Contradictory information is given on Internet sites and in books about the predictions of Sathya Sai Baba and about his next incarnation as Prema Sai Baba. Let’s look at one famous story that is directly related to the predictions about the coming of Prema Sai Baba.
In 1987, a young man from Sri Lanka, his name was Nalin, came to the ashram of Sathya Sai Baba. During a personal interview, Sathya Sai Baba told the young man that in his past life he was the great saint, Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902).
For modern India, Swami Vivekananda is the most influential historical figure, both in terms of spiritual tradition and in terms of the political development of modern India. He was a great preacher of Vedic philosophy, one of the founders of modern comparative religion, and one of the ideologists of the Indian independence movement.
As soon as Sathya Sai Baba declared that the young man from Sri Lanka was the reincarnation of the great Swami Vivekananda, this instantly made a splash in the minds of all the inhabitants of the ashram. There is evidence that Nalin came to Puttaparthi several more times, but he was forced to do this in secret, as crowds of people dreamed of meeting him to receive spiritual instructions.
According to one hypothesis, Sathya Sai Baba was supposed to leave the body in 2021 at the age of 96, and Nalin was supposed to head the international organization of Sathya Sai Baba. Some thought he would become the interim leader of the tradition in Sai’s physical absence. There are even those who tried to call him Sathya Sai Baba’s assistant. It is difficult to imagine anyone becoming the leader of the Sai tradition, for every devotee has his own inner relationship with God.
According to the same assumption, Prema Sai Baba may be born in 2022 or 2023. Nalin will allegedly prepare the boy Prema Sai Baba for a worldwide mission. The inconsistency of this version is already clear, since Sathya Sai Baba left the body in 2011, and not in 2021. It is already clear that Nalin did not become the spiritual leader of the international Sai tradition.
By the will of fate, I did not meet with Nalin in Puttaparthi, therefore I cannot confirm the authenticity of the version itself that Sathya Sai Baba generally spoke such revelations about Nalin’s past life.
I am telling the story of Nalin to show the wide variety of opinions and assumptions that began to form during the lifetime of Sathya Sai Baba. This is probably quite natural, since for many it was essential to understand what the transition from the era of Sathya Sai Baba to the new era of Prema Sai Baba would look like.