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38 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
influence of Jesus Christ and Buddha has been global in scale. The appearance of an Avatar is an extremely rare and monumental event in the history of mankind; his appeal is universal. He represents the highest expression of man’s potential: consciousness without limit, love without boundary. He is all power, all love, capable of accomplishing anything imaginable, a being who dictates history and whose activities benefit all mankind. He speaks all languages of the world; is a source of all knowledge, knowing past, present and future; and is in all places at all times. The Avatar’s life is a clear sign that will, consciousness and love are the source of all creation—that spirit transcends matter. He is proof of our divine inner nature.
W.H. Mackintosh, a seasoned British writer, described the significance of the Avatar in a review of my book Sai Baba: The Holy Man and the Psychiatrist:
I found this a very disturbing book. For surely one cannot be otherwise than disturbed to learn that in this day and age God had assumed human shape. The author claims that Sri Sathya Sai Baba is an Avatar, which in Hinduism signifies the descent to earth of a divine being.
This embodiment of deity in human form is a rare event, it happens only when the human condition has deteriorated to such an extent that nothing else can bring about redemption. It cannot be denied that the present situation seems to demand an Avatar’s appearance.
Dr. Sandweiss, an American psychiatrist, is very much a man of his time. He is trained to regard the scientific method as the most consistently reliable way of reaching the truth, and is imbued with the tenets of modern psychology, which lays so much stress on the need to avoid repression.
He seems to be an unlikely advocate of the spiritual discipline, which rejects the most cherished beliefs of contemporary materialism. Yet again and again he has made pilgrimages to Bangalore to sit at the feet of Sai Baba and partake of this holy man’s seemingly infinite wisdom. He found in Sai Baba a being whose nature and power were utterly incomprehensible to him. This was no ordinary guru, no publicity-seeking swami, but a Master about whom stories were told strangely reminiscent of Jesus, Buddha and Krishna.
Is Sai Baba an Avatar? An incarnation of God? This is an