Love Is My Form: The Advent (1926-1950)

01Introduction To Volume 1

Introduction To The Advent

- Dr. R. S. Padmanabhan

It gives me great joy to write a few reflections upon the release of this biographical series on the great World Teacher, Sri Sathya Sai Baba, by my good friend, R. Padmanaban. This volume does not rewrite Baba's early biography. Certainly, it adds many wonderfully credible primary accounts. These include the testimonies of old classmates some of them living in areas unvisited by vehicles - who as I am informed, recalled the boy Sathyanarayana with tears streaming down from their eyes.

The marvellous, unique photographs (most never before seen, except by a fortunate few) visually support the passionate accounts of the legendary Professor N. Kasturi in Sathyam Sivam Sundaram. The photographs and text relating to the first few years of Baba's life, which He Himself has said were those of leela (Divine play), involved extensive travel to the homes of many devotees in far-flung parts of South India. An enormous effort has been made to record as many as possible of these leelas of the early life of Bhagawan Baba.

02Foreword To Volume 1

Foreword To The Advent

- Karnam Kamalamma

Padmanaban requested of me a foreword to his book, even though I do not understand what is written in it because I never went to school. I am more than eighty years old, now! What can I do?

Yet, the photos in this book speak to me and take me back to the good old days.

When I saw Swami for the first time, I was about twelve years old and had just then been married - as the second wife to the Karnam (the village chieftain) of Puttaparthi. I did not know that the little boy in shorts and half-sleeved shirt was to be revealed as Swami, an Avatar!

04Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements for The Advent

First, and foremost, I express my deep gratitude to Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba for abundant love and grace; and for keeping me away from His physical form during these gruelling years of working on the book. I was able to complete this book as a Sadhana in my spiritual journey.

In giving form to this volume I have inherited a large family, all those who contributed to the book being part of it. I sincerely hope that, down the remaining volumes in the series, I will soon be the proud part of a world family. I reserve special thanks for some important 'relatives', with many more acknowledgements mentioned at the end of the book. Any omission is purely unintentional and pleads to be excused.