Seeking the truth about Sathya Sai Baba

There can be a stark difference between what one tells about honestly as one perceived and interpreted and – on the contrary – the facts as based on independent and more penetrating investigation. An honest witness who has been unknowingly misled will misrepresent actual states of affairs. One can be truthful about ones subjective experiences, while these experiences may remain very far from the truth of things which lie behind (or otherwise hidden from) those experiences. Not only may the experience be the result of doctrinally framed perceptions but it may conflict with the evidence of both collective experience and systematic rational investigation.

Commonly shared perceptions and beliefs are often supported and reinforced largely by so-called ‘group effect’. This is group pressure to conform in belief and outward behaviour to what the group, organization, sect or cult stands for. Group effect is founded on what is most agreeable in a social environment – i.e. agreement rather than disagreement. Finding that someone agrees with us – about a favourite film or book for instance – is undoubtedly one of life small pleasures. But now scientists appear to have put their finger on why we take such delight in being of the same mind. Discovering that we are agreed with lights up the brain’s pleasure centres, they say. (Daily Mail) Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) in collaboration with Aarhus University in Denmark have found that the ‘reward’ area of the brain is activated when people agree with our opinions. The study, published in the journal Current Biology, suggests that scientists may be able to predict how much people can be influenced by the opinions of others on the basis of the level of activity in the reward area (See here).

Obviously, to be truthful is not the same as knowing or stating what is actually true.  The bending of one’s perceptions and distortion of the meaning that can fairly be read into them is achieved through indoctrination, which can take many and varied forms – from the blatant to the most subtle and invidious. When one has developed a mindset which is largely organized by spiritual doctrine or religious faith, the truth of any matter is always more or less clouded and impenetrable. Those who have a very wide and well-balanced mindset will usually be able to interpret their perceptions in a less subjective manner than those who lack training in comparative studies, critical thinking, and psychological self-understanding.

In the case of Sathya Sai Baba, most considerable investigation is required to remove or dispel not only rumours but what seem to be solid facts, and all the more so in that censorious secrecy, and cover-up operate in his movement concerning his actual behaviour most of the time. Faced by concerted conscious deceit, it is very hard to get to the true state of affairs. For those who have developed the ‘true believer’ and blinkered self-programming and self-denigrating mentality of an emotional and dependent devotee, the task is almost insuperable. It require a figurative ‘smashing of the mirror’ of one’s own preconceptions and even a dear part of one’s self-image (i.e. that one could be deceived so long and so much). For those – the majority of followers – who have no or little opportunity of meeting him and observing him close up, or who do not know or have the confidence of persons close to him, the task of getting to the truth is virtually impossible.

Though I was sometimes very close to being a ‘true believer’, I always had some reservations about a number of his statements because of my scientific and philosophical background.  Not being able to learn many things about him from anyone – nor what he meant by his unclear words and discrepancies of word and act – became especially frustrating. Increasingly I considered events around him in the ashrams and in the Sathya Sai Organization to be ‘fishy’ or unsatisfactory and improperly explained. However, I was not severely jolted out of my complacent acceptance of the main import of Sathya Sai Baba’s life and work and much of his more acceptable Hindu-based teaching until I became one of V.K. Narasimhan’s very few close and trusted companions. His many privileged observations of Sathya Sai Baba – combined with his inside knowledge of what went on around him – gradually whittled away my mistaken interpretations of many things, until the bombshell struck I learned from him of the facts about the infamous police cold-blooded murder of devotees in Sai Baba’s own bedroom. This I have described elsewhere (see links to the documented facts and views on this) and – after the spell was first broken – the aftermath of this is described in my subsequent long investigations. Freed from the self-programming that is inevitable if one becomes positively involved with the Sai movement – my attitude necessarily became the more questioning (I allowed myself to investigate the sexual abuse allegations in depth) and so progressively more critical of Sathya Sai Baba and a great deal of what he now represents.

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PLEASE SEE THE SAI PETITION AND DECIDE WHETHER TO SIGN IT

Gross fraudulence: Gerald Moreno tries to ridicule Robert Priddy

On Gerald Moreno’s countless hundreds of anti-Priddy websites, blogs and comments, few show such patently manipulated (i.e. falsified) screen captures than the one shown below. [Yet he took care to accuse me – also falsely – of fraudulent screen-caps, which were actually made from Google caches, which differ from the original site in details, and which I have reduced in size to save space, and in which not a single word of his was altered]

Exposing The Anti-Sai Activist: Robert Priddy

Laurens Van Der Post – The Night Of The New Moon:

Just how gullible was Robert Priddy when he was a Sai Devotee for 17-26 years?
Comment: firstly, Moreno tries to make an issue of how long I was a Sai follower (he has written page up and page down to develop this petty theme of my supposed ‘deception’. Such niggling is how Moreno tries to ‘prove’ a lack of integrity of my entire character. The fact is, there are many degrees of commitment involved. I first heard of Sathya Sai Baba in 1954. I learned more about him in 1971. Around 1978 I became interested in Shirdi Sai Baba (though with considerable reservations as to the claims about him). Only in 1983 did Sathya Sai Baba enter my awareness strongly enough to say I became a would-be follower (not all are equally definitive, not all accept everything uncritically.. as in my case). I was the de facto leader (i.e. organizer and leader of all events in the Oslo group) and in Norway from 1983, the pro forma centre leader from 1985 until about 1996-7 and the national leader throughout until 2000. All that explain the variations in dates, which Moreno pettily tries to make into a big issue. Moreno continues (black bold text):-

The answer is very gullible. For example, Robert Priddy published (in his book “Source Of The Dream”) the following scans to Laurens Van Der Post’s “The Night Of The New Moon” book-cover and claimed that one could easily discern the form of Sathya Sai Baba in them.

The manipulated (falsified) scan on Gerald Moreno’s website made as yet another reprehensible but vain attempt to ridicule Priddy

Notice how Robert Priddy enhanced the color on the edited scan and had to carefully shape Baba’s hair from the clouds?

Comment: This is really gross of Moreno! I never enhanced anything, the photos were processed by professional publishers before being put in my book. I reproduce – below the falsified image Moreno posted -, the exact replica of the photos which appear identically in three editions of my book “Source of the Dream” (Sun-Sky Publications, Samuel Weiser Inc. and a Portuguese edition), without a jot of enhancement. The cut-out version was to help readers discern what attracted our attention (in the unusual situation where it came to our notice). Instead, Moreno darkened the images and made one dise different in contrast to the other so as to be able to claim he could not see Sai Baba (in either image!). Where he got the image from with the Penguin logo on I can only guess, I never published such an image myself. Moreno continues:-

I looked long and hard at the images and cannot see Sathya Sai Baba in them. I suppose if one were desperate enough, one could see Sathya Sai Baba in the clouds (no matter how vague the perception). However, these scans show how gullible, naive and “backward intellectually” Robert Priddy was when he was a Sai Devotee.

About the alleged form of Sathya Sai Baba on the book-cover, Robert Priddy said:
“A second leela, which we felt was a form of recognition by Baba for our carrying out regular study of his teachings, occurred similarly one evening when we plodded on with our reading, even though we were very tired. My eye was suddenly drawn to the form of Sathya Sai in the clouds of an evening sky on the front cover of a book that I had recently read. The book is a deeply spiritual account of the life and death in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp by Laurens van der Post, titled Night of the Moon. It is curious, too, that the night of the new moon is known in India as the night of Shiva. The figure of Sai, leaning forward as if to dispense vibuthi, can be figured out from the background.” (Source Of The Dream, ‘The Universal World Teacher’, pg 212) Robert Priddy was one of those gullible, naive, “ignorami”, “backward intellectually” and “ignorant peasants” when he was a Sai Devotee for 17 years…

COMMENT: Now ever inconsistent Moreno himself decides that I was a devotee for 17 years… which is basically correct, as I only reckoned myself such from 1983 until 2000. “Ignorant peasant” and an “ignorami” hardly describes me, considering that I was the top philosophy graduate at the University of Oslo and lectured in social science and philosophy (tenured) for most of my professional life before I went to India. If that qualifies me as an ‘ignorant peasant’ and ‘backward intellectually’ readers must decide. Note that Moreno leaves out the word ‘new’ in the title “Night of the New Moon”, which is a significant point (a lapse or intentional distortion?)

In that time when the truth about Sai Baba has hardly emerged in public and only a very few came to learn the astonishing and depressing facts, I was in the company of hundreds of Ph.Ds – mostly Indian but not all – and dozens of pro-Sai writers and a great number of other educated devotees who related very similar experiences of ‘seeing’ the form of Sai Baba in many things (which indeed he insists every devotee should always strive to visualize and see everywhere and in everything!). My friend – Sai Baba’s distinguished editor –  V.K. Narasimhan showed the form of Sai Baba’s head on a bowl of cream to many devotees who visited his apartment. There are many images showing Sai Baba’s form in many other objects, such as in ritual fires. (See a supposed ‘appearance’ of Sai Baba in a ritual homa fire at Prashanthi Nilayam) Dr. Jack Hawley enthused in his book about seeing Sai Baba before him, Sandweiss, Hislop, Murphet, Krystal… all regarded this an important phenomenon. Sai Baba himself has given the teaching (see at foot of blog for source references).
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Moreno, however, claimed he saw Sai Baba in the flesh in New Mexico… and took it for a miracle straight off.

I was not so gullible or naive either, as I rejected a whole lot of the stories I heard, and was privately most amused by many of the beliefs of a large number of truly uncritical and mindless devotees. The fact is, I was systematically deceiv

ed by Sathya Sai Baba and his entire cadre and most of his following, as many people around the world were. I am no longer deceived, but far too many still are, and especially Gerald Moreno, who tries to ridicule me further:-

(Priddy) … who believed in Avatars, lilas, divine manifestations, gnomes, trolls, fairies, possessing demons, elves, UFOs, extra-terrestials, leprechauns and elementals.

