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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Some Key Cultic Responses To Critics

I think that the following list - which is suggestive rather than exhaustive - will contain pointers to behaviours repeatedly found by any who expose a powerful cult.

* Legal manipulations, so that a leader or his organization cannot be further proceeded against

* Use of a cult’s considerable financial resources and political, religious or civic clout to suppress testimony, rather than to address the issues honorably, compassionately and responsibly

* Production of false witnesses and a connived avoidance of legal accountability

* Ignoring the sheer weight of the evidence, and strong, psychological denial

* The claim that criticism is coming from only a mere handful of malcontents

*  The attribution of mental illness to those who criticise

* Misconstruing what is being alleged, distorting it; ignoring it; laying a worst-case interpretation on virtually every word of critics, bending words in a procrustean way to suit the purposes of the cult’s protagonists and to belittle those who speak out

* Missing the points being urged and instead highlighting peripheral issues

* Derision, defaming and shunning of former followers, no matter how well their character and integrity were regarded when they were members, and still is so regarded in their professions, trades, wider communities, etc

* Use of guilt-by-association, ad hominem arguments, infraction of the ‘Aristotlean’ law of the undistributed middle, argument from a low poll, misinterpretation of facts that have another explanation altogether, tu quoque retorts, and other impoverished forms of argument …

 * Terrible and relentless vilification of primary witnesses and of those former followers who attempt to bring the allegations to light

* Threats of litigation - that can prove to be sheer bluff

*  Stalking and harassment. Attempting to blacken the characters of critics in their workplaces, families, friendships, universities, and so on

* In some cases, threats against life or limb

* Muckracking. Keeping of dossiers against critics, with the intention of harming them

*  Interference in the private, personal lives of those who have spoken out. Intrusions are sometimes pursued against others who know the former members but who are only most peripherally and tenously involved

* Depictions of hell (whether psychological, real or both), shockingly bad ”karma” for those who have made revelations of improper conduct within a cult

* Cult members can ignore those who criticise the cult but this means that the abuses being reported ever more seriously unadressed

 * Spurious justification of the teacher’s misdeeds. E.g., claiming that he is raising the kundalini; balancing the devotee’s sexual energy; ‘ironing out sexual kinks’; rapidly expunging the devotee’s bad karmas; stating that, as we are not our bodies, the guru has not violated anybody; disporting in the divine role as Shiva the destroyer

* Blaming of the Media or any institution in every instance where it writes critically of the cult

… And so, woefully, on ….

Further Readings

International Cultic Studies Association

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

Guru Sex Abuse Testimony to BBC - After Years of Silence

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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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Dalai Lama visits Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo

Dalai Lama visits Irwin’s Australia Zoo
Brisbane June 13, 2007

Extract from: theage.com.au (Click for full article)

 Cuddly: the Dalai Lama with, from left, Terry, Bob and Bindi Irwin and a koala. Photo: AP

About 5000 people have gathered at the late Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast to hear the Dalai Lama talk about kindness to animals and the environment.

Monks at the 71-year-old exiled Tibetan spiritual leader’s Dharamsala monastery are friends with the Irwin family.

Terri Irwin and daughter Bindi today joined with the Dalai Lama at the talk, being held in the zoo’s ‘Crocoseum’.

The Dalai Lama will also use the visit to launch Kindness Week, a community project initiated by Queensland-based palliative care service Karuna Hospice Services.

This afternoon about 15,000 people are expected to fill the Brisbane Entertainment Centre to hear the Dalai Lama speak on the issues of compassion and kindness.

