Sathya Sai Baba (25 July 1931 – 22 April 2011) was an Indian spiritual teacher and a Hindu saint. He is considered a reincarnation of the Hindu God Krishna, and a manifestation of the Divine Mother. He was born as Sathyanarayana Raju in Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, India, to Late Sathyanarayana Raju and Kamalamba.
The ashram began to grow at Puttaparthi in 1936. By 1950, the population at Puttaparthi had reached nearly 1,000 people
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In 1951, Sai Baba relocated his ashram to Mysore and then to Bombay (now Mumbai) in the early 1960s. The ashram also houses four humanitarian projects: "Work for Peace", "Aids Projects", "Orthopedic Centre", and "Orphanage".
Sathya Sai Baba's teachings are based on his perception of universal consciousness and its laws, which he calls Divine Consciousness or Universal Consciousness. The goal of all human activity is to become one with God (or Universal Consciousness).
This process can be compared to an individual seeking enlightenment by studying religious texts such as the Upanishads or the Bible; however, it is believed that those who follow Sai Baba’s teachings will gain that which they seek without studying anything at all.
Sai Baba founded the Self Realisation Fellowship (SRF) in 1948 as a 50-acre campus on Puttaparti Road for his followers to live together and study his teachings. SRF has since grown into a global organisation with centers around the globe including: Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Malaysia, Canada, USA, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore and Australia. There are more than 70 million members worldwide.
Sai Baba's movement has been intensely criticised by many devotees.
His intensely private lifestyle has made it difficult for most Western scholars to verify many of his claims about his past life experiences or encounters with God due to his aversion towards having media coverage of himself or being photographed outside of private settings. However, some have offered corroborating evidence pointing towards some of these claims through various interviews with close disciples over the years.
Sai Baba died on April 22nd 2011 at 3:30 p.m., after speaking with his devotees for more than an hour before slipping into a coma at 5:30 p.m..