Sathya Sai Baba – BBC Radio interview on his death

A SUMMARY OVERVIEW HERE SHOWCASES THE MAIN CONTENTS IN A CONCISE WAY WITH SHORT TRANSCRIPTS, VIDEOCLIPS AND STILL IMAGES FROM THE FILM

01) SATHYA SAI BABA’S ‘PRODUCTION’ OF THE GOLDEN LINGAM02) HIS COLLAPSE AFTER THE STRAIN & HIS EXPLANATION AFTERWARDS 03) DR. MICHAEL GOLDSTEIN DISCUSSES THE SEX ABUSE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST SAI BABA 04) DR. MICHAEL GOLDSTEIN STATES THE SAI ORGANISATION’S FAITH ABOUT SAI BABA 05) ISAAC TIGRETT DISCUSSES THE SEX ALLEGATIONS AGAINST SAI BABA 06) INDIAN EX-MINISTER OF EDUCATION, M.M. JOSHI, ON THE SEX ALLEGATIONS AGAINST SAI BABA 07) INTERVIEW WITH THE EX-HOME SECRETARY OF ANDRHA PRADESH 08) VERY CLOSE DEVOTEES TESTIFY – SAI BABA’S SEX ABUSE AND DIRE THREATS ETC. 09) THE US STATE DEPARTMENT WARNING ON SATHYA SAI BABA CONFIRMED BY THE BBC 9) THE US STATE DEPARTMENT WARNING ON SATHYA SAI BABA CONFIRMED BY THE BBC 10) TRANSCRIPT AND FILM TESTIMONY BY A LONG-TERM FOLLOWER WHO WAS SEXUALLY ABUSED

Click on image to learn more

Here is a transcript of the radio programme in which a presenter interviews Ranu Mehta Radia of the Sathya Sai Baba School in Harrow, North London and journalist Mick Brown.

“Now, Sathya Sai Baba was an influential Indian guru who attracted followers from around the world. (his origins are summarised) then the announcer states that Sai Baba invested in a “water irrigation system for the whole state of Andhra Pradesh”

Comment: That is ridiculously bad reporting. His followers dominated a drinking water system – not at all for irrigation – to an uncertain number of villages (near to Puttaparthi), but only in the relatively limited Rayalaseema area. It represents a small faction of the whole of Andhra Pradesh and a very minor percentage of the state budget for water supplies. How come professional journalists make such over estimations and blunder about easily investigated facts?

Interviewer: We spoke to Ranu Mehta Radia, a devotee of Sai Baba, who founded a school run on his principles in Harrow. She described the experience of seeing the guru at his ashram.

Radia: When you first arrive there it seems that you’re all in a slumber, and, and suddenly, you know, this awakening comes. Where it’s like he’s
pulling away all the the material desires way from you and you suddenly feel very light and he takes you on a completely different consciousness.



Comment: This is called the ‘honeymoon’ period, when – after endless waiting and countless prayers and yearning (often for years) the devotee – already invariably convinced of his divine nature – gets to see him at last. It seems like fulfilment, to be in the presence of God. Yet more so when he looks at one, and again blesses one, allows one to touch his feet… then perhaps even get an interview and see him perform his ‘miracles’ like a conjurer. One feels as if one is walking on air… the lightness is a result of one’s own longings and desires being fulfilled. He does not remove material desires as she says – followers fight long and hard to do so, and the result are not all that visible to long-term observers of devotees! The talk about raised levels of consciousness is all subjective, of course… it is not noticeable that Sai followers are even a cut above the ordinary as regards awareness, sensitivity, compassion… nor are they lacking in selfishness, as any visit to the ashrams will confirm (I can say this honestly after 18 years trying to assist them as a leader of the Sathya Sai Organization in Norway). Sai Baba did not change anyone, people change themselves (often only in imagination or in boast) but those who believed in him got a kind of initial boost.

Interviewer: All this just by being in his presence?