Comment: I believed for some years that Sai Baba most likely was an avatars – as he so rigidly claim and which millions still believe (unfortunately). That belief is a requirement of all members of the Sathya Sai Organization. As to earth spirits, I wrote: “There is a great wealth of testimonial evidence from the whole of the world and history that belief or faith – involving intense emotional or mental preoccupation of some kind – can open the experience of visions, apparitions and apparently miraculous phenomena.” I did not positively affirm their existence, but the likelihood that they may exists as science has not been able (or even tried) to explain them. But Moreno wants it to be quite otherwise. See my article on ‘elementals’ and why modern science has begun to provide experimentally-based explanations of these phenomena. Note that Moreno believes in miracles… and many other doubtful phenomena (which I do not and never have – such as crystals, kundalini, healing mandalas etc.)  He is very cagey about everything else he believes as he knows that to make this public would be very embarrassing. Moreno continues to undercut the beliefs of virtually all Sai devotees (most of which he promotes wildly on his blog ‘Love, Light and Spirituality.. and under the name ‘sathyasaibaba’ too). But he has at least prompted me to explain my former experiences in greater detail, as I otherwise would have neglected to do.

Robert Priddy is bitter and vindictive because he fully documented his own gullible, naive, brainwashed and non-intelligent devotee behavior in his Pro-Sai book for the world to see! What’s even more funny is how Robert Priddy bashes Sai Devotees for acting and believing in the very same manner he did when he was a Sai Devotee. Laughable!

How Moreno overplays his eternally weak hand. I am exposing the gullibility of Sai devotees only now, who should know better after the many revelations of the facts they will not or cannot face. Moreno promotes the VIP devotee and author Howard Murphet (see here), who goes far further that I ever did in the matter of extra-normal spirit influences – including discarnate spirits of ‘ascended masters’ and what have you. But Moreno attacks only dissidents, not Sai Baba favourites.  I did not act as most devotees do at darshan, constantly pressing forward, wanting sweets, blessings and material trinkets… I believed mainly only in the power of doing what good service one can, advancing human understanding and that spirituality is only a private experience between oneself and ‘the divine’, but not something to be paraded and off-handedly boasted about as so many I met did. I always tried to inform the public in as reflected a way as I could in the circumstances (i.e. while being the victim of what is mostly a massive fraud) and my book was one of the very most restrained in praise – compared to the hundreds of besotted panegyrics still on sale about Sai Baba.  Rather than “bashing” Sai devotees for being gullible, naive and brainwashed (and most were far more so than I ever was), I have shown from a very wide range of documentation that – in addition to the huge mass of evidence of his sexual abuses and involvements in dark matters – most of Sai Baba’s belief system – once penetrated (which is far from easy to achieve in that environment) is either direct and cynical deception by SSB and his diverse minions, or wild inventions so as to try to extract some holy interpretation, blessing or personal advantages from this typical Indian guru-hysteria phenomenon.

An e-mail friend wrote this to me about Moreno’s above-quoted page:-
“Didn’t  JM defend the 2007 Moon claims against your and BP’s criticisms? He seems to want to have his cake and eat it – again! A riposte on the gullibility angle might hit his Achilles heel Number 317 (- i.e. he has so

many) Does he condone gullibility in all other devotees except you?” (identity not given so Moreno can’t attack him too, as he surely would!) Gerald Moreno went into peculiar mental contortions to try to deflect criticism from – and defend – the moon miracle Sathya Sai Baba predicted, but which never happened (due to cloud coverage!). Sai Baba proclaimed he would appear on the moon later one evening… thousands flocked to the Sai airport and were totally disappointed. Laughable?

Sai Baba bending in this way is what inspired me to see his form on the Laurens van der Post cover.

Source references; See God in each form for 3 days: divine results 300 Sanathana Sarathi  Nov. 1993
Lovers of God see God everywhere p. 254 Sanathana Sarathi  Oct. 1991 & p.252 Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 24
See God in a stone, don’t change a stone to God 180 Geetha-Vahini
See God in everyone you meet/in everything Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 8
Self-seeking students & teachers today 233 Sanathana Sarathi Sept. 1988 & p.162 Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 21
Self-surrender is to see God in everything always p.148 Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 15
Lovers of God see God everywhere 254 Sanathana Sarathi: p.252 Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 24
Meaning of human life only to use it to see God: p.122 Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 3

Not strange therefore that so many who still believe in God – and especially in Sathya Sai Baba – see his ‘divine form’ in objects. Perhaps Moreno has too little real devotion to his would-be God? However, it is a function of the brain to see human features in all and any kinds of materials and things, only when one believes they have spiritual significance does it become dodgy.. but one has to be liberated from all notions of supernatural miraculous phenomena to appreciate that.

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The ‘Divine mystery’ of Sathya Sai Baba

Sai Baba maintainef his ‘mystery’ by avoiding giving straightforward answers

Sai Baba was a practiced master at seeming to answer a question or tell something while expressing it so ambiguously or obliquely that it amounted to saying as good as nothing. Every now and again he suddenly broke off mid-sentence and turned his attention to something else or another person. The disappointed person soon contrived an explanation, for this omniscient God had to be telling something deep and subtle through this behaviour. There is much talk about how to understand in a positive light things that it would be glaringly evident to independent persons are avoidance or manipulations by Sai Baba. I have to admit that I was taken in for a long time by some of his clever comments and half-spoken sentences…

I too spent much time searching to explain his words and acts. It was like searching for a needle in a haystack, and the results were seldom too convincing when I did find any. I even wrote articles in his journal Sanathana Sarathi at the behest of its editor (V.K. Narasimhan), all precisely to try to clear up some of his vague or contradictory statements. I now conclude that he mostly avoided really telling anything when he might have been trapped into an easily unproven answer, meanwhile leaving the devotee at least an illusion of having the attention of God Himself and a response the meaning of which would make itself known in good time. Those he talked to (very seldom more than one or two sentences) were told by yet blinder followers that they should be pleased, even grateful, for this divine blessing! Many were overwhelmed with gratitude for this audience which it was said by all devotees to be something one had striven towards through many previous lives packed with good actions! Many people want to believe such things and the more difficult their lives are, the more they apparently do. In the ashrams one believed in ‘thinking with the heart, not the head’. No one seems to realise that the heart (i.e. the emotions and irrational impulses) can deceive as much or even more than the head. The so-called ‘heart’ can be filled with feelings of inferiority, intense unfulfilled longing for love and further, bitterness and hate. Not exactly an infallible inner guru to rely on blindly in the face of common sense and informed reason, as most gurus like Sai Baba insist it is!

There is no doubt that the subjective experiences of interviews were felt as very good by most people (though not all, for some were told off strictly too). One can read hundreds of accounts that use superlatives beyond all reason. I can now see myself as misled and so ‘naively guilty’ of a much too one-sided and gold-tinted account of interviews in my book (‘Source of the Dream’). Therefore I choose to describe my summary of Sathya Sai Baba interviewees from the cool clarity of my eventual disillusion with them.

After attending several interviews they tended to become an anticlimax to persons who  still had a mind of their own, because so little could really be learned about anything from Sathya Sai Baba. He just reeled off his usual imprecise spiritual directions and followed – with few variations – a set of routines he had practised and perfected through thousands of interviews. Sometimes it was like a routine he entered, regardless of who was present. But this is certainly not how one’s first interviews seemed! Interviewees were often so worked up after months or years of his ‘Wait! Wait!’ instruction – and who can count what sacrifices and efforts many have made – and were mega-relieved to have ‘won’ an interview (as if they were pools’ winners). In interviews, many behaved as if in a daze, there was often a sense of staring, hypnotic happiness. Especially ladies, mostly having been constantly starved for the slightest attention at darshan, often gave themselves over to an orgy of gushing words about it afterwards, like ‘blissed out’, ‘spaced out by divine love’ and ‘eternal moments of realisation’. All of this reminds of some psycho-social orgasmic release of pent-up doubts and worries in surrendering to the delightful conviction, ‘So I am really one of God’s chosen children after all’. This conviction was always insecure, however, and Sathya Sai Baba would shake it time and again with his famous hypothetical ‘tests of faith’, i.e. his indifference, his neglect and much more besides until death… of that one could invariably be convinced and confident, at least!

From about 10 hours altogether in the various interview rooms with Sai Baba and from hearing and reading at least 100 accounts of interviews from other devotees (often noted in papers they circulate or in articles and books) and after countless hours of private discussion with Sai Baba’s translator at many interviews, V.K. Narasimhan, it is fair to say that Sai Baba seldom responded openly and frankly to what the questioner really wanted to know, but turned the question back at the questioner or spun the matter around somehow. If he didn’t reply (rather than, as often, turn to another person instead) what he said was frequently elliptical and off the point. He treated all questions or comments which he did not like in what my elderly contact, Prof. Erlendur Haraldsson, characterised to me very fittingly as follows:
“I recall when Karlis Osis and I had our first encounter with Sai Baba we both felt that he, apart from his great charisma, was a great prima donna, with a tremendous ego, and also kind of a Napoleon, with a ruler’s mind and tactics. Boasting, and illusions about one’s true characteristics is a part of such a psychological makeup, and in Sai Baba this is to a psychopathological degree unless one assumes the split-personality model to explain him, which I find tempting.”

