India’s election gives some hope

The Indian election looks somewhat promising for the most disadvantaged. Four hundred million new young voters helped swing away from extreme Hinduism towards secularism (which is against rule by the Hindu majority and suppression of non-Hindus). At least there are now seven Ministers in the new government who are not religious believers! Despite this, the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, though an economist who is regarded as the best person to guide India through the credit crunch, is still a confirmed Sathya Sai Baba worshipper, which is an indictment of his ignorance of all the false and fantastic statements and prophesies by this major Indian religious cult personality has said (see here) and his massive deviousness and deceptions.

Referring to the country people of India who are rejecting more and more of the development priorities of the political class’, The Hindu remarks that “a decade after T.N. Seshan’s Anschluss on election malpractice (see below), the rural electorate finally votes freely”. The issues that concern them are “underemployment, land alienation, credit failures, migration and a severe deficit of human security”.

The status quo which may begin to change: “India still has the world’s largest number of poor people in a single country. Of its nearly 1 billion inhabitants, an estimated 350-400 million are below the poverty line, 75 per cent of them in the rural areas. More than 40 per cent of the population is illiterate, with women, tribal and scheduled castes particularly affected people of India.” (see here) “The World Bank estimates that 456 million Indians (42% of the total Indian population) now live under the global poverty line of $1.25 per day” (see here) In 2006, 2.1 million children under five died in India. “…some experts like Jayati Ghosh, an economics professor at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, believe that the poor in India are far more numerous that these figures suggest. ‘We are not including people who do not have access to running water, sanitation, schooling, health and education. They may well not have any of these things, yet still not be considered poor because they earn enough to have the minimum calorie requirement.’ ” (see here).

Figures show but the tip of the iceberg of calamities from which the population suffers. Nonetheless, massive corruption and bribery remain a distinguishing feature of this vast nation: ” 14 people out of 100 taking bribes are for amount more than $5000 (Rs. 2,50,000). Actually, if you look at the top officials are even more corrupt.” (see here)

Sir Guam Noon, MBE - richest Indian immigrant in UK

India berated for criminally-corrupt politicians: The problems of the Indian masses have very largely been disregarded by the politicians and the huge obstructive and nest-feathering bureaucracy. The previous Congress-led government was too weak and dependent on other parties to take strong measures to raise the poor or provide them with the facilities which are essential to a minimum of decent livelihood. It is hoped – on behalf of India’s tortured poor and suffering, that this will begin to change, after setbacks in reduction of poverty in the last two decades. India can only benefit from such changes, the alternatives are too terrible to contemplate.

There are many diaspora Indians who would never return to India other than for holidays or possibly old age retirement. Sir Gulam Noon, who made a fortune out of Britain’s appetite for Indian food, is one such. In the tabloid press he is known simply as the Curry King. Interviewed on Hard Talk by Stephen Sackur, he was asked if he thought investing in India would be an option for him, considering the credit crunch and the relative immunity of the Indian economy to its effects. In his reply, he made clear his view that – though he visits often and has involvements in India, not least in his charitable institutions, the country is still ruled by criminally-corrupt politicians. This is a major indictment by a diaspora Indian of such notability.
Sir Gulam Noon MBE talked to Stephen Sackur of BBC’s ‘Hard Talk’ series.

The 10th Chief Election Commissioner of India, T.N. Seshan served in office between December 1990 and December 1996. Born in Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, he is known for his introduction of many electoral reforms and his uprightness. Though he has become rather more optimistic now, he has famously stated about India:

Former Indian Election Commissioner T.N. Seshan

“Make up a list of 200 political leaders of the central government, the national parliament and the state parliaments. Are you able to find one single person on this list to whom you can go for help? Obviously not. The politicians of today are as pygmies masquerading as Titans. They are like small children who try to walk in the shoes of their grandparents, and who sooner or later will stumble and fall.”
and “Today it can seem that honesty and integrity are banned from public life. The situation makes me think of the Greek philosopher Diogenes, who used to go around with his lamp alight at the height of day in the hope of finding an honest person.”

In the highly informative and well-balanced Norwegian book ‘India, Stevnemøte med Skjebnen’ (i.e.’India, Encounter with Fate’) by Thorbjørn Færøvik (Oslo, 1999) the author interviewed the renowned former Chief Election Commissioner, T.N. Seshan. The author wrote of the Indian election system “… a peaceful election is not necessarily a just election. Accusations thunder in the newspapers and few use tougher words that T.N. Seshan, who led the election commission in the 1980s: “Once more we have witnessed a farce. Millions of analphabetics have given their vote without knowing who or what they voted for. Bribes have flourished and now – in the aftermath of the election – we see that gangsters and criminals have been elected to parliamentary bodies throughout the country.”

Færøvik points out, correctly, that T.N. Seshan has repeatedly warned about what he refers to as the criminalization of politics and – where not illegal – to the universal political apathy. “Make up a list of 200 political leaders of the central government, the national parliament and the state parliaments. Are you able to find one single person on this list to whom you can go for help? Obviously not. The politicians of today are as pygmies masquerading as Titans. They are like small children who try to walk in the shoes of their grandparents, and who sooner or later will stumble and fall.”

T.N. Seshan is also extremely negative about Indian courts, as most ordinary Indians are also known to be. An opinion survey made by the Times of India showed 80% of Indians answered that they regarded judges and lawyers as corrupt. In 1947, India took over a judiciary based on British traditions which honourable and impartial. Today it is chronically understaffed and has lost the trust of the public. In 1998 as many as 23 million cases awaited court process, two million in the higher courts and 21 million in the lower courts. In the High Court, 66,000 cases were in the queue and 10,000 of them had laid there for 10 years or more.

Færøvik also writes that it is ordinary people without the finances to buy themselves a place further ahead in the queue who are hit the hardest. The examples are as many as they are grotesque. Times of India mentioned one of many grotesque examples: A woman in the town of Lucknow went to court in 1948 for a divorce. The verdict fell exactly 40 years later: the woman received a divorce. In the mean time both the woman, her husband and parents-in-law had left this world. Those with fat bank accounts often get suspiciously rapid treatment.

Read: The degeneration of India : T.N. Seshan with Sanjoy Hazarika Study in post-independence political and administrative realities.[ New Delhi, India ; New York : Viking, 1995.]

Amusing – if often depressing- quotations from T.N. Seshan:

On the Indian education scenario –
“Operation successful; Patient dead!” (2001). “Some universities are called deemed because the others are doomed and some are called open because the others are closed!”

Excerpts from an interview with Seshan:-

Question. What prevented you from ‘yielding’ in your career as a bureaucrat?

Seshan : Five days after joining my first posting as a sub-collector of Dindigul, I was traveling with the minister in his car, and was dropped off in the middle of the road – where I stood for 100 minutes, when it was 45C. All this because the village officer I took action against was the husband of the Tehsil Officer, who belonged to the Congress party.

35 years later, I was transferred from my post of Cabinet Secretary in charge of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s personal security, to the unnecessary 12th man in Hegde’s Planning Commission team.

My 6 years as CEC have been the toughest times of my life. Narasimha Rao when he was PM offered me the post of governor, and then, ambassador. But I have resisted temptation. I read the Gita everyday.

I scored 452/600 in my final exam. The boy who scored 451, 1 mark less than me, is now a station master. I had 100% marks in Physics, Chemistry and Maths. Yet, in my Engineering College Admission Interview, I was not selected because I could not name the first movie of Shivaji Ganesan.http://www.iimcal.ac.in/imz/archive/imz-archive/article.asp?id=Seshan————-

The Rediff Interview/Former Chief Election Comissioner T N Seshan:-

When I spoke to T N Seshan, the former chief election commissioner, in 1998, he was very cynical about India. Almost a decade later, as we prepare to celebrate the 60th anniversary of India’s Independence, I found Seshan, the man credited with cleaning up the Indian election system, optimistic and upbeat. He spoke at length about terrorism, reservations and the quality of India’s political system:-

“There are still corrections to be made; there are still changes to be made. In many areas, we have not done what we should have been doing in the last 8 to 10 years.”

Interviewer: “Like?”

T.N. Seshan: “Like, for example, we lost ten valuable years in making sure that all children get education. Mr (President A P J) Kalam has been speaking about it; the others have been speaking about it. There is nothing more important than all children being in school as is promised by the Constitution. We have not done that.

From a completely different angle, we should have learnt to conduct our business particularly in the assemblies and legislatures in a far more disciplined fashion than we do. Yes, in every country, there is a lot of noise made in the parliaments and assemblies but sometimes business is transacted. I don’t know whether we could not transact more business than we are currently doing in the parliament and assemblies.

The progress made in the clearance of arrears in court cases is completely unsatisfactory.

Our inability to settle outstanding social and political issues by discussion and negotiation — rather than by violence and demonstration — is unfortunate.

We have not put in place an agency to combat the growing menace of terrorism and Naxalism.”

Interviewer: “Ten years ago, anybody who had an IIT degree collected his degree and went away to America. Today, they are working all over the place; and they are doing fantastically well. You told me then that a change in the attitude of the people to the country would take place through either a social revolution or a technological revolution.”

T.N. Seshan: “Yes. Both are happening now. Everybody knows about the technological revolution. It has made them more self-confident. The young people of 2006 are far more confident than the young people of 1996. “

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Interviewer: Is it not the politicians who are dividing people in the name of religion just to get votes?

T.N. Seshan: Yes, it is. It is very easy to feed poison but it not easy to feed good things. So, the politicians are feeding poison.

Interviewer: When the police question the suspects, politicians jump in and say they are targeting the minority community. Are they not giving religious colour to terrorism and not allowing the law to act?

