‘God’ patronising the poor in India?

WHO IS SURROUNDED BY POMP?
Note that Sathya Sai Baba is ever surrounded by material comforts and has had to do nothing whatever for himself for his entire adult life. This is in total contrast the lot of the vast population. Rather, Sathya Sai Baba speaks a great deal about the need to regenerate India’s faith in it’s glorious past, religious culture and to reform the country entirely. Now, the glory of the past is a miasma, unsupported by historical research. But Sai Baba is right about the need for an entire reform, if dissatisfaction with the system by more than half its population is anything to go by. However, the authoritarian guru-ridden religious and otherworldly undemocratic culture Sai Baba stands for is probably the last thing that would create a humanitarian and caring society… for both religious faith and superstition of the Sai Baba type – throughout India’s caste-ridden and violent past – have failed signally so far.

While many Indian gurus and swamis like Maharishi, Maharaji, Osho Rajneesh, Ravi Shankar etc. travel abroad to seek followers and financial fortunes – Sai Baba does not need to travel as the money flows in from abroad after four decades plus of intense proselytizing to foreigners. This comes not least from his original claims not to ask for anything, not to accept or own money, but purely to heal and bless, teach and give. At first he lived what appeared to be a life of considerable renunciation and the ashrams to which he invited foreigners were very Spartan and tough going… which he recommended as a cure for the soft life. All that has changed completely. The ashrams and surroundings at Puttaparthi and Whitefield have undergone a sea change – top class hotels, a gigantic property boom and higher and higher standards. The Indian middle classes were long the mainstay of Sai Baba, and their standards have prevailed. Sai Baba is known to all to favour the rich, speak more to those ladies with very luxurious saris. And to foreigners whose qualifications and riches are known to (and carefully monitored) by his staff. No one has seen a ragged and truly poor person enter his interview room for decades.

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Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and his Worldwide Organization
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(Spanish version PETICIÓNPÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES)