Sai Baba's 85th Birthday

Sathya Sai Baba

Swami celebrated his 85th birthday on 23rd November 2010. It is said that there were 1 million people staying at the ashram and around Puttaparthi.

In the month leading up to the celebrations, RadioSai, the communications channel based at Prasanthi Nilyam, put out a daily video about Baba's life and message. The individual videos can be seen here

Swami's good works are enough to earn him respect from all sections of society, from the top to the bottom. His birthday was attended by the president and the prime minister of India as well as many devout and celebrated followers. 

His schools are treated as models for Indian schools and are encouraged by the government

He has managed to bring fresh drinking water to more than  8m people – more than the population of Sweden. He has completed a scheme planned more than100 years ago to bring reliable fresh water to Madras.

His two free hospitals are models of their kind and almost certainly the largest free such facilities anywhere in the world.

Baba works tirelessly and travels hardly at all; he's only once been outside India – in 1968 to Uganda.

He lives the simplest life, eating nothing but a little ragi (millet) and wearing the same simple cotton dress.

The is absolutely no money involved. In fact you can live in the ashram more cheaply that anywhere else in India and no one ever asks you for a donation of any kind.

And he has said, very clearly: “I have come not to disturb or destroy any faith, but to confirm each in his own faith, so that the Christian becomes a better Christian; the Muslim, a better Muslim; and the Hindu, a better Hindu. I have not come on behalf of any exclusive religion. I have not come on a mission of publicity for a sect or creed or cause, nor have I come to collect followers for a doctrine. 

I have no plan to attract disciples or devotees into my fold or any fold."