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| The picture that accompanied the article on Sri Sathya Sai Baba in the Newsweek, November 1969. |
Published in New York City from 1933 to 2012, the Newsweek, (according to info on Wikipedia) was a weekly magazine with the second-largest print-edition circulation, only behind the iconic TIME magazine. During its prime, it had a worldwide circulation of over 4 million and it published in Japanese, Korean, Polish, Spanish, Rioplatense Spanish, Arabic and Turkish other than English. (By the way, December 2012 was the last print-edition of the Newsweek.)
Imagine my joy when somebody forwarded by email, a scanned page of the 'religion' section of this magazine which carried a story about my dear Lord, Master, Best Friend and Guide - Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba! I searched for the soft copy of that article everywhere on the world wide web but, sadly, it wasn't there. That is why I decided that I must type out from the image and post it for all to read. The original image of the scanned page is also posted in its full resolution in the article.
The article has been presented below after its scanned image.
Sathya Sai Baba: The God Possessed
When Sathyanarayana Raju was born, his mother recalls, the family tambura twanged of its own accord and a cobra appeared mysteriously beneath his crib.As a child, he showed mystic powers and a love of sacred verse. And one day when he was 13 years old, he returned home from school and told his mother, a well-to-do matron in the village of Puttaparthi: “I am no longer your Sathya, I am Sai Baba. I do not consider myself related to you. My work is waiting. My Bhaktas(devotees) are waiting. Good-by. Worship me every Thursday.”
With that, Baba left home to begin the life of a god-possessed holy man. His mother pleaded with him to come back, but it was too late: throngs of Hindus were already crowding around the youth calling him “tiny prophet”, “mysterious prodigy” and “God on earth.”
Divine:
Such events are not unusual in India, where thousands of self-proclaimed gurus and holy men roam, begging for a living and teaching their faithful. But Baba, the god-possessed is unique. He claims to be “the Lord come in human form,” a reincarnation of Krishna, one of the major Hindu gods. And thousands of devout Hindus believe that the 42-year-old, bushy-haired holy man with flashing eyes, and a voice “like the sound of a bell” can perform miracles, heal the sick and project his mind through time and space. Each November, 50000 Indians trek to Puttaparthi to celebrate his birthday. The former chief scientist in the government’s Ministry of Defence insists that Baba is “beyond the laws of physics and chemistry, a divine phenomenon, an incarnation.”
Since he began leading the life of a holy man, Baba’s miracles have become legend throughout India. A leading lawyer swears that Baba cured him of Parkinson’s disease with a wave of his hand, and Baba is said to have walked along the seashore at Cape Comorin in South India with prayer beads forming magically at his feet after each step. He reportedly produces the Bhagavad-Gita and sandalwood statuettes of Krishna from the sand by magic, and once, when traveling in a car that ran out of gas, is said to have turned a bucketful of water into gasoline. When a murderer appeared at his religious school disguised in a holy garb, the story goes, Baba detected the villain immediately and told him:“Confess your crime. There is no escape.” And Charles Penn, an American pilot insists that Baba miraculously appeared at his side during a crash landing in India.
