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Who is Sai Baba? What is the purpose of His advent? And how do we attain Him? On the most auspicious occasion of the Avatar Declaration Day, Bhagawan lovingly reminds us.
Consider the meaning of the name, ‘Sai Baba’. ‘Sa’ means ‘Divine’; ‘ai’ or ‘ayi’ means ‘mother’ and ‘Baba’ means father. The Name indicates Divine Mother and Father, just as Samba-Shiva, which also means Divine Mother and Father. Your physical parents exhibit love with a dose of selfishness; but, this Sai, ‘Mother and Father’ showers affection or reprimands, only for leading you towards victory in the struggle for self-realisation. For, this Sai has come to achieve the supreme task of uniting the entire mankind as one family through the bond of brotherhood; of affirming and illumining the Atmic Reality of each being in order to reveal the Divine which is the basis on which the entire Cosmos rests. And instructing all to recognise the common Divine Heritage that binds man to man, so that man can rid himself of the animal, and rise into the Divine which is his goal.
– Divine Discourse, Jun 19, 1974.