Where Birds and Kids Can’t Sing

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The greatest motivation compelling the response of most former Sathya Sai Baba followers around the world has been:  out of the depths of natural love for the young and the wish to protect them from abuse, to expose him and his authoritarian cult. 

There is a saying attributed to Jesus which has, from my childhood and all through my life, resonated from the depths of my soul: 

“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea”.

An Angel Singing and Skipping On The Sports Field

Last Monday, I was deeply moved.  Taking lunch to a child, I walked across a school sports field   A girl in the lower primary school, small for her age, skipped past me, merrily singing. The child’s happy state was delightful in itself, but what astonished me was her extraordinarily fine voice and the joy that suffused it. In the skipping was the song, and in the song was the skipping. I continued walking, heart skipping.

In a minute or so, she again skipped past , still singing. This time, I realized that she was a child I had known a little, along with her family, on and off, over recent years. I had not known of her remarkable talent, but only of the fine voice of her older sister. The children’s parents, too, love singing.

This time, I said:  “What a lovely voice you have.”  She replied that she loves singing along with operas and also musicals such as those of Andrew Lloyd-Webber. With a sense of dedication, in which I thought I detected a deal of true grit, she told me of her operatic and musical comedy ambitions. “Would you like to hear a song?”  she asked. Yes, I would. She then launched into a Lloyd-Webber song, and sang it with purity, power and rhythmic and note perfection.  

After she had finished, she told me how kids at the school make fun of her for going around singing. As though to underline her report, when she sang a couple of kids made fun of her. I told her, “Little do they know. You will have to work hard and sometimes even fight for the beauty that you feel. Keep doing the thing you love, and ignore what is not love”.

I thought:  what an often cultureless desert these children are growing up in. Here is this girl with supportive parents who surround their children with wonderful artistic role models. But here – elsewhere about her – is a great deal of cultural desert. And here were school children responding, and with such harsh negativity, re-processing the cultural aridity of their parent’s lives. Like parents, like children. What a sore heritage. In Australia, cultural pursuits are often downgraded and denigrated, with an obsessive sport predominating. All too little in the way of a healthy body, mind and spirit. After all these years, our education system profoundly lacks, for example, a response to such extremely major work on several forms of intelligence that need to be understood, worked with, and made integral to education. See Professor Howard Gardiner, et al. For a true educator/liberator, see Sir Ken Robinson on TED Talks; e.g.,: “Do schools kill creativity”

The Scottish woman who in her late forties and since chastened the world, and challenged its chauvinistic stereotypes of what a nightingale should look like

Although this was a local sports field, where hopes and dreams can die in anonymity, I thought of the event  – which the world will long remember – of the Scottish singer Susan Boyle’s appearance on the highly-rated British  TV program Britain’s Got Talent on in April 2009, singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables – of which I have written here:  Susan Boyle. Unexpected Divine Chanteuse. Sweet 47. Posted by Barry Pittard on April 17, 2009.

Heaven preserve, for a while, this little one from the fierce competitiveness that attends the likes of American Idol  – but I wouldn’t be surprised if her ability were an audience jaw-dropper if she appeared on such a show. Trustfully, singing teachers or directors who lack wisdom and angelhood will not crab the angelic and glorious connection between this child’s skipping and her careless rapture. 

As I walked out of the school, inspired by the sportsfield meeting, tunes started to come, and by yesterday I completed the lyrics. It is a song for a young child to sing – or for the young child in any of us to sing:

Where birds and kids Can’t Sing. Barry Pittard. (17 April 2013)

I’m not so old and I love to skip

And when I skip I sing

I sing and cannot help it

And it feels

Like such a natural thing

I dreampt that once an angel came

She sat by me and sang

She sang and could not help it

And it felt

Like such a natural thing

   But kids at school say – “Do not skip!

   Your a bit too old to sing and skip!”

   They laugh, they tease, they say “Grow up”!

   And the really mean ones shout “Shut up”!

I dreampt once of an emperor

Who told the birds – “Don’t Sing … Don’t sing!”

I thought – what sort of land is this?!

This cage most maddening!

And now I keep on wondering –

Who says that kids can’t sing?! Who says that kids can’t sing?!! WHO says that kids can’t sing?!!!

And might our land become a cage

Where birds and kids can’t sing?

Where birds and kids can’t sing ….!

But I’m not so old and I love to skip

And when I skip I sing

I sing and cannot help it

And it feels

Like such a natural thing

                    So angel do not go away

                    But always come and sing

                   We’ll sing like we can’t help it

                   And it feels

                Like such a natural thing

                Like such –

                Like such – an angelic thing ….

Susan Boyle: ‘Wild Horses’ Won’t Hold Her Back

There are, of course, more beautiful things in life than writing about Sathya Sai Baba and his movement. Duty can have its own beauty, though it is far from an absolute form of it. The exquisite and stereotype-challenging saga of Scots singer Susan Boyle affords something closer to the absolute. (And those who have come to this page who are simply interested in her can scroll down this page to the information about her).

Though the thought of my own engagement in anything significantly-other in life courts disbelief by a prominent Internet detractor and gross defamer, my work on Sathya Sai Baba constitutes but a minor part of my frequently delightful and deeply fulfilling days. Working quickly, and having other life interests, is native to a number of former followers of Sathya Sai Baba who have stood forth to call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba and certain of his core leaders.

Indeed, many former devotees, including those active in unmasking him and his powerful worldwide cult, have long had – as has  Susan Boyle (see in the two photos below) – strong responsibilities in regard to family (she dedicatedly nursed her mother for many years), cultural activity – e.g., with involvement in bringing  joy and loving company to those such as the elderly and other marginalized groups – (Susan Boyle was a member of her Church Choir and active in her small Scottish village community), and other worthy pursuits.

Susan Boyle, Wonderful Chanteuse 

Belle Scots Chanteuse Susan Boyle Continues To Delight

Last April, deeply moved, as was so much of the rest of the world (she, by degrees of magnitude, broke all-time records for the number of hits on YouTube), by the Scottish singer Susan Boyle, I wrote of her in relation to having been the target of ageist discrimination not unlike, in its own way, that shown by the Sathya Sai Baba proxy defender on the Internet in relation to Robert Priddy, Brian Steel and myself. See:

Susan Boyle. Unexpected Divine Chanteuse. Sweet 47.

Sai Baba Internet Man’s Attacks Based On Age and Physical Appearance

Susan Boyle Sings ‘Memory’. Worldwide Audience Not Likely To Forget (See Video)

After some hardships in facing her possibly even  more than meteoric rise to super stardom Susan Boyle has now re-appeared. You can hear this lovely voice and courageous personality singing ‘Wild Horses’ by clicking on Susan Boyle’s photo or the article title below, which is at the music-related website:  http://www.undercover.com.au

 Susan Boyle Covers Rolling Stones Wild Horses – by Paul Cashmere – September 14 2009

The first single from the forthcoming debut album from Susan Boyle is indeed an interesting choice. She has covered the Rolling Stones `Wild Horses`.

The original Stones version was from the 1970 ‘Sticky Fingers’ album.

Boyle has taken the Stones acoustic track and reinvented it into a haunting Tori Amoseque version.

The album will be released in November and last week outsold the new Whitney Houston album on presales alone at Amazon.com.

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General

Excerpt From Public Petition (With Barry Pittard’s comments)

 

(Note: You may prefer to proceed 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)

Susan Boyle Sings ‘Memory’. Worldwide Audience Not Likely To Forget (See Video)

In a few short weeks, this wonderful woman has arisen from the obscurity of her Scottish village, and gained the greatest number of ‘hits’ to YouTube. (This leaves out of account the vast number of accesses to her two songs April and May 2009) at other well-known Websites.  All of us have so much to learn from the Susan Boyle phenomenon – one which goes far beyond her wonderful voice. It is a topic not about how to sing – but rather about not judging people by their appearance, and in taking her example of courage in the face of social forces that frequently cripple our beings both as victims and perpetrators.  That makes the heart sing, with the conscience playing the accompaniment. Therefore, I make an exception in referring to her work in a blog not directly related to the central issues of https://barrypittard.wordpress.com

Susan Boyle (Or: Nightingale About To Spread Its Wings)

Relating her example to a theme germane to the purpose of this blogsite, I wrote at some length about Susan Boyle in my article:

Susan Boyle. Unexpected Divine Chanteuse. Sweet 47

Will We Change Our Ways?

Of course, one swallow – or, in this case, nightingale – does not make a Spring, and our lesson may not be well enough learnt. Is our judgemental eye-rolling done with? Have we – in relation to what public images of human beings are (allegedly!) ‘acceptable’ – wrestled free from the dictates of Hollywood and Bollywood and the advertizing, fashion and entertainment industries? Supposing Susan Boyle had not been able to sing like an angel. Supposing we all continue judging people on their appearance. Or that we do not – in our families, social, educational, political and religious spheres of influence, workplaces, and so on, work to stop the inhumanity of judgementalness based on a person’s physical appearance, race, creed, culture and so forth. From my previous article on Susan Boyle, I copy at the foot of this article the lovely and most touching reaction of a young boy and girl to Ms Boyle’s first appearance on ‘Britain’s Got talent’.

Ms Boyle’s Performance of Yesterday

In the semi-final of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, though the Scottish nightingale’s first notes started unsteadily as she sang “Memory” from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ‘Cats‘, the massive audience around the world will forget the slight slips and remember the overall performance.

One of the three judges, Amanda Holdern (the others were (Simon Covell and Piers Morgan) was mistaken: Ma Boyle did not ‘nail’ the song. (How come, by the way, Covel is a judge when he has already declared the prime interest in managing Ms Boyle’s career?). There are real questions about her choice of song, and about whether she had thought through the ‘build’ of the song. She needed entire focus and self-possession in the first note of the song, which jumped off-key. What she showed, though, was the personable sweetness, the humanity, the  true grit and the ability to recover from a mistake that all serious performers require.

The fair question is – what great performer has not messed up a song, particularly at the beginning of their career? Ms Boyle is both ‘infant’ and ‘giant’ as a singer and will have to undergo, as she continues in her development, the same struggles with technique, focus, building the song, awareness of both self and song, control of nerves and so on that all artists have to pass through.  A nightingale she most certainly is, as millions of ‘hits’ on Youtube and elsewhere would attest. Only time will tell whether she is a great nightingale. Certainly, she has what countless ‘artists’ lack – being in touch with her authentic and essential self.

She will need to recover the extraordinary freshness, forthrightness and self-belief she showed throughout her first appearance, when she sang “I Dreamed A Dream” from ‘Les Miserables’.

Click  HERE to view and hear Susan Boyle singing ‘Memory’

Scottish Nightingale Alights Again

Here are the responses of two children to whose lovely responses on the Susan Boyle video segment I was privy, and wrote down verbatim straight after:

6-year old girl

Adult: Why did all the people laugh at the lady when she walked on stage?

Girl: Because she is fat they think she can’t sing, and they don’t want her to be on the stage.

Adult: Why did the people change their mind?

Girl: Because she sang so beautifully.

9 year old boy

Adult: What did you reckon about the lady?

Boy: She’s not scared. She didn’t care what the people thought, she walked fastly and stood straight.

The Divine Ms Boyle. Coming World, Ready Or Not.