SATHYA SAI and INDIA

Indian dignitaries & well-known names worship Sathya Sai Baba in public and give credence to his megalomaniacal and impossibly absurd claims?

That alone is TRULY SCANDALOUS and a slur on their intelligence - or perhaps the intellectual honesty - of all involved [quite apart from the many serious allegations of sexual abuse and being a suspect murder accomplice]. A few of the lies promulgated by Sathya Sai Baba documented in his own words can be seen here, and here, and here! Indians who continue to allow this self-proclaimed Incarnation of God who says he sent Jesus to earth will become a world laughing stock as time goes by. On this blog I have shown a small sample of the deceptions and unbelievable claims made by Sai Baba:-

Sai-fi fantasy
Sathya Sai Baba firmly claims that he was himself Krishna and was 84 years old at time of Mahabharata war and that he was also Lord Rama and did what is told in the Ramayana, defeating demons, flying in mantra-driven ‘airplanes’, killing Ravana, banishing his wife etc. How come most Indian politicians accept this?
Sai Legend Howlers
Fantastic legendary stories from Indian mythology are presented as fact by Sathya Sai Baba. This man is recognised as a holy sage by ca. 8 Indian Prime Ministers, Presidents, rich and famous Indians and many influential foreigners. It is worth thinking about how and why they let themselves be so easily deceived.
Creationist Museum in the US and Sai Baba’s claims as Creator
The world’s first creationist museum, which tells visitors the Earth is only about 6,000 years old. It is in the Petersburg, Kentucky. It makes many too fantastic claims, but does not mention the self-proclaimed Creator of the Universe, Sathya Sai Baba. He could have helped out a lot, one might think!
Sai Baba Howlers
The 2004 tsunami was dealt with ’saientifically’ by Sathya Sai Baba - the clownish ‘saviour of mankind’ himself, the God who can save or deal out karma. He blamed it on ‘man’ - retribution for our bad conduct! It also devastated his own State of Andhra Pradesh. Volcanoes and earthquakes - he often proclaims - are the result of ‘man’s behaviour’. But they began long before man arrived! He is a thumping fundamentalist who says sensual pleasures are making human bodies weaker daily while life-spans shorten. Eye defects are developing due to ‘unsacred vision’! But he lost the sight in one eye himself!

So Here is a list of some names who support Sathya Sai Baba in public:-

Current President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
Pratibha Patil (apparently all set to be the new next President of India)
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (long-term devotee of Sai Baba)
Former Chief Justice of India P.N. Bagawati has been close to Sathya Sai Baba for decades & is on The Sathya Sai Central Trust.
By 1995, it was possible to list more than 55 judges in the Supreme Court, high courts, chief justices, chairmen of various commissions who were Sathya Sai baba devotees.
Chief Justice, Dr A. Anand - Supreme Court of India.
Justices G.B. Pattnaik & R.C. Lahoti (who together blocked Mr. H. Sampath’s Supreme Court petition against Sai Baba see here).
Supreme Court judges G.F. Ray and Jagannatha Rao visited Sai Baba after the birthday celebrations of 23-11-1998. Justice J. Easwara Prasad wrote a panegyric in Sathya Sai Baba’s journal Sanathana Sarathi in Nov. 1990.
All the above accept - by their actions - Sathya Sai Baba’s unconstitutional authority to avoid proper and just investigations.

Indian Chief Electoral Commissioner T.N. Seshan (ret’d 1996 - wears ring with large supposed ‘diamond’ he believes was ‘materialised from thin air’ by Sai Baba)
Former President of India V.V. Giri & wife Srimatha Saraswati Giri. (see Sathyam, Sivam, Sundaram Vol 3 last chapter but two)
Former President of India R. Venkjataraman
Former President of India, B.D. Jatti.
Former President of India Shankar Dayal Sharma
Former PM Indira Gandhi & her son Sanjay Gandhi
Former PM Arjun Singh,
Former PM Rajiv Gandhi
Former PM, P.V. Narasimha Rao; (Congress)
Former Home Minister S.B. Chavan (Congress)
Former PM of India, Deve Gowda
Current PM of India, Atal Vihari Vajpayee, (BJP)
Current Home Minister L.K. Advani, (BJP)
Gov. of Mysore State Shri Dharma Vira;
Lok Sabha Speaker Shivraj Patil
Lt. Govenor of Goa State Sri Nakul Sen
Ex-Commander-in-Chief of India’s armed forces General Mahadevan,
Former Industry Minister Vijay Bhaskar Reddy, Agric. Minister Balram Jhakar,
Former Indian Ex-Home Minister S.B. Chavan
Ex-minister B. Shankaranand
Ramnath Goenka (Press owner - deceased)
V.K. Narasimhan (Editor-in-Chief Express newspapers - deceased 2000),
A.P. Governor Krishna Kant
Rajasthan Governor Channa Reddy
Former AP Chief Minister (and ex-famous film star) N.T. Rama Rao (deceased)
Chief AP Minister N. Chandrababa Naidu (son/heir to Rama Rao)
A.P. Chief Minister Janardhan Reddy
Karnataka Chief Ministers: Sarekoppa Bangarappa & M. Veerappa Moily
Air Chief Marshal N.C. Suri.
Dr. Jagannatha Reddy, Senior Physics Lecturer M.S. Ramiah Inst. of Technology
Dr. Gokak - Director of Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla (deceased)
Dr. S. Bhagavantam (deceased) former Vice-Chancellor of Andhra & Osmania Universities;
M.C. Modi (world famous eye surgeon)
Union Minister Rajesh Pilot (deceased)
Guru/magnate Chandra Swami (discredited)
R.A. Bendra (award-winning poet)
Vijal Mallya, Nani Palkhivala. Chandra Shekar, Ashok Singhal…

From abroad Sathya Sai Baba has been visited formally by:-
Italian PM, Antonio Craxxi, (found guilty of massive corruption and ileved in exile - deceased)
King and Queen of Nepal (visited Sai Baba, then brutally murdered in 2001 by their son)
The Duchess of York (’Fergie’)
Ex-president of Sri Lanka, Ranasingha Premadasa.
Sri Lankan politician, Lalit Athulatmudali
Princess of Thailand (frequent visitor)
Mr. Trudeaux, brother of the former PM of Canada.
Former PMs of Fiji and Mauritius
US Ambassador to India - in the 1960s (?)
Wayne Peterson is a recently retired career US Diplomat (also believes he met Maitreya!)
According to reports the Italian PM Andreotti visited (there is no reliable documentation of this)
Reports also state that one PM of Greece (?) visited, plus the former Grecian monarch and someone in the Spanish Royal Family. Plus alss the President of El Salvador. These reports may be false, propaganda, such as the entirely false report that prince Charles has visited Sai Baba.
Sai Baba visited Idi Amin in Kampala in the late 60s and proclaimed him a great devotee!

