Sai Baba Layers of Deceit

 

Sathya Sai Baba made his chosen biographer, Prof. N. Kasturi, wait for several years before publishing the first volume of the ‘official biography’ because – according to Kasturi – Sai said people would just think that it was all a story got up by two rogues. In the light of ever-mounting evidence, it now does seems the more likely that this might well have been the case, at least in part. However, the super-eager and grovelling devotee Kasturi was doubtless uncritical and let himself be taken in easily even by the more fantastic stories of ignorant peasants and self-promoting persons about Sathya Sai’s childhood and youth. As far as one can tell now  – long after the event and with nothing but clearly devotionally-biased testimony – most of the ‘miracles’ (if not perhaps all?)  may well have been bogus or due to powerful suggestion and Tantric tricks.

Sathya Sai Baba definitely knew well how to deceive followers long before he met Kasturi. This and the fact that he often lied outright can be seen from books written by his contemporaries who were with him in early days (like Smt. Vijayamma in her  ‘Antyatha Saranam Nasthi – ‘Other than you refuge there is none’. Private publ. 1999:  e-mail:  asn_vijayamma@hotmail.com). Further, his uncle was a Tantric conjurer and the young Sai performed with the family troupe in surrounding villages… and not least did feats of agility (probably much as one can see on the streets of any Indian cities today)

Sai Baba telling Kasturi that they must avoid being seen as rogues, – an Kasturi publishing it – is like a false bottom in a suitcase… the layer of deceit which most people never look. But Indians live in a culture where it has so far been impossible to control long-inherited corruption and deceitfulness in the struggle for existence of most of the populace. To illustrate the extent to which this can go, I came across the incident of a peasant selling milk from his cow door-to-door to a friend of mine. The cowherd drew milk from his cow’s teat before the buyer (a precaution sensible buyers take there) – but had a hidden balloon of water in his armpit with a tube into his hand so as to thin the milk down unseen by the buyer! Many Indians – especially among the poor who are displaced to the slums – grow up learning the ‘tricks of the trade’ – layer upon layer of deception from their fellow men in the dire and often deadly race for survival and goods. As seasoned India travellers can tell you, it is a very observant foreigner who can outsmart the wide range of conmen and swindlers who are never far away. Sai Baba practices fraud himself (eg. see video clips showing his sleight-of-hand) and sets himself up as an ideal and preceptor for the people of India!

On the basis of a lot of accounts from people at interviews who were told catastrophe stories by Sai Baba – or to whom he showed maps or globes of the earth after vast devastations (‘materialised’ of course). It is almost certain that Sai Baba did make major catastrophe predictions to students in Ootacamund (more later on that),  having most likely counted on the effect it would have in attracting more people, including such as already believed in such things – and not least indirectly so as to boost his foreign income. Then he could turn around and blame others for spreading false rumours! Well, no one within the movement would dare believe that of him. All very cunning! (However, there are some of us who have – despite what we wished should be true – penetrated the layers of cover-up and deception realised how deep they go).