The following inane account of his encounter with wild animals in East Africa by Sathya Sai Baba was delivered to an adult audience 22-8-2007. His increasingly senile Divine wisdom pours forth, and endless stream of bliss (as they all say)! Presumably the devotees all sat agape while learning that elephants liked bananas and wanted more, that they swished their ears and scared off mosquitoes? And that there were “happy” zebras and giraffes:-
I have never visited any foreign country except East Africa. Even in East Africa, I spent most of My time seeing wild life in the forests and observing the good qualities of wild animals. There I saw large hordes of elephants; that looked very beautiful and majestic. I offered bananas to some elephants, which they accepted very gladly and wanted more of them. Their ears were as big as a winnowing pan. When they swished their ears, mosquitoes sitting even at a long distance would fly away.
There were many zebras and giraffes also. They were happily moving in the forest. None of these wild animals causes any harm to man. They will be inimical toward us only when we approach them with the intention of harming them. Otherwise, they will be friendly with us and follow us like pets.
I saw a group of lions sitting at one place with their young ones. Even when we were very close to them, they did not show any feeling of enmity. In this way, all the wild animals behaved in a very gentle manner.
Your evil qualities are reflected in the animals. If your feelings are good, the snakes will also not harm you even if you were to lie down by their side. Otherwise, your own pet cow may gore you with its horns.
If a person is angry with you, what is the reason? It is only reaction, reflection, and resound of your own feelings. It is only the evil qualities of man that bring about a change in the gentle nature of animals, birds and beasts. Today, there is hatred and conflict even between two sons of the same mother! What is the reason for this mutual hatred? Their evil qualities are responsible for this. We should never give room to such qualities. (Sai Baba).The big point (supposedly?) was” “None of these wild animals causes any harm to man. They will be inimical toward us only when we approach them with the intention of harming them. Otherwise, they will be friendly with us and follow us like pets.”
He might have thought differently if he had been hunted by a hungry pride of lions, by starved crocodiles or other of those “gentle pets”! But then again, with their exclusively good qualities, how could they ever harm a hair on the Divine Being?““One should never give room to evil qualities” is the stunning message of this posing ‘Vishnu Avatar’. The quality of his omniscience and psychological insight comes out when he explains the reason: that they are responsible for mutual hatred between mother and son etc.. How can anyone who is past primary school age take this Sai-babble seriously?
How far this is from the modern scientific understanding of aggression as it is described in Wikipedia! (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggression )There one reads of aggression, for example,
“Aggression is a perplexing phenomenon. Why are people motivated to hurt each other? How does violence help organisms to survive and reproduce? After two centuries of theories and technological advances, psychologists and other scientists have been able to look deeply into aggression’s biological and evolutionary roots, as well as its consequences in society: ”
Wikipedia goes on to classify seven main types of aggression, of which the first one is “Predatory aggression: attack on prey by a predator. “One of Sathya Sai Baba’s most publicised aphorisms is “Nature is the best teacher” which is also one of the vaguest and most fanciful he has managed so far! One thing he proves definitively is that Sathya Sai Baba is NOT the best teacher! See more on why so here.
Sathya Sai Baba Deceptions Exposed 