Sai Baba for Sceptics

Baba's good works are enough to earn him respect from all sections of society, from the top to the bottom. His 85th birthday was attended by both the President and the Prime Minister of India

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 than 100 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 a cotton robe.

For the spiritual seeker, the is absolutely no money involved. In fact you can live in the ashram more cheaply that anywhere else in India and books and DVDs are cheaper there than outside. No one ever asks you for a donation of any kind and there is no obvious way to give money. However many do leave money to the Sai Central Trust, as bequests.

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".