Sai Baba teachings childsplay, claims Phyllis Krystal
Posted by robertpriddy on October 28, 2011
Phyllis Krystal, the prolific and most uncritical propagator of Sathya Sai Baba’s “teachings” claimed that they are so clear that a child can understand them and follow them. Were that so, it would be a real problem for anyone who would take them seriously in an adult world! However, the much-trumpeted teaching are superficial when they are simple… known to most devotees only in the form of aphorisms, a few sayings and statements. When they are not simple outpourings of the wonderful ‘eternal’ nature of universal love for God (i.e. for Sai Baba himself not least) and not least its otherworldly benefits, they are often little more than penny proverbs (eg. ‘see, hear, speak no evil’, ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’, ‘nature is the best teacher’). However, those who study the discourses and books by Sai Baba in any detail will soon find his “teachings” to be an amalgam of all manner of religious speculations, overwhelmingly of ancient Hindu origin or taken without acknowledgement from Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Shivananda and other Indian figures. The teachings are often inseparably intertwined with mythological stories, or contemporary sayings and beliefs that circulate among the Indian populace, spiced with what amount to Indian ‘urban myths’ (known to those who have mixed with the lower classes of Indians, such as I did when a young officer cadet on a ship with an Indian crew). Sai Baba also promotes diverse and often mutually inconsistent Hindu theologies and philosophies with convoluted speculations, from the Vedas to advaita… not as “clear and simple” as children can understand, nor even at least 90% of adults. This cult of the simple and psychologically superficial is Krystal’s forte.
Phyllis Kristal is known for having based her life and work exclusively on Sai Baba, writing books with spiritual advice of a simpler but as unrealistic content and Sai Baba usually expressed. She has no known qualifications as a psychologist or recognised practitioner of professionally accepted therapy, which is all too evident from her writings and also from her various talks to audiences of Sai Baba devotees. Her writing can be classified as New Age non-realism, the excessively positive thinking (Pollyanna) approach to problems, seeing them as overwhelmingly due to wrong thinking and attachment to desires and habits, nothing more. Her titles encapsulate the essence of her philosophy (‘Cutting the Ties that Bind’ and ‘Taming Our Monkey Mind’) She also made it known to devotees – including those who were defecting after the wave of sex abuse testimonies appeared on the Internet, that she accepts that Sathya Sai Baba molests young men and boys sexually, but attributed it to the fact that he is God and God can do anything since his ways are inscrutable. This belief has been stated in terms of (pseudo) Hindu theology by a person calling himself Datta Swami, as shown on a recent blog here.
See also Phyllis Krystal: Sathya Sai Baba believer
Sathya Sai Baba Deceptions Exposed 
chrisdokter said
Though I heartily agree with the general purport of your posting, Robert, I think it is not altogether fair to say that Phyllis Krystal has based her life and work exclusively on Satyha Sai Baba. Fact is, she was well into higher planes of consciousness for a few decades already when she turned into an unquestioning follower of Sathya Sai Baba.
To illustrate my point I copied the following excerpt from her current website:
‘In the late 1950s, Mrs. Krystal and a close friend embarked on an experiment to make regular contact with an inner source of wisdom, which they eventually called the Hi C for Higher Consciousness. Since then, by consulting the Hi C, a visualization method involving the use of symbols has evolved. These techniques can be used to help those who wish to release from attachment to – or reliance on – any outer security or control, thereby freeing the individual to seek help and guidance from the Hi C rather than from these outer sources.
For more than 25 years, Mrs. Krystal has given seminars in numerous countries – primarily in Europe – to share the method. In addition she has offered individual sessions to outline a program for achieving more personal freedom.
As word of this method spread, Mrs. Krystal received numerous requests to put it down in writing so the techniques could continue to help others, if and when she is no longer available.
