Sai’s ‘billion’ devotees

Neeti Kamath - a female devotee of Puttaparthi has a blog where she states that Sathya Sai Baba has a billion devotees!! Neethi - aged 27 female of Puttaparthi blithely states the same figure of one billion in another blog. Did they count them? No! Did anyone else? No!

Google questions the search term ‘billion’ and asks: Did you mean “darsan only as a speck of all his million devotees”  Which is a very pertinent question indeed! Is not ‘Google Himself’ among the skeptics perhaps?

Neeti Kamath also admits: “there are many who think that sai baba is a fake, what with babas present in every street in india…”
She fails to imagine how many. Perhaps she fears that the 5 1/2 billion left over would think him a fake or ignore his (and her) preposterous claims… who knows. Only God Himself can tell, eh?

Wikipedia’s page on Sathya Sai Baba states: “According to the Sathya Sai Organization, there are an estimated 1,200 Sathya Sai Baba Centers in 130 countries world-wide. The number of Sathya Sai Baba adherents is estimated sometimes as around 6 million, and followers cite “50 to 100 million”. The Sai Paradox contradictions of and surrounding Sathya Sai Baba” from the magazine “Religieuze Bewegingen in Nederland, ‘Sekten’ “/”Religious movements in the Netherlands, ‘Cults/Sects’ “, 1994, nr. 29. published by the Free University Amsterdam press, (1994) reports the following estimates: Beyerstein (1992:3) [skeptic]: 6 million; Riti & Theodore (1993:31): 30 million; Sluizer (1993:19): 70 million; Van Dijk (1993:30) [follower] “between 50 and 100 million.”; Adherents cites Chryssides, George. Exploring New Religions. London, U.K.: Cassells (1999) with 10 million ^“

At the same time, ExBaba recently received a comment (by mailform) from one of the disbelievers, which was interesting, as follows:-

Date: Thu Jun 28 08:51:27 2007
Referred By: Chakram
“I just do not understand why this site is giving such an unjustified and unnecessary importance to Sathya Sai Organization (SSO) or the claims by its members! Personally, I (more than) believe even in India less than 10% (today, may be even less than 5%) of people are so called ‘Sai devotees’. The chances these percentages increase any further are zero to none! Even though the devotees of Sathya Sai Baba claim that he is the incarnation of the previous avatar Shirdi Sai, today majority of Shirdi Sai devotees do not accept that. Indeed, there is a court case filled and pending in India by these devotees that SSO is misusing Shirdi Sai name, although the economic and political muzzle the SSO can exercise may not allow the courts to resolve on this issue! If that is the situation “worrying” that Sathya Saibaba (& SSO) “converts/transforms” all humanity to become his devotees and to accept him as the God/Avatar of the Age is laughable. I like many other Indians prefer to ignore this cultish organization long ago! “

To this we must concur about the likely numbers in India. And the rest of the world combined has far less Sai Baba followers than India, even when the Sathya Sai Organization tries by all means fair and foul to inflate the figures for membership.

However, the importance of exposing the Sathya Sai Organisation is not unjustified, since they do nothing without at the same time promoting Sathya Sai Baba himself as their teacher. They work tirelessly behind the scenes trying to induce politicians, the famous and the rich to visit him and not without considerable success. Though many good and unsuspecting followers work tirelessly for the Organisation doing good works and giving vast amounts of money (to Sathya Sai Baba himself), they have been totally misled - and consciously too. The top leadership is hand-in-glove with Sai Baba, having become irrevocably bound to him and their beliefs about him in many ways. This is a very rich, clandestine and very largely unaccountable organization which is attempting to bring off a coup de main to fulfil Sai Baba’s prophesy that one day within his lifetime he will rule the entire world! It brooks no questioning within its ranks, nor from without… it ignores all requests for investigations of serious charges against Sai Baba (who is protected at the highest levels in India) for information, even from scientific researchers who are favourable towards them (such as Prof. Tulasi Srinivas, who is trying to research for a book about Sai Baba and the Sathya Sai Organization).

