The date and place of birth of our Baba is not known with any certainty. There are as many guesses as the number of people known to him. Similar is the case with his parentage. Sometimes he says, “I do not know anything” and at other times he says ‘The goddess is my mother’. He may have his own reasons for this. His devotees are all not at all concerned with this matter. What they know is that Baba is there for the welfare of his devotees. This is true, but there are devotees who are with him for a number of years. Some guess work can be done on his origin from what such devotees say at some time or the other.
On the border of Bellary and Raichur district of Karnataka, there is a village Halbavi. People say Baba is from that village. Baba’s mother died at the birth of Baba and his father married a second time. So Baba might have left his home at that time, but nothing is definitely known. But rumour floated at that time was that the step-mother wanted the child to be taken to the nearby forest and killed. She assigned this task to her brother, who, out of pity for the child left him at a temple on the nearby hillock of “Siddha Parvat”. It was a temple of Amba Devi and the child grew up in the temple through Devi’s kindness. Devi gave him a boon. “You be ever happy (Sadanand) and you will be trikal-jnani- a scholar knowing about past, present and future”. Also the God Dattatreya gave darshan to him and blessed him to be “Siddha Purush” – the enlightened personality. It is appropriate to call Baba a Siddha Purusha because without any education, without performance of sacrifice (Yajna) or a penance (Tapas) he has acquired knowledge of past, present and future -trikal-jnani’ or Sarvagnya (Omniscient). There is also another story of that time, current around his birth place. It was, that the child was not abandoned at the temple but was actually killed there. But the God of the temple took pity on the dead child and rejuvenated him and blessed him to be an “utterer of truth”. To support the genuineness of this rumour, people point out to the mark of three fingers on the tongue of Baba existing till now. But one thing is certain – the tongue of Baba is never visible.
One may doubt the veracity of all these event, but one thing really verifiable is – his parents abandoned Baba when he was a kid of just 5 years. Just as Baba’s place of birth and boy-hood cannot be described authentically, his present age also cannot be judged with any certainty. His present age appears to be of 40 years, this means that he was probably born in 1935. Assuming this as the year of birth, his life-span till now can be divided in 4 spells.
lst spell: 1935-1942: He might have spent this portion of his life span either in the house or in the forest as described earlier. Nothing can be said about this spell with certainty.
2nd spell: 1942-1952: Here also nothing can be said with certainty but it could be guessed that he spent this period somewhere in southern part of Karnataka.
3rd Spell: 1952-1970: Around these 18 years there are some indications that he spent his time mainly in Telagi, Bijapur, Karwar, Badami, Sasnur-Siddha Parvat, Uppin-Angadi etc in various parts of Karnataka and in pilgrim centre of Subramanya. His somewhat prolonged stay was at Telagi (Bijapur district). It also appears he spent some time in Aurangabad of Maharashtra. He had once said “I met Nityananda Swami”. This must be before 1960 and at Vajreswari near Mumbai.
4th Spell: 1970 till date: In this spell upto 1972 he spent his time in Nasik. He came to Mumbai in February 1972 and since then he spends his major time in Mumbai spending sometime at Bijapur, now and then. Even if he has to visit some places, he does it from Mumbai.