Sathya Sai Baba buried alive?

LATEST – THE END IS NIGH?

The latest of a series of increasingly worried – but more realistic – reports seems that the great myth about Sai Baba living into his 90s, as he has predicted – so “I can finish My Task” is about to be blown apart.

FURTHER:  (April 20) “Speaking to Deccan Herald, Ananthpur District Collector Janardhan Reddy, admitting that the police have been put on an alert, said: “I have been regularly interacting with the doctors and they have expressed concerns over his condition. We are getting ready for any eventuality.”

Previously, the developing narrative about Sathya Sai Baba, in his critical condition of ‘living death’, took an incomprehensible grotesque twist. Several major Indian news outlets – like Indian Express, and India Today – consider this newsworthy enough to publish.

That anyone can seriously even suggest that anyone should be buried ALIVE is so outrageous that one has to say “only in India” could this occur. Yet the history of Indian ‘saints’, ‘godmen’ and other supposed holies apparently does actually recognize the value of such an event – the wilful interment of a living person by his own followers. As zeenews.com explains ““Sajeeva Samadhi” is the practice of burying enlightened souls while they are still alive. The report about his Samadhi gains credence as members of the Sathya Sai Central Trust held a meeting today to discuss the Trust’s affairs in the wake of the Baba’s deteriorating health.” Knowing the clandestine and deceiving methods of the Sathya Sai Central Trust and most ashram officials, no possibility can be excluded.

What could be the possible motive of such a crime? One thought that springs to mind is that Sathya Sai Baba may already have expired and this is a way of disposing of the body while pretending he lives on. Rather far-fetched, but most of the Sai Baba story is like that. The background of all inventions by Sai Baba officials and followers are the demands of the guru that his every word must be fulfilled and his self-declared identity as God the incarnate Deity of all deities (any yet more extravagant statements) must be believed by all who wish the boons he may or may not give in an imagined afterlife. To have to admit that this self-proclaimed God Incarnate died of organ failure without being conscious would be a death-blow to the aspiration of many of his institutions, which rely on massive donations for their continuance. It is a matter of jobs and business too… the local areas around the ashrams have flourished while foreigners with fat purses have flocked to see the ‘living embodiment’. Could perhaps some think it would be best to entomb him before the government demand an autopsy on him or something, then he can continueue to inspire as some kind of once-living god idol who can then ‘speak from the grave’ to devotees and heal the unhealthy (as Sai Shirdi Baba supposedly does, accumulating vast funds from supplicants to this day)

The text of an article printed in two on-line news outlets

All this is impossible to sustain, for he has stated he would lift a range of mountains and fly unaided through the air (among many other preposterous things), yet devotees try to sustain some vestiges of his credibility, a most important issue being when he will die. He has predicted on two documented occasions that he will die aged 93, and on other likewise that he will live to be 96 (one must allow for the Indian method or reckoning age from inception, not birth – i.e. ca. one year different to the standard western way). But then he is almost certainly on his deathbed already. So to bury him alive, it has been mooted in the press, would mean he could live in his grave until the time of his predictions!It would be held that he had ‘ascended’, thereby reaching the state of mahasamadhi (in which it is believed one becomes unified with God). However, he has all along claimed that he was always entirely one with God at all times! Figure that those who have time to waste!

Fantastic as this will all seem to all but the deeply indoctrinated followers (and there are millions of such), no such wild speculation has ever crossed my mind, despite my knowing from 18 years leadership in the Sathya Sai Organization, how broad and deep is the truly lunatic fringe around the guru. As I have suggested earlier, some mythology, some ‘famous last words’ or the like would be invented to cover-up the fact that Sathya Sai Baba is now a dumb, semi-conscious ‘basket case’ whose life is on a thread without any of the powers or divine healing or miracle accomplishments so many have claimed he must possess. The preposterous ‘sanjeeva samadhi’ ploy illustrates the nature of much of the sick-minded doctrine with its weird speculations and simplistic Pollyanna moralizing that Sai Baba has used to attract most of his following.

Miracle in Puttaparthi? As to the much sought-after miracles to surround his death, one has already been produced in a handy location (Puttaparthi) – by what means no one can investigate (it stopped fairly soon). It has apparently brought crowds of devotees to thankful tears in their ‘sackcloth and ashes prayer’ routines… crowding the shop-owners’ locale to the point that police has to deploy. One can confidently expect more of the same kind of thing from now onwards.. and for many a long year to come!

India Today took up the story, as follows:-

For those who are unable to make head nor tail of this kind of belief and phenomena, see

My investigations of the same ‘nectar-oozing’ phenomena

Sai Baba amrita (nectar) at Srirangapatna orphanage

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Information on the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization
See also Devotee attacks on the Sai petition and petitioners