Sathya Sai Baba’s promises part 2

Promises of good or improved health: Sathya Sai Baba is known for making many personal promises to people in interviews, as reported in many writings about him. One of his stock phrases is, “I will look after everything”, and another is, “I give you a long life, healthy life, happy life!”. (He made both of these ‘promises’ to me without my asking anything of him. Other assurances he gives are, “I shall protect you”; “I will build an iron wall around you!” and “I give you liberation, you will not have to take on another body!”

Does the available evidence support these ‘divine promises’? Because people long to believe is always fulfilled , there are a lot who write that they have been cured ort helped, though one often suspects that it is a matter of improvements happening that would have happened in any case or which are a result of the ‘placebo effect’. V.K. Narasimhan, who attended Sai Baba for 20 years, told me he had NEVER seen a genuine healing due to Sai Baba, and he was himself a case in point. Sai Baba had promised to cure his eyes, but he ended up losing sight in one of them! This for his most important experienced editor who worked ceaselessly for his publications.

When his promises are not fulfilled, how does one explain it? One argument frequently heard among devotees is based on what the long-term and very close follower, Dr. John Hislop, wrote in his book ‘My Baba and I’. Hislop asked for permission to publish it, but was told by Sathya Sai Baba he must wait 20 years. However, after 2 years, Hislop received a message from Sathya Sai Baba saying he should publish straight away. The credulous Hislop had searched for one guru after another, including Yogananda, Krishnamurthi, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and U Ba Thin leaving each in disappointment. He became a keen rationaliser of Sathya Sai Baba’s often impenetrably unclear or fantastic assertions, and puts it down to Sathya Sai Baba having a cosmic perspective and eternal sense of time that no one can understand (as Sathya Sai Baba had asserted). This became standard doctrine among the majority of disappointed, bemused and betrayed followers so as to save what faith they can after years of major involvement and personal commitment etc.

Sai Baba’s simpler promises like “I will give interview tomorrow”, “I will visit your home”, “I will come” are frequently not followed up, as one can read in some of the more balanced and somewhat frank accounts available. The idea is that Sathya Sai Baba has divine sense of time which differs from ours – so when he says ‘yes, interview tomorrow’ he may mean any time in the future etc. A thousand years is as nothing to him! This sounds deranged indeed- but if one accepts that Sathya Sai Baba is God Almighty Himself, then it seems more credible? Not so, for these are simple deceptions, because any omniscient and caring God would have to know how each person understands what he promises them and would follow up. It is now common knowledge that a considerable number of suicides have resulted after Sai Baba’s failed to keep his word. A whole family of five was poisoned by the father (and few survived) after Sathya Sai Baba’s broken assurances. These he makes very freely and often sweepingly in interviews and also in discourses about protecting all who put their faith in him.

Other suicides: Dominic Kennedy wrote in The Times (27/8/01) of three British followers of Sathya Sai Baba who took their own lives: “an investigation by The Times today discloses that three British men have apparently taken their own lives after becoming followers of the miracle worker. Two of them were encouraged to believe that he could cure their medical problems. One of those also said that he had been touched intimately by the Sai Baba.”

Sai has said, “Love my uncertainty”: Sathya Sai Baba capitalises on people’s uncertainty and ignorance of anything to do with real truth by ever reaffirming to people that they are uncertain and ignorant.  When, in so many instances, he does not keep his word, he puts the blame on the person he made promises to for not having asked from the heart or that something about them was not genuine, or that they were simply not ready or worthy to receive his grace etc. Sathya Sai Baba has insisted that he alone knows the right timing for everything and acts accordingly. Sathya Sai Baba’s visible and invisible rewards (i.e. as promised for the future) are supposed exceed the punishments he is thought eventually to mete out to those who accept positions of trust then seriously let him down. So all his promises have to be taken in the context of this unintelligible cosmic plan which he claims alone to know and effect… and this actually makes them as unreliable in terms of human experience as anything can be. He can’t lose and you can’t win, as long as you accept his vast claims at face value!

More on failed promises to follow soon. Meanwhile see…
Sathya Sai Baba’s promises – part 1

Sathya Sai Baba makes many promises

Sai Baba promised Rs. 100,000 to orphan parents

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya (or Satya) Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization