The continuing massive Indian furore about Sathya Sai Baba has not yet reached the international news media to any noticeable extent. The fact is, India’s richest godman is hardly known at all except to Indians and what amounts to a relative handful of foreigners! Despite this the Sai Baba fanatics, who abound in India and whose delusions are reproduced faithfully by the majority of the Indian press (since it is politically correct there to do so, and can have bad consequences if not done) make the most laughable claims about the extent of Sai Baba’s following, as the Google results here show.
How anyone in their right minds can talk about trillions of followers, when the entire humanity through all the ages does not amount to a dozen or so billions is a good question. Perhaps these devotees include as worshippers all the countless living beings that have existed? It is not foreign to Indian religious mythology (taken as gospel by vast numbers of them) to consider animals as worshipping God… even bees and ants sometimes!
Barry Pittard (former teacher at Sathya Sai Baba’s Brindavan College) comments amusingly on a recent news bulletin which stated: “the spontaneous upsurge of prayers, bhajans, namasmarana, candle light processions of millions and millions of His devotees all over the globe for His very early and total recovery”.
I invite my dear reader to use the simple expedient of sticking his or her head out the nearest window just to check whether they can see any of it ….. If you should enjoy processions, some you may have to wait for Saint Patrick’s Day in, say, New York, Chicago or Dublin, or the Carnival in Rio, or the Berlin Love Parade, or some such.
The fantasy statements about himself by Sathya Sai Baba far exceed those made by his followers, as one sees from a run through of several recent Pittard postings. Or one can also go to Wikiquotes for a small sample.
The Sathya Sai Organization, in which I served (with difficulty but hopes of improvements) as national leader of Norway for 18 years, always pressures its members to recruit more (which is largely unsuccessful as the huge majority of followers prefer mostly to stay outside and avoid its continual authoritarian demands, crass moralising and strong pressures to conform totally). Above all, the numbers must be inflated one way or another – it is a matter of prestige to most leaders (thinking they will get extra blessing and privileges). Thus, the cult of exaggeration – instituted and carefully sustained through decades by Sathya Sai Baba himself – is fully accepted. See Sai Baba’s exaggerations: The Numbers’ game – the wilful falsification of numbers by Sathya Sai Baba & his organization or also Sathya Sai Organization – False Propaganda
Now at last the Sathya Sai Central Trust – a double-accounting tax- and duty-free secret and clandestine power-broking body par excellence – is coming under some scrutiny by Indians themselves. Critics’ contention that it is totally unaccountable is now widely confirmed. Yet one has to doubt whether this is being done out of ethical principles or a desire to find out how to grasp a part of its assets when the patient eventually expires. See Sathya Sai Baba fully silenced, even maltreated and imprisoned?
Sathya Sai Baba Deceptions Exposed 
You must be logged in to post a comment.