Champion Tennis At Top Indian Guru’s Ashram

After Sai Baba’s great white elephant, Hillview stadium, has lain virtually dormant for nearly a decade, another Sai Baba involvement in topline sport has just been announced. In December 1997, it was cricket. In January 2008, it is tennis.

 From The Hindu Online. Wednesday, January 2, 2008.

India to play two Tests against the Philippines

NEW DELHI: India will play two Test matches in tennis against the Philippines on January 12 and 14.

The Indian challenge will be led by the National grass court champion Vishnu Vardhan and the National hard court champion Ashutosh Singh. The other member will be Divij Sharan.

The Philippines will have a two-member team of Patrick John Tierro and Johnny Arcilla.

The Tests, to be played at the Sri Sathya Sai Baba Ashram at Puttaparthi and the DLTA Complex in Delhi, will feature two singles and a doubles each. — Special Correspondent

John McEnroe Faces Mafia, But Can He Slam Sai Baba?

A brief aside. Great Tennis ace John McEnroe has raised questions about the Russian mafia and tennis. Perhaps he and other influential tennis greats may like to make some enquiries into Sai Baba, whom the BBC has called ‘The Secret Swami’. (See, Yahoo news report McEnroe fears mafia infiltrating tennis)

The gentle McEnroe may like to have a loud word in the ears of players such as: Vishnu Vardhan, Ashutosh Singh, Divij Sharan, Patrick John Tierro and Johnny Arcilla.

Of course, McEnroe’s fearsome displays are nothing compared to those of Sai Baba and his world Chairman, Dr Michael Goldstein, as captured - looking like a balled-up mafia bully boy - by BBC hidden camera for The Secret Swami:

Sai Baba Would Put New Meaning to ‘Love All’

But tennis players might not come to love his serve! Do the International Tennis Authority, the All India Tennis Association and these players think that it is some joke that arguably history’s most famous and controversial guru is to be host to high profile tennis? One who faces worldwide allegations of wide-scale, serial sexual abuse of boys and young men, implication in local police killings in his bedroom on June 6, 1993, and other gravely serious crimes that India’s often corrupt system, and its huge numbers across the entire power echelon who are devotees of Sai Baba, have ensured do not get to the courts, even in the hands of fearless top attorneys Kamini Jaiswal? See, Corrupt Indian Judges Stonewall case Vs Sai Baba.

An Opulence No Tennis Super Stars Could Afford

Will it matter to tennis players and authorities that Sai Baba raises to his own self-glory - much due to the billions that pour into his Sathya Sai Central Trust from countries around the world -  vast, flashy and costly buildings, not all of them for good reasons like hospitals? See article and incredibly revealing photos in Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia

Left, ‘God’ loves golden panoply. Right, Sai Baba’s ‘twin’ palaces, fit for the Lord of Lords, whom he proclaims himself to be.

When the golden cup Runneth Not Over - Anyone for Tennis?

Although a golden opportunity for some publicity like a big tennis tournament might be spun. And start the gold coming in again, especially after some disastrous leave-takings by many well-respected members of his Sathya Sai Organization, an adverse major media in a number of countries, and desperate attempts by his organization to recruit in highly costly venues, where the rich and powerful can feel comfortable.

UNESCO Media Advisory Contra Sai Baba and Organizers

Will it concern them that Sai Baba is the guru from whose major education conference at Puttaparthi whom UNESCO withdrew in September 2001? See, Media Advisory, which fortunately neither the Government of India nor Sai Baba’s powerful devotees worldwide have been able to get removed from the Internet Wayback machine. (If it disappears, please email me bpittard (at) optusnet.com.au, and I shall inform our lawyers). This UNESCO action and document followed representations made by highly-credentialed individuals from around the world. After the cancellation by UNESCO and the University of Flinders, South Australia, the Indian government, for the while, successfully pressured the UN body to suppress the Advisory from its records. However, UNESCO reconfirmed to the BBC in mid 2004 that it did not now resile from the terms of its original Advisory. The BBC, which extracted UNESCO’s embarrassing backflip, was investigating in preparation for its indicting documentary on Sai Baba The Secret Swami (first screened, June 2004). See also, The Case of Unesco’s Missing Media Advisory

US State Department Travel Warning

Will it it matter to tennis authorities and players that the US State Department confirmed to the BBC that Sai Baba was the individual it had been seriously investigating, but whom it had not (ed., no doubt for legalistic reasons) named in its travel warning to US citizens travelling in Andhra Pradesh, the locality of Sai Baba’s Puttaparthi ashram?

