When ‘Divine’ Magnetism Becomes A Dead Weight

Sai Baba’s alarmingly many scientist and other (supposedly) intellectual followers must have to block ears and eyes when he opines on matters scientific. Heavily rose-tinted glasses can be particularly helpful.

He speaks, for example, of the nature of magnetism. Here, Sai Baba’s educated devotees provide a modern example of the Hans Christian Anderson story of the Emperor New Clothes (see story below) - where the emperor’s subjects saw naked discrepancy but, mystery of mysteries, didn’t see it! 

Professor Dr K.S. ‘Sunny’ Anand, birth scientist, a top President Bush medical advisor who worships Sai Baba as God fully incarnate. Only rose-tinted glasses can ignore Sai Baba’s extremely inept statements on birth science.

In his March 13, 2002 Mahashivarathri discourse, Sai Baba said,

“So when I put My foot down,

the whole foot stuck to the ground. It is a little hard to lift a foot that is stuck. Wherever I walk, it sticks there. Whatever is held, it sticks to My hand. This magnet is not in everyone like this. This magnet is so powerful only in Divinity.”

Philosopher and social scientist Robert Priddy comments aptly on Sai Baba’s unscientific statements about magnetism and the nature of the atom HERE. In a recent blog, Priddy says HERE,

“despite all the billions of dollars in hand - (Sai Baba) has not made one inch of progress in getting international recognition from any serious institutions”.

Many Sai Baba followers are at the top of their professions in the armed and police services, government, the judiciary, the sciences, arts, finance, industry, sports, and so on. Of course, healthy-minded individuals see clothes as clothes and nakedness as itself. It is a worry when key world power brokers and their functionaries think that their guru wears clothes.

When Does Life Enter The Fetus?

Also primitive, and very exposing of Sai Baba, but seen and, every so mystically, not seen by his followers is his view about what time life enters the human foetus. You may view HERE scans of two brief extracts, run side by side, of Sai Baba’s entirely conflicting statements on the topic. They are extracted from two editions of the guru’s official magazine (distributed worldwide), Sanathana Sarathi - of a) September 1996 and b) April 1997. This from a guru whose devotees number many thousands of medical doctors. I take but one example -

George W. Bush Medical Advisor Joins The Emperor’s Subjects

Kanwaljeet ‘Sunny’ Anand (read in here strings of the most prestigious medical degrees and other qualifications) is one of countless Sai Baba scientists caught in the emperor-with-no-clothes syndrome. The media might like to interview him. But remember that Sai Baba’s followers typically avoid any challenge to their (non) thinking. They, like cult members the world over, race into hiding. Another thing they chronically do, as does their founder, is to hold up high examples of prestigious figures who go to Sai Baba. They are highlighted among his keynote speakers, and given VIP treatment - sometimes obvious to the public, sometimes only to those in-the-know. They are carefully cultivated.

Dr Anand’s mental gymnastics are considerable, for he has somehow to  shine in his scientific field (accomplishments none can deny) and yet ignore his guru Sai Baba’s risable absurdities - even in Anand’s own branch of birth sciences. Professor Anand rose become a George W. Bush medical advisor - and yet hails Sai Baba as God fully incarnate, even stating, preposterously and unascertainbly, that Sai Baba has one hundred million followers. Like his guru, Anand exposes himself. For this and other palpable nonsense that Dr Anand falls for, see my article Sai Baba Is God Says Top George Bush Doctor, HERE

In the Anderson story, it is a child who sees the actual nakedness as opposed to the ostensible clothing. Perhaps devotees could do worse than ask for the reactions of a few kids to Sai Baba. As long as forces jesuitical have not trapped them.

The Emperor’s New Clothes
Hans Christian Anderson. Denmark
Many years ago there lived an emperor who loved beautiful new clothes so much that he spent all his money on being finely dressed. His only interest was in going to the theater or in riding about in his carriage where he could show off his new clothes. He had a different costume for every hour of the day. Indeed, where it was said of other kings that they were at court, it could only be said of him that he was in his dressing room!