What we would not accept as a valid or relevant answer from other people, many devotees would immediately accept as profound since it came from the one they believed to be omniscient. For example, when asked by a friend of mine from Copenhagen why it was that Jehova (i.e. God, i.e. Sai Baba) had not told the Jews about reincarnation, but asserted the contrary via the Bible. Sathya Sai Baba simply did not understand the question and asked to have it explained. (A divine joke that he can’t understand? I think not!). My Jewish friend said that the question was about reincarnation and intended to specify, but – without waiting to hear the actual question again – Baba replied brusquely, and in so many words, “Oh! Reincarnation! You cannot understand it. Do not try to think about it. It is like the seed and the fruit.” I saw that this answer was just a brush off, but afterward my friend claimed that it was a perfect answer! His view was that, because the question was one that his Jewish wife considered very important, Baba was telling that they should rather concentrate on other more important things. This is not untypical of Baba’s way of answering questions.

Sai Baba frequently replied so obliquely that no intelligible sense could be made of his words, or he changed the subject unexpectedly, or brushed it aside. The person concerned often took whatever came as a significant teaching or even a spiritual directive. This is also typical of evasive deceivers hoping to maintain others’ false perceptions, or to avoid being unmasked or incriminating themselves. In short, whatever Sai Baba replied, or however he avoided replying, was taken by devotees as a profoundly meaningful matter! If what he said seemed plainly mistaken, based on a misunderstanding or factually wrong, the devotee wouldl twist and turn the words in every possible way and relate them to all manner of events past present, dreams, imagined things and so on until some kind of sense could be derived from the words… however unsatisfactorily. This was also the case when he did not reply or was gruff, or gave the brush off. It became a subject of constant meditation or worry, self-examination and self-doubt. I  witnessed this on many occasions. What hardly ever seemed to occur to the poor person who was struggling with these challenges was that Sathya Sai Baba might be wrong, might not know what he was talking about, bluffing or may simply have been inadequately equipped to deal with the question. Only after realising that Sai Baba was not at all what he claimed to be does all this gradually become as apparent as the sun in daylight!

See also how Sai devotees are induced into the cult of systematic rationalization through re-interpreting Sathya Sai Baba’s words and vague statements

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Sathya Sai Baba seen on the moon?

Some deluded devotees who do not understand the first thing about the difference between and causes of objective and subjective experiences keep on sending out unsolicited e-mails about this non-event, which has discredited Sathya Sai Baba among all people with a modicum of real intelligence and properly established knowledge, as follows:-

the unsolicited e-mail – and the image accompanying it. Anyone can see that the image was superimposed using  a graphic programme,

This kind of absurdity was supported by several major Sathya Sai Baba sites like saibabaofindia.com and Puttaparthilive.com, which posted the following:-

October 26th 7:00 pm – Swami’s divine darshan in Moon

Many devotees from all over the world have written to us about Swami’s Divine darshan in Moon. We have received emails from devotees in many parts of India, United States and United Kingdom etc. We ourselves saw the Divine darshan of Swami in the moon for the last few nights. We were waiting for some pictures from devotees because our camera’s are not that powerful.

That the image was a construction and the report a fake report made by zealous promoters of Sai baba is supported by the fact that the original of this post was removed both from the Puttaparthi news site and the blog of which a capture is shown above (made before removal). Nor is the material available on the web wayback archive machine. In short, a big embarrassment to the Sai people which had to be eradicated as soon as possible. The basis for all this frenzied fantasy is the fact that the moon’s darker part bears some resemblance of Sai Baba’s afro frizz, but nothing more.

Interestingly, Sathya Sai Baba’s pet physicist and promoter – Dr. G. Venkataram – and would-be astronomical writer (a plagiarist) has remained completely silent on the most embarrassing issue! But then he has stated outright that he believes that Sathya Sai Baba is the Creator of the Universe, nothing less! What kind of a ‘scientist’ can be so deluded?

Several other devotees have made bogus images of SaI Baba appearing on the moon. Among these is that of Darpan Rane, who superimposed Sai Baba’s face on an image of the moon, which was posted by the blind believers who run saibabaofindia.com. Later Darpan Rane admitted that he had created the image… meaning it to represent what he (thought) he saw in fact earlier.

Concocted image which easily deceived countless followers of Sai Baba. Darpan Pane wrote: ….. THE APPEARANCE OF BHAGAWAN’S BUST IMAGE ON MOON LAST NIGHT’S SKY: SAI RAM EVERYBODY!”WHILE I AM HAPPY SHARE WITH YOU OF THE APPEARANCE OF BHAGWAN’S BUST IMAGE ON MOON LAST NIGHT’S SKY (VISAKHAPATNAM, INDIA),

See also:-Deceiving ‘devotee’ makes bogus image of Sai in the Moon
Sai Baba To Be Seen In Moon? But Where Was Moon?
Sai Baba Fails To Grant Great Moon Vision. Endangers Crowds
Sai Baba Fails To Appear In Moon, IANS Reports
‘Moon Mission of Sathya Sai Baba’. Re Merinews Article
May You Look At The Moon And See Santa In It
Sathya Sai Baba’s Failed Moon Miracle Under Heavy Cloud

Is Sai Baba’s Moon Madness waning still further

Why build moon rockets when Sai Baba has mantras?

More Sathya Sai Baba Moon Madness

Sai Baba’s mystic Moon Region ‘Chandraloka’ and related ideas
Sai Baba on the Moon videos
Long-awaited photo of Sai Baba in the moon
Sai Baba on the Moon – photo for his birthday?

Hundreds see Sai Baba on the moon

Sai Baba appearances on the moon

More Sathya Sai Baba Moon Madness

Sathya Sai Baba seen on the moon?
Oops! Apparently Sai Baba DID appear on the moon?
Sai Baba postpones moon buggy ride

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Falsehood and infamy – Sathya Sai Baba

“There are some jealous and petty minds who do false and imaginary propaganda. I take no note of this”

but Sai Baba noted that he does notice… just there!
He sees the need to combat what he knowing lies is ‘imaginary propaganda’ and so he must have been moved to notice it to respond like this! All can see that Sai Baba badly wants to limit the damage to his movement and especially to foreign donations.

“In the single family of humankind, where is the room for jealousy or hatred? These are all imaginary.”
I suppose Baba means among Arabs, terrorists, the most jingoistic Americans perhaps? He is still offering the pseudo-philosophy of ‘whatever you imagine, is true for you’. This may be an effective way of influencing those who can’t face the staring facts… and so choose to follow that old, old trick of mental enslavement, ‘The guru is never wrong, doubt only yourself!’

A frequently repeated complaint by Sathya Sai Baba, parroted by devotees, is that he has through the years been charged with unfair and undocumented accusations of many kinds. Both by sceptics and disaffected followers. These latter he fatuously claims were ‘dissatisfied’ or disappointed by unfulfilled expectations as to getting his, Sai Baba’s attention. Not so at all – not a few of these apostates could never wish to see him, [let along touch him, after what they have learned about him]. Sai devotees call the critics ‘disgruntled’, when many are righteously disgusted and disillusioned by having found him out for what he is – a major deceiver and an impure person, according to over 30 young mens’ testimonies of sexual molestation by him.

His cowed defensiveness towards all who have left him is seen when he churns out his usual illogical defence against criticisms:
“Stones are thrown only on fruit-bearing trees. Similarly, good people receive brickbats.” (Sanathana Sarathi September 2002, p. 267)

But some people who do very bad things receive more brickbats and deserve them! Sai Baba overlooks that the ‘bad men’ of whom he himself sometimes speaks (mainly in interviews) also sometimes receive brickbats. He is certainly a case in point!

In Sanathana Sarathi (11-92, p. 261) we read, “The minds of the so-called devotees are turned in the wrong direction. If their desires are fulfilled, they praise Me. But, once a desire is not realised they go to the extent of even reviling me. Even while they are attempting to understand Me, they harbour doubts from head to foot. Some even leave me, when their worldly desires are not fulfilled.” He also took the transparent precaution of warning devotees that he will have to separate “the grain from the chaff”, as if it were his own plan that devotees who cease to believe or accept him are rejected by him firstly! So he is not at all so powerful as he claims and maybe actually sometimes imagines.

One cannot but note that such precautionary smokescreens are most convenient for those who know they have something to hide. Much that will not stand the light of day has already come to light and his reputation is fading as the word spreads. No follower has not heard some of the reasons, however much they run away mentally from the facts (and knowing more such facts). This is the very nature of longer term mindless ‘surrender’ and blind servility and sacrifice to a God-figure whom they hope upon hope may help them out and deliver them from whatever bad may be to come.

Sathya Sai Baba defends himself by saying he predicted this all along. He KNEW he would be found out eventually because of the sheer scale and depravity of the abuses of which he stands accused and from which he hides from prosecution behind his many devotee judges and Prime Ministers.

Sai Baba loses his cool and lies blatantly about his critics!

See the entire infamous and unforgiving Christmas Day 2000 Discourse here.

The present writer was unable, for obvious reasons, to sustain faith in Sai Baba’s statements or many of his much-blazoned activities. I have come to know that he is by no means infallible, nor is it remotely possible that he all that he claims to be. He seems to possess so-called paranormal powers, which many others have done (and often people of a non-spiritual nature). Further, he has dark sides of which even some very frequent interviewees have no knowledge. Though I have never myself noticed sexual behaviour on his part, the evidence from many countries through decades has piled up to an extent where abuse cannot seriously be denied.

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Truth and rejecting doubts about Sathya Sai Baba

When serious doubts emerge, doubts that will not disappear and can only be ignored with difficulty, they too can grow as the facts go on bolstering them, whether one likes it or not. But if, when confronted face on and investigated, one’s doubt prove unjustified as mere unsubstantial rumours with no one to testify to them, they would dissipate and fall away. This does not happen with the allegations about Sathya Sai Baba , rather quite to the contrary.

‘The truth’ must to my mind not fly in the face of worldly facts, for truth surely cannot be entirely foreign to them?  If it is meaningful to speak (which is highly questionable) of an overall, eternal truth  surely these can’t be ENTIRELY foreign to or in contradiction of worldly facts? If it is so, then it seems pointless even to talk about it, for it is beyond any understanding or genuine meaning. So-called ‘transcendental’ or ‘eternal’ truth – whatever that may be other than mere words – must have meaningful relations to ‘worldly realities’ (i.e. facts) and what exists here and now, or it is worth no  further consideration. Gurus like Sathya Sai Baba who ask for ‘blind belief’ (especially as to their claims about themselves) are, in my opinion, a potential danger to civilised society and human values, especially when they break promises, practice fraud, clever deception and thus abuse people’s faith.

Sathya Sai Baba followers ignore all their emerging doubts as long as they can. If the should be discussed at all, they are soon rejected out of hand and supplanted by increasingly unlikely rationalizing to quell the anxiety no doubt caused by the thought of having made a massive mistake in one’s life. To confront those facts that undermine their indoctrination and largely self-programmed belief system – and do so as fully as possible before jumping to a conclusion  – requires an unusually high tolerance of mental and emotional uncertainty. They live with half-truths, but – as the proverb rightly has it – ‘a half-truth is often worse than a lie’. It would often call for a stable personality with resources and some interpersonal support system to enable regeneration of one’s well-being and self-confidence so one can and redirect life goals. One finds that nearly everyone who remains in the Sai movement cuts off contact, for they are too uncomfortable with anyone who calls these beliefs into question. This is psychological denial, it is also a result of negative mind control.

An example which illustrates much the above excellently is that given in his recent damning testimony against Sathya Sai Baba by Bas Engelbarts of Holland – Click here

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PLEASE SEE THE SAI PETITION AND DECIDE WHETHER TO SIGN IT

David Bailey’s disaffection in 1999 (phone conversation transcript & audio)

Phone conversation with David Bailey recorded by Thomas Wiehe, a Swedish ex-Sai Baba devotee.

Note: David Bailey, an accomplished concert pianist, was a very close favourite of Sathya Sai Baba for a number of years, having had more than 100 interviews with him. He and wife (who was chosen for him by Sai Baba) visited many Sai centres throughout the world holding talks at Sathya Sai Baba centres. He wrote books praising Sai Baba, until he learned from students at the Sai colleges – and subsequently from young men and some parents of Sai Baba’s widespread homosexual abuses and molestations which they testified had been forced upon them. Mrs. Faye Bailey had accepted from Peggy Mason of the U.K. to continue the Sai Baba magazine, which had been published for many years by Mason and Ron Laing. After a protracted period of awakening and investigation, Faye and David Bailey ceased to promote Sai Baba in the magazine and instead published a lengthy exposure of Sathya Sai Baba and many of his deceptions and failed or bogus works. This bombshell caused a major fall-off in membership of the Sathya Sai Organization and led to a large number of further allegations and revelations about Sai Baba, his organization, institutions and following. The long document “The Findings” summarized their intensive investigations of Sai Baba’s reported sexual activities and fraudulence claims and activities.

Listen to the actual phone conversation in mp3 here:- Part One,   Part Two

Here are some excerpts with surprising facts that came to light:-

David Bailey: Terry Gallagher was an Australian who spent five, six, seven years – and a (whole) day – with Swami. He was closer than I was with Swami. Then when he left, through having found out the truth of what is going on, I somehow became so close to Swami that for three years I was blind to what was going on… because I had been told what everybody else had been told. And then after our marriage we became even closer and became part of what it termed the inner circle. And when we saw for ourselves what was going on and realised what other people who had been close also had experienced and why they had left, then when we did our world tour last
year, it was disastrous… with so many things that we found.

We went back at Christmas to discover that everything that we had found was totally true; as soon as we got back to England, we had the fraud squad from Scotland Yard, the British Government’s Foreign Office and the Charity Commissioners waiting for us with major investigations, with proven fraud in some cases

..the other thing which we had discovered was this homosexual activity. You know, to start off with we believed (it) was only Swami – shall we say – raising the kundalini within the student. This is what we were told, but then when we realised that it was not… and it was definitely not just Swami – well I have to be open and honest – playing with the students… but asking the student to actually make sexual acts on Swami, including oral sex. It was just ridiculous. And then the students at the college turned to me for help, because this has been going on for years, it is why the assassination attempts occurred… because the students were absolutely sick of him making them do things they didn’t want to do. I am grown up in my attitudes and realistic to realise that around the world many things happen between consenting adults, but when you are in a position of power as headmaster or teacher or guru or whatever you like… to make your students do things they do not wish to do is not acceptable, and also in England – and I believe it is true in Sweden – it is illegal. And if Swami were in England he would be put in prison for twenty years… Now that is my problem because at one of England’s top preparatory schools for children from five to thirteen years old, the Royal family sent their children to this school… and I was suddenly made redundant. I lost my job and they asked me to continue with my job part time only to teach in the classroom – no work in the evenings… even we had performed one musical and they said you may not attend the rehearsals, you can only attend the performance.

I was seen – with Faye – to be going round speaking for Swami. From the police, from the authorities from many countries… they saw David and Faye – and other people too – going to speak for Swami. As a result families would go out to Swami… sons, the young men would be sexually approached and come back, there is even one person in England who has committed suicide and we have stopped another one, we pray, from doing so. But we were seen as agents… that we would be very charming, very nice, persuade people to go – because of my involvement with the college boys so closely they thought that I was just a provider of his sex toys. That has now ruined my career in England because I now have a record of being connected with him.

These excepts will be continued in a subsequent blog. To read the entire transcript – and to hear the phone call itself, visit David Bailey’s Phone Conversation with Thomas Wiehe of Sweden

The phone call text was posted by Gerald Moreno in an attempt to get maximum Google coverage of the issue for his pro-Sai fanatical defenses. His arguments can be seen here, with suitable comments which defuse his entire misguided maunderings.

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– View ex-follower signatures on the Sai Public Petition
(Spanish version PETICIÓNPÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES

Jaani Drucker – wild claims not supported by her actions

Jaani [or Yaani] Drucker, who claims to be fully spiritually enlightened – has responded to points made by Barry Pittard in his wordpress blogs, but with obvious ill-humour.  She has a website in which she has publicly expressed the same line that she took in writing to Barry Pittard, such as:-

“Anyone who has an ego, which everyone has except those who have attained enlightenment,  is in a state of denial, denial about the truth of who they are, and that includes most professionals. Just because someone has a PhD does not make him/her an expert in what is or is not enlightenment …”

This is no mean claim. Around six billion people have egos, no doubt and tens of thousands of Ph.Ds possess a vast collective knowledge about human reactions and the ego in all its forms. But Jaani knows the world population is in denial! What kind of delusion is that? ‘Not having an ego’ is a very vague phrase – it can mean anything from being in total amnesia, a vegetative state to – in the spiritual belief Jaani defends  – being totally immersed in what she characterises as her “omnipotent” self-consciousness and beyond any worldly influences. Such a person is called a jnani (i.e. one who knows it all). Not Jaani, though! A jnani has no desires or interests in the world, according to the doctrine. Yet Jaani’s interest in self-promotion on the Internet and elsewhere – and her expressed desire not to be criticized, her strong reactions to difficult questions which she actually fails to confront properly – not least her very prickly ego attacks on Pittard – are all disqualifiers for anything at all like “realization”. Barry Pittard is engaging in fair questioning of her extremely remarkable claims, not – as she falsely claims. He is not running a ‘smear campaign’ against her or Sathya Sai Baba. Pittard. Admittedly, he is a stringent critic of Sathya Sai Baba and the vast cover-ups around him, but that is on many and firm documented grounds, including over a score of signed testimonies that he sexually abused young men – including underage boys. Very many other instances are reported by others – including by his own officials – as being molested by oiling of the genitals. Jaani calls this huge documentation, also by the BBC and Danish televison, as ‘rumour’! I am sure she knows far better than that, not least from her husband who has told Aime Levy about it himself. She is definitely in denial about that, for a start! Yet Jaani states her precious belief: –
“… I credit Sai Baba for my enlightenment, and it is in part because He was instrumental in my awakening that I am certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is who He claims to be”.

Such ‘certainty beyond a shadow of a doubt’ is not knowledge, and it puts itself far ‘beyond doubt’ in that it is vulnerable to doubt, being merely subjective belief, and the more so the more strongly held. On Pittard’s blogsite, he has responded to Jaani Drucker’s self-projective points, and in detail. Her responses were unsatisfactorily evasive and soon she reacted by refusing to discuss with him unless he withdrew his writing about her. She then wrote to him that, as a result of his writings, some persons told her they would as a result not now attend her workshop on ‘ego’. She writes that he was “impeding her heartful offering toward a better world”. She makes the unenlightened assumption that Barry Pittard does not contribute his work with at least the same good intentions. She started out with a good deal of love and light, but her tone increasingly implies she is looking for a showdown – and to put down those who disagree with her, so she should not be so offended when someone takes her up on it. She quoted in an e-mail to her supporter, the web troll Gerald Moreno, that critics of Sai Baba are as “Dogs barking at the moon”, then denied vehemently in a mail to Pittard that she had ever called anyone a dog. A fine point that!

Jaani Drucker then tries to bargain: “I wonder whether you would consider removing your discrediting and unkind words? If so, perhaps there would be the possibility of an honest debate. Until then you demonstrate that you have already drawn your conclusion, that I am a dangerous energy that you need to protect others from, etc.” Jaani is very forthright with rash over-interpretations and prejudicial jumping to conclusions of his words and putting into Pittard’s mouth that she is a “dangerous energy”. Having written in a very polite and decent way throughout, Pittard should not remove anything. His postings are responsible contributions to a discussion (which Jaani originally invited all to join), being clearly made out of a sense of public duty (not, a Jaani suggested in that worn-out Sai-speak ‘to derive joy from criticising’). Moreover, for those who would backtrack or cover their tracks, Google’s moving finger writes on, and, “having writ, moves on”… once posted it is forever in the public sphere somewhere for good or ill.

Barry Pittard can be seen to have written in a very polite and decent way throughout – though frank and making strong points in the discussion. That is what she cannot abide, being questioned radically, so she avoids answering the really sensitive points, complaining instead. These reactions show her to be disturbed by any criticism, no doubt she wants to carry on but escape the consequences of her support for Sathya Sai Baba in all things, and simply brush aside critical comments as not founded in her supposed ‘Truth’.

In an effort to counteract Barry Pittard’s highly relevant questions, Jaani first decided to cut off communication, then tried to appeal to Barry Pittard to reverse his position on the basis of the universal brotherhood/sisterhood of mankind. Noble as that sentiment may be as an ideal – and even though all humans are genetically related – it is not a principle for suppressing discussion, well-meant criticism and even argument between “brothers and sisters”. In my view cult members are more like very distant cousins to me – I feel no brotherhood as regards their ideology and denial of many facts, though I would accept that they could well have good intentions. Intention and action do not always concur, however… and frank and open truthfulness from the Druckers on the sexual abuse issue would be welcome… but they evidently discriminate against those “brothers” who are no longer in the so-called ‘Sai family’. Not least it would help assuage the feelings of the offended persons whom they know to be speaking the truth about their awful experiences. It would also be fair to many of us who we have all reason based on massive, impelling testimony to accept they were so treated by Sai Baba… and not least also for his own sexual satisfaction!

Jaani refers to the perceived greatness of her husband (in some circles). His supposed greatness is – as he admits – entirely due to his having been taken close th Sai Baba, that he and she are ‘just ordinary people’ etc. I would still add a few moderating thoughts. When first I heard him hold forth as a lecturer at Prashanthi Nilayam in January, 1985, he was known for having been saved from a plane crash by a supposed miracle of Sai Baba. He had been made into a kind of idol by some US devotees. I found a solemn-faced propagator of Sai Baba’s more simplistic and myth-packed doctrine for young students (as contained in Drucker’s book reproducing talks by Sai Baba to his students which, since Drucker does not know Telugu, was translated for him by another). Drucker held with Sai Baba that he was himself Rama, Krishna and other divine figures… and their teaching is his. During Christmas 1986, Drucker informed the crowd at a choir practice that Sai Baba had said that all of the devotees who had been with Rama were present in reincarnations at his 60th birthday, including the ‘monkey-god’ Hanuman (not least therefore, some people thought Drucker might have been told he was Hanuman. What a craze-inducing place Prashanthi Nilayam is!).

Whatever the case, Al Drucker seemed very devout and puritan, and with his Talmudic background he saw Prashanthi Nilayam as the New Jerusalem. He spent decades living almost exclusively at Sai Baba ashrams, where any new ideas are most unwelcome unless they concur and support those which are ‘politically correct’ in Sathya Sai Baba’s view. In the role of local ‘greatness’ that no doubt partly was forced upon him, various people I knew there nonetheless saw Al Drucker as too bossy and I could not observe that he was a helpful server of struggling visitors, for he had the role of an important personage, which rested mainly on his proximity to Sai Baba since the late 1970s. (Add to that the fact that he had once temporarily been employed in some kind of scientific role by NASA, before he joined Esalen and left the scientific attitude firmly behind him). He was seen by most devotees much as a go-between to God Incarnate, a recipient of miracle blessings and one who maybe knew some of the secrets not shared with ordinary joes! He did amuse me, however, when he somewhat patronisingly mismanaged certain events (eg. the Christmas choir) so badly as to have some of us laughing amid all the gushing piety.

The jealousy which plagues all the Sai ashrams (as I observed and indeed Sai Baba himself roundly railed about) was strong against Al Drucker. I heard diverse complaints about him and some Indian VIPs expressed Schadenfreude when he was excommunicated. Most unacceptable!

The Ways of the Mind – on the issue by a Swedish psychologist
Strawberry Fields Forever? plus comments on Jaani & advaitic doctrine
Reply To Claimer of Enlightenment (Yaani Drucker Correspondence) Part 2
Barry Pittard Replies To Sathya Sai Center Rape Survivor’s Note To Him
Dangerous to Rationalize Rape. A major Sathya Sai Baba Follower’s Example

Will the Real Professor Alvin Drucker Be Upstanding? Professor Alvin Drucker has not spoken out yet, will he stand up and be a true man? Reliable sources testify to what Drucker knew about sexual abuses.
Reply To Claimer of Spiritual Enlightenment (Yaani Drucker Correspondence) Part 1
Reply To Claimer of Enlightenment (Yaani Drucker Correspondance) Part 2
Reply To Claimer of Enlightenment (Jaani Drucker Correspondance) Part 3
Reply To Claimer of Spiritual Enlightenment (Yaani Drucker Correspondence) Part 4
Reply To Claimer of Spiritual Enlightenment (Yaani Drucker Correspondence) Part 5
Reply To Claimer of Spiritual Enlightenment (Yaani Drucker Correspondence) Part 6

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See Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and his Worldwide Organization
(Spanish version PETICIÓNPÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES

Projecting one’s whole autonomy onto Sathya Sai Baba

All Sathya Sai Baba followers who visit his ashrams have always had to queue, sit and wait almost endlessly before he appears – let alone before they get the chance of an interview, which almost no one does any longer due to his invalidism. Many pray and wait for years on end for the ‘Lord and Master’, and ‘spiritual seekers’ who travel across continents are all constantly hope for some form of personal attention, eye contact, some words… then more and more of the same. All this is shared by all followers, excluding very important persons, such as heads of state, royalty or the super rich and famous, who mostly get comparative red carpet treatment.

Sathya Sai Baba used to walk about very slowly, making gestures (which many people took as personal messages to them!) and when he looked even in a person’s general direction, they took this as a blessing! Not a few report how waves of happiness, bliss, even ecstasy floods through them, tears come to their eyes. If he smiles at them or takes a letter from them, it seems to them that they at last have confirmation of being personally acceptable to God himself. In most cases, these emotions are the culmination of a very long period of approaching through meditation on him, prayers to him, letters sent (often with the writer’s most private thoughts ‘in advance’) after much reading of books which all praise him beyond the clouds, videos which seem to prove he is a divinity, hearing miracle and amazing healing stories galore, and making diverse efforts to live according to his directions, do everything in his name.

Many followers sacrifice much time and money, put up with all manner of difficulties and disappointments on the way, meanwhile meeting many other persons telling of wonderful (subjective) experiences seen through their own faith. But by then they have already become highly open to suggestion (becoming what are called ‘good hypnotic subjects’). Despite this, or precisely because of it, various persons have been surprised, as was I, upon first observing him show himself (i.e. “give his holy darshan“) because. he seemed just too ordinary. But then, one already ‘knows’ that it could just not be true…has he not told them not to be deceived by his short stature, for in reality he holds the entire universe in his hands?

Longing and Yearning are ‘projective’: The intensity developed by followers’ desires and beliefs amount to psychological projections. Projection is a very complex process with many aspects and can vary in strength, scope and content. Nonetheless it is a common occurrence among followers of all idols, especially those who have created an aura of holiness or wisdom around themselves, by whatever means.  Even one small apparent paranormal event – taken as the longed-for Sai leela or small miracle – is enough to set one  self-reinforcing ones indoctrination to last for life! This may take the form of statement like the following which was sent to me by a colleague at some stage as an illustration of how mental projection words in those who have invested much time and energy without noticeable attention from Sathya Sai Baba:

 

“I vividly recall looking at his form with utter peace and no thoughts. He stopped and turned and gave me this amazing smile, piercing me with his eyes and I felt this incredible warmth enter me. “What did he do that for,” I thought, on that day three years ago. Today, the penny dropped. Thought has to stop.” by Sai Baba devotee Christopher (Chris) Parnell – Australian Sathya Sai Organization

The dropping penny – after first awakening new thoughts – evidently causes thought to deteriorate – and that is precisely the programme Sai Baba sets out – overcome one’s thoughts through mantras, prayer, bhajan singing and meditation. Kill the mind – supposedly letting mindless ‘universal consciousness’ take over!  I have observed through many years observing others how their minds tend to drift without incisiveness or efforts at improvement, getting ever more uncritical and unreliable. Impressionable persons who have been actively indoctrinating (or ‘brain-washing’) themselves for a long time within the cocoon of beliefs and mostly within the circle of other believers… especially in the otherworldly and unrealistic ashram mental environment where all one’s wildest hopes may (but most likely will not) come true.

Powerful projection reinforcements: Projecting all kinds of desires and ones best imaginings onto Sathya Sai Baba and his circle, one produces a self-conversion by oneself. These circumstances are known to be conducive to sudden healing and many other extra-normal effects, but these always prove to be partial and temporary… the enthusiasm wears off after the famous ‘honeymoon’ period is past. Such phenomena are well known, far from being limited to Sai Baba or other Indian gurus – consider Billy Graham, Lourdes. Pastor Moon and literally thousands of other personality cults. One develops a partly delusional world-view and can then become easily manipulated by powerful forms of suggestion of the kind otherwise called ‘hypnotic’. These can cause considerable distortions of sensory perception, even though one does not enter an actual sleep-like trance (viz. Derren Brown). The intensity of the ‘projection’ makes likely not only changes in outlook, but a new sense of purpose and energy. All one needed was a catalyst (a relevant  object or person to project onto in the specific case), and that is how idol-worship and personality cults work.

More on mental-emotional projection and Sai Baba’s methods of using it to come.

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Selfhood and self-confidence in Sai Baba’s teaching

Self confidence versus denial of selfhood: Due to the use of a very ambiguous word – ‘ego’ – which is held in most Eastern-influenced ‘spiritual ways’  to be the cause of virtually all the ills of humankind, people subject themselves to doctrines which can only undermine true self-confidence. The human ego can refer to the what results from the development of an independent, secure and self-sufficient personality or contrariwise to the unmitigated selfishness of people who put their desires and interests before almost all else. True self-confidence belongs to the well-rounded and balanced personality or ego-identity and not at all to the selfish egomaniac. Preaching about the need to ‘kill the ego’ or ‘surrender of the self’ is well-known from many religious movements – due to the misunderstanding about what ‘ego’ means. If the word refers only to the possessive and self-seeking “me and mine” aspect of a person, to try to help people limit and contain this is acceptable. However, this goal is all too often connected to the subjugation of people under authoritarian gurus, church or other spiritual organizations and cults. One aim in preaching ‘surrender of the ego’ is the humbling of people – such as before a supposed perfect God, or – what is yet worse – ‘holy’ representatives of this or that deity in the form of gurus, swamis and priesthoods of all kinds. This submission to authority figures as superior figures is also a form of dependency – a ‘spiritual crutch’ – and involves the gradual loss of self-determination and a creeping inward self-depreciation or inferiority which are very difficult for its victims to recognise. It usually comes along with living mostly within a belief community or limited circle of more or less like-minded people, trying to follow strictly moralistic ideals and overly self-denying precepts.

“A particular form of seduction that the group participates in with those flirting with joining is similar to sexual conquest. The group pours an enormous amount of focused energy and attention into potential recruits until they surrender to the group’s authority, which of course has the guru and his belief system at its center. When someone does surrender, everyone celebrates the new bonding. This is a bit like a new marriage, and for the recruit, it is the honeymoon phase. This lasts as long as it does, and then the focus of the group shifts elsewhere. (This also happens in romantic love, for after the conquest the wooer’s interest and focus often move somewhere else.) When the honeymoon is over, the new converts must shift roles – from being the wooed to being the wooer.” (from ‘The Guru Papers’ by Joel Kramer and Diane Alstead  p.79)

Those who experience a conversion to a divinity, sect, doctrine, guru and so on often seem to get a surge of self-confidence, one which may last for years until the lifestyle and beliefs become habitual and worn. This is often seen in keen missionaries and promulgators of their faith. The apparent self-confidence is however based not least on the strength of belief in a kind of superiority derived from having joined the community of the saved, the holy, or perhaps the prospective saints. This is hardly the result of a secure and balanced personality, it is rather pseudo-self-confidence which is frequently recognisable in signs that it is an adopted role rather than an expression of genuine insight and knowledge. Such people usually come across as too over-emphatically convinced, too masterful, patronizing or otherwise semi-fanatical in their opinions and approaches to other people.

The monastic type of detachment from worldly things may be less troublesome to more elderly persons who have already lived themselves out in an engaged and active life in the world with broad experience, for they are often less affected by the desires and life-seeking tendencies that are only natural and indeed necessary to real health and personal security in younger persons. But for anyone whose life’s meridian is not well passed and who is not psychologically very robust, the Sathya Sai Baba doctrine will in most cases hinder personal growth (IF it is possible for one to adhere to it to any large extent). A main reason for this lies in the feeling of impotence instilled by Sathya Sai Baba’s constant talking-down of people as imperfect (sometimes he calls people worse than dogs, or cawing crows etc.)… and his corresponding admonitions to focus all ones thoughts and desires on him alone. He teaches that everything stems from him, the creator of the universe from whom only good things come! Yet he also says, conflicting as usual, “everything that happens comes from God”, think about that!. His insistence on the super-importance of concentration on repeating his name, inwardly worshipping his form (and his person in actual practice at endless darshan sessions etc.) works effectively as an opiate that dulls personal reflection and living self-awareness, which is the true basis of genuine self-confidence and personality growth.

Modern psychology has developed and tested against experience many conceptual devices for tracing the multiplicity of personality traits, the growth of the ego and the influences operative on emotional and mental conditions of all kinds.  Sai Baba hardly ever refers to any of these discoveries and is very evidently not conversant with their theories or terminologies.  Though claiming to be in complete touch with the psyche of anyone, knowing it in and out,  his discourses repeatedly demonstrate that he suffers from many of the most common fallacies about nature of the human mind and psyche,  and this shines through even his words have been heavily edited and sanitized as far as reasonable by editors who are rather more knowledgeable.

In brief,  one may say that his teachings on psychic development and spiritual behaviour rely wholly on Indian religious tradition and are primitively fundamentalist, set in black-and-white terms with an iconography and ideology of  ‘gods versus demons’, a world view applied ad lib to the present almost without nuance or proper factual basis.  He almost always speaks in the most sweeping terms and is prone to almost hair-raising over-generalisation about the nature of people, governments, world conditions and on any number of issues.  The degree of exaggeration and factual inaccuracy is quite extraordinary for a supposedly intelligent teacher!

Sathya Sai Baba’s recipe for  anti-living: I have shown something of how Sathya Sai Baba’s directions for living are so demandingly puritanical and unrealistically idealistic that most of his followers seem to end up living a virtual non-life.  There is much more in his recipe to break down not only the objectionable egoism of morally primitive persons, but the entire personality structure of a democratic and effective civil citizen. One can meet many such cases (especially foreigners) who reside at the ashrams but are doing no work, no ‘active service’. Often they are virtually just existing in limbo, coping only with the constant daily problems of subsistence there, and waiting for grace and blessings to fall into their laps. Some have said this to me quite openly!

If you manage to get rid of most or all of your personal desires,  as Sai Baba insists everyone should immediately or – failing that – as soon as possible, then existence loses much of its meaning (let alone charm) and the desire to live is itself seriously weakened in the process. It is hardly surprising that constant Sai devotees, esp. single foreign ladies at the ashram,  tend to be suicidal.   One such a suicide took place while we were visiting in 1990 (covered up by the PN officials immediately).This resulted in the ashram accommodation office not allowing any woman  to have an apartment on her own.  Various other suicides of disappointed devotees are documented elsewhere, including one involving most members of a large Indian family. There are numerous reports of suicides, of which not more than a handful have reached the press in any country. The ashram authorities enforce immediate damage limitation precautions as soon as anything untoward happens there and very short shrift is given to anyone who persists in inquiries. In this respect, the Sai Baba ashrams are indistinguishable from totalitarian mini-states.

One Sai Baba follower, Mr. Kanheia Jee , a retired Indian army major who had become more or less socially and mentally trapped for 30 years and more as Head of the Administration at Vidyagiri in Prashanti Nilayam together with his leading Seva Dal worker and wife (Mrs. Caveri),  put it very succinctly:  “If you try to do even half of what Baba says you should,  you’ll go stark raving mad!” Looked at in sane social terms, these attitudes develop the basis for despotism and repression,  ignorance and weakening of the individual human spirit to stand up for what is right and true.  There is no more ingenious way of taking away people’s freedom than teaching them that they cannot control their fates except by prayer to him,  that only God is free and decides all in his inscrutable way.  It is despicable!  Thus making people obey and censor themselves entirely so as to give up more and more autonomy and all normal rights,  while it works as the subtlest known means of gaining power, fame and wealth by Sai Baba and his men.

Manipulating vulnerable consciousness: Though his extremely puritan moralism and demands for massive self-denial, Sai Baba develops a ‘vulnerable consciousness’ in many people, particularly those who are vulnerable from before for reasons of repressive childhoods, social discrimination, personality problems etc. His doctrines lay much weight on ideas which are nothing short of self-destructive, though they go under the emotively acceptable label ‘removal or destruction of the ego’ . Even while he outwardly says some positive,  supportive things about how to relate to oneself,  they are mostly tied up with expectations of a (better)  life in the hereafter.  Meanwhile,  he asserts all kinds of things which mainly bring a person down, cause them to feel low self-esteem or reduced worth…  the typical self-denigration spread by all fundamentalist sin-oriented religion and sects.

Projecting one’s whole autonomy onto Sathya Sai Baba …  the enthusiasm wears off after the famous ‘honeymoon‘ period is past. Such phenomena are well known…

See more on disempowerment in worshipping gurus and cult entrapment here:

Swami ‘Paramahamsa’ Nityananda scandal

Swami Nityananda, caught trying to cover up the sex video evidence all can see.

See latest blog on this guru here

Swami Paramahamsa Nithyananda – alias Rajasekaran, a native of Tiruvannamalai was caught on video in compromising situations with Tamil  actress Ranjitha and another woman. Serious complaints to the police were lodged by various persons, including Kannada actor Praveen and his ‘second-in-command; Lenin. Since then he has withdrawn into indeterminate spiritual seclusion’ and his main ashram has ceased to function. This case pales by comparison with those of Pope Benedict or Sathya Sai Baba, but it has awakened more Indian media suspicion of Indian gurus than any comparable event. So much so that a film ‘God and Sex’ on Nityananda’s life is to be made by director Ram Gopal Varma.

Zeenews.com reported (23-3-2010): “Tamil Nadu police who had registered cases under various sections, including rape, against Nityananda, transferred them to the police in Ramanagar, as the Ashram falls under it.” The Times of India reported that: “There will be no stay on investigation. Let me go through those papers,” the judge observed when the counsel for the petitioner pleaded for interim order of stay on the proceedings apprehending arrest following the filing of the FIR.”

Kamini Jaiswal, a senior Supreme Court lawyer , who has fought a case against Sathya Sai Baba (see here), blames blind followers for such incidents. “It is shocking to see that well educated people are followers of such godmen,” she said. (Source CNN-IBN)

Swami Nithyananda is notable for the degree of pathetic denial and self-contradictory ‘explanations’, for example:-

“Swamiji has said that the video is a morphed one and blames one of his inmates Premananda alias Lenin Karuppan, for the morphing of his face with the idea of defaming him. It is said that Swamiji tried to stop the airing of the video footage but a civil court did not grant any stay.” (Source)

“Yes, I am in the video. And I am not running away from the law. I was in a trance when the video was shot. Give me a chance to explain myself” Swami said. (Source)

Then about the video he told that they are only the experiments with Tamil actress Ranjita.(Source)

SEE Is Heat Too Much For Swami Nityananda, Under Fire By Sex Abuse Allegations?

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Jaani Drucker, The Truth, open inquiry and truthfulness

Having noted the exchange of views between Barry Pittard and Jaani Drucker (aka Yaani Drucker), I am prompted to provide some more detailed examination of the issues at stake. With her self-promoted superior insight into The Truth (as if it were something hypostatized and ontologised) Jaani Drucker rejected Barry Pittard’s questions without answering them, writing “When you are determined to find denial and resistance, there is no honest debate or discussion possible. You have already closed your mind.” This is a typical cult-defensive reaction where questioning itself is viewed as something negative.

If anyone has closed their minds it is surely Jaani [Yaani] Drucker. How can one tell? Because she has not had anything new to say except continually to preach that she has the TRUTH and is – by implication – self-realized, all the while parroting nothing but the ideas of Sathya Sai Baba – where these concur with ‘The Course in Miracles’ (better called ‘Pollyanna Positive Prayer and Preaching’). This is more of a dogma than a doctrine for it is closed to any basic modification and is isolated from all further development and – above all – criticism. In general it is an extreme form of religious puritanism as found in the Judaic Talmud, the Old Testament and the strictest Hindu doctrines.

In continuing to promote and defend Sathya Sai Baba, Yaani acts as if her supposed Truth is so precious as always to have to be attended by an unquestioned bodyguard of supporting liesºº… those which have been exposed on a large scale by many former followers, not least Barry Pittard and myself. Al Drucker admitted – when pressed – to the former Central Coordinator of the UK Sathya Sai Organization, that many parents had complained to him of sexual abuse by Sai Baba while Drucker was resident at the ashram. Jaani is no doubt also well aware that Sai Baba has escaped justice only because the entire Indian system of corrupt topmost politicians and judges who worship him have protected him from all accountability! This is part of the body of lies the Druckers prefer to condone, supposedly to protect their Truth, which would need not protection or even promotion if it really were that immutable and powerful.

Those who have invested their prestige in Sai Baba and his teaching on the ego etc., like the Druckers, live largely within a community of persons and ideas divorced from all research, informed debate, the stringency of peer review because the doctrine they embrace is that the Truth, as preached by advaitists and Sai Baba among them, is immutable, requires no modification or development. They can reject without informing themselves of the entire world-wide advances in human psychology by hundreds of thousands of practitioners and researchers garnering experience from all corners of the globe and the human psyche… none of it could ever upset a figment of the ordained and immortalized Truth of their favourite religious speculations, static and stagnant as it has been for centuries! It’s main method of persuasion is repetition. One can only sustain this claim to total knowledge within the cocoon of ashrams or circles of New Age type persons, for it cannot stand the slightest buffets of well-informed intelligence based on tried and proven hypotheses by a global host of professionals.

If we look a little into this supposed Truth, we find it depends on the ‘death of the ego’. The doctrine of ‘ego’ that is most central to Sai Baba and I understand also to the would-be self-realization group run by the Druckers is really nothing more than a long harangue against selfishness (Me and Mine). This naked and stark belief – that selfishness is the root of ALL evil – is dressed up in portentous ideas about the ‘true egoless self’ within (and hidden from) all mankind . The belief posits the wishful dream of a total awareness of selfless unity within divinity, described in highly fanciful terms like ‘the golden womb’, the Heart and so on. Now, a doctrine of self-denial – if moderated by common sense and free of dogmatic certainty and absolutism – would not be unwelcome. Yet the anti-ego dogma is lacking in realism or practicable and compassionate humanism. It is actually very naively formulated in reducing the entire personal ‘ego’ to something far less than it is: a dynamic psychic development necessary to life as we know it. There is conceptual confusion involved – the word ‘ego’ is misapplied by Sai Baba, imitated uncritically by Jaani, to include one’s entire identity ‘as a separate being’, which again is seen as being blinded by ignorance (of the Truth of its own nature) and dominated by egoism in the form of selfishness and greed.

The human ego is to be understood as a dynamic development of every psyche through coping with the demands of the environment (others) and instinctual urges (survival, sex, fear, power, suppression, dominance, sex, hunger etc.). The ego, as psychologically understood, balances and reacts properly to the external and internal demands impinging on the person and is a very necessary achievement without which one cannot avoid one or another form of cognitive disorder up to and including severe and chronic mental illness. Looking after oneself and one’s own interests is the very basis of being human, without which one cannot even recognise or appreciate the same unavoidable need in others. Pursuing self-interest is unavoidably important, both for individuals and societies. It is the excess of such pursuits – greed of all kinds, economic and social insecurity, excess in power-seeking and all the related ills we all know so well – that are the problem. The self-realization through death of the ego brigade do not recognise this… they consider they have progressed beyond such needs (but often I have noted the actual consumption of goods and services are above average among the most outspoken ‘Ceiling on Desires’ advocates).

This fails to recognise the vast achievements of ego psychology (which it almost entirely rejects as illusory worldly untruth). It is not based on the slightest research – it cannot be tested (except by sacrificing one’s entire life – a fool’s risk). It is a puritanical and typically Indian religious doctrine – such as Sai Baba’s advice ‘Die Mind’ (one of his many execrable poor puns), which he symbolizes by giving away diamonds (all synthetic stones, yet more symbolically!). Obviously, undue selfishness is a trait without which the world would surely benefit, but taking it to the point of self-annihilation (i.e. killing the ego, ‘killing the mind’ – such as through prayers and mantras) is probably only for those who are ultimately tired of the whole of their own lives.

As seen in so many religious sects – it most often ends in moralism of the most unwelcome kind, sustaining and increasing people’s sense of personal inadequacy, leading to depression and even suicidalism in those who feel incapable of meeting its constant demands. Those who strive to follow the unworldly practices involved get no lasting benefit from the process either (except for possible temporary exhilaration of the kind ‘Now I have solved it all, what to do?’). Those who have made a vocation of it and sunk their prestige in preaching it may manage to keep up the required outward Pollyanna smile.
More to follow shortly…

See also The Ways of the Mind – on the issue by a Swedish psychologist
Strawberry Fields Forever? plus comments on Jaani & advaitic doctrine
Barry Pittard Replies To Sathya Sai Center Rape Survivor’s Note To Him
Dangerous to Rationalize Rape. A major Sathya Sai Baba Follower’s Example
God is everything, in everyone – as a spiritual teaching
Advaita – historical flight into abstraction and speculation

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Sathya Sai Baba failing – at the mercy of power brokers

Shivarathri 2010 - Sai Baba poorly and grim

Through the last 8 years or so, reports have come to me from various persons who either were still visiting Prashanthi Nilayam, or from ex-students and other disaffected followers who all claim that Sathya Sai Baba is no longer in control of his own affairs, neither on the Sathya Sai Central Trust, nor the ashram nor even his own activities. One recent visitor informed me that Sathya Sai Baba’s hands shake constantly and very visibly. Another states ” He has a disease and is at the mercy of his organization”. These reports concur generally with one another and with the information given us by a very long-term follower who was living in Puttaparthi until fairly recently who stated that Sai Baba’s shows many signs of strange behaviour in public, including statements that he would go here or there later that day, which he never did. He also told an interview group in 2009 that he is now 94 years old! (which suggests he may think he will die soon, while in reality he is much younger than that). See this report, which also strongly indicates that Sai Baba was already in a very difficult position by 2006! Some say he is a virtual dummy whose strings are pulled by the smart operators who hide from the public the facts about his physical and mental condition as best they can. He does not look in the least vital or happy in the more recent images of him that have been released despite the censorship of his keepers.

Photos from 2010 show apparent lack of facial control

The Sathya Sai Organization has long been a battleground for control of its interests, as was told me by V.K. Narasimhan when I had written a book in which I gave what he considered a far too positive picture of the organization (see here). Numerous unofficial reports and statements show that the same applies to the multi-billion Sathya Sai Central Trust, which Sathya Sai Baba has said he leaves entirely in the hands of the directors. Some of the directors have backgrounds which do not inspire confidence, far from it. The institution which controls and funds all Sai Baba interests, the Sathya Sai Central Trust, was made a tax and custom duty-free organization by special allowance of his devotees running the government. As a Charitable Trust it is under no legal requirement to have rules or guidelines. The Board of Directors runs it, allegedly always deferring to Sathya Sai Baba’s wishes. That may have been so many years ago, but years ago, Sai Baba announced that he had nothing more to do with its decisions!  No known guidelines or principles are exist (unless secretly) and it makes available no minutes from its meetings – remaining a closed book in every way to the public, even to donors.

Sathya Sai Central Trust - can it be trusted?

The man who was selected by Sathya Sai Baba to oversee the Rayalaseema Water Project, a Mr. K.Chackravati – a former government worker who had been sacked for major embezzlement! Later he became head of the ashram at Puttaparthi. It is reliably reported that contractor corruption and embezzlement occurred with a large part of the much-trumpeted Rayalaseema Water Project under Mr. Chackravati, who Sathya Sai Baba selected to the Board of his Central Trust. Just to take one more example of a money grubber who obtained a directorship at this multi-billion dollar trough, consider the credentials of D. K. Adikesavulu (see press report scan).

Some of the persons on the Central Trust have records which do them no credit whatever. Even Sai Baba himself had to sack some members in 1995 who he had repeatedly warned about embezzlement, taking kickbacks from contractors Larsen and Turbro etc. including Colonel Joga Rao who bought an apartment block in Delhi he could not explain and ashram head, Mr. Narayanen [former Head of Prashanti Nilayam ashram and former Secretary to the Sathya Sai Central Trust until 1996]  who was dismissed from his posts by Sai Baba having been  found to have an unaccountable luxury villa in Bangalore.

Sathya Sai Baba’s younger brother, Janakiramiah (deceased) was – after having been kept out of the ashram for many years by SB –  given a directorship on the Sathya Sai Central Trust directly after the 1993 murders episode. Janakiramiah claimed it was an assassination attempt on Sai Baba, but Sai Baba himself firmly stated the exact opposite. Janakiramiah was a multi-millionaire property developer and brother owner in Puttaparthi who conspired with then Home Minister S.B. Chavan – backed by the Indian Government of Sai devotee PM Narasimha Rao. In the presence of my friend V.K. Narashihan (SB’s close servitor and editor) they discussed the cover up of the murders (such as the blackmailing of the Puttaparthi police into executing the four entrapped devotees who had intruded into the temple). The Home Minister congratulated Janakiramiah for his role in that, to which the man replied “Dead men tell no tales” and they both laughed at his wit! I cannot doubt that this is fact because Narasimhan told it to me (in almost a whisper) when we were discussing the incident (see scan of my notes made at the time)  and his many problems of living in the ashram due to his increasing doubts about many things which troubled him more and more, and not least the death of his wife.

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Sathya Sai Baba claims of bribery!

Sai Baba lied outright about his accusers taking bribes to betray the guru!

“Some foreigners are trying to bribe them. They are saying, “See, foolish ones! I will give this much money. I will give so many dollars. I will give this many pounds. You write and give some stories against Sathya Sai Baba.” A lying smear – and without a shred of evidence – against the many young men who accuse him of sexual abusing them!

To denounce people in public with an angry face (and most unforgivingly on Christmas Day itself!), beating the lectern before him, he said almost in the next breath: “There is no trace of anger or hatred in Me and hence everyone loves Me“ (Sanathana Sarathi September 2002, page 257f).

“… we should disregard abuse and hold to our righteous ideals firmly.” “Love even those who abuse you. I am a standing example of this.” (p. 267)

but he had taken notice just there!

Sathya Sai Baba contradicts his main tenet!

Sai Baba later refuted the main tenet of his own lifelong teaching: “All beings are sparks of the Eternal Divinity” [page 101, Discourses in Kodaikanal 1998] “… a hard-hearted person cannot be called a spark of Divinity; he is verily a demon.” [p. 323, Sanathana Sarathi, November 2002].

He clearly tried hard to limit the damage he had himself done to his movement (through his own actions) not least to try to stop the loss of foreign donations.

“In the single family of humankind, where is the room for jealousy or hatred? These are all imaginary.” Sai Baba teaches he is never wrong, “doubt only yourself!”
He teaches the absurd pseudo-philosophy of ‘whatever you imagine, is true for you’. This is a trick of mental enslavement and a get-out for himself. Above all, he wants to stop his followers facing the staring facts.

See the unexpurgated literally translated full version published by the (banned) premsai group of students
See the entire infamous Christmas Discourse as published in expurgated version in Sanathana Sarathi here.

As to bribery, Sathya Sai Baba was not in the least bit foreign to it himself. The person who made the original translations from Telugu, ‘Divya’, was present during and after the infamous 1993 murders in which Sai Baba was known to be deeply involved and was present when a massive cash bribes arrived in the apartment of his elder sister… followed by the same amount to many residents in the ashram. This is but one – but very well testified – instance of bribery on a large scale by Sai Baba. See full eyewitness account here

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See Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and his Worldwide Organization
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Damning sex abuse testimony against Sathya Sai Baba

In three lengthy TV interviews the former Sai Baba follower, Ullrich Zimmermann, gives a thorough description of his experiences with Sathya Sai Baba (on blip.tv.com in USA), which further prove what  is already widely reported by those involved, that Sathya Sai Baba practices sex on young male devotees.

The frank and detailed account Ullrich gives of his experiences and his interpretations of them for better and worse may be of great help to some of the hundreds of others he claims to know have been through similar sexual experiences with Sathya Sai Baba, whether of lesser or greater degree. His common sense as well as his more esoteric musings may well be helpful to others who have experienced the same or similar violations of their privacy. The question whether this oral sex was sexual abuse or a ‘divine blessing’ is raised, but the factual description of what occurred remains whatever one may think of it.

Ullrich Zimmermann (speaking about Sai Baba in the private interview room “So when he says that ‘always thinking about girls’ and I know and I don’t want to… … he says “Oh. Don’t worry” … … and he materialises an oil and he lifts up my T-shirt and he puts that here.” (he describes the places as “on the kundalini line”). “Then he kissed me on my mouth…” “It was awkward… and it was also not disgusting.” “He is looking at me and I know – knew – in my mind that he wanted me to suck his penis.” “and he took my hand… … to his genitals and it felt through the robe like a female with hair – there was no penis and he took my hand again and it was the male and ‘Suck finger, suck male’…” “So he pushes me down, lifts up his robe…” “His penis is… ….like from a child, no hair, small.” “And I took his penis in my mouth… …it was erect…. I had it in my mouth for a while and it was not like doing bliss, it was not like doing a big job or so – at least there was some movement but it was not like a big sexual act or so, and I didn’t feel ejaculation in my mouth… can’t give the time to the minute, maybe one and a half…” Asked by his interviewer whether Sai Baba ejaculated, Ullrich replied: “I didn’t feel that in my mouth. If you had asked me then I would have said ‘no’ but… I think he did.” “… really very quick. Robe up and the interview was over.” Interviewer: “Well, did you tell anyone about this, your mother?” Ullrich: Yes. I did. .. I was in the taxi back to Bangalore… she had also heard rumours and asked me what happened but she saw me in this happy state and so I told her.. I mean she didn’t experience… view that as abuse at all. She’s a Sai Baba follower and she trusts. And of course, having such an experience I wanted to have answers. After that, talking to other people who are living in the ashram and who are there for years with my knowledge and know about these things to happen anyway – it’s happening on a really big scale.” Interviewer: I mean, it happens every day with some – or – he has a lot of followers so he’s always doing interviews and… Ullrich: Yeah, but I only say my experience and that is I know – I know one person in eye-to-eye who has had that happen to him, also a young German, and I talked to another person who knew a lot of other people – I mean, I talked to a lot of people… Interviewer: But they also thought it was a good experience, or some of them were angry? Ullrich: They were not in anger. I mean, they’re still there. (editor’s note: i.e. in year 2000) They are just confused and for some of them it presses the button more than others but for me the bottom line was what I got, it is white Tantra.

Many other young men from across the world have testified to sexual abuses by Sathya Sai Baba through many years (see here). None came to see any of the sexual interferences of varying degrees of seriousness  as any kind of healing or blessing.

The natural openness and truthfulness of Ullrich is evident in his account of his whole Sai Baba experience – including the sensitive subject of oral sex – is admirable. His bravery and honesty in standing forth with information to help others and from which he can gain nothing himself other than a sense of doing a painful public duty (and attacks from fanatical Sai defenders) cannot be commended highly enough. As his interviewer says, these revelations will come a major shock to those Sai devotees who watch the video, but they will recognise that he describes details of life at the ashrams most credibly.

 
Ullrich Zimmermann emphasizes the big distinction between a ‘guru’ and a ‘teacher’: gurus unempower their followers and steal their freedom, a teacher (giving so-called spiritual guidance) always leaves seekers to decide for themselves and fashion their own way in life. Ullrich followed Sai Baba as a guru, but rejects gurus entirely now, even though there may have been be some clear temporary benefits from such following.

The full-length videos could for years be viewed on-line, but they have been removed. An audio file from the videos will be posted asap. The original URLs were:-
Part One (introductory) –
Part Two (the main account of sex etc.) –
Part Three (reflections)

The International Chairman of the Sathya Sai Organization, Dr. M. Goldstein – along with his defender and fanatical attacker of all critics, Gerald Moreno, – denies that anything improper has ever taken place. He has been exposed as running a despicable cover-up of facts that we have proof were known to him (who actually claims to be a ‘consummate professional’ sex abuse expert) and to many other top leaders, especially his predecessor as US leader, Dr. Hislop, whose famous letters tried to cover up the same kind of allegations in the early 1980s. That Sai Baba has escaped conviction is due to his protection by Indian Prime Ministers and Home Ministers who worship him and to his virtual control of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh and the Supreme Court of India through devotees who preside there. His unaccountable Sathya Sai Organisation cannot be sued in the US, not being registered as an accountable organisation (it operates and sends its donations to India through a bookshop).

In the first part of this series, Ullrich Zimmermann tells how he came to Sathya Sai Baba and got his first interview. Those who have not been involved in visiting Sai Baba will find some interest in watching this. He brings out the way in which he experienced this at the time, not concealing how indoctrinated he was – similar to most devotees – well before he ever saw Sai Baba. His conclusions about it all years after the sexual events (stated in Part Three) – reflect a most critical perspective.

In Part Two of the series: Since the live video interviews are lengthy, they are summarized  for the sake of those who will not have time to watch all of it, with transcripts of portions which are particularly important from the viewpoint of the expos of Sai Baba’s secret and controversial and doings.

Full coverage of Zimmermann’s testimony, with transcripts and discussion – click here

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