There can be a major difference between telling facts truthfully and knowing what is true. A witness who has been unknowingly misled – or who eagerly trusted and believed may tell of an experience most honestly, but this may well still misrepresent the actual states of affairs. Someone can be truthful about their subjective experiences, while these experiences may remain very far from penetrating to the truth of things. Not only may the experience be the result of framed and mind-distorted perceptions but it may conflict with the evidence both of systematic investigation, collective experience, factual knowledge and reason.
In the case of Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi, very considerable investigation is invariably required to remove or dispel mere appearances, the more so when secrecy is always the order of the day concerning his actual behaviour most of the time. Faced by concerted conscious deception, cover-up and deceit, it is very hard to get to the true state of affairs. For those who have developed the ‘true believer’ and blinkered self-programming and self-denigrating mentality of an emotional and dependent devotee, the task is almost insuperable. It require a figurative ‘smashing of the mirror’ of one’s own preconceptions and even a dear part of one’s self-image (i.e. that one could be deceived so long and so much).
Some examples of the results of this in my own case are seen here
Sathya Sai Baba Deceptions Exposed 