are predictions about the birth of a divine prophet in the future; he is called Imam Mahdi.
Divine masters, who are expected in various religions, should, in accordance with the prophecies, bring the good news and spiritually transform all of humanity. The question arises, will it be one Avatar, which different religions call by different names, or should we expect many Avatars?
The Second Coming of Christ, Buddhist Maitreya, Jewish Messiah, Islamic Imam Mahdi and Hindu Kalki. Will it be the same divine incarnation under different names, or are they many different incarnations? It’s a difficult question; at the moment, I don't know how to answer it.
Alas, each religious tradition is trying to preach its exclusivity, including the peculiarity of "its own" divine savior of mankind. It is difficult for Christians to imagine that the savior of the future can incarnate outside the Christian religion. It is impossible for Hindus to assume that the Avatar of the future may not be a Hindu. The same thing happens in the minds of Jews, Muslims and Buddhists.
Some believe the three Sai Avatars are divine incarnations prophesied in the prophecies of all religions. Many devotees claim it is the three Sai Avatars that are the Hindu divine incarnation of Kalki Avatar, who absorbed the second coming of Jesus Christ, the Buddhist Maitreya, the Islamic Imam Mahdi, and the Jewish Messiah.
The above point of view is not accepted by everyone. Admittedly, for the majority, the various divine incarnations predicted within different religions are still different teachers of humanity who should come to Earth under various circumstances. I am not ready to comment on such points of view because this is a matter of a personal system of beliefs and sensations.
6. Shirdi Sai Baba and Sathya Sai Baba
Let's look at some details of the first two incarnations of Sai: Shirdi Sai Baba (1835-1918) and Sathya Sai Baba (1926-2011).
We know very little about the first half of Shirdi Sai Baba's life; in fact, only the second part of his life is well known to researchers. By the end of Shirdi Sai Baba's life, quite a lot of followers gathered around him and became direct witnesses of the events of his life, numerous manifestations of miraculous power, as well as his spiritual instructions.
We will not retell the biography of Shirdi Sai Baba in detail, as a large number of books have been written about his amazing life, deep teachings, and amazing miracles. Let's just delve into a few details.
Most followers believe that he was born into the highest caste of Brahmins – Hindu clerics. Shirdi Sai Baba was born on the banks of the Godavari River in western India on September 28, 1835. Almost immediately after birth, he was orphaned, so the boy was raised by foster parents. They were Muslims who practiced Sufism.
Some biographers claim that his Muslim adoptive parents did not initiate him into Islam, which does not sound very convincing. There are suggestions that from childhood he studied with a Hindu guru, whose name was Venkusa. Being brought up in both the Islamic and Hindu environment, Shirdi Sai Baba was well aware of the religious traditions of both Islam and Hinduism.
Shirdi Sai Baba was well versed in the esoteric aspects of Islam and Hinduism, he also knew the philosophical teachings of Zoroastrianism. The most important foundation of his philosophical teaching was the idea of the unity of all religions. Shirdi Sai Baba preached that all religions lead to the same truth.
This idea may seem very obvious to modern people of the 21st century, but in the 19th century this approach was quite revolutionary. Among his followers, first of all, were Muslims and Hindus, as well as representatives of Zoroastrianism and other religions.
At a young age, he came to the small town of Shirdi in western India, where he lived almost all his life. That is why they began to call him Shirdi Sai Baba. Shirdi Sai Baba left his body on October 15, 1918.
At the end of his life, he predicted that in eight years he would be reincarnated in southern India as Sathya Sai Baba, which happened in 1926. We know that Shirdi Sai Baba only predicted his next incarnation and did not mention anything about who he would incarnate in through life.
Thus, Shirdi Sai Baba predicted his incarnation in the 20th century as Sathya Sai Baba and did not say anything about his incarnation in the 21st century as Prema Sai Baba.
There is no need to give all the details of the amazing life of Sathya Sai Baba, as many books and articles have been written about this, with a detailed description of his biography, philosophical teachings, and miracles. We will only analyze those events that are relevant to his predictions about the next incarnation as Prema Sai Baba.
Sathya Sai Baba was born on November 23, 1926, in southern India on the banks of the Chitravati River, in the small village of Puttaparthi. His parents belonged to the Hindu religion.
The Sai Boy proclaimed himself the next incarnation of Sai Baba at the age of thirteen on May 23, 1940. A little bit later, he left his parents' house and moved to an abandoned temple of Krishna and began his activity as a spiritual mentor.
In the Sai tradition, in each of his incarnations at a certain age, he "proclaims" himself, which is an important symbolic act – the meaning of which is difficult to understand and appreciate by the human mind.
The rite of "proclamation" is extremely important and very mysterious. It is unlikely that anyone will be able to accurately and fully understand its deep meaning. We can only say with certainty that the beginning of the open and official mission of Sathya Sai Baba began precisely from that historic day when he "proclaimed" himself the Avatar.
Shirdi Sai Baba also repeatedly "proclaimed" himself as an Avatar throughout his life. The exact date when Sathya Sai Baba "proclaimed" himself has remained in history and is celebrated by devotees as a holiday. The exact dates when Shirdi Sai Baba "proclaimed" himself several times are unknown.
This ritual has its own paradox. If you feel that Sai is a divine incarnation, then even without the "declaration" you will feel it. Those who did not feel the divinity of Shirdi Sai Baba and Sathya Sai Baba refused to recognize him even after the "proclamation".
The ritual of "proclamation" has a great energetic significance, as a result of which the fullness of the cosmic power of the Avatar in its entirety begins to manifest itself in the universe. Before and after the "proclamation", the power of the Avatar is the same, however, after the "proclamation", this power begins to manifest in full.
7. Reality of reincarnation
Nowadays, there are still people who doubt that reincarnation is real. The materialistic worldview imposes on people a false self-identification of themselves as a physical body. According to this primitive concept, the body is born, the body lives, and the body dies, and with the death of the body, the existence of human consciousness ceases.
The basis of the materialistic worldview is that the function of consciousness is tied to the brain. This means that if the brain physically exists, then thinking exists, and if the brain is dead, then thinking supposedly cannot exist.
In fact, consciousness; and hence, thinking, can exist outside the biological functioning of the brain. In other words, thinking (consciousness) was before the birth of the physical body, and continues after the death of the physical body. This is the basis of the esoteric idea of the process of reincarnation.
In Buddhist terminology, this is called the process of continuity of consciousness, which occurs regardless of the existence or non-existence of the physical body. This is truly a vast topic, which is considered in great detail in various areas of yoga, including the tradition of Kriya yoga.
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