Hidden Fear of the Avatar

HIDDEN FEAR OF ‘THE AVATAR’

Sathya Sai Baba’s refusal to explain anything other than what pleases himself makes it difficult to have confidence in many of the statements he makes on whatever subject, quite apart from what concerns the ‘unseen’ world of spiritual realities. Sathya Sai Baba ’s demand is that the devotee has implicit and wholly unquestioning trust in him, all his works and anything he utters. If it fails to make sense or is not in accordance with observable fact or other statements of his, this has to be put down to our human ignorance. It is therefore not entirely wrong to say we cannot properly understand him! He holds that virtually everyone alive today is ego-laden, sense-attached and impure who really knows nothing about anything! But we do know with demonstrable certainty that Sathya Sai Baba gets his facts wrong time and again, laughably so! And he was, by all appearances, unaware what a storm the world would raise against pedophilia, probably because it is common and yet is not talked about openly in the region where he grew up. A long-standing suspicion seems justified, namely that this kind of homosexual exploitation of boys in India is very widespread and is tacitly accepted in many segments of society- such as in backward parts like the Andhra Pradesh villages of the Puttaparthi region. This is the result of the wall-to-wall culture of repressive censorship against such sexual deviance in most of India.

SSB’s imperious and down-looking attitude does not exactly make for a feeling of overflowing divine acceptance and love, which he is always talking about as being his entire nature etc. He can smile and be charming, but love is shown only in action. What does he mostly do? Stroll about looking distant and often as strict as a headmaster who will never abide to be gainsaid or crossed in the least way? This is a manner which invites private anxiety and even fear. He certainly sets up considerable barriers to knowing him and so also to loving him, for how can anyone love what they do not know? This feeling is not confined to relatively peripheral persons such as I, for it is quite evident at times even between Baba and some of his most trusted office-bearers. He scared the wits out of Prof. Kasturi with a raging lion-like expression without any explicable ground other than to cow him totally, it certainly appears.

It is evident that many close followers of Sathya Sai Baba hold him in awe, but – more than that – fear him personally. There is plenty of written evidence by followers showing this. And the murders of 1993 have increased this fear without any shadow of a doubt. The fear is seldom talked about but can at times be seen in faces of those often in contact with Sathya Sai Baba . One can simply imagine the effect on those under his control, especially his students. Sathya Sai Baba has told that his close servitors have three chances of obeying him when he tells them something. If not, terrible consequences can follow. As in the case of Baba’s driver for two decades, who burned himself to death in the Hillview Stadium after failing to follow Sathya Sai Baba ’s warning to drive more slowly! One does not have to circulate for long among Sai devotees to know the general paranoia or come across the aura of unexpressed fear around questions of what one can and cannot say and do.

All this sets standards and examples. In the Sai movement, both foreign and Indian VIPs appear seriously po-faced much of the time and are unduly tight-lipped about all remotely sensitive matters having to do with Baba, his organisation or other works. They always have to be in the right, one cannot question anything that is decided by whoever decides. Members are even sometimes expelled without any explanation, as in the case of the Moscow centre’s president, who allowed discussion of the sexual allegations against Sathya Sai Baba . The personal qualities of most top leaders in the Sai movement make for a social and mental-emotional gap between Sai officials and ‘ordinary’ hard-working followers, with few exceptions. This has had the effect of consolidating an inner circle who are subservient to the International Chairman and the Central Trust – a kind of international jet-set elite who invite one another around the world to hold forth – often mainly to regurgitate or repackage Sai Baba aphorisms – and who evidently confer to hush up anything they can which might affect their own positions in Baba’s favour and within the organisation that bears his name.

All this is the basis for the many cover-ups. The 1993 murders and the many pedophile accounts involving Sai Baba (some going back decades), have been kept from the main body of devotees for so long through this organised deception. However, the growing recognition in the world for the duty of mandatory reporting of known cases of sexual interference or abuse – a legal requirement in many countries – will surely eventually bring forth court actions and large compensation claims against leading Sai office-bearers who can be demonstrated to have failed in this reporting duty, as it has already at last done in the Catholic Church in so many countries. All Sai officials would be very well advised to “sweep their hearths and keep their houses clean” on this count from now on, for the information is presently freely available to every one of them.

When fear is felt but cannot be expressed it is all the more effective. Once the fears can be confronted without the possibility of retribution – such as by removing oneself from their source both physically, socially and emotionally – it becomes evident that, as F.D. Rooseveldt put it “there is nothing to fear but fear itself”.

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