What was the author's primary motivation for collecting Sai's stories, and what personal doubts did he have about undertaking the project?

As explained in Chapter 2, the author's primary motivation was a deep desire to collect Sai Baba's various stories and string them together as a form of worship. He was obsessed with this idea for the sake of simple and loving devotees, especially for those who had not seen Baba in person, so they could gain merit and purity by hearing of His greatness. Despite this strong motivation, he harbored significant doubts, which he mentioned to Madhavrao (Shama). Being over sixty years old, he worried that his intellect was no longer sharp and that physical weakness might cause the effort to fail, resulting in nothing but empty talk.