Prashanthi Nilayam cash-strapped despite all efforts

The Sathya Sai Specialty Hospital in Puttaparthi was based on voluntary labour by all staff and doctors, even though very minimal emoluments were provided. Our trusted informant, ex-devotee Eileen Weed, informs:- “People tell me that the hospital giving such low rates of pay is a BIG part of the reason they can’t find decent staff. Even diehard devotees run after as much cash as possible with jobs in the big cities. Doctors in PN had told me that the bulk of the staff is made up of those straight out of school who have no other options and no other job they could get. They work for several years only for experience and then move on when they get higher paying opportunities elsewhere.”

The foreign devotee surgeons and doctors who mostly carried out the difficult operations seem to have left since their guru, who died under such ignominious and suspicious circumstances, is no longer there to give darsan etc. No mention of this is made, of course, by any ashram or Trust sources. While the voluntary policy no longer works well, the authorities still persist in offering very low salaries for top jobs (less than US$17,000.- per annum for a senior consultant), as can be seen from their announcement:-

An amusing e-mail that has been circulated ‘In Sai Seva’ and “for the convenience of devotees’ tells of the revolutionary banking move in Puttaparthi, namely installation of a cash machine, provided by none other than the grace of Sathya Sai Baba acting from the beyond through the Sai Central Trust! Despite the ‘beautiful granite finishing’, it is not likely to attract devotees who want to part with much money. It would take a self-resurrection by Sathya Sai Baba himself to increase the cash flow. Or at least a public attempt to revive the embalmed body.

If the enterprising devotees of recently ‘departed’ guru Ashutosh Maharaj are anything to go by, it seems the Sathya Sai authorities may have blundered when they embalmed Sathya Sai Baba’s body. According to their information it would have a better chance of revival had it been frozen (presumably cryogenically):-
“The body did not decompose before we put it in the freezer. It was a spiritual experience. We thought of embalming it, but somebody told us that his chances of revival were less if we did it,” Swami Vishalanand said. “He has assured us that he will come back,” another devotee, Lakhwinder Singh, told the Indian Express newspaper.” The BBC article goes on to mention: “In 1993, the devotees of a Calcutta-based guru Balak Brahmachari refused to cremate his body for nearly two months, insisting that he would recover from a “meditative trance”. Eventually, some 450 policemen entered his religious centre on the outskirts of the city and took away his decomposing body for cremation in the face of fierce protests by the devotees.”

If Sathya Sai, the Avatar of the Age, Creator of the Universe himself and Deity of all Deities, could not cure or resurrect himself, what chance for the average Joe Lunchbucket Hindu gurus?

chrisdokter chrisdokter.wordpress.com

COMMENT Submitted on 2014/03/16 at 4:21 pm Well, Robert, thank you for this light note on a frosty Sunday. It seems the only specialty left to the Parthi hospital is a gigantic ‘ceiling on desires’-salary to draw die-hard devotee-consultants to the sticks. Granted, the premises look nice from the outside but I would not want to get caught dead there… An ATM, too, hmm? Now, ‘Automatic transfer’ around Puttaparthi should be a breeze, don’t you think? It was a life-long specialty of the master, after all. Nice touch indeed, a spot of granite. If that does not start some HARD cash from starting to flow, I am at a loss. The story of the refrigerator-guru hit the news here in Holland, too, much to everyone’s amusement. It reminded me of famous Dutch prophet (and guru avant la lettre) Lou de Palingboer (1898-1968), who preached he was God incarnate and therefore could not die. When he inadvertently DID die, his followers did not believe it and surrounded themselves on top of his body, ‘to keep it warm’ until he would return… They are still waiting, it seems, even 50 years after his burial. For more on these western and eastern ‘masters of enlightenment’, I refer to my blog Enlightened or made light (http://chrisdokter.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/enlightened-or-made-light/).