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Archive for April, 2007

Sai Baba Head Michael Goldstein’s Extreme Statement on 9/11

Posted by Barry Pittard on April 9, 2007

During the making of the television documentary The Secret Swami, the BBC confirmed but did not use (amid 80+ hours of its investigative film footage, a significant amount shot in the USA) the document in which Sai Baba’s U.S. head – who is now world Chairman of the Sathya Sai Organization, Dr Michael Goldstein of Corvina, southern California – in an email to devotees, made the following statements about 9/11: 

“A number of reports have been received from (Sai Baba) devotees indicating that our Beloved Swami prevented many of his devotees from being injured or killed in the World Trade Center where they are employed or had meetings scheduled. His Miraculous Intervention on behalf of His devotees is clearly evident… They were either late or never arrived…” 

In a public meeting in Buenos Aires, attended by some 1500 Sai Baba devotees, October 20, 2001, Goldstein also said:

“There are many (Sai Baba) devotees that worked in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon… And none of them went to work that day, or they arrived late…all the New York and Washington devotees are safe…”

Too bad for the thousands of non-devotees of Sai Baba who were killed or maimed in those catastrophes, and all who were left behind to grieve – Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, and those of other faiths and of none)!

Further Reading:

The English translation from Spanish of “Gatapado” journal article by a top Argentinean investigative journalist and Azul TV presenter Alejandro Agostinelli is at:  

http://www.saiguru.net/english/media/020201divine_sin.htm

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Posted in Medicine, Morality, Neglected/sidelined News, Nepal, New Age, News, News and Politics, Opinion, Pediatrics, People, Philanthropy, Politics, Propaganda, Protest, Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychotherapy, Rationalism, Religion, Scandal, Sex, Skeptics, Social and Politics, Society, Spirituality, Sri Lanka, Successful People, Theology, Theosophy, Trends, Uncategorized, World Issues, World Religions | Leave a Comment »

Sai Baba. IHEU Presentation to United Nations

Posted by Barry Pittard on April 9, 2007

International Humanist and Ethical Union Presentation to United Nations

Extract from statement by Mr Roy BROWN, Tuesday 6th April 2004,
Commission on Human Rights: 60th session. Chair: Mike Smith (15 March – 23 April 2004), Item 13. Rights of the Child. Abuse of Children in the name of Religion.
Source: http://www.iheu.org/node/1305

…”We are equally appalled that even though widely reported allegations of paedophilia against the highly successful and powerful Indian god man Satya Sai Baba have led UNESCO to withdraw in 2000 from a proposed joint event with the Institute for Satya Sai Education (see UNESCO Media advisory below), despite the matter being raised in the UK Parliament (early day motion by MP Tony Coleman), and despite the issuing by the US State Department of a Travel advisory in 2001 (see US State Department Travel Advisory below), the disturbing allegations have not received the appropriate attention of the Government of India which is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We are hopeful that international attention, scrutiny and pressure will lead to a full scale investigation into the activities of this so-called god man and ensure the protection of children who come into contact with him.”

 

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Posted in Morality, Neglected/sidelined News, Nepal, New Age, News, News and Politics, Opinion, People, Philosophy, Politics, Propaganda, Protest, Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychotherapy, Rationalism, Religion, Scandal, Sex, Skeptics, Social and Politics, Society, Spirituality, Sri Lanka, Successful People, Theology, Theosophy, Trends, Uncategorized, World Issues, World Religions | 1 Comment »

Vivekananda Has Come Again, Says Sai Baba. But Has He?

Posted by Barry Pittard on April 6, 2007

“Vivekananda has come again;  he is growing up in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).  He will come to Me and join in My task.”    Sathyam, Shivam, Sundaram, Part II, p. 130. 1960-61. Professor N. Kasturi, official biographer of Sri Sathya Sai Baba.

On Wednesday April 13,1998, I flew from South India to Sri Lanka. Among other matters, I  wished to locate the young man, Nalin Sedera. According to major Sai Baba-approved writers N.Kasturi and Howard Murphet, Sai Baba had told Sedera he was

swami-vivekananda-in-chicago-1893.jpgramakrishna-and-vivekananda.jpg

Swami Vivekananda in his last life.

I had encountered personally (and India is the place of all places to encounter them!) similar stories, sometimes in relation to Sai Baba but also cases where, muchto their surprise, individuals from various countries had found their names cited in one or more of the palm leaf traditions in India, supposedly written or dictated by ancient Indian rishis (seer, sages, spiritual masters) called Nadis.

In common with devotees from many countries, I had heard various reliable reports that Sai Baba had informed certain individuals of who they were in some past life. For example, disclosing their identity when (as he claims) he ‘came’ as God manifest in Rama, Krishna, and Shirdi Sai Baba (circa 1838-1918).

Many devotees relate that Sai Baba has said that Paramahansa Yogananda(1893-1952), another earlier Indian swami who went to the West and became famous worldwide, was now a child growing up in a Greek family of Sai Baba devotees. I wondered what would be the case if Nalin were to undergo one of these readings (nadis, naadis, granthas, granthams) scattered about India in which I had taken an interest – e.g., Brighu (in North India), Agasthya (Agasthiar),Suka,Sukha, Siva, etc., (South India).

What was this mention of a “task” in the Professor Kasturi quotation?  Sai Baba has many times stated that he will bring, before he dies (not that he uses the word ‘dies’) the entire world into an era of truth, right conduct, peace, love and non-violence, before leaving the planet, aged 95 or 96?  (The one year differential depends on which calendar one uses, Gregorian or Indian).

Many years ago, Sathya Sai Baba said that Ramakrishna, Vivekananda’s illustrious guru, had but one Vivekananda and one Brahmananda, whereas he, Sai Baba had hundreds of great yogic souls among his devotees through whom he will perform global transformations on a scale never witnessed in mankind’s history. Could it, I (then) thought, be possible to locate some of these great souls; and might they, sensing the seriousness of my nadi study, grant permission to submit a thumbprint or any other initial information required by nadi custodians by which to gradually reticulate to an individual’s given reading? If I located Nalin, would he in any way resemble Swami Vivekananda? Would any reading for him in any of the nadis confirm what Sai Baba had foretold?

As I waited in the queue awaiting to see Sai Baba at Kodai Kanal, a gorgeous hill station in the Nilgiris of the state of Tamil Nadu where Sai Baba has a villa, two gentlemen asked me about my work – at that time, editing a Sai Baba related magazine, Spiritual Impressions, and books by some devotees of Sathya Sai Baba.  I noticed a man intently listening in, and welcomed him into the conversation.  He soon said he was from Sri Lanka.  More than that, he and his family personally knew Nalin. After the darshan (viewing of a person deemed holy), he gave me contact details.

In that morning’s darshan of Sai Baba, I found myself against considerable odds in a second row.  Sai Baba came right up. I handed him a small card on which I had written the name: Nalin. He moved the card little by little several times gently along the palm of my hand towards Him. This was in a similar manner to which he had stroked my hand in the darshan of morning before. Then, as though to create an emphasis, Sai Baba snapped the card deftly towards his chest.  He then put the card among the letters in his left hand, and moved a few paces towards the centre of the pathway, turning to the rows of men sitting opposite. Unexpectedly, he turned right round and, looking towards me with what I took to be great love, made a deep bowing movement with his head. Keeping the steady heart-melting gaze all the while, he smiled very sweetly, then raised His hand in blessing me for quite some moments. From my then devotee perspective, not without various extraordinary experiences I had had, thinking him to have omniscience, I felt very strongly that he was bowing to, and blessing, the intention that had formed in my mind: to seek out Nalin.

On Sunday April 19th, 1998, I had planned for a quiet evening in my room at the Ramakrishna Mission in Columbo, the capital of Sri Lanka.  I had arranged with Nalin’s brother, Ajitha, to go to their home on the Monday.  He told me that Nalin had been spending a few days meditating in a temple at the southern tip of his country – at Karthirkamagiri, long a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists and Hindus alike. Until a month before, I had never heard of it. However, it was mentioned in a Chapter (Kandam) in one of my Agasthya nadis at Vaithishwarankoil in Tamil Nadu (where it stated that I was associated with this place in a former life as a doctor).

At 6.15 p.m., as I made my way up Ramakrishna Road for a quiet cup of Horlicks, a tall, slender, striking young Singhalese man around thirty years called across to me, “Are you the Australian gentleman staying at the Ramakrishna Mission?”  It was Nalin accompanied by his brother, Ajitha.  He explained that they thought they would find me more easily than I them.  A few minutes later, as we sat ourselves down at the table of the crowded vegetarian restaurant, I sat facing a tall, lithe, well built young man, clean shaven, dressed very neatly, wearing denim, his dark red shirt smart. He blended in with middle class Sri Lankans. His face had a fine-boned, sculptured look, and a bright, golden brown that had an inner lustre. His voice was rich and resonant, as though coming from a cavern. Was there anything about his physical appearance which resembled Vivekananda? Yes, I thought  –  the lips:  delicate, fine-etched, contoured. I  sensed strong character, and he he displayed spontaneous, sincere good manners.  He was direct, with a controlled but passionate intensity about things that mattered to him.  

“They are trying to take my life”

Even before we sat down, I had asked him whether the attention he had received had affected his life.  His distaste for those who mobbed him was immediate, unmistakable. “They are trying to take my life.”  It was an odd sentence. I asked Nalin, “When you say,’They are trying to take my life,’ do you mean that your life is actually in danger from anyone?” With burning intensity, and a mix of smile and leer that reminded me of Humphrey Bogart, he replied, “They would be writing their last will and testament if they tried!”Here, I did not sense a Vivekananda-like commitment to ahimsa (non-violence). Nalin’s occasional intensities became one of my abiding impressions of him.

As we sat down, he referred to crowds that gathered round him after word travelled bushfire-like that Sathya Sai Baba had said that Nalin, in his previous life, was Swami Vivekananda. He said:

 “My mind didn’t go. But I lost a lot  –  my liberty, my freedom.”

I checked with him, just to be sure I understood his exact meaning. By “my life”, he meant a broad leeway to be himself. I asked  Nalin if he related to books? Again, the intensity.

“I want to have experience. It is all that matters. Not read about anyone else’s. Books are a waste of time.”

I mentioned the book by the Australian writer Howard Murphet’s book. Nalin said that he felt very let down by the people who had informed the author of his story (he referred to them as Tamilians  –  i.e., belonging to or originating from the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu).

 “I had asked them to allow nothing to be published without my permission. They went ahead without consulting me”.

As he began to unfold his experiences, he said:

 “I’ve had a lot of troubles. I am a normal person, whatever people may think.  Whatever may have been the case in my last life, I am living in this  life!  I have no idea what happened in my last life.  When Swami made the revelation  –  or call it a pronouncement  –  I had no idea of who Swami Vivekananda was.  This is this life.  It’s all I’m interested in.  Now, as a result of all the attention, I’ve lost what is most precious to me  –  my liberty, my freedom.  At the ashram after Swami had spoken, there were hundreds of people milling all round me. And hundreds of people here in Sri Lanka.” 

What did the mobs ask? 

“They asked funny questions.  Do I remember my previous birth?  They regard me as some kind of alien.  Some of them say I should be wearing a robe like a sadhu (ed., spiritual renunciate).  Why should I do that?  I want to wear my denims.  Some have even said that, at a certain time, I’ll get up in darshan and take over Puttaparthi.”

Typically, after reflection, usually following a question of mine, he would return with a perfectly crystalised reply, like a pearl slipping out of the oyster shell when, after inner effort, it opens at last.  His voice struck flint; a small spark lit his eye. “I don’t like that!”  The tone was very emphatic.  Again the spurt of intensity.  I sensed a deep indignity, a smouldering anguish from which he had somewhat distanced himself. Embers still glowed hot.

He spoke of his anger at the time of Sai Baba’s ‘revelation’ or ‘pronouncement.’  The interview in which this was made occurred, he said, at Puttaparthi, March 23, 1987.  Two more interviews followed – on the 24th and 26th.  He was then nineteen years. He said that the Sri Lankan group of which Nalin was a member was led by Mrs Ganhewa. He was baffled to know how the news got out.  “Swami took me into a private room next to the interview room. I cannot see how others in the interview could have heard what Swami said.  I certainly didn’t say anything about it.”

I have since asked a number of others their opinion as to the audibility or otherwise of what is said, from the standpoint of someone in the outer room.  Some say the speech is too muffled to be understood.  Others say that sometimes one can hear what is being said. In an interview on July 24,1998, I noted this: a curtain separates the two rooms, as it has long done. I was in a group of seven Australians. However, a Canadian husband and wife briefly preceded us into the inner room. Later, Sai Baba also saw the three ladies in our group separately to the men. In both cases, a few drift words of speech could be understood; much could not be, because he and the Canadians and, separately, he and the Australian women spoke quite quietly.

Nalin told me that he returned to Puttaparthi in August 1987.  Sai Baba called him and his group for interview.  He said that Sai Baba asked the group leader, referring to Nalin’s parents, “Are his parents happy?”  Nalin relates that she replied yes, they were very happy when they heard the news, but

“Swami replied, ‘No, no, no, they are not happy but they are worried about that boy. Look at him, he’s just a boy.  Just leave him alone and don’t disturb him, because if anything happens, you must be responsible for that”‘. 

Nalin says 

“Swami turned to me and said, ‘A lot of people are angry with you and jealous of you, here and there.  Don’t go to any bhajan places. You just stay at your home, and do your work'” 

I asked Nalin what work did he do? 

“Not ordinary work. A friend of my age and I have been working among the poorer classes. At one time, we got involved in an eye camp.”

(These were organised clinics designed to bring medical aid to the poor. For example, combating eye diseases such as glaucoma).

Nalin continued,

“Swami then said, ‘You are angry with me.  Why are you angry with me?’  I said, ‘You know why I am angry with you.’  Baba said, ‘Yes, I know.'” 

Nalin relates that it was only on his return home that he discovered from his parents that they had been in fact worried at the extraordinary revelation about their son. Not wanting to trouble their family, they had kept their concern to themselves.

He said that, in two or three months, he would like to visit Sai Baba wherever he was stationed at the time. A lot would depend on how Nalin’s father managed with a shortly upcoming by-pass operation in Chennai. He wondered whether it would be possible to get Sri Lankan Sai devotees to leave him alone – perhaps via a note printed in Sanathana Sarathi, the official magazine of the Sathya Sai Central Trust. Considering the essential purpose of the publication (to publish Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s Discourses, a small few articles by contributors, Sathya Sai Organization news), I rather doubted his chances, but suggested he call on the Editor, Sri V.K. Narasimhan, whom I regarded as a good, decent man and a warm friend. With distinction and courage, V.K.N. had formerly edited major Indian newspapers – the Indian Express, Hindustan Times and Deccan Herald– and he and I had a warm friendship and were in fairly regular contact. From V.K.N. I soon after found that Nalin had, while I was absent, called on him, a visit I had already told V.K.N that Nalin may make. When we later spoke, V.K.N smiled wryly and admitted defeat in observing any similarities to Swami Vivekananda.

Since so many of Sathya Sai Baba’s predictions large and small have proved false, one may fail to see how the one about Nalin could come true. Trustfully, given the fickleness of the madding crowd, Nalin’s botherers will have long given up their bothering of him.

If Nalin ever takes over Puttaparthi, I shall personally ‘come again’. Reborn there as a service volunteer. And eat my hat!

Resources:Manisha Rathore
http://sify.com/astrology/fullstory.php?id=13624255

Robert Priddy, former Norwegian leader and a founder member of the Norwegian Sathya Sai Organization: ‘Requiem To A Kindly Spirit. Celebrated Indian journalist V.K. Narasimhan
http://home.no.net/anir/Sai/enigma/VKN2.htm

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Posted in Morality, Movie Stars, Neglected/sidelined News, Nepal, New Age, News, News and Politics, Opinion, People, Politics, Propaganda, Prophecy, Protest, Psychology, Rationalism, Religion, Scandal, Sex, Skeptics, Social and Politics, Society, Spirituality, Sri Lanka, Successful People, Theology, Theosophy, Trends, Uncategorized, World Issues, World Religions | 2 Comments »

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ – A Revision

Posted by Barry Pittard on April 4, 2007

Note: For enquiries, enter contact details in the Comment section. These will be treated with the same confidentiality and professionalism we have long observed in our dealing with e.g., UNESCO, governments, Interpol, media and religious and secular institutions, and other such serious inquirers. 

The BBC’s cameras at Sathya Sai Baba’s ashram at Puttaparthi in South India catch the pomp, circumstance, opulence and the highly stage-managed atmosphere of the crowded Mahasivaratri festival, February 2004. India’s most famous (and controversial) ‘Godman’ has promised a great miracle, the materialization from within his stomach via his mouth of a pure gold lingam (a Hindu cosmic symbol of creation) the size of a generous egg, in full public view. Viewers hoping to see this spectacle will not be disappointed – but they will see the sham in full close-up.

linghodhbhavam2004_0001.jpgSai Baba pretends to vomit up pure gold Siva Lingam. A few minutes later, he tells his vast audience, “Out of the stomach emanated Shiva Lingas of the weight  of three tonnes.  That’s the reason why some strain on  the face and the body”. See: BBC Cameras Catch Sai Baba Cheating With Gold Sivalingam. (Film Clip)

nullJust one of Sai Baba grandiose show pieces, the Super Speciality Hospital at Puttaparthi, South India

The Secret Swami reveals much, but viewers may wish also to investigate much of what, for constraints of time, it omits.

police-shootings-sai-babas-bedroom.jpgV.P.B. Nair, former Home Secretary in Sai Baba’s State of Andhra Pradesh at the time of the killings, is seen in the BBC television documentary on Sai Baba, The Secret Swami, (2004), where he says that the police killings were “cold-blooded murder”.  Nair seeks to reopen the case of the June 6, 1993 four police killings in Sai Baba’s bedroom. Many Indian police, politicians, journalists and other investigators know that the profound cover-up involved Sai Baba, his officials and Local, State and Central Indian governments. See my article:

V.P.B. Nair. B.Premanand. R.Priddy: Sai Baba Bedroom Killings

See below,the BBC’s The Secret Swami transcript excerpt containing V.P.B. Nair’s testimony.

The Secret Swami confines itself to four areas:

  • Accusations down many years of Sai Baba’s sexual molestation of young males.
  • His implication in police executions in his private quarters on June 6, 1993.
  • Cover-up by him and the leadership of his worldwide organization, and as well as by successive Indian governments, of major criminal allegations.
  • His faking of miracles.

BBC producer Eamon Hardy and his team’s view is that serious questions are raised about India’s political maturity.

Focus on One Family Obscures Vast Extent of Allegations

Ashram scenes cut to northern Arkansas in America’s Midwest. Former devotees, Al and Marisa Rahm and their 20-year-old son Alaya show the BBC interviewer Tanya Datta around sturdy commune buildings that the Rahms established in the 1980’s as a model Sai Baba commune, with school, resident teachers, study groups, congregational singing… Much of the documentary’s credibility will stand or fall on how viewers evaluate this family. Certainly, the device of interweaving a family’s story with wider events touches the emotions. Although I think viewers will have a strong sense of the Rahm family’s integrity, the technique has a downside. It obscures the fact that allegations against Sathya Sai Baba come from many individuals and grieving families around the world. In fact, the BBC, as has been the case with national governments and police forces, was granted access to many testimonies.

It is, by the way, indicative of the desperation and dishonesty of pro Sathya Sai Baba protagonists who edit the Wikipedia article on him attempt to keep the BBC references out of it. Brian Steel and Robert Priddy state their names, but these individuals hide behind pseudonyms.

Focusing on one family meant no examination of anything like the full extent of the allegations. It also meant no examination of the multiple billions (that’s a ‘b’ not an ‘m’) that pour into the Sathya Sai Central Trust coffers from all over the world, or of financial scams by his administration (e.g., the selling of apartments which are sometimes later taken away from the paid up owners), which devotees blindly accept, as “tests of faith”. It meant no examination of Tony Blair’s suppression by over fifty British parliamentarians to raise Sai Baba-related issues in the House of Commons.  This was at a time when Blair wanted to placate the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee so as to win a contract for 66 jet fighters for India. The urgency to win the deal was bi-partisan. For further information, see my article, ‘Flag Follows Trade. Abetting Indian Government Corruption’:

Governments Placate India

Further, it meant no examination of the failure of governments – particularly of Britain, Canada, Australia and Germany – to match the US State Department’s naming of Sai Baba as the subject of a Travel Advisory – weakly citing that there are no court convictions of Sathya Sai Baba in India. If the State Department can name Sai Baba why cannot they? (As of May 25, 2004, the State Department D has dedicated an American Citizen’s Services Unit special line in Washington – 202 647-6179 – via which they will confirm that Sathya Sai Baba is the individual referred to in their Consular Information Sheet, November 23, 2001. There was no examination of former Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s leaning on Tony Blair about Sai Baba when Blair vied for a highly lucrative sale to India of Hawke class fighter planes. The programme mentions the Vajpayee letter which states that allegations against Sai Baba are “wild, reckless and concocted” but not that it was published at the time of Vajpayee’s visit to Tony Blair.

Other documentaries will need to look at the supposedly miraculously materialized jewelry which independent international assayers like the Queen of Denmark’s crown jeweler attest are faked:

There are allegations of Sai Baba’s failed promises to cure people of cancers and other terrible diseases; the tragedy of sick people of many countries desperately visiting him in hope of a cure; the targeting of the weak and vulnerable for their money by an organisation that, while saying that it does not ask for money, uses indirect approaches to raise it.

Supposedly God, Sai Baba Woos Heads of State and other Big Players

Head of Sai Baba’s world organization, Dr Michael Goldstein, of Covina California, tells the BBC interviewer,

“We believe that Sri Sathya Sai Baba is Jesus Christ. Sri Sathya Sai Baba is Buddha. Sri Sathya Sai Baba is the founder of all of the world’s religions. Sri Sathya Sai Baba has always been God.”

Dr Goldstein here reveals the true beliefs and agenda which his worldwide organization has long studiously kept hidden from the wider public, especially when it tries to enlist religious, political, educational and business leaders in its social projects. (The organization succeeded in getting the British Queen to visit a Sai School at Harrow but the programme omits this telling detail!) However, the work of former devotee and other exposé activists will now be much easier, for they will be able to send DVDs and CDs to those governments, leaders and institutions which the Sathya Sai Organization reportedly tries to woo, including the Palace and the White House.

BBC Evicted From Puttaparthi For Asking About Allegations

This organization’s reputation has been badly damaged by quarter of a decade of intense campaigns of exposure by globally organized former devotees, and even longer by Rationalists and Humanists. BBC producers say that Sai Baba’s top leaders at first thought the documentary would present a ‘positive image’ of their guru and the works of his organization to the world. Hence the rare permission for the BBC to shoot at Sai Baba’s ashram. The Puttaparthi authorities extended guided tours to the BBC by Central Trust Secretary K. Chakravarthy and other leading officials, including Dr Goldstein, never before granted to a television corporation. However, a few days later, when the BBC asked for a comment on the worldwide allegations, the ashram authorities ordered them to leave, and Dr Goldstein sent a prompt global instruction to all Sai Baba centres that no-one must cooperate with the BBC. No doubt the exposure by Denmark’s national broadcaster in its 2003 documentary Seduced (renamed Seduced By Sai Baba in the English language version by Australia’s national multicultural broadcaster SBS), seen by millions in Denmark, Norway and Australia – when the top Sai leaders in Denmark and Australia made unavailing threats of legal action – must still have haunted their minds.

Sai Baba’s Power Isn’t Flower Power

Establishing footage from the 1960s shows the hunger in the West for Hindu Indian gurus by hippies and such cultural icons as the Beatles at that time. This true but superficial view is one of a few blemishes in The Secret Swami. There were many other kinds of spiritual seekers, and Sai Baba’s middle class devotees infinitely outnumber those of alternative lifestyle. The view may be correct for Marisa Rahm, once caught up in the 60’s alternative scene, but wrong for her husband Al Rahm. He considered himself a yogi, who engaged in serious spiritual practices such as meditation. There is a tradition of western aspirant yogis long before the 60’s.

Showing three zealous western devotees eccentrically rhapsodizing about Sai Baba fails to indicate his appeal to people of many cultures and socio-economic backgrounds. Filming eccentrics detracts from the serious purpose seen elsewhere in the documentary. It obscures the interest he has evoked in figures of great power (e.g., Bill and Hillary Clinton (more particularly Hillary), Al Gore, Mikhail and the late Raisa Gorbachev (a reliable friend of mine told me that Mrs Gorbachev told her that Gorbachev had a book of discourses by Sai Baba as his bedside reading). The sheer penetration of Sai Baba’s influence is of real concern. For Isaac Tigrett, multi-millionaire American backer of Sathya Sai Baba, the hippy origin is correct. All glassy-eyed, perhaps still a hippy at heart, a Peter Pan-like Tigrett tells Tanya Datta,

“India’s so unique, it’s so incredible. If there’s a spiritual train then India is the engine. All this mysticism, all the strangeness that surrounds Sai Baba and all that stuff, this is the perfect home for it.”

We glimpse one of Sathya Sai Baba’s water projects. The BBC got led to the showpiece village near Puttaparthi. But it would have needed to investigate harder, for the various water and other projects are the subject of many allegations of fraud on a grand scale, including incredible wastage of resources and inefficiency. This same water system supplies the ashram, which depends on big overseas donors. But there are claims that the overall project failed to deliver due to an unexpected fall in the water table, and that this was covered up by the Sai Baba’s Central Trust.  See article by Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard, ‘Sathya Sai Organization Untruths, Disinformation and Subterfuge’:

One learns that The U.S. minerals magnate James Sinclair got upset when Sathya Sai Baba officials announced sums of money that he had donated, so it is likely that his continuing donations are now not being disclosed. However, we know that he twice donated U.S. 600 million dollars. I shall have to see whether I can check the figure but I think Sinclair further donated $100 million for Sai Baba’s first water project, a sum announced by Indulal Shah (then head of the Sathya Sai Organization) at Sathya Sai Baba’s 70th birthday celebrations, when Shah listed every donor to the Water Project who had given at least one crore. U.S. devotee friends who knew Sinclair and his wife said that Sinclair was very shocked that his name would brought out. On Indulal Shah, see: Indulal Shah and Indian Government Cover Up and,‘God’s’ Ex-Shah, Indulal Shah

Foreign Goose Lays Multi-billion Dollar Eggs For Sai Baba

Showing his worthy causes might allow the BBC to appear balanced, but it ignores considerable allegations of fraud, and complaints by village elders that the Sathya Sai water project authorities have left a trail of broken promises. Sai Baba’s state of Andhra Pradesh has long been one of India’s poorest. The Secret Swami reports that Sai Baba “cuts through the red tape” to provide water to poor villages via a costly pipeline. But the documentary misses a perfect opportunity to suggest a major reason why successive Indian governments and opposition parties have covered for him. Yes, he (or rather his organization) accomplishes what they fail to provide, but with billions of overseas dollars! Would many Indian politicians, notorious for their extreme corruption, dare expose the foreign goose that lays the (cosmic!) golden egg? Driving this question would have reinforced the documentary’s fundamental query about whether India is a mature democracy.

We see the hospital by English architect Keith Critchlow for Sai Baba (a long-time conduit to Prince Charles). Largely funded by Isaac Tigrett and inaugurated in 1991, this hi-tech heart and kidney hospital even out-dazzles the many-splendoured architecture of the ashram. BBC cameras miss the names of other big donors, overseas and Indian, which are on a Roll of Honour in the hospital portico. Indeed, The Secret Swami fails to mention the billions that pour into the Sai coffers from various countries such as Australia, Canada, Hong Kong (indeed, the Chinese diaspora), Germany, Indonesia, Japan, UK, USA … Like the American James Sinclair (who often works from Canada), the precious metals speculator, alone has donated several hundreds of millions of dollars).

BBC’s Tanya Datta asks: ‘Is Sai Baba Above The Law?’

Lovely architecture. But the moral interior? Similar to others from around the world, Alaya Rahm speaks of Sai Baba genitally oiling him, kissing him heavily on the mouth, giving and receiving oral sex, trying to penetrate him anally, mixing lavish gifts of money and jewelry with dire threats – e.g., to cut his penis off, and forbid interviews to his family – to ensure his silence. That these patterns recur in so many other victim reports is crucial, but the BBC fails to highlight this fact.

Alaya says he was afraid to tell his parents of his sexual molestation in almost all of his many private interviews. At one point his father asked him whether he had received the oiling experience. Yes, the son replied, but how did his father know? He answers that he himself received this treatment when he first visited Sathya Sai Baba at 18 years old, who told him it was “a ritual healing process.” Why did not the BBC challenge leaders about the oiling experiences? The moment Eamon Hardy raised questions about allegations, that was it – the BBC was promptly told to leave the ashram. Other journalists have found the same cover-up. Some Sai Baba leaders at least do admit the ‘oiling’ allegations – but only under strictest professional guidelines are doctors (and Sai Baba is not one!) permitted to touch the genitals of minors or adults. Tanya Datta’s question to Dr Goldstein in another regard obtains here, too: Is Sai Baba above the law?

Oiling Penises Not A Hindu Ritual. (Nor Of Other World Faiths – And Non Faiths)

Could oral sex by a guru be a secret Tantric ritual? Khushwant Singh (strangely the BBC describes this most famous of Indian social commentators merely as a ‘Writer’) says,

“There’s no Indian tradition to support the fact that, you know, worship of the Lingam includes also doing the blow job, if that is what you are referring to. I don’t think there’s any basis for that whatsoever”.

A noted Hindu scholar’s response would have carried more weight here. Or even a BBC text or voiceover citing response by Hindu authorities. Any religious leaders would be most remiss if they shirk issues like this. Clarity about allegations of Sai Baba’s ejaculation into victims’ mouths would have questioned the absurdity voiced by many Sai Baba devotees (such as long-time devotee Ram Das Awle in his Internet writings) that Sai Baba touches young males sexually only to assist their mental health or raise the Kundalini energy.

Basava Premanand, the celebrated Rationalist and ‘guru buster,’ – see my appreciation of him at the time of his death: Basava Premanand. Vale. A fighter for truth who lived what others preach.  Posted by Barry Pittard on October 6, 2009 reports investigating Sathya Sai Baba since 1968, first “as a hobby” then going public in 1976. He is seen showing the trick behind Sai Baba’s so-called ‘miraculous’ production of the golden lingam (of which more below). Professor Narendra Nayak, his fellow Rationalist, demonstrates how, by sleight-of-hand, magicians perform the same ‘miracles’ as Sai Baba – e.g. materializing ash, rings, pendants, etc. To convince the most critical, the BBC needed demonstrations as sophisticated as those in the Danish documentary Seduced (a copy of which the BBC possessed) where the Danish magician Nils Krøjgaard exposes the deceptions involved. Narendra Nayak shows Tanya Datta, who realizes that it takes practice, how to secrete a vibhuti (sacred ash) pellet between the thumb and base of the forefinger. Nayak says that Sai Baba’s rotations of the hand when producing the ash is the method used by all ‘godmen’ who ‘materialize’ this ash, and obscures the act of crumbling the pellet. (Various people, such as the former leader of the Australian Sai Organization, Terry Gallagher, a scientist and businessman, have reported seeing Sai Baba inadvertently drop these pellets. See Terry Gallagher’s testimony and my article ‘Police Killings in Sai Baba’s Bedroom at Puttaparthi’).

On stage before February 2004’s Mahasivaratri crowd, the BBC cameras show Sai Baba looking increasingly sick. He produces the lingam, and the materialization trick demonstrated by Nayak is easy for the viewer to spot, the lingam being concealed in Sai Baba’s handkerchief. Tanya Datta comments:

“To the alarm of the crowd suddenly Sai Baba collapsed. His huge coterie of staff swung into action. There was panic. An organisation used to tight control seemed to have lost its grip. Sai Baba was hastily wheeled off stage.” Later, he is carried hobbling back, with officials claiming that he manifested two more lingams offstage. To the audience a shaken Sai Baba makes an inane claim “Out of the stomach emanated Shiva Lingas of the weight of three tonnes. That’s the reason why some strain on the face and the body.”

Top Indian Minister Shows Ugly Face of Indian Government Sai Baba Patronage

Confronted by Tanya Datta, Murali Manohar Joshi, one of the most powerful ministers in the since-defeated Vajpayee government, soon loses his temper, jabbing away with pointed finger at Ms Datta, accusing the BBC and people in England of plotting against Sai Baba, A.B. Vajpayee and P.N. Bhagawati (a key Central Trust member and former Chief Justice of India). He arrogantly shouts at her,

“No, no, no… You don’t know the meaning of interviewing a minister in my capacity, as a minister of my stature.”

Her vulnerability in the face of an arch bully is touching, and she shows some courage but tough interviewers would not have put up with his evasiveness. Surely, it would have been better had Ms Datta not tried to defend the BBC and herself but rather firmly stated the worldwide nature of the serious evidence that keeps on coming. At least, Joshi’s arrogant evasion of the BBC’s totally fair question about Indian Government accountability was unmasked for the world to see.

Sai Baba “Wanted My Son”

There is historic footage of the Rahms’ popular song and story telling appearances on the major US Sai circuit and of Sai Baba’s special attention to them. Marisa Rahm says, “it was just like the trip to Disneyland with God. I mean we were just really ecstatic with joy at getting this attention and this limelight.” However, concerned about their son’s troubled behaviour, Alaya’s parents confront him, and he reveals countless occasions of sexual abuse, saying that he was afraid that if he had told them he would be left “alone in the world.” Marisa weeps, saying “he (Sai Baba) didn’t care about me; he wanted my son.”

When the Rahms took their story to Dr Goldstein, in September 1999, they say that he was shocked and shaken, saying, “Faith has got to be restored and words will not be enough.” Goldstein promised to speak to Sai Baba and pledged the Rahms to secrecy until he did. He reported back that Sai Baba replied, “Swami is pure” and “If you want to fight with people in the gutter, you also have to go into the gutter. Don’t.” But are the Rahms gutter people?! Were they fighting? For years, they were dear favourites of Sai Baba and he showered presents on them. We see a box full of them, including fake jewelry, and Al Rahm calls it a “box of bribes.”

Dr Goldstein Tells BBC “I am what I am – a consummate professional”

So repeatedly evasive was Michael Goldstein that the BBC team gained permission from BBC heads and legals to film him with hidden cameras. The BBC cleverly gets him to admit the correctness of the Rahms’ report of his words. Unlike his archangelic namesake and just like Joshi, his finger repeatedly jabs at Tanya Datta as he snarls, blusters and fulminates. Seemingly in need of a child’s first dictionary, Dr Goldstein hurls the questions, “Transparency in what sense?” and “What do you mean by thorough investigation”? He says that his “heart and his conscience” know that the allegations of sexual molestation could not be true. But what about the heart and conscience of families and individuals around the world who give accounts of Sathya Sai Baba’s tragic harming of their boy children? Goldstein says that he would be able to tell at sight whether young men had been sexually molested or not. Doctor Goldstein is a medical doctor, and does not rate alongside sexual abuse experts who work full-time in the area. Sexual abuse experts are in touch with Sai Baba’s young accusers (and also abuse accounts going back many years) and are satisfied they are telling the truth. He shouts “I would know it in my heart because I am what I am – a consummate professional. Can you understand that?” This is the world head of Sai Baba’s supposedly divine organization that claims Sai Baba, as full embodiment of God, will save the world within his lifetime!

The Secret Swami shows footage, taken by Sai Baba’s official videographer, James Redmond, which shows that, directly after he had asked Sai Baba about the Rahm allegations, Goldstein is made Chief Guest and before a vast audience is praised by Sai Baba as a “great man,” “Goldstein has all good qualities in him,” etc. We see Goldstein being strongly moved by Sai Baba’s flattery. Al Rahm says, “Michael came up to James and said; ‘I want a copy of that video, it’s the peak of my life.’ And I remember thinking; he’s being played.”

The documentary could have raised the question: Why is it that the Rahms and many others, for so long highly regarded in the Sai Baba community, as soon as they try to tell their experiences, are reviled by both guru and many devotees as ‘demons,’ ‘Judases’, ‘slanderers’, ….? Typically, cults do this to those who question or dissent.

“He Could Go Out And Murder” Says Billionaire backer, Isaac Tigrett

Having failed with Goldstein, Al Rahm turns to Isaac Tigrett. Unlike other Sai leaders, the latter comes across as compassionate but his unusual and repeated laughter suggests his ultimate denial of feeling that needs to translate to humane action. Tanya Datta says,

“But even if it was proven to you that Sai Baba was a paedophile and a serial sex abuser, you’re saying it wouldn’t change the fact that he is your guru.”

Isaac Tigrett says,

“He could go out and murder someone tomorrow.”

Tanya Datta probes,

“Does that mean that some part of you believes there could be some truth to the rumours?” Tigrett replies,

“Oh, absolutely I believe there is truth to the rumours.”

But the practical effect – which is that he does nothing to advocate a hearing for Sai Baba’s accusers – is the same as if he did not believe in their truth! This immensely wealthy man, who walks with some of the most powerful leaders in the world, like Al Gore, blocks the chance of marginalized victims to effectively tell their stories. Clearly, his self-perceived spiritual development is all that matters. He may provide palatial buildings for Sai Baba but what about rebuilding broken people, and perhaps saving still others from coming to grief in the secret chamber of the ‘secret swami?

“Absolutely Cold-blooded Murder”

Former Home Secretary of Sai Baba’s state Andhra Pradesh, V.P.B. Nair, tells the BBC cameras that the police killings in Sai Baba’s private quarters in June 1993 were “absolutely cold-blooded murder,” and that CID investigations, which were suppressed, showed many lies and cover-ups. He is seeking to re-open the case. Here is what Nair had to tell the BBC:

Tanya Datta
Sex abuse is not the only controversy tainting the God man’s reputation. On a June night back in nineteen ninety-three, four devotees broke into Sai Baba’s quarters. They were armed with knives.
Their motives are unclear. All four were close to Sai Baba. Some say they wanted to warn him about corruption in the Ashram. Others claim their intention was to kidnap or even kill Sai Baba. As they approached they were stopped by four of Sai Baba’s attendants. In the struggle that followed two of his attendants were killed and the other two badly injured. Hearing the commotion Sai Baba escaped through a back stairway and raised the alarm. Heavily armed police
arrived on the scene.
VPB Nair

So these boys, they ran and locked themselves up in a room. And then in the whole, all around a lot of pandemonium and people gathered so the boys were shivering like rats in that small hole.
Tanya Datta
The four men barricaded themselves into Sai Baba’s bedroom. There was a stand-off with the police. Then the order was given to go in.
Tanya Datta
What happened next is hotly disputed. The official
version seemed clear.
VPB Nair
These four boys charged towards the police with the knives and started stabbing the inspector and other personnel. Because they were attacked they opened fire.
Tanya Datta
In self-defence?
VPB Nair
In self-defence. They opened fire and killed all the four boys. This the police story.
Tanya Datta
Velayudhan Nair rejects the police version of events. He should know. Until two thousand and two he was Home Secretary of Andhra Pradesh and in charge of the state police. On coming to office he examined the files and found that the original police report was riddled with lies and inconsistencies. This was later exposed by a CID investigation.
VPB Nair
Two or three daggers cannot be a match to roaring guns. So this story of the police being attacked and the police shooting in self-defence is totally baseless.
Tanya Datta
So are you suggesting that the police executed the boys
that night?
VPB Nair
In absolute, this is absolute cold-blooded murder.
Tanya Datta
Some police officers were arrested but never charged. The case was eventually dropped. Sai Baba has always had a close relationship with the police. Even today, senior officers are special guests at the Ashram. With friends in such high places Sai Baba seems to be untouchable. Any attempt to investigate the goings-on at his Ashram even, murder, appear doomed to failure.  Critics say police connections ensured that Sai Baba wasn’t even interviewed, despite being one of the witnesses to the events of that night.

We see the President of India Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and Manmohan Singh (now India’s Prime Minister) visiting Sai Baba on his birthday. The ‘secret swami’ does not have to go to Indian Presidents, Prime Ministers and other power brokers on all sides of politics. They go to him!

Room For Many More Documentaries

In exposing a dangerous and influential cult, The Secret Swami is plucky and perceptive. Canada’s national broadcaster CBC was waylaid by hundreds of phone calls and emails by Sai Baba devotees, both before and after the screenings of the documentary in Canada. The program host said on air “We stand by the professionalism of our BBC colleagues”. History will expose the devotees but the BBC team needed an intellectually more penetrating analysis, and to raise sharper, more focused questions. The documentary brilliantly suggests that the leaders are into heavy cover-up and denial, but strangely didn’t say how widespread and long-standing the paedophile allegations are. The sham ‘miracles were’ somewhat exposed but there do exist more difficult-to-explain Sai Baba-related phenomena than this (e.g., the apparent appearance of many miracles in devotee homes and centres in many countries), which would require rigorous investigation, because the recipients cannot sensibly be accused of shamming. Of course, not everything packs into an hour-long documentary. Let us trust that the BBC will use its more than 80 hours of footage to expose some of many other issues.

Rating: three and a half out of five.

Further Resources

The Secret Swami (BBC Television):
(154 MB Broadband)

Right Hand. Sleight Hand. Watch Sai Baba Cheat With Sacred Ash (Film clip)

Sleight Of Hand. The Sleightness of Sathya Sai Baba (Exposing film clips)

BBC and Other Film Footage Shows India’s Top Guru Sathya Sai Baba Faking Miracles

BBC Footage Exposes Fake Sathya Sai Baba Miracle « Call For Media and Government Investigation

Sathya Sai Baba Chief, Dr Goldstein, Explodes. “I am the consummate professional” (See Film Clips)

Raising ever more serious questions about how spiritual is the head of what Sathya Sai Baba has called THE divine organization in the world,

Michael Goldstein explodes with anger (710kbs)

at the BBC’s perfectly reasonable questions about accountability

Dr. Goldstein again reveals his higher self (1.500Kb)

Michael Goldstein and the sexual allegations (2,10 Mbs)

Michael Goldstein admits his view is merely a belief (456kbs)

Sathya Sai Baba Cult Exposure By Major TV Channel In Australia « Call For Media and Government Investigation

Further Reading

THE SATHYA SAI ORGANISATION’S DECEPTION AND PROPAGANDA EXPOSED (Part One) – By Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard. And Part Two Three Four.

Posted in New Age, Opinion, Protest, Rationalism, Religion, Skeptics, Spirituality, Theology, Theosophy, Uncategorized, World Issues, World Religions | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 79 Comments »

Guru Busters, The Secret Swami and Seduced (by Sai Baba)

Posted by Barry Pittard on April 2, 2007

News from:  http://www.exbaba.com/

The Secret Swami    (BBC Television)

The Secret Swami (BBC Television)

Dial Up (80 MB)

Seduced (DR, Danish Broadcasting, Denmark’s national television and radio broadcaster) Dial up (80 MB)

For details of GurubustersEagle and Eagle Films.

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Posted in Morality, Music, Neglected/sidelined News, Religion, Sai Baba, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Police Killings in Sai Baba’s Bedroom At Puttaparthi

Posted by Barry Pittard on April 2, 2007

The former head of the Sathya Sai Organization in Australia, Terry Gallagher was one of those many Sai Baba devotees deeply disturbed by the aura of cover-up surrounding the police killings in Sai Baba’s private quarters at Puttaparthi in June 6, 1993. Terry Gallagher and many others resigned, and in other cases simply vanished from the Sai Organization. He wrote:

“The purpose of this visit was to find the reason why former students of Sai Baba’s college would want to kill him, particularly when they had been given a free education! The eye witness accounts were horrific! After bursting into the Mandir, four students found themselves trapped upstairs where Sai Baba was staying. Each was interrogated by police, then one at a time they were executed! The stench of death was everywhere. I made further inquiries about Sai Baba having sexual relations with college boys and male students – some of these as young as seven years of age – and whether this was the reason for former students wanting to kill him. I was told, to my horror, that this was an acceptable Indian practice! I felt sick, and just wanted to take my family and leave the ashram and India as quickly as possible. Before we did, we were all called for interview with Sai Baba and we told him what we had experienced and been told. Sai Baba made no comment on our accusations and was only anxious to know who had told us these details, requesting us to tell him several times! Having had dozens of interviews over the years, this was the most stressful and uncomfortable interview our family had ever experienced. Sai Baba was tense and agitated and his body language told us all, that what we had found out about him was the truth! We left the interview and returned to Australia.”     

http://home.hetnet.nl/~ex-baba/engels/witnesses/terry.html

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Call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba

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Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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Posted in Morality, Neglected/sidelined News, Sai Baba, Social and Politics, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Flag Follows Trade. Abetting Indian Government Corruption

Posted by Barry Pittard on April 1, 2007

Since late 1999, I have extensively investigated worldwide allegations against Sathya Sai Baba, India’s most famous guru. A follower for 25 years, and lecturer for 2 years in one of his colleges, I am gravely concerned at his deep penetration into many cultures, and have contributed research about it to leading world media. This includes television documentaries by Denmark’s national broadcaster, entitled ‘Seduced’ (screened in Australia by its national multicultural broadcaster as ‘Seduced by Sai Baba,’) and the BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’, as well as newspapers in several countries. The latter documentary first aired in June 2004, and has been seen in over 120 countries.

For many who saw the BBC documentary, much of the most convincing evidence was inescapably seen in the reactions of Sai Baba’s high profile devotees. World Chairman of Sai Baba’s organization, Dr Michael Goldstein, a physician of Covina, California, U.S.A., told the BBC cameras that devotees believe Sai Baba is Jesus Christ, Buddha, and “has always been God.” In actual fact, what Sai Baba says is that he embodies the God who sent the saviours and prophets. Dr Goldstein acted very differently to what these and other teachers have inspired. Not knowing he was being televised, he was angry, arrogant and disrespected totally fair questions about processes of accountability. Prominent Sai Baba devotee and minister in the former Vajpayee government, Murali Manohar Joshi, disgracefully tried to browbeat the BBC interviewer Tanya Datta. He was clearly in cover-up mode, too. A further 80 plus hours of investigative BBC footage exist, in a project that took intensive months of travel abroad, including to India. The team was able to uncover for themselves further accounts of sexual abuse of young males by Sai Baba. These were unknown to closely networked former followers and other Sai Baba investigators around the world who already knew of many compelling cases.

Tony Blair and Foreign Office: Don’t Rock the Boat With India on Sai Baba

We know that at the most senior levels of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office British Labor MP Tony Colman, former member for Putney, was abruptly told to back off on Sai Baba because India as a world power must be placated. In January 2002, Prime Minister Tony Blair assured Tony Colman he would not visit Sai Baba in India:
http://home.hetnet.nl/~ex-baba/engels/articles/blairbaba.html
However, India’s then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Sai Baba’s long-time devotee) visited Blair in England. But who held the upper hand? The question hangs in the air, for some fifty MP’s who had signed, in February 2002, the Early Day Motion 886 fell silent. As the Whips of both major parties cracked, their silenced motion read:

“This House, mindful of the many accounts and witness statements of the sexual abuse of the male children of devotees by the Indian guru, Sai Baba, calls upon the Foreign Secretary to use the Travel Advice for India page of the Foreign Office website to issue guidance to British families intending to visit the Ashram of Sai Baba about the possible danger to their male children of individual audiences with the guru.”

U.S. State Department Names Sai Baba

In May 2004, the U.S. State Department named Sai Baba to the BBC as the subject of their November 2001 travel advisory for India. Under the heading ‘Andhra Pradesh – Crime Information’ on its website, it warned, of “reports of inappropriate sexual behavior by a prominent local religious leader”. The area information made it clear to all but the innocent that Sai Baba was the ‘religious leader. But a country’s travel advisory is also for the benefit of the innocent!

But to the disgust of many fine and decent former Sai Baba devotee American citizens (and to their supporters around the world) who had courageously re-lived their traumatic experiences to give documentation, the 2001 travel advisory had used the term ‘unconfirmed’ of these reports. It struck us that diplomatic nicety (read, gutlessness) was being expressed, and our subsequent experiences with governments on these issues have reinforced this feeling. The travel warning stated:

“Most of the reports indicate that the subjects of these approaches have been young male devotees, including a number of Americans”.

In fact, around a dozen high echelon State Department officials, both in New Delhi and Washington, had been involved in extensive discussions and two political officers in Chennai had been appointed to investigate Sai Baba and his operations. Despite all this, in the upshot, the diplomatic fear to offend seemed evident. In any event, the response was watery, and Sai Baba’s name was not included in the travel advisory issued. It was not until David Savill, a BBC producer, probed in 2004 that American officials were prepared to name Sai Baba to him. With the same sort of no-nonsense questioning, the BBC was able to enforce compromising admissions by UNESCO officials in regard to a media advisory, which the Indian Foreign Minister had got UNESCO to expunge. See my Article ‘Does UNESCO Really Protect Our Young. The Case of the Missing Media Advisory’:

http://saiguru.net/english/articles/
124does_unesco_really_protect_the_y.htm

Do 66 Hawk Class Jet Fighters Really Protect The Young?

In 2000, the U.K. government made desperate efforts to beat off its fierce aeronautical competitor the U.S. for a contract to sell India fighter aircraft. Labor and Conservative lobbies combined, and the sale of Britain’s 66 Hawk class jet fighters from BAS, British Aeronautical Systems, worth over a billion pounds sterling succeeded. In the midst of intense negotiations, the then Indian PM, Atal Bihari Vajpayee wrote a public letter defending Sai Baba, and met Blair at the prime minister’s official country residence Checkers:
http://saiguru.net/english/news/020927oppenletter.htm
See also: ‘Tony Blair Was to Visit Sai Baba. Plan Thwarted’: https://barrypittard.wordpress.com/2007/03/17/tony-blair-was-to-visit-sai-baba-plan-thwarted/

Trade Preoccupation Threatens U.K. Citizens, Young and Old

We found that Blair himself ordered the Fraud Squad of the London Metropolitan Police actions to desist from further investigation of Sai Baba related matters, on the grounds that these were “International matters”. The British government – with intense participation of Labour Friends of India and Conservative Parliamentary Friends of India and the Indo-British Parliamentary Group – was far more interested in trade bonanzas with India than in investigating consequences of entanglement with Sai Baba to many British citizens. This includes not only the moral interests particularly of boys and young men but, for example, the elderly and sick who mistakenly travel at great risk to Sai Baba having believed Sai Baba when he says to come and lay all their sicknesses and suffering at his feet. A proper investigation of the supposed effectiveness or otherwise of Sai Baba’s supposed miracles of healing is vastly overdue. Devotees know that many of his promises of healing have not, like so many of his prophecies too, not been fulfilled. They take refuge in certain extraordinary cases, but inexplicable disease remissions are known to occur in countless contexts throughout the world. Governments, in close coordination with the healing professions, need closely to monitor those who make unusual claims to healing powers.

Current Indian Heads of State in Sai Baba’s Grip – like Predecessors
(Or is it – he in theirs?)

The BBC cameras showed India’s President Abdul Kalam and recently elected Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attending Sai Baba’s birthday celebrations. Singh had visited him before. It has been said that Kalam wants, in time, to retire to Sai Baba’s ashram. It is a place where so many of India’s power brokers flock. The ashram is a veritable armed camp, a bit like post WW2 Berlin. Evidence abounds that Singh’s party, when earlier in power, suppressed official investigations into the 1993 police killings in Sai Baba’s private quarters. The very powerful politician S.B. Chavan was Home Minister at the time, and reports indicate that he was closely connected with the enormous cover-up that was rapidly put in place, and has been kept in place by successive administrations. Police investigators and journalists were made to shut up. A former Home Secretary of Sai Baba’s state Andhra Pradesh, V.P.B. Nair, told the BBC, these were “absolutely cold-blooded murder.” Braving immensely powerful vested interests in the Indian police force and central and state governments, Nair has said that he seeks to re-open the case. Even after all these years later.

Old-Fashioned Moral Outrage Still Lives – Occasionally

In 2003, at the time of the screening of ‘Seduced’ by Denmark’s national broadcaster, Danish public outrage cancelled a US $6 million International Sai School, which was to have been largely funded by the U.S. multimillionaire Bob Bozzani, one of the foremost Sathya Sai Organization leaders in the U.S.A. The sale to Sai Baba’s organization of the famous historic Arresødal castle in a fashionable suburb of Copenhagen was stopped. In Australia, thousands follow Sai Baba. There is a Sai School, in Murwillumbah, 70% funded by the New South Wales Government. We have school minutes that reveal the parents and teachers at this Sai School being told that those making the allegations are only two or three. Some concerned parents have withdrawn their children. UNESCO withdrew its sponsorship of a major Sai Baba education conference at Puttaparthi in September 2000. Vice Chancellors of the Universities of Flinders and of Adelaide and heads of several UK institutions have cut ties – e.g. the University of Manchester, the University College of London, Downe House public school, Lord Wandsworth College.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Clifton, Glastonbury, ended a tie with Sai Baba leaders David and Ann Jevons and their Ramala Centre. The Roman Catholics Bishops’ Conference have made moves to prevent Sai Organization links. In Australia, the Katoomba Christian Convention Center, Australia, like the two Universities in South Australia, cancelled a link. See: Three Stooges Meet ‘The Secret Swami’: https://barrypittard.wordpress.com/2007/03/28/three-stooges-meet-the-secret-swami/

Sai Baba has often unaccountable billions in his exchequer, and millions of devotees globally. He has a secular front in many countries the idea of which is to insert the influence of his devotees into mainstream education as a lead-up to what many devotees have termed ‘the Sai Revolution’. As Dominic Kennedy in the Times of London August 27, 2001, has documented, Sai Baba’s devotees introduce programs into schools. He wrote:

“Sai Baba’s children’s course, Education in Human Values, is taught in schools in 100 countries. It promotes five qualities: truth (satya), righteousness (dharma), peace (shanti), love (prema) and nonviolence (ahimsa). Education in Human Values rejects rote learning, emphasising Indian techniques such as “silent sitting”, quotation, story-telling, song and group activities ……  Another British charity, the Human Values Foundation, says it has reached more than 500 schools. Its chairman, Dennis Eagan, said ‘The foundation has nothing to do with Sai Baba’. 


“But the Human Values Foundation’s programme is also called “Education for Human Values”. It promotes Sai Baba’s same five virtues, using “silent sitting”, activities, songs, quotations and stories. Its president, June Auton, has been a regular visitor to Sai Baba’s ashram”.

In various social service programs, the Sathya Sai Organization strives to link with respected mainstream charities and institutions. It works among indigenous peoples. There are recruitment drives at extremely costly venues such as the Copley International Conference Center, a Hilton Ballroom, the Cooper Union, La Mirada Theatre, Sydney Superdome, Melbourne Town Hall. The Sathya Sai Organization typically  hides from the public their belief that he, God incarnate, ‘Father of Jesus Christ’, the same One to whom Jews, Mahomedans, etc., pray, will soon take charge of the world, before he dies in AD 2022, God fully incarnate for the first and last time in history. In short, Sai Baba’s leaders engage in misrepresentation and false advertizing.

Will India Be a Morally Impotent Superpower?

“The Secret Swami” raised serious questions about the social maturity of successive Indian governments – which have profoundly protected Sai Baba. Will she flourish as a genuine democracy? Will her plethora of power brokers who run their lives – as does Sai Baba himself – on the vagaries of the two ‘karmic control planets’ Rahu and Kethu equip her for superpower status? Will so many of her supposedly educated classes, no less than the superstitious masses with their simpler gods, ever stop running after myriad gurus, and elevating flawed human beings into the status of demigods?  The Indian media is often emasculate and cowed, and has a shocking record of suppression in matters adverse to Sai Baba. With a rare exception like India Today, it has been afraid to move on Sai Baba. Only recently, in the face of continuing Sai Baba exposures by the foreign media, did some of its media take a news feed the Indo-Asian News Service, one of whose journalists, Sudeshna Sarkar (an Indian domiciled in Nepal) undertook some investigations in London at the time of Paul Lewis’s story, November 4, 2006, in The Guardian, ‘The Indian living god, the paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards’:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1939403,00.html

Advanced Democracies In Retreat

What to speak of the moral and ethical status of so-called advanced democratic governments that refuse to ‘rock the boat with India’ (as, in relation to Sai Baba, senior foreign service staff have expressed it)? To be sure, some big trade, finance and other players do worship Sai Baba as God. However, notionally linking India’s interests to those of Sai Baba and his influential devotees is extremely insulting to many in India, who have no truckle with him. When realpolitik prevents the protection of our children and our elderly, we lose any title we may have to be called civilized.

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Posted in Morality, Neglected/sidelined News, Opinion, Religion, Sai Baba, Uncategorized, World Issues | 11 Comments »