The Dalai Lama is known world-wide for his courage and often illumining and largely acceptable teachings, but above all for his life, which is truly a message of non-violence and standing for the truth and what is right. His righteous (dharmic) life has been in strict adherence to non-violence, seen in all he has done since his inauguration, and through the tremendously difficult decades through which it has been incumbent on him to try to protect and better his people. He was a most worthy and humble Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Sathya Sai Baba, on the other hand, virtually boasted that it would go to himself, but it never did or could, considering his reputation and claims. Sathya Sai Baba was definitely not revered and respected worldwide by the vast numbers of people and governments as is the Dalai Lama, nor is he nearly so well-known to most of the world. While Sai Baba claimed to be God in Human Form, the Dalai Lama is revered as a bodhivsattva (i.e. a reborn holy person), but has himself never promoted the claim. He even gave an interview to Playboy Magazine in the 1970s where he disarmingly said he was ‘just an ordinary person’. Hardly a ‘holier than thou’ preaching hypocrite!
How did Sathya Sai Baba compare with the Dalai Lama? The Dalai Lama has always made himself as accessible as possible to people without them having to kowtow. If one bows to him, he returns the bow more deeply. He is open to all kinds of questioners, answers directly and frankly and in intelligible, accurate and respectful words! It would have been fitting for Sathya Sai Baba to bow to the Dalai Lama, but he bowed to no absolutely one… he was far too high and mighty for that! Yet some of his most deluded followers – like N. Kasturi and V. Balu – once wrote about him as having great humility! They were totally taken in by his show and calculated charm. His being unapproachable by all by those who waited for endless hours, days and weeks until he picked them out as acceptable was known to all. Everyone was well aware that he would never stand the slightest bit of criticism from anyone and those who then dared to put a question – if not simply ignored by him – often received devious answers, usually quite vague and open to several possible meanings.Yet he full of criticism of others – in general in many of his discourses. He would often joke at the questioner’s expense so as to earn a laugh from the interview group or he put-down the questioner by making fun of the question or the person or referring to their personality (eg. famously “you have a mad monkey mind!”, “you fight with your husband/wife all the time” and much more like that). Nothing like the bowing humility and respectful interchanges of the Dalai Lama!
However, there is a similarity between the two that comes of being primarily religionists – holding to a belief that our problems will never be solved by society, only by individuals:-
“We will never solve our problems simply by instituting new laws and regulations. Ultimately, the source of our problems lies at the level of the individual. If people lack moral values and integrity, no system of laws and regulations will be adequate. So long as people give priority to material values, then injustice, inequity, intolerance and greed — all the outward manifestations of neglect of inner values — will persist.” Dalai Lama
However, this is a very one-sided statement, since almost the entire educated world is aware that individuals are themselves very largely a product of their society and that law is essential in the development of civilization and any well-ordered and secure life. This is a form of naivety nurtured by scriptures and moral theologies, which have for millennia been shown to be incapable of solving “our problems”.
The Dalai Lama has real humility and enormous courage – putting himself in the front line – for decades and traveling the globe almost without protection, let alone from gunmen and soldiers, though he is now generally protected by foreign governments’ security forces almost wherever he goes, one of the most repressive major regimes in the world having made itself his sworn enemy. By comparison, Sai Baba was protected by weapons-bearing soldiers and had 20 full-time plain-clothes security people since about 1994 – soon costing well over Rs. 200,000 a month, after the infamous murders in his apartment, even though he claimed he was not a target. And who do you think pays? These spies mingle undercover in the crowds. V.K. Narasimhan gave me the facts about this already in 1996. While at the 70th birthday, someone I knew was present when a plainclothes Indian drew a gun and threatened a crowd which he considered to be trespassing where not allowed. He was wrong, and was reported to the authorities but nothing whatever was done about him. No one could get into Sai Baba’s presence with the tiniest of items that could conceivably be used as some kind of weapon – not even a pen or computer diskette. Was all these this for the sake of the devotees or Sai Baba? It was no more for devotees than are the metal detectors, the intensive body searches of men and women going to view Sai Baba (darshan) or the fact that Sai Baba hid daily and at night in a fortress-built locked apartment palace. He was guarded by additional Israel-trained commandos – sometimes visibly armed with automatic weapons, and he travelled in a bomb-proof vehicle. Though he promised many person he was about to visit their countries in person, he never dared to leave Indian after his one visit abroad (to visit Idi Amin in Uganda!). Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama has convincingly lived non-violence in all he does (not just in constant torrents of repetitive words as does Sai Baba) and has never had to conceal himself nearby in a room in his own ashram while four close attendants were assassinated with his tacit (and later public!) approval, or condone subsequent cover-ups and quashing of all legal redress to the victims’ families.
Sai Baba claimed that his word was the absolute law in all things and – once spoken – would inevitably come to pass. Yet his will was always done by mega-obsequious officials in the ashram. Also this “ever-tranquil, totally unaffected” Sai Baba dropped his guard and showed everyone his hidden hand in his Xmas 2000 discourse… namely, that by damning his critics to constant rebirths in many shameful lives, he was not compassionate or loving of everyone (as he had until then always claimed even of his detractors). More recently, he damned various Indian newspaper editors to the same fate. Has the Dalai Lama ever damned or threatened anyone like that? The answer is a resounding ‘No!’
