoteric aspects of Islam and Hinduism, he also knew the philosophical teachings of Zoroastrianism. The most important foundation of his philosophical teaching was the idea of the unity of all religions. Shirdi Sai Baba preached that all religions lead to the same truth.
This idea may seem very obvious to modern people of the 21>st century, but in the 19>th century this approach was quite revolutionary. Among his followers, first of all, were Muslims and Hindus, as well as representatives of Zoroastrianism and other religions.
At a young age, he came to the small town of Shirdi in western India, where he lived almost all his life. That is why they began to call him Shirdi Sai Baba. Shirdi Sai Baba left his body on October 15, 1918.
At the end of his life, he predicted that in eight years he would be reincarnated in southern India as Sathya Sai Baba, which happened in 1926. We know that Shirdi Sai Baba only predicted his next incarnation and did not mention anything about who he would incarnate in through life.
Thus, Shirdi Sai Baba predicted his incarnation in the 20>th century as Sathya Sai Baba and did not say anything about his incarnation in the 21>st century as Prema Sai Baba.
There is no need to give all the details of the amazing life of Sathya Sai Baba, as many books and articles have been written about this, with a detailed description of his biography, philosophical teachings, and miracles. We will only analyze those events that are relevant to his predictions about the next incarnation as Prema Sai Baba.