Her first book, Cutting the Ties that Bind, was published in 1982, followed in 1990 by Cutting More Ties that Bind. A workbook to accompany these two books was also published. Her other books are Sai Baba, The Ultimate Experience, an account of her experiences with the Indian Master Sri Sathya Sai Baba; Taming the Monkey Mind; Re-Connecting the Love Energy; and Cutting the Ties of Karma. In addition two other titles have been published in India: Let’s Thank God and Ceiling on Desires. These books have been translated into many languages, thereby enabling the method to be shared with even more people worldwide.
To further the expansion of the method, in 2008 and 2009 Mrs. Krystal offered a more intensive teaching course, which will be repeated during 2010 and 2011 for those who were unable to participate in the first series, as well as other interested people.’
Mrs. Krystal, now 97 years of age and residing in Zurich, Switzerland, is still in the business of spreading her method, to the tune of 540 Euro per session, no less!! I had the dubious fortune myself to be the recipient of her ‘individual’ counsel back in the late eighties, when she was one of the main figureheads and ‘middle-(wo)men’ between His Holiness Sai Baba and His more common, well-educated Western devotees: to sum my interview with her up in a nutshell, it was little more than the cultlike, spiritistical drivel you can expect from any con artist from all over the world, with the possible exception that she seems so self-deluded that she utterly believes in her ‘high connections’. By not retracting her support to His Late Greatness Sai Baba, and not addressing the very serious charges made against the notorious master and/or downplaying them, she is in my opinion guilty of a grave sin of omission.
Personally I find it both sad and ironic, that Mrs. Krystal, as so many other ‘otherworldly’ celebrities, seems to have so eerily much in common with her more down-to-earth equivalents, especially in their never ending desire to accumulate exorbitant amounts of money. In itself this is maybe not surprising but the incongruence between her adamant advocacy of practicing ceiling on desires on the one hand and her greed and implicit self-aggrandizement on the other strikes me as particularly poignant. The fact that Mrs. Krystal demands such ludicrous fees for advice she proclaims does not even stem from her individually takes the whole business to a height of (a high C of) hypocrisy, only topped by amoral mortals like her master himself, as far as I am concerned.
Chris Dokter
Yes, Chris… I agree with it all. But Mrs. Krystal’s first book (Cutting the Ties that Bind) was written long after she became a Sai devotee. Its contents are virtually all Sathya Sai Baba doctrine, clothed in her interpretations of this from her New Age interest in symbols, the I Ching, the meaning of dreams and ‘visualisation’ techniques and much else yet more esoteric. Nothing ground-breaking nor in the least new to me – over simplistic and too unself-critical, I recognised -as I had already long studied symbols, dreams, visualization… and meditation (as did countless others who became seekers from the 50s and 60s). She was into reading about ‘high C’, I can agree. But otherwise? Well, she first heard of Sathya Sai Baba in 1972 and was impressed by his eyes in a book were very penetrating, whereupon she became “fascinated”. She had an apartment as soon as the third Roundhouse opened (We stayed in it shortly thereafter). I was present in the interview in 1986 where Mr. and Mrs. Krystal first gave Sai Baba at copy of her Baba hagiography, somewhat boastfully called “The Ultimate Experience” (nothing in the book gave any sense that Phyllis K. had any ultimate experience, not did my subsequent contacts with her convince me that she had any form of higher awareness, in fact – more to the contrary. Further, her husband was a multi-millionarie – who collected crystal glass (!!) – and had a huge and very valuable collection. It was totally destroyed, along with her house, in the San Fran. earthquake. She was a Sai-vip and no mistake, but while teaching (preaching) on ‘Ceiing on Desires’ in Copenhagen she was living at the very most expensive hotel in that city! She was born in UK and her way of speaking and behavioural traits told me instinctively just where she was coming from (it’s like that sometime with people have have grown up in the same environment) By then she had taken on a layer of new persona in the US an accent and the near-gushing Californian New Age style (on stage, at least). Her presence was such that jarred with any idea of her having become very enlightened. I felt repeatedly that she was playing a preset role ( if she had reached any “high-C”. it must have been quite temporary, as I find to apply to virtually all cases of exceptional states of consciousness until otherwise proven).
Robert