“I have just returned from a forum, hearing from some of the top environmentalist scientists in the world that the vast ecological troubles threatening the planet are not the concoctions of crack-brain doomsayers. They are very real. Blinded by narrow economic advantage, many governments, corporations and others dangerously ignore compelling scientific data going back forty years. Sathya Sai Baba did not address these immense threats to the planet. In his constant sermonizing, he all too often spoke with extreme abstraction, getting lost in ancient myths that he treated not as allegory or parable but as historic fact”.

Returning home with that forum very present in my mind, I wrote a song, the lyrics for which follow.

———————————-

To Tend Mother Earth.   By Barry Pittard.  January 2012.

 If it takes the sweat of planting many billions of trees

To save all of the countries, and all of the people

Let’s grow instead of axe down, let’s stop the Earth’s decease

And tend this Mother Earth and bring her kind love back

——

If it takes the work of unchoking of each river and stream

To save all of the countries, and all of the people

Let’s work instead of slack down and forever day-dream

Let’s tempt this Mother Earth to flow her sweet love back?

——

If it takes a natural growing against what gunk pollutes

To save all of the countries, and all of the people

We’ll stop from pushing lawn-mowers, and raise blossoms and fruits

And save poor Mother Earth and draw her sweet love back

——

If it takes majestic glaciers that Man cannot invent

To save all of the countries, and all of the people

Why in hell melt a glacier for a dollar and a cent?

As if this Mother Earth could sell her loving back

——

If it takes a modest lifestyle to stop us getting sick

To save all of the countries, and all of the people

Nobody can stagger waif thin if nobody is far too thick

To tend to Mother Earth and win her sweet love back

General

Excerpt From and Comment On Public Petition

(Note: You may prefer to go straight to the Petition):

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available: PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

Subscribe in a reader Subscribe to Call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba

I am told that a major media force is now preparing a documentary. It will be interesting to see how the International Sathya Sai Organization reacts.

Many death threats are, of course, bluffs. Some come from idle nutters who rant or bunglers who don’t get very far. But it is important, nonetheless, to keep whatever tracks may have been left by all who threaten.

In regard to some types of information, with the assistance of our relevant professional members, we deal with Interpol or other government agencies. In Australia, I have dealt with the (then) head of Interpol in Australia, Paul Weller, and senior officials in DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade). Our USA members have dealt with the FBI and State Department, UK members, their officials, and so on. In India, there are certain means by which to raise issues that circumvent at least some of the endemic corruption in that country. On occasions, we have been successful there, too, despite huge odds.

Since 1999, when the internationally coordinated former devotee exposure of Sathya Sai Baba and his cult began, there have been times when, for the personal safety of our most active members, we have had to curtail any thought of going public. This has been especially so in relation to India, where one of our brilliantly effective members has reported, and taken to a high government authority in India, attempts either to kill or maim him. Although he had earlier taken strong actions, he heeded family members and other acquaintances deeply concerned for his safety.

In background terms, with the permission of another key person, I earlier began to write of great progress made in India in exposing at least a part of the teacher sexual betrayal of Sathya Sai Baba college boys. I abruptly stopped writing. In the wake of these court actions, an acquaintance of mine, some of whose family elders I have long known, a former Sathya Sai Baba college boy, twice narrowly escaped with his life, in two separate countries. It will be most interesting if the three police forces investigating the second attack on him show in court evidence where those now accused as hired assassins got their training. India is one of the countries that will need to be looked at very closely.

Of course, too, the victim’s immense wealth and effectiveness in exposing at law elements of the Sathya Sai cult will need to be considered as motives for the alleged hiring of hitmen. The alleged hirer will need, among his other associations, to be looked at for any connection with the Sathya Sai Organization, including in his own country, which is outside India, although he is of Indian origin.

In this latter case, various professional security advice is at hand. I understand that close body protection is now provided for the man and his family, and he tells me that he is utterly resolute in continuing to expose some of the more evil-minded of the Sathya Sai fraternity, as are a goodly number of his colleagues who are knowledgeable about Sathya Sai Baba, and India and other countries, who have now risen to positions of outstanding influence and power.

This world would never be such a dangerous place if it were far more common to stand up against the vile miscreants who corrupt it. We should not wait for times of war to show a bit of determination to overcome the evils that, sooner or later, trouble all of us.

“Dear Barry,

Faith and Micheal returned to New York City, where I encountered them in 1979 as leaders of the Sathya Sai Center of Manhattan. I went there twice for bhajans, then disconnected from corporate baba-ism. I now call the guy S. N. Raju. I will fine tune my essay re that issue and send to you in next few months or sooner. (I regret I still viewed Raju as my guru until about 1998-99, when I learned about his evil conduct and that of some around him)

Faith Hollander was a devout if floaty lady with deep spiritual capacities, and Michael was a loud, if well-meaning, “idealogue” and evangelical, a sort of Baba’s apostle ‘Paul’, sent forth to browbeat the earth into Baba-tude. I find it sad but amusing how so many, having drunk the koolaid, cannot transform themselves. I think its like Sam Sandweis or that other leader of the Sathya Sai Organization, the doctor (glad I can’t recall his name) said: “Ive given 20 years of my life to this, I can’t recant now.”  That’s sort of like the inquisitors saying about Galileo’s ’round Earth” thesis: I’ve dedicated my life to a flat Earth… so let’s kill or silence that guy.

Anyway… the beat goes on. My book about coming eco-catastrophe is at the printers in Calcutta.

Peace, love and Justice,

Richard

—————————————

General

Excerpt From and Comment On Public Petition

(Note: You may prefer to go straight to the Petition):

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available: PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

Subscribe in a reader Subscribe to Call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba

This was when I began to teach for two years at the Sathya Sai College (1978-79) and heard that Sai Baba had selected a woman named Faith, a leader in a New York Sathya Sai Baba center, as a wife for Hollander. At a time when very few westerners lived around Sai Baba, she came to spend prolonged time in quiet, focused spiritual retreat. (Earlier to this, he had cleared his ashrams of 60′s spiritual seekers/hippies).

However, Faith preferred, her fellow devotees said, to be – spiritually speaking – married only to Sai Baba. Nonetheless, regarding him as all-knowing and all-seeing, she was ready to comply with Sai Baba’s match-making.

One morning, Michael quickly summoned me. On the spur of a moment, he asked me to act as, it seemed, ‘best man’. I was aware of Michael Hollander as a rather robust, enthusiastic bhajan singer, who was very eager to lead bhajans (conducted from about 9am to 5pm) during Thursday and Sunday lunch-times when the experienced singers retired for lunch.

Sathya Sai Baba conducted Michael and Faith’s wedding in his interview room at the Whitefield campus. I can still ‘hear’ the words of his homily: “Michael, when she is sick, do not say that she is sick. Say – WE are sick. Faith, when he is sick, do not say that he is sick. Say – WE are sick. 

This was but one of a few marriages which – to the great surprise of one or both parties – Sai Baba, in his role of spiritual master, ordered. A very noted example was his marriage of David and Fay Bailey, who at great sacrifice to themselves, years later, were among the foremost in exposing Sathya Sai Baba internationally. See:

Truth In Action: David and Faye Bailey Vs Sathya Sai Baba

For Faith, Sai Baba appeared to materialize a filigree pendent composed of (apparently) gold and gemstones for Faith, by reaching up into the air and pulling it down.  For Michael, he produced a ring that looked like it was gold. This Sai Baba did right in front of Michael and me. It seemed to form from out of his fingers, in full sight as the pendant manifestation was. (But see my articles): 

Right Hand. Sleight Hand. Watch Sai Baba Cheat With Sacred Ash (Film clip)

Censored Indian National Television Film of Sai Baba Cheating

BBC Cameras Catch Sai Baba Cheating With Gold Sivalingam. (Film Clip)

BBC Footage Exposes Fake Sathya Sai Baba Miracle

Michael Hollander, Fervent Sathya Sai Baba Apostle

Below, I copy a comment which was one among a number of comments Michael Hollander sent http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com, the blogsite of my trusted colleague, Robert Priddy. As I read it, I mused about whether Hollander, who has written hagiographically on Sai Baba and who is somewhat venerated in Sai circles because of his long-time association with Sai Baba, has at all learned one of his master’s key teachings:  Be loving towards all, even those who may have done ill to you.

In terms of Sai Baba’s marriage homily advising partners to think in terms of WE, Michael Hollander’s email to Robert Priddy may question whether Michael and Faith are at all well all these years later.

In Hollander’s email, is there even a trace of that urbane respect we see in rational discussion when people have a differing viewpoint? Or do we see, rather, a finger-wagging condemnation? Like an old-time Puritan preacher fulminating from the pulpit, threatening  hellfire and damnation? Here are a few of Hollander’s – um – exquisitely loving words, rather redolent of an email with which, years ago, he assailed David Bailey (I shall refer to it in my next blog):

“Yes to engage in such slander against God Himself is a sin that only He can gauge.There are Laws that Govern us all and all must and will be held accountable for their own actions.There is no escaping this Fact.Thus for those who chose to write such evil lies and slander-as always ones own karma does come around sooner or later”

“It is only some due to their own internal problems and ego that engage in such trash”

“What a bunch of low-life cowards to print such evil lies and falsehood”

“It is only some due to their own internal problems and ego that engage in such trash”

“Yes Lord Christ had one Judas.God Lord Sri Sathya Sai had thousands of Judas’s” (ed. properly, Judases)

“What a bunch of low-life cowards to print such evil lies and falsehood”

“All of these false accusations will be revealed- it is all part of Natural Law – even as the Sun rises and sets and the Moon waxes and wanes”

“Yes it was a joy to see how Nothing ever touched Him and He still only Taught Love and to serve ones fellow-man”

Why would Hollander even begin to think that his rather lengthy, flowery, often repetitive email would have any effect on such a major, well-known Sai Baba cult critic as Robert Priddy, the former long-time leader of the Sathya Sai Organization, Norway, and a retired University academic in philosophy and social science of the University of Oslo. See: Wikipedia entry, Robert C. Priddy.

Robert Priddy’s many articles over the years on Sathya Sai Baba and his cult are anything but flowery or splenetic. They ask, and answer, the rigorous questions which Sai Baba’s cultic, button-down-minded followers constantly evade. They duck and weave, typically, either by saying nothing or, like Hollander, dealing in great sermonizing abstractions and treating as wicked any who question Sai Baba, his teachings and his cult.

(To be continued in next blog)

Further Reading

Michael Hollander, bigot preacher of preposterous, untested beliefs

Posted by robertpriddy on January 10, 2012

For another example of the demeaning, depersonalizing way in which so many Sai devotees have written to former devotees, see:

Reply to a Sathya Sai Devotee’s Note re: David and Faye Bailey

Here is the text of Michael Hollander’s email to Robert Priddy’s blogsite

“YES – it was easy to see that Sri Sathya Sai Baba was none other then God Himself – to print such evil lies and slander is only a reflection of your own ego and weakness and sheer stupidity.It is unfortunate that some due to their own inability to to see Pure Divinity resort to such evil slander.And as we all know the Truth has and will continue to come out here.Truth Truth Truth He Himself is Truth,and this was so obvious.It is only some due to their own internal problems and ego that engage in such trash.Yes slander is a severe sin of this there is no doubt.Thus the Universe that is all based on Truth will make sure that the Divine Light will expose all fradulent and ego based lies and horrific false accounts be fully exposed.This we know is truth.Is it not the way the Cosmos expands and reveals what is true and what is a lie?.Yes this is the very nature of TRUTH.Yes Lord Christ had one Judas.God Lord Sri Sathya Sai had thousands of Judas’s.What a shame.He Himself was ever perfect in every way.He Himself was Perfection itself. Again this was so obvious.All of these false accusations will be revealed- it is all part of Natural Law – even as the Sun rises and sets and the Moon waxes and wanes.

What a bunch of low-life cowards to print such evil lies and falsehood.

Yes to engage in such slander against God Himself is a sin that only He can gauge.There are Laws that Govern us all and all must and will be held accountable for their own actions.There is no escaping this Fact.Thus for those who chose to write such evil lies and slander-as always ones own karma does come around sooner or later.Of this there is no doubt. Sathya Sai Baba was a Voice for the poorest of the poor as shown by His Work and the Institutions founded by Him.People only turned on Him because of their own problems,ego and hatred.Yet He Himself as God was ever untouched by any of it.This also was obvious.It is only those who engaged in such lies will have to face their own karma.This we all know is True.What a shame that some weak-minded people had to resort to such evil Lies.Yes the Universe we live in is all ultimately based on Truth.And this same Truth will expose all such cowards and all the falsehood that has been written.This I promise you.Over the last 40 years I spent almost 9 years in His Immediate Presence in India.And i met many of the people who now make these horrendous accusations.And once again ones own karma will find each sooner or later.It is just the way the Universe works.

Yes it was a joy to see how Nothing ever touched Him and He still only Taught Love and to serve ones fellow-man”.

General

Excerpt From Public Petition

(Note: You may prefer to go straight to the Petition):

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available: PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

Subscribe in a reader Subscribe to Call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba

Each of us plants seeds that grow, hoping they will turn out well, no matter what the terrain – parents, their children;  teachers, their charges; visionaries, their creations, and so on. We can all grow a tree that will become a bone-sore weary traveller’s aid.

Possibly more than at any other time, the world – whose population late last year exceeded seven billion people – needs each of us who can do it to plant physical trees, and other wholesome, much-needed plants which will aid a profoundly compromised planet. So that we can breathe. And many other measures that protect the planet.

The other ‘seeds’ that need planting are those which relate to the practical implementation of ethics key to many belief systems, religious and secular. It is no use merely to write and mouth facts, like the endless Sathya Sai Speaks series, but to discover or rediscover those facts which need no establishing, and, often, facts we ignore all along – such as the scientific warnings of the last thirty or forty years about our planet’s spoliation. Our rampant consumerism. Our materialistic, competition-oriented ‘education’. The unimaginable cover ups and lies daily fed us by governments, corporations and other instrumentalities ….

The first great impetus for many who left Sathya Sai Baba was care for the safety of children. That was all good, so far as it went. But those who have worked hardest to draw world attention to great wrongs soon discovered a signal lesson. This is that, eventually, those who speak out, and who work hard do most of, and sometimes all of, the work.

Most former devotees, like most people everywhere, offer a great many excuses, and a few partly decent reasons,  for not standing forth. I have long been in touch with former devotees and other critics in many parts of the world. Likewise, I have yet to hear of a single instance where any member of the Sathya Sai Organization has accorded a loving response to any of our representations – no matter how loving and caring those representations have been. The organization stood silent when its members and their supporters attacked former devotees with a hatred very different to the decades of esteem they once accorded our members.

It is hard, then, for the heart of activists with a conscience not to call it cowardice. It looks and it acts just like cowardice does. However one may view the problem, the result is the same:  that is to say, when human beings do not question, challenge and engage,  sooner or later, the evils which they deplore, and from which they avert their eyes, will grip civil society, like pernicious and unstoppable vines. Power brokers, criminals and other profiteers depend upon our fear. How can we be heroes to our children when we are cowards to ourselves? How can we establish for them a future that is essentially as nasty as so much of the past has been.

I pay great tribute to my close colleague Robert Priddy, retired academic in philosophy and the social sciences. With the death of my earlier colleague, the utterly remarkable, late Glen Meloy, the work supporting survivors and continuing to expose the Sathya Sai Organization publicly was rather rough and sweaty work. It was at this time that Robert entered with his formidable intellectual and humane resources. In any difficulty or danger, those like Robert and Glen, and a few others in the background, are the only sort of persons you would want to travel at your side.

A few days ago, I wrote this song:

Travellers’ Aid. Barry Pittard. (3 January 2012)

Some sowed bright seed deep laid before they went

Among those who’ve sent me shade are those I’ve

Never, never met

But I will bet that they knew sweat

Needs shade as fresh as lemonade

And here is their shade

To be a shade

For a bone-worn, weary traveller’s aid …..

I’ll plant a tree with my spade before I go

And who’ll receive it’s shade I may not

Ever ever know

But I will bet like me they’ll sweat

Their bones will ache, from the marrow ache

But here is a shade

To be a shade

For a bone-worn, weary traveller’s aid

Often, one hears them say, “I am moving on, now”.

But the abusers, the criminals, the bullies, don’t move on. They thrive in the knowledge that their victims will, most often, move on. Essentially cowards themselves, they understand that other cowards will protect them – by preferring the easy way out. By shutting up. By not calling a crime a crime. By leaving undefended the abused. By abandoning any shred of self-respect.

There Is No Healing In Hiding

The Sathya Sai Organization certainly moves on, thinking that their dead guru – despite his countless false promises of healing and absurdly unfulfilled predictions and vast secret hoard of currency, gold, silver and other valuables – moves with them and within them.

Those who, against unenviable odds, have continued year after year to expose Sathya Sai Baba and his soviet-style, authoritarian, worldwide cult too often see cases where those who speak of ‘moving on’ get into yet more self-entrapment. Out of one guru’s or cult’s frying pan into another. Again, the problem of lack of self-respect.

For some examples of those who were highly respected leaders when members of the Sathya Sai Organization, and who have spoken out with conscience and decency, see:

Searing true testimony about Sathya Sai Baba abuse (the case of Hans de Kraker, Australia, for years Manager of the Western Canteen at Puttaparthi. Article by Robert Priddy)

Sathya Sai Baba Organization’s Betrayal of Love and Compassion (including Terry Gallagher case –  Gallagher investigated extensively, and, in consequence, resigned as leader of the Sathya Sai Organization, Australia)

Sathya Sai Baba Critic Serguei Badaev: An Incisive Voice of Conscience From Russia

U.S. Psychologist Shirley Pike’s Moving Challenge To Sathya Sai Baba and His Organization « Call For Media and Government Investigation

The Sathya Sai Organization: Almost overnight, dissenters treated as demons! « Call For Media and Government Investigation

David Bailey and Thomas Wiehe. Transcript Of Phone Link: Sathya Sai Abuses

Truth In Action: David and Faye Bailey Vs Sathya Sai Baba

New Zealand Lawyer Exposes Official Cover Up of Killings In Sathya Sai Baba Bedroom

Stephen Carthew, A Voice of Testimony From Australia, On The Dangers of Cults

Video of Some Primary Witnesses of Sathya Sai Sex Abuse, and Sai Cult Cover Up

The patient researcher will need to sift carefully among roles played by many individuals. Twenty six years a highly respected devotee who worked in close association with early leaders of the Sai movement, such as the late Elsie and Walter Cowan, the late Glen Meloy was an exceptional former devotee international coordinator. See my tribute to him at the time of his death:  Glen Meloy (“Standing up for truth and goodness”) – In Memoriam. An early key coordinator, Hari Sampath, an Indian from Chennai, who had previously worked in Sai Baba’s Security and Intelligence Wing was, like Glen Meloy, a tour de force.

Some other names to start with are:  Terry Gallagher and Stephen Carthew Australia), Al Rahm (USA), Richard Nelson, Rick Raines (USA), Timothy Conway Ph.D (USA), Dave Lyons (USA),  Artur Wisniewski (Poland), Although, overwhelmingly, it is men who lead the Sathya Sai Organization, prominent women leaders who have left after years of work on behalf of the organization include: Britt-Marie Anden (Sweden), and (from the USA) Shirley Pike, Sharon Purcell, Elena Hartgering (the latter two deceased), Lori Kaplowitz, Ella Evers.  For an incisive writer with a quite academic (though very accessible) approach, see the Dutch former Sai devotee writer:  Alexandra Nagel. A Seminal Writer On Sathya Sai Baba, A Guru Accused. 

The noted Australian scholar in linguists Brian Steel has long written incisively and voluminously on many aspects of the Sathya Sai cult. His published writings while a devotee of twelve years were already respected for their extensive knowledge of Sai literature. His close and rigorous examination of many primary documents, including large numbers of collected Sathya Sai Baba discourses, have unearthed many egregious mistakes about science and history, prophecies subsequently unfulfilled, and other anomalies.

There are many others, but these men and women raised their voices strongly and clearly from the first. They, who had not been derided in all their involvement in official Sathya Sai circles, were now treated to appalling behaviours such as shunning, defaming, and the rather Orwellian historic obliteration from memory. These responses are so typically evident when there is apostasy after sect membership.

On the surface, ‘moving on’ from a traumatic set of circumstances, as opposed to getting stuck in them, may seem perfectly reasonable. One after another, the various schools of mental health declare that until one has seriously dealt with the underlying issues, there is no successful ‘moving on’. One set of symptoms may replace another set, but masking and not addressing the basic causes. 

There remain several questions which often go unanswered, such as:

If one has done little or nothing to mine one’s experiences for serious lessons – spiritual, mental, and physical – does one successfully ‘move on’ from an issue?

Is it ‘moving on’ when one hides, first, from oneself and, then, by not sharing, forthrightly, one’s insights with others?

Coming from countries around the world, a few have, in the face of attacks on their integrity, publicly recorded their experiences of sexual abuse at the hands of Sathya Sai Baba, and in some cases those around him, including teaching staff.

Sadly, the many who could have shown solidarity with those who spoke out left all the heavy-lifting up to a small few.

The Sathya Sai Organizations Treatment of the Rahm Family

Alaya Rahm’s Lawsuit vs Sathya Sai Society of America.  Joint Statement by the International JuST Group and the Rahm family (Al Rahm was one of the foremost of top leaders in the SS Org.) and:

Al Rahm’s explanatory letter and:

Alaya Rahm’s Lawsuit vs Sathya Sai Society of America

Further Interconnected Articles

Dr Naresh Bhatia. Silenced Now In Indian Child Abuse Scourge

Some prominent ex-devotees of Sathya Sai Baba

Smear Campaign against critics of Sathya Sai Baba

Dissent From Guru Cults Draws Slander and Harassment

Evidence of an Internet Activist in Action

On Disinformation and Internet Vandalism

Wikipedia Issues and Sathya Sai Baba (By the Independent British writer on religion and philosophy Kevin R.D. Shepherd)

Sathya Sai Organisation – Further Subterfuge and Misinformation, by Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard

General

Excerpt From Public Petition

(Note: You may prefer to go straight to the Petition):

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available: PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

Subscribe in a reader Subscribe to Call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba

It seems very right to ignore those who are offensive. Why – when one has invested so many years in striving to pursue a decent and humane path – fall to the display of hatred and anger that has all too often reached our inboxes?

The below email response which I have just sent to an enquirer is typical in tone and purpose to many that former devotees have, for many years, spent time and care in responding to enquirers.

——————————————————————

Dear ……..,

Thank you for writing to my blogsite.

I may suggest that, in matters so serious as your education, you feel welcome to share this email with your parents and any elders within your extended family or circle of mentors whom you feel that you can approach for wise guidance. I am happy to answer any questions they may wish to put.

I don’t know whether you read further into my blogsite at:  http://barrypittard.wordpress.com . I also recommend the blogsite of the longtime former head of the Sathya Sai Organisation, Robert Priddy, a retired academic of the University of Oslo, Norway: http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com

There are other outstanding and highly senior leaders, too, who have resigned – after proper and scrupulous investigation of primary sources (families and young men from countries around the world) – from the Sathya Sai Organization.

It is extremely hard for devotees to credit the integrity of those many former devotees who have investigated the serious allegations against Sathya Sai Baba, and, I must quickly add, certain of his servitors, including some teachers. I myself lectured for two years at the Whitefield college (1978-9), and was deeply devoted to Sathya Sai Baba for twenty-five years.

In 1999, after very careful investigation that extended around the world, the evidence of sexual abuse against boys and young men, and other great wrongdoing was utterly compelling. Some of the investigation was by outstandingly qualified sexual abuse professionals, who have long stood ready to testify in any properly accountable legal jurisdiction.

The truth remains that many of those who have left the Sathya Sai Organisation have done so on the highest moral and ethical principles. They have exercised the same standards that have, all along, been seen in them in their professions, trades and wider communities.

No amount of vilification can change the actions of those renowned for telling the truth and practising righteous principles. We have remained within integrity no matter that some Sai devotees have often and cruelly attacked and libeled us, on and off the internet.

Nothing can equal the sense of inner strength that comes from fearless assertion of truth and right conduct, no matter what the odds.

My best wishes to you,

Barry Pittard, Australia. Former lecturer at the Sathya Sai College, Whitefield.

                                                ———————————–

Subject: [Call For Media and Government Investigation] Please moderate: “Sai Baba’s Imperial 83rd Birthday Celebrations Photo, Puttaparthi, India”

A new comment on the post “Sai Baba’s Imperial 83rd Birthday Celebrations Photo, Puttaparthi, India”

Author : ……….. (name omitted, respecting privacy)
Comment:

I am a class X student. I am a devotee of Shri Sathya Sai Baba. I want to get an admission in the Higher Secondary School because I want to devote myself to Babaji service

General

Excerpt From Public Petition

(Note: You may prefer to go straight to the Petition):

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available: PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

Subscribe in a reader Subscribe to Call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba

Sai Radio Propaganda Uses Respected Names To Cover Up For Sai Corruption

The Sai devotee claimed on-air that Hazare stated to him, in no uncertain terms, the primal divinity of Sathya Sai Baba. I reference:

http://media.radiosai.org/Journals/Vol_09/01OCT11/anant_pande.htm

http://aravindb1982.hubpages.com/hub/Anna-Hazare-and-Sathya-Sai.

Locked in a vast effort, following both earlier and more recent exposures, the international Sathya Sai Organization, having lost many members, struggles desperately to rebuild, and at least keep somehow afloat, the Sathya Sai empire.

The Indian media is well-placed to ask Baba Hazare and/or his official spokesperson to confirm or deny the report on Sai Global Harmony? But will they? Will they ever attempt to atone for their shame in allowing the foreign media to expose Sathya Sai Baba and his cult?

Alert sleuths may also like to see whether Sai Global Harmony almost talking to itself, and a smattering of NRI’s and others around the world – speaking essentially to the converted. If not, the Sathya Sai Organisation’s repeated statements (which we can document from official Sai literature) about having vast followings worldwide are yet again exposed as false.

Clearly, the Organisation uses the Hazare name, among other public names (as it does with those such as Gavaskar and Tendulkar), to bolster up what’s left of the Sai Baba ‘name and fame’. This at a time when the discredited cult fights for its survival worldwide. I add that there has been intense pressure to obtain governmental sanctions for a powerful, far-reaching transmitter in the British Isles for Sai Global Harmony satellite radio broadcasts. But the Sathya Sai Central Trust lawyer SS Naganand has just made a watershed statement, which represents a departure from the profound secrecy of the Sathya Sai Organization down many decades. As reported by NDTV – see:

Sathya Sai Central Trust releases annual financial report

by Maya Sharma, Updated: November 23, 2011 17:49 IST

“We are being watched by many organisations, the government and many other institutions in India and abroad. That’s why we thought we will take measured steps”.

Indeed, this international attention of which Naganand speaks has been very much part of our job to ensure. It is our point about the utter failure of the Sathya Sai Organization to show accountability that the cult from top to bottom has reviled and libeled those who have – with rational voice – spoken out. But from the cult, there is not a word of apology for all the hatred vented against former devotees and other critics.

See also:

Ashok Bhagani – Footsying With Top Blair Minister?

Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard On Dr G. Venkataraman – Sathya Sai Baba Global Propagandist

Sathya Sai Baba’s Chief Broadcaster Dr G. Venkataraman: Select Critical Articles by Barry Pittard

Ashok Bhagani denies fully documented facts

Ashok Bhagani, Sathya Sai Baba cult promoter in UK

General

Excerpt From Public Petition

(Note: You may prefer to go straight to the Petition):

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available: PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

Subscribe in a reader Subscribe to Call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba

One of the key reasons why Robert Priddy and I continue to expose the Sathya Sai Baba cult is that his worldwide Sathya Sai Organization, though it is in vast public discredit and struggling to remain intact, continues to draw unwitting people into its thrall. Now and then, members of major international media continue to consult us, and find us unflaggingly truthful, carefully analytic and responsible, as do other organizations and persons who stand against cultic dangers to human well-being.

