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

The more media, institutional, academic and other third party investigators become aware of the sheer extent of the evidence of criminal cover up by successive Indian governments over the years of the Puttaparthi police killings in Sathya Sai Baba’s bedroom - the better.

Libel and Slander Replace Due and Proper Third Party Investigation

Researchers will see that what has regretably too often fallen to the lot of former devotees, and also other critics of Sai Baba (most notably B.Premanand), should have been investigated according to well-laid canons of independent, fully accountable probes by government, parliament, police, judicary, media and so on.

Instead, there has been, from Sathya Sai Baba ‘down’, the attempt to  ridicule, demean, and slander those many former Sai devotees from countries right round the world who have attempted to raise questions properly to be asked - when serious and sustained allegations are made - of any organization.

The way in which both certain top leaders and various rank-and-file members of the Sathya Sai Organization have covertly reacted in supporting attacks on former devotees on the Internet and elsewhere is light years away from the spirituality they preach. Those who have been so profoundly and viciously slandered and libeled gave decades of deep devotion and service, only to be, virtually from the moment they began to raise questions demonized.

By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them

This culpability of foremost Sathya Sai Officials, and also rank-and-file members of the Sathya Sai Organization, for covertly supporting scurrilous attacks against former devotees and other Sai Baba critics on the Internet and beyond is now being documented, as for example:

The International Sathya Sai Organization - an accessory to a massive libel and disinformation campaign. Open letter to the Prasanthi Council - c/o Dr. M. Goldstein, Dr. G. Venkataraman and its other members. Here is a quote from that document:

Two semi-official pro-Sai web sites - saibabaofindia.com/ and saibabalinks.org/ - which could not operate without the help of central officials of the Sathya Sai Organization, Radio Sai Global Harmony and Sai ashrams, have links to websites which libel all former members who have spoken out. Such links reveal the obvious inability of Sai representatives in these groups to reply honestly and cogently to any of the many published allegations about Sai Baba made by those who were long respected members, in some cases prominent leaders, of his international organization. Furthermore, some members link to extremist web sites which have as their primary agenda contrived attempts at character assassination of ex-followers who present critical views. The most prominent of such sites are examined here and here.

See a list (by no means exhaustive) of typical depradations of those Sathya Sai Baba forces (and those caught up in other cults) who claim to be involved in spirituality: Dissent From Guru Cults Draws Slander and Harassment. See also, Cultic Depersonalization or Demonization of Dissenters

The one-hour BBC dcumentary, The Secret Swami (2004) on Sathya Sai Baba, is compelling, and was the work of more than seven intensive months. Its scope was, however, narrow indeed in comparison to a vast database that discloses that much else ails Puttaparthi Sai Baba and his forces such as the Prashanti Council and the International Sathya Sai Organization.

The Indian Government and Police Cover Up of Killings in Sai Baba’s Bedroom

Even so, The Secret Swami reveals much, including information about gruesome Puttaparthi police killings in Sai Baba’s bedroom on June 6, 1993.

Many Indian journalists and editors and others know of the profound extent of the cover up by the then powerful Home Minister S.B. Chavan, and central, Andhra Pradesh State and local governments. It is a pity that very few have had the courage to speak out publicly on the issue, as has former Andhra Pradesh Home Secretary V.P.B. Nair, who was in office at the time of the killings. It is a sad commentary that very few had the courage in speaking out displayed by those such as Nair and B. Premanand. See the BBC Film Clip of V.P.B. Nair making his statement

Sathya Sai Baba and Chief Officals Caught in Covering Up

The BBC shot more than 80 hours of footage. It saw the impressive line-up of former devotee witnesses from various countries and, correspondingly, the sheer degree of cover up by Sai Baba’s officials. Consequently, the producers, Eamon Hardy and David Savill, obtained from the top Executives of the BBC permission to use the terribly sparingly-used resort of a hidden camera. They were able to get such a noble and spiritual glimpse of the Sai Baba’s world head Goldstein as THIS! Or, should you prefer to see a beatific piece of moving BBC footage of Sai Baba’s main man (or heavenly messenger?!), see THIS!

Officials included  Sathya Sai Central Trust Secretary, K. Chakravarthy, and Sathya Sai Organization World Chairman, Dr Michael Goldstein of Covena, California, USA. As have other major media organizations, the BBC withstood attempts to silence it by extremely high-ranking officials of Sai Baba’s outfit. Canada’s national broadcaster CBC was waylaid by hundreds of phone calls and emails by Sathya Sai Baba devotees, both before and after the screenings of the documentary in Canada. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program host said on air:

“We stand by the professionalism of our BBC colleagues”.

See my review (not in some respects favourable) of The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ - A Revision. NOTE: At the foot of this article, there are links to video footage that you can access both on broadband and dialup. See also my articles:

Probed On Male Sex Abuse, Sai Baba Evicts BBC TV Team

Indian Minister Shields Sai Baba on BBC television

BBC Caught UNESCO Head Bowing To Indian Government

Serial Sex Molestation and Bedroom Killings. But Much More

Serial Sex Molestation and Bedroom Killings. But Much More

Guru Sex Abuse Testimony To BBC - After Years of Silence

India A Mature Democracy? BBC Probes

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

Criticism of Sai Baba No Reflection On Hinduism

Some Key Cultic Responses To Critics

Serial Sex Molestation and Bedroom Killings. But Much More

Exposure of Sathya Sai Baba. Media Source List 

Gurubusting Sathya Sai Baba

 

Some Further Resources

“Murders in Sai Baba’s Bedroom” by B. Premanand. Price India Rs. 400/-, Overseas US $40/- (free postage). Publ. by B. Premanand. 11/7 Chettipalayam Road, Podnadur. 641 023 Tamil Nadu, India

B. Premanand Online Articles

see Wikipedia ‘Basava Premanand’
Massive sabotage try by Sai. Org person foiled !!!!!
Summary: Key Points on the Sai Baba Murders
Indian official tries to conceal facts
Sexual Abuse, healing, or oil anointing?
Sexual abuse, Gerald Moreno etc. part two !
On Alaya Rahm’s testimonies against Sai Baba
Murders issue - a defamatory critic rebutted.
Further rebuttals about the murders
Conclusive rebuttal about the murders - plus
Conclusive final rebuttal on the murders
Concerning my reputation & writings (1 2 3 4 5 )
Further refutation of Moreno’s obfuscations
Unfounded allegations & an anon. letter
Part Four on the ‘Betrayal’ letter
Baseless allegations about a letter refuted
BBC’s ‘This World’ article on Basava Premanand

Articles by Robert Priddy

See Wikipedia article under ‘Robert Priddy’. He was founder member of Sathya Sai Organization, Norway. Office-bearer Oslo Sai Centre 1983. Chairman from 1987 while acting national contact-person of the Sathya Sai Organisation, Norway 1987-2000.  Retired academic, Philosophy and Social Science, University of Oslo. Robert Priddy was for many years a close and trusted friend of (Late) V.K. Narasimhan, one of India’s great newspaper editors, and editor, following  Professor N. Kasturi, of Sai Baba’s official magazine Sanathana Sarathi.

Sathya Sai Says: “Why fear when I am here?”. On the Events of June 6, 1993 - Murders in Sai Baba’s Private Quarters

More Concerning The 1993 Murders In Prashanthi Mandir

Excerpts from newspaper reports with information concerning the murders in Sai Baba’s vicinity at Prashanthi Nilayam of 6-6-1993

The Unresolved, Covered-up 1993 Murders in Sathya Sai Baba’s Bedroom Revisited

Sathya Sai Baba Bedroom Murders

A convenient coverage of many of the issues is at Robert Priddy’s blogsite: http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com. See,  Sathya Sai Baba Bedroom Murders

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. 

Part 4. Part 5.

 

 

Cult Exposure. By Their Documents Ye Shall Know Them

Those organizations and individuals approached by the International Sathya Sai Organization may do well to look at the page just constructed by Robert Priddy. Now a retired academic from the University of Norway, he was for over fifteen years its head in Norway, until his prolonged and rigorous investigations disclosed its profound duplicity (often hidden from its rank-and-file).  He documents the Sathya Sai Organization’s (so-called!) ‘Interactive Panel’ of the 8th World Conference (November 2005)
- from [http://www.saiscotland.com/resource/misc/8thWC-QA1.htm].

Non Interactive ‘Interaction’?

The whole notion of interaction can be seen as false by any reader not enmeshed by cultic (non-) thinking. But by what – plausibly more than by the voices of critics – will the Sathya Sai Baba’s cult be exposed to the world? It is by reference to the conflicted words and actions of Sathya Sai Baba’s leaders that the profound failure of intellectual and moral integrity of his operation at large is made manifest to honest enquirers. Indeed, Robert Priddy’s main website is entitled: Sathya Sai Baba In Word And Action

By Their Documents Ye Shall Know Them

It was anciently said: ‘By their fruits ye shall know them’. Very true, and I may add:  By their documents ye shall know them. One does not contend that the leaders of the international Sathya Sai Organization are unendowed with intelligence. If anything, they have all too much of it – but it is unhappily deployed, and if unchallenged, given the group’s Croesus-like wealth,  runs the serious risk of their founder being hailed for centuries. There is, however, a feature that is of interest to those scholars and other investigators who study patterns of cultic thought and action. This factor relates to the way in which – in the worship of a charismatic figurehead – even the most ordinary practices of intellectual probity, the exercise of the most fair, democratic and reasonable processes, the faculty of moral discrimination, and indeed of commonsense itself are self-subverted, and, by powerful reinforcement, undermined by group-think. Or group-non-think. 

Of Ghostly Semi Responses, Floating Disembodied Questions, and Human Immobilization

The genuineness (and indeed perhaps an underlying anxiety) of the questions from the conference floor, as any slightly sensible person can see plainly, are in marked contrast to the evasiveness and poor general poor quality of the virtual non-responses by the top leaders in Sathya Sai Baba’s organization. They have a consummate exemplar in their sorely disfigured figurehead. You can scarcely hear the ghosts of their former, and perhaps even likeably human and vulnerable, selves. But you can hear the creaking of the haunted house, and sense the bated breaths of the frightened inhabitants, the captive audience - with a straining-at-the-leash partial awareness of severe need for reform, but unable to see far beyond the kennel to which they are bound.  The Chief ghost has them deeply troubled but immobilized, not even to bay at the moon. Their questions hang in the air like disembodied spirits, never to be communicated with. Sai Baba himself believes in, and claims he is in touch with, ghosts. Yet again is the bad fruit revealed by the self-documentation, publicly available. See, Unnatural Events In Sathya Sai Baba’s Bedroom, Told By Him, Sanathana Sarathi, June 1998, p. 142-3.

The Disappearing Ghost References. Banished by An Eery Touch No Lighter Than An Editorial Hand

Indeed, one of the ghost-vanquishing editorial hands was my own! For a few months ca. 1997-1998, I had a considerable editorial hand in Spiritual Impressions, Puttaparthi, a beautifully-produced magazine distributed worldwide. When I saw Sai Baba’s ghost references (referring to Sai Baba’s account of his seeing his mother’s ghost) in a brand new pencil-written translation by (if I recollect aright) Professor Anil Kumar, Sai Baba’s official translator, I went across the road and conferred with my dear friend (the late) V.K. Narasimhan, one of India’s great newspaper editors, then Editor of Sanathana Sarathi. Each of us censored most of the ghost references felt likely to blow the mind of rational readers, in an account which was, in any case, terribly muddled and a terrible strain on any half-compos mentis translator. Such extraordinary blunders usually get excised before they get into publications that go worldwide like Sanathana Sarathi and Spiritual Impressions. In retrospect, the flap they cause among Sai Baba’s editors and other publication staff are really quite funny. See, Brian Steel,  SB’s Discourses. More Nonsense, where Steel works, as so often, from the tell-tale documents themselves and here from (then devotee and Sai Baba’s official videographer) James Redmond’s video material from which the excisions of the magazine editors were not able to occur.  See also my, Huge Sai Baba Gaffes I quote briefly from Robert Priddy’s page - http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/10/interactive_panel.htm

Here, Robert Priddy copies, and tersely comments on, parts of a transcript of the 8th World Conference (November 2005) of the Sathya Sai Organization - noting that: 

 “the questions and answers demonstrate very well how avoidance of issues, cover-up of damaging facts and patronizing talk is the backbone of all Sathya Sai Organization conferences”.

‘(Dr David Gries) introduced the panel: Dr. Michael Goldstein, Dr. Narendra Reddy, Air Chief Marshall N. C. Suri, and Dr. William Harvey

Question 1. “Why are previous Conference recommendations and resolutions not implemented?” 

Answer 1. (Dr. Goldstein): Many recommendations and resolutions have been made. (Priddy’s comment: That does not answer the question, as usual) Suggested changes to the Charter are being considered by members of the Prasanthi Council. (Priddy: Authoritarian VIPs decide everything, in other words. Anti-democratic because it would all fall apart otherwise)

Q10. Doesn’t the Organization need to set a vision? The Organization is not addressing its sustainability. The speakers are not addressing the theme of the conference.

A10. (Dr. Michael Goldstein, international head of Sathya Sai Organization): First of all, there is no question of addressing sustainability. This organization is imbued with divinity, founded in the name of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Imbued with Love, wisdom and power insofar as we are able to come together as devotees and tap that Love, the organization is invulnerable and eternal as is Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Swami has said so.

A12. (Dr. Goldstein): Swami appointed the members of the Prasanthi Council. (Priddy: and he is a known misogynist) With regard to the panel, I thought these people would be the best to serve you. (Priddy: So it’s a man’s world for Goldstein too!) (Air Chief Marshall Suri): Men and women can relate. Our understanding of Love now is based on animal instincts, but Love should be pure (Priddy: Suri can speak for himself). Swami gives us options, take time to think about what will be correct action. Do relations have to be physical? It is the manner in which we relate to one another that becomes important. Love is different from relationships. We have the task of letting people know the difference. The problem you mention is not foreign to Indians. (Priddy: Women’s liberation may have just begun weakly in India, but certainly NOT in the Sathya Sai Organization!) …  Goldstein is the one to talk about status consciousness see here and treating people with love as his bullying behavior towards Tanya Datta of the BBC)

Q15. Heads of the Sai organization are becoming status conscious. How could this be remedied?

A15. (Dr. Goldstein): The remedy for officers who are so status conscious is to treat them with Love. (Priddy) Better to kick them all out and have genuinely spiritual leaders. Anyone who asks sensitive questions is kicked out (e.g., Leader of the Moscow Centre, Serguei Badaev), so why not also and not least these immature and often authoritarian characters. 

Further General Resources

Citizen Initiative

Recent Research on the Claims of Sathya Sai Baba

Sathya Sai Baba Deceptions Exposed

Sathya Sai Baba In Word And Action

http://www.exbaba.com

http://www.saigurunet.com

Sai Baba To Be Seen In Moon? But Where Was Moon?

                  

Today’s blog suggests that Sai Baba has, leave aside his recent would-be moon sightings, not been particularly bright himself.

And how can he be so when the evidence - that can less and less be hidden from his rank-and-file devotees - suggests that he now suffers from senile dementia?

He has not selected the brightest moon. Nor  a cloudless evening by which his religious and spiritual élite of devotees could view him in the moon on October 4, 2007. Nor the brightest students of his alumni - who now rush to the Internet to prove that Sai mooning is not moon madness.

Why Seek They After A Sign?

Note, King James Bible. Mark 8.

“And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation”.

Note, the great Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda:

“I look upon miracles as the greatest stumbling block in the way of truth. When the disciples of Buddha told him of a man who had performed a so-called miracle and showed him the bowl, he took it and crushed it under his feet and told them never to build their faith on miracles, but to look for truth in everlasting principles”

Note, writer of the ancient classic treatise The Yoga Sutras, Sage Patanjali:

‘These (psychic) powers of spreading or outgoing mind are injurious to contemplation”

SBOI (Sai Baba of India Group) Are Over the Moon

It is interesting to find highly unofficially-officially connected prominent Sai Baba devotees, including those who as students were long in his colleges and university, now enthusing about visions in the moon of their guru. That some get so extremely excitable as to support calls on the Internet for people’s experiences of Sai Baba induced moon visions, suggests that Sai Baba’s years of education have failed them. (Yes, by the way, their education was ‘free’ but many of their parents forked out a fortune in donations and supposedly incidental expenses).

Unless, of course, a moon vision of Sai Baba in the absence of a moon is one of his greatest miracles.

The astronomical moon chart for October 2007 sustains Robert Priddy’s point in his article Deceiving ‘devotee’ makes bogus image of Sai in the Moon. He writes “

“it so happens that the moon on October 23 was not full but was still ’waxing gibbous’, as can be seen from the following image taken from the astronomical website http://stardate.org/nightsky/moon/ This shows the moon two days before full moon. Full moon did not occur until Oct 26  04:52, according to NASA“.

Tonight, quite a bit of the eastern seaboard in Australia looks as though it may be in cloud. A pity. Otherwise, we’d get to see the moon at its brightest for 2007, a large brilliant perigree moon. If you were Sai Baba - who says that he is the fullest manifestation of God in mankind’s history - perhaps, you might:

 a) have chosen the brightest moon for the delectation of your followers and

b) made sure to check with your inner Divine Weather Forecaster - because, on October 4, clouds descended over Puttaparthi obscuring the moon. Ah, that old devil cloud!  Or, let me be true to that marvelous American lyricist Yip Harburg with the Burton Lane tune:

I look at you and suddenly,
Something in your eyes I see;
Soon begins bewitching me.
It’s that old devil moon;
That you stole from the skies.
It’s that old devil moon in your eyes

Can Visions Be Deceptions?

In regard to later capers by some of Sai Baba’s well-known (many of them young) propagandists of SBOI (SaibabaofIndia), I leave Robert Priddy on his blogsite at http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com to make the point about whether one of a group of highly active supporters of Sai Baba, Darpan Rane, has fabricated a deception. Perhaps more interesting from the point of view of human growth to maturity is this:  Just suppose Sai Baba’s image were to have appeared on the moon. Then, let us ask, of what advancement would such a quaint manifestation have been to individuals collected around their guru? Or to all those international devotees so fervently racking up huge mobile phone costs trying to get the latest ‘moon miracle’ reports from their contacts at Puttaparthi? Or, much less, to humanity as a whole? 

Form vs Essence

It is interesting that so many devotees have assumed that the vision apparently promised by Sai Baba via his chief translator and close servitor Professor Anil Kumar to many thousands of devotees gathered at his Puttaparthi ashram would entail seeing the form of Sai Baba on the moon. If they had consulted their timeless sacred classic, Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 11, they might have recalled that the vision granted by Sri Krishna to Lord Arjuna (vishwarupa or vishvarupa darshana) was of a very different character. It was not the form of Sri Krishna -who was right beside him! - but a cosmic vision of enormous range and depth. But what fools who rush all agape in to Sai Baba’s local airport would ever want something both noble and fiercesome as that?

• Was it not enough for them to have seen it where they had daily darshan (sight) of him within his Puttaparthi ashram?
• Why all the sensationalism, and indeed threat to life and limb, of thousands of devotees rushing headlong to his nearby private airport?
• Is an unruly crowd, which police had great difficulty in controlling, likely to be in a fit state to receive a divine and blissful vision?

Certainly, if it was the form of Sathya Sai Baba that was so eagerly sought after by the crowds of devotees, they have entirely missed one of his most insistent teachings: that the form is not what is important - but the essence of the teachings, and that attachment to the form is deleterious to spiritual growth.

A Dotty Sai Moon, A Smudgey Sai Earth

Why then, after all these years, do his devotees, both old and young, quest so fervently after a mere rather dotty semblance of his form somehow superimposed on the moon? 

And are they so uncertain of their faith that they need to grasp at ‘proofs’ of their guru’s divinity?

Certainly, Sai Baba’s so-called ’spiritual’ museum exhibitors cater for such spurious ‘confirmatory’ evidence of their ‘Lord’s’ greatness. On show for example is what purports to be a NASA satellite photo of Sai Baba. It appears to some as though the very terrain for miles around his abode shows him watching over it. (I rather think that this is what Darpan Rane has in view and it harks back to material in Chapter 10 of (the late) Sai Baba devotee-journalist Shakuntala Balu’s book, Living Divinity. Here you are, dear Reader - but gaze on this divine miracle of Sai Baba, and, should you become fully enlightened, please remember me in your Will):  

Or, with no authentication by Muslim or any other bona fide scholars, you may like to take a trip to India to witness material in Sai Baba’s self-glorifying Chaitanya Jyoti museum at Puttaparthi that purports to be many clear prophecies of the so-called ‘Advent’ of Sathya Sai Baba - as the promised Medhi Moud. What? Allah in form?! See, HERE

Further Reading

Other articles on the Sai Baba moon issue at: http://barrypittard.wordpress.com are:

Sai Baba Fails to Grant Great Moon Darshan

Sai Baba Fails To Appear In The Moon, IANS Reports

Is Indian ‘Godman’ Sai Baba’s Moon Waning Still Further

Brian Steel: For a detailed, critical examination of the Medhi Moud so-called prophecy regarding Sai Baba, see The “Mehdi Moud” Prophecy Revisited

………

Robert Priddy:

Deceiving ‘devotee’ makes bogus image of Sai in the Moon

Oops! Apparently Sai Baba DID appear on the moon?

Why build moon rockets when Sai Baba has mantras?

More Sathya Sai Baba Moon Madness

Sai Baba postpones moon buggy ride

General

The Decline and Fall of the Showman Empire

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

Note: Many surfers used the following search terms to get to the articles at http://barrypittard.wordpress.com on the Sai Baba moon issue:

sai baba moon miracle
sai baba appears on the moon
sai in the moon, October 2007
sai Baba on moon
baba in moon
sathya sai baba in moon
satya sai baba in moon
saibaba on moon
moon appear satya sai
sai baba viwa darshan

Exposure of Sathya Sai Baba. Media Source List

Media resources source list relating to the exposé of Sathya Sai Baba and his cult. Compiled by Barry Pittard: bpittard (at) optusnet.com.au

Note: Please kindly report any errors,  updates, or suggest improvements. This overview - not exhaustive -  was mainly compiled well before the BBC’s The Secret Swami, June 2004, and amid many far more pressing duties. I think I have sorted out Urls still alive and scrapped defunct ones. Some newspaper Urls are now not extant, or are retrievable by paid subscription, so in various cases I have relied on copies posted of these articles, usually close to the time when they were published in the media. Usually the postings were to former Sai Baba devotee websites - http://www.exbaba.com or http://saiguru.net . However, institutions, journalists, academic researchers and others in need of originals should be able to obtain those via standard resources, such as hard copy within the media establishments themselves.  Barry Pittard.

               ……………………….

The Week, June 20, 1993. High intrigue. Deadly power struggle in Puttaparthi

Indian Skeptic, 6(4), August 1993, Santa Claus in India. Piet Vroon, Santa Claus in India, from Dutch national newspaper De Volkskrant, Saturday December 5, 1992, translated J.W. Nienhuys 

Sunday Magazine, December, 10-16, 1996. Brushed Under The Carpet. From five-page Feature: G.S. Radhakrishna, Sandhya Mendonca

Nexus Magazine, August-September 1999. Volume 7, Number 5. Sai Baba Exposed - Fraud, Fakery, & Molestation. Terry Gallagher, Hans de Kraker, Jens and Gurprit Sethi. Compiled from the website: www.myfreeoffice.com/saibabaexposed/ (no longer available)

Bild (Tr., German daily). August 21, 2000. Resident from Munich Ran Away From India - Guru all of a sudden wants sex. Wolfgang Ranft

Trouw (Dutch daily ), September 6th, 2000. The Downfall of A Guru Sai Baba, Koert van de Velde, tr., Ella Evers

Spiegelbeeld, (Tr., Dutch national Magazine) October, 2000. The truth will prevail. Matthijs van der Meer:

Noordhollands Dagblad (Tr., Dutch daily), Saturday December 9, 2000. Devotee becomes anti Sai Baba activist. Arthur de Mijttenaere

BBC Radio 4 - Sunday 19, November 2000 - 7.30 am.  Interview by Stephen Perry with:  David Bailey (UK), former closest Western devotee; Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph journalist (UK); Jed Geyerhahn (USA), Steen Piculell, Ashok Bhagani, Trustee, UK Sathya Sai Organisation

Daily Telegraph, Saturday October 28, 2000. Divine Downfall, Mick Brown

Tehelka, November 29, 2002.  Sathya Sai Central Trust: grab as grab can

Tehelka, November 29, 2002.  Is the Sai Baba’s empire beginning to disintegrate?

Tehelka, November 29, 2002.  Ashram Mandiram: fortress of solitude

India Today, Cover story: Sathya Sai Baba: Test of Faith.  Monday, December 4, 2000. Test of Faith, Amarnath K. Menon, Ashok Malik. SAI BABA:  A God Accused.  Vijay Jung Thapa with Lavina Melwani (New York), Syed Zubair Ahmed (London), Arthur J. Pais (San Francisco)

India Today, resulting letters to; archived  

The Ottawa Citizen, Tuesday, December 19, 2000. The Man Believers Think is God. Bob Harvey

The Times of India, December 26, 2000, Sai Baba Lashes Out At Detractors.  B.S. Manu Rao

Toronto Star, January 14, 2001, Guru shrugs off sex allegations. Tom Harper

Vancouver Sun, February 27, 2001. Holy man? Sex abuser? Both? Douglas Todd

The Times of India, August 9, 2001. Tight security for Sai Baba after LTTE threat

Salon.com, July 25, 2001.  Untouchable, Parts 1 to 4. Michelle Goldberg

Times of London, Monday August 27, 2001. Monday August 27, 2001. Suicide, sex and the guru, Dominic Kennedy

The Times of London, Monday August 27, 2001. Three die after putting faith in guru, Dominic Kennedy

Times of London, August 27, 2001. I sought peace and couldn’t find it. Michael Dynes and Dominic Kennedy

The Times News Network, August 27, 2001. British Law Against Sai Baba Sought. Rashmee Z. Ahmed (ed. i.e., Times of Indian, not Times of London)

The Hindustan Times, August 27, 2001.  Sai Baba could be put on UK blacklist. Vijay Dutt, London 

The Age (Melbourne, Australia), Saturday-Sunday, November 12, 2000. Scandal engulfs guru’s empire

DR (Denmark’s national radio and television broadcaster), January 30, 2002. Seduced by Sai Baba. Producer-Presenter, Øjvind Kyrø

Gatopardo (A leading Chilean Magazine), Febuary, 2002. No. 21 Yr 20. Divine Sin.  Alejandro Agostinelli

Noticias (Argentinean Magazine), August 17, 2001, Bad Faith Business, Juan Alonso: 

Nexus, (Australian/International bi-monthly magazine) Vol 10, N­o. 4. June-July 2003. Sai Baba Allegations Grow. Barry Pittard

The Australian Financial Review, 21 November 2003.  The Trouble with Gurus. Mary Garden

BBC News, June 17, 2004, Sai Baba: God-man or con man? Tanya Datta 

The Scotsman, June 18, 2004, Guru who gives us no answers. Tom Adair

The Guardian, June 18, 2004. Spiritual Depths. Rupert Smith

The Observer, Sunday June 20, 2004. Deity dancing. Kathryn Flett

The New Statesman, Monday, June 21, 2004. Laying on of hands. The guru who thinks he’s God is exposed as far from divine. Andrew Billen

The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio National, The World Today, Friday, 25 June, 2004.  Guru glamour uncovered. Interviewer: Rachel Kohn. Guests, Mary Garden, Australian author, Mick Brown, English author and Daily Telegraph journalist

The Guardian. The Indian living god, the paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards. Saturday, November 4, 2006. Paul Lewis

DNA (Daily News and Analysis, India). Sunday, November 05, 2006. A holy furore rages in Britain. Ginnie Mahajan and Brajesh Kumar

Some Indian News Headlines on Sai Baba controversial remarks on the Telangana issue

Times of India, Jan 24, 2007. TRS cries hoarse over Sai Baba’s Telangana stance

Times of India, Jan 24, 2007. Cong ignores Sai Baba’s remarks

The Hindu. Special Correspondent, Jan 25, 2007. Agnivesh Flays Baba’s Remarks

Andhra Cafe, India, Jan 21, 2007. KCR condemns Sai Baba’s Anti-Telangana comments

CNN-IBN, India, Jan 23, 2007. Sai Baba lands in a Telangana row

Hindustan Times, India, Jan 22, 2007. Telangana activists upset with Sai Baba

Wikinews reports on Telangana issue. (There are some further news sources cited at the foot of this Wiki article)

Cancellation of ‘moon miracle’

Sify News and many Indian media carried the IANS (Indo-Asian News Service feed on this). Friday, October 5, 2007. Sai Baba’s Moon Miracle Fails

Note: Close on the heels of the Guardian article The Indian living god, The paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards by Paul Lewis, an historic Indian media feed seachange started to happen. There were many IANS (Indo-Asian News Service) feeds to Indian and a few foreign media which referred to this article, with some added input from IANS Staffer Sudeshna Sarkar, Nepal, who followed up on the story, and filed from London. This broke decades’-long silence from an Indian press which almost exclusively has censored news adverse to the extraordinarily powerful and influential Sathya Sai Baba. The Telangana issue, in which vast conflicting interests were involved, was the next blow to Sai Baba’s virtual immunity to criticism in the Indian media. This marked change was yet again witnessed in early October 2007 in the wide Indian press coverage of reports that Sai Baba had promised a great divine miracle, subsequently cancelled when clouds appeared, in which thousands of his devotees gathered at his private airport would, it seems he had promised via his close aide and chief translator Professor Anil Kumar, see the universal form of God (or vishwarupa darshanam) in the moon. Again, it was the upstart news agency IANS which was aggressive in gettings its feeds accepted in India. It may be argued that, with so many NRI’s (non-resident Indians) freely reading news and views highly critical of Sai Baba in other countries around the world, that with new generational influences in Indian media far more inclined to secularism, and that what with the arrival of a rising ’star’ news agency like IANS, Sai Baba and his semi-feudal, ancien régime servitors and minders are in ever faster decline. There are many signs, including BBC footage and other photographic evidence, along with travelers’ and ashram inmates’ reports that cannot be denied by any except his most blinded followers that his health, both mental and physical, are in serious decline.

The Secret Swami. BBC Docu. Review. Condensed

Many have sought out my article, The BBC’s The Secret Swami - A Revision. However, it is very long, and many readers are very busy. So, for the sake of condensation, here, in the form of quotes, are some key pieces of information from it. Downloadable video footage is in the clickable references at the foot of this present blog.

Subheaders

• Focus on One Family Obscures Vast Extent of Allegations
• Governments Placate India
• Supposedly God, Sai Baba Woos Heads of State and other Big Players
• Foreign Goose Lays Multi-billion Dollar Eggs For Sai Baba
• BBC’s Tanya Datta asks: ‘Is Sai Baba Above The Law?’
• Oiling Penises Not A Hindu Ritual. (Nor Of Other World Faiths)
• Top Indian Minister Shows Ugly Face of Indian Government Sai Baba Patronage
• Dr Goldstein Tells BBC “I am what I am - a consummate professional”
• “He Could Go Out And Murder” Says Billionaire backer, Isaac Tigrett
• “Absolutely Cold-blooded Murder”, Says Fmr Home Secretary, V.P.B.Nair
• Room For Many More Documentaries

Quotes

“The BBC’s cameras at Sathya Sai Baba’s ashram at Puttaparthi in South India catch the pomp, circumstance, opulence and the highly stage-managed atmosphere of the crowded Mahasivaratri festival, February 2004″

“V.P.B. Nair, former Home Secretary in Sai Baba’s State of Andhra Pradesh at the time of the killings, is seen in the BBC television documentary on Sai Baba, The Secret Swami, (2004), where he says that the police killings were “cold-blooded murder””. 

“The Secret Swami confines itself to four areas:

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

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

“Focusing on one family meant no examination of anything like the full extent of the allegations. It also meant no examination of the multiple billions (that’s a ‘b’ not an ‘m’) that pour into the Sathya Sai Central Trust coffers from all over the world, or of financial scams by his administration (e.g., the selling of apartments which are sometimes later taken away from the paid up owners), which devotees blindly accept, as “tests of faith”. It meant no examination of Tony Blair’s and also the Conservative Party Whips suppression of over fifty British parliamentarians (an earlier list showing, as I recall 47, was incomplete) to raise Sai Baba-related issues in the House of Commons.  This was at a time when Blair wanted to placate the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee so as to win a contract for 66 jet fighters for India. The BBC had evidence from a former British diplomat that Vajpayee demanded of Blair that he cool down the activity concerning Sathya Sai Baba, whose long-time devotee Vajpayee was, and is. The urgency to win the deal was bi-partisan”. For futher information, see my article, Flag Follows Trade. Abetting Indian Government Corruption 

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

“Caught by the BBC cameras for all time, Sai Baba pretended to vomit up pure gold Siva Lingam. A few minutes later, he told his vast audience:

“Out of the stomach emanated Shiva Lingas of the weight  of three tonnes.  That’s the reason why some strain on  the face and the body”.

“BBC producers say that Sai Baba’s top leaders at first thought the documentary would present a ‘positive image’ of their guru and the works of his organization to the world. Hence the rare permission for the BBC to shoot at Sai Baba’s ashram”.

“The exposure by Denmark’s national broadcaster in its 2003 documentary Seduced (renamed Seduced By Sai Baba in the English language version by Australia’s national multicultural broadcaster SBS), seen by millions in Denmark, Norway and Australia - when the top Sai leaders in Denmark and Australia made unavailing threats of legal action - must still have haunted their minds”.

“Showing three zealous western devotees eccentrically rhapsodizing about Sai Baba fails to indicate his appeal to people of many cultures and socio-economic backgrounds. Filming eccentrics detracts from the serious purpose seen elsewhere in the documentary. It obscures the interest he has evoked in figures of great power (e.g., Bill and Hillary Clinton (more particularly Hillary), Al Gore, Mikhail and (the late) Raisa Gorbachev (a friend of mine informed me that Mrs Gorbachev told her that Gorbachev had a book of discourses by Sai Baba as his bedside reading). Confirmation of the Clinton connection and their readiness to meet Sai Baba, which was thwarted by security advisors on both sides, was given to me by my beloved friend, one of Sai Baba closest of all servitors, the great Indian author and newspaper Editor (the late) V.K. Narasimhan. The sheer penetration of Sai Baba’s influence is of real concern”.

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

“Would many Indian politicians, notorious for their extreme corruption, dare expose the foreign goose that lays the (cosmic!) golden egg? Driving this question would have reinforced the documentary’s fundamental query about whether India is a mature democracy”.

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

“To convince the most critical, the BBC needed demonstrations as sophisticated as those in the Danish documentary Seduced (a copy of which the BBC possessed) where the Danish magician Nils Krøjgaard exposes the deceptions involved”.

“Confronted by the BBC’s Tanya Datta, Murli Manohar Joshi, one of the most powerful ministers in the since-defeated right wing Vajpayee government, soon loses his temper, jabbing away with pointed finger at Ms Datta, accusing the BBC and people in England of plotting against Sai Baba, A.B. Vajpayee and P.N. Bhagwati (a key Sathya Sai Central Trust member and former Chief Justice of India). He arrogantly shouts at her:  “No, no, no… You don’t know the meaning of interviewing a minister in my capacity, as a minister of my stature””.

“So repeatedly evasive was Dr Michael Goldstein that the BBC team gained permission from BBC heads and legals to film him with hidden cameras. The BBC cleverly gets him to admit the correctness of the Rahm family’s report of his words. Unlike his archangelic namesake and just like Joshi, his finger repeatedly jabs at Tanya Datta as he snarls, blusters and fulminates. Seemingly in need of a child’s first dictionary, Dr Goldstein hurls the questions, “Transparency in what sense?” and “What do you mean by thorough investigation”? He says that his “heart and his conscience” know that the allegations of sexual molestation could not be true. But what about the heart and conscience of families and individuals around the world who give accounts of Sai Baba’s tragic harming of their boy children?”

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

“In exposing a dangerous and influential cult, The Secret Swami is plucky and perceptive. Canada’s national broadcaster CBC was waylaid by hundreds of phone calls and emails by Sai Baba devotees, both before and after the screenings of the documentary in Canada. The program host said on air “We stand by the professionalism of our BBC colleagues”.

For Downloading and Viewing

The Secret Swami (BBC Television)
(80 MB, Broadband). The Secret Swami (23.3 MB, Modem)

Seduced (DR, Danish Broadcasting, Denmark’s national television and radio broadcaster):
(80 MB, Broadband). Seduced (21 MB, Modem)

Muslim Leaders Initiative Bold. Sai Baba’s Efforts Fail

An extraordinary cross-section of mainstream Muslim clerics, theologians and academics have acted in a way that Sai Baba and his mega wealthy worldwide cult have profoundly failed to act.

This failure needs to be made very clear within the interfaith movement. The members of the Sathya Sai Organization which has attempted to interact with it, can be challenged to disclose their real agendas, which are similarly kept from tightly controlled public meetings in very costly, high-prestige venues around the world (See my article, Will World Accept Sai Baba? He Says Yes. Very Soon)

Virtually Sai Baba’s whole evangel and program have long been to establish unity between the faiths.

Where, if anywhere, is Sai Baba in the interfaith equation?

What, if any, distinctive contribution to interfaith conferences have Sai Baba and his Sathya Sai Organization made?

Are there any sign of the 138 Muslim leaders from all the major Islamic branches (Sunni, Shia, Ibadi, Sufi, Ismali, Jafari), or the wide cross-section of those Christian leaders to whom they have addressed their letter, flocking to Puttaparthi to consult Sai Baba?

Is it at all likely that these or any other widely and genuinely respected religious leaders worldwide would accept Sai Baba? - For he has said that all the faiths soon will, before he dies circa 2022. Sai Baba has many times said that He who is God, the father of Jesus Christ and He who is Allah who sent the Prophet, is now fully manifest in the form of Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, South India, and, especially via the instrumentality of his Sathya Sai Organization, will transform the world.

What of those members of the Sathya Sai Organization who adhere to a scheme to work their way into the interfaith movement? Members of the latter may like to ask themselves a question: have those very pleasant people who have sought them out (including at a highly senior level) been truthful and frank, and disclosed the agendas of the cult whose leader the BBC has termed “The Secret Swami”, which is to prepare a world for the global rulership of Sathya Sai Baba?

Reading

The Muslim leaders’ document is available HERE

Major News Releases on the initiative by Muslim leaders

Pope told ’survival of world’ at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace
The Times
The “survival of the world” is at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace with each other, leaders of the Muslim world will warn the Pope and other Christian leaders today. In an unprecedented open…

Muslims Leaders Warn Pope ‘Survival of World’ at Stake
Fox News
The “survival of the world” is at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace with each other, leaders of the Muslim world will warn the Pope and other Christian leaders today. In an unprecedented open…