The Gift From Kailash

Sathya Sai Baba

-Staff

By Staff

Monday, July 21, 2008, 15:33

It was one of the earliest visits of the young twenty four year old Swami to Venkatagiri. A party of between twenty and thirty people left the palace in a fleet of cars for a drive in the country.

Baba, who had never been in the area before, asked the Raja to stop by any patch of sand they might happen to see. A few miles further on, they came to a dry sandy river-bed. Here they stopped, and all sat on the sand around the young Swami. After talking for a while, He rolled His sleeve up to His elbow and thrust His arm deep into the sand before Him.

Then, the Raja told me (Murphet), "we all heard a strange sawing sound at least that's what it seemed like. I asked Baba what the sound was, and He replied enigmatically that the goods were being manufactured in Kailash."

Kailash, incidentally, is the abode of Shiva, the God associated with yoga, yogic powers and divine grace bestowed on mortals. Many Sai devotees believe that Baba is himself an incarnation of the Shiva-Shakti aspect of divinity.

As Baba withdrew His arm from the sand there was a great flash of blue light that spread to a circle of some ten feet in radius. Then they all saw that Baba was holding in His hand something about eight inches in height and made of pure white sphatika (crystal).

It proved to be a statue of Rama, one of the avatars, together with His consort, Sita. After everyone had seen this "gift from Kailash", Baba handed it to the veiled Rani of Venkatagiri, telling her to wrap it in silk and leave it thus covered until the following day.

When it was unwrapped the day after, the white stone had turned blue. The little statue now stands in the Raja's shrine room still the colour, he says, of the blue light that flashed forth at the moment it was drawn from the sands.