Born as Sathya Narayana Raju in Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, Sathya Sai Baba was worshipped and set apart from – and way above – all other living persons by his followers. His self-claimed date of birth on 29/11/10926 is contested as his school documents indicate it was 4/10/1929. This supposedly began even in his early childhood in the late 1920s when he was already reputed to have had miraculous powers or helpers. He wrote a booklet in his early teenage called ‘Hisstory’, which a teacher helped him with in very poor English where he made huge claims for himself (this booklet has been destroyed by Sai propagandists and cannot be obtained, while they have covered its original up by publishing a long modern version called ‘Hisstory’ culled from various sources. Note, please, that I, Robert, would much appreciate getting a copy or scan if anyone has the original!). He came to be regarded, not as a God, but literally as God Himself, the One and only living divinity and the deity to which all other deities must defer. He was already became the focus of a kind of mythology even in his youth. Having set himself up as a God from the announcement of his ‘divine mission’ in his youth, Sathya claimed he was a reincarnation of the famous Mahastran saint, Sai Baba of Shirdi and thereafter took the name Sathya Sai Baba. Many Shirdi devotees did accept this, but a majority today do not accept the claim. Through his life he strove virtually to be all things to all people and he was regarded by many as a fascinating figure, if only because his claims of divinity which he surpassed all known limits and his many alleged and apparently unprecedented miraculous powers. He frequently explained that he was wholly pure and divine, ever-present everywhere, all-knowing, and almighty.
Sathya Sai Baba instructed many people to worship him, including his own parents. He willingly accepted worship on all occasions (e.g. particularly during the fire ceremony (arathi) which was usually done before him twice daily. People bowed before him constantly, lay flat on the ground at his bare feet and often kissed them. For decades he had welcomed this ‘padanamaskaar‘ … then suddenly declared that this was not right, for it created a distance between him and the devotee, so it should be discontinued. Nonetheless, after some months, he again began to accept it willingly… a typical Sai Baba ploy, to say one thing and do another.
In addition to this, he sat on many thrones that made for him, rode in various chariots, including for years a magnificent and costly golden one (even though he also hypocritically criticised this as a misuse of funds), and for decades he swung once yearly on a silver swing to be worshipped as the re-embodiment of Krishna. In days gone be he had allowed himself to be garlanded frequently, even accepting a many dozens of huge flower garlands around his neck egat one time. This practice he stopped, and one would assume that it must have been a relief not to have to bear their occasional huge weight. Only infrequently was he garlanded in later years, taking the garland only symbolically over the head then giving it back. Still, he repeatedly insisted that worship of himself is the easiest way to liberation in this era, and declared time and again that he wilfully came to earth to show us the way to supposed ‘self-realisation’, meaning the direct experience of our own identity as one with God! He long preached that everyone has the divine spark and everyone actually is God, though remaining unaware of it. From his unrelenting Christmas 2000 discourse onwards, however, he contradicted his former pronouncements that everyone end everything had a spark of divinity and declared that some people are demons and without any ‘divine spark’… especially those many “Judases” who criticised him and accused him of sexual abuses and other crimes, such as being a present accomplice to murders in his bedroom in 1993.
Through most of his life, his following grew and became one of the largest organised personality cults in the world. In his ashrams, he was at the focus of a constant crowd of thousands of persons, which swelled up to over a quarter of a million on a couple of his biggest birthday celebrations, though he claimed there were three million present, this was shown to be a complete physical impossibility- Such vast exaggerations of numbers of followers was typical of Sai Baba and of all official Sai propagandists. After his 70th birthday in 1996 he became far less available for personal contacts due to so many visitors with which he could not cope. In 2002, he suffered a permanent major hip injury which bound him to a wheelchair, whereupon he gave far fewer interviews. In March 2011, he was hospitalised and given a pacemaker after a heart operation. His organs failed one after another, lungs, kidneys, liver and brain. His death, due to being taken off life support, was announced on April 24th, 2011 while funeral travel and other arrangements were already well underway. He wrongly predicted own his death for several dates all many years later – see this chronicle over the events from his hospitalisation to funeral linked to many press and other sources.
Sathya Sai Baba Deceptions Exposed 