One day two swindlers came to the emperor’s city. They said that they were weavers, claiming that they knew how to make the finest cloth imaginable. Not only were the colors and the patterns extraordinarily beautiful, but in addition, this material had the amazing property that it was to be invisible to anyone who was incompetent or stupid.

“It would be wonderful to have clothes made from that cloth,” thought the emperor. “Then I would know which of my men are unfit for their positions, and I’d also be able to tell clever people from stupid ones.” So he immediately gave the two swindlers a great sum of money to weave their cloth for him.

They set up their looms and pretended to go to work, although there was nothing at all on the looms. They asked for the finest silk and the purest gold, all of which they hid away, continuing to work on the empty looms, often late into the night.

“I would really like to know how they are coming with the cloth!” thought the emperor, but he was a bit uneasy when he recalled that anyone who was unfit for his position or stupid would not be able to see the material. Of course, he himself had nothing to fear, but still he decided to send someone else to see how the work was progressing.

“I’ll send my honest old minister to the weavers,” thought the emperor. He’s the best one to see how the material is coming. He is very sensible, and no one is more worthy of his position than he.

So the good old minister went into the hall where the two swindlers sat working at their empty looms. “Goodness!” thought the old minister, opening his eyes wide. “I cannot see a thing!” But he did not say so.

The two swindlers invited him to step closer, asking him if it wasn’t a beautiful design and if the colors weren’t magnificent. They pointed to the empty loom, and the poor old minister opened his eyes wider and wider. He still could see nothing, for nothing was there. “Gracious” he thought. “Is it possible that I am stupid? I have never thought so. Am I unfit for my position? No one must know this. No, it will never do for me to say that I was unable to see the material.”

“You aren’t saying anything!” said one of the weavers.

“Oh, it is magnificent! The very best!” said the old minister, peering through his glasses. “This pattern and these colors! Yes, I’ll tell the emperor that I am very satisfied with it!”

“That makes us happy!” said the two weavers, and they called the colors and the unusual pattern by name. The old minister listened closely so that he would be able say the same things when he reported back to the emperor, and that is exactly what he did.

The swindlers now asked for more money, more silk, and more gold, all of which they hid away. Then they continued to weave away as before on the empty looms.

The emperor sent other officials as well to observe the weavers’ progress. They too were startled when they saw nothing, and they too reported back to him how wonderful the material was, advising him to have it made into clothes that he could wear in a grand procession. The entire city was alive in praise of the cloth. “Magnifique! Nysseligt! Excellent!” they said, in all languages. The emperor awarded the swindlers with medals of honor, bestowing on each of them the title Lord Weaver.

The swindlers stayed up the entire night before the procession was to take place, burning more than sixteen candles. Everyone could see that they were in a great rush to finish the emperor’s new clothes. They pretended to take the material from the looms. They cut in the air with large scissors. They sewed with needles but without any thread. Finally they announced, “Behold! The clothes are finished!”

The emperor came to them with his most distinguished cavaliers. The two swindlers raised their arms as though they were holding something and said, “Just look at these trousers! Here is the jacket! This is the cloak!” and so forth. “They are as light as spider webs! You might think that you didn’t have a thing on, but that is the good thing about them.”

“Yes,” said the cavaliers, but they couldn’t see a thing, for nothing was there.

“Would his imperial majesty, if it please his grace, kindly remove his clothes.” said the swindlers. “Then we will fit you with the new ones, here in front of the large mirror.”

The emperor took off all his clothes, and the swindlers pretended to dress him, piece by piece, with the new ones that were to be fitted. They took hold of his waist and pretended to tie something about him. It was the train. Then the emperor turned and looked into the mirror.

“Goodness, they suit you well! What a wonderful fit!” they all said. “What a pattern! What colors! Such luxurious clothes!”

“The canopy to be carried above your majesty awaits outside,” said the grandmaster of ceremonies.

“Yes, I am ready!” said the emperor. “Don’t they fit well?” He turned once again toward the mirror, because it had to appear as though he were admiring himself in all his glory.

The chamberlains who were to carry the train held their hands just above the floor as if they were picking up the train. As they walked they pretended to hold the train high, for they could not let anyone notice that they could see nothing.

The emperor walked beneath the beautiful canopy in the procession, and all the people in the street and in their windows said, “Goodness, the emperor’s new clothes are incomparable! What a beautiful train on his jacket. What a perfect fit!” No one wanted it to be noticed that he could see nothing, for then it would be said that he was unfit for his position or that he was stupid. None of the emperor’s clothes had ever before received such praise.

“But he doesn’t have anything on!” said a small child.

“Good Lord, let us hear the voice of an innocent child!” said the father, and whispered to another what the child had said.

“A small child said that he doesn’t have anything on!”

Finally everyone was saying, “He doesn’t have anything on!”

The emperor shuddered, for he knew that they were right, but he thought, “The procession must go on!” He carried himself even more proudly, and the chamberlains walked along behind carrying the train that wasn’t there.
————————————————————–Source: Hans Christian Andersen, Keiserens nye klæder (1837). Andersen’s source was a Spanish story recorded by Don Juan Manuel (1282-1348).

Translated by D. L. Ashliman.

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Wealthy Americans Prepare Mansions For “God’s” Visit

The English poet Alexander Pope had an exquisite appreciation of situations like desperate devotees clinging to forlorn hope in the face of Sai Baba’s many broken promises to visit places, like Rome, Southern California, the UK, Malaysia, etc,:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always To be Blest

Below is an email from a foremost Sai Baba critic, the late Glen Meloy (11 Jan 2004), to a researcher at BBC 2’s This World television documentary team and me. She, I.A.,  was working on the documentary that became The Secret Swami (which can be viewed HERE. See also my article:
The Genesis of the BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ (Sai Baba). See also, In Memoriam – Glen Meloy (”Standing up for truth and goodness”). The .pdf version, with color motifs, is HERE.

Glen Meloy’s reference to Sai Baba’s promises - and even arrangements - to travel to Southern California hark way back to the early 1970’s. Yet as recently as February 16, 2007, in a so-called ‘divine discourse’, Sai Baba said, “I intend to undertake a world tour, shortly.” In yesterday’s blog (See reference at end), I raised the questions, But will he? How can he? For the very thought is drastically absurd!

Glen Meloy’s email note:

The whole Southern California contingent was on “red alert” many times over the alleged visit by SSB to the USA. All of this stemmed from a well publicized promise he had made to Elsie Cowan and the Southern California devotees that he would come and stay at her home and be available for the Tustin Book Center volunteers and selected members from the Southern California Centers. Dr. Sandweiss remodeled his house as did many others. They even created special bathrooms designed just for SSB. Elsie was still hoping for a visit after she donated the land and building for the existing Tustin Book Center on 1sr street in Tustin, California. It had a special bath that was reserved only for SSB.

When the first rumor was thought to be realized in 1974-1975, Elsie asked me to contact the Annenbergs in Rancho Mirage , California to see if we could reserve their estate for a private meeting place that would accommodate at least 150 specially selected devotees. Annenberg was the founder of TV GUIDE and had a huge private guarded castle like estate in the desert and entertained Prince Charles, Ronald Reagan and the like.

Indulah Shaw, Dr. Bhagavatham, and Dr. Gokak visited the USA as advance people for the trip, but it never came about.

Poor Elsie was feeling distraught one evening and invited Walt Neubaurer and myself up to her room at her condo in Tustin, California and she pounded on the wall 3 times and said that was the way she could get Baba’s attention. She was quite a character……multi-millionaires who, with her husband Walter had previously been a close devotee of Kirpal Singh. As soon as they heard about SSB, they hopped on a plane and were met with open arms. After several million dollars in donations, including the new Youth Hostel building in Puttaparthi, The Cowans were given a personal letter from SSB granting them the exclusive right to publish, distribute and re-print ALL of the various Sai Baba Books outside of India. Walter Cowan was an extremly wealthy man who had made his fortune by buying up properties that contained oil and natural gas. A prominent section of Tustin, California is named Cowan Heights in honor of their influence. They had a huge home that was later given to Elsie’s daughter and her grandchildren.

Elsie was quite perky and brazen with SSB and thought nothing of coming up to him at the temple in front of all the Indians and grabbing his hand. This shocked all the locals, but Elsie was the “Grand Dame” with the money and got away with it. She hated Indulal Shah (called him the little weasel) and also never cared for Goldstein.

For an organization that was thought to be so loving, it amazed me that there was so much bickering and jealousy going on in an organization whose leader allegedly lived at the world’s Supreme “Abode of Peace.”
I met personally with Dr. Gardhia several times, both in Canada and the USA. At the time, I was impressed with his little silver box that allegedly manifested Vibhuti whenever it became empty. To fill it, he used to tap it against his forehead 3 times and chant a mantra, after which he would open the lid to display copious amounts of overflowing ash.

There are devotees all over the world waiting for that crazy plane to lift off……..What a joke! How hypnotized we were.

Closely Related Blog:

Has ‘World Saviour’ Missed His Plane?

Quote: “In his February 16, 2007 so-called ‘divine discourse’, Sai Baba said, “I intend to undertake a world tour, shortly.” But will he? How can he?

The guru, perhaps the most wealthy and politically powerful in India’s long history, claims that he will save the world in his own lifetime. He will, he says, preside over the greatest changes ever to occur in history - the Moslems being the last to accept that he is God”.

June 24th, 2007 by Barry Pittard

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Has ‘World Saviour’ Missed His Plane?

In his February 16, 2007 so-called ‘divine discourse’, Sai Baba said, “I intend to undertake a world tour, shortly.” But will he? How can he?

The guru, perhaps the most wealthy and politically powerful in India’s long history, claims that he will save the world in his own lifetime. He will, he says, preside over the greatest changes ever to occur in history - the Moslems being the last to accept that he is God. Of course, were such a statement to be made by your average swami, we could simply laugh with either sympathy or derision.

The three-times world heavy-weight boxing champion, Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr) proclaimed that he was “the greatest”. But, of course, he turned out to be right! and skeptics had to eat their words. Sai Baba has long proclaimed that he is the greatest “avatar” (manifestation of God in human form), but his empire looks as shakey as his own legs, and as his sagging turkey throat, which wobbles from side to side. A golf buggy transports him now, though he promised to be physically non-ageing after his 60th birthday.

Sai Baba crumbles at 81 - or even older, if British colonial records inform us well, and we may need to add another 4 years, to the birthdate he gives, so often repeated by his hagiographers. Sometimes he falls over (which, along with thousands of others, I saw him do in early 1998). At other times, he mutters indecipherably. His mask-like face suggests serious medical symptoms. His hair, which he has said would remain intact, except to go white, thins badly. He has had a number of hip operations. Film footage and photos show his students and other aides, to a point of anxiety never hitherto witnessed, at extremely close quarters ready to assist him when he stumbles or feebly issues some request. He could not even cut his ’81st’ birthday cake without assistance from a student.

Aged Individuals Can Maintain Sex Lives

None of this should seem to say that, to this day, he is incapable of taking his pleasures with boys and young men, however. With gross failure to check with the gerontological literature on the sexual channels of expression still open to the aged, defenders proclaim that his very age would repudiate the notion that he would be capable of sexual escapades.

Driven around in a golf-buggy, or flown by jet aircraft, his walking days are virtually over, and his long-promised transworld flying days never get off the ground. If not blinded by unquestioning devotion, followers might ask: Why are neither India nor the rest of the world undergoing the transformation he has so long promised to accomplish? He says he is the full avatar but his promises for decades have proved as empty as an aeroplane without fuel.

Does Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton Have Abiding Attraction To Sai Baba?

Sai Baba’s worldwide organization is vast, and sends billions to him - which, see photos and commentary HERE - do not all go to social uplift work but to the erection of enormously costly edifices that glorify Sai Baba as God of Gods.

This “God” is worshipped by many millions in India and he has a vast following in many other countries. Many are not Hindus. Many power brokers, in India and far beyond are a mix of overt and covert devotees, or at least admirers. Indeed, since Hillary Clinton vies well to be the next U.S. President, media and other investigators may like to probe just what Hillary and her husband, then US President, Bill Clinton were doing when, in March 2000, they made plans, suddenly aborted, to visit Sathya Sai Baba . (The present writer can give well-reputed media or other bona fide investigators  information that is not to be disclosed on the Internet unless there is proper follow-up of the leads).

Sai Baba’s Back Yard Still Unclean

Sai Baba has said that he will first ‘clean up (his) own backyard’ and then the rest of the world before he exits around A.D. 2022. To judge by how sick he looks (and some prominent doctors are independently monitoring this aspect), any hopes that he will accomplish his stated mission appear to be irrevocably dashed - except, blinded by partiality, for the faithful of his flock, of course. (The word “Bhagavan” means:  God):

“Bhagavan told the group of his students, that His mission can be compared with an aeroplane that is going to take off. Up to 70th birthday his mission would be like an aeroplane going along the take-off track and gaining speed. These days the aeroplane is rushing and speeding up and will take off at the 75th birthday”. (Sai Reflections: The UK Sai Organisation. Quarterly Magazine: February, 1997, p.15)

The late Dr D.J. (Dhirubhai Jagjivandas) Gardhia, a UK citizen formerly of Uganda, who Sai Baba married, was an old acquaintance of mine. He told me at Whitefield in March or April 1998 that Sathya Sai Baba had told him that a) the present round of Gardhia’s visits was the last tour around the world he wanted Gardhia to make speaking at his specific request and b) that he would be visiting Rome, Southern California, Malaysia and the UK. Gardhia shared the same information with many, and it was published in the official UK Sai newsletter.

The late Howard Murphet, Australian journalist and author of best-selling books on Sai Baba, with whom he was close for years, wrote:

“Swami once, a good many years ago told me that He would not travel abroad until His own house was in order, by that He means India, of course”.  Source: Online version, “The Lights of Home”

My late and dear friend Glen Meloy (USA), wrote to a BBC researcher for The Secret Swami, and me (11 Jan 2004):

“The whole Southern California contingent was on ‘red alert’ many times over the alleged visit by SSB to the USA. All of this stemmed from a well publicized promise he had made to Elsie Cowan and the Southern California devotees that he would come and stay at her home and be available for the Tustin Book Center volunteers and selected members from the Southern California Centers. Dr. Sandweiss remodeled his house as did many others. They even created special bathrooms designed just for SSB. Elsie was still hoping for a visit after she donated the land and building for the existing Tustin Book Center on 1sr street in Tustin, California. It had a special bath that was reserved only for SSB.

When the first rumor was thought to be realized in 1974-1975, Elsie asked me to contact the Annenbergs in Rancho Mirage, California, to see if we could reserve their estate for a private meeting place that would accommodate at least 150 specially selected devotees. Annenberg was the founder of TV GUIDE and had a huge private guarded castle like estate in the desert and entertained Prince Charles, Ronald Reagan and the like.

Indulah Shaw, Dr. Bhagavatham, and Dr. Gokak visited the USA as advance people for the trip, but it never came about”.

We know that the wealthy Robert Baskin, a key lawyer to the Sathya Sai Organization, has bought a luxury mansion in southern California, equipping it to receive a visit from Sai Baba.

Now, why won’t that craft fly? No doubt it is a smart craft. But is it really crafty enough?

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Corrupt Indian Judges Stonewall Case Vs Sai Baba

In 2001, the celebrated Indian advocate Kamini Jaiswal (who was a lawyer for the famous ‘Bandit Queen’ Phoolan Devi) attempted to mount, pro bono, a case against Sai Baba on behalf of a former Sai Baba devotee, Hari Sampath.

Jaiswal’s reason for applying for the case to be pled in the Supreme Court of India in New Delhi was precisely for the reason that Andhra Pradesh, Sai Baba’s state, is chockful of Sai Baba police and judges. Therefore, Judges Paitnaik’s and Lahoti’s repeated statements (see link below): “Go the Andhra Pradesh court”, and refusals to give reason for their adverse decision is reprehensible. I have shown the transcripted remarks to a Judge who has also been a top government legal advisor in a major Commonwealth country, who was appalled, as other lawyers and laity alike have been.

Sampath, a software engineer from Chennai may be no bandit like Ms Jaiswal’s client the late Phoolan Devi, although many Sai Baba devotees would perhaps deem him so. He was, he relates, a former member of Sai Baba’s Security and Intelligence wing.  He co-led, with the late Glen Meloy (USA), the first major international former devotee effort that brought Sai Baba to critical attention in major media such as India Today, The Times of London, Salon.com, The Daily Telegraph, Denmark’s National broadcaster DR and various media in Europe and beyond.

Case Derailed

Two other prominent Indian advocates Prashant Kumar and Gaurav Agarwal appeared along with Kamini Jaiswal. However, they were entirely thwarted by judges in the New Delhi Supreme Court - the Sai Baba-partial Judges Lahoti and Patnaik. There is a document which reveals instantly to any alert and unbiased reader what a ‘kangaroo court’ theirs was. This document’s provenance we can prove to competent and principled enquirers. A legal professional has transcripted the case, and part of this may be viewed HERE.

By the way, our offer of proper provenance checking facilities is likewise the case with a wide range of facts that we often have to state in places like the Internet without evidentiary detail - alas, so cautiously and abstractly! But we are - and have been all along - happy to dislose such matters to reputed, bona fide journalists or other investigators, e.g., scholars, law enforcement, government.

Why Not Plead Against Sai Baba in Andhra Pradesh?

For an example how a Sai Baba devotee Judge in Sai Baba’s state of Andhra Pradesh can pervert the course of justice see HERE. Here are brief details.

B. Premanand, of TV “Guru Buster’s” fame, and fellow Indian Rationalists, among other gutsy actions, tried but failed to expose Sathya Sai Baba in court. He too has reported physical attacks, and has told a number of us that his own son was murdered - the only material stolen being extremely compromising to Sathya Sai Baba. Sri Premanand has formed a Committee for Scientific Investigation into Claims of the Paranormal (CSICP). He mounted a court action in Sathya Sai Baba’s state of Andhra Pradesh, in which the High Court Judge Y.V.Anjaneyulu, a prominent Sai Baba devotee, ruled that the law requiring a license to produce gold does not apply to Sathya Sai Baba, who, he determined, materializes his gold from a divine realm. This 1986 case, which B. Premanand brought in the Andhra Pradesh High Court, exposed a close Sai Baba devotee judge’s violation of India’s secular legal system. Judge Anjaneyulu pronounced:

“An article or ornament materialized from air in a split second by the use of spiritual powers or otherwise cannot be said to be made, manufactured, prepared or processed within the meaning of section 11 of the Gold Control Act.”

Having lived long in India, I know well that many thinking Indians feel disgusted that their otherwise great country is still awash, from top to bottom with irrationality and corrupt practice that includes the malfeasance of Judges such as Anjaneyalu, Lahoti and Patnaik. If she makes it as a superpower, will there be an insufficient number of ethical ’freedom fighters’ to prevent her from her existing as a moral and spiritual dwarf?!

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Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia

For more lavish pics of Sai Baba’s Imperial splendour, see below. (Are we seeing the rise or decline of the Showman Empire?)

In the director-writer-actor Orson Welles’s great movie classic Citizen Kane, one can, it is true, note certain differences between the U.S. newspaper proprietor William Randolf Hearst

and Welles’s and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s creation Charles Foster Kane. For decades, the differences have been fought over - fiercely. Nonetheless, both were fabulously wealthy, gigantically egocentric - and corrupt. They splurged incredibly on their domiciles

(Microsoft founder, Bill Gates’s little shack - dubbed by some wag as: Xanadu 2.0.  No zoo there as yet, but who knows? - with the true coming-of-age of Robotics something cyber-’animal’ might be managed)

In naming the fictive Kane’s dream home on sprawling acres, Xanadu, Welles-Mankiewicz thought - perhaps inevitably - of the fabulous city of the 13th Century Mongolian emperor, Kubla Khan (see portrait above) and of the English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s fittingly eccentric and exotic poem known to millions, whose first line runs:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
   Down to a sunless sea

Today’s Emperor of India

Kane in Florida, like Hearst at San Simeon in California, was absolute King of his castle. But there is a virtual Emperor in India - Sathya Sai Baba. 

Even Randolph Hearst (as perhaps a modern day media buccaneer Rupert Murdoch) might have blushed for shame to hold such sway with the big end of town as Sai Baba has long done with India’s power brokers, irrespective of what political party is in power. Sai Baba, who long ago learnt not to blush, is arguably India’s and history’s most famous - and infamous - guru. So too - well may these other extravagant castle owners blanch at being so dwarfed by this Kubla Khan who Lords it over the, in many ways, tragically poor India. How the stupendous splurger Sai Baba can ever say the name of Mahatma Gandhi, modern India’s wonderfully humble ‘father’, without blushing is one of his greatest miracles. 

Much less Microsoft founder Bill Gate’s with his mansion, featuring every technological wizardry. Or Michael Jackson (said to have had his own connections with Sai Baba, and certainly both have had to face repeated allegations of sexual molestation of young males) with his weird parody of Disneyland, the Neverland Ranch. (Interestingly, Hearst would refer to his establishment as “the ranch”). Or Hugh Heffner, the ’soft’ pornography magnate, with the Playboy Mansion, of which  John Marshal has written that  driving through its gates is “like being misdirected into the back entrance of a public zoo”. The zoo atmospheric reminds that Hearst’s estate included a zoo then the world’s largest. The narrator in Citizen Kane speaks of Kane having the largest zoo since Noah. See USA Weekend LINK.

India’s Fabulous Top Guru Sai Baba. More Emperor Than King

One wonders why Sai Baba has not included a wizzo zoo. Perhaps it would be a counter-distraction, because everybody is supposed to have their eyes trained on Sai Baba (it is called ‘darshan’, and his devotees spell it with a capital ‘D’. Instead of gazing at one’s navel, one gazes at the guru). However, one Indian man sitting next to me at a Sai Baba ‘darshan’ described Sai Baba’s setup to me as “a national circus”. So at least, something of the zoological atmospheric may be in the air. 

Vastly Costly Monuments Glorifying Sai Baba

His splashy-colored and sometimes vast buildings rise up at enormous cost. Sathya Sai Baba’s exchequer owes to vast donations to his Central Trust via his powerful organisation spanning more than 150 countries, and not least to the donations of the extremely wealthy - like James Sinclair, the Canadian cable and minerals magnate, Isaac Tigrett the American founder of the Hard Rock Café and House of Blues, the Rai family in India in steel and technology, and an astounding number of other hugely wealthy and influential individuals and families from many countries. Rediff News, July 06, 2005, reported:

“The Andhra Pradesh-based Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust is the largest recipient of foreign contributions. The Sathya Sai Trust received Rs 95 crore (Rs 950 million) during 2003-04″.

