On the Translations

The passages quoted in the four preceding chapters come from the texts listed above, and two source languages are involved: English, in the Ra and Bashar material, and Sanskrit, in the Vedic formulas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras. In this edition, Ra and Bashar are quoted in their original English; the passages from Sanskrit are my own renderings.

One case deserves separate mention. Sathya Sai Baba spoke in Telugu, and the volumes of Sri Sathya Sai Speaks, quoted here as published, are already a translation into English. What you read here, therefore, went through one crossing before reaching you. And rendering that Telugu into English already squeezes out much of its native flavor.

This edition is itself a translation of the Portuguese original, made with the help of artificial intelligence and reviewed so that every quotation comes from its original text or from an established English translation, never from a retranslation of the Portuguese. I note all this because a book that asks its reader for discernment should say how far it stands from the source.