The Chinese government has expressed “strong dissatisfaction” with the Australian government for holding meetings with the Dalai Lama during his 11-day tour of Australia.
…………………………………

Blognote:

Last night, Wednesday June 14, 2007, this blogger got unexpectedly taken to see the Dalai Lama at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre. This venue holds 15,000 and almost all seats were taken, with a crowd outside which one newspaper estimated at about 3000, watching on a large screen. Next blog, extract will be from my notes of this enrichening experience, with some references to how this leader of such great naturalness, simplicity and courage has - against incredible adversity - for so long walked his talk. And, indeed this theme’s relatedness to the wider concerns of http://barrypittard.wordpress.com. That the Dalai Lama would have visited Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo, in Beerwah, north of Brisbane, will have a special resonance, not only Australians, who as a nation have terribly lamented his loss, but for millions around the world who loved and revered the beautiful and exemplary life of the late environmentalist Steve Irwin, so tragically struck down by a stingray September 4, 2006, and his remarkable family.

The office of the Dalai Lama’s website is: http://www.dalailama.com

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Sai Baba. Some Dissenting Themes and Resources

Robert Priddy, former head of the Sathya Sai Organization in Norway, and retired lecturer in Philosophy and Social Science at the University of Oslo, has just posted a number of thematic links, for which, click HERE. Many further links accompany the articles themselves.

For this post, I have selected a quote from all but the first of the articles - the Bailey piece, which is virtually a small book in itself, and the second, a detailed four-part series by Robert Priddy and me, Barry Pittard. 

Investigations into Sathya Sai Baba Deceptions exposed on Ex-Baba.com
 
Pioneering materials from David and Faye Bailey’s investigations into Sathya Sai Baba’s deceptions: ‘The Findings’. This husband a wife were very close to Sai Baba, who appointed David Baily as a music lecturer in at his university, and also as his emissary to a number of countries. He selected the couple for marriage, and married them, David from the U.K., and Faye from Australia. However, as the couple travelled far and wide, the accounts of Sai Baba sexual molestation of young males and other types of serious allegations mounted drastically. As many others worldwide have done, both leaders and rank-and-file, they resigned. (Although, indeed, many quietly leave without the formality of resignation). They were unlike many who know the facts of the allegations which face Sai Baba and his very powerful and influential worldwide Sathya Sai Organization. They spoke up!  I should add that the vast preponderance of these allegations are not posted - because of their sensitivity - to the Internet. The handling of serious allegations has been extremely badly handled by Sai devotees in general, and the one mitigating circumstance is that the core leaders have not told them that the allegations are frequently made by those whose character was never under dispute when they were members of the Sai Organization, nor have been so in their professions or wider communities. However, with the carefully consulted permission of the accusing individuals and families, many of the facts ARE available to reputable, bona fide third party investigators from senior echelon media, government, law enforcement agencies, law firms, academies or institutions.

The Bailies did their best to bring the allegations to light - e.g., in the international media, UNESCO, UNICEF, police such as Scotland Yard, FBI, AFP (Australian Federal Police), government, Chief Prosecutor’s Office, Germany, etc. Like every other individual who has stood up, including former leaders like Terry Gallagher (Australia), Rick Raines, Al Rahm, Shirley Pike, Elena Hartgering, Glen Meloy, Dave Lyons, (U.S.A.), Serguei Badaev (Russia), Conny Larsson, Britt Marie (Bi-ma) Andén (Sweden), Robert Priddy (Norway), David and Faye Bailey have been subject to distortion, abuse, slander, outright libel, and shunning by those they had long come to regard as more than brothers and sisters. 

The Sathya Sai Organisation’s Deception and Propaganda Series on Ex-Baba.com

Four-part series, by Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard, with extensive links. It responds to points raised by Dr G. Venkataraman, Deputy Chairman under Dr Michael Goldstein of the world Sathya Sai Baba Organization.

Deceptions and Molestations Exposed by Sharon Purcell

(The late) Glen Meloy wrote, “As if the molestations were not enough, the infamous shootings at Puttaparthi occurred while Sathya (ed. Satya or Satch Purcell) and his Mother were still there and young Sathya remembers vividly having to jump out of the way when they were still sweeping the blood from the temple later that morning. (Hal)Honig’s group of boys had been allowed to be on the veranda for morning darshan”.

Wilful wholesale deception by Sai Baba exposed

“‘Nothing in nature is in vain’, was the Aristotelian tenet, itself the basis of belief in natural laws that can be investigated scientifically. Sai Baba has also used this unfortunate idea to dominate everyone who enters his domain as virtual slaves to his will… nothing can be done without his Divine Will, operating in the ever-unseen, ever-uncontrollable limbo of his inscrutable personality! But this is a travesty of philosophy and all that is best in human civilisation!”

Failed Sai predictions or outright deceptions

“A documented overview of the history and extent of the alleged sexual abuses by Sathya Sai Baba and examination of questions they raise.

Part 1 - The Great Scandal Has Come to Stay
1 Revelations in waves through the years
2 How allegations about Sathya Sai Baba’s sexual proclivities and abuses are silenced & ignored
3 Sathya Sai Baba’s bluff called by a major favourite devotee, David Bailey in ‘The Findings’
4. Failed predictions or outright deceptions…’
5. ‘Hearsay’ and ‘rumour’ versus ‘circumstantial and corroborative evidence’
6.”A great scandal is coming” - SB’s bogus Divine Prescience and an unstoppable exposure

Part 2 - Smoke Not Without Fire - Claims and Evidence of Serious Molestations
6 The ‘oiling’ of genitals of young males by Sathya Sai Baba
7 Major abuse testimonies world-wide by young men and their relatives
8 More “Good Chances” for Sex with the Avatar

Part 3 - More smoke and fuel to the fire
9 Why do so many young foreign boys given much attention almost invariably leave Sai Baba?
10 The serial abuse of Sai college boys and young men?

Part 4 - The Jigsaw of Mounting Testimony & Circumstantial Evidence Takes Shape
11 Further presentation in brief of documented claims
12 Tantric practices & ‘kundalini’ yoga - & Ram Das Awle’s perverted values
13 The threat Sai Baba poses for students
14 Homosexual-cum-hermaphrodite evidence

Part 5 - Sathya Sai Baba’s Claims of Purity and Celibacy that Defy all Accounts
15 The organised cover-up, rationalising and defense of pedophile activities
16 Was Sathya Sai Baba ever celibate? New evidence.
17 Why can’t the ‘universal world teacher’ dare ever to broach the subject of sexuality?
See also the latest major revelations - Ullrich Zimmermann’s description of sexual abuse by Sathya Sai Baba “

The Sai Baba ”mirror trap’ deception

“It works like this: Sathya Sai Baba says he is God, so whatever you see, hear or feel that is not perfect and pure in him is not him, only you. Whenever he does wrong, he tells you that the fault is in your perception, your karma, your lack of faith. This he says to excuse not keeping his promises, failing to heal, not protecting his followers, exaggerating his importance, lying constantly, abusing young men, boys and worse than that, allowing devotees to be brutally murdered in his close vicinity by persons under his control! If you believe this ‘teaching’, your naive acceptance of this clever trick traps you into a hall of mirrors where no way out can be seen. This is the ‘mirror trap’, nothing more than a convenient invention for deluding people and keeping them in line. Adopting any variant of this idea from Sathya Sai Baba or his followers is to begin on a course of self-brainwashing. This ‘mirror trap’ is also part and parcel of the deceptions of many Indian gurus and swamis”.

Sai - a master of deception and delusive appearances

Tests of faith or smokescreening? “Sathya Sai Baba fell full length on what was then the compound’s concrete ground. Sathya Sai Baba got up and continued his round, but the attendant male Seva Dals manhandled the foolish Indian man and bashed his head forcibly and repeatedly on the concrete. Sathya Sai Baba retraced his steps told them to desist, but not until well after the damage was done”.

Sai deception of the ‘materialised’ Bible

Brian Steel writes, “All very impressive, spectacular even, but the truth that I discovered one day long afterwards was that copies of an identical work, the miniature so-called Good News New Testament, have been on sale in India for many years. I bought one from a Sai Baba Centre in Australia for $2.50. It looks exactly the same as the one held aloft by Baba in the ashram photos”.

Sai Deception as abuse of faith

“The very voluminous teachings of Sai Baba, once very appealing, turn out to be a pick-and-mix menu of many kinds of conflicting doctrines and ideas. These almost no one studies properly by retaining any degree of truly independent questioning or evaluation, not least because the material is spread across thousands of documented discourses etc., unmanageable to most minds and persons with limited time. They contain a plethora of sweeping generalizations (which mostly invalidates them as serious advice), any number of factually incorrect assertions on almost any subject that can be counter-checked (especially Christian scripture, Jesus’ life, the lives and sayings of various famous persons and scientists, the sciences of health, geology, history, social movements, and not least as to the size and achievements of Sai Baba and his movement…)”

Deceived by false promises

Tests of faith or smokescreening? “Sathya Sai Baba fell full length on what was then the compound’s concrete ground. Sathya Sai Baba got up and continued his round, but the attendant male Seva Dals manhandled the foolish Indian man and bashed his head forcibly and repeatedly on the concrete. Sathya Sai Baba retraced his steps told them to desist, but not until well after the damage was done”.

The web of Sai deceptions

On surveillance, security and secrecy in Sathya Sai Baba’s ashram, institutions and organisation.  “In India the culture of official secrecy is endemic and those officials who become ashram staff continue and even intensify this, revealing only what suits them, no more and no less… as indeed the inscrutable God also does by all scriptural accounts. No one who has been at any SSB ashram for long can have failed to notice the tight-lipped behaviour of nearly all SSB officials”.

A Great Deceiver Exposed
(Laughable But Still Dangerous)

“Sai Baba is indeed an emperor of his own domain worth many highly unaccountable billions, and the Anderson story slightly transmutes into a tale about an emperor with no other magnetism than the charismatic ability to gull millions - or rather to persuade them to gull themselves. For him to do this so spectacularly well, one imagines that Sai Baba would first have had to have learnt, long ago, to gull himself”.

Sathya Sai Baba: stories, myths and deceits

“A startling number of people believe that SSB creates many things from nothing, is all-powerful and knows everything about everyone. These include a dozen heads of state, various royalty and film stars etc. His ‘creations’ are most often rings, medallions, bracelets, necklaces and so on, through which he says he communicates to - and ’sees’ what happens to - his devotees. These amulets or talismen are believed by thousands who wear them to be a ‘hotline’ to SSB and also they “bind people to him” and he can see him in them! Sai Baba makes this claim himself … rings that work in much the same was as the rings created by Dark Lord Sauron in Tolkien’s famous fiction!!”

Blog Sites:

Sathya Sai Baba’s Deceptions Exposed http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com/

Robert Priddy, former head of the Sathya Sai Organization, Norway

Call For Media and Government Investigation of Sathya Sai Baba
http://barrypittard.wordpress.com

Barry Pittard, former English lecturer Sri Sathya Sai College of the Arts, Science and Commerce, Whitefield, via Bangalore, Karnataka, South India

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Police Killings in Sai Baba’s Bedroom

Intense Indian Piety

It would be perhaps impossible to imagine a more intensely religious country than India. One way to experience this (a mostly quite delightful way, I have found) is to go on a pilgrimage with an Indian family. Another way (which can lack in delight! as I also know from personal experience of calling for proper third-party investigation of Sathya Sai Baba) is - whether publicly or privately - to criticize a guru or religious leader.

Criticizing Indian Gurus and Religious Leaders. A Tough Job

I do not say that exposing of religious leaders in India cannot occur, but that that the wall against it is extremely formidable. It is the more difficult when a guru - as is the case with Sai Baba - has been able to convince both elites and masses that he is God incarnate. He has also commanded as his devotees an astounding breadth of political persuasions, countries and cultures. The British newspaper The Guardian termed Sai Baba ‘the Indian Living God’. (See, The Indian living god, the paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards, Paul Lewis, The Guardian, Saturday November 4, 2006)

Indian Rationalists and Humanists

Given the depth of this taboo on criticizing Indian religious leaders, it is perhaps, often enough, to rationalist or humanist critics that we may need to look if we have some hope of uncovering even a few religious scandals in India. Leaving aside what may be the rights and the wrongs of the issue, the fact that a Hindu pontiff, Sri Jayendra Saraswathi of Kanchi could be arrested for implication in a temple murder, may indicate that, perhaps amazingly, things are changing in vastly tradition-bound India. Even so, in passing, I raise the question whether he would have been arrested if the charges had related to child abuse instead of murder.

Foremost among Indian critics of Sai Baba, is Basava Premanand, founder of the Federation of Indian rationalist Associations, who edits The Indian Skeptic and convenes the Indian chapter of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)

Some Resources:

The Police Killings in Sai Baba’s Bedroom

Scroll to heading ‘Major Critic Basava Premanand’. This indexes the article links for a series of very detailed comments concerning the killings at Puttaparthi, on June 6,1993. B.Premanand responds to a critic.

On B. Premanand

The BBC’s Tanya Datta, reporter on the 2004 television documentary on Sathya Sai Baba, writes on B.Premanand, India’s best-known Rationalist. Sathya Sai Baba: God-man or con man. “Basava Premanand is India’s leading guru-buster. He believes that the country’s biggest spiritual leader, Sri Satya Sai Baba, is a charlatan and must be exposed”.  Thursday, 17 June, 2004

Wikipedia Entry. “Basava Premanand is an eminent skeptic and rationalist from Tamil Nadu, India”.

Robert Priddy’s Writings on the Killings

Robert Priddy, retired lecturer in Philosophy and Social Sciences, University of Oslo and former head of the Sathya Sai Organization.

Murders at Sathya Sai Baba Ashram

Sathya Sai Baba Murders Revisited

Sathya Sai Baba: Murders/executions, Indian Press evidence

On this blogsite

Barry Pittard, Indian Rationalists, Humanists Unsafe Opposing Sai Baba

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Genital Oiling. Do Hindu Religious Leaders Approve?

My private enquiries disclose that Hindu and other Indian religious leaders do not approve such practices as the oiling of genitals. Ludicrously, Sai Baba’s foremost leaders attempt to exhonerate him by stating that his genital touching and oiling are part of a time-honoured Hindu tradition.

In an e-mail, February 2002, to Robert Priddy, retired academic of the University of Oslo and former head of the Sathya Sai Organization in Norway and devotee of 18 years, Thorbjørn Meyer, the organization’s Central Coordinator for Denmark, and a major world Sai Baba leader, has documented that he considers genital oiling to be “the age old Indian oil ceremony.” Link.

Thorbjørn Meyer’s close colleague Steen Piculell, Co-coordinator for Russia, interviewed on BBC Radio 4, Sunday, November 19, 2000, says:

“Gurus have always, as part of their job, put some oil on the er … upper er . part of their … right hand and g… and gone down in the chakra be … be … behind the testicles to er adjust the chakra there. This is a normal thing. And this I suppose Baba has also done because this is part of his job. That’s all.” (But Steen Piculell does not normally stutter like this!)

Moreover, on Danish radio and TV news, Sathya Sai Baba’s officials admitted that he genitally oils young males. Their responses infuriated a wide Danish public.

Commonsense Deserts Sai Baba Cult Members

Sai Baba’s many devotees who can do no other than admit that he commonly does this ‘genital oiling’ (as many have described it) fail to ask:

• Why would Sai Baba be so selective as to confine this activity to boys and young men?
• Why would he not correspondingly touch the genitals of girls and young women? Or older people of either sex?
• Why would he transgress the laws and ethics that obtain worldwide concerning such practices?