Secret, undercover Sathya Sai Baba and cult

Sathya Sai Baba and all his willing publicists still allow nothing to emerge which gives insight into the nature of the publicly unaccountable Sathya Sai organization, Sathya Sai Central Trust or events that occur within the ashrams. No minutes or records are available from official meetings in any of his organizations or trusts, no accounts other than superficial summary statements at best.  All traces of any untoward events or facts are suppressed and censored very rigorously. Most of what is known about Sai Baba behind the scenes, and about the agenda of the organization, its methods and actual workings comes from ex´devotees who have left because of uninvestigated and most carefully covered-up criminal acts, including the sexual abuse attributed by many young men and their families and the government-quashed CBI investigation into cold-blooded executions in Sathya Sai Baba’s bedroom in 1993.

Barry Pittard has pointed out on India Interacts: “Sai Baba and his semi-feudal, ancien régime servitors and minders are less able than hitherto to influence India’s power structures“. However, apart from some notable exceptions (like IANS, IBN-CNN, the Hindustan Times and The Caravan) the Indian press has virtually been silenced or suborned by the money and political clout that Sathya Sai Baba and his supporters still exert. Among those which report positive news about him, The Hindu, The Times of India, The Pioneer and other major papers are most notably censorious of anything that might sound like criticism of him, though he is under all criticism for his megalomaniac claims of Godhead (illegal in India!) and on countless other self-glorifying counts.

Those who continue to promote Sai Baba apparently forget that the true facts have a way of festering and growing the more when denied, and they certainly will not be possible to suppress them in the future as the international media and research bodies discover on a wider front the role that Sathya Sai Baba is being accorded by the leaders of India. The documented discourses where Sai Baba propounds on science, education, women, critical thinking, caste, human rights and his extreme and unrealistic moralistic harangues are sufficient together to condemn him to the scrap heap of ideological history. Even excluding his predictions which have already failed or are too fantastic for saner people to credit (e.g. lifting a range of mountains, flying unaided through the air etc.).

One of Sai Baba's best known 'borrowed' aphorisms is the sweepingly impracticable "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".

In this short quotation we see that Sathya Sai Baba has the blind policy of ignoring everything that is not positive, he occasionally recommends seeing the world through rose-tinted spectacles! This would make the functioning of lawful society and most human communication impossible, for there is always someone who will feel harmed by almost any truth. This truth avoidance applies above all to himself, he wants to be a mystery, to be left to himself, and warns strongly against inquiry into him! Yet paradoxically (or hypocritically?) Sai Baba himself is ever condemning ills and ill-doers in general and sweeping terms, both those in Indian and world society… and in  terms that are anything but ‘rosy’. He very seldom makes identification of those he attacks in public attacks straightforward, but they are nevertheless made against people who can be identified by interested parties. In a discourse full of contradictions and complaints on 19 January 2002, Sathya Sai Baba spoke of the press as follows: “Whatever paper one is from, write exactly what has happened. It is not wrong. They bring in what has not happened at all and put that in the paper. Only when non-existent and amazing things are put in, they will get more money. Just write exactly what happens. If it is a wrong, write it as a wrong. If there is good, write it as good. Only that; but don’t mix in what isn’t there.” But what actually happens is unfortunately not always good, so SB is against investigative journalism and uncovering injustice, crime and heinous actions?

About a decade ago he stated: “I am 76 years old. Up till now I have not met with any newspaperman or TV people. (Applause) I don’t have any relationship with papers at all. For, if good is spoken, without fail friendship can be made with them. But they write contradictory things.” (ibid). He has had relationships with newspapers, so that is not true. There are several well-known interviews he gave to press people, including Mr. Karanjia of ‘Blitz Magazine’ and to a few selected journalists since then. “Today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s wastepaper“, says Sai Baba – yet another English penny proverb taught him his former ‘ghost writer’ and spin doctor, Prof. N. Kasturi). However, newspaper reports about his secret activities and many failings have been preserved on the Internet nor all his ‘piety’ or tears can remove a word of it.

A report on his behaviour in one of his journals (ibid) stated: “He came with a pistol near Me. They saw it.”(Swami’s voice imitates in a taunting way the sound of people gossiping:) What lies, just tell! (Laughter) (Swami’s voice turns louder, accusing and strong:) Was there even one newspaperman there? Who saw? (Swami pounds the table saying:) Why should anyone tell such untruths? No one came at all! Finally, we see that pistol is a gas (air) pistol, used only to shoot birds. When all of it is like this, why such big publicity? This is a BIG mistake.” If “nothing happened” why such a big mistake since it actually happened, why such a strong reaction? “Let the paper men think anything. I don’t get anything out of the newspaper. My paper – my heart only is My paper. From My heart, there is so much Love only: only Love, only Love. (Applause) So I am sharing that Love. Let it be anyone at all: I will share it with all. All are Mine. I belong to all. I don’t have hatred for anyone. All have only Love for Me. I have Love for everybody. Therefore, Love is the close relationship between both of us.” It is always easy to boast about one’s own love for some self-serving people, but why was Sai Baba not sharing his “love” with the newspapermen?

“Suffering was given to the hearts of how many people? The journalists have succumbed to so much sin! From so many places – America, Germany, Japan, England, telegrams came from all directions. Therefore, none should succumb to so much jealousy.” (ibid) This suggests that many  do not really believe in his “infallibility”? Why does he make such a fuss when a simple clarification is all that was needed, rather than a whole public discourse to be widely published? Does Sai Baba really think that journalists whose job it is to follow up news for clarification all suffer from jealousy? Either he is badly misinformed or he is trying to smear journalists as ‘sinful’ and ‘jealous’ (of him? Not many serious people would want his reputation nowadays surely)

Sathya Sai Baba cannot abide any non-partisan report about himself, especially when anything untoward occurs at his ashrams. The incident in this case was a bagatelle, but there are many incidents which are not so and are even sinister.

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