Sai Inner Views and Insights: Thirty Years with the Avatar

At some point, one would expect that this is a retelling of some stories in Howard Murphet's earlier books. Not so, these are the sensible, wide ranging spiritual reflections and stories of a patient, deeply spiritual and reflective man. There is a lot of wisdom and a lot of joy in this book. Howard Murphet has explored spirituality from many perspectives, via Christianity, Theosophy, and Subud. His first guru was his mother. This book contains reflections on thirty years of visiting, investigating Sai Baba's claims to Avatarhood, and living the teachings of Sai Baba in everyday life. Murphet attends the questions of the newcomer, the committed devotee, covering Christ, Divine Mothers, Fear, Love, Forgiveness, doubts, the passing over of his wife Iris, rebirth of Vivekananda, scholarly devotees, along with health, harmony and healing. Murphet is a ponderous writer with a powerful integrity and selfless love shining through all his writings. There are valuable stories of early days in the ashram with Sai Baba, Howard's questions to Sai Baba and his deep reflections on the meaning of the replies he received. Sai Baba, when asked at the first world conference who Murphet was, replied, "He is a German Sanskrit Pundit". Perhaps this is the best description of Murphet's work, a pundit extrapolating and showing the ways and means of living with omnipresent divine love. A book to be read slowly and reflectively.