Prof. Kasturi relates the following incident:
At about 1.30 p.m. on June 21st 1959, Baba's close disciples were alarmed because His temperature shot up suddenly to 104.5 degrees. About five minutes later the thermometer registered a fall to 99 degrees. This was a mystery to them, and Baba did not at the time enlighten them. However, that evening He was having dinner with a number of His devotees on a terrace in the moonlight. Among them was a young man from Madras who had been for some time staying with Baba, but was leaving the next day. Suddenly Swami said to him: "When you go to your mother tomorrow, tell her that she should be more careful about fire." This aroused considerable curiosity and some anxiety. So Baba told them that the lady's sari had caught fire that morning in Madras while, she was in her puja room but that the flames had been extinguished in time. The sari was ruined but she was unharmed. After dinner one of the devotees thought of putting through a trunk call to Madras. Baba agreed, and it was done. The lady came to the phone herself and gave the enquirers more details of the accident. Then Baba spoke to her, and the listening devotees heard him laugh and say, "Oh, no, I did not burn my hands. I just had an increase in temperature for a short while." Some years later I had first-hand confirmation of this story from Mr. G. Venkatamuni whose wife, Sushila, was the person concerned. Yes, her sari had caught fire while she was in the puja room, he said, and in a moment she was enveloped in flames. Panic seized her, but she had long been a devotee, and the first words that sprang to her lips were "Sai Baba". Immediately the flames died away and Sushila; knowing from experience the power of Baba at any distance, felt quite sure that He had somehow come to her aid in the crisis. Forgetting for a moment that He had not come to her in His physical body she had asked Him on the telephone if He had burned His hands. Yet this is not such a foolish question as might at first sight appear. Psychic research workers have found many case histories of astral travel where a shock to the astral body has caused effects, such as wounds, burns and bruises, on the physical body. Baba's sudden rise in temperature seems to have been a mild example of this. - taken from : "Sai Baba: Man of Miracles” by Mr. Howard Murphet. Page: 138-139 (paperback edition, 1972).. Sai Ram
