Sathya Sai Baba’s death and inscrutability

Secrecy and clandestine cover-ups Hardly a single important circumstance concerning the recent health, hospitalization, treatment, or the time and immediate cause of death of Sathya Sai Baba has not been surrounded by secrecy, disinformation and ill-concealed controversy and power struggles between contestants for a role in the multi-billion dollar financed goings-on. This can be seen in a large number of newspaper investigations and statements from involved parties.

Considering the huge controversy about his illness, about the amount of drugs he was taking for such a long period (some say 6 months) and the causes and manner of his decease, there should certainly have been a post mortem with a coroner’s report too, but no such process has been allowed. So far there is no mention anywhere of even a death certificate being issued for Sathya Sai Baba – surely a normal practice which is again being abrogated. Perhaps the most sensitive issue for those involved in the continuing series of cover-ups reaching to high levels of government, is that of the date and circumstances of the ordering of his casket coffin – facts which Sathya Sai Central Trust blue-facedly denies, despite the documentation and full testimony on the extremely suspicious sequence of events being available on TV channels in India. That Sathya Sai Baba allegedly died on Easter Sunday is also suspicious because he was on a life support system which was removed at some point. This removal would have been tantamount to causing death. It was done to coincide with Easter Sunday – i.e. Christ’s supposed ‘resurrection’ day. This look very like an attempt to hang onto those foreign devotees who misguidedly believe that Sathya Sai Baba WAS Christ (including  US Dr. Michael Goldstein – international chairman of the Sathya Sai organization – see him state this very short clip (filesize 260Kb)).

This highly suspicious use of deceit, ‘smoke and mirrors’, is not an unusual state of affairs in the ashrams and institutions of Sathya Sai Baba, which have for decades been most strictly censored and controlled through powerful sanctions ranging from exclusion from the various private colleges, hospitals or Sathya Sai organizations up to and including actual execution by police! Endemic unaccountability is the mark of Sathya Sai Baba himself and of his private fiefdom (Prashanthi Nilayam having long been a township totally under the rule of him and/or his minions). The financial power house built up over the decades, the Sathya Sai Central Trust, is a prime example of a totally unsupervised body which has had complete freedom from import and export duties and taxation, it having not even had to present reports on its transactions to local or central government. It has been openly admitted by Andhra Pradesh authorities that it never has presented any such reports.

Source books for Sathya Sai Baba's warning of 'inscrutability'

How did Sathya Sai Baba manage to avoid serious scrutiny? From the very beginning of his so-called ‘mission’, he had to be protected from ill-wishers in Puttaparthi and other places. Those who formed around him believed him to be a divine personality of some kind, and many already regarded him as a great master of all knowledge and obeyed his wishes, knowing that he could respond most unpleasantly (as Smt. Vijayamma has described at length in her book ‘Refuge other than You I have none‘). Sai Baba was already instilling into everyone that he was beyond human understanding, that one should not try to find out about him but worship and believe instead. He made many pronouncements about his Godlike inscrutability, which served to stop followers from making any judgements about his observable actions (other than to interpret them as ‘beyond our understanding’ and as expressions of love of a depth which we cannot begin to appreciate or figure out! (See inset list of sources).

It was impossible for anyone to barge into his presence even from fairly early days onwards, as he was constantly surrounded by devotees who kept a sharp eye on newcomers and guarded him in various ways. When foreigners began to arrive, the security gradually tightened so that, by 1984 when I arrived at Prashanthi Nilayam, his quarters were carefully guarded and he was isolated from ashramites except during his darshan walkabouts and interviews, or the occasional visit to some inaugurate some new building site within the ashram. Tape recorders were not allowed at interviews and there were many rules restricting those present. In short, he controlled all around him from very early on. By 1987, the darshan compound was encircled by higher walls and no cameras were allowed within, unless specifically permitted by the officials. When, in 1993, the infamous murders and executions took place, the security was suddenly stepped up by many degrees. Use of metal detectors through which all had to pass to get into the daily ritual, stringent body searches (on both men and women) and rejection even of people carrying pens, floppy discs, seating support… anything which could imaginably be used to harm ‘Swami’.  The government provided armed soldiers to be present at all times and a large security office with a team of trained experts and undercover (plainclothes) agents were employed (see here). His ‘mystery doctrine’ has served him very well to keep all examination he did not want away from himself as the one major scandal and crimes around him have come and gone, culminating in the manner of his confinement, nature of his extreme body-wasting illness (AIDS perhaps?), let alone a post mortem examination of his gender attributes (i.e. hemaphroditism). No wonder only his boyfriend and roommate Satyajit decided rigorously over who could examine him in the Intensive Care Unit. (Note: Satyajit found the going so hot that he has withdrawn all claims and retired to Mumbai)

The same clandestine approach is unashamedly applied throughout all Sathya Sai Baba institutions – all schools and colleges, his intensely private hospitals  and not least, the Sathya Sai Organization. Some of the many ways in which this operates can be studied here

<Sai Baba’s unaccountability: no answers to many questions

The ashram rules are rather draconian, they can be read here – one may see why some have jested that the ashram is  “a concentration camp”