Since 2000 when the testimonies poured in to show that Sathya Sai Baba is other than he claims in many ways, the Sathya Sai Organization has practiced a tighter and tighter control of its members. This can be seen in the way that they fail totally to engage in any open debate or discussion whatever with professional educators, religionists or scientists - let alone sceptics -and have laid down rules that forbids their members formally to cooperate with any other voluntary organisations or other religious organizations. This is the mark of a cult which is closing in on itself because there is too much to hide!

SATHYA SAI SHOWCASED

 

SATHYA SAI BABA BBC DOCUMENTARY ‘THE SECRET SWAMI’ SHOWCASED [MAJOR EXPOSURE!]

WORLD EXPOSÉ OF SEXUAL ABUSE BY SATHYA SAI BABA

THE 1993 EXECUTIONS IN SAI BABA’S BEDROOM

EX-BABA - SATHYA SAI BABA DECEPTIONS EXPOSED

SAI BABA EXPOSED - CONNY LARSSON’S WEBSITE

BLOG SITE- CALL FOR MEDIA AND GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATION OF SATHYA SAI BABA

RESEARCH INTO SATHYA SAI BABA PUBLICATIONS AND CLAIMS MADE

DR, JOHN HISLOP LETTERS ON SAI SEX COVER-UP

NEW SEX REVELATIONS (2006) BY EX-DEVOTEE

FAKE ‘GREEN DIAMOND’ RING EXPOSED

SATHYA SAI STORIES, MYTHS AND DECEITS

SATHYA SAI ORG. PROPAGANDA, COVER-UP

THE SATHYA SAI ORGANISATION EXAMINED

DEFECTING SATHYA SAI ORGANISATION OFFICE-BEARERS AND PROMINENT DEVOTEES

PHOTO SET 1 - THE POWER AND THE GLORY

PHOTO SET 2 - SAI BABA RECLINES ON HIS THRONES

PHOTO SET 3 - SAI BABA’S LUXURY RESIDENCES

A SELECTION OF SATHYA SAI BABA’S DIVINE TEACHINGS
A sensible and critical look at some fallacies, factual errors and vagueness which followers never mention
Sathya Sai Message: universal or sectarian?
Sathya Sai’s doctrinaire educational fundamentalism
Sathya Sai’s confused views on women
Sai ‘Educare’ in Shadow

DR. G. VENKATARAMAN’S COVER-UP AND DECEIT EXPOSED

SAI BABA, NON-VIOLENCE & INDIA’S ATOM BOMBS

ON ‘MIRACULOUS HEALING’ OR CURES BY FAITH (IN SAI BABA)

Concerning the question of touching male genitals by Sathya Sai Baba

Extraordinary rationalisations of Sathya Sai Baba’s reported sexual activities

Sai Baba leaders

India’s guru, revered by the government and some millions, speaks ill of others

Despite his calling it the greatest of sins to speaks ill of others, Sathya Sai Baba occasionally does so outright in public, but more often in the privacy of the interview room, where recording is not allowed. He often refers to persons known to interviewees, saying ‘he is a bad man’ and so forth. Thus he has set a standard for his chosen representatives, his ‘leaders’ who are rather persons themselves led like the blind. While many office-bearers left the Organisation when four young men were shot down in cold blood in Sai Baba’s bedroom while he stood by, when the sex abuse testimonies became overwhelming many more joined them. I was one if these, though I had never been able to be such a blind believer in everything Sai Baba claimed, much of which was impossible for me and which caused me much soul-searching even before the murders took place and were shamelessly covered up with governmental help. Only a few defectors were Sai Baba’s  top international coordinators, i.e. those who get most privileges and who - when ‘tested’ by the guru for faith in him - wilfully rationalise away any untoward incidents, from sex abuse to murder. Since 2000, when the dam broke and the flood of testimonies came forth on the Internet, there has been less and less excuse for following Sai Baba.

Mindlessly following the lead of their guru Sathya Sai Baba, various Central Coordinators have made a number of disrespectful and derogatory statements about Sai critics in widely-disseminated printed circular letters and e-mails. Notable was Jadadeeshan who identified critics’ and or their allegations as “faeces on the ground”, a vile slander on many outspoken victims who courageously told of being sexually abused by Sathya Sai Baba -often repeatedly and in perverse ways. Even when I pointed out to him that he is breaking with the strongest warnings of Sathya Sai Baba, he has not even apologised in public to the offended parties. This Malaysian Indian has long been a top leader chosen by Sathya Sai Baba for his organisation, where leaders are supposed to have ‘quality’ and be moral examples). Several Sai Org. office-bearers have characterised various Sathya Sai Baba critics as ‘sick’ and in worse terms. European and Danish leaders (Thorbjørn Meyer & Steen Piculell) stigmatised ex-devotee victims through proven untruths to the media to the effect that they were known as paedophiles! They have not had the decency to apologise, but they will certainly come to rue the day.  

Invariably, none of these leaders have taken steps to make contact with those they malign, and are quite evidently unwilling seriously to investigate any facts reported by victims of Sathya Sai Baba’s sexual attentions. Many devotees and leaders turned like a driven herd of pi-dogs barking out slander and back-biting rumours against those who were for many years much, much closer than they to Sathya Sai Baba, the two formerly effusive pro-Sai authors, David Bailey and Dr. Bhatia, when these independently of each other spilled the beans in a big way about Sathya Sai Baba’s constant sexual escapades with young male foreigners, Sai college students and underage boys.

Mindless subservience is nearly achieved in full, it would seem, by some of his servitors some of the time. Names spring forth like Indulal Shah, Anil Kumar, Michael Goldstein, Dr. G. Venkataraman, T. Ramanathan, Jumsai, Hira, and ‘Brother’ Jagadeeshan, William Harvey, Leonardo Gutter and there are many more hardly worth mentioning. They manage to appear as mere puppets, lying when required, and behaving towards those who fall outside the pale of their brotherhood in truly adharmic and uncaring, high-handed ways (taking Sathya Sai Baba as their example?).After years and years of ideologisation, the devotee’s ego gets more and more securely woven into a mental-emotional and social web which hold them back from all further intellectual or social expansion and development and fixates their minds on the barren round of sameness, repetitions and ingrown ashram habits. This is seen by the uninspiring parrot-like way they hold talks and answer people and by the sheer ineffectuality and unoriginality of anything they write. The internal memos of the Sathya Sai Organisation are almost entirely laughably pompous official talk and patronizing advice. Some have been exhibited on the exbaba.com website for the delectation of those who have escaped the Sai spider web enough to dare to read what critics say on the world-wide web! Escape from the condition described above is extremely difficult. Reality that may impinge on the sense is pre-interpreted according to a preset mental response mechanism which is designed to interpret anything so as to ward off any shocks to the system, dull the conflict of thoughts and feelings and keep off the social humiliation of feeling one has make a cosmic mistake and wasted years of one’s life, energy and prestige. The character-testing process that the transition process enforces is too much for most long-term devotees. However, many have done so already. The many of these known to me are certainly not anything like demons, but are caring and concerned persons who are open to help others in travail.

Sai Badmouth

SATHYA SAI BABA OFTEN SPEAKS ILL OF OTHERS
His chosen leaders copy his slanders
More documented study on how Sathya Sai Baba practices other than he preaches and manipulates his devotees.
 

Sathya Sai Baba has said this is wrong “If anyone starts talking ill of others, go away from that place without lending your ears to such evil talk.” Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 27, p. 95). Followers of Sathya Sai Baba should recall that he claims that his life is his message and his acts are all a perfect example. Sathya Sai Baba has commented sarcastically and in a defamatory way in public on certain easily identifiable persons – such as his rationalist critics, (easily recognised to observers as the much-publicised Mr. Narasimiha of Bangalore University who carried out an investigation into Sathya Sai Baba and B.Premanand who has published much about cover-ups by Sathya Sai Baba and his people) and not least his strong attack well after the event in ridiculing, during his public discourse in July 1993 on an identifiable body of Indian journalists who had visited the ashram after the 1993 murders in Sathya Sai Baba’s bedroom and reported on what they could unearth in the face of massive secrecy and impediments from Sai and his officials.

A typical dilemma for Sai devotees and their leaders is now the conflict between not speaking ill of others and refuting the many allegations against Sathya Sai Baba by defaming critics Those who leave Sathya Sai Baba and especially his outspoken critics have repeatedly been referred to in Sai circles and the Sai Org. as ‘having too big an ego’, or as a ‘bad man’, a term taken up from Sathya Sai Baba who often uses it when warning about persons not present in interviews. Following Sathya Sai Baba’s constant criticisms of others as persons jealous of others and/or Baba’s achievements’ and, more recently, by the demonstrably mendacious Indulal Shah as ‘representing vested interests’. (But in fact he is telling an untruth and in actual fact he represents the vested interests of the Sai mini-financial empire!).  ‘Disgruntled’persons is a favourite label used indiscriminately of all critics in correct ‘Prashanthi-speak’. Even when known to be groundless, these pseudo-explanations are part of the Sai liturgy and function like protective mantras. Sai leaders are particularly in the forefront in branding others to draw attention away from the main culprit and to ‘protect’ devotees from knowing why other devotees can even consider ‘leaving God’ or from finding out any of the very sound reasons for their disaffection. These are the unmistakable symptoms of a truth- threatened cult closing ranks.

The cleverly manipulatory Sai teaching: Already in 1968, Sathya Sai Baba was in full swing against anyone who dares to question or criticise him: “ On one side adoration and homage are piling high into a peak; on the other, abjuration and slander are also peak high. Standing between them, I bless them both…” (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 8, p. 97) One further quotation will suffice, for 1993 – before criticism of him vastly topped all peaks from the past: “…if men whose hearts are filled with the poison of envy indulge in all kinds of slander from remote places, it can be described only as demonic conduct and not that of a human being.” (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol.26, p. 267). The use of ‘if’ here was interesting. Nowadays Sathya Sai Baba apparently uses the word ‘slander’ only as anything said to question any word or deed of his!

The continual berating by Sathya Sai Baba of all kinds of persons and professions and the constant haranguing in discourses of his followers for lacking the simplest of virtues as well as all others as falling short of goodness in every conceivable way is so exaggerated as to sound completely hollow. It might be more warranted had he directed his spleen at those who really do deny virtually all moral sense and personal responsibility due to their society’s universally corrupt practices. He should target those who most cynically disregard good values, such as murderous dictators, pseudo-Islamic terrorists, and the mafias of Russia, India and many other countries, the exploiters of children and adults in prostitution and forced labour. But no… Sathya Sai Baba applies his constant negative evaluations so universally as to pretend that he considers himself to be just about the only decent human being alive. Meanwhile he is against human rights! One has to ask how he can be so badly ill-informed about people and the world as to believe that the all peoples in decently educated and civilised societies are so infected by demonic qualities like hate, overbearing envy and greed?

On the one hand Sathya Sai Baba advises, “Come, examine, experience …” and on the other he hand he adds onto this “and have faith” (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 4, p. 227). Similarly he said, Also “approach, examine, experience, judge and then accept” (Sathyam, Sivam, Sundaram Part II, p. 265). His clever duplicity becomes evident when his various statements are compared. On several occasions he has seemed to support seeking through proper investigation, telling that one should believe only what seems correct when examined (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol.1, p 37) and get all facts, investigate the truth without haste (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 26, 377f) always to investigate well before Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 4,  p. 18 .

More on Sai Baba’s chosen leaders later…