Repeatedly, it is the many Sathya Sai Baba devotees who – abjectly forgetful of  Sai Baba’s constantly harped-upon preachments about love, peace and sweet-spokenness – break the teachings common to many religions and philosophical systems . Their commonsense and decency paralysed, they cannot look at critical facts, rationally and truthfully presented. Cruelly, they libel those who have stood forth – persons they had long respected and served alongside, year after year, when we shared devotion for Sai Baba.

From the moment we raised our voiced in question, devotees shunned and reviled us. In untold ways, they twisted our words and intentions. They attacked our worthy standing in our professions, trades and wider communities. Ever more sadly, there were attacks against our families, including our children.

Prominent leaders in the Sathya Sai Organization – including those who were close to Sai Baba and part of the Saibabaofindia.com party – have long supported the most vicious and dishonest attacker of former devotees and other critics, Gerald ‘Joe’ Moreno, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA. So intensive were his attempts to sabotage the Wikipedia article on Sathya Sai Baba that he was permanently banned, along with an associate. Ironically, many Sai devotees refused to associate with him, and voices for reason, such as Adrian Hoogenbosch, urged that speaking offensively to Sai Baba’s critics was not spiritually or ethically tenable.

Puttaparthi Sai Baba Birthday 2011 – Where Have All The Golden Pomp and Circumstance Gone?

Posted by November 20, 2011

The late Sathya Sai Baba’s birthday celebrations occur on 23 November. As usual, around this time, there is an upsurge of visitors to this blogsite and that of Robert Priddy. However, in comparison to other years, the numbers are much down, very much as Sai Baba himself is forever down in the earth, and his devotees infinitely down in the dumps.

After his death in on 24 April 2011, we have seen something of the terrible in-fighting over managerial succession at Puttaparthi, and then of the discovery – not of spiritual treasure but – untold hoarded treasure in Sai Baba’s private quarters. The international Sathya Sai Organization, despite or perhaps in part because of its soviet-style, top-down management style, is in vast disarray. See:

‘Secret Swami’ (Late) Sai Baba: Vast Millions In Hoard Found Hidden In His Palace-Temple and:

Sai Baba: hoarding, secrecy, mistrust, powerlessness, deceit

Sathya Sai 85th Birthday. Has Said He Will Soon Rule World, And Not Age

Posted November 25, 2010

 Sathya Sai Baba has said:

“In the days ahead, the whole world will be obliged to come to Prashanthi Nilayam” (p. 320 Sanathana Sarathi December 1991)

“The whole world will be transformed into Sathya Sai Organisation and Sathya Sai will be installed in the hearts of one and all”.  p. 16 Sanathana Sarathi January 1999)

“In Argentina (Sathya Sai Baba) bhajans are being held in every home [cheers].”  Sathya Sai Speaks, XXIII, 29:255 – 20-10-1990, on the alleged 50th anniversary of Sathya Sai Baba’s so-called ‘Declaration’ of his so-called ‘Reality’ as Avatar of all Avatars.)

Here is a simple test:  Ask any Argentinian whether this statement is true. If it is not, ergo – this Sathya is not telling the truth or is credulous and badly misinformed! But, then, how can this be so?  For he has long said that he is All-knowing and All-seeing ….

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Sai Baba Breaks Down and Sobs At 85th Birthday Celebration (Video Footage)

Posted December 31, 2010

Over the years, we have received various reports of Sathya Sai Baba increasingly losing a composure that has been oft-noted in him for decades. But only recently has this type of behaviour been clear for all to see, and in video footage emanating from his own camp. During his November birthday, Sathya Sai Baba – in the midst of being praised for all the good he has done – broke down and sobbed deeply and for some time. To see this video (download 3.9 Mbs), CLICK HERE

“Be happy!” “I have no enemies.. I love all. I am always smiling. Many people think how can I keep smiling? I don’t like castoroil faces.. When you all are happy, I will be happy.” Sathya Sai Baba in his lectern-thumping tirade, Christmas Discourse 2000

Is Puttaparthi Glitter the ‘Shining India’?

Posted December 16, 2010

Often, there is the tacit assumption that to criticize Sathya Sai Baba is itself a slight against India. This is offensive to a great many Indians from all walks of life who do not think that Sai Baba is a reflection of all that is good in their country.

Anyone who has lived in India lengthily, as I have, comes to know how profoundly Indians across classes and divides deplore the corruptions and abuses of human rights and democratic freedoms which they see perpetrated by the power elites in their country.

Yet this is the India that Sai Baba has said he will transform. He has spoken of first “cleaning up his own backyard”, before saving the entire world before he dies. He is now very old and sick.

Sathya Sai Baba Breaks Down and Sobs at 85th Birthday

Posted December 11, 2010

Sathya Sai Baba’s many reported weeping episodes have taken – as from circa the year 2000 – a marked upsweep after the advent of worldwide exposure of widespread serial sexual abuse of boys and young men (See also HERE and HERE);  his implication in the massive local, state and central governments’ cover up of police killings in his bedroom at Puttaparthi (See HERE and HERE and HERE); vast misappropriation of billions in funds collected worldwide (See HERE and HERE and HERE); his vast opulence in a land of great poverty, squalor, ignorance and superstition; his failed predictions (See HERE and HERE); and much else that reveals him to be one of history’s great imposters, whatever may be the good deeds that he has sparked off in many of his devotees.

Sathya Sai Baba 84th Birthday Celebrations. Will 21st Century India Tolerate The Shame That Is Puttaparthi?

Posted November 22, 2009

In marked contrast, a great many Indians do not in substantive ways – even though they acknowledge that his devotees often do good social works - respect Sathya Sai Baba and his extremely undemocratic and unaccountable cult. By way of confirmation, let any traveller to India keep his or her ears open or even politely pose the question to many of her citizens. That simple test is almost enough in itself. Many well-informed Indians do not appreciate that, at a time when vast efforts  try, on many fronts, to bring India into the best of 21st century practice, that, buffoon-like, Sathya Sai Baba flourishes unbounded aspirations to create a Ram-Rajarate, as it were, in their country - far more opulent the ‘Glory that was Rome’ or the ‘Splendour that was Greece’. Mind you, it is more than India he has said that he will rule – it is the world. In regard to India, see, for example, the south Indian scholar-Sai Baba devotee Ra. Ganapati  in his semi-official biography, “Baba: Sathya Sai” (Vol II – page 85):

“His college students had the privilege to see another unique creation in the Ootacamund Summer Course in June 1976. Svami, who declared that He would live to see ninety six years in this body, mentioned that eighteen important institutions would be established by Him all over India in the remaining forty six years, and circled His hand.
Immediately there appeared in His hand a big medal with the map of India engraved. There were inscribed therein the eighteen institutions that are to appear in the next near-half-century. Not only that, the medal also carried the important ‘achievements-to-be’ of Svami in the future, in microscopic Devanagiri characters in the Samskrit language.”

Many have heard and read where he says that the whole world will be under his rulership, and that he will return in the name of Prema Sai Baba to complete this work. In a 1961 Discourse, he said: “I shall be in this body for 58 years more; I have assured you of this already.” (Sathya Sai Speaks, II, 18:92.) A year previously, he said: “I will be in this mortal human form for 59 years more and I shall certainly meet the purpose of this avathaar, do not doubt it. I will take My own time and carry out My Plan as far as you are concerned.” (I, 31:198; Prashanthi Nilayam 29-9-1960 – second discourse) Both these statements indicate a death date 2019 (although he would not use the ‘word’ death) of 2019. Other statements in official publications confuse the issue by stating 2022. 

He had best get a wriggle on, for he is now terribly ailing. See:   Sai Baba – A Degenerative Disease? and Sai Baba’s Tip To Keep Ageing Away and Sathya Sai Baba Is Fast-ailing and Sathya Sai Baba’s Slurred Speech Due To Old Age. ‘Eenadu’ News Report

Sathya Sai Baba Birthday, 2009. Where have all the “millions” Gone?

Posted November 28, 2009

Indian media reported considerably diminished numbers coming to Puttaparthi. For example:

Express News Service. India

First Published : 24 Nov 2009 03:48:00 AM IST

Last Updated : 24 Nov 2009 11:08:59 AM IST

             Baba’s birthday a low-key affair

PUTTAPARTHI: The 84th birthday celebrations of Sri Satya Saibaba were held at Sai Kulwant Hall in Prashanti Nilayam in Puttaparthi. Saibaba has formally cut the cake to mark his birthday in the presence of several dignitaries and thousands of devotees who thronged to witness the celebrations.

 The omniscient, ageless Avatar anounced at his 60th birthday that henceforward he would show no physical signs of ageing. See articles:

Sathya Sai Baba’s Tips To Keep Ageing Away

Sathya Sai Baba’s Slurred Speech Due To Old Age. ‘Eenadu’ News Report

Sathya Sai Baba Is Fast-ailing

Sai Baba-A Degenerative Disease?

Sai Baba 82nd birthday – cakes and security

Click to  find the video link that shows Sathya Sai Baba in 2007 just as unable to cut his own birthday cake as exposed in the 2009 report of the Express News Service.

