Singer and actor Dana Gillespie is a blues icon, who began her career in the 1960s as a teenage performer. She has released 74 albums and collaborated with legends such as Mike Jagger and Bob Dylan. In 1972, she played the role of Mary Magdalene in the first London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar. She became a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba in the 1980s, a profoundly transformative experience. Since then, Gillespie has recorded several devotional albums in Sanskrit, too. She visits Puttaparthi every year to sing and participate in cultural activities. Edited excerpts from an interview:
Q What drew you to Baba?
I think I first saw a photograph of him when I was about 15 or 16. I never forgot that image—his halo of hair and those huge garlands. Forty years ago [in the 1980s] I knew I had found my answer. Within three weeks, I was on a plane to India. He completely ignored me—for 12 years! I used to come once or twice a year, always sitting at the back. Even if I saw just a flash of his orange robe or a wisp of his hair from behind a pillar in the hall, I was content.
After 12 years of silence, I wanted to take his music to a wider audience. I am a blues singer, but I recorded a cassette of bhajans, hoping somehow he might bless it. On my last day at the ashram, I hid the cassette under my clothes, as you weren’t allowed to take anything into Sai Kulwant Hall.
That day, I suddenly found myself seated in the front. Baba walked straight over to me and said, “Ah, the singer! Give me the cassette.” No one knew who I was or that I had hidden it there. From that moment, I was completely hooked.
Q You performed in front of him on his 70th birthday.
Yes, that was quite something. He had just taken my first bhajan cassette, which I had recorded in a slightly trance-like style so westerners could connect with it. Soon after, I got a call inviting me to sing for his 70th birthday. I assumed it was for bhajans, but I was told he wanted me to sing blues!
So I turned up with my blues band. There were crowds beyond imagination. From then on, he asked me to sing at most of his birthdays. The 75th birthday was especially memorable—I had my full band and performed a song I had written, ‘OM Shakti’. When the camera pans across the crowd, you can see a million people. Westerners I have shown it were astonished.
In those days, I wore salwar kameez with a dupatta, still very western in appearance. Baba would come backstage before every performance to check if my clothes were pinned correctly. During that birthday week, he gave me eight saris—his gentle way of saying it was time to dress more traditionally. Now, I can drape a sari in the dark without a single pin!
Q How did Baba change you as a person?
My life changed completely—for the better. I honestly feel sorry for those who don’t know about him. Just hearing his name uplifts you, even if you don’t realise it.
For me, he is always there. I may not see him sitting beside me, but I feel his presence constantly—guiding, protecting, leading.
After I sang at his birthday, he started calling me for interviews. Contrary to what people said, he did see women alone. Sometimes I went with my mother, who was 80 at the time. Those sessions changed my life. Once, he asked if I had any questions. I never did—what could I possibly ask when he was there? But I said, “Swami, what is the meaning of life?” He smiled and said just five words: “Play the game, be happy.”
He once told me, “I will give you spiritual diamonds, and you will take them all over the world.” I thought he was joking. But within months, I was performing and speaking across Russia, Central Asia, Australia and America—places I never dreamt of visiting.
Q Have you witnessed any miracles?
Oh, many. Once, I wanted to change my flight because I was getting clothes stitched in Bombay. Computers were down, and the staff said they couldn’t help. I silently prayed to Swami. Suddenly, the bells rang, the computers came alive, and they changed my ticket. The next day, the flight I was supposed to take crashed in Bengaluru, killing many, including members of the Birla family.
When I was five, I fell into the River Rhine after a terrible accident. I couldn’t swim. Underwater, a being dressed in white lifted me out and placed me back in my garden. My face was so twisted in the accident, I couldn’t speak for months. I didn’t know who had saved me then—but now I do.
Later, I survived an avalanche, escaped car accidents, and found help in impossible situations. People may call these coincidences—I call them miracles.
Q What would you say to people curious about Baba but still sceptical?
Even Swami said, “Be sceptical. Be inquisitive.” Blind belief isn’t the point; understanding is. You should question, but also observe. Meet those who have known him. Read. Reflect.
When I first saw him, he spoke to me inwardly: “Give up eating meat.” I obeyed, and never went back. That small act of faith transformed me.
Scepticism means you are thinking—and thought can lead to truth. But if ever you are lost, if your loved one is ill and you don’t know whom to pray to, call out to Sai Baba. Take one step in faith, and he will take a hundred steps towards you.
Q Howard Murphet in his book compared Jesus Christ to Baba. Do you see that connection?
Absolutely. Man of Miracles is a timeless book. When I first read it, my hands were trembling. I knew it was the truth.
Comparisons to Jesus and Krishna make sense. Every few millennia, an avatar appears. Baba is what we call a Purna Avatar—a complete manifestation of divinity. I have met people in the remotest parts of the world who claim to have seen him. In Samarkand, a young boy recognised his picture and said, “I played football with this man yesterday.” In Azerbaijan, a Sufi mystic told me, “Sai Baba has come to me many times. I don’t need a photograph.”
It’s hard for most people to grasp these things, but I have seen truth walking this earth. Even if everything else is taken from me, I will still have Baba. That certainty makes life fearless.
Baba taught that God is in everything: every leaf, every blade of grass. I see him as the channel through which my prayers reach the source. I don’t so much “pray to” him as “through” him.