Radia: Absolutely and he comes out with this great energy aura around him.

Mick Brown: He was certainly the most famous Indian swami of recent times.

Interviewer: The journalist Mick Brown visited Sai Baba’s ashram as part of the research for his book ‘The Spiritual Tourist’.

Mick Brown: A lot of his reputation was based on the claims that he could perform miracles and these miracles ranged from what may appear to be the fairly mundane of materializing various devotional objects – materializing what’s called vibuthi, this holy dust, from his fingertips up to the full-blown 24-carat miracle you might say it of resurrecting people from the dead and healing the sick and so forth. In fact if you think of all, pretty much all the the miracles that were claimed of Christ, these were claimed at one time or another of Sai Baba.

Interviewer: And his following was enormous, wasn’t it?

Mick Brown: Yes, it’s very difficult to calculate just how enormous, I mean estimates range from 3 mill around the world up to 10 million, a following that spread through Europe, America, Australia and not just the sixties’ hippies, as it were, who made the pilgrimage India in the 60s in search of enlightenment, I mean his followers in the West would include psychiatrists, doctors, professionals and so – yes a very large and extensive network of Sai Baba groups and Sai Baba centres around the world.

Interviewer: What did he actually look like (as?) he moved amongst the people in that way?

Click on image to read his original debunking article on Sathya Sai Baba

Mick Brown: Fairly tubby – as he grew older – and ah he wore a long flame-coloured silk robe – ah – which trailed on the floor as he walked and his most distinguishing characteristic was the aureole of frizzy afro hairstyle, almost like Jimi Hendrix.

Dr. Michael Goldstein (recorded from ‘The Secret Swami’ documentary film): “We believe that – ah – Sri Sathya Sai Baba IS Jesus Christ, that Sri Sathya Sai Baba IS Buddha, that Sri Sathya Sai Baba IS the founder of all of the world’s religions. Sri Sathya Sai Baba has always been l-ah, ah – God.”

Interviewer: Did you think he was a god?

Radia: I think over the 35 years that I have been following him I would say that he was certainly a representation of one of the most divine people that I have encountered.

Comment: In other words, Radia did not believe Sathya Sai Baba’s central claim, the he was and always is God, who created the Universe and who sent Jesus to earth. This was required of all bona fide members of the organization. Obviously she baulked at answering the question properly, and no wonder –since he has been so widely exposed to be a charlatan and ignorant of so many facts – that she did not want to be taken for some kind of deluded fanatic in believing his oft-repeated claim of being omniscient, omnipotent etc.

Interviewer: Of course, his foundation had a lot of money, some say 5.5 billion pounds in that foundation, do you think he was guilty of exploiting his followers in any way?

Radia: Having observed him for 35 years, he has lived a very, very simple life. If people felt that he was probably getting the rich to give, it was for a very very good purpose.

Comment: This is contradicted by the opulent apartments he has himself decided to built for himself, the fact that he never has to lift a finger for anything whatever and that he had done no hard work since he got his ashram back in the 1950s. He just talks, walks, talks, walks… and also rides everywhere in the most expensive cars available, and on chartered airline jets. He in definitely not averse to a good spread, as is known from his visits to members of his Trust for meals. He is visibly the opposite of a sannyasin in his behaviour, but the deluded think they see saintly self-denial despite everything. Further, he tricked people into donating, largely by giving them cheap trinkets (often rings with what he called ‘diamonds’ and large one in) and they were so grateful that they donated many, many times the value back in money, work, time and energy. Not one Sai Baba diamond has ever been proven to be genuine by any professional assayer! But the contrary has! (See here)

Interviewer: There have also been some allegations of sexual abuse from some former acolytes. How did you feel when you heard those allegations?

Radia: That was absolutely shocking, there was absolutely never never any indication that there was any abuse. You k now I have come into contact with a lot of students throughout my years, particularly in the early days when they were using my home as a – as a – transit and there was absolutely no indication that he was interested in any kind of sexual advances towards the students, in fact you know he loved them to bits.

Comment: The excessive denial pattern is there, as usual with those who have invested their lives in believing this guru to be holy. A person who only could possibly have seen Sai Baba most infrequently in interviews and at his walkabout darsans was in no position to judge what he did the rest of the time, especially since she is a woman and Sai Baba mostly steers very clear of them in his daily doings- it is a man’s world in the ashrams! Nor would students be likely to tell her – a fully signed-up believer – what they had experiences because the consequences could be very grave. Ex-students were murdered in his bedroom and many claimed some of them had been sexual abused too. Besides, UNESCO investigated the Sathya Sai Baba sex abuse claimants, as did the US State Department and the BBC World film makers (“The Secret Swami“. All warned against him and they could not be challenged in any court! No UN body has ever had any connection with the Sai Baba set.up, despite constant attempts by followers, since the UNESCO advisory

Mick Brown: The allegations of sexual abuse I think took on real heat with the advent of the Internet when people began to come forward and exchange information and this culminated in very serious attempts to try and bring Sai Baba legally to book for this.

Interviewer: Did it have some of the charactististics of a cult? Were there dangers for those who were drawn into the following of Sai Baba?

Mick Brown: I personally think it did have the characteristics of a cult, certainly a personality cult around him, and that was one of the things that I felt most strongly in the ashram and that I found most oppressive. In a sense people almost believe in that whatever they had done, whatever they were doing, whatever they were about to do was somehow being refracted through the desires or wishes or intentions of Sai Baba.

Interviewer: What do you think the impact will be at his death?

Radia: Oh, we’re going to keep it alive so I think you know that there’s a very long legacy now for the er Sai – Sathya Sai Baba and I think he’s left immortal teachings for you know people who followed him

Interviewer: Rania Mehta Radia on Sathya Sai Baba who has died aged 84.

(from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b010mwlv/Last_Word_29_04_2011/)

Mick Brown is a journalist and author. He wrote about his visit to Sathya Sai Baba’s ashram in  ‘A Spiritual Tourist in India A Personal Odyssey through the Outer Reaches of Belief. London: Bloomsbury. 1999. ISBN 0747542821.’
He wrote a major article exposing Sathya Sai Baba after meticulous research – ‘Divine Downfall’ in the Sunday Telegraph.

UK Minister Tony McNulty Finished? Indian Guru Sai Baba Link Should Be Probed
Swindling politician Tony McNulty association with the UK Sathya Sai Organization
See the UNSECO Media Advisory warning against Sathya Sai Baba due to sexual abuse allegations and the Notice of Withdrawal by UNESCO from an educational conference in Puttaparthi
http://web.archive.org/web/20031003020809/http://www.unesco.org/education/highlights/media_advisory.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20001207234100/www.unescobkk.org/news/aceid-withdrawal.htm

Sathya Sai Baba was exposed long ago

Outlook India have produced another excellent article about Sathya Sai Baba which deserves wide circulation. The first posted her yesterday as a support to the cause of clearing false gurus out of India, in which countless thrive, even though some are honest and are genuinely devoted on their actions to serving their followers and the country. Here it is:-

Rahul Singh - an Indian rationalist

Holy Smoke And Mirrors
Exposes or not, godmen will thrive, public figures will kiss their feet
Rahul Singh

Why are we so gullible and so full of superstition? No other major society has such a variety of outlandish—and thriving—swamis, gurus, yogis, babas, acharyas, bhagwans, astrologers, palmists, numerologists and faith healers as ours does. Some put on intellectual airs (Rajneesh), others claim “miracle” cures—even for cancer (Ramdev). All of them are, without exception, wily con artists and spiritual fraudsters, eager to ferret money out of you. And if you are an attractive woman or a fetching young boy, quite a few will attempt to seduce you (many succeed, Nityananda did). Yet, millions of Indians, even the highly educated, flock to them. They probably command more followers than organised religion does. When India won the T20 World Cup, Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh, both Sikhs, did not dedicate their success to Guru Nanak, but to some baba belonging to some dera. And what about Sachin Tendulkar, idolised by an entire nation? As the photos in the newspapers show, he turns out to have been an ardent follower of the recently departed Sathya Sai Baba, who is probably the most successful “godman” of them all—at least fiscally, having built a colossal empire estimated at a mind-boggling Rs 40,000 crore, most of it foolishly forked out by credulous Indian devotees. I knew that Sunil Gavaskar had been a disciple of the fuzzy-haired Baba. But Sachin? He has come down a notch or two in my estimation.

The first person to expose Sai Baba was the late Sri Lankan rationalist Abraham Kovoor. He decided to look into the Baba’s famous claim that when the Japanese head of the Seiko watch company visited him, he had “materialised” a Seiko watch, the only specimen of which lay in a Tokyo vault. Kovoor wrote to the company, asking for details. The company wrote back that nobody from the company had visited Sai Baba and that no such specimen of a watch existed in a Tokyo vault. The story had been cooked up by one of Sai Baba’s advisers! When Kovoor published his findings, there was a deafening silence from the Sai Baba camp. Kovoor’s seminal book, Begone Godmen, is essential reading for those who still believe in these fakes and liars. In the 1970s, Kovoor undertook “miracle exposure” tours of the country, during which he demonstrated, with the help of magicians, exactly how our “godmen” performed their “miracles”. I was at one such demonstration on the Bombay University campus, where the magician accompanying him showed, to everybody’s glee and amazement, how light bulbs could be chewed and swallowed, objects could materialise “from thin air”, and a person could walk barefoot unharmed on burning embers—all of which are standard fare for magicians and have rational explanations.

There was also a simple trick to the framed pictures of Sai Baba shedding vibhuti (holy ash). The pictures’ framers would use aluminum frames and dab a mercuric chloride solution on them. Upon coming into contact with moisture, a chemical reaction would occur and grey ash fell—vibhuti! Kovoor also conclusively exposed astrologers. When the so-called science of astrology was born hundreds of years ago, he reasoned, the concept of light taking time to travel was unknown. In other words, the planets, thousands of miles away and moving at great speed, were not where the eye sees them. Since astrologers insist on knowing the precise time of birth and the position of planets, their predictions, therefore, had to be wholly wrong and their “science” completely bogus. After Kovoor died in 1978, Basava Premanand (who died in 2009) took up the fight. He, too, went after the redoubtable Sai Baba. Since the Baba claimed to materialise objects of gold, Premanand filed a writ petition against him in the Andhra Pradesh High Court under Section 11 of the Gold Control Act, which mandates permission from the gold control administrator for manufacturing gold! Of course, nothing came of the petition, given Sai Baba’s enormous political clout, but the point was made. The trouble is, despite the damning exposes of Kovoor and Premanand, too many Indians will keep believing that Ganesh idols can drink milk and that a natural ice formation is the lingam of Lord Shiva and to be worshipped as such. And ministers will continue to consult astrologers before taking momentous decisions, superstitious women will add a letter to their names (Shobhaa, Jayalalithaa), and swamis will merrily consort with women who have infertile or impotent husbands—while Dr Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi genuflect before the body of Sai Saba (Would Jawaharlal Nehru have done that? Never!), thereby lending respectability to irrationality and quackery.

(The writer likes to debunk godmen and is a member of the Rationalists Association of India – http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?271620)

Note: The fanatical hacker who works for Sai Baba has again worked on denying my browser access to this website. However, as I pointed out yesterday, it is an ineffective – though highly illegal – attempt, easily overcome as this posting demonstrates to the hacker.

Sai Baba’s minion former Chief Justice Bhagwati showed total disrespect for justice

full text of arrticle from Times of India entitled ‘Sai Baba, my god, dictated my every single judgment’ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-toi/all-that-matters/Sai-Baba-my-god-dictated-my-every-single-judgment/articleshow/8130906.cms

In one of the most noteworthy interviews yet given in connection with Sathya Sai Baba, former High Chief Justice P.N. Bhagwati – to the Times of India – makes clear he is certainly not a man of justice or anything like upright and honest and is not even his own man, as the title of the Times article makes fully clear:-
‘Sai Baba, my god, dictated my every single judgment’. This seems to mean Sai Baba made him signed the infamous letter signed by Bhagwati along with PM  A.P. Vajpayee attacking (unnamed) vested interests who were accusing Sai Baba ‘recklessly’. It was itself reckless, being based entirely on belief and without any preceeding investigation whatever (see the facts here).

The comments so far show that Bhagwati has no supporters, no doubt because of the gigantic contravention of justice he displays and his mendacious replies about the murders, about which he most definitely knew full well.

As a director on the Board of the Sathya Sai Central Trust he should have a round figure as to the trust’s assets… but he claims ignorance.  Worse than fishy.

Hari Sampath, (Technology and Management Consultant) the original petitioner to the Supreme Court against Sathya Sai Baba – whose petition was advanced by the famous lawyer Kamini Jaiswal but which was rejected out of hand and the evidence destroyed (but for one vital copy!) – has posted the following questions to Bhagwati. No doubt there will be no answer received:-

Mr Bhagwati, I have some questions for you, although from your interview I have already got all answers. I had given a formal complaint to the CBI against Sai Baba in March 2001, and moved the Supreme court of India through a Public Interest litigation under article 32 of the constitution ( hope you remember this PIL law as you were the one who initiated it). From your responses it is very clear you have no respect for the law or the constitution, and you clearly state that any man/woman “revered” by millions as divine should not be investigated for any crime. Have you heard of the legal maxim “Justitia non novit patrem nec matrem; solum verrtatem spectat justitia. (Justice knows neither father nor mother; justice looks to the truth alone.), or for that matter “audi alteram partem” ( hear the other side), which are the basic pillars of natural justice ? If you have a case before you with even eyewitnesses who say Sai Baba raped a young boy , and if your judgment is ” what is the point of investigation, as I think he is god”…I think you must be locked up in a lunatic asylum. When the whole world is aware of the fact 6 murders took place in Sai Baba’s bedroom in June 1993, you- a Sai Baba trust member, who had extensive confabulations with the then home minister SB Chavan to close the case, now claim ” I was in Delhi and am not aware of it, I don’t know” , you must either be delusional or a fraudster. Shame on you Bhagwati, its a national disgrace that you were Chief Justice.

This surely deserved the replies it got:-
JUSTICE LOVING (Putaparthi) replies to Hari Sampath
1 hr ago (12:33 PM)
Proud to know people like Hari Sampath stood up against powerful criminals and ashamed to know that country produced CJI like Mr. Bhagwati. I agree that in the public interest, Mr. Bhagwati should be locked up in a lunatic asylum.

Sam Rai (India) replies to Hari Sampath
2 hrs ago (12:22 PM)
All the teachers at the Sathya Sai School and University in Puttaparthy and Whitefield are ex-students who were appointed by Sathya Sai Baba himself! Each of them was at one time a Form boy. Form boy is a term used in his school and University for boys who were sexually abused by Baba! Because they were sexually abused at a very young age most of them have become Gays! And these Gay teachers are now continuing to sexually abuse younger students, and this culture is continuing there!

P.N. Bhagwati shows signs of having ‘lost his marbles’ now that he has no Lord and Master to tell him what to do (he imagined), as he claims Sai Baba did in every detail, as many devotees often claim was his mystical way of communicating! His tearful talk shows he is emotionally unstable and his statements show he is mentally unstable too. Worst of all, India has had to live under his corruption and all that of Sathya Sai Baba too. It leaves behind an Augean stable that will take decades to clean up, if then!

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You can see a selected list of prominent signers of the Petition here.

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