After his death in on 24 April 2011, we have seen something of the terrible in-fighting over managerial succession at Puttaparthi, and then of the discovery – not of spiritual treasure but – untold hoarded treasure in Sai Baba’s private quarters. The international Sathya Sai Organization, despite or perhaps in part because of its soviet-style, top-down management style, is in vast disarray. See:

‘Secret Swami’ (Late) Sai Baba: Vast Millions In Hoard Found Hidden In His Palace-Temple and:

Sai Baba: hoarding, secrecy, mistrust, powerlessness, deceit

Since our work of international exposure via world leading media began in 1999, the cult has suffered regular resignation upheavals, including of foremost leaders. Indeed, many people leave informally. With a vast amount of work, we used our professional credit to tell many mainstream, reputable religious and civic institutions. They were the target of the Sai cult, avid for wider community acceptance. Our work severely hit the cult’s extensive, and often high-level, fundraising and recruiting efforts around the world. 

Below are a few quotes from my articles, over time, which may help to cut the search times of those looking for an overview.  In a day or so, I shall include a similar page of articles about a number of Sai Baba’s past birthday celebrations.

In the last few years, evidence mounted of decline of his physical and mental health. He had several falls, one of which I saw in when I lived at Puttaparthi for several months – November 1997 – August 1998. Reports came of e.g., his walking round in circles, uttering gibberish. At other times, he flew into temper tantrums. In During his 85th birthday celebrations he broke into extensive sobbing during a keynote speaker’s praise for his work. See:

Sathya Sai Baba In Fits of Sobbing: Video Footage Confirms Earlier Accounts

Posted by Barry Pittard on March 5, 2011

These and other perverse behaviors reached an appalling point – which his minders worked overtime to mask where possible, and, where not possible, to modify. Their damage control efforts were considerable. Looked at in retrospect, his last crumbling – long years before he had foretold – the ghastly mess in which he left things comes as no surprise. See:

Sathya Sai Baba Foretold He Would ‘Die’ Circa 2022. Further Archival Evidence

Posted by Barry Pittard on June 14, 2011

Official Sai Baba Documents Show His Death Date Prophecies Failed

Posted by Barry Pittard on June 12, 2011

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Note:  Here, we see, among a whole plethora of other contradictions up and down his discourses and comments e.g., in interviews, yet more messy dates. His death was a huge mess, but it was long preceded by countless medium to smaller messes. To the anomalies, contradictions and outright lies, devotees forever blind themselves by looking at him like one might look too long into the sun. For insight into devotees’ Procrustean efforts over lunar vs solar dating, see:

Sathya Sai Baba reckoned in calendar (solar) years, not ‘lunar years’

Sathya Sai Baba’s (un)Birthday (not born on 23 November 1926)

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

Posted October 26, 2007

Quote

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, with faces agog, to Sai Baba’s local airport would ever want something both so fierce 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 or injury, of thousands of devotees rushing headlong to his nearby private airport?

• Is an unruly crowd, which police had great difficulty in controlling, likely 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 learning that attachment to the form is deleterious to spiritual growth.

Young Male Sex Abuse: Legal ‘Locomotive’ Hurtles Towards Sai Baba’s Accomplices

Posted July 19, 2011

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‘By Their Fruits Shall Ye Know Them’

Sai Baba devotees have an appalling record for their maltreatment of former devotees. They have repeatedly vilified, shunned, made apostates out to be liars and fools, cruelly libelled them on the internet, and threatened with law suits and criminal proceedings.

T. Sri Ramanathan, Kulwant Rai, et alia

One of these attempts to cower us was the unconscionable bluff by top Sathya Sai Organization leader T. Sri Ramanathan. As well-informed Sai Baba devotees in Australia know too well, he is – more particularly behind hands and doors in whispers – an authoritarian bully within the Australian Sathya Sai Organization itself, which he led for several years. The devotees, all too lamb-like, would say e.g., “Rama is simply Baba’s test for our sadhana; Swami knows all our karmas”.  See: Ramanathan Threatens Barry Pittard With The Law 

Likewise appearing to think that we were panicky lambs, the Sathya Sai Baba supporter Kulwant Rai, one of India’s wealthiest moguls, and scion of the Rai family, various of whom are Sathya Sai Baba devotees, threatened us via his lawyers.

With scarcely a penny in our pockets – at that time! – our forces welcomed them to go ahead. We wanted the facts to come out. Our course was, and is, entirely just. We had nothing to hide, but they did, so they threatened like bovver boys.

They – having too much to hide – went away. More’s the pity. Bullies often turn out to be cowards. Which is one of a number of compelling reasons why one must stand up to them. Give them a field day, and one, inevitably, will sink into the slush, having become a coward oneself.

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

Posted June 7, 2007

Quote

Efforts to Globalize Sathya Sai Baba with World Radio Station

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

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

Dr John Hislop. Vaunted ‘Perfect Disciple’ of Sathya Sai Baba

Posted November 6, 2011

Quote

The ‘Select Readings’ cited below show how Hislop, and the top leadership in the U.S. Sai Baba hierarchy (and the incredibly docile lower-echelon leadership worldwide), covered up the seriousness of allegations of Sai Baba’s serial sexual abuse of boys and young men. No doubt, they seriously and sincerely thought they were doing the right thing. At the same time, they were guilty of the most extraordinary lack of duty of care towards those they had until now, for years, honored and respected.

John Hislop’s Successor, Dr Michael Goldstein of Covena, southern California, USA, is now world leader of the international Sathya Sai Organization, which Sai Baba said is THE divine organization on earth.   But it is a multi-billion dollar organization with iron-clad, cultic rules. Goldstein exploded with unprovoked anger, not realizing that the BBC had a hidden camera trained on him.

                                BBC hidden camera reveals Sai Baba’s world leader in fit of anger. Goldstein’s bullying, coldness and general nastiness – and such qualities in a number of  other high echelon Sai Baba hand-picked leaders – cannot be denied. Likewise, often out-of-sight were Sai Baba’s angry discharges.

Sathya Sai Baba Cult Now Distraught and Broken, Like Its Founder In Last Years

Posted November 1, 2011

Quote

As the participants compared their experiences, evidence – sometimes gut-sickening – fast mounted, other crimes and ethical betrayals came to our notice, as did the many contradictions and anomalies in Sai Baba’s published discourses. These amounted to a glaringly flawed corpus. They were officially published, but poorly monitored. (I have discussed the later editorial weeding of the many embarrassing contradictions, etc.,:

The Quiet Weeding Out Of Sathya Sai Baba’s Embarrassing Statements)

No truthful explanation would resolve the many contradictions in Sai Baba’s published discourses.  Academics such as Robert Priddy and Brian Steel have scrutinized much of this literature. Those who retaliated – chiefly Gerald ‘Joe’ Moreno - are poorly educated. They use fallacious arguments such as argumentum ad hominem. They viciously name-call. They use spurious interpretations of what we have written. They deliver us the distinct, though unintended advantage among serious, thoughtful readers. Indeed, in the case of Moreno and an assistant, Wikipedia banned them.

To those coordinating activities, such as Glen Meloy, Hari Sampath, myself and, as time passed, Robert Priddy, the sheer volume and richness of evidence strikingly and repeatedly verified accounts.

In some instances, parents of boys and young men and other abuse survivors went to foremost heads of the Sathya Sai Organization, including Dr John Hislop, Dr Michael Goldstein, Phyllis Kristal, Sri T. Ramananthan, Dr Sarah Pavan and others.  These supposed pillars of righteousness shamefully ignored the complainants. The leaders exhibited text-book examples of that psychological denial so commonly found in autocratic, cultic arenas

Is Isaac Tigrett Sai Baba’s ‘Walking Will’? Guru Purnima Revelation Or A Fall?

Posted on July 14, 2011

Quote

But questions arise – What, in these days of immense disruption and confusion within the Sai movement, in exactly what might this entity consist? And what might be its supreme command center? Is it the Sathya Sai Central Trust? Or the international Sathya Sai Organization? Will Tigrett, long known to have something of a mind of his own, be quite happy to bypass the likes of Rathnakar and Srinivasan and deal with the wider organized fold of Sai devotees? Not least those great many donors who are deeply suspicious about the trustworthiness of the Sai Central trust – or some members of it. They worry about what happened to their donations. We are talking billions, and not in rupees, either!

In various Sai devotee magazines, Isaak Tigrett – who has long maintained a relative degree of frankness that markedly contrasts with Sai Baba officials around the world – has spoken of how, the Indian Sai Trust officials constantly thwarted him. This was even though Sai Baba had put him in charge of arrangements to equip the Superspeciality Hospital at Puttaparthi, the multi-million dollar project  which Tigrett in fact funded for (according to figures we have heard) some 49 million US dollars, and not sums such as the 108 million so often spoken of in Sai Baba circles round the world.  My reader might find it instructive to hear a telephone recording of David Bailey, formerly Sai Baba’s closest western devotee who knew Tigrett and many other key Sai Organization players from India and abroad. See below.  See also:  Truth In Action: David and Faye Bailey Vs Sathya Sai Baba and: David Bailey and Thomas Wiehe. Transcript Of Phone Link: Sathya Sai Abuses

General

Excerpt From Public Petition

(Note: You may prefer to go straight to the Petition):

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available: PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

Subscribe in a reader Subscribe to Call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba

Sathya Sai Baba and his cult always failed to face political and corporate power. They themselves are part of the corrupt system. His successors now fight out power struggles among themselves.

The international Sathya Sai Organization “good works” philosophy plays perfectly into the hands of the power elites, who have nothing against charity. We all like to feel good. Big-name donors to the Sathya Sai cult are legion, especially in India, and from among the Indian diaspora worldwide.

Amid untold golden glitter, the late Sathya Sai Baba said that, in his own lifetime, he would save and rule India and then the world

But those many ‘ordinary’ citizens from many cultural backgrounds who people the Occupy movements are better educated than ever before, and thus able to use social media such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc., to great advantage. Sathya Sai Baba and his organization could never, and would never, have initiated or supported a mass movement like the Occupy movement.

