Sai Propaganda Floods Onwards

Public works done with full publicity

All publicity about the service works of the various Sathya Sai Baba organisations or institutions is specifically formulated so as to try to enhance his name and fame. The works in India and the input of all the genuine workers involved are certainly valuable contributions to a population which is overwhelmingly poor and without a small fraction of the public services available in most countries of the world today. Though these Sai service workers labour under the illusion that it is Sai Baba who is the real ‘doer’ of the work and that they are merely his instruments, without them it is clear that absolutely zero work would be done!

What deserves criticism here is the way in which Sathya Sai Baba, who is known to be a major deceiver of his followers, takes all credits and trumpets himself through everything he can! One is left without a shred of doubt as to who is supposedly the main benefactor. For example, the hospital in Puttaparthi has been publicized for all it is worth in every video allowed by the Sai authorities for years, where huge portraits of Sai Baba are seen everywhere and the commentaries drip with condensed sugar water when mentioning him. But it was the US owner of Hard Rock Café, Isaac Tigrett – but he is now not mentioned officially. This is probably due to the intense jealousy he has described from Indian Sai officials when he was put in charge of hospital planning by Sai Baba. Tigrett’s name has even been completely removed from the reprinted discourses in the Sathya Sai Speaks series, though his name was included when they were originally published in Sanathana Sarathi.. [His donation of US$49 million made it all possible (while $15 million ‘disappeared’ according to what Tigrett told David Bailey when they were still both devotees! Note also that Isaac Tigrett has continued his devotion to Sai Baba and declared on the BBC film that he believes the sex abuse allegations are true and it would not matter to him if Sai were to go out and murder someone!]

If there should be no publicity, why do so many officially blessed and widely advertised Sai videos contain long sequences of Sai Baba feeding the poor, marrying off poor people, giving away hand-driven tricycles to the handicapped, sewing machines to women and so on. They never were his property to give, if we are to believe his claims to non-ownership of anything. The video ‘Song of Service’ is one example and another such is ‘Sai Baba as in a mirror’. These are sold world-wide and, from the central leadership, efforts are urged from devotees to bring such public works to the attention of broadcasters and the media.In 2001, the Sai Central Trust took a double page spread in a Bangalore newspaper to promote the SSSS Hospital there. (The hospital was not even mentioned editorially by the newspaper, however).

Sai Baba’s teaching that service (seva) is of no spiritual value if it seeks the limelight just does not fit with such publicity. For example, In Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 28, p. 341, Sai Baba says one should not do service to impress. In Vol. 1 he deplores”the egoism and poisons the Seva of even veterans in the field, who go about extolling themselves as founders and promoters” (p.97) Does he not extol himself as a founder and promoter? In a book he wrote – Jnana Vahini – Sai Baba criticises “self-aggrandisement; when self holds sway over the heart, no deed worthy to be styled Service can emanate.” (p.34).

So what about Sai Baba’s self-aggrandisement?
Compare the unlimited self-centeredness of what Sai Baba calls ‘My’ water projects and his repeated detailing of how ‘He’ did it with, say, Bob Geldof’s world-famous Food for Ethiopia projects and his praise of all the donors and taking no credit other than ‘it was my good luck to be there at the right time and place’! Does it become ‘The’ God avatar constantly to put himself on a mighty pedestal and take all the credit for everything good, while denying any of his demonstrable —failings? Sai Baba’s continued declarations and clear directives insist that the Sathya Sai Organization is not to seek publicity other than through the example of the good behaviour and selfless work done by the devotees who are its members. He has time and again insisted that any kind of self-advertising is entirely foreign to the true spirit of selfless service. But he is the greatest sinner as to putting himself forward as the greatest selfless helper of mankind… this is the narcissistic blindness and unquestioned self-righteous yet self-defeating rubbish that only a ruler totally isolated within a court of spineless sychophants can achieve!