Is Sai Baba More Than A Match For World Tennis?

Questions will certainly be asked of Indian and world tennis authorities. Presented with the facts, they, along with players and members of the tennis-loving public, may not wish tennis to be associated with Sai Baba. 

(NOTE: this is to advise tennis authorities, media, law firms and any genuine, bona fide investigators that there are from several countries and cultures individuals of outstanding integrity in their own professions and communities who are prepared to share their witness accounts of shocking levels of young male sexual abuse at the hands of Sathya Sai Baba, and other grave abuses).

Is too late for cancellation? Is it ever too late to cancel conscience? Is it ever too late for Sai Baba to stop proclaiming that he is Lord of Lords, the Father of Jesus Christ, the One who sent the Prophet of Islam, Buddha, and so on?

At the very least, those lending their good names to this tennis event need to ensure that Sai Baba does not in future use tennis for propagandistic purposes. They may prefer not to allow the glamour of tennis to aid and abet the forces of corruption in India and the thwarting of profoundly proper police and judicial proceedures. They may like to see the provisions expected in countries with viable democratic processes. At least Russia, unlike India, does not pretend to democracy.

Will Sai Baba Propaganda History Repeat Itself?

If tennis authorities and players continue to involve themselves, they may expect the sort of extraordinarily untruthful spin (no pun intended) that occurred in the case of Sai Baba’s cricket match in December 1997 (which I saw). The fact is that only India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (and the UK, if we must include one player, Doug Brown) played at that match. (See my article, Sai Baba Vs Kerry Packer). At lunch, E.A.S. Prasanna, India’s former great spin bowler, told me that his fellow organizers had tried to get Sir Donald Bradman (ed., the greatest cricket legend of all time) to attend the match but he was in ill health. (No wonder, our late national treasure was was already 90! and died in February 2001).

How Gavaskar Lost Some Lustre

Sunil Gavaskar, one of the great Indian cricketing legends, wrote an article for Sai Baba’s promotion people in which he stated an absolute fiction. Can Gavaskar, gripped by emotion, have forgotten to state a glaring fact? Having lived in India - a land of unusual piety - for several years, I know that sometimes excess of intense devotional fervour can carry devotees quite away. Perhaps - away from the cricket field - poor Gavaskar, in the grip of his guru’s quest for world supremacy as the God who will save the whole world by circa AD 2022, was - well, being carried quite away.

“So, the Unity Cup was played with players from all over the world including Pakistan”:
http://saibaba.ws/experiences1/
realisingsupremebeatitude.htm

A Cautionary Tale

Tennis fraternity, be aware, if you will, of a famous sportsman who becomes inveigled in the much-vaunted ‘Glory of Puttaparthi’. Here is just a little of the long, guru-all-hailing Sunil Gavaskar article, posted by Sai Baba’s propaganda supremo, head of Sai Global Radio via Worldspace International Satellite Radio Service and vice chairman of the International Sathya Sai Organization, Dr G. Venkataraman, Realizing Supreme Beatitude:

“I was privileged to arrange the players for the Unity Cup Cricket Match. Swami has always said, “Life is a game. Play it.”. Bhagavan wanted to show that there could be unity among different countries, cultures and communities through sports. So, the Unity Cup was played with players from all over the world including Pakistan.
Several senior retired players were honoured and had the good fortune to be blessed by Bhagavan. Who can forget Bhagavan patting Sachin Tendulkar on the back and telling him, “I am with you!” What a season Sachin had after that as he virtually single-handedly demolished World Champion Australia with his batting that seemed to be of a totally different dimension after that pat from Bhagavan!
Devotees who have had Swami’s Darshan even from afar know how it becomes a craving and if Swami even glances at you fleetingly, you feel an incredible joy that cannot be described in words”.

Video Resources

The Secret Swami (BBC Television)
(80 MB, Broadband)

The Secret Swami

(23.3 MB, Modem)

Seduced (80 MB, Broadband)

Seduced (21 MB, Modem)

DR, Danish Broadcasting, Denmark’s national television and radio broadcaster). Shown in an English version by SBS in Australia as Seduced by Sai Baba, February  12, 2004. Like other major media in the world, SBS refused to be intimidated by legal or other threats by the Sathya Sai Organization. Staffs of every media or institution who have dealt with them have soon realized that former devotee witnesses from many countries are individuals of good repute in their communities, professions, etc., and are being badly slandered by Sai Baba and those who defend him.

Video clip of Mark Roche interview from The Secret Swami, BBC 2, This World, first screened, Thursday 17, 2004. See article on this, BBC’s ‘Secret Swami’ Clip. Man Claims Abuse When Young. Quote from article: 

“Mark Roche (California, USA) was deeply devoted to Sai Baba from 1969. Among Sai devotees, former devotees and in his wider community, he has long been regarded as a man of decency, compassion and integrity. Revealingly, it is frequently only after former devotees leave Sai Baba (often after decades of great service and devotion) that Sai Baba and Sai Baba protagonists ‘convert’ them - in their own minds - into “demons”, “cawing crows”, “Judases”, etc”.

Media investigation/coverage

Sai Baba has been increasingly exposed to the world on television. E.g., by the BBC, DR (Denmark), AZUL (Argentina), CBC (Canada), ABC, SBS (Australia), and in the press - India Today, Times of London, Telegraph, Guardian, Age, Australian Financial Times, and newspapers in several parts of Europe, Canada, and elsewhere. There were many top reviews of the BBC’s The Secret Swami.

Surprising openings in a long-muzzled Indian media occurred November 2006, when Paul Lewis’s story broke in The Guardian (UK) - The Indian living god, the paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards. It raised concerns about the nexus between the Duke of Edinburgh Awards and the UK Sai youth, on their way in large numbers to see Sai Baba.

Sai Baba No Shiva. Gold From His Gut Is Regurgitator’s Trick

Within Hinduism, the Shiva lingam can represent the wonder and majesty of creation-dissolution, a symbol of limitlessness. See Wikipedia, under ‘Lingam‘: 

‘The term lingam is sometimes used synonymously for shivalingam or sivalingam a specific type of icon or altar representing the god Shiva’
   

In Sanskrit, this object is often called a lingodhbhava. In India, especially in the south, down the millennia, via literature, drama, temple worship and so on, the sacredness of its associations have become immense.        

Sai Baba had, over a number of years, ostensibly brought from his stomach a pure gold egg-shaped Shiva lingam (Sivalingam, Shivalingam). This event he performed at the festival to the Hindu god Siva, or Mahashivarathri. For two decades, Sai Baba ceased what had been a yearly (so-called miraculous) production of the lingam. Why would he resume it in February 1999?

A Lordly Miracle Might Revive Emperor’s Crumbling Empire

I have elsewhere characterized Sai Baba as a master showman, see The Decline and Fall of the Showman Empire. Around Sai Baba, all is panoply, pomp and circumstance - and dazzling architecture costing millions.

Sai Baba’s pet elephant, Sai Gita appearing at Sai Baba’s showpiece Hillview Stadium

A Hindu dissenter of Sai Baba, chance-met, who was at Puttaparthi on suffrance, once said to me, “This is a national circus”.

Sai Baba’s humble living quarters

But empire or circus, the show is a voracious money ‘beast’ that has continually to be fed. Gold may or may not come out of Sai Baba’s stomach but it certainly has to keep on going into his coffers.

Sai Baba showcased in pure gold

What then the case of a series of calamitous exposures in major media around the world? What of all the leave-takings from his worldwide Sathya Sai Organization - far more numerous than formal resignations? What of the threatened recruitment bases?

Big Money Replenishment - A Desperation to Recruit in Luxurious Venues

In tightly controlled circumstances, the Sathya Sai Organization now recruits in highly costly, luxurious venues. For example, Cooper’s Union, New York; La Mirada Theatre; Los Angeles County, Hilton Ballroom and Sheraton Hotel and Towers, both Chicago; Copley International Conference Center, San Diego; Town Hall, Melbourne; Super Dome, Sydney, etc. See article by Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard, Sai Organization’s Spending Spree In Super Dome, Sydney.

Sydney Superdome, Australia one of world’s top stadiums, built for the Olympic Games 2000

A Positive BBC Documentary Would Help Recuperate from Intense International Criticism

The BBC was on the scene, and the ashram officials had given a rare permission to shoot inside the Puttaparthi ashram. It was not until the BBC producer of what was to become the television documentary The Secret Swami (2004) Eamon Hardy asked about the worldwide sex abuse allegations that matters drastically altered. The Sathya Sai Central Trust Secretary, K. Chakravarthy, summarily evicted the BBC team. The Indian television company Sanskaar TV also televised this Mahashivarathi event.

There had been, especially from 2000, tremendous international pressure for Sai Baba and his worldwide Sathya Sai Organization. (See, towards the end of the article - Sathya Sai Baba’s Deputy Head, Dr G. Venkataraman, Speaks of “Mr Idi Amin” - a number of heavy stressors that were being applied by globally networked former devotees known as ‘the exposé). One outcome was the display of an anger Sai Baba has long kept behind-the-scenes. Bad cracks began to appear in the Sai monolith, and the world began to peep through. In a Christmas 2000 discourse, in which peace and goodwill to all men were remarkable for their absence, Sai Baba repeatedly pounded his lecturn, denouncing his accuses as demons and Judases, and vaunting his accomplisments (even though, contrary to his assertions, far from unique), prompting The Times of India, December 26, 2000, to headline: Sai Baba Lashes Out At His Detractors. He cried,

“Is there any government that is giving free medical care? People don’t even think about the sanctity behind it. Most of the educated have become so low and mean minded. Is there anyone who is doing even one thousandth of this work ? No, no. It is only Sathya Sai Baba, who is doing this selflessly, always for the welfare of others.”

He has at various times said he is anger-free. For example:

“When I am defamed, I never get incensed, for it is only the tree full of edible fruits that is attached by sticks and stones.” (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 4 p. 184).

“There is no trace of anger or hatred in Me and hence everyone loves Me” (Sanathana Sarathi September 2002, page 257f)

Sathya Sai Speaks of his alleged lingam creations

“Ah! This is the Brahmaanda Linga! Symbol of the Universe. Inside it, the nine planets (Navagrahas) revolve; the entire Universe is represented herein … You are indeed blessed, the merit of many births as brought you here to see the Great Phenomenon, this rare Creation.” (Sathya Sai Speaks, IV, 4:26).

He has also said:

“This is Amruthtatwam (symbol of immortality). It is changeless. You cannot see such a manifestation anywhere in the world. It is possible only with Divinity.” (Sanathana Sarathi - March 1999, p. 73)

In 2004, as caught by BBC and Indian television cameras, Sai Baba not only produced one lingam, but, if we take his officials’ word for it, two more offstage.  The public ‘miracle’ he performed, to the suprise of many, in terribly fumbling and absent-minded fashion. One would think that this to declining faculties that many have noticed but which his minders have tried to mask as best they can under the all too tell-tale circumstances, and which Sai devotees keep a numbed silence about). However, according to Sai Baba’s chief translator and also a world-travelling emissary Professor Anil Kumar in his words to the crowds, Sai Baba privately manifested two more ‘atma lingams’ off-stage.

 In the BBC’s The Secret Swami, the interviewer 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”. Transcript is HERE. See the whole documentary. Broadband users click HERE (80 MB). There is a small version for modem users Here (23,3 MB)
Or you can download it packed in zip file (22 MB) Here. 

Returning to the Kulwant Hall stage within the next hour, to the immensely relieved audience of many thousands, a pale and shaken Sai Baba makes the unfathomable 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”

But Centuries of Magicians Have Produced Objects By Regurgitation

Magicians have long produced objects - both precious and trivial - from out of their stomachs. A contemporary example is the British regurgitator Stevie Starr. The website:  http://www.steviestarr.com/index.php informs us that:

“He swallows live goldfish, pool balls, numbered coins, even dry sugar, and manages to bring them back up in order, on command (and in the case of the sugar, completely dry!)”

If you feel that you can control your own stomach, you can see a video clip (4.4mb) of Stevie Star at work HERE

There is a German documentary that shows ’sadhus’ or Hindu ‘holy men’ performing tricks, including regurgitation:  Das Mysterium Der Shiva - Heilige Männer (Ein film von Eberhart Thiem, Helga Lippert, Arno Peik) from a German series called Terra X - Rätsel alter Weltkulturen). Swallowing of nails and regurgitating them one at a time is shown.

For a fascinating byway in film history, see HADJI ALI, Scenes from POLITIQUERIAS, the Spanish-language version of Laurel and Hardy’s Chickens Come Home. Hadji Ali is of that group of performers known as ‘regurgitators’ or ‘water spouters’. A vaudeville star in the first decades of the last century, this Egyptian-born performer was billed as ‘The Great Regurgitator’. In the webpage just cited, there are stark black and white shots of Hadji Ali performing the regurgitation trick in a 1931 Stanley Laurel and Oliver Hardy movie.

The Indian swami Swami Premananda also used to produce lingams.  He now sits in the bowls of a gaol with a double life sentence for rape  and murder, and not likely to be regurgitated therefrom.

The celebrated Indian Rationalist and ‘guru buster’ Basava Premanand appeared in the BBC’s The Secret Swami. Originally a Sai Baba devotee, he reported investigating Sathya Sai Baba since 1968, first “as a hobby” then going public in 1976. In this one-hour television documentary, B. Premanand is seen demonstrating the trick behind Sai Baba’s so-called ‘miraculous’ production of the golden lingam or Shiva lingam.

Powerful Psycho-religious Role of the Lingam Among Many Hindus

Sai Baba knows well how to tap into aeons-old Indian piety. He says he is all the gods and goddesses. Many Vaishnavites worship him as Lord Vishnu, many Shaivites, as Lord Shiva, and so on. But this phenomenon is not untypical - in the remarkable form of a live-and-let-live philosophy - and is seen in much guru worship throughout India, where an individual is free to worship the guru according to her or his own traditional or temperamental iconography or ishta devata (personalized or favourite form of godhead). To his devotees of Christian background, Sai Baba says that he is the Father who sent Lord Jesus Christ. Because of these deep Indian traditions of religious plurality and acceptance (which goes far deeper than mere tolerance), his devotees are happy, for example, to sing his praises in bhajans (antiphonal, commonly congregational hymn-singing) using the names of all the gods and goddesses.

Crowd Pulling Psychology Far Exceeding Barnum and Bailey

Sai Baba’s sarva dharma chakra (all-major Faiths symbol)

In one thing at least Sai Baba is supreme. He has the supreme ability to play the all-religions-are-essentially-one card with brilliance. He virtually adopts the role, at the level of self-proclaimed absolute Divinity, of being all-things-to-all religious men. One of the psychological factors he draws on goes emotionally deep for those worshipping him. Sathya Sai speaks, for example, of how his devotees plead with him not to produce the lingam, particulary now that he is becoming older and has been through a number of hip operations (he is 81, and may be older if we are to regard British colonial records). In The Deccan Herald report of the February 2004 Mahashivrathri, Srikanth Srinivasa wrote,

“Sai Baba’s devotees have been imploring him not to suffer the ordeal of bringing out the Linga every year at the cost of the god man’s health”

Sai Baba’s Promise: Who Witnesses His Production Of the Lingam is Liberated from Sin and Rebirth

Down the years, Sai Baba has made references like this:

“Those who are fortunate to witness Lingodbhava are freed from all sins”.  Sanathana Sarathi, 3/99, p. 66

In short, he mines for all it is worth mass anxiety about the karmic future. Will one be damnably consigned to birth after birth? Or will a trip to Puttaparthi mend things, forever? In short, what this great religious showman offers - no, promises, absolutely - is absolution and forgiveness of sins. It is a consideration that motivates millions of religionists the world over.

A similar psychology - the spectacle of God’s pain, as it were - attends Christian attitudes to the ‘Passion’ or crucifixion story, and Christian evangelists have long played deeply on this.

Shiva Rules But Sai Baba Was No Tiger

Majestic symbol of undeniable cosmic forces, Lord Shiva sits forever serenely on his tigers skin. Sathya Sai Baba’s tiger skin is but that - a skin held dazzlingly aloft to make him appear be the real Shiva.

Playing cricket or playing Shiva?

Sai Baba’s mask-like face. A degenerative disease like Parkinson’s?

                     ……………………………..

Further Reading

Faked lingam production. Frame-by-frame analysis of the BBC and other footage is revealing indeed. Former leader of the Sathya Sai Organization, Norway, and retired academic of the University of Oslo, Robert Priddy, analyses and provides background notes, See, Mahahshivarathri 2004.  Quote:  “Sai Baba allowed an unprecedented live broadcast in the Indian subcontinent of his so-called ‘lingodbhava’ (bringing the egg-like ellipsoidal object out of his mouth after what looks like a painful process of ‘regurgitation’). However, one can most clearly see that NO lingam ‘actually emerged at all this year. Instead there was a small spurt of yellowish vomit, which was later claimed to be the lingam in liquid golden form!”

Devotees’ Expectations and SSB’s Lingam Production (Background Notes on the 2004 Mahasivaratri Spectacle). In this article, the Australian scholar and former devotee Brian Steel writes:

“It is not unreasonable to hypothesise that in 1999 and 2000, this popular event may even have been deliberately revived for precisely the same promotional reasons, at a time when the Organisation was acutely aware that very strong criticism and denunciation of SSB was about to be made public overseas by two very high-profile close ex-devotees (David Bailey and Naresh Bhatia) who had recently “defected” and whose spectacular revelations were nervously awaited. If this hypothesis is not correct, and if the Lingodbhava performance was discontinued because of fears of unruly crowds in 1977, why revive it when the crowds are much larger today?”

Notes

“Bhagavan Baba kept manifesting His divinity in the form of Lingodbhava year after year on every Shivaratri till 1977 when He announced that he had decided to discontinue Lingodbhava in public. Those who witnessed this Divine phenomenon again on 15 February, 1999 were really fortunate as it happened after a long gap of more than 20 years.” Editor, Sanathana Sarathi, 3/99, p. 81

Barry Pittard at: http://barrypittard.wordpress.com

The Decline and Fall of the Showman Empire

The BBC’s The Secret Swami - A Revision

The Genesis of the BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ (Sai Baba)

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The Decline and Fall of the Showman Empire

Sai Baba’s ’showman empire’ is worth many highly unaccountable billions. Frequently, they pour to his Sathya Sai Central Trust from your country and mine. (See Rediff.com reference in my note, Sai Baba Exchequer Worth Billions. Many Countries Donate)

Media Empires Are More Effective

R to L. Media mogul’s mogul Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner, a slight competitor, (Jane Fonda’s sweet Ex), Zee TV’s Subhash Chandra, Time Warners Dr Richard Parsons

But now, Sai Baba has been increasingly exposed to the world on television by the BBC, DR (Denmark), AZUL (Argentina), CBC (Canada), ABC,  SBS (Australia), and in the press - India Today, Times of London, Telegraph, Guardian, Age, Australian Financial Times, and newspapers in several parts of Europe, Canada, and elsewhere. This does not mean that any of these major institutions did a perfect job, or that there do not abound plenty of compelling stories, some of them tragic indeed.

We are now better able to see the Decline and Fall of the Showman Empire. But the core leaders of the ‘Secret swami’ (as the BBC has named him) are immensely powerful, and won’t go down without a fierce fight. Secret fierceness excercised by a cult connected with powerful and corrupt political figures is immensely devious, and consitutes a fine opportunity for crack investigative journalists.

No Edward Gibbon To Chronicle Sai Baba’s Decline and Fall - Yet

Surprising openings in a long-muzzled Indian media occurred November 2006, when Paul Lewis’s story broke in The Guardian - The Indian living god, the paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards. It raised concerns about the nexus between the Duke of Edinburgh Awards and the UK Sai youth, on their way in large numbers to see Sai Baba.

Awards, owing to, in this sort of issue, a not very experienced or competent UK CEO, Peter Westgarth - see HERE - was slow off the mark. However, after very high level representations from our side, the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme trustees and Prince Philip’s Private Secretary, Brigadier Sir Miles Hunt-Davies KCVO, CBE,

realized that a serious matter was at hand. Questions were also raised by some powerful citizens, including a former Home Minister, Tom Sackville. The Duke of Edinburgh Awards required of Dr G. Venkataraman, at an official Sai Baba website to take down the triumphant - but absurdly mistaken - information that the Duke of Edinburgh Award had been awarded to Sai Baba himself.

G. Venkataraman, formerly a member of India’s highly secret nuclear establishment, is Sai Baba’s deputy world head, who also directs Sai Baba’s international 7 days 24 hours satellite radio service via the WorldSpace international corporation. According to the Wikipedia entry for ‘Sathya Sai Baba’, its Director Dr Michael Nobel is “one of the patrons for the radio network” and “said that the radio network would spread Sathya Sai Baba’s message of global harmony and peace”. (With little sense of time’s passage the Wiki article says, absurdly, that Michael Nobel is the son of Alfred Nobel, who founded The Nobel Foundation and after whom the Nobel Prize is named)

An Imperial Puttaparthi Wishes To Penetrate Every Corner of Globe

Dr Venkataraman states:

“Sometime in September 2001, two distinguished visitors came to Sri Sathya Sai Super Speciality Hospital in Bangalore. They were Dr. Noah Samara, CEO, WorldSpace Corporation, and Dr. Michael Nobel, Chairman, Nobel Family Society, and a Member of the Board of Directors of WorldSpace. Dr. Nobel is the great grand nephew of Dr. Alfred Nobel, the founder of Nobel Prize … Who can deny the play of the “hidden hand”? Dr. Samara and Dr. Nobel were duly blessed with a Divine Interview, in the course of which Dr. Samara offered at the Lotus Feet an entire digital radio channel for broadcasting Swami’s Message of Love and Compassion to the entire world”.

Duke Versus Emperor. Edinburgh Beats  Puttaparthi

On November 4, 2006, The Guardian ran Paul Lewis’s story (see above). In a development that occurred quite without (a story perhaps to be told one day) The Guardian seeking it, in November 2006, The Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) managed to get a few major Indian media to take the feed on the Paul Lewis story. There have been decades of censorship of material adverse to the politically and religiously too-hot-to-handle Sai Baba and his vast and, in India, extraordinarily powerful Sathya Sai Organization. This feed also went to parts of Asia and the Middle East. It has been an absurd situation that NRI’s (Non Resident Indians) have been accessed in the media of many countries with large Indian diaspora to critical information about Sai Baba, when Indians in their own country have been denied.

Investigative Opportunities

The present writer (email:  bpittard(at)optusnet.com) can provide journalists and other investigators with a slew of media and academic contacts who can verify that the Sathya Sai Organization is a prime example of a cult in hiding from the media and others wishing to examine it. This is why the BBC obtained a difficult to gain sanction from its senior managment and Legals to use a hidden camera on the world chairman of Sai Baba’s orgnanization, Dr Michael Goldstein of Covina, California. (See BBC video footage HERE)

Without hazard to life and limb, astute, seasoned, well-briefed journalists should be able to slip unnoticed into Sai Baba ashrams and centers and other meeting places, and those of other cults. One financial journalist was about to investigate the vast money trails but got reassigned. Another, an award winning journalist from an Australian newspaper was, after weeks of intense investigation, about to front page when, at the last moment, his Editor-In-Chief spiked the story. A Can-West journalist had to modify his piece after heads of his newspaper got ensconced for hours with lawyers of a multi-millionaire advertizer with the same newspaper. However, many media have stood up to pressures from the Sathya Sai Organization senior brass.

Any temptation to obtain a good laugh from silly beliefs or practices should at all costs be avoided. It is no laughing matter that, for example, young people can get themselves horribly enmeshed in cult life, just as we can lose them via drugs and alcohol. Trustfully, by better awareness among broadcasters’ of their journalists getting too close to their stories, (BBC) John Sweeny-like confrontations will be avoided. See my article, Of Anger. BBC’s John Sweeney and the Scientologists.

The Emperor Without Clothes

At this link, in the article When ‘Divine’ Magnetism Becomes A Dead Weight, I provide but one example of the sort of craziness Sai Baba’s many supposedly educated devotees respond to in the manner of the subjects in the Hans Christian Anderson story The Emperor’s New Clothes. The George W. Bush medical advisor Professor Kanwaljeet ‘Sunny’ Anand, the birth scientist, stands as one of many examples around Sai Baba of those who desert their normal intelligence and range into the empirically absurd. There is a naked discrepancy which they, including Sai Baba’s more intellectual followers, see-but-don’t-see. Robert Priddy comments aptly on Sai Baba’s unscientific statements about magnetism and the nature of the atom HERE

Cult Awareness and Non-Cooperation Will Demolish Sai Baba’s Empire

According to the great British historian, Edward Gibbon (1737-1794):

“The union of the Roman empire was dissolved; its genius was humbled in the dust; and armies of unknown barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious reign over the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa.” Chapter 33, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

But it will not be armies of barbarians who humble the showman emperor’s empire into dust. Quite apart from his implication in police killings in Sai Baba’s bedroom on June 6, 1993, and credible witnesses in many parts of the world with accounts that, taken together, depict Sai Baba as a large-scale serial sexual molester of boys and young men, it will not be alone the exposure in the wider public domain of his own recorded words and deeds that rocks his empire. Read his discourses - simply that - and the contradictions, the absurdly non-scientific and blundering historical statements (now excised where possible by his editors, but archived by Robert Priddy and Brian Steel, see below) will demolish him. The chances are that you will not be magnetized or God-ed by Sai Baba. He says he will rule the earth, but he cannot even rule the Duke of Edinburgh. Nor, breaking famous and widely publicized promises, can he transform India, which as UN and other studies have shown is in the grip of enormous corruption at virtually every level, and has abysmally failed to institute essential reforms. Nor has he been able to honor many years of promises that he is about to travel to other parts of the world - see, Will World Accept Sai Baba. He says yes. Very Soon

Wide-scale derision, not unmixed with scorn and some helpless laughter and refusal by civic, government, political and religious bodies to cooperate with the Sathya Sai Organization, which attempts to link up with respected mainstream institutions, will topple this ‘God’, and demolish his empire.

Further Resources

Useful are the websites of retired (or refreshed!) academics, Robert Priddy (Norway), HERE, and Brian Steel (Australia) HERE. See also Wikipedia reference under: ‘Robert Priddy’ HERE and his blogsite at: http://Robertpriddy.wordpress.com
There are also the general former devotee website at http://www.exbaba.com, with English, Dutch, Italian sections. Those at http://saiguru.net/ are in English, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Italian, German, Danish, Polish and Norwegian

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A Duke Stops An Emperor. Edinburgh Routs Sai Baba

HRH The Duke of Edinburgh is pictured before and after his harrowing linking with Sathya Sai Baba

It is intriguing to find that a mere Duke can stop an Emperor in his tracks.

To their considerable cost, the “secret swami” - as the BBC (see HERE for video footage) has called India’s and the world’s would-be Emperor Sai Baba, the core leaders of the Sathya Sai Organization know too well the stark factuality of the following.  Rank-and-file members cannot be expected to be told the facts. (The details below, including sharing some direct sources, I shall confirm for well-reputed, bona fide investigators, such as media and academics or their supervised thesis students):

1. Officials of The Duke of Edinburgh Awards and Buckingham Palace were upset by the boasting of those such as Dr G. Venkataraman and Shitu Chudasama about the Award connections. (Dr. G. Venkataraman is Sai Baba’s deputy world head, who also directs Sai Baba’s international 7 days 24 hours propaganda satellite radio service via the WorldSpace International corporation. See HERE. Shitu Chudasama is the UK Sai Baba national youth coordinator.
2. Superiors to Peter Westgarth, the Director of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, were of the view that he lacked, in this issue, both judgement and experience
3. When matters were finally taken in hand, both Awards and Palace dropped connection with the Sathya Sai Organization
4.  The official, Puttaparthi website - that is to say, a Sai Baba website senior to all other Sai Organization websites - was asked by the Royal authorities to take down the embarrassing and untrue material. The request was promptly complied with
5. Advice was received from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with a view to both avoiding any blowbacks in Anglo-Indian relations and further embarrassment to the Royal Family. The advice was:  drop them but not publicly.

6. Legal advice was also canvassed

Click on Link to see related story by Paul Lewis in The Guardian - The Indian living god, the paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards

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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! Ny