The Dalai Lama, however, is never patronising nor does he harangue the whole world for being impure and under the sway of inhuman and demonic forces, as did Sai Baba constantly. Sai Baba talked down to people from a position of claimed eminence, figuratively, he spoke on them from a great height. He constantly pointed out his as his own works and service while hardly ever giving any credit to those who actually did everything instead of him. His boast about his achievements – that no one did one thousandths of what he did (Christmas 2000 discourse) was most embarrassing, but not to his blind and self-indoctrinated devotees. Others did all the work and provided the funds for all to which he so selflessly lent ‘His Precious Name’. He celebrated himself and his birthdays like no other event, claiming it is the devotees who want it. But the fact is, known to those who speak with frank ashramites, that almost only he thrives on it; most residents dreaded it. It was Sai Baba’s annual super self-praise event at Prashanti Nilayam, where he rode on his bizarre silver-encrusted motorised chariot-cum-jeep. All that mattered was numbers and show! The Dalai Lama always was and remains worlds apart from all that, as everyone knows full well.
Sai authorities were desperate to get the Dalai Lama to endorse Sai Baba, They have cynically promoted the idea that the Dalai Lama somehow endorsed Sai Baba (which he NEVER has done), simply because he once gave a lecture at the Sathya Sai International Centre in Delhi (Jan. 3, 2004), where he generously mentioned Sai Baba just once as follows: “I am happy to see that Sathya Sai Baba has said that his mission is not to convert people to other traditions. He would like a Buddhist to be a better Buddhist, a Muslim to be a better Muslim and a Hindu to be a better Hindu.” He said no more about Sai Baba! The Director of the Centre where the Dalai Lama spoke, Dr. Karan Singh, coupled the names of Dalai Lama and Sathya Sai Baba in his address. However, the Dalai Lama emphasised that those of the Buddhist faith ought to stick to Buddhism, and Muslims to their faith, and it is a fact that both of these religions firmly and totally reject the possibility of anyone being God Incarnate. Mahayana Buddhism even rejects the existence of a God Creator. This seems one good reason why – in his self-proclaimed Godhood as World Saviour and Avatar – Sai Baba never so much as mentioned the Dalai Lama once!
Sai Baba sweepingly berated just about everyone in the world in one way or another from his platform but the Dalai Lama never uses any such denigratory language, even about the despotic and mendacious Chinese government, the relentless persecutors of the Tibetan people and himself.
Please consider the following list of questions as a little quiz. The 16 questions make for a fitting corollary to the ‘sixteen special qualities’ that Sathya Sai Baba claimed he alone possessed as the Full Avatar of God in this era!
If the answers are not immediately evident to you for one reason or another, they are given below the questions.
1) Which of the two – Sathya Sai Baba or the Dalai Lama was/is always humble and treats others as equals
2) Which of the two was open to questions and never makes fun at the expense of his questioners?
3) Which of the two was open to genuine dialogue with his critics and is respectful of them.
4) Which of the two sought publicity only for the cause of a suppressed people and culture, not for any personal praise or self-interest?
5) Which of the two actively practiced non-violence and was never been involved in covering up murders on his own premises?
6) Which of the two reveled in pomp and tinsel, constantly sitting on silver thrones, golden chariots?
7 ) Which of the two constantly emphasised his service to others, his self-sacrifice and that no one was doing one thousandth of the service he was doing?
8 ) Which of the two laid claim to total spiritual and moral superiority over all living persons on earth and in every other realm?
9) Which of the two blessed golden statues of himself, used donations to build costly ‘museums’ and other buildings glorifying himself with blazoned images of him and his sayings?
10) Which of the two was subject to the abuse and libel of a powerful state which employs torture and killing of his supporters?
11) Which of the two is protected by security guards at all times and cannot be approached by anyone except his servitors without body searches and the use of metal detectors?
12) Which of the two was never patronising and never harangues people for being impure and under the sway of inhuman and demonic forces?
13) Which of the two avoided the press or replying to them in any form unless vetted in advance – demonised journalists who questioned him as spreading slander – and also descried investigative press writings about himself as ‘false flights of the imagination’?
14) Which of the two was known to associate with criminals, such as the brutal dictator Idi Amin or the corrupt embezzling exile Bettino Craxi?
15) Which of the two was accused of a large number of Indian and foreign boys and young men – with substantial and detailed testimonies of sexual abuses?
16) Which of the two was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and which of them was mentioned as a candidate to the honour only by a few supporters?
Should there be a shadow of a doubt as to the correct the answers, they are:
1) Dalai Lama 2) Dalai Lama 3) Dalai Lama 3) Dalai Lama 4) Dalai Lama 5) Dalai Lama 6) Sathya Sai Baba 7) Sathya Sai Baba 8 ) Sathya Sai Baba 9) Sathya Sai Baba 10) Sathya Sai Baba 11) Sathya Sai Baba 12) Dalai Lama 13) Sathya Sai Baba 14) Sathya Sai Baba 15) Sathya Sai Baba 16) Dalai Lama!
see also http://barrypittard.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/china-courts-dalai-lama-olympic-good-spirit/
Sathya Sai Speaks Volume II p. 140-1
In a recent blog here (scroll down some way or click on 
Sathya Sai Baba Deceptions Exposed 
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