by Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

NNSL (Nov 14/97) - Next Sunday a birthday celebration will be held in Yellowknife for a spiritual master who lives on the other side of the world.

A small group of city residents observe the teachings of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Baba, a diminutive Indian holy man who appears larger in his trademark orange silk robes and with a commanding afro.

The followers will gather in a comfortable home on 50A Avenue to sing and feast in honor of the Bhagawan's birthday.

Their weekly services may seem exotic, with Hindu symbolism and Eastern overtones.

But Siva Sutendra, who brought his faith with his family when he moved here from Sri Lanka, says the message of the religion is anything but exotic.

Prayer is prayer, regardless of which god it is intended for, he said.

"There are many different religions, and Bhagawan says you don't argue about the many faiths, because it is all going to the same God," he explained.

This unity among religions, he says, is why the Bhagawan's flock includes Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Jews, and the flag of the religion shows symbols of the six major world faiths circling a common centre.

"He does not expect anyone to change their religion," said John Naidoo, a former South African first attracted to the Bhagawan's teachings as a young man.

Ranjit Tharmalingram, who visited the Ashram as a youth on his way to a university entrance exam in London at age 17, was one of many in the congregation who has a personal audience with the holy man.

He spoke of the Bhagawan prescience and what they describe as miracles performed by him, such as making a mute boy talk, raising the dead and correctly predicting that Tharmalingram, then a skeptical teenager, was on his way to London when he visited the ashram.

"He looked at me and said, 'London is a lavatory,'" recalled Tharmalingram years later. "He knew, somehow, I was going there."

Rather than get involved in the various rituals demanded by religions, he says the Bhagawan insists his followers only commit to values such as non-violence, right actions and truth, and to help others by observing the three Ds -- duty, devotion and discipline.

Next Sunday will be the Bhagawan's 72nd birthday, and Yellowknife's adherents will join the millions around the world and the thousands in Canada marking the occasion with an afternoon of songs, a children's pageant and a feast.