Criticism of Sai Baba No Reflection On Hinduism

Many Sathya Sai Baba devotees assume that any questioning of him equates to a denunciation of Hinduism. However, Hindus at large do not make this assumption in the least.

A major national Hindu leader has emailed me (December 5, 2006) in the terms I quote below. (Except to those in the responsible media who may wish to obtain a statement from him, I will not disclose his identity). However, Hindus who wish to make enquiry in their own associations as to current views of Sai Baba will be able to establish the factuality of the strong trend inimical to Sai Baba to which my correspondent points): 

“There is considerable concern among the Hindu Community, especially among the educated. It is very hard to get any action from the temples as they do not wish to cause difficulties with the Sathya Sai Baba groups. People are starting to distance themselves from Sathya Sai Baba. It’s going to be gradual process of education. The biggest impact it appears was the ‘The Secret Swami’ … it seems it has had a tremendous negative effect on the SSB”.

Travel widely across India and you will know the exceptionally widespread disdain for Sai Baba - whatever may be the praise for the undoubtedly good social uplift work his devotees perfom in his name. This is especially due to his:

-  emphasis on miracles
-  his claim to be the prime manifestation of God in all history. Quote: “The whole world will be transformed into Sathya Sai Organisation and Sathya Sai will be installed in the hearts of one and all.” (Sanathana Sarathi, January, 1999. page 16). For many more examples, documented in his own official publications, of Sai Baba’s self-deification, see HERE
- the vast pomp and circumstance that surround him, his fleet of luxury foreign cars. See commentary and incredibly revealing pics, Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia
- his cultivation of the rich, his giving special seating positions at darshans to the rich, his flattery of the rich and famous … See, Dare Songstress Nora Jones Touch Sai Baba

His flattery of various visiting Indian Prime Ministers is - embarrassingly for his cause - unwittingly, documented across issues of Sanathana Sarathi (the official Sai Baba organ distributed worldwide), including the case of Narasimha Rao, who was sentenced to years in jail, convicted on a slew of corruption charges relating to kickbacks from secret arms deals with the Swedish firm Bofors. It was the Narasimha Rao government which inititiated the profound Indian government cover-up of the circumstances surrounding the police killings in Sai Baba’s bedroom on June 6, 1993, a suppression that has been strictly maintained by each succeeding Indian government to this day. See, Robert Priddy’s The Unresolved, Covered-up 1993 Murders In Sathya Sai Baba’s Bedroom Revisited

Further Reading

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ - A Revision
The Genesis of the BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ (Sai Baba)
Serial Sex Molestation and Bedroom Killings. But Much More

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Cost Of Cover Ups Can Far Exceed Hoped-for Benefits

A great irony of cover-ups is this - that once they have been exposed, the initiators of the abuses sustain a cost far greater than would have attended the prompt admission of the initial misdeeds - and genuine, exhaustive measures to address the abuses. Tragically, “cost” may be multiply defined - and in far from money terms alone.

                             

And is there any Faith, major or minor, that is not sorely complicit in profound cover up of systemic sexual abuse?

                             

The present repercussions of the Los Angeles Catholic Diocese afford us a ready example. Questions are being raised about whether there is enough - after insurance and money from other Orders have been paid - for even a rich Diocese’s coffers to afford such a vast pay-out. This is but one diocese, and yet many others face, or have already faced, a similar predicament. Is there even a single one (as a BBC television news report would indicate) in which such allegations have not been raised?

The Editorialist in The Boston Globe, July 17, 2007, writes:

“The Los Angeles and Boston money could have been spent on other important projects if Mahony and Law had adopted a zero-tolerance policy against abuse when it first became a national issue for the church in the mid-1980s.

Catholic dioceses across the nation, including Los Angeles, have initiated thorough policies to prevent future abuse, and Mahony apologized to the victims on Sunday. Yet new policies and regrets aren’t enough. In the eyes of victims, the scandal will never be fully resolved as long as bishops who put the interests of their fellow priests over the protection of children remain in positions of leadership”.

‘Or who shall ’scape whipping’?

But is there any organization - anywhere - which has not covered up serious allegations? Can it be a good thing that when exposure of sexual abuse is discussed the Roman Catholic Church is so often the tarnished exemplar?

Another irony is that first whistleblowers are scapegoated but then public scapegoating can too easily turn on discretely ‘easy’ targets. And what more ‘easy’ than arguably the biggest religious monolith on the planet?

Does convergence of attention on a big institution help to prevent a much wider focus?

Naturally, of course, there is, at least, a chance for other organizations - before it is too late (if it is not already far too late!) for them to act without the courts forcing them to act - to learn from the fate of those churches or other organizations already strongly exposed?

Today, most societies are multicultural. Would it not make sense to take the broad approach, with not a single organization acting as though it, too, is unaffected? Or a wider public permitted to think that it has not its own accountability?

Further Major News Media Readings on the LA scandal and pay0uts are HERE, HERE and HERE.  Website of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) is HERE

See, Robert Priddy’s article ‘Spiritual’ Abuse. Quote:

“One US lady who has been raped by a priest broke down in tears on worldwide TV News (22/7/2007) while telling how she was not believed by her very own church community, which ostracised her. This ‘turning a blind eye’ has been very common, also in the Sathya Sai Organization”.

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Judge warned: Crippling disease won‘t stop pervert

Some devotees of Sathya Sai Baba - the ’God’ worshipped by so many of India’s top power brokers (and others beyond) who faces worldwide accusations of large-scale, serial sexual molestation of boys and young men - claim that he could not possibly offend, if he ever did, because of his age and physical incapacity, and that therefore his current accusers are caught in a palpable deceit. 

L. Ageing multiple rapist Wayne Chapman still Dangerous. (Boston Herald Photo Pool). R. An Ironside Sai Baba - not one to easily push around.

They offer no evidence concerning the nature of sexual capacity and ageing. Yet there is a mass of readings on the topic ‘ageing and sex’ in the popular press, let alone a wealth of information from Gerontology and Geriatrics. As ever, the Internet is an abundant source.  But why go looking for facts when there is a guru to defend at all costs? And the word ‘costs’ is more than appropriate, since Sai Baba’s worldwide cult has to defend many billions of dollars of investment in its notion that Sai Baba is about to rule the earth. Any dear reader who happens to be a billionaire, watch your money - Sai Baba is a consumate master in extracting it from you - without seeming to want it. See my article: Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia

Of course, making Champion of the World may require Sai Baba to take a little more than Viagra or Cialis. 

Extract from: Judge warned: Crippling disease won‘t stop pervert
By Laurel J. Sweet
Boston Herald. Friday, March 23, 2007

‘Aging and Sick Sex Offender to Be Civilly Committed?

Whatever the wisdom of civil commitment laws it would seem that this fellow might qualify.  Increasingly, though, the states are going to have to contend with the high cost of health care in keeping aging and sick convicts behind bars.

Even though his aging, bloated body is confined to a wheelchair, a judge was warned yesterday a 59-year-old convicted sexual predator remains dangerous to children. A forensic psychologist assured Lawrence Superior Court Judge Howard J. Whitehead that convicted child rapist Wayne Chapman, who bragged he had sexually molested between 50 and 100 boys and even fantasized about killing some of them, “presents a high and unacceptable risk to re-offend.” “It just doesn’t go away,” Christine Schnyder Pierce testified. Chapman, an interstate predator, has been incarcerated for 31 years. Having served his time, he is hoping to retire in Massachusetts, but the Essex District Attorney’s Office is fighting to have Whitehead civilly commit him for life as a “sexually dangerous” person’.

Further Resources

Wikipedia, Sexuality in older age

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Sai Baba’s ‘Miracles’ Panned In Newsweek

From his observations of YouTube footage, in a Newsweek debate, Sam Harris opines that Sai Baba’s so-called miracles reveal him to be “a stage magician”. This view accords with that of many former Sai Baba devotees - who speak out about it - and of many devotees - who shut up about it.

You can see Sai Baba cheating HERE

Satya Purcell and Sam Harris Agree

www.exbaba.com has recently run in series an article by Satya Purcell, who, having been a member of the International Magician’s Society, exposes Sai Baba as a “bad magician”. Satya (given his name by Sai Baba) along with his mother and father, Sharon and Gary Purcell, were early Western figures at the commencement of the global spread of Sathya Sai Baba’s cult. He is the godson of famed early Sai Baba supporters, the multimillionaire husband and wife, the late Elsie and Walter Cowan. Sai Baba was alleged by the first major leader of the Western organization Dr Jack Hislop and others to have raised Walter Cowan from the dead in 1972. The details, including the medical documents, are hotly disputed. See, for example, Sai Baba’s miracles, an overview, Dr Dale Beyerstein, This book, by a rationalist and an academic from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, can be downloaded as a 100k zip file in .html format. Scroll down the Index to Section 3. for the material referring to Walter Cowan, which as an analysis, as is the case of the whole book, although dating from circa 1994, is still sharp and relevant.

Sam Harris-Rick Warren Debate Extract

Source: Newsweek.  The God Debate, April 9, 2007, page 3. LINK.

• Author Sam HARRIS: Let’s go back to the Bible. The reason you believe that Jesus is the son of God is because you believe that the Gospel is a valid account of the miracles of Jesus.

• Pastor Rick WARREN: It’s one of the reasons.

• Sam HARRIS: Yeah. It’s one of the reasons. Now, there are many testimonials about miracles, every bit as amazing as the miracles of Jesus, in other literature of the world’s religions. Even contemporary miracles. There are millions of people who believe that Sathya Sai Baba, the south Indian guru, was born of a virgin, has raised the dead and materializes objects. I mean, you can watch some of his miracles on YouTube. Prepare to be underwhelmed. He’s a stage magician. As a Christian, you can say Sathya Sai Baba’s miracle stories are not interesting, let’s not pay attention to them, but if you set them within the prescientific religious milieu of the first-century Roman Empire, suddenly miracle stories become especially compelling.

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My Life As Sathya Sai Baba’s Prophecy. Part 6, Final

Satya Purcell’s serialized account ‘My Life As Sathya Sai Baba’s Prophecy’ - subtitled Murder in the ‘Cathedral’! (Or Sai Baba’s Mandir) - concludes with Part 6., at:  http://www.Exbaba.com. It was Sathya Sai Baba, arguably India’s most famous - or infamous - guru who named this son of Sharon and Gary Purcell, who were among foundational figures like the multi millionaire supporters of Sai Baba, Elsie and Walter Cowan (Satya’s godparents), Dr John (Jack) Hislop, and others in the worldwide movement that became the highly organized, powerful and influential authoritarian cult, the Sathya Sai Baba Organization.

To access Part 6, click HERE then click on the NEWS tab then select the entry for Saturday, July 7, 2007. (Links to the other parts are given on each instalment page).

Quotes

“Only a properly conducted investigation would have dispelled the view that has been shared by many - that Sai Baba, who was well in command after the first confusion of events, did what many wealthy and politically powerful criminals do.  He had them killed!

“It is the culture of cover-up in matters both great and small that will surely be the undoing of the Sathya Sai Organization”.

“The crime scene had not been secured, an absolute fundament of proper police procedure. Hours after their prompt arrival, the police had rounded up these former students inside the mandir - the place where worshippers sing to God - and shot them dead. Some investigation! It made the stomach sick, even more than the presence of swilling blood”.

“One of the sweepers pushed the water right up to my bare feet and I had to quickly step back to avoid getting my feet wet with this bloody water.  I remember thinking that there must have been a lot of blood for the water to still be pink by the time it reached me”.

“I carry the name of one of the biggest spiritual frauds of all time, given to me by him when I was a child. I am not a baby now, and will not be silenced - even though knowing that to be a former devotee who speaks out is necessarily to attract extreme vilification, distortion and slander … The truth is hard.  I know because I carry it as my name”.

“Oh, let me not exclude, since I have been a keen amateur magician and member of the International Magician’s Society that, all the while, though a conman of genius, Sai Baba carries off his master act despite being a really bad magician. How ironic!”

Further Resources, including still further Links

Barry Pittard’s contextualising comments on this series from Satya (Sathya, Satch) Purcell series, with added resource links, are found HERE and HERE
For film clip of former Andhra Pradesh Home Minister V.P.B. Nair - telling BBC cameras that the police killings in Sai Baba’s bedroom on June 6, 1993, were “absolute cold blooded murder” HERE

Transcript of the BBC’s The Secret Swami HERE
Sathya Sai Baba Bedroom Murders
Robert Priddy

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Former leader of Norwegian Sathya Sai Organization and retired academic, University of Oslo, looks at the killings. His Wikpedia resumé is HERE

Barry Pittard
Arts/Teaching/Drama  post-graduate, commenced informal teaching with drama, and then, including being assigned what were to have been Principal Narendra’s third year lectures, lectured in English at all levels of the three-year degree Course (1978-79) at the Sri Sathya Sai College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Whitefield, via Bangalore, South India. Innovated what was known as the ‘Small Library’ project, which brought him into unusually wide contact with boys from many backgrounds and classes from virtually all-India. Co-edited with valued colleague P.K. Mohanty an issue of the College magazine, which boys from across the campus turned into a huge best-seller. (With such fond memories, ex-students and staff are most welcome to contact Barry Pittard at:  bpittard (at) optusnet.com.au. Strictest confidentiality is assured. Or phone or video conference contact can be arranged)
Indian Ex Top Official Dogs Sai Baba On BBC. “Cold-blooded Murder” HERE

Serial Sex Molestation and Bedroom Killings. But Much More HERE

‘Marriage Mart’ - Are Known Sex Abusees Disadvantaged?

Witnesses Speaking Out On Sex abuse. Opportunities? Obstacles?

Getting those of Sai Baba’s ex college boys and staff, with whom we have had contact over time, to speak out publicly has proven difficult.

Indeed, in our own movement of exposure, except around 2000, encouraging Sai Baba’s abuse survivors, no matter what their country or culture, has been hard. At  this time, there was unusually intense effort to bring allegations against Sai Baba and his organization to world attention. There were also high hopes - terribly idealistic, in retrospect - that simply getting the major media to investigate, and informing governments, law enforcement agencies, the general public and as many remaining devotees as possible would effect transformation.

Caution In the Primary Witness Process Essential

Of key significance in obtaining cooperation of those making primary allegations circa 2000 was that one of the former devotees was an Indian, with many contacts within Sai Baba circles in India - but added to this fact were his own distinctive qualities. For he was an enormously energetic campaigner, matched outside India by another extraordinary activist, now deceased, who was non-Indian.

The issue of charismatic ability of some activists to inspire abuse survivors to come forth - has been been re-raised by recent developments. These will not be made public yet - but of which more, trustfully, in the next year or so. However, with the utmost emphasis, I wish to suggest a caution. As in the example given above, a highly energetic, articulate, personable individual may indeed have unusual success in obtaining cooperation with abused individuals - e.g., getting sworn testimony, undertakings to travel as court witnesses, sharing of abuse experiences with leading media, law enforcement agencies, governments, UNESCO, academic researchers, etc.

However, my view is that, under a regimen of caution and great sensitivity, it is essential to have well-qualified, experienced abuse professionals involved - as well as those with other professional skills, such as lawyers, social workers, financial advisors, etc. With such constraints, there will, I should think, be some falling away in the numbers ready to testify. When all is said and done, those who are inwardly crumbling may not make the best witnesses, anyway. However, the issue is an ethical one, and should not be up for grabs! Although activists may have the very best intentions, and be far from exercising any coercion, there are nonetheless serious dangers to be avoided. Badly traumatized human beings can be like ticking bombs, where the approach must be made with a great care and skill not possessed by most of us.

Is There A ‘Damaged Goods’ Problem Within India Marriage ‘Markets’?

Indian boys with sexual molestation accounts have shared with networked former Sai Baba devotees a number of difficulties facing them. These relate to the conduct of Sai Baba and some of his personnel such as certain of his teaching staff and students. Suppose Indian abuse survivors were to go public. Are we able to imagine the ramifications within that extraordinarily complex institution - the joint family?

Ex-students and staff of Sai Baba’s institutions who are cooperating with us are acutely aware, for example, that members of their own families are strong devotees of Sai Baba. Some of these live in his ashrams, and are vitally dependent on his largesse, and anxious lest his officials find any fault, real or imagined, which could lead to their casting out. If ex-students and other young male devotees who have come to grief with Sai Baba, or are friends of those who have, were to speak out, what would be their fate, and that of those they love?

Joint Family A Great Institution. Like Any, It Has Its Stresses, Strains 

A great many marriages in India are still arranged, where a boy or girl does not, in certain respects, so much marry an individual but rather a complex set of family alliances.

To spend considerable time - as I have had the great fortune to have done in the case of India - in any other culture is often a humbling experience. Customs which vastly differ from one’s own can, on closer inspection, enshrine a great deal of commonsense, adaptive capacity and profundity - all too easily missed by superficial judgement. Therefore, it is not the topic in general of arranged marriages that I allude to in this piece, but a facet of the tradition which can pose - unless those in the culture itself  find creative ways around it - a difficulty for many Indian sexual abuse survivors.

Creative Indian Solutions Needed

All round the world, there are those who wish, of course, that ex students and ex staff of Sai Baba’s institutions would go public with what they know to be true, tragic as it is. (I do not say that they will not do so, eventually). However, such an event needs a uniquely Indo-centric approach - with Indian legal, spiritual, emotional and other support systems well in place. Where well-wishers in other countries may be able to assist is in contact with governments to smoothe the path for those Indian individuals or families who, for their own safety and well-being may wish to relocate.

Many who have been abused have real issues of reintegration, of  “moving on” (which is a phrase they themselves often use), and living with a sense of betrayal - especially acute in the face of their experience of a guru they supremely loved and trusted.

Legal Situation Can Be Problem-fraught

Any abuse survivors looking for legal remedies need to ensure that they obtain the most competent and sensitive advocacy. To win a monetary settlement and yet lose peace of mind is not worth it - unless an individual is very strong and believes that his sufferings will obtain tangible reforms for other abuse survivors, including the eduction of the wider public, and the breaking down of taboos against speaking out.

Related Reading at: http://barrypittard.wordpress.com

Indian Government Study of Child Abuse Is Groundbreaking

Child Abuse Rife In India. But Who Would Speak Out?

Child Abuse in India. Will Minister Renuka Chowdhury Act?

Child Abuse. Landmark Indian Government Study

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Dalai Lama: Forgiveness does not mean forgetfulness

At the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Australia, July 14, 2007, the 14th Dalai Lama spoke to a capacity, 15000 audience. Several large screens throughout the auditorium meant that people were able to see him close up.

This well reinforced a remark that someone had made - that he was “radically informal”. It was true - he had a profound naturalness, straightforwardness and simplicity. There were also  large crowds outside watching on a large television screen outside the Brisbane Entertainment Center.

Forgiveness does not entail forgetfulness

First, I shall single out one of the points he made, because it can throw light on the motivations of many former devotees of Sathya Sai Baba around the world. Most are not motivated by hatred against Sai Baba or leaders of his Sathya Sai Organization but believe it important to state their case as best they can, if in very difficult circumstances.

This point of the Dalai Lama’s - about forgiveness - is made, like all of his points, in many wisdom traditions, yet it seems to forever need to be raised and clarified, simple a point although it is.

Anyone who knows those individuals around the world who have dissented from Sai Baba - many of them having been deeply committed to his work for decades until they resigned or simply walked out - knows that most of those individuals speak out decidedly not because of hatred and revenge. It is a simplistic notion that speaking out about crimes and other wrong-doings has to to equate to hatred and revenge. Even if, since none of us is perfect, we err, it is important for us all to look for some better resolution of the issues. Some of the insights gained in the ‘Truth Commission’ processes may afford a guide for groups who are ready to reform themselves and seek compassionate solutions. See e.g., http://www.truthcommission.org

A society in which serious allegations are not brought out will remain a terribly crippled one. It will be one of secrecy, and lack compassion. It will not address the difficulties that so sorely need to be raised. China is far from alone in this, and we each need to address our own country’s failures to be a genuinely just society. However, China, as many cults do, has a long record of severe suppression, secrecy and violation of human rights. It has strongly protested to the Australian government, attempting to get it to stop the Dalai Lama’s visit. It would like us to forget him, and forget its atrocities, including enforced colonization and genocide. It can no more say sorry for these and make amends - to name but one of many Chinese government human outrages, for its violent mass killings in Tienanmen Square in 1989 (see Wikipedia reference HERE) than my own country’s government of John Howard can say sorry to our own wonderful, but tragically decimated indigenous people. Howard and the federal Opposition Leader, a former diplomat, Kevin Rudd, who speaks fluent mandarin Chinese, have both vacilated severely about whether they would meet the Dalai Lama. Most suddenly and curiously, neither appeared to know what their diary was doing but in fact, according to various media reports, they were both locked in consulting their realpolitik options - namely the trade issue, since China is Australia’s biggest trading partner. (I have dealt with this issue, from the perspective of our own interfaces with a number of governments in relation to Sai Baba HERE.  Many governments prefer narrow pragmatism over humanitarian conscience). 

What the Dalai Lama has succeeded in doing, and what a few others like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mary Robinson and so on have so powerfully sought to do is to rise above hatred and vengeful, violent retaliation. (It may be good if we all start making a list and add still many more role model names, such as the Myhero project has sought to do at this page HERE). They have struggled on the great scale just as the rest of us have to struggle on the smaller scale. Not one of these leaders failed to speak out against the evils that had been perpetrated - such as those of war, empire, colonialism - and the disgraceful and terrible means used to realize them. Remembering evils can be graceful, especially when we have community support, and personal methods of self-discipline and induction of genuine calmness - such that we do not visit them on others as doctrine.

Forgiveness: Not losing compassion for the other person

Answering a question from the audience, the Dalai Lama distinguished between forgiveness and forgetfulness. He said that forgiveness is logically not possible with the absence of forgetting. To forgive, you need to remember what it is that you are forgiving. Forgiveness means not losing compassion for the other person. Sooner or later that individual, if they have have committed an offence, has to face the consequencies. Forgiveness does not mean taking no action. The important thing is that you do not let hatred overtake you.

‘Secular Ethics’

The Dalai Lama said he had nothing to offer but common sense. His own religion was his own private matter. His thoughts expressed publically may be termed ’secular ethics’. He had not much to offer, except commonsense.

He was now nearly 72 and since 16 years of age has had lots of difficulties, like the loss of his country. As he tours the world there is always sad news. But it is important to find a way, although recognizing the sadness for what it is, not to detain oneself with it but instead to establish a calm mind. To some, this attitude seems like being careless. But it is not, because a conflicted mind will bring still more troubles. Take problems seriously by all means, of course, but on the objective intellectual level rather than on the emotionally conflictful level. One needs to  look at things objectively, and handle things more realistically, being neither over joyful nor over sad.

Happiness is the very purpose of life

Feelings of compassion and kindness need to be implemented through action. People need to feel a part of society, and self-confident.  We are social ‘animals’. Survival depends on a sense of community. Positive emotions are very good for us, and negative emotions very bad and destructive. The more compassion the better is society’s functioning. This recognition does not belong peculiarly to any religion.

Religious answers often divide

Compassion is very