What did Sai Baba mean when he said the author was 'merely a pretext' and that Baba himself would write the story?

When Sai Baba stated that the author was "merely a pretext" and that He would write the story Himself, He was explaining the dynamic of divine inspiration and grace. As detailed in Chapter 2, the condition for this was the dissolution of the author's ego. Once the author surrendered his personal ego at Baba's feet, the divine "I-ness" could enter and perform the work through him. This illustrates that the true author of the sacred text is the divine source itself, and the human writer is simply a sanctified instrument or channel for that expression. The work is accomplished by the one to whom it belongs, not the human agent, a concept clearly laid out in Chapter 2.