Sathya Sai Baba discourse on how boys slept in his apartment

The following scan of part of Sathya Sai Baba’s discourse in 1998 where he tells how boys shared his bedroom has not received the attention it warrants.

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I discussed this revelation with my close friend and confidante, V.K. Narasimhan, famous Indian journalist who later moved to the ashram because of his devotee wife and became the editor of Sai Baba’s monthly journal Sanathana Sarathi. I asked him why Sai Baba had allowed publication, after allegations that he used males sexually had been published by Tal Brooke as ‘Avatar of the Night’ (though I had never read the book). He had thought the part about the ghost of Easwaramma a rambling and unlikely concoction. The compromising details, that three boys sleep in his bedroom, only confirms what many young men have attested since 1999.  At that time I was still a convinced though troubled devotee, due to many inconsistencies and unanswered questions about SB, including numerous reports that he was an active homosexual. In my faith and refusal to give credence to negative hearsay (which all devotees were duty bound to do, or else!)  Some years earlier a Belgian professor visiting Prashanthi  – Dr. Gabriel Spillers – tried to convince me of his strong opinion that Sai Baba had homosexual relations,  as he had spoken to people in the ashram who claimed to have had sex with the avatar! I had even ridiculed this, because Sai Baba claimed to be the purest of the pure, and constantly preached strict Victorian-type sexual morals.

I asked VKN about the boys who slept in Sai Baba’s room and he was clearly uncomfortable, saying said it was a tradition. In my innocence, I assumed it was a boon granted by a spiritual master, to be allowed to massage his feet and legs etc.  Narasimhan did say that homosexuality was not considered as abnormal in India as it is in the West (or words to that effect). Incidentally, homosexuality was then against the law in India and even carried a death penalty! But VKN was very elderly and his experience of the West was largely from pre-war years. I asked VKN the age of the boys and he gave it as about 18 to 20 years old. He asked me whether this fact would cause any problems in the West were it to become known, was there anything wrong in it. I said that it most certainly would cause a major stir, especially  if the boys had been under age. He looked quite crestfallen and sat silent for some time, as if unable to find words, a most unusual state of affairs for him, as anyone who met him privately knows well! He died in March 2000 after long sufferings, so there was no longer any need for me to keep quite about many things he told me so. Unscrupulous elements at the ashram, and jealous enemies there, would have put his personal security could have been at considerable risk had I written about this earlier. My conscience insisted that I reveal his confidences to me to the public, which became more and more of a burden.