T.N. Seshan: Yes, they are doing that which is all wrong. The highest courts have gone into the evidence and said that Mr X was the person responsible for the Parliament attack and he should be hanged. Then, there are demonstrations in Srinagar. Politics unfortunately plays on the sentiments and emotions of people.

Q. Do you vote?

Seshan : No I don’t. Because democracy is dead. But yet there is hope.

Q. What do you think about the situation in Tamil Nadu?

Seshan : Pathetic. Whichever way you look at it.

Q. Why did you contest for the Presidency, knowing fully well that you couldn’t succeed?

Seshan : When I was in elementary school, I had zero sporting ability. I still contested the High Jump.

Q. Mr. Seshan, you said that when you were Cabinet Secretary in charge of Mr. Gandhi’s personal security, you were transferred because you did not yield. Would it not have been better for the country, if you HAD yielded?

Seshan : See, there was no question of yielding. They just weren’t happy with my performance. But you won’t believe the kind of precautions we took to protect Rajiv Gandhi’s life. We used to buy oranges from 10 shops, atta from 12 shops, we rewired the entire house so even 2000V couldn’t break down the switches, we relaid the water lines, welded the sewage lines with wire mesh so no one could enter that way. And at the end of it, they felt I didn’t do my job.

There was a day when I was transferred SIX times between 10 am and 6 pm. From Rural Development, to Finance, to Small Savings, to Agriculture, to Harijan Welfare, to Backward Classes and finally to Women’s Development. Once a minister transferred me from Industry to Agriculture, purely because he wanted to shift me from the 10th to the 1st floor. So I went to him and said, ‘Why don’t you shift me to the ground floor?’ He was appalled. But the ground floor is the car park, Seshan!`: I said, ‘Does it matter? I could look after the car park you know’.

Q. Mr. Seshan, all the IAS officers, like you, are educated people of similar caliber. Then how do they become bad?

Seshan : Try putting one rotten orange in a basket of good oranges. That’s what has happened to our system. But the entire basket is not bad yet. What we can do is separate the not-so-bad oranges.

Q. When the majority is wrong, isn’t it time for a minority? Don’t you think dictatorship is the only solution to India?

Seshan : The majority is not wrong! It’s only the minority of people that are corrupt, have no ethics and are spoiling the system. Democracy cannot be replaced – that’s a universal truth.

Q. You said Dharma is essential for a country to grow. There is no Dharma in the US. Then how have they prospered?

Seshan : Who said there is no Dharma in the US? It’s very much there! Their Dharma is the supreme respect for the ‘Rule of Law’ and ‘Punishment of the Evildoer.’

from [http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jan/25seshan.htm]

Sathya Sai Baba makes many promises

To start with the simpler promises like “I will give interview tomorrow”, “I will visit your home”. “I am always with you”, “I shall give you a room at the ashram” etc. When Sathya Sai Baba does not follow up as promised, it is said by the faithful that Sathya Sai Baba has divine sense of time which differs from ours – so when he says ‘yes, interview tomorrow’ he may mean any time in the future etc. A thousand years is as nothing to him! This sounds crazy – why could not God Almighty Himself express himself clearly? God would have to know how each person understands what he promises them.

Dr. John Hislop with his guru god

One argument frequently heard among devotees is based on what the long-term and very close follower, Dr. John Hislop, wrote in his book ‘My Baba and I‘. Hislop asked for permission to publish it, but was told by Sathya Sai Baba he must wait 20 years. However, after 2 years, Hislop received a message from Sathya Sai Baba saying he should publish straight away. The credulous Hislop had searched for one guru after another, including Yogananda, Krishnamurthi, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and U Ba Thin leaving each in disappointment. He became a keen rationalised of Sathya Sai Baba’s often impenetrably unclear or fantastic assertions, and puts it down to Sathya Sai Baba having a cosmic perspective and eternal sense of time that no one can understand (as Sathya Sai Baba had asserted). This became standard doctrine among the majority of disappointed, bemused and betrayed followers so as to save what faith they can after years of major involvement and personal commitment etc.

Many devotees at the ashrams pray for his help in the most trivial of matters and many talk about him helping them with everyday problems that can easily be solved by other means. Any sober-minded person who visits the ashrams for some time will soon learn to discount these highly fanciful claims as muddled make-believe by over-indoctrinated people.

Read more about Sai Baba’s promises and breaks of trust

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization
(PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

Sai Baba: boys as properties (and ‘improper ties’)

The following was posted in 2004 on a Sai website:-

“Swami said that nothing could happen to His Body and all these so called ailments were only accidents. Swami then indicated to devotees that He had agreed to come down from the balcony due to the Love expressed by His students. Swami said that such noble boys were His only Property and He too loved them equally. Swami also said that the Gown that He had adorned was offered to Him lovingly by His Students. Swami explained the ease of use of the same and expressed His Joy at their loving care for Swami. He said that one could not find such service elsewhere.“ Easweramma Day :Sai Showers in Trayee Brindavan Part II – Posted byadmin on Friday, May 07 @ 08:23:10 CDT, contributed by saikramesh http://www.kingdomofsai.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=66

That is how he always gets laughs at interviews, picking on one or another person and telling the group something about their supposed weaknesses" "Mad monkey mind", fighting with spouses and similar 'jokes'

Sathya Sai Baba has warned in discourses, “Properties are not proper ties“. So what about “His only Property”, the boys? Are they proper ties? Is he a slave-owner. The world has already been told plenty in many testimonies about the kind of ’service’ he gets from boys and young men in the interview room, not to list all those who have slept and still sleep in his bedroom. (See here)

In the above quotation we see how Sai Baba shows yet again what he has always denied, that he accept goods from others! But that is glaringly obvious anyhow by all the riches he freely disposes over, not least the palace-like apartments he is ever building for himself with other people’s money. The latest palaces are very costly (twin buildings) opposite his twin apartments in the Poornachandra. However, he does not live in either of the two very costly museums he had built at Prashanthi Nilayam in his own honour.

Sathya Sai Baba is one of the biggest property owners in South India
Having always claimed that he is the Lord himself, he speaks to his devotees almost like an Indian zamindar exploiter of bonded labourers:-

“… every one of you is living off the property of God, for does not all this belong to Him? And what do you do in reurn for all the benefits you derive from the property of the Lord? You cannot eat it and sit quiet. You must at least give some physical labour in return; he who does not work but eats is a cheat.” Sathya Sai Speaks Vol.1, p.220f.

This from one of the biggest property owners in India! (He says he does not own anything, but that is but a formality to avert criticism of his massive extravagance, despite his granting the use of other donations for social improvements. For example, he alone can use or dispose of about 10 luxury apartments built from devotees’ donations). It is known from close servitors and close ex-devotees that most ARE luxurious inside. Convenient for him that he is the One God, “Deity of deities”, who also ‘owns’ the entire created Universe, lock stock and barrel! Cosseted, protected by armed guards, having strolled about for constant adulation for decades, he has done nothing resembling what most people know to be real work himself, but he most certainly eats well enough. A former devotee friend of mine, Mr. V. Ramu, a vigilance officer of the Indian Administrative Service (author of the hagiographic book ‘Waiting for Baba’), who attended a luncheon given for Sai Baba in Bangalore in 1996 at the house of Central Trust member, Mr. Prasad, told me that Sai ate well. I was surprised and wondered if I had heard correctly. He assured me”Swami ate heartily of all the many dishes provided, served to him by Mr. Prasad’s son.”

This is not a thing you will hear from others who never say anything that could cast the slightest doubt on ‘Swami’ as being anything but a perfect renunciant, which is simply not true, neither as to food, pomp, show or his sexual satisfaction.

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization
(PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

Sai Baba promises – part 3

Sai Baba with N. Kasturi

Two of Sathya Sai Baba’s closest collaborators, Prof. N. Kasturi (his official biographer and servitor for over 40 years) and V.K. Narasimhan, who followed Kasturi into the editor’s chair of Sanathana Sarathi and worked continuously for Sathya Sai Baba in that and other capacities for over two decades, both suffered horrible and long illnesses before they died. Kasturi was in a terrible state for 6 weeks before his release (this would not have been known to me had not Narasimhan told me so) and Narasimhan himself lost an eye (Sathya Sai Baba having claimed he would look after him and applied vibuthi etc. when it got infected). Then VKN suffered up to 3 months with his lungs filling with water before dying in March 2000. Such vastly selfless servers were not exactly eased in any way by the supposedly ‘omnipotent and grace-giving’ avatar.

All kinds of weird and fantastic explanations can be invented to explain away such things, but the gruelling facts and harsh neglect remain. (Sathya Sai Baba also made VKN write a lie in the press about the Sathya Sai Central Trust before his illness, which can’t have been all that helpful for the poor man whose former life had been in defense of the truth). These are far from being all the instances of which I know or have heard about from reliable sources. So what are Sathya Sai Baba’s famous “divine guarantees” worth? Let a Dutch lady correspondent of mine of impeccable insight answer this query:

“After my visit to the ashram I was very disappointed re. sb’s attitude towards the invalids. I am having walking problems due to a Guillain Barré spinal disease at the age of 14. I recovered from it apart from a slight right side limp. However, the last 15 years I am loosing strength and balance and need a stick or rollator to stay out of a wheel chair. I used both in the ashram and compared with some of the heavy invalids I counted myself lucky. It struck me that sb never went to that right hand corner where the wheelchairs were, all at the far end. I was on the bench myself and mostly saw the back of him for 4 weeks. If Baba could have cured people and took no notice of the heartbreaking misfortunate devotees, he must have been a heartless so-and-so!!!! I am sure he COULD NOT cure real disabled people at all. He would not willingly have renounced the fame it would have brought him!”

Mr. Kutumb Rao, an Indian ex-diplomat, head of the ashram for many years until the mid-80s, is said to have served Sathya Sai Baba with devoted selflessness etc. He is written about in a number of the earlier Sathya Sai Baba books. Even though he was the first official to speak to Sathya Sai Baba every morning, he was never given the much prized ‘ interview’  during 20 years of service. He had longed for this, for he had never been given any such private attention for himself by Sathya Sai Baba before, which was also a known fact to resident Indian ashramites.  Shortly after he was at long, long last called for the treasured interview, I was told by his colleague, the elderly Head of the Administration Building, Mr. Kanheia Jee, who with his Seva Dal wife Mrs. Kavery, became charming friends of ours. K. Jee said that Baba had not spoken to him until the private interview, when he had taken him alone into the small room and told him simply that a man was on his way to murder K. Rao and he had best make himself scarce for some months. He was told to leave his post to the deputy head of ashram, Mr. Chiranjia Rao, and go to a certain village and lie low there until Sathya Sai Baba sent word. That was that! About a year later, Chiranjia Rao returned and became head of Prashanthi Nilayam ashram for a year or more.

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

Sai Baba promises – part 2

Another example of Sathya Sai Baba’s failed promises: The constantly ill and suffering elderly lady and Sai VIP for decades, Mrs. Phyllis Krystal of the USA is a much favoured author and speaker at Sai workshops and so on. She described her chronic and terrible headaches, which Sathya Sai Baba diagnosed as due to five different kinds of headache (see ‘The Ultimate Experience’- publ. Samuel Weiser Inc.). She went through some kind of intensification of her symptoms while with Sathya Sai Baba, which she interpreted as being a part of the treatment in removing one or more of these several headaches. She was a speaker at the Sathya Sai Hamburg Conference in 1992 and was asked point blank from the audience whether Sathya Sai Baba had now cured her of all her headaches. She hesitated for some time, and eventually said that he had.

However, a year or more later I was in London talking to Lucas Ralli, Central Coordinator for UK & Ireland until unceremoniously kicked out by International SSO Charman Indulal Shah. He was a close friend of Mrs. Krystal, who stayed with him and his wife sometime during a UK visit. He came to mention that she was in constant need of pain killers for her headaches and I was taken aback. So I asked if she had not been cured, but he confirmed that she still suffered greatly from this. This incident typifies the kind of thinking one meets among Sai devotees… unwillingness to admit doubts – or tell te truth – to oneself or others so as not to publicly embarrass the guru (or fall out of favour with him!). Later, Mrs. Krystal’s house was shattered by the Californian earthquake in the 90s, making her homeless, along with her deceased husband’s lifelong collection of crystal glass reportedly worth much more than $1 million. As she describes in detail in her book ‘The Ultimate Experience’, Sathya Sai Baba had himself told her to move to that house, after she had prayed constantly for a very long time and repeatedly asked him whether she could move house! Eventually he had given the go-ahead verbally to her.

Suffering as a test of faith to grow upon? Devotees, in their great wisdom, regard such things as a test, or a lesson or even a boon from Sathya Sai Baba! He has said such sufferings help to detach one from worldly things and prepare for the final detachment! This reasoning, when taken to its conclusion means it is a boon when anything is destroyed, relatives are lost etc., because it prepares one for death! At worst it prepares one for reincarnation in a new body, at best ones removal from the cycle of life. No devotee has the slightest idea of what awaits those who attain this, but they all imagine it to be the be all and end all of existence. Living so as to stop living as much as possible here and now, and in the hereafter too… that is the whole point of faith if Sai Baba! It is like gambling with eyes closed.

More on the fate of Sai Baba adherents in subsequent blogs…

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

Golden Age of the Avatar – Sai Baba

“Be assured that the Lord has come to save world from calamity.” (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 2, p. 17 – March 1961)

“The meaning of Avataar (Divine Incarnation) is this: to save mankind, God out of His love, comes down to the level of man and arouses the Divine Conscioussness in man.” (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 14, p. 386 – Xmas Eve, 1980)

The Utopian beliefs in a Golden Age, and the literally incredible ’spiritual’ world transformation by Sai Baba and his followers, is all but a dream, no doubt highly desirable in many respects. Yet it is not easy to abandon such a dream, even when the fabric is irrevocably torn to bits and those who dare look can see through it to the reality it covers up. I write not only from personal experience but also observing many other devotees I knew from my many years of leadership in the Norwegian Sathya Sai organization going through the process and – more often – baulking at it and refusing to look at any of the extremely disturbing evidence.

Sathya Sai Baba capitalises on people’s uncertainty and ignorance of anything to do with real truth by ever reaffirming to people that they are uncertain and ignorant. Sathya Sai Baba has insisted that he alone knows the right timing for everything and acts accordingly. When, in so many instances, he does not keep his word, he puts the blame on the person he made promises to for not having asked from the heart or that something about them was not genuine, or that they were simply not ready or worthy to receive his grace etc. A good headmaster of a school is just in his judgments and equal-handed in his rewards and punishments. An experienced master uses the carrot and backs it up when it fails to work by the stick. Sathya Sai Baba’s visible and invisible rewards (i.e. as promised for the future) are supposed exceed the punishments he is thought eventually to mete out to those who accept positions of trust then seriously let him down. So all his promises have to be taken in the context of this unintelligible cosmic plan which he claims alone to know and effect… and this actually makes them as unreliable in terms of human experience as anything can be. He can’t lose and you can’t win, as long as you accept his vast claims at face value!

The well-known New Zealand devotees (’VIP’s in Sai circles), Poppy and Arthur Hillcoat, were in Cherepovets (Russia) in May, 2005. Poppy reported that she met Sai VIPs Rita and Robert Bruce before leaving for Russia, and they told her Sai’s latest prediction to them:

“At the conference Rita and Robert conducted a one-day workshop of ‘parenting school’ and a workshop on ‘family and marriage’. I don’t recall exact titles. And it was Rita Bruce whom Swami told about practically instant transformation of people’s consciousness after his 80th anniversary.” (Translated report on the Russian Forum (see more on Rita Bruce here – also screen capture posted by ‘Lily’ (8.8.2005, 21:29) The 80′th anniversary is long past – where is the instant transformation? [In barking cloud-cuckoo land?]

Further Sathya Sai Baba quote on his ‘mission’: “... (the) Atma principle assumes a form from time to time for the sake of redeeming the world and establishing righteousness” (Sanathana Sarathi Sept. 1989. p. 229f and Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 22, p. 182).

He makes no secret that it is he himself who embodies the Atma principle in this era and that he is establishing righteousness… but this is strange indeed when he has strayed so much from his own teachings in so many ways, and not least when we consider the condition of Indian crime and corruption which imbues most of the politicians (according to for example, Britain’s leading Indian immigrant, the ‘curry king’ Sir Gulam Noon, MBE. India’s former Election Commissioner P.N. Seshan was even more damning of his own country’s system and includes the judiciary as corrupt and unjust to nearly all citizens).

Sathya Sai Baba’s promises – part 1

“Each one of you shall be saved, and will be saved. I shall not give you up, even if you keep afar. I shall not forsake even those who deny me, I have come for all.” Sai Baba quoted by Kasturi in Sathyam, Sivam, Sundaram, Vol. 2, p 21)

“The aeroplane has to land at certain places in order to take in those who have won the right to fly, by the tickets they have purchased. So too, the Lord has to come down so that those who have won the right to be liberated may be saved…” (Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 3, p. 30)

The two assurances given above stand in stark contrast to each other. One says all will be saved, the other only those who ‘have a ticket’. Promises of his “divine protection” are made by him freely and often sweepingly in interviews and also in discourses about looking after every life problem of all who put their faith in him. This promise necessarily involve, in his stated view, that one should not die in an accident or any other inaspicious way (especially suicide).

To what extent does the evidence back up these ‘divine assurances’? This is a moot question, and it is one that people long to believe is always fulfilled. When it is not, they stake their faith on it being fulfilled when they die! Nonetheless, he does not protect his devotees as he constantly claims to do. Even the adulatory literature contains references to instances of this, but experience has taught me that many instances are not talked about in the strongly self-censored books about Sathya Sai Baba.

It is now common knowledge that there have been a considerable number of suicides due to Sathya Sai Baba’s not keeping his word. For example, Dominic Kennedy wrote in The Times (27/8/01) of three British followers of Sathya Sai Baba who took their own lives: “an investigation by The Times today discloses that three British men have apparently taken their own lives after becoming followers of the miracle worker. Two of them were encouraged to believe that he could cure their medical problems. One of those also said that he had been touched intimately by the Sai Baba.”

Two Indian women devotees of Sathya Sai Baba committed suicide in Bangalore [2001] after Sai Baba did not give them darshan (i.e. let them see him in person), according to their suicide note. Further, on 4-12-1998, after Sai Baba’s assurances had been broken, a whole family of five at the ashram were poisoned by the father (and few survived).

Numerous ladies have taken their own lives due to disappointments, some in the ashram itself. Others have been murdered (one such, a German-speaking lady of reported Swiss nationality was killed not long after my wife and I met her at Prashanthi Nilayam. Her killers were released by the police after some weeks in return for the Rs. 80,000.- they had killed her for). Other names who dies in horrible accidents include several students (killed in a car crash en route to Bangalore), Mrs. Barbara Sinclair died in a taxi head-on crash with a lorry on the way to visits Sai Baba at his request! The son of Datuk J. Jegathesan – a favourite of Sai Baba, according to his father, jumped to his death from a 5-storey building in Malaysia. The list goes on and on…

To be continued…

See also Sai Baba’s promises of ‘liberation’ (from the wheel of existence etc.)

Some prominent ex-devotees of Sathya Sai Baba

This list includes top leaders, other office-bearers, Sai workers, members and others who left the Sathya Sai Orgabnization – mostly after 2000 – due to disillusionment and/or disgust at the known activities of Sai Baba

NB! This list has been compiled without access to official documents , e-mails, and mostly from memory or from the public petition. Amendments and additions to this list (which is certainly very far from complete regarding many countries) can be sent to this blogsite as a comment.

U.S.A.

Elena A. Hartgering – devotee from 1979 to 2000, Manchester, CT, USA. Manchester Center. Service Coordinator, Vice President, and Workshop facilitator at Sai events, e.g., Sai Annual Retreat and Regional Retreat. (3 trips to India)

John J. Hartgering – Devotee 1987 – 2000, Manchester, Connecticut, Center President, Service Coordinator.

Timothy Conway Ph.D. – Follower for 22 years from 1978 – President of the Sathya Sai Baba Center of San Francisco from 1982-4

David. J. Lyons – Follower from 1981 to 2000. Ex-President of the Center of Greater New Orleans.

Anthony LoGrasso – devotee from 1988 – 2000, Bolton, Connecticut, Manchester Center. Service Coordinator

David J. LaFratta – 25 years of deep devotion – 16 trips to India to see SSB. Windsor Center, Somers, Connecticut.

Nathan LaFratta – son of David above – raised as a Sai devotee. EHV student. Officer in the Young Adults Program. Participant in the Summer at Brindavan program. Windsor Center, Somers, Connecticut. Left SSB when father discovered his fraudulence.

NormanGreen – long-time devotee. In the book business. Acted as conduit in obtaining Baba books. Manchester Center, Connecticut, USA.

L ori Kaplowitz – President of the newly formed Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, USA. Acted as mentor to Young Adults program. coordinator of the first SSB Camp in Willimantic, CT, USA. Dropped out of movement prior to commencement of the camp.

Alvin Drucker – Almost continuously leading foreign resident at PN from 1970s till ca. 1990. Author of ‘Sai Baba Gita’. Banned permanently from ashrams and all SSO meetings by SSB personally at Brindavan interview in 1992. (Confusingly/confusedly he still seems to worship SSB, though he also claims to be a fully self-realised advaitis!).

Dennis J. Hanisch – Follower for 27 years. Founder member and Vice-President, Seattle Center. Active in exposing SSB’s sexual activities.

Dave. G. Brandt – 1971- 2001. USA Official Contact for Nebraska, N. and S. Dakota. Wyoming/

Richard Nelson Member 1979-2000 Ex-President Santa Barbara Center.

Terry Nelson – Member 1979-2000.

Sharon Purcell – Follower for 32 years. Founder member of Tustin Center, California.

Sathya Purcell Lifetime follower until age 23.

Shirley J. Pike – Ex-President, NC Region: Ex-President Cedar Rapids Center, Iowa. (psychologist, sexual abuse counsellor)

Glen Meloy – SSO member for 26 years. Member of 1st Advisory Board of the SSB Society for USA. Co-Manager, Sathya Sai Book Center of America in 1974-5.

Tal Brooke – Prominent devotee 1969-1971. Victim of sexual approaches by SSB. Wrote exposure books, starting with ‘Avatar of Night’.

Al Rahm, wife and son – Office-bearing member of the SSO for decades. Regional Devotional Coordinator and founder of first Education in Human Values school in the U.S. All totally disaffected.

Paul Throne – USA 1988-2000 Center education coordinator Have been to see SSB 4 times, 1990, 1994, 1995-96 and 1999.

Taniya Weerasuriya Purcell – 1994-1998. Bal Vikas Teacher

Steve Woolard – President of Walnut Creek, CA center for 5 years

Bettina Woolard – 1991 – 2000 SSE teacher and Service Coordinator

Miriam Reinhart – 1987-2000 President Eugene, Oregon chapter 1993-1995 .

Jon Sutton – 1986 -2000 Hosting the Eugene Sai Center for fifteen years.

Ella Evers – 1986-2000 Various Offices plus hosting Eugene Sai Center for 15 years.

Lilian Pike – 1980 – 1998.

Lisa Tice – 1985-2000 President of Gig Harbor Center for 7 years

Jim Veenker – 1997-2000 Local Seva coordinator & vice president.

Matt Monahan Lawyer, Chicago. – From 1981, resigned in June, 2000

Rick Raines – former president of the South Central Region. ( incl. Texas)

Catherine Murray – since 1975; Sai Organisation 1996-2005

Prashant Jayaraman – 1990-2005

Miguel Angel Gonzalez – : 1996 hasta hoy 5 Abr 08 Position in S.S.Org: various en USA y Argentina

Soni Sutton – from Birth to age 29 (1974 to 2003)

Barbara Dent – 1987- 2004

John Hart – 1986-1988

Barbara Sullivan – 1981 – (2003?)

Richard H. Allan – Fall 1977- Dec. 1999

James W. Paxton, USA – 1993-2001

Karen Harp, USA – 1993-1995 To think, I named my daughter after this man! I have since learned he has abused many of the pupils in his boys’ schools.

Bonita Swordmaker, America – 1987-2002 Wedgewood group of Seattle, Washington.

Darren Fidels – 1974-2003

Arlene Mazak, Ph.D. – Follower 1975-2000

Greg Gerson – Follower from 1993-2003 – was molested

Kevin D.H. – 1993-2002

Carolyn Wise – 1998-2004

H. Devosey – Ex-member of Austin centre

Victor Brooks – Follower 1980 to 1998

Anurag S. Raj – 1996-1999

George Figueroa – follower – 1999-2002

William ** [Ph.D.] former president of the North Central Region, gave resignation notification to the National Coordinator.

CANADA

James Albert Danis – Follower for 13 years “Co-ordinator for Special Programs” – Christmas and Easter Programs at the Vancouver Sai Center and for The English Devotional Group.

Marianne Warren – Centre President, Toronto. Ran bookshop. Author of book on Shirdi Baba. Resigned due to disaffection & sexual allegations.

Michael Warren – Sai Centre President, Toronto. With wife, involved with SSB Book & Information Centre in Canada for many years. Growing disillusionment with SSB in the years prior to the total break in 2000, which was due to the homosexual/pedophile revelations.

Dhyani Jo Sinclair – Member and Sai Centre Secretary, 1995-2000. Learned of sexual molestations from victims.

Susan Angel – 1975 – 2001 Former Bal Vikas teacher

Michael & Daniel Ward – Investigative party with friends – involved since 1985.

Tony O’Clery – 1985-2000 Secretary, Vancouver Centre.

Sylvain Beauchamp – 1992-2004

Ms. Armande McKenna -1986 – 2001.

Adeel Amin – Follower 1990 to 2000 ex-Bal Vikas student

Helen Robitaille – Co-ordinator in the Montreal area

Myuran Palasandiran, Follower 1990-1996

(Seven coordinators in Quebec province resigned prior to May 2001.)

U.K.

Ron Laing. Former member of the World Council of SSO and Ex-President of UK SSO. Left Organisation (pre 1986).due to authoritarian leadership by I. Shah and major dissatisfaction with the Organisation’s rules and practices.

Lucas Ralli – Ex-President of UK SSO and Central Coordinator for UK & Ireland. Expelled (pre-1994) from Sathya Sai Organization for opposing Indulal Shah over some major mismanagement issues. Ceased
to visit SSB.soon afterwards.

David Bailey – 1994? to 1999. Favourite of SSB, over 100 interviews. Lives as professional musician now.

Faye Bailey – Took over editorship of Peggy Masons’ Sai Baba magazine but then published ‘The Findings’

Jacques McGreg – 1989 – 2003 Sai Worker

Dr. Margaret Tottle-Smith, 43 years Position in S.S.Org: ex Spiritual Convener Region 7 UK. Author of Sai books, now withdrawn.

June Ives, 20 years a follower. Aylesbury.

Hilary Cawsey, 3 years Position in S.S.Org: ex leader Exeter Centre Region 7 UK

Aime Levy – Ex-President of UK SSO and Central Coordinator for UK & Ireland. Sacked from SSO by Goldstein, backed up by I. Shah because of decades-long inalienable split between the Indian and native British faction (no fault of Levy). Left SSO and SSB ca. 2001.

Sandra Levy – Seva Coordinator in London of visiting groups to Puttaparthi for many years

Z. Parkinson – 1992-2000 – Convenor 1997-98

Abdul-Maalik Tailor – 1984 – 1991

June Auton – organiser of dozens of value-education classes in UK but whose contributions were pointedly ignored by the Sai Org. and officially excluded. Withdrew from Sai Organisation and started independent Human Values organisation. No longer visits India.

Sanjay Dadlani – 1990-2001 Member of Youth Group, Mill Hill Sai Centre, North London

Rajaneethan Raju -1990 to 17june 2004

Keith Ord – Follower from 1986-1991

Anthony Thomas – “20 years of attempts to get this predator exposed” before 2002.

AUSTRALIA

Barry Pittard – 1976-1999. Former English Lecturer, Sathya Sai College, Whitefield.

Brian Steel – Follower from 1984-2000. (Published 2 pro-SSB books prior to current writings)

Soma Jeyendren – 1989 -2001. Coordinator of celebrations, Pennanthills Center, NSW.

Stephen Carthew – Follower for 15 years Ex-office-bearer in the South Australian Org. “Sacked as the Spiritual Co-ordinator of South Australia in 2000 as my suggestion that ‘allegations about our Guru be examined impartially’ was ruled ‘out of order’.”

Hans de Kraker 1989 – 1997 Western Canteen Director Nov, Dec – 1996. Abused sexually by Sai Baba.

Barry K. Newton 1994 – 2001 Ex Chairperson Pennant Hills, ex Deputy Chairperson NSW Zone B

John Purnell 1987-1994. Also sexually abused by that fraud .

Roy Pendragon – 1990 to 1999 Former Administrator, Sathya Sai School, Perth, Western Australia. E/mail: rpendragon@gmail.com

Tania Gordon, Australia -1980-1 to 2000.

Mary Garden, Australia – Follower 1973 -1978 on and off. I wrote about my experiences with Sai Baba and the allegations of him being a hermaphrodite and a sexual predator on young boys in my book ‘The Serpent Rising – a journey of spiritual seduction’ published in 1988.

Julian O’Donnell, Australia – Follower 5 years.

Wilfred Waters – 1983-2001

NEW ZEALAND

Pacus Gagu – follower: 1980 – 1993

Sarath Gunatunga – 1992 to 2004. I totally believed in this fellow

DENMARK

Robbie Curdorf – Secretary of the Sai Org. in Denmar, 1980s. Letter of resignation quoted reason as being the cultish nature of the Sai Organization.

Asmus Bisgaard – several years in 1980s. Former Seva Coordinator for Copenhagen Centre.

Bitten Nelson – 17 years. Arranged visits, held lectures. Left SSB in 2000 after returning to Puttaparthi to investigate the sexual scandal.

Lars Winther – 1988 – 2001

Ole Alstrup – Left ashram in 1999 in life-threatening situation. Started Danish anti-Sai Baba website.

Anders Thisted – Active in exposing Sathya Sai baba in 1999-2000. Left Organization then.

Paul Misfeldt – National Youth Wing Coordinator. Defected due to knowing a young Italian who had been having sexual relations with SSB.

Liam Ekaf – 1999-2001

SWEDEN

Conny Larsson – 1978-99 National Spiritual Coordinator from 1993-96, member since 1992. Survivor of Sai Babas sexual molestation 1979-1983

Britt-Marie Andén – Centre President Gothenburg ca. 1989, National Coordinator 1991-1993. Then Head of Sai School in Gothenburg until closure and resignation 2000 due to sexual molestation of a son by SSB.

Magnus Vrethammar – Over 20 years, many as office bearer in SSO. Founder member. Leader of the Stockholm Centre and National Coordinator of EHV in Sweden. Resigned 1999 when learning of SSB’s sexual abuses from a Swedish victim & visiting David Bailey.

Annestina Vrethammar Author of three books on Sai Baba, two published in Sweden. Resigned after learning of SSB’s sexual abuses from a Swedish victim.Books withdrawn from sale.

Mattias Öhlin – National Coordinator for the Sai Baba youth wing in Sweden for many years. Resigned 2000 on hearing of SSB’s sexual molestations from a Swedish victim.

Sofia Öhlin – Coordinator for the youth spiritual wing. Resigned on hearing of SSB’s sexual molestations from a Swedish victim.

Susana Contreras – Devotee for 15 years. Former Balvikas Teacher (from Venezuela)

Dr. Ove Svidin – former devotee who left after 75th birthday in Puttaparthi

Britt Danielsson – former legal advisor for the Sathya Sai Baba organization in Sweden.

Vilfrid (Ville) Fast – left the Organisation and Sai Baba when teenager after having had ca.50 private interviews & many gifts.

Thomas Viehe – former leader of meditation groups in Gothenberg : left Sai Organisation 1999 after contacting David Bailey.

Pierre Stahre – 1990-2000

Åsa Samsioe – professional psychologist, left the organization in 2001. Has denounced Sai baba in a series of articles.

NORWAY

Alf Tidemann-Johannessen – One of the first Norwegian devoteesin the 1960s, described at length in Kasturi’s official biography of SSB and elsewhere. He donated a helicopter for SSB’s 50th birthday celebrations. He denounced SSB totally before 1985 as a deceiver and a thief, writing an exposé account. He lived mostly in Mexico until his death in 2000.

Bente Holdt – Member 1983/1991. Group Coordinator, Oslo 1983/1986. Resigned due to undue
pressures from SSO leaders.

Reidun Priddy – 1983-2000 Founder member and Seva Wing Coordinator 1986-1998. Left Org. firstly, then was disaffected by allegations.

Robert Priddy – 1983-2001 Founder member, Coordinator of Oslo group & Centre. National leader, 1986-2000. Resigned due to the murders cover-up and after conclusive investigation of many sexual allegations against SSB.

Per Jensen – Member 1983/2002 Centre President Oslo 1997/1999. Left Sai Org. due to disaffection.

Ragnhild Aamot – Member 1990/2002. Centre President Oslo 1999-2001. Resigned from SSO due to
disaffection.

Marit Larsen – Bergen group Coordinator 1996-2000. Resigned due to SSB sexual abuse facts.

THE NETHERLANDS

Leo Boogaard – Centre President in 1984, sacked by VIP leader Thorbjørn Meyer. Later voted back in as National Coordinator for the Netherlandds (1989-1992) and held leading EHV post. Left SSO and Sai Baba after decades in the mid/1990s.

Ganapathi Das – Follower for 18 years – 1987 – 2004. S.S.Org: Bhajan, Seva and Spiritual Coördinator

Stijntje Riemersma – Follower for 20 years. Coordinator/Secretary Utrecht group, 6 years.

Hortense Quijs – 1995 – 2000 Maastricht Group Coordinator

Andries Krugers Dagneaux – Follower from 1992-2001. Ex-Coordinator of seva wing.

Catharina Elisabeth Kuyken – 1992-2000 Secretary of the Purmerend Group

Michel Koeman – 1987-2004 Zaanstad Seva & Bhajan Coordinator.

Jaap Hutte – 1978 – 1999. Translator, musician.

Jenny Knol – 1985-1999. Typist/corrector. Very much disappointed in SSB’s ‘truth’.

Klaas Knol – 1985-1999 . Translator/corrector. Helped initiate website ExBaba.com

Mrs Rian Oorthuizen – 1989 -2001. Member of Sai Org. in Utrecht. Jet Hendriks – Coordinator of SSO group in Kerkade nr. Maastricht. Active worker, devoted for many years. Many visits to SSB.

Hanneke Koeman-Bot, 1991-2004. S.S.Org. coordinator 4 j. – Centre coordinator Zaanstad 4 j.

Roel van der Neut – Kerkade group. Resigned 8-8-2000 after Bailey’s report. Frequent ashram visitor, active follower for many years.

John vd Jagt – Follower 1993-2003

Angelica Bos – Follower 1993 till 1995

Cees de Volder – Follower 1998 – 2004

Ranada van Kralingen – ? – 2000

Petra van der Jagt – follower 1993-2003

Jacinta van IJperen – follower 1987-2005

Ganapathi Das – 1987 – 2004. Former Bhajan, Seva en Spiritual Coördinator

GERMANY

Jens Sethi and wife – Both escaped from Prashanthi Nilaym after being warned of attempt on their lives. Registered formal charges against Sathya Sai Baba and with the German Police.

Richard and Ingrid Kuhn – Wrote & posted letter of resignation due to child sexual abuses. January 2001.

Alexis Hildebrandt – 1987-2002 I lived in India for nine years and heard many personal accounts – there is no doubt about the truth of the allegations.

Ullrich Zimmermann – devotee for over 10 years. Induced into sexual acts by Sai Baba.

Stefan Bauer devotee 1998 – 2006

Claudia Pees – approx. 15 years

SPAIN

Virginia Villalon – 1985-1997 Secretary of Coordinating Commitee Spain (Signed international petition)

Isidro Cachadiña Gutiérrez – 1989-2002. President of local Center Sonia Mendoza de Rojas – 1990-2000.

María Tardío Cabrera – 2001-2002. Local coordinator.

Nieves Cáceres Follower -1991-1997

Soledad Cabrero, Follower 1991-1998

SWITZERLAND

Maria Bossi – follower for 20 years

ANDORRA

Panchito Mandefua – follower 30 years

PORTUGAL

Felix Maria Woschek, Portugal – 1984 – 1998

ITALY

Marcello Sandri – 1990-2002

Francesco Polenghi. Former EHV Coordinator in Italy. Left Sai Org. for an independent values education organisation called AVES. (Associazione di Voluntariato per l’Educazione Alla Solidarieta’. The School Director is Eva-Lotte Mannerfelt)

Gianni Cecere – Organiser of catering and cooking for decades for Sathya sai Organisation.

Danilo Pomicino – 1992/2007

Massimo Falsetti – 2000-2004

Lia Meijer – 1989-2003 {states:”all adverse commentaries are verified and valid.”]

GREECE

(Prominent devotees with a son at Sai’s college, Puttaparthi, are know to have left due to the son’s being abused sexually by Sai Baba)

POLAND

Artur Wisniewski – National coordinator of SSO, resigned.

Felix Maria Woschek, Portugal – 1984 – 1998

RUSSIA

Maria Ponomareva-Stepnaya – until 2001 resigned as National Youth Coordinator, Russia

Serguei Badaev – 1995-2001 Ex-President of Sai Org. Moscow Centre and Deputy National Chairman
for Russia.

Dinara Badaeva – 1995-2001. Moscow Centre Educational Coordinator

Vadim Koudreavtsev – follower and S.S.Org: active member – 2000-2005

HONG KONG

William Lo – knew well a boy sexually abused by Sai Baba.

SINGAPORE

Lee Yue Heng – 1997-2001

MEXICO

Lionel Fernandez – Follower since1967. Centre Chairman May-October 2000

Jorge Reyesvera – 1983-2000 Leading office-bearer 1984-1996.

Sergio Arturo Loyola Michel 1976 to 2001. Composer and singer.

María G. García – 1997 to 2001 Centro Sai de la Colonia Roma México D.F.

Ma. Elena González Herrera – 1974-2001

Girasol Jiminez Ortega – 1985-2000

Ivan Lomelle Quintanilla – 1990-2000

Luis Gerardo Galvan Cortes – 17 years, all my life (alleges attempted sexual abuse by Sai Baba)

EL SALVADOR

Carlos Francisco Mejia Brizuela – Follower 5 years

ARGENTINA

Patricia Soler 1988-1999 Soy psicóloga (profesional) , viajé 4 veces a India .

Mercedes Pretto – 1980-1995.

Juan Pablo – Follower 1990-2000.

Salim Delgado – Student of SS Org.

COLOMBIA

Carlos Santamaria – President of the Bogota Sai Centre, Colombia. Resigned 2001 (see here)

Fernando Cardona Olarte – 1976 until 2002 – Secretary General, Coordinator of Devotion, Secretary
of the Foundation or Trust

Octavio Escobar – 1989-1999 Former President, SSSB La Magdalena Center, Bogota.

Norman Fajardo Martinez – 1994 to 2000. Spiritual Group Coordinator.

Antonia Pérez Esquivel – 1993-1997

VENEZUELA

Rosalia Malagelada de Neves – 1982 until 2001 .Follower from 1988. Difusión y Coordinadora Service Caribe Aereas (Venezuela Comite) I knew very closely two cases of abuse.

Rafael Izturriaga – Devotee 5 years

Manuel Antonio Piñero Martinez. – 1997 to 1999.

Miguel Velazquez – 1988 until 2001

Daniel Alberto Alegrett Salazar – 1998-2004

Mauro Leal – Follower 4 years

Ivel Danieri – follower – 2005 to 2006

PERU

Jorge Arce, Perú – 1978 – 2000 Ex Presidente del Comite Coordinador (Ex-President of SSO’s Coordinating Committee)

BRAZIL

Vitor André – Goiania centre. 1 year.

INDIA (our data here is obviously very incomplete, mostly for reasons of anonymity and avoidance of possible reprisals)

Krishna Murthy Follower, active worker in the Sai Org.: 1970 to 1993

Subramanyan Iyer – Sevak 1981 – 2000

Williams – 1978-2003 Ex-Sai college student

Bhanu Chopra – Follower 1981-1988. Student at Prashanthi Nilayam

Prem Latha – Follower for 8 years (Bangalore)

Dr. N. Bhatia – former Head of Sathya Sai Blood Transfusion Unit at Puttaparthi hospital. Sacken by SSB and forced away from the area by thugs after challenging SSB on anal rape of a 7th grade student.

Basava Premanand – 1968-1974 Worker in SSB Org., Podanur

Satish K. follower – 1990-2005

Jyothi Kumar, India 1980 onwards. Student of the Institute from 1984 to 1991

Kirtan Kumar – 1960 onwards Student in the Primary,High School and Institute in Parthi
Badri Narayanan – 1984-2008.

MALAYASIA

Prem Kumar, follower: 1975-2004

Siva Kandiah, follower for a few years until 2005

Rakesh Dookhit, Follower 1996-2001

Hariram Jayaram former active promoter. left after sex abuse investigations of Sai students in Malaysia
NEPAL

Reshma Karki – 1990 -2004

Prisha Pandey – 1985 to 2003

MAURITIUS

Rakesh Dookhit – follower – 1996-2001

PAKISTAN

Raaid Iqbal – (was abused)

GHANA

Esenam Agbotse – 1996 to 2002

Please note: There is no incorrect information on the above pages as far as can be discovered by thorough investigation. Some changes have been made when inaccuracies have been pointed out by those listed. The main causes for most defections are the sexual molestations, including oiling of genitalia and even widely alleged homsexual seduction and even oral and other sex by Sathya Sai Baba, plus his uninvestigated involvement in the police executions four of his devotees in 1993 (Murders in Sai Baba’s bedroom), and not least Sai Baba’s many documented fraudulent ‘materialisations’, broken promises and misuse of funds. The facts concerning these are documented in the 1 hour
See overview and clips from the BBC documentary on Sai Baba – ‘The Secret Swami’ – sent worldwide in 2004,

Sathya Sai Baba and the truth

Nowadays  current photographs of Sathya Sai Baba are not published on his official websites and very few photos are made available anywhere which show him in his increasingly decrepit looking present form. This is no doubt because of his many boasting pronouncements in the past to the effect that his health can never deteriorate since he is a totally pure divine being!

In his monthly journal, Sanathana Sarathi (October 2003 issue),  Sai Baba’s serves up the same faulty advice that followers know so well, we read: “Speak truth, speak pleasantly and do not speak unpalatable truth” (p. 296). Unpalatable to whom? Almost every truth will be unpalatable to someone or other… so following his advice would mean that no one could be questioned about anything, or be charged with unpalatable truths and brought to justice. In short, totally impracticable advice and immoral to boot. However, one can understand that Sai Baba finds the truth about himself unpalatable and unpleasant to no small degree. He also says: “…you may be tempted to utter falsehood. But never tell a lie even if you have to sacrifice your life.” (p.303). That is truly rich coming from him, who has practiced so many deceits, including the following…

He said in a discourse see http://www.sathyasai.org/discour/2003/d031005.html) “Many of you are anxious, thinking that Swami is not keeping good health over the last few days. In fact, My health is very good. Real health is not related to the body…. If you think that Swami is strong and healthy, yes so He is. There is no weakness in Me. My angas (limbs) may appear to be weak…. If you identify Me with the body, I cannot walk even two steps.” (5/10/2003) This is the same Almighty God who bragged that his hip was completely healed exclusively by the prayers of his devotees!

It was reported earlier on the web that, “Swami then told Mr. Sundareshan, the orthopedic Surgeon who had performed the operation to Bhagawan to speak to us on the incident. Mr. sundereshan said  Swami had started walking after 5 days of the operation which is also impossible for any human being.”
But Sai Baba himself said later “After the surgery, I was able to walk within three days.” (Sanathana Sarathi July, 2003, p. 218). Not only that, but he boasted in Sanathana Sarathi July, 2003, that his recovery was far quicker than any human being could achieve, according to his inordinate boasting (while countless hip-replacement patients stand on the day of operation and walk fully within weeks, as any proper web search of medical institutions will reveal)!

“For anybody else, it would have taken at least two to three years to walk normally. The ball in the hip joint got separated.” p.230 “The doctors said that one year’s rest was required for the hip injury to heal completely. I told them it would not take one year.” p.259.

So why then still the variety of wheelchairs and invalid golf wagons, why not normal full-length darshans and interviews? Many devotees find self-deceiving rationalisations for that. Here in Norway, one the the tiny handful of remaining followers holds that Sai Baba is performing a miracle by being incapacitated, so as to give the world a lesson in self-sacrifice! This is the lunatic fringe, if ever there was one. (More on the hip injury here)

That Sathya Sai Baba spreads rumour and deceives just as it suits him is nothing new, for one of many examples of a massive exaggeration of his own popularity by Sai Baba was published in his monthly journal Sanathana Sarathi:

“Such an attraction as this is possible only in the case of Divinity. The fragrance of divinity is spreading all through the world. Argentina is a far off country. Today Bhajans are going on in every house in Argentina. In Miami, the military officers are participating in Bhajans. You might have read in the newspapers that six months ago those officers took a vow to replace the present government with the Sathya Sai government. The authorities thought that officers had gone mad and sent them to a mental asylum. The officers converted the doctors and the nurses and even the patients into
devotees.” (Discourse, 20 October, 1990).

This is based on flimsy newspaper reports from abroad that someone had mentioned to Sai Baba (a report which can no longer be traced) and even so Sai Baba’s reported words were made even less confused than his actual tape-recorded words by V.K. Narasimhan, who explained to me in detail how he translated and edited this. Sai Baba had confused two different incidents from entirely different countries in the region (Latin America) and made it all into one unlikely story. Though I was somewhat
confounded to hear this from someone so very close to Sai Baba for so long, I was then far gone as a self-indoctrinating believer and thought this falsification of his words probably for the best, all in all! I have had countless opportunities to observe how most devotees think thus most of the time when they cannot entirely avoid obvious or other unpalatable facts about Sai Baba.

Sathya Sai Baba evidently thinks it is wise to tell anything he likes, whether true or not, accurate or not, and expects to get away with it… but only among his confirmed and fully paid-up followers!

Read ‘On getting to the truth’ and ‘Fads. fallacies and falsities vs. facts’

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

Inscrutable, accounting to no man, Sathya Sai Baba

“I am all deities in one. You may endeavour your best for thousands of years and have all mankind with you in your search. But you cannot understand My Reality.” Sathya Sai Baba (US ed. of Kasturi’s Sathyam Sivam Sundaram Vol 3, page 315)

Sathya Sai Baba insists that ones relation to him has to be ‘on the inner level’, which is to say, preferably only within the interactive creations of ones own mind through chanting his name, praying to him, worshipping him for his 108 or 1008 alleged divine qualities and so on. He most obviously prefers things this way, stating that no trying to understand him though outward scrutiny of his actions will succeed. He is ever warning people to examine only themselves, not him. This would leave him to himself unchallenged for his deceptions and many alleged crimes. To dare to so much as to mention any awkward facts about Sathya Sai Baba will soon get one thrown out of the ashram in perpetuity or banned from public Sai meetings in many countries.

Sathya Sai Baba is never held to account to his face for anything, not even by the government. or any court in India. He is protected by politically powerful devotees who have long since invested their faith and credibility in him – Prime Ministers, Presidents and High and Supreme Court judges etc. Most people who qualify to get near him already have to have so much respect, awe or out-and-out fear to question anything he says or does in any but the most positive or else superficially questioning manner. This is not to say that there have been absolutely no exceptions. There are evidently those who only pretend subservience, while being self-willed and devious. Most officials in his various institutions who are often in his presence have the ‘healthy respect’ for him, his will and his word… much like what a timid schoolboy has for an unpredictably punishing headmaster.

Most devotees get virtually no attention – including a very high proportion of the women. So, to make the stay at the ashram seem meaningful, to salvage at least something to boost self-confidence, they rack their brains to make something positive out of something… to find some significance in his chance movements – or even in what in some connection he did NOT say or do (!) that might seem to apply to them personally. A mere overheard word of Sathya Sai Baba may be treasured for days and weeks… and any scrap of blessing that comes their way, be it a handout of a meal in the canteen, some sweet laddus, mangoes or other ‘prasad‘ that is dished out to all who are there at different times. But has all this any value? Those who cannot manage to do without him and the movement, who have already invested too much of their lives, friendship, money, prestige and faith will usually say there is…

But there are exceptions to that rule!

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization
(Spanish: Petición Publica para Investigaciones Oficiales de Sathya Sai Baba y su Organización a nivel mundial

Understanding Sathya Sai Baba’s responses to questions

I shall show here how Sathya Sai Baba does NOT WANT anyone to be able to understand anything about him except what he tells them… virtually everything he says and does signals this. He also is ever telling people in private interviews to keep things secret (especially about money donations, oiling of genitals and worse things of which he stands so widely accused). His is a near paranoid precaution for controlling others and keeping what is generally known about him within the strictest of limits. He claims that if all humanity combined in an effort to understand him for ages, they could never succeed! This is no doubt very off-putting to anyone who might try… an intimidating façade put up by someone who has something – or a lot – to hide. Some deep wound or vulnerable weak spot, perhaps some terrible secret or trauma, which they are compulsively forced to hide.

In all major religions, God is not accountable for any kind of error or wrong doing. As long as one really believes that Sathya Sai Baba is God Almighty in person, one surrenders all chance of understanding anything about him, because he and anything he says or does is therefore by definition inscrutable. Without exception, Sathya Sai Baba either ignores or fobs off anything remotely like a penetrating question that may be put to him once in a blue moon by some relative newcomer who slipped in through the ashrams’ security nets that filter out anyone who is considered not to be already a believer. Due to his systematic use of self-contradiction in his published words on many issues, plus his even more rash statements made in group and private interviews, one realises he says what suits him and his various devious ends as he wishes. Devotees are convinced that his every utterance and gesture bears great meaning has become an undisputed truth at the ashrams, and to contradict him in Sathya Sai Organization meetings is unheard-of and can easily lead to exclusion from membership. This is a cult for blind believers, which only became fully evident after 2000 when the world-wide exposure of his alleged crimes and vast deceptions took off with the Internet.

One may pick out answers to questions from his often vague and over-generalized statements, interpreting them to fit ones own suppositions and inclination. One can often derive quite opposite meanings from the same ambiguous statements he has made. Some people find support for almost whatever they want to believe. Guessing or imagining the possible import of his bodily motions and non-verbal signs (like his constant ‘writing on the air with a finger’ is a main activity for those who attend his darsan.

What we would not accept as a valid or relevant answer from other people, many devotees will immediately accept as profound when it comes from the one they believe to be omniscient. Even if it is a blatant howler or a mispronunciation, a wholly mistaken guess or a classic faux-pas. He often has to ask people to repeat what they asked him (sometimes moving as if cupping his ear). He has done this quite often when I have been speaking to him. Yet even this is taken as a deep lesson teaching God knows what (you must find out “in your heart” – which means, what you want to think). In all major religions, God is not accountable for any kind of error or wrong doing. As long as one really believes that Sathya Sai Baba is God Almighty in person, one surrenders all chance of understanding anything about him.

He will use oblique comments as to be no relevant meaning can be made out of his words except by lengthy musings and investigation. He switches the subject unexpectedly, calls it the product of a ‘mad monkey mind’ or just brushes it aside. The questioner most often takes whatever comes as a significant teaching or even a spiritual directive (fellow interviewees willingly contribute such views afterwards and suggest what it probably signifies) .

One example; when asked by a friend of mine why it was that Jehova (i.e. God, i.e. Sathya Sai Baba) had not told the Jews about reincarnation, but asserted the contrary, Sathya Sai Baba did not understand the question. My friend said that the question was about reincarnation. Without waiting to hear the actual question again, Baba replied, in so many words, “Reincarnation. You cannot understand it. Do not try to think about it. It is like the seed and the fruit.” I saw that this was no answer at all, but afterwards my friend claimed that it was a perfect answer! His view was that, because the question was one that his Jewish wife considered very important, Sathya Sai Baba was telling that they should rather concentrate on other more important things. This shows how the Sai doctrine works on followers, they lose all self-confidence and find a way to accept and even praise anything saidm whatever it is. This is also typical of how an evasive deceiver tries to maintain false perceptions of himself to avoid being unmasked or incriminating himself.

The above is quite typical of Baba’s frequent replies to questions… often in yet more complete disregard of what is asked. The ‘genuine devotee’ must accept that Sathya Sai Baba is God Almighty himself walking on two (intensely super-magnetic) fabulously holy feet etc., and so has to give up all chance of ever understanding anything else about him than what Sathya Sai Baba determines.

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization
(Spanish: Petición Publica para Investigaciones Oficiales de Sathya Sai Baba y su Organización a nivel mundial

Sai Baba believers’ programmatic misinterpretations

In the Sai movement there are set ‘explanations’ of everything about Sathya Sai Baba. The many ways in which one can derive some meaning from his various acts and oft-repeated phrases in English – and what it may be and to whom – have become an art for the initiated, who are willing pass on this ‘wisdom’ to anyone they can… When these are too evidently inapplicable or wholly beside the point, one must realise that “We cannot understand his inscrutable, divine will”, or other words to similar effect. One cannot understand, of course, if one has given up beforehand, and this ‘giving up’ is precisely ‘to surrender to his Divine will’. It is a serious but powerful form of giving up ones autonomy… and a suppression of ones common sense and natural reasoning in never questioning anything he says or does. He must be regarded as perfect and infallible in all things.

Being distant and unavailable for normal communication and interaction, devotees have to try to squeeze some kind of significance for themselves out of any and every word they hear Sai Baba say, or any motions he makes or possible sign he gives. He has explained that that every single thing he does has deep meaning. He is clearly aware how those who aspire to get his recognition build fantasies around him and no doubt he plays on this most cleverly. In my years as a committed believer I tried out many of the ways one is advised to interpret his behaviour, because ~I had a basic belief in his honesty, knowingness and purity. I naturally tried to get responses to my questions in this way and tested the reliability of this, with varying results. I grew convinced that, in the end, most of what one experiences is more or less self-created ‘delusion’… Some examples of the commonly-shared mental paraphernalia that gradually accumulates as a consequence of adopting the basic belief-system concerning Sathya Sai Baba are:

1) The position that falls to a person at darshan is a sign of Baba’s grace or displeasure, according to how near or far from the front line it is.

2) His touching any object held out to him which represents or expresses ones projects or plans implies that they are blessed and is good. Many believe that he wills that it will necessarily succeed in some way.
3) His taking a letter written to him means that a question or problem referred to will somehow be ‘answered’ or solved. Or it is a go-ahead for anything you asked his permission for in it.

4) His glance itself confers a blessing, though what it may be only time may tell.

5) When he looks in your direction, he sees through you, knowing all you think and have done, as well as what is to become of you.

6) His nod (or any other of his characteristic movements like touching his forehead or ear, doffing his hair etc.) is the answer to some question on ones mind, according to each ones particular interpretation or ‘intuition’.

7) His moving finger waved in the air like ‘writing’ in his characteristic way ‘rewrites’ the future or fate of each person at whom it points, yet we are so limited that we cannot hope to know why or how this works or what it will effect.

8) When he takes a handful of sweets proffered to him and throws so that one hits you, or lands before you, you have his blessings.

9) Any words one hears him say are heard ONLY by those who need to hear them.

10) If he ignores you or does not come near you, it is frequently because you need to learn something. Eg. to have more patience, to examine oneself for faults (and he has decried a great number of fairly normal human actions as serious faults), to transform oneself through complete and total surrender to his will etc.

The above points are but a selection of similar attitudes and beliefs that surround Sathya Sai Baba and help to maintain the aura of Godlike impenetrability and unaccountability.

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization
(or PETICIÓNPÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN
A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

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Indulal Shah, cover-up man for Sai Baba

The fearful but authoritarian Indulal Shah

Sai Baba’s untruthful lackey, the former politician Indulal Shah, planned for world-wide “nation building” in the name of Sai Baba. Having become Sai Baba’s right-hand man, and – for decades – the leader of the Sathya Sai Organization worldwide,  he presumed to aspire to instruct nations in the totalitarian style of the Prashanthi Nilayam township, where the Lord’s instruction MUST be obeyed, murders are suppressed, investigations quashed, and which is totally unaccountable to the public for anything that occurs there, including reliable data or accounts breaking down the use of donations received. There, the police and judiciary blackmailed to Sai Baba’s purposes.

“When press persons met Mr. Indulal Shah, chief functionary of the Sri Satya Sai World Trust, after the murders of six young Sai followers in Sathya Sai Baba’s bedroom in 1993, Indulal Shah is reported as having said: ‘the matter is purely internal and we do not wish to have any law enforcement agency investigating into it.” (from The Hindu, 10-6-1993).

Mr. Shah has, through a circular, instructed his cadre in the Sathya Sai Organisation around the world that THEY should do good works so that these will reflect back on Sai Baba and “enhance the Divine glory of the Avatar of the Age”. The ‘Divine Glory’ which Sathya Sai Baba claims nothing nor anyone can presume to enhance! Statesmen and important people have long since been earmarked for this campaign.

