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The next day, I was invited to a psychiatric institute to meet another journal editor. Professor Aaron Belkin, M.D., was the director of the Center for Psycho-neuroendocrinology. Again, I was surprised to find myself in a large room filled with Russian psychiatrists waiting to hear about Sai Baba.
Since my presentation on the preceding day had gone well, I decided to start the same way. This group appeared more Western in their thinking, and as I proceeded, I found them quite skeptical. They wanted to pin me down to specifics and asked about my actual observations of Sai Baba’s power to materialize objects and do other miracles. These questions gave me the opportunity to describe many of the miracles that I had personally witnessed.
Those events were vivid in my mind, and I told them with great joy. I recounted my incredible first meeting with Swami that defied the laws of probability. I told them of witnessing Sai Baba change my ring into gold by merely blowing on it. I told them of my initial doubts and how Swami came to me when I was doubting the most, came from nowhere so it seemed, and with extraordinary love and a sense of recognition in his eyes, gave me a small piece of candy. I knew that he understood my heart and was responding just at the right moment. I told them that Baba was pure love.
I then declared that Swami was omnipresent, was with us at this very moment and that he knew everything. As I said these words, I wondered how I could make a claim that Swami knew everything. Here I was, making this claim to scientists who must have thought I was delusional. What was the basis of such a claim? Does Swami actually know everything? I knew of an incident when Swami told a devotee that he knew everything. Certainly I had witnessed miracles that demonstrated his omnipresence, but it would have helped if Swami had told me personally, with his great authority, that he actually knew everything.
Many people appeared skeptical. From the back of the room, a young psychiatrist asked if you could believe in both
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