This figure - which is well over US $20 million - is but the officially-declared one and does not account for contributions of those foreigners who donate when they are in India. One can observe how at Sai Baba’s establishments at Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, and Whitefield, Karnataka, in South India, the Indian and foreign mega business fraternity swap business cards - within what devotees regard as the so-called Holiest of Holy precincts! - and thereafter mutually thrive. At the Puttaparthi temple, on June 6, 1993) police executions took place in Sai Baba’s bedroom, with his close proximity and command of the situation. See my article, at LINK, which contains a further link to a video clip of the BBC The Secret Swami television interview with former Andhra Pradesh Home Secretary V.P.B. Nair saying that the slaying was “absolute cold-blooded murder”). 

It is easy to see that far wider national and international economic and political forces are at play, and that it is little wonder how successive Indian governments both State and Central have been loathe to ‘kill’ a goose that lays an incredible number of golden eggs.

Efforts to Globalize Sai Baba withWorld Radio Station

Sai Baba controls with an iron hand the international Sathya Sai Organization. This powerful cult has been found by some of the world’s top media like the BBC, Times of London, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and in other countries, as well as UNESCO, the U.S. State Department and other institutions to be extremely hard to investigate or act against. His second most senior aide is its deputy chairman, who, as head of Sai Global Harmony, is his ‘minister of propaganda’, Dr G. Venkataraman, one of the progenitors of India’s atomic bomb, as was Sai Baba’s previous close aide, the late Dr S. Bhagavantam - sometimes called ‘the father of the Indian atomic bomb’ - as was his present staunch devotee, the President of India, Dr A.J. P. Kalam, who writes flowery  panegyrics to Sai Baba, as did the last Indian Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. 

Sai Global Harmony broadcasts, in affiliation with WorldSpace International Satellite Radio Service, 24/7 to many countries. With a behind-the-scenes corporate-style, assisted by the billions of funds that pour from many countries into the Sathya Sai Central Trust, the declared aim is to penetrate to every corner of the globe.

Government Inaction on Powerful Cults

A vital question will be whether politicians in democratic countries will be capable of distinguishing between the issue of freedom of religion and the issue of cults that decidedly do not, whatever may be their rhetoric, respect democracy.

Followers Believe Sai Baba Will Rule World

Former monstrous Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (about whom Sai Baba and G. Venkatarman have warmly recollected, See LINK) only imagined himself to be the ‘Last King of Scotland’ but Sai Baba takes all India for his domain, not to mention the world, which he has long said (it is one of his myriad of broken promises) he will travel to and bring to his feet, after he has “set (his) own back yard (India) in order” and before he dies in AD 2022. Given India’s enduring tragedy - despite her superpower aspirations - he had better get a bit of a wriggle on!

Poor Hearst, Jackson, Gates, Murdoch, et alia! For Sai Baba is an Emperor, who has Indian power brokers in his thrall irrespective of their party or religious affliation. None - except a rare and tremendously courageous individual like B. Premanand, India’s famous “guru buster” - dare  take him on in India. See BBC story HERE.

For Successive Indian Governments, Sai Baba Is ‘goose that lays the golden eggs’

Indian local, central and state governments, often incredibly corrupt and incompetent, are able to watch while the more efficient Sai Baba and his massive organization get social welfare projects done. Drawn out of donations from some 150 foreign countries, his revenue is prodigious. India’s profoundly compromized ruling elites would no more sneeze at that country’s donations from Bill Gates, yet another of history’s outstanding buccaneers, than it would at the taxable revenue pouring into the Sathya Sai Central Trust.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

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The shadow of the dome of pleasure
  Floated midway on the waves ;
  Where was heard the mingled measure
  From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! …..

….. That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.