Entertainers (incomplete list):
Goldie Hawn, George Harrison, Stephen Segal (US ‘action’ film star), Pandit Ravi Shankar (sitar), M.S. Subbulakshmi and Anupjalota (female singers) Shiv Kumar Sharma (santoor) (all the above are on film with Sai Baba), Maynard Ferguson (trumpet) Manoj Kumar (ex-film star). Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar (and some other Indian cricket stars).

See http://www.saipetition.net/ and sign it if you agree that investigation is warranted

SAI-FI FANTASY

 

Prime Ministers, Presidents and top people in India worship this absurd Indian Avatar!

Sathya Sai Baba firmly claims in many contexts that the events described in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata incl. Bhagavad Gita, and the Srimad Bhagavatha took place! He insists that:-
1) he was himself Krishna and was 84 years old at time of Mahabharata war (Summer Showers at Brindavan 1978, page 5
2) that this war took place in 3138 BC. (Summer Roses on the Blue Mountains 1976. p. 85f)
3) that as Krishna he performed the miracles described, such as multi-location of his body in a simultaneous dance with six thousand cowgirls (gopis)! (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 26, pps. 27-29)
4) that he was also Lord Rama and did what is told in the Ramayana, defeating demons, flying in mantra-driven ‘airplanes’, killing Ravana, banishing his wife etc.Sai Baba strongly affirms the literal truth of these scriptural ‘tales’, as is seen in the following conversation:
Dr. J. Hislop: “Sometimes Swami speaks of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as if they were historical, and sometimes as if they were to be taken as representative of every individual’s inner conflicts, virtues, bad qualities etc. Are these events and people historical fact?”
Sai “Yes they are a record of historical people and incidents… Rama was a real person and an Avathar. And Dasaratha was His father. Krishna was real and the events of His Avathara were real. Rama’s life, over the ages, has been altered and distorted somewhat, and Swami’s story of Rama will be a classic through several Yugas.”
(Conversations with ‘Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba’ by Dr. John Hislop - 155 new ed. 129 old ed.)
5) That he is also no less than the avatar Lord Vishnu, come again to save humanity, as predicted in the mythology of the  Srimad Bhagavatha.
So What about giants?
Seems the Kentucky creationists have left out an important era of prehistory (perhaps they are too ignorant?). That is, if Sathya Sai Baba’s divine testimony is anything to go by!
Dr. John Hislop once asked him: “Swami once mentioned that if we could see Rama today we would be much surprised at His appearance.”
Sai replied “In the age prior to that of Rama, people were accustomed to measure the distance from the fingertips to the elbow. At that time, the norm for the height of a person was 14 times the measurement… In the Threta Yuga, the age of Rama, the norm for height had reduced to seven times the distance of fingertip to elbow. For the Kali Yuga, the multiple is three and one half.”(Conversations with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba by J. Hislop, page 129f)
Comment: Fingertip to elbow measures 19 ins. So Rama was 14 time 19 inches high which = 266 inches.
That’s 22 feet, 2 inches high! (Rama and Co. could have been prehistory’s Harlem Globetrotters!)

Oh yes, the first aeroplanes - India flew them over 3000 years ago!
Dr. Hislop also asked: “In those days they had aeroplanes, did they not?” Sai answered: “The first was ‘Pushpak’. The one Ravana used to kidnap Sita.” (Comment: Sita was, of course, Rama’s wife…which also means, according to Sathya Sai Baba’s claims, his former wife in his former body).
Hislop asked: “Did they use atomic energy for power?” Sai answered: “No. By the power of mantra the plane would fly. Mantras were used to shoot arrows. The arrows were worshipped to make them effective. When Arjuna heard of Krishna’s death, he forgot all mantras and was powerless.” (Conversations with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba by J. Hislop, page 130f)

SAI LEGEND HOWLERS

More non-credible ’stories’ presented as fact by Sathya Sai Baba
Sathya Sai Baba claims to know that legendary figures of Indian mythology were real: “Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakasipu also were ones of very great capabilities. They were great scientists. Hiranyakasipu not only went to the moon; he also went to the sun. Not only the sun, he also reached the stars. When he went to star Dhruva and touched it, the earth spun. With that he suffered. Though he was such a great scientist, things should be done only as much as is needed; but if it is in excess, a very big danger will happen.”  (Sathya Sai Baba - Guru Purnima Discourse, July 2002).
Sai Baba also said:- “Modern scientists could only reach the moon, but Hiranyakasipu could even go beyond the sun and the stars. Such a great scientist did not adhere to Dharma (i.e righteousness) and ultimately met his doom.” (Sanathana Sarathi October 1999, page 262).“Hiranyakasipu had by rigorous austerity and practice established his mastery, as modern scientists have done, over the elements. He could transport himself through the hydrospheres as a fish, through the atmosphere as a bird, but he denied God…” (Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 20, page 33)
“People today regard the ancient sages as ignoramuses, who knew nothing about science. But they knew more than the scientists of today. One of the greatest scientists in ancient times was Hiranyakasipu. He was the master of all the five elements (ether, air, water, fire and earth) and explored the depths of the ocean, all the regions of the earth and the farthest reaches of the sky. He probed the secrets of the atom.” (Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 24, page 83).This man is worshipped by six Indian Prime Ministers and several Indian Presidents, by Indian judges, ’scientists’ and a supposed 60 to 100 million followers (some claim 600 million!) So what can be so wrong with their judgement?

Sai Baba was once Rama and Krishna, so he claims!
He told people around him (according to the long-term US ashram resident Mr. Alvin Drucker in 1987 in a talk before a thousand or so foreign visitors) that all who visited him on his 60th Birthday were once also with him when he was Krishna or when he was Rama. These secrets came only from His close servitors on the Sai Central Trust, including Mr.Prasad, who tell that Swami said this was also so on the 70th Birthday. Of course, the rumour spread most freely (see here)!

Now, very many dinosaur fossils - including those of a few new species - are still being discovered today. They all lived many millions of years ago. Yet any evidence the relative giants of Indian scripture like Rama and Co. which Sai Baba claims existed only some few thousands of years ago has never been discovered or identified. Sathya Sai Baba also presents it as historical fact that God has in ages past actually incarnated as a vast tortoise (Kurma), a giant boar (Varuna) and a lion-man (Narasimha), each time to save the world from one or another threat.Yes, it gets better, stranger all the time…

KENTUCKY CREATIONISM PLUS

 

The world’s first creationist museum in Kentucky claims: “Remember, before the sin of Adam, the world was perfect. All creatures were vegetarian.” Yes, Tyrannosaurus rex was vegetarian and lived beside humans. Grand Canyon park guides state that the canyon took more than a million years to form and cuts through rocks that span more than a billion years. “Young Earth” creationists say no to that, saying the rocks were all left behind by flood waters at the time of Noah. Admitting the Bible does not mention dinosaurs as such, Ken Ham supposes that dinosaurs were still around at the time of the flood. He figures that two of each may have been taken onto the Ark (newly hatched ones which are fairly small). But he thinks Noah did not carry kangaroos to Australia because the flood waters caused the continents to drift apart very fast. Mr Marsh considers the fossilised remains of man’s ancestors to be falsifications: “There are no such things. Humans are basically as you see them today. Those skeletons they’ve found, what’s the word? They could have been deformed, diseased or something. I’ve seen people like that running round the streets of New York.”This is the stuff that really impresses the wacky theme-park punters - if they are under 8 or are already Bible bashers and their opinionated kin. But it’s all rather small fry compared to Sai Baba’s much more incredible claims: Who created the Universe?
Having seen in my previous blog the words of Sathya Sai Baba claiming to be the creator of the universe, I turn to the two-part film ‘The Aura of Divinity’ by Richard Bock (ca. 1976) about Sai Baba, who is there reported saying: “Today evil is so widespread that humanity would be destroyed in a nuclear holocaust in the event of a world war.It is to prevent such a catastrophe that this avatar has come to raise human consciousness and save the world from disaster.” Aura of Divinity Part One.
When Sai Baba was asked how the universe was created, he spoke of the eternal divine principle: “There was no one to know who I am till I created this world at my pleasure with one word. Immediately, mountains rose up. Immediately, rivers started running, earth below and sky overhead. Oceans, seas, land and watershed. Sun moon and desert sand came up from nowhere to prove My existence. Then came all forms of mankind, animals, birds… hearing, speaking and flying. The first place went to man and My knowledge was put into his mind.” from ‘The Aura of Divinity’ Part Two.It so happens that the above words were spoken by Prof. N. Kasturi, Sathya Sai’s official biographer. They are actually a selectively edited (bastardised) version of an important part of the Veda, which are scriptures of great antiquity claimed by most Indian spiritual leaders to be at least 10,000 years old. If so they predate not only the Bible, but also the biblical (and the Kentucky Creationist Museum) account of the Creation (supposedly only 6,000 years ago).

Yes, it goes on, soon again…

U.S. CREATIONIST MUSEUM

The new creationist museum in US opens
The world’s first creationist museum, which tells visitors the Earth is only about 6,000 years old has opened in Petersburg, Kentucky. It was the dream of Ken Ham, president of ‘Answers in Genesis’, a Christian ministry that promotes the idea that the Biblical book of Genesis should be taken literally in describing the creation of the world, life and humans as carried out by God over a six-day period a few thousand years ago. It propounds the most absurd and anti-scientific fables as if they were more true than the findings of an entire range of sciences. Read more here

But didn’t they ask the Creator Himself?
Why don’t these creationists realise that Sathya Sai Baba claims to be that very God! They might still be able to ask him straight off about how he did it all!  The personality cultists of Sathya Sai Baba claim that anything up to 600 million people believe in him, and he pointedly stated he created the Universe (specifically not just the world!).

Critics of the Kentucky museum say the $27m (£14m) centre, whose motto is “Prepare to believe!”, will be the first museum in the world whose exhibits are almost entirely fake. But these critics are probably unaware that there are two more museums which hail the Creator in the person of Sathya Sai Baba with many equally false statements! To make sure this is all his power and glory is set in stone, Sai Baba has used millions of money donated (to help and educate the poor) to two museums in which he figures as God and the Creator (read some more?)! The telegraphy reporter and author of spiritual literature, Mick Brown, visited the first large Sai aba ‘Spiritual Museum’. (See Brian Steel’s summary of Mick Brown’s reactions)

The person at centre of the massive cult says:
“I have not come to set afoot a new cult, I do not want people to be misled on this point. I affirm that the Sai form is the form of all the various names that man uses for the adoration of the Divine. So, I am teaching that no distinction should be made between the names Rama, Krishna, Ishwara, Sai - for they are all My names.” (Discourse at 1st World Conference of Sathya Sai Seva Organisations in Bombay in May 1968. - Sathya Sai Speaks, VIII, pps 95-96)Sai Baba wrote a letter to students at Brindavan in 1974 (Janmashtami) in which he declared: “I have separated Myself from Myself, so that I may love Myself. My beloved ones, you are ‘My Own Self’” And Prof. N. Kasturi comments on this “This is only further evidence supporting Baba’s declaration that He created the universe of Himself, with one word, to become all this diversity (ekoham, bahusyaam). (p. 156 Vol. 4 Sathya , Sivam, Sundaram - the official biography) “God can do anything. He has all Power in the palm of His Hand. My Body, like all other bodies, is a temporary habitation; but, My Power is eternal, all-pervasive, ever-dominant.” (p.136 Vol 3. Sathya , Sivam, Sundaram US edition ).More on these creationists and the Sai Baba ‘teaching’ later….

SAI BABA HOWLERS

Sai Baba’s Substitute for Science: ‘Saience”
The great tsunami that devastated countries around the Indian ocean in 2004 was dealt with by Sathya Sai Baba succinctly. It was retribution against us (humans) for our bad conduct! The clownish ‘saviour of mankind’ himself [claiming omniscience, omnipotence and what have you] illumines his followers with a superior kind of science which he has name ‘Saience’ after himself! I quote:- “Many natural calamities are entirely due to man’s behaviour. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wars, floods and famines and other calamities are the result of grave disorders in Nature. These disorders are traceable to man’s conduct.”
p. 290, Sanathana Sarathi, December -1992 & p. 375 - Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 25. So it is all the fault of ‘man’. This information may be manna to poor peasants or cringing servitors, but no one with a smattering of education can rationalise this away. Now wars - and the economic exploitation that cause pollution, deforestation, or global warming may (if with some difficulties) be attributed partly to ‘spiritual lapses’ on behalf of humanity. But tsunamis, volcanic eruptions?  Major earthquake calamities took place for millions of years before and during humanity’s emergence and are known to be caused by the regular releases through aeons of vast pressures built up in the gradually-moving continental tectonic plates. The Guardian’s science correspondent Ian Sample, has a different view: Click here to see ‘Stark Effects of a Seismic Shift’

Sathya Sai Baba lives in Andhra Pradesh - and it was hit very hard by the tsunami. His teaching and vagueness imply that those who were hit hardest were those most guilty of spiritual lapses etc. Or who? 
Just to show that Sai Baba really meant what he said, consider his following statement about one year later: “Nature is causing various disasters such as earthquakes, famines, floods and volcanic eruptions. What is the reason? The spiritual lapses of man account for these calamities.” p. 11, Sanathana Sarathi, Nov. 1993. - or - p. 342 - Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 27

‘Take It From Here’ and recall this is where you first saw it!
Beware of sensual pleasures and unsacred vision - it plays havoc with your eyes and shortens your life-span… or so the man says:-
“Today man is putting his senses to misuse and as a result his body is becoming weaker day by day. He shortens his life-span by his unsacred vision and by indulgence in sensual pleasures. Lakhs of light rays in his eyes are being destroyed because of his unsacred vision. That is the reason what man is developing eye defects.” (Sai Baba, discourse on 5/7/2001 Sanathana Sarathi, August 2001, p. 226)

This is the kind of absurdly non-scientific doctrine that students have to swallow at Sai Baba colleges (so much trumpeted for ‘excellence’ by Sathya Sai Organisation propaganda machines)!  So man is developing eye defects and shortening life span… doesn’t Baba know about the vast improvements in health, life span and eye-care made by science in recent centuries? Age expectancy has risen progressively in almost all countries in the world - even India but notably excepting Russia since the Soviet State fell - when the economy was wrecked.

Bjorn Lomborg writes in his 2001 book “The Sceptical Environmentalist”, referring to world age expectancy: “Fewer and fewer people are starving. In 1900 we lived for an average of 30 years; today we live for 67. According to the UN we have reduced poverty more in the last 50 years than we did in the preceding 500, and it has been reduced in practically every country.” So, any shortcomings in world health certainly have quite other causes than unsacred vision!

The mote in Sai’s eye
Ironic that Sathya Sai has the use of only one eye himself! Perhaps he was thinking of himself again when he condemned indulgence in sensual pleasures (by now you would know which ones!). Sai Baba loves scriptures, though he has shown how ignorant he is of much of the New Testament. Yet he has harangued the crowds with a paraphrase of the following preaching:- “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” [Matthew 7:5] Read all about how he lost sight in one eye in his own words here.

More howlers to howl over soon!

SAI PERSONALITY CULT

-
Having pronounced he is God Incarnate, the Father who sent Christ etc. etc., rom the age of around 40 , Sathya Sai Baba is already becoming the focus of a kind of mythology, and this process is apparently gaining in strength as he becomes less available for personal contacts. He is praised as an idol by many thousands, at least, and is the focus of one of the largest personality cults in India since Mahatma Gandhi’s time. This cult brooks no criticism of him, strictly censors and denies any proofs against him, and it is backed by Prime Ministers and Presidents of India who use their powers to cover-up all untoward facts about him. He is fascinating if only because of his enormous claims which surpass all known limits. Sathya Sai Baba is at the focus of a constant crowd of thousands of persons, which swells up to over a quarter of a million on some of his birthday celebrations. He is worshipped and set apart from - and way above - all other living persons by his followers. He is regarded, not as a God, but literally as God Himself, the One and only living divinity. This is his pronouncement and is the chief cause of all the eulogisation. He has constantly claimed to be wholly pure and divine, ever-present everywhere, all-knowing, almighty and ever-benevolent - Love Incarnate!

The Worship of Sai Baba’s person, name and form
Sathya Sai Baba has instructed many people to worship him, including his own parents, but has also conflictingly said at times that he does not wish to be worshipped. [His elder brother never accepted his claims and originally considered he was possessed by a Muslim spirit. But Sai followers have tried to pervert the truth about this with false statements that his elder brother did accept him in the end].  The observable fact is that he is constantly surrounded by worshippers, whose worship he willingly accepts on all occasions (eg. particularly visible during the fire ceremony (arathi) which is usually done before him twice daily) and the constant falling at his feet to touch (traditional padnamaskaar) or also kiss them. (He announced some years ago that this was to be discontinued, but he is still often observed to accept it willingly nonetheless… a typical Sai ploy, to say one thing and do another). In addition to this, he accepts to sit on many thrones that are made for him, ride in various chariots, including a magnificent and costly golden one, swing at least once yearly on a silver swing to be worshipped as Krishna and so on. People bow before him constantly, touch his feet, lie flat on the ground at his feet etc.

In days gone be he allowed himself to be garlanded frequently, even accepting a many dozens of huge flower garlands around his neck at one time. This practice he stopped, and one would assume that it must be a relief not to have to bear their occasional huge weight. Only infrequently is he garlanded very briefly nowadays, taking the garland only symbolically over the head then giving it back. Though he insists repeatedly that worship of himself is the easiest way to liberation in this era, he has declared time and again that he has come to show us the way to self-realisation, the direct experience of our own potentiality and inherent divine nature and, in short, that each and every one of us is also God. Typically, however, he has since his infamous Christmas 2000 discourse, begun to declare that some people are demons without a ‘divine spark’… namely, those who accuse and criticise him. So please note you are now reading the words of someone virtually declared a demon by God Incarnate Himself! You may wonder, how does it feel? Well, now and again, it makes me laugh!

Sai Rules?

One may not believe it, but many devotees I have met actually believe that Sathya Sai Baba rules the world. Literally. One such is the Sai-besotted writer Rita Bruce, once supposedly a friend but who long since broke off all contact with my wife and I without a word of explanation, after which I decided to mention some of the facts about Sai Baba that she and her husband knew well from interviews with him. Because Sathya Sai Baba has put this delusion around in various announcements he has made about the world coming to his feet, the world already becoming one big Sai Organisation and so on. (”The whole world will be transformed into Sathya Sai Organisation and Sathya Sai will be installed in the hearts of one and all.” (Sanathana Sarathi January, 1999. page 16)If he were an avatar controlling the planet, how could he be making such a pig’s breakfast of the job? India is one of the most truly terrible places on earth for its huge number of children in the slavery of prostitution, unstoppable epidemic of AIDS victims, bonded sweat-shop labour, horrendous wilful maiming of babies and children for purposes of begging, vast number of penniless paupers and illiterates still being driven to city slums for sheer survival, if they don’t take their own lives first (as many farmers now do).  In the news today is the sale of babies stolen for the purpose of adoption in rich countries like Denmark (at US $8,000.- a shot! See here). The Danish authorities have stopped all adoption from India until further notice, but the Indian authorities do not act… a father of two stolen babies told on Scandinavian TV how has not received any help to retrieve them for 4 years.  The corruption is enormous and is not diminishing. Despite many boasts he made in the 1960s, Sathya Sai Baba can’t stop India increasing its warlike attitude and military spending (eg. India’s military spending was recorded at US $20.4 billion in 2005) or its rulers stashing away in Swiss banks an amount of money at least equal to the country’s entire national debt, according to his own statements at a private dinner attended by a friend of mine! There he told an Indian Administrative Service  official (V. Ramnath) that he had told the Prime Minister and the President not to make so many super-expensive state visits with huge convoys of vehicles and hundreds of Black Beret commandos wherever they went. But, said Sai Baba, they go on doing it and do not listen to me. They are his devotees, too… so his omnipotence is not much use, it seems!  I watched Sathya Sai Baba parading for two decades and I eventually learned from many inside contacts, investigation and analysis that he is far from being in control of almost anything he claims to be. With population and poverty out of control, AIDS, top-to-bottom corruption ruling large parts of Africa and Asia, the world’s wilderness environment and countless species and living resources disappearing faster and faster, and runaway global warming… is this the legacy of the avatar? Oh no! He has promised literally to lift two mountain ranges to save his devotees from world catastrophe (believe it or not!!).

Sathya Sai Baba stated:- “When dharma declines or rather, when those who have a duty to regulate their lives according to dharma lose faith in it, then, its restoration cannot be taken up by all and sundry… The Lord has come again on this Mission. He has collected the engineers and contractors and the labour for this purpose. He is not set on the task.”Let me tell you one more thing: Nothing can impede or halt the work of this Avathaara… Formerly when the Govardhanagiri (mountain) was raised aloft by a little boy, the gopis and gopalas realised that Krishna was the Lord. Now, it is not one Govardhanagiri , a whole range will be lifted, you will see!”
( Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 3, p. 106)

SAI BABA LIBERATION?

Ready for the next world (but only ‘on hold’ up until you peg out)?

Well, you could try joining the Sathya Sai Baba movement and live within its spiritual confines in the (hope of) a promised rosy future disembodied existence in one of Sai Baba’s personally-created heavens (or purgatories)? You can safely neglect the past and put all present worries and concerns aside because Sai Baba says this world is unreal anyhow and you must think only of him all the time! IF you want to get what only He, God Incarnate, can give – that is, liberation for the whole shebang!  Are you up to that? I think in fact no one is!  Ghastly thought - now that he is a proven liar and is accused of far worse crimes, like major sexual abuse.
 
Tired of life?
Problem with liberation (moksha – which is not a kind of coffee but is supposed to be freedom from getting reborn in a new body) is that no one has the slightest clue what it actually  involves – Sai Baba certainly never explains it, nor even tries to! It is said to be ultimate knowledge of the Self (which is everything and nothing at once, and is God and not-God either). As Sathya Sai says: “None of you know who you really are.”  And I am inclined to add: ‘and if and when you may find out (i.e. having got this ‘liberation’) then it’s too late anyway.’ But some people evidently have to have something to believe in and live for (at least it’s the end of all living!).

Bringing up the ‘lingam’
Sathya Sai Baba claimed to produce the ultimate symbol of liberation – the Shivalingam – in his own stomach, and on the ‘night of Shiva’ each year he would sick up one or more of them. It is said he once regurgitated 9 of them at once. This strange phenomenon had only been heard of before Sathya Sai Baba when Houdini did the trick of swallowing a large marble ball for a number of hours before bringing it up in a public show. (Houdini began by swallowing objects with a thread attached so he could draw them up, later he could dispense with the thread and – by swallowing water (and/or an emetic) – could then cause spasms to vomit it out. Sathya Sai claims HIS lingams, however, represent the cosmos and must be worshipped – and very confusingly he implies even that they somehow contain the universe!!

The numbers game and need for cash flow
Sai Baba did this ‘lingam creation’ for a dozen years or so until 1968 when the crowds Became too large and pressing at that event. He did not resume this practice the very late 90s. It is fairly evident that he no longer swallows anything for regurgitation, but fakes this through using towels before his mouth a lot, then letting the lingam emerge. (See details about this here http://home.no.net/anir/Sai/enigma/lingam.htm#gag ) Seeing it emerge is supposed to guarantee automatically that one achieves liberation
(moksha) http://home.no.net/anir/Sai/enigma/lingam.htm#lib
 It also guarantees that Sai Baba attracts many believers who hope this may be true… and who help replenish the inflow of donations to his massive funds which evidently diminished after 1999 (when the sex abuse and other scandals of 1999 surfaced via David Bailey
http://saibaba-invigilator.blogspot.com/2006/12/further-testimony-of-david-bailey.html
who, after over 100 interviews and learning too much of the truth, blew the whistle on a big scale.

It is constantly repeated in propaganda (and uncritically reproduced in many other media) that Sathya Sai has 60 million, or 100 million – even 600 million – followers. (Ah! What they do tell you!) Of course, no one has actually counted them, for there is no way it can be done [except of course by Sai Baba – claiming to be The Eye in the Sky on High]. Actually Sai Baba is blind in one eye and has been for years – a hair on his pet elephant’s trunk punctured the eyeball back in the 1980s. He has confirmed that he only sees with one eye. He needs no more, for in Prashanthi Nilayam (the ‘country of the blind’ believers) the one-eyed man is King!

PAUPER SAI

On the Sai Baba gravy train
Sathya Sai Baba’s ‘mini-empire’ in South India has an overall value anywhere above several billions US dollars… but due to the great secrecy and occasionally proven corruption which exists in this outfit, very little is revealed. That foreign devotees have financed water projects and hospitals makes Sai Baba a honey pot for all vote-seeking politicians.  A succession of Indian governments have long extended huge tax and import privileges to these vast currency-earning activities. VIP visitors – inside and outside the Sathya Sai Organization - are known to have benefited from the so-called ’super-speciality hospitals’, though they would be well-advised to avoid such unhygienic conditions as are known to exist there (reported to several people privately by Dr. Sara Pavan, the Australian doctor who moved to India to work there, but who was dismissed from his post because he was too critical of practices there etc.!).

“Brother, can you lend me a dime?”
Sathya Sai Baba always pleads poverty… “I own nothing.” Feigning to be a spiritual renunciant who wants nothing for himself and cares not  for name or fame. He nevertheless stretches out both hands for any donations he can obtain (he did towards me and I was fool enough to give a lot!). This is supposed to be to help the poor and uneducated, but far too much goes on his many all too self-glorifying projects – museums about himself and massive promotional sports and showpiece events, with his self-publicity projected throughout the world, by radio, film, book, discourses. Not exactly an example to set for humanity (even the Pope is not that liberal towards himself).

Sathya Sai Baba would have the world believe that he is a financial pauper. He is ever repeating stories about his childhood when he had no buttons for his shirt. But his teens he was very well provided for, and has not had to lift a finger for himself since. He is everywhere – also in countless photos and films - seen to live the life of Riley, strolling about to be admired, wallowing in opulent luxury and eternal room service that provides everything. This includes his private luxury apartments in a dozen places he visits, sometimes only fleetingly, (the insides of these are seen by few for obvious reasons, but they lack nothing in expensive architecture, furnishing and requisite equipment. I have been shown through one of them – a luxury private suite in the Muddenahalli Sai temple). He has had any number of the most expensive cars, uses privately-hired jet planes to carry him wherever he will, and all manner of service from and anything whatever he may require. He is unable to walk more than a few staggering steps, so has specially designed Mercedes wagon – a (gold-plated?) buggy - and the plushest of hi-tech wheelchairs, of course.  Not for himself, you understand, but for the ‘joy of his devotees’ don’t you know?

Similarly, the golden handrails for him to hang on to - installed at who knows what expense - around the veranda area at Prashanthi Nilayam.  Top foreign devotees who smell a rat day after day either like to keep their heads in the sand and their consciences numb so they can preserve the faith which keeps them going and their considerable privileges and rank within the movement… fearing what would become of them otherwise.

Sai Baba has stooped to the basest of lies!
On top of this Sai Baba has the utter cheek to lie himself blue-faced in a public discourse recently that his critics are writing against him “for money”. Far from it! All those many I know do this to warn the public and counteract with serious documented information the gigantic flood of disinformation and propaganda publicity. No, no! It is Sathya Sai Baba who tells lies, NOT us - AND he does it for money, without a shred of evidence, for there simply IS none! He tries to keep his payments from devotees flowing and growing. He claims “Swami is pure”, I ask you! However, not one assertion I have made has been proven false, and I would change any that were shown to be so… and I challenge any Sai defender to present genuine evidence to show this.

 

Sathya Sai fraud

Credibility stretched beyond all possible limits:
“”In 1993 between the Dasera and Diwali festivals, a unique miracle occurred. A group of Sai devotees from Australia were taken into the interview room on Baba’s instructions. Of the eleven devotees, one was crying uncontrollably. On being questioned by Baba, he said that  his wife was extremely ill and due to anxiety for her, he was weeping. The loving and Divine playing Lord asked, ‘So you would like to be transported to your wife?’ The answer was Yes! The method Sai Baba used to transport the devotee was unique. He hit the adjacent wall three times with his fist and the weeping devotee started seeing the country of Australia on the wall. When he hit his fist the fourth time, the Australian saw his town on the wall. On hitting his fist for the fifth time the Australian started seeing his house. Then Baba asked the weeping devotee, ‘Is this your house?’ ‘Yes’, was the reply’, Baba replied, ‘Go meet your wife in the house.’ That person entered his house and went near his wife. At the end of the interview only ten persons came out of the interview room and not the eleventh. It was subsequently verified [by whom?] that at the time the Australian walked through the wall of the interview room in Prasanthi Nilayam, it was the exact moment he had entered his house in Australia.” (R. Lowenberg, 1997, p. 129-130)

Entertaining imposters – the ‘teeth-clacking medium’
The quite populous ‘lunatic fringe’ that is always prominent in the ashrams and no less throughout the Sai movement continues to amaze me in all its rich tapestry. Enter Michael of San Jose, California, who posted (in 1999). Among other fanciful items he announced: “I got 3 boons from Lord Shiva in that cave and I soon will have absolutely awesome health for life. No joke. I have been on and off ill for the last 10 years, and soon I will never have another serious illness in my life.
One of my gifts from Lord Shiva is that I will be a “Positive Feedback” channel for God. If you have a question, God (Swami) will answer via clacking my teeth. One clack means the answer of “God”. Two clacks is for “True” and three clacks are for “Triple Avatar” or in some cases “Trinity”. For example, I am now asking the question: is Swami going to be on the best news show in the world, “60 Minutes” on May 9th? God clacked my teeth twice.”

BUT - God did not appear on the 60 minutes TV show on May 9’th! Surprised?
(Read more of this?) http://home.no.net/anir/Sai/enigma/teeth.htm

See also latest about the Sai Baba bedroom murders etc.  http://barrypittard.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/serial-sex-molestation-and-bedroom-killings-but-much-more/

SAI WHEELERS

More of Sathya Sai Baba’s freaks and frauds

In any crowd sitting at the feet of Sai Baba there will usually be a broad range of persons of all shades of conflicting attitude, opinion and behaviour. As is so well-known to seasoned visitors, too many behave as if richly endowed with strong egoism and are remarkably lacking in sensitivity to others for such a supposed spiritual place.

One very clear trait in Sathya Sai and those around him is to see things too much in black and white terms  and show frequent ignorance of the colours, as anyone who reads his discourses will quickly learn. [In group interviews, Sai Baba quite often refer to some absent person as a 'bad man'  - usually unnamed but known to some interviewees - a primitive labeling of a man as if he were bad through and through.] This “either-good-or-bad” mentality is so of most devotees too – who become much more religiously fundamentalist under Sai’s influence. Sai Baba’s doctrine presents us all as trapped in a “perishable body”, “serving a life sentence” in the prison of the material world… to which none of us really belong. Such otherworldliness is life-denying and even morbid, definitely predisposing for psychic unbalance or depression in persons who feel lost, unwanted, unsuccessful, or are misfits who cannot manage life without having something to lean on, such as a belief in Sai Baba’s whole paraphernalia of unfulfilled hopes and promises.

To muscle in on the Avatar’s baliwick?
In the Poornachandra Hall I attended one Christmas, Sai Baba went off down the central aisle to the rear of the hall, when a tall foreign (white) man stood up and began to stride around in front of the devotees, exactly emulating the tempo of Sai’s walk and making the same characteristic hand movements with supercilious aloofness. An attendant tried to stop him, politely but firmly, but he was quite unaffected by this. Then a small man came rapidly over and bumped straight into him bodily so he lost his balance and, losing his composure, the imitator was bodily bumped right off the scene. Such behaviour is seen as blasphemous by Sai officials and invariably leads to blacklisting and a ban from the ashram.

In time one is continually forced to notice that Sai Baba attracts not only good, sensible and pure persons – as one would expect from  the hyperbole in books about the ashrams - but so many moral impostors and many very pushy and self-centered people. Their number is also quite liberally sprinkled with weak-minded, naive and outright wallies. The stars of the ashram are mostly Indians with tons of letters after their names (and many Indian degrees from years back are very doubtful) . Judging by their conversation,  they lack depth and breadth of knowledge compared to and poor articulation - would in a Western setting only qualify as third-rate scientists and academics. Whereas top flight modern Indian intellectuals, who really earn their degrees by hard work and not just by privileges of caste and connections are noticeably absent from the cloying traditional religious Sai environment. Of the many thousands of well-known scientists and academics, I find not one of genuine international repute represented among Sathya Sai devotees.

The following note was published in the Sanathana Sarathi, August 2000:
“Well-meaning devotees from different countries visiting Chapala, Mexico, close to Guadalajara are advised that Dr. Hilarion Dorce (name is spelt wrong) and members of his family have not been authorised by the Sathya Sai Organisation to collect funds for any Ashram, clinic, hospital or any other activity using the name Sri Sathya Sai Baba. It is strongly advised that devotees limit their charitable contributions to the established trusts and foundations of the Sathya Sai Organization in order to avoid deception and disappointment. Leonard Pablo Gutter - Chairman Zone 2 - Latin America (Read more about all this here).

SATHYA SAI BABA ‘CHANNELERS’ AND MEDIUMS

 Sai Baba fakes ‘creation’ of lingam in himself - then said it weighed three tons!

Among devotees who believe they ‘channel’ the words and wishes of Sathya Sai Baba, one find a motley crew of absurd charlatans. The Sai officials have had to make strenuous efforts through the decades to discredit any number of imitators of Sai Baba, and especially men (almost never women) who are said to ‘materialise’; vibuthi, rings and what have you just like ‘Swami’! Most claim to be acting under Sai’s telepathic directions, or carrying out a mission he gave them, or even being Sai Baba in another form! Few manage to get to the ashram, and don’t last very long if they do.

In Jan. 1985, a Japanese man called Ken [who lived in Canada] installed himself in a room in Puttaparthi where he claimed that he had a ring given by Sai which he could use virtually ‘as a telephone’ to Sai Baba, and that he had been Shirdi Sai Baba’s cook in his former life! He claimed that Sai visited him in this room by walking out of the image of himself on the man’s shrine to gave him instructions, answer his and any devotees’ questions, take their letters and return into the picture! An Australian man I knew (Richard Prescott) - having failed to get an interview with Sai Baba - visited this fake because he needed to get Baba’s acceptance of an architectural
drawing he had made for a circular domed kind of building which he wanted to be made a standard Sai Baba building around the world. As he knocked on the door he heard voices within. When it opened some short while later, he was told what a shame he had not come some minutes earlier as Sai had just been there and had gone back into the picture! But he left his letter to Sai and some days later was told it had been accepted. Of course, no such domed circular Sai centres have ever appeared anywhere so far as can be discovered.

However, the fraudulent Japanese man – whose fantastic claims had been written up naively and religiously by Robert Lowenberg in his book ‘At the Feet of Sai’ – was later discredited by a strong disclaimer in Sanathana Sarathi, warning devotees against him. He claimed too that Shirdi Sai used to appear and walk with him on his rounds (he was a postman) in the icy wastes of Canada! Also, Sathya Sai would materialise himself in his kitchen to do his washing up! He also told people that he had been instructed to start a community in Canada and prepare all for the coming world catastrophe, around year 2000! Now we know that it did not happen!

Nor did the Shivaratri ‘regurgitation’ of lingams happen this year – though it was faked in preceding years anyhow (students hold the lingam in a towel which Sai uses constantly until it comes from his mouth). But the BBC filmed this a few years ago and showed that nothing at all emerged, and Sai Baba had to be virtually carried off… few incidents are more revealing than this from the film ‘The Secret Swami’ (see overview and clips here).

More frauds will be exposed soon…

AT SATHYA SAI ASHRAMS - 6

‘Man of Miracles’ who also Fakes? 

Sathya Sai Baba has tried to confound Antoine Lavoisier’s famous principle, a backbone of the physical sciences, “Nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is transformed”. Sai claims he creates objects by his Divine will or fiat and many believe he does. If this were really true, then he would cause a gigantic revolution in physics and science generally, but he is very coy and will not demonstrate his powers except in his own prepared interview rooms or while surrounded by totally devoted servitors. No scientist has been allowed to study him doing so (under any reasonable conditions or in any controlled environment), though he has managed to convince a few relatively low-level scientists (i.e. no one with a name or scientific prominence and has been recognised as such by no scientific institution anywhere).  

Sai Baba has most certainly also been caught out many times by many people faking the ‘materialisation’ of ash, rings and other small objects, including on video and film (see for yourself here).

Numerous former leading followers – including several top officials in his organisation – have told that they have observed his store of trinkets in the chair where he most often sits to produce them ‘from thin air’, that only those who remain in extreme psychological denial can continue to believe in his many such fantastic claims. So the ultimate jury is kept out and one can simply believe what one wants! The unimagined possible benefits for the starving and suffering masses from genuinely and openly showing the world that creation by fiat is possible will not be available from Sathya Sai Baba, for one! Despite this, stories and personal accounts of outright miracles connected with Sai Baba abound. In almost every instance, however, one must rely on testimony, and there is no doubt that a great number who testify are hardly capable of incisive critical thought or articulation of language, for most are self-declared believers, and to believe is not to know but to accept as true miracles for which one cannot provide genuinely rational or empirical explanations. ‘Mind-boggled’, ‘beyond human ken’, ‘inscrutable Divine secret’ are the kind of words one meets, along with much humility before the mysterious. That also indicates the attitude of devotees towards the ca. 30 world-wide, detailed and credible accounts of young men about repeated sexual molestations by Sai Baba, often of a very serious kind. 

Sathya Sai’s claims of ‘materialisation’ are far from being unique  However his effects are achieved, Sai Baba is just another in a line of many claimants of Godhood and Divine Power. He is perhaps the most successful today (so far, though there are some close runners-up in India).There are numerous reported forerunners in the game of miraculous creations, Madame Blavatsky (founder of Theosophy) claimed her Masters created objects – but was later accused by disaffected helpers of sheer fraud. Other fantastic reports of the kind are found throughout Indian religious and ‘spiritual’ literature, not least in the famous ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ by Swami Yogananda, in ‘Living with the Himalayan Masters’ by Swami Rama, in ‘Teachings of the Masters of the far East’ by Baird Spalding and many others (alive today and worth a good laugh: Swami Premananda, jailed for rape and murder (see here), and Sai Baba’s great local competitor/lookalike/copyist Sri Bala SaiBaba (see here)  . The descriptions of materialisations are so many in Indian scripture or legend – and even by present-day ‘holy men’ – that it has virtually become a requirement of anyone purporting to be any kind of spiritual master in India. To reach the top echelon of saints, ‘holy men’ or living divinities, it would seem now to be a sine qua non. This can explain why so many try to convince their followers that they possess these powers of ‘materialisation’ – otherwise one is unlikely to enter the big league (or earn the vast sums that follow with this).

this series continues, on and on…

SATHYA SAI ASHRAMS - 5

 

Seekers of healing, and/or boons and powers
Quite a lot of visitors to Sathya Sai Baba hope to derive one or another boon of personal power from him, some kind of psychic gift like ‘clairvoyancy’ or healing power. Many may be well-meaning, though misguided in not realising that Sai does not confirm anyone as a spiritual healer, nor does he give any place to ‘healing’ activities in his discourses or in any of his hospitals or other organisations. He does not convey any kind of spiritual illumination, ’shaktipat’ or kundalini awakening teaching. Many religions have atrophied and become dry and irrelevant, so the resulting vacuum has been filled by spiritual ‘revivals’ of doubtful authenticity. So it is only to be expected that the much-publicised alleged powers of healing, clairvoyance, materialisation and miracles draw people. Prasanthi is like a spiritual Hollywood, many go there trying to ‘make it big’ with God, and thus they mostly make it a difficult place to be. It has become a Mecca for self-styled healers, mediums and clairvoyants…

It is claimed by devotees who are in denial of the true facts that – when he oils the genitals of boys and young men (and often more besides!) – it is supposed to heal them and control their sexual urges, but none of those who have spoken out claim to have received any lasting benefit or illumination form it! On the contrary, many of those who are free to inform the public because they live outside India (at least 30 separate young men) claim they were actually taken advantage of and were therefore sexually abused, and not healed of anything. 

Healers, wheelers and dealers

Quite a few claim that Sathya Sai Baba has confirmed their having received powers to heal others from Sai Baba in interviews, but as far as I can judge from knowing some of these – and hearing about numerous others – it only amounts to wishful thinking and, at worst, to varying degrees of charlatanism. Some use Sai vibuthi or ‘nectar’ (sugar water), and water poured over a lingam given by Sai Baba supposedly to ‘heal’ people. Sai has frequently ‘produced’ so-called lingams of differ