Sathya Sai Baba identified with man-lion Narasimha

The lion-man avatar, Narasimha destroying Hiranyakasipu

Another mythological figure, a combination of man and lion who ‘materialised himself’ in that form to kill the atheist Hiranyakasipu, is one of Sathya Sai Baba’s favourite avatars. Sai Baba has often stated as fact the following somewhat controversial (!) claims:- “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).

“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) BUT NOTE! This proves that miracles are NO guarantee of being good or pure, even according to the supposed ‘man of miracles’ himself!

Sathya Sai Baba as the lion man in person? Prof. N. Kasturi and others have reported how Sathya Sai Baba one day apparently somehow assumed the appearance of a lion-man… enough to impress simple villagers in Puttaparthi that he was like Narasimha, the lion-man avatar. Kasturi and Ganapati base their accounts on hearsay from such villagers, since it was many years later they came on the scene.

Sathya Sai Baba acting as Narasimha

Kasturi once told a group of Westerners in the old lecture room about how Sathya Sai Baba had raged like a lion. After years of selfless service, Kasturi had suddenly been ignored totally and excluded from everything for weeks, without explanation. When he asked Sai Baba why, he “raged like a terrifying lion” at him for a mere bagatelle – one for which he was not even responsible. This incident has been toned down in written reports, as is done in most writings about Sai Baba’s many less acceptable so-called “human aspects”, to show Sai Baba in a much less threatening light, and by the fearful Kasturi himself in his written account in his own autobiographical book Loving God (p.344ff).

The present writer has been involved with Sathya Sai Baba for decades and has spent much time with him at his ashrams, which is why it took me so many years since 1993 to come to accept and adjust to the otherwise wholly unbelievable facts of the murders incident in 1993. I vow that my account of it is the truth as I know it. Those facts I could not – for the sake of his own security – make known until after his decease. The top officials and various MBA students who are more or less ‘in the know’ are still surely prisoners of their circumstances, often fearing to break faith with such a socially and psychically powerful and imperious ‘godman’. Few of them may so far be free of the fear of possible retribution to dare to speak out (except in strict privacy to myself and other exposé persons), but it is likely that more will do so eventually. Experience shows that it often takes decades to come to terms with sexual abuse sufficiently to take the step of standing forth.

See also Hidden fears of the avatar