Sathya Sai Baba Is Fast-ailing

August 2009
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Posted by Barry Pittard on August 4, 2009

What will the fast-ailing Sathya Sai Baba do? Rub oil or vibhuti on the surface of his multiple infirmities, and do all that he has for so long promised? That is to say:

Bring the world to him, even before he dies
Harmonize the world’s major religions
Save the world from enormous catastrophes
Lift a whole mountain range
Travel the world
Fly through the air
Put humanity on what he calls ‘the royal road’ to righteousness
And so much more ….

To listen to his carefully hand-picked and carefully-groomed speakers, his fame has spread to virtually every clime. This claim is patently untrue. Ask people on crowded streets in many countries do they know the name Nelson Mandela, or the late Princess Diana. Or whether they can immediately visualize those such as the Pope, Barach Obama, the late Michael Jackson, and so on, and they will instantly affirm that they do.

Do leaders in the interfaith movement feature him or his emissaries as notable in their publications and websites? And yet the following edifice, sited amid the great opulence of his Puttaparthi ashram, displays his symbol (the so-called ‘Sarva Dharma Chakra’ or All Faiths motif):

Sarva Dharma Stupa, Puttaparthi. In background, the huge auditorium Poorna Chandra Hall

Do we see world leaders in politics, religion and so forth beating a track to his door? What do we see?

We see him using visitors to the ashram – not necessarily Sai devotees, either – who are of this or that religion. For propaganda purposes, these individuals are used to give the appearance that educated members of other faiths are accepting his “greatness”. One such use was made of a visiting rabbi from Israel. When I reported on this, Sai Baba’s proxy defender on the Internet stated that I was anti-Semitic. That the Sathya Sai Organization allows its members, some of them prominent in the Sai movement, to assist this effectively conscienceless individual can only still further damage its standing.

Sathya Sai Baba’s official Puttaparthi website shows that he also uses others who have little or no representative power in various faith organizations to make it appear that his evangel is winning hearts and minds in the different faiths around the world. There is a simple test that media, scholars and other investigators can apply: ask the leaders of the major faiths whether they would lend their organizations’ name and authority to Sathya Sai Baba or his movement. Those Sai Baba protagonists who attack former followers for pointing out the long list of anomalies and cover ups of crimes and spiritual betrayals find it easier to use ad hominem and other profoundly dishonest tactics to deflect forms of questioning commonly regarded as essential to intellectual and moral integrity.

The below – official – text, and many other texts like it, are not likely to stand the test of time. Critical writings of prominent commentators as Robert Priddy, Brian Steel, Timothy Conway Ph.D, and the work of many former Sathya Sai devotee networks – with a most notable activity by the late Glen Meloy and also Hari Sampath and other critics via major world media – have already played a role in ensuring that the Avatar of Avatars – pretendu – has been highly exposed. I may add, from my own personal and close witness that the work of the latter two, although it has had low visibility on the Internet, has been of enormous, indeed incalculable, dimensions.