Here are two quotes from the circular the devious Shah – while still International Chairman of the Sathya Sai Organization had the temerity to circulate:-

“You are aware that these are testing and difficult times. Even the Avatar faces denigration and attempts to undermine His Glory by resorting to distorted statements and falsehoods made by the ignorant. It is not as if the Avatar needs human effort to glorify Him or that He needs any protection from any such despicable efforts to denigrade Him, but the Sri Sathya Sai Organisation has a great role to perform to enhance the Divine glory of the Avatar of the Age. This has to be achieved by us with a great sense of sincerity and dedication not with an aim of defending the name of the Avatar in the face of negativity but by positive pro-action of making the world aware by our programmes and the Vision Message and Mission of the Avatar. Our Organisation must reflect what we are and what we do as also our impact on others by living Sai’s message in all spheres of life – local, regional, national, political or economic – of each country. In this context, I have to request you to compile information of all such impacts and expressions of work of nation building carried out by our Organisation in your country by way of news items, press coverage, photographs, message or letter received from a Local Community, Political, Government or Religious Leader acknowledging our work etc. and send the same to me by the end of February 2002.”

“Once the above information is received, the same will be compiled and published through all aspects of media (print and electronic) throughout the world as a major Awareness exercise for the world community of the Sai Avatar. The above will be presented to Bhagwan and featured in a Website to show the work being done by the Sai Organisation around the globe that is helping in Nation Building efforts. Also, it is intended that these be published into a book to be released at the earliest.”

But Sai Baba has done more than enough to “denigrate” himself and supply his name with the indelible taint it has acquired worldwide, so Shah was clearly in damage limitation, needing positive support from anywhere as a smokescreen.

At least the British P.M. Tony Blair – when visiting Bangalore – was not taken in by the invitation from the Sathya Sai Organisation to visit Sai Baba, who went from Prashanthi Nilayam to Whitefield so as to be there when due there in connection with the opening of the new IT centre near Whitefield!

Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

The Fame of Name and Person – Sai Baba part 5

The Name, Fame and the Shame: The phrase ‘name and fame’ recurs in many Sai Baba discourses in deploring those who lay any store whatever by such things. He says he does not but his actions shout loudly that he does.  In his earliest discourses in the 1960s (Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 1, p. 207f) he prophesied that the fame of Puttaparthi would spread across the world… which could only refer to himself becoming famous. since Puttaparthi is still a little known village and is far less known than his name in some parts of the world. He has also said that fame and ill-fame go together (Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol 4. p,203.), which is far from the case for many famous people… but since he said this the world has seen that it is true in his own case!His supposed fame is far less than that of very many respected and adored figures on the current world stage, and to list their names is superfluous because they are so much more famous than him.

His diatribes against name and fame are tirelessly reiterated. He repeatedly claims that fame is like a passing cloud – and that may well apply to his relative ‘fame’, but it is certainly not true of thousands of historically famous persons. In countless discourses, Sai Baba insists on the infinite divine and holy potential of his own name (always written ‘His Name’ in all his publications). Anything to which his name is attached he claims is guaranteed success purely by virtue of “His Name”.  He insists that all Sathya Sai Organization projects must bear his name as a guarantee of their success. However, the Sathya Sai Organization has met with numerous failures, including the closure of projected schools and projects due to the sexual abuse allegations.

Sathya Sai Baba has said in a discourse, “I will do anything, even sacrifice my name and fame, if it will lead one devotee towards liberation.” This is an extremely rash statement, not only underlining that he regards himself as having fame, but also being such and unreasonable promise that no one in their right mind would credit it. His complicity in the cover-up  of the 1993 murders – and his self-proclaimed foreknowledge of the events (!) were done in an attempt to preserve his own fame and the reputation of his ashrams and other institutions.  Despite this, his relative fame has been turning more and more into global infamy,with a large number of most respected media denouncing him (see list here).

How transparently self-obsessed can a person get? But most people in the Sai movement take it for granted! I have heard Sai Baba’s claim to do anything for the sake of just one devotee repeated by the hagiographer and close devotee Rita Bruce, particularly when Sai Baba was caught out in some obvious deviousness. Sai Baba flattered Rita Bruce repeatedly with apparent full success.

Sathya Sai Baba has condemned himself with his own words time and again, such as when he said that name & fame are “as disgusting as spittle” (p. 147, Sanathana Sarathi May 1987), that world-fame for Sai by publicity is without value (p. 193, My Baba & I, Dr. John Hislop) and has often ridiculed gurus who seek name and fame (for example p 75, Prema Vahini). If Sai Baba has no need to seek fame (see p. 64, Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 11 new ed.), why then does he allow his discourses to be broadcast on digital radio world-wide… or build massively-costly huge buildings in his name, some devoted entirely to spreading his name and fame?

If name and fame are “as spittle”, what is so huge about this huge sacrifice of his name and fame Sai Baba would make? (Perhaps he means to sacrifice his fame and replace it with the infamy that now surrounds him!) The degree of audacious mendacity to which Sai Baba goes is almost astonishing, but yet more so is the literal acceptance of all he says on this and dozens of other matters by so many followers. How can any of the much-exaggerated good he does cancel or ameliorate the great infamy? He has besmirched his own name, which is thus becoming a millstone around the neck of projects attached to it.

Sai Baba is very censorious to anyone who criticises him in any way and has spoken threateningly against anyone who openly confronts him or hinders his propaganda and works in any way. Despite all the evidence there is to show that Sai Baba has long been involved in sexual abuse and other aberrations, including complicity in cold-blooded executions, many of his followers remain in denial, most of them following Sai Baba’s virtual command to avoid reading any of the critics’s writings or listening to or repeating such ‘evil’!

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

The Fame of Name and Person – Sai Baba part 4

“Miracles” are the bait: Sathya Sai Baba claims to perform countless major miracles, even that he could change “sky into earth and earth into sky”. Believe this if one can. He says “miracles are my visiting cards”, and indeed they are the bait which – if swallowed – hooks many so-called ’spiritual seekers’ who wish to penetrate beyond the limits of ordinary perception. His attraction works not least through his apparently inexplicable manifestations of objects despite the fact that much of it is now known to take place by sleight of hand. Further, it is widely claimed to be the spontaneous appearance of traditionally holy substances (ash, nectar, kum kum, turmeric powder, milk etc.) on many pictures of himself in distant parts of the globe.

Sathya Sai Baba has charmed royalty, statesmen, and many politicians, plus rich and famous persons from many countries, to whom he gives pride of place before all other followers whenever they visit his ashram. Thus, he has influenced many followers to believe that he will become (some even believe he already is) the de facto ruler of the whole world! This is remarkable to anyone with knowledge of the world and religious cults… to believe such a thing is certainly nothing but to be badly deluded, if only due to ignorance of Sai Baba’s own published words, which demonstrate fully to any educated, independent person the ignorance and inconsistency that runs throughout his ‘teachings’.

If one is to credit the ‘incredible’ stories about his childhood and youth, many things supposedly set him apart from most spiritual leaders and gurus. The most primitive superstitions held in his poor peasant family and their village were supposedly disregarded by him from an early age. His insistence on vegetarianism from earliest childhood despite a meat-eating family is taken as an example of his ‘divine childhood enlightenment’. However, he has reaffirmed traditional superstitions on a grant scale in many ways and in many discourses since he became an adult! He preaches as literal truth most of the myths of Indian scripture and legend! (i.e. evil ogres, giant men, air vehicles, ancient moon travel, miraculous powers of sages and in idols of worship such as statues and Shiva lingams, plus much more in that mythological vein). Likewise his unperturbed behaviour when tortured by the magician after being thought to have become possessed by some entity (the marks of deep cuts on top of his head are still visible sometimes).

Through his apparently inexplicable manifestations of objects, even though much of it is now known to take place by sleight of hand, he has exerted great attraction on so-called ’spiritual seekers’ who wish to penetrate beyond the limits of ordinary perception. His attraction also works through what is widely claimed to be the spontaneous appearance of traditionally holy substances (ash, nectar, kum kum, turmeric powder, milk etc.) on many pictures of himself in distant parts of the globe. He has charmed royalty, statesmen, and many politicians, plus rich and famous persons from many countries, to whom he gives pride of place before all other followers whenever they visit his ashram. Thus, he has influenced many followers to believe that he will become (some even believe he already is) the de facto ruler of the whole world! This is remarkable to anyone with knowledge of the world and religious cults… to believe such a thing is certainly nothing but to be badly deluded, if only due to ignorance of Sai Baba’s own published words, which demonstrate fully to any educated, independent person the ignorance and inconsistency that runs throughout his ‘teachings’.

There are hundreds of accounts of individual experiences of Sai Baba’s alleged ‘healing’ of all kinds of ailments and other ‘miraculous’ interventions. How much of this is over-positive interpretation, wishful imaginings (such as to raise one’s ’spiritual status’ in the eyes of oneself and/or others) is an open question. Testimonies, of which there are a large number – including about 400 books in English – are weighted strongly in favour of Sai Baba having para-normal powers of thought transference, healing, manifestations of objects and many other inexplicable phenomena. See the definitive bibliography of Sai literature by academic Brian Steel. These he speaks of as being true, divine miracles. However, testimonies that show the limitations of these powers, that question the authenticity of the many excessive accounts or which expose fakery, have been relatively few, though these are increasing via the Internet. It is surely largely due to the fact that, until this technology existed, Sai Baba had virtual control of nearly all information about himself. He has long had mastery over whom he will allow into his proximity, guarded as he is by a very large number of servitors and security men.

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization