Three deaths at Sai Baba’s Prashanthi Nilayam

The dome on the right had collapsed

The Eternal Heritage Museum is a large and costly wasteful building showcasing world religions and promoting Sathya Sai Baba as God Incarnate and he to whom all religions related, though they know it or not! In 1990, the museum  was in the final stage of building and decoration when one of the three concrete domes collapsed and crashed down through three floors, crushing threes devotees who were doing an installation of an art work there. This occurred three days before my wife and I left for Norway.  Two friends of ours (Michael Oliver and Bonnie) were killed. The third death was another Californian from the Santa Cruz area, an artist Jean, whose 12-ft. mosaic monolith/stupa the three were erecting.

There was the usual attempt at cover-up of this incident, considered by officials and VIP devotees as bad publicity for Sathya Sai Baba. Guards surrounded the small hospital where the one temporary survivor, Michael Oliver, was taken. It was hard to gain entrance to see our dying friend. He had to be taken to Bangalore in a Volkswagen bus taxi, and the journey unexpectedly too 11 houts, during which Michael died after tremendous suffering (having torn off his plasma infusion apparatus). The whole incident was treated as if nothing had happened at all, and no information was allowed to go out about it. So much for Sathya Sai Baba’s “divine protection of his devotees” once again!

My friend V.K. Narasimhan, who showed extreme caution in saying things that he knew or assumed might displease Sathya Sai Baba (at least in public!) asked me to talk at one of his lectures, just after the three Americans had been killed in the Museum accident in November, 1990, because I had known Michael Oliver so well. VKN had already held forth about death and loss – but people were evidently very confused as to what he was talking about, having never mentioned the accident. When I spoke I naturally asked if people knew that the accident had occurred the day before. Many people said “No, no.” So I explained the matter. After this in private, VKN said “Well, I suppose it didn’t matter that you told them, but Swami does not like anything of that sort to be talked about”. At the same time, he would speak freely to me in private of what he was unable to publish.

Read the full details of this incident here

Sathya Sai Baba bi-location

Another prophecy from the ‘Suka Nadi’ palm leaf scrolls about Sathya Sai Baba is listed by saibabaofindia.com:-

· He will show Himself in many places simultaneously, though He will actually be in one place and there will be many divine acts and manifestations.

COMMENT: The ability to bi-locate has been claimed for other spiritual figures, such as  the famous Catholic Pater Pio of Pietrelcina, Italy (1887-1968, now Saint Pio of Pietrelcina). Parapsychologist Prof. Erlendur Haraldsson tried to investigate these highly controversial claims of Sathya Sai Baba’s bi-location but, though he could not substantiate them, he lent them some credence even by presenting the claims which could not be tested in any way. All accounts he obtained were anecdotal and/or hearsay, some being very meagre, others more detailed. Haraldsson classified such reports as ‘apparitions’ as in para-psychological  terminology, many of which have been recorded by para-psychologists (over 10% of questioned persons in general are supposed on statistical grounds to have such an experience at least once in their lifetime).

My views on such miraculous accounts are based on much questioning  of devotees (mostly Indians) through two decades. When reporting their experiences, inaccuracies, exaggerations, vagueness, sloppy observation, unquestioning reliance on hearsay and the zeal to convince others are all too common. These most extraordinary claims of Sathya Sai Baba having appeared in his physical person in two places at once would need most extraordinary evidence to be taken seriously, but such is completely lacking.

In dreams, visions and apparent ‘visitations’, the form of a distant person may well appear to people. Another likely explanation of perceived ‘visitations’ by Sathya Sai Baba can be the same as those now considered to have been causative of experiences of incubi, witches, the devil, spirit bodies, persons returned from the dead, UFO abductions and many other apparently waking phenomena. Sleep paralysis combined with a vivid dream while the mind experiences a waking state causes dream contents to be perceived as real and physical. This condition has recently been understood much better by neurologists and is quite common, often being connected with the various causes and kinds of narcolepsy.  Another prophecy made was:-

· He will have the power to die whenever He wants.

COMMENT: Actually, virtually everyone has the power to end their own lives whenever they wish – it’s called suicide. If Sathya Sai Baba ends his own life by his own will, whatever means used, then this must surely rank as suicide too in a moral and a legal sense. That matter apart, he has given at least two totally incompatible predictions of when he has chosen to the “leave the body”, (in published discourses) in particular either at age 92/3 or at 96. (See here)