What spiritual benefits are promised to those who listen to or read Sai Baba's stories, and what is required to receive them?

Engaging with Sai Baba's stories with the correct disposition is said to yield significant spiritual rewards. As detailed in Chapter 2, the stories provide "a resting place for the soul." The primary benefits include the birth of devotion and the immediate destruction of ignorance. For the listeners, faith will arise in their hearts, leading to "self-experience and self-bliss" and a state of happiness. Ultimately, the devotee can gain knowledge of their true form, allowing the soul and Shiva to find harmony. The main requirement for attaining these benefits is not intellectual understanding but sincere feeling and faith. Baba states, "By hearing, singing, and contemplating my stories, devotion to Me will be born," and emphasizes that He is always subservient where there is "devotion with faith."