Occupy Wall Street protestors in Oakland, California, USA, holding “We are the 99%”

This populist manifestation is profoundly opposed to the corrupt machinations of government and corporations – whereas, Sai Baba and the top-level figures of his organization have long been utterly enmeshed with government, police and armed services at every level. Many of his richest devotees long were, and are to this day, corporate moguls. He, his intelligence and security wing, and his formal and informal political operators have for decades utterly influenced local, state and central government police, who are notorious for violent suppression of protest at the behest of Indian governments of any persuasion.

The greed-maddened heads of corporations whom the Occupy movements oppose are, in essence, no different to those far more visible celebrities from the entertainment world who live in the utmost opulence but simultaneously adorn their inflated egos with ostentatious finery when they appear at charity fund-raisers.

From Wikipedia: A chart showing the disparity in income distribution in the United States.^[25][26] Wealth inequality and income inequality have been central concerns among Occupy Wall Street protesters.^[27][28][29] CBO data shows that in 1980, the top 1% earned 9.1% of all income, while in 2006 they earned 18.8% of all income.^[30]

A Protester with a sign at Occupy San Francisco

But far beyond the ‘feel good’ point, the governments and corporations keep up the profiteering, and aid the spawning of the soul-destroying, planet-killing life-styles. From their almost impenetrable fortresses, they aid and abet poverty and social dislocation in the first place.

The US, history’s most formidable superpower is in vast economic decline. But this should really serve to remind many other countries that, in many ways, the US is only themselves writ large – both actually and in unachieved aspiration. Materialism is always itself, and always expands when it can.

The General Assembly meets in Washington Square on 8 October 2011

Millions of ordinary US citizens – and in increasingly many other first world and developing countries – now rebel against the governments and corporations. They need no Marx and Engels to read nor a Lenin to rally them.

They come from many religious and non-religious backgrounds. They come from the smallest towns and the largest cities.

They are the young, who face decades of paying back their student loans, whom the flawed system catapults into jobs after years of study – young lives now not able, even for a moment, to breathe, travel, explore, discover, reflect and mature. At the most idealistic time of their lives, they are seized of the chance to find a sense of meaning that will propel them in the rest of their lives.

They are the middle-aged, who, after great sacrifice have schooled their children, served their communities, and are now being slammed with bank foreclosures.

They are the elderly, for whom superannuation now means little or nothing.

They are often leaderless, but consensual and practical. They, rather than hidden controllers, write the placards for themselves; which they raise above their heads to proclaim their hurt and anger to their representatives who do not represent. And to their country. And to a world which, on the instant, sees, for example, police forces at the behest of their political masters being mobilized to suppress this grassroots uprising. They see sections of the media who, no less than the police, serve the moguls and political managers by sensationalizing and misreporting.

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The Occupy movement: They are fed up in India, too

The United States and India are going through similar upheavals, writes Thomas L. Friedman. Democratically elected governments in both countries are so beholden to special interests they can no longer deliver reform. Therefore, they both need shock therapy from outside.

By Thomas L. Friedman

Syndicated columnist, New York Times

GOA, India — The world’s two biggest democracies, India and the United States, are going through remarkably similar bouts of introspection. Both countries are witnessing grass-roots movements against corruption and excess. The difference is that Indians are protesting what is illegal — a system requiring bribes at every level of governance to get anything done. And Americans are protesting what is legal — a system of Supreme Court-sanctioned bribery in the form of campaign donations that have enabled the financial-services industry to effectively buy the U.S. Congress, and both political parties, and thereby resist curbs on risk-taking.

But the similarities do not stop there. What has brought millions of Indians into the streets to support the India Against Corruption movement and what seems to have triggered not only the Occupy Wall Street movement but also initiatives like Americanselect.org — a centrist group planning to use the Internet to nominate an independent presidential candidate — is a sense that both countries have democratically elected governments that are so beholden to special interests that they can no longer deliver reform. Therefore, they both need shock therapy from outside.

The big difference is that, in America, the Occupy Wall Street movement has no leader and no consensus demand. And while it enjoys a lot of passive support, its activist base is small.

India Against Corruption has millions of followers and a charismatic leader, the social activist Anna Hazare, who went on a hunger strike until the Indian Parliament agreed to create an independent ombudsman with the staff and powers to investigate and prosecute corruption at every level of Indian governance and to do so in this next session of Parliament. A furious debate is now raging here over how to ensure that such an ombudsman doesn’t turn into an Indian “Big Brother,” but some new ombudsman position appears likely to be created.

Arvind Kejriwal, Hazare’s top deputy, told me, “Gandhi said that whenever you do any protests, your demands should be very clear, and it should be very clear who is the authority who can fulfill that demand, so your protests should be directed at that authority.” If your movement lacks leadership at first, that is not necessarily a problem, he added, “because often leaders evolve. But the demands have to be very clear.”

A sense of injustice and widening income gaps brought Occupy Wall Street into the street, “but exactly what needs to be done, which law needs to be changed and who are they demanding that from?” asked Kejriwal. “These things have to be answered quickly.”

That said, there are still many parallels between the Indian and U.S. movements. Both seem to have been spurred to action by a sense that corruption or financial excess had crossed some red lines. In the United States, despite the fact that elements of the financial-services industry nearly sank the economy in 2008, that same industry is still managing to blunt sensible reform efforts because it has so much money to sway Congress. It seems to have learned nothing. People are angry.

Meanwhile, in India, the commodities and telecommunications booms, coupled with urbanization that is driving up land prices, have set loose billions of rupees, and officials who control zoning and mining permits have just been pigging out. Some 50 top officials have been jailed lately for everything from the crony allocation of wireless spectrum, leading to potential losses to the state of up to $38 billion, to illicitly selling Indian iron ore — needed for development here — to China for a higher price. People are fed up.

Yet, commented the Indian writer Chetan Bhagat in The Times of India on Monday, “our government attacks almost every anti-corruption crusader” and “sadly, even our opposition parties have lots of corrupt people.” Sound familiar? Democracy not only needs a decent ruling party, but an intelligent opposition, and neither India nor America has both today.

Yes, Indians are mad at a system that makes them pay a bribe to get their birth certificate. Americans are mad at a system that has made it legal for unions to bribe the officials who will decide their pay and for bankers to bribe the lawmakers who will decide how much risk they can take. But both are essentially threatened by the same disease, best captured in the title of Robert Kaiser’s book about lobbying — “So Damn Much Money” — and it’s being thrown around now by so many special interests that these democracies are not only being warped by it but can’t fix themselves either.

Hazare has called this moment India’s “second struggle for independence.” I think he is on to something for both India and America. I think that repairing our respective dysfunctional democracies — so they are truly enablers for the 21st century and not inhibitors in India’s case or “the sum of all lobbies” in America’s case — is for our generation what the independence movement in India and the civil-rights movement in America were for our parents’ generation. Here’s hoping we’re as successful.

Thomas L. Friedman is a regular columnist for The New York Times

Devotees, however, pass these off as, variously, “Baba’s funny little ways”; “his sparing of our feelings”; his “Leelas” (meaning his ‘divine sportiveness’ …. When writing, they use a capital ‘L’); “his perfect ‘Truth’, but our human imperfection” which cannot see that he is teaching us some profound lesson, such as, in learning detachment; and more such Procrustean wracking of human reason and commonsense. Sai Baba long exhorted that his devotees:  “Love (him) for (his) Mystery”. (Of course, his editors and other devotee writers capitalized the ‘h’ in ‘him’ and ‘his’) …..

Hislop also well knew that many devotees Sai Baba confused many with his many lies, all his predictions which failed, as did so many of his promised cures and e.g., promises of placements at his university or his colleges, of apartments in the ashram, and so forth. Therefore, in his books and talks (he travelled to various countries as Sathya Sai Baba’s foremost emissary outside India), Jack Hislop needed to come up with covering explanations.

I didn’t get to know Hislop at all well. My acquaintance was primarily via a meeting I arranged (the idea of which was to attract from among the international devotee base the gift of books, audio-visual teaching aids, and so on). This was when I lectured in English at the Sathya Sai college outside Bangalore. But my impression was that of many who did knew him, who thought him sincere. In so many devotees, sincerity is writ large – but it hides the fact that a psychology of self-deception is powerful.

The ‘Select Readings’ cited below show how Hislop, and the top leadership in the U.S. Sai Baba hierarchy (and the incredibly docile lower-echelon leadership worldwide), covered up the seriousness of allegations of Sai Baba’s serial sexual abuse of boys and young men. No doubt, they seriously and sincerely thought they were doing the right thing. At the same time, they were guilty of the most extraordinary lack of duty of care towards those they had until now, for years, honored and respected.

(“Seeking Divinity” Dr. J. S. Hislop, Sri Sathya Sai Books & Publications Trust. 1998, p. 210)

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John Hislop’s Successor, Dr Michael Goldstein of Covena, southern California, USA, is now world leader of the international Sathya Sai Organization, which Sai Baba said is THE divine organization on earth.   But it is a multi-billion dollar organization with iron-clad, cultic rules. Goldstein exploded with unprovoked anger, not realizing that the BBC had a hidden camera trained on him ….

See the article:

Sathya Sai Baba Chief, Dr Goldstein, Explodes. “I am the consummate professional” (See Film Clips)

Select Readings

Brian Steel

Sathya Sai Baba, Elsie and Walter Cowan, and John Hislop. A Discredited 1971 Resurrection Claim

Sathya Sai Baba’s Credibility Gap: Contributions by John Hislop

Robert Priddy

‘Conversations with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba’ by Dr. J. Hislop

Cover-up letter: Hislop wholly neglects duty of care

Faked “miracle”: crucifix given by Sai Baba to Dr. Hislop

‘My Baba and I’ by Dr. John Hislop – Sai Baba miracles

Priddy notes: “Dr John Hislop, who was for long head of Sathya Sai Baba’s organization in USA and (strangely) ‘the Americas’, wrote most revealing and embarrassing letters in 1980-81. These came into the hands of Timothy Conway Ph.D., from his immediate predecessor the former president of the San Francisco Sathya Sai Centre. This is the third in the series of letters by Hislop dealing with the allegations by Mrs. Payne (see her letter here). The first Hislop reaction is here and the second here”.

View all Hislop letter transcripts, scans, and comments here

Sex scandal and Sathya Sai Baba – 3rd Hislop letter

Barry Pittard

Brian Steel On Sathya Sai Baba’s Credibility Gap. John Hislop Contributions

Brian Steel On Dr John Hislop’s Gift From Sathya Sai Baba – Idol claimed to have wood from cross of Jesus

Brian Steel Demythologizes Early Foreign-led Sathya Sai Baba Myths

Brian Steel On John Hislop’s 27 Years as Sathya Sai Baba’s Spokesman

Timothy Conway Ph.D on: The Crucial John Hislop Letters

Timothy Conway’s Update

Timothy Conway PH.D confirms the Hislop letters

Formal statement provided to Exbaba.com by Timothy Conway Ph. D. concerning the Hislop letters

An article in which Timothy Conway outlines many key issues

General

“On countless occasions, the international Sathya Sai Organization has either refused to deal with serious allegations outright or avoided all questions from dissidents and journalists. If they had any self-respect, truthfulness and regard for democratic ways, rank-and-file members of the organization would demand accountability and transparency. They would also be concerned about why so many respected institutions avoid association with their organization, and why political and government leaders refuse invitations to Sai Organization functions. Members need to heed their own feelings of misgiving at the explanations their leaders give to them”.

Former devotee outreach to key public institutions was enormous. This activity was a concerted international effort in which now former Sai Baba followers  – coming from many professional, trade backgrounds and cultural backgrounds – did their best, first, to warn of the danger of boys and young men coming into the orbit of Sathya Sai Baba.

As the participants compared their experiences, evidence – sometimes gut-sickening – fast mounted, other crimes and ethical betrayals came to our notice, as did the many contradictions and anomalies in Sai Baba’s published discourses. These amounted to a glaringly flawed corpus. They were officially published, but poorly monitored. (I have discussed the later editorial weeding of the many embarrassing contradictions, etc.,:

The Quiet Weeding Out Of Sathya Sai Baba’s Embarrassing Statements)

No truthful explanation would resolve the many contradictions in Sai Baba’s published discourses.  Academics such as Robert Priddy and Brian Steel have scrutinized much of this literature. Those who retaliated – chiefly Gerald ‘Joe’ Moreno - are so poorly educated, viciously name-calling, distortive in interpretations, and prone to serious offenses against logical argument that no serious reader can take them seriously. Indeed, Wikipedia banned them. To those coordinating activities, such as Glen Meloy, Hari Sampath, myself and, as time passed, Robert Priddy, the sheer volume and richness of evidence strikingly and repeatedly verified accounts.

In some instances, parents of boys and young men and other abuse survivors went to foremost heads of the Sathya Sai Organization, including Dr John Hislop, Dr Michael Goldstein, Phyllis Kristal, Sri T. Ramananthan, Dr Sarah Pavan and others.  These supposed pillars of righteousness shamefully ignored the complainants. The leaders exhibited text-book examples of that psychological denial so commonly found in autocratic, cultic arenas.

It is a terrible chapter in institutional abuse history. Let there be no ‘statute of limitation’! The terrible acts, sexual and other, outraged many young and innocent lives. Historians need to look at the sheer scale of the ethical betrayal. What is more, academics who duck for cover and refuse to study ‘difficult’ areas such as cults, should themselves be exposed. So too should those politicians and academics who, with a distorted understanding of what ‘liberalism’ really means. In their notions about not giving offense to various faiths, they are insipid in the extreme. In short, there is a farcical ‘political correctness’ – one that fears to give offense when, all the while, cults perpetrate great offense.

If society is to come to grips with issues of cultism, writers will need to get beyond just looking at more spectacular and dramatic cults like the Jim Jones or David Koresh cults. Society suffers greatly when there is no well-publicised, properly-researched, non-sensationalistic enquiry into the effect of cults on the rest of society.

For lack of understanding these less dramatic but, in some ways, no less invidious cultic phenomena, the Sathya Sai Organization continue to penetrate and influence, without, however, recruiting wider communities throughout the world. Among both their own membership AND in their outreach to institutions and governments, the Sathya Sai Organization leaders act as though nothing questionable has happened. 

Why should these leaders escape question? Their crimes of complicity are too great to ignore.

In processing the immense amount of work on testimony, and in supporting the Sai Baba’s devastated survivors, our international coordinators often found that many witnesses clearly had no knowledge of each other. Still further, evidence came from sources well beyond former devotees. Sai Baba had not only practised his sexual and other abuses on his immediate followers but on others who were spiritual seekers traveling through India from one ashram to another.

Despite the huge damage to it since 2000 – when we made professional submissions to major media, the UN, various governments, Interpol, FBI, and other foremost agencies – the international Sathya Sai Organization to this day, is highly evasive. We can expect this type of response from organizations with a great deal to hide. The ‘secret swami’s’ key followers are secret just as he was secret when Sai Baba hid his vast millions in currency, gold, silver and other precious commodities in his private quarters. Secrecy runs in the ‘Sai family’. Just as when he, complicit with local, state and national government leaders, concealed the facts about the 1993 killings in his bedroom. And likewise, when he and his accomplices engaged in terrible threats and bribes when then he concealed his (and some subordinates’) serial sexual abuse of boys and young men. And, likewise, scandals such as the water projects, apartments and other scams. All of which, and more, left a huge wake of human suffering. Over many years, including 2011, Robert Priddy and I have received highly confidential accounts in which profound sexual disorientation has happened to survivors of Sai Baba’s sexual depredations, and, sometimes, those of servitors close to him.

Although at much-reduced capacity, the Sathya Sai Organization, now in huge disarray after its founder died (April 2011) many years before the time he predicted, continues to act towards communities as though it is a respectable, conservative organization. This does not surprise – for, against massive odds, it struggles to find funding resources to match its incredible overheads.

Nor does it surprise that, as the organization continues to face such grave threats to its existence, it refuses to face questions from many quarters. These include institutions and people (typically wealthy and powerful) with whom the cult tries to link. The public damage to it is vast. Some members, naïvely, try from within it to reform the organization. But there is a sorry trail in which the Sathya Sai Organization has cast out long-respected leaders and other members who have been courageous enough to raise questions. Senior journalists from the several of the world’s top media and scholars from leading universities and others who have tried to investigate, are at one: this is a highly secretive, authoritarian cult.

Where can the Sathya Sai cult turn – its distraught, broken founder being now dead, except in on its distraught – broken self?

Select Reading

Will Sai Baba Keep Hal Honig Smiling?

Guardians of Our Young? Or De Facto Sexual Abuse Pimps?

The Public PetitionInformation on the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

About the Petition For Official Investigation Into Sathya Sai Baba Cult

(Note: You may prefer to go straight to the Petition): Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available:

PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

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On countless occasions, the international Sathya Sai Organizationis refuses to deal with serious allegations. If they have any self-respect and regard for democratic ways, rank-and-file members of the organization should demand accountability and transparency. They should also be concerned about why so many respected institutions avoid association with their organization, and why political and government leaders refuse invitations to Sai Organization functions. Members need to heed their own feelings of misgiving at the explanations their leaders give to them.

This lack of speaking up, of questioning, profoundly ails the organization. It is also why, for example, so many costly drives in luxurious venues fail. See:

‘Secret Swami’ Cult Recruits At Prime Public Venues

Those of us who have stood forth have often been assailed by Sai Baba activists such as Gerald Moreno, of New Mexico, USA, who deride Sai Baba’s accusers for not having succeeded in court actions. However, the difficulties the victims face are formidable. Many of them wish to hide what they regard as their sense of shame. They do not wish to suffer discrimination against them in their personal or professional lives. Many have friends or relatives still closely associated with the Sathya Sai Organization. Sadly, many of them will not reach out for professional counseling, even though offered excellently qualified professional counseling.

These and other formidable obstacles are familiar to all those familiar with the years of denial and cover up in the case of such institutions as the Roman Catholic Church. (See Further Reading, below)

Robert Priddy, former, well-respected leader (Norway) in the Sathya Sai Organization and retired academic of the University of Oslo, has just posted a note on Hal Honig, of New York, USA, a high-profile Sai Baba cult leader in the United States:

Hal Honig – misguided copier of Sai Baba’s practices

Posted by robertpriddy on October 11, 2011.

Hal Honig with Sathya Sai Baba. Dare this love breathe its name?

Priddy cites my article:

Will Sai Baba Keep Hal Honig Smiling?

Posted by Barry Pittard on March 22, 2007

in which I include reference to allegations of pedophilia against Honig. A noted former leader, Shirley Pike, a U.S. psychologist highly qualified in dealing with sexual abuse of young people, made allegations at a Sai conference that Honig acted as a sexual pimp for Sathya Sai Baba.

See: U.S. Psychologist Shirley Pike’s Moving Challenge To Sathya Sai Baba and His Organization

The former Swedish leader, Conny Larsson, among others, has made the same allegations, as my above-mentioned article details.

Hal Honig Speaks. Unholy Ghost Whispers

Read independent report of what happened to some group members here

Commentators such as Robert Priddy, Brian Steel, Alexandra Nagel, Conny Larsson, and myself in addition to others who have spoken out (and left the Sathya Sai Organization), have expressed a constant theme: the need for extensive, proper and independent investigation of the many allegations.

Why should killings in Sathya Sai Baba’s bedroom, and later cover up on a monumental scale, apartments and other scams by those in his front office, and worldwide allegations of sexual abuse (some involving those other than Sathya Sai Baba, such as Hal Honig) escape due processes of the law?

Why should Sathya Sai Baba devotees remain members of an organization which, demonstrably, escapes those proper processes which are best placed to adjudicate issues? The BBC spoke of Sathya Sai Baba as ‘The Secret Swami’.

But, though he died in April 2011, his Sathya Sai Organization remains the secret swami’s secret organization.

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Further Reading

Barry Pittard – On Institutional Cover Ups and Psychological Denial

Institutional Sex Corruption: Plight of Roman Catholic Church and Sathya Sai Organization

Boy Scouts of America – Sex Abuse Revelations. Who Next?

Roman Catholics’ Deep Concern At Pope’s Apology. But He Is Way Ahead Of Indian ‘Pope’ Sathya Sai Baba

The Public PetitionInformation on the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

About the Petition For Official Investigation Into Sathya Sai Baba Cult

(Note: You may prefer to go straight to the Petition): Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

Tagged: Cults, Gerald Moreno, Hal Honig, pedophilia, Robert Priddy, Roman Catholic Church, Sathya Sai Organization, Sects ]]> http://barrypittard.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/sathya-sai-organization-shields-its-accused-members-from-investigation/feed/ 1 Barry Pittard Hal Honig With Sai Baba Hal Honig Group Hal Honig Call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba Subscribe in NewsGator Online Subscribe in Bloglines Add to My AOL Add to Excite MIX Add Call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba to Newsburst from CNET News.com Add to netvibes Add to The Free Dictionary Add to netomat Hub Add to Webwag http://barrypittard.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/sai-baba-of-shirdi-sathya-sai-babas-tall-claims-part-1/ http://barrypittard.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/sai-baba-of-shirdi-sathya-sai-babas-tall-claims-part-1/#comments Wed, 05 Oct 2011 07:52:31 +0000 Barry Pittard http://barrypittard.wordpress.com/?p=10063 ]]> A few days back, Robert Priddy posted about Sathya Sai Baba’s claims to have incarnated the major Indian saint Shirdi Sai Baba. See:

Shirdi Sai stated “I am not God”, while Sathya misrepresented him

For those interested in looking at a few of the issues involved in such spectacular claims, I shall, in the next few days, further give some comments and links.

On his way to becoming his own notion of Avatar of all Avatars, did Sathya Sai Baba truly believe that he had incarnated in the 19th century in the north-west Indian state of Maharashtra? Or was he shrewdly aware of practising a deception? My own guess is that, like others who have extraordinary inner experiences, he may have been in the grip of very powerful aspects of mind – especially the right brain – of which we understand far too little.

In certain unusual states of mind, an individual believes that extraordinary, real-seeming experiences are actually God’s voice speaking out of a burning bush to Moses. Actually, Allah speaking to Mohammad. Or actually one’s ‘spirit guides’ speaking from within, and so on. One part of the mind is tricked by other parts of the mind. The intangible seems to solidify. The fictive appears as real.

But how can we know what Sai Baba thought about Shirdi Sai Baba? And why he said that he was part of a series of three avatars – Shirdi Sai Baba, Sathya Sai Baba, and, one yet to come, Prema Sai Baba?

What we do know, however, is that, of all countries, India is the place where (other than in lunatic asylums of which all our countries have their types) a great many take claims of ‘divine’ realization very seriously. India is the place of instinctive veneration. Including of cricket, film, political and other stars. Visit many Hindu Indian homes, as I have done in my years in that country, and you will find countless instances where historic, human saints and masters, have their place on the household shrine – and depicted elsewhere around the house – alongside deities like Rama, Krishna, Siva, Durga, Kali, Saraswati, Mahalaxmi, and so on.

Shirdi Sai Baba is one of the pan Indian saints, like Adi Shankaracharya, Tulsidas, Mira Bai, Ramakrishna, Ramanana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo, and so many others. Some worship them as aspects, specifically, of ‘avatars’ like Rama, Krishna, Siva, the divine Mother, and so on. Some simply as great lights. Many Hindus regard Lord Buddha as an aspect of Lord Vishnu (Krishna). There is no end to the gradations, subtleties, emphases – and, therefore, sects.

More thoughtful Hindus fully appreciate the allegorical nature of these gods and goddesses. They see the stories associated with them such as an educated westerner might understand Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, or the characters in Dante, Shakespeare or Goethe or Tolkien – representations of primal forces at work in the human psyche. However, we need to consider the reality in the lives of millions of Indians of a heightened state of mythopoeic conditioning. Of mythopoeic imagination. And of associated rituals, festivals, allowances and proscriptions. All of this along with the ubiquitous supports of temple worship, pilgrimage, funeral and marriage ceremonies, yoga, and so forth. All of this from the very cradle. All of this, as it were, in the air, and everywhere. In the home. In the veneration for the cow. In the astrology. In the priestcraft. In vegetarianism. These norms – daily, and not at a church on Sunday or a synagogue on Saturday – are, perhaps, as alive today as they always were. Flick your television remote and radio dial and it is easy to intercept a pundit or priest or yogi wordily discoursing. Religion is part of the diet – like chapatis, sambar, malai kofta, or sweetmeats, etc. ….. Religious figures attract huge crowds – again the incredible wordiness. Again, eager faces looking up for someone great who speaks to someone small. Some religious figures do not even have to speak; they are, simply, to be seen. In whatever the form, somehow, mysteriously, Grace happens, Merit accrues. The varieties of choice are vast. In anquish, many thoughtful Indians despair of India’s immemorial running after supposed gods, demigods and demagogues.

Sathya Sai Baba appeared to have godlike powers, such as knowing other minds, foreknowledge of the future, the ability to do miracles, to heal terrible illnesses, to forgive sins, to bless with his touch or sight or word, and so on. These seeming divine powers were magnets to the denizens of, arguably, the most hyper-religious and superstitious country in the world. But, interestingly enough, a short walk even for an educated Hindu Indian – so long as there is some sort of appeal to both intellect and emotion. He created his own mythos, relying on an ancient mythos readily available to him, and to his whole milieu.

Sathya Sai Baba was charismatic, but would not have been nearly so had he not appeared to do miracles, see into souls, and answer prayers.

In fact, he was wrong about a lot of things. A recent and dramatic example was the timing of his death in April 2011. See: Sathya Sai Baba death date in serious doubt. Many devotees know perfectly well of his prophecy that he would die (or take ‘mahasamadhi’) ca 2022. Their frequent, addled rationalizations are in full view on official and non-official Sai Baba websites. Their procrustean explanations reveal something of the dreadful confusion he left behind. More than ever before, institutions like UNESCO, governments and civic and religious organizations with whom the Sathya Sai Organization attempts to associate itself reject it. The devotees who now try to reform the organization from within really need to confront their secretive leaders and demand to hear from them the circumstances since 2000 in which many respected organizations have rebuffed Sai Baba leader’s overtures.

But of course unusual phenomena would, of necessity, occur! How can it fail? For, in the annals of medical science, innumerable are the instances of unpredicted remission in the case of many apparently incurable illnesses. Intense belief taps into mental and physical transformation that science is only beginning to understand. And if rational understanding is absent, traditional belief systems, or cosmologies, arise in the form of explanations. Hindu explanations, Jewish ones, Christian ones, Buddhist ones, Muslim ones, and so on.

To these explanations, powerful emotions and dogmas attach themselves. Orthodoxies arise. Dissenting sects arise. We have mainstreams and sects and cults in abundance.

See also:

Sathya Sai Baba Claimed He Will Resurrect After 40 Days

BBC Footage Exposes Fake Sathya Sai Baba Miracle

Sathya Sai Baba Is Dead. Said He Would Rule the World and Die Aged 96

Sathya Sai Baba’s Amazing Predictions

“I intend to undertake a world tour, shortly.”

Wealthy Americans Prepare Mansions For “God’s” Visit

‘World Hindu’ by 2030. VHP’s Singhal Reports Sathya Sai Baba Told Him

Predictions/Promises

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Select Barry Pittard poems/lyrics expressive of themes about crimes/sexual and other abuses/ spiritual betrayals by Sathya Sai Baba and his international Sathya Sai Organization.

‘Little Fly’. A Ballad of ‘Rock Spiders’ and Sexual Abuse of the Young

Beth Rude. Ballad of a Child Protectrice. By Barry Pittard

Sathya Sai Baba – The Man Who Would Be ‘King of Kings’

No Friend In Sight Song

They’ve Banned the Bulls At Barcelona. By Barry Pittard

Note: Barry Pittard’s songs are copyright protected by The Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA). Contact: barpittard@gmail.com

The Public PetitionInformation on the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

About the Petition For Official Investigation Into Sathya Sai Baba Cult

(Note: You may prefer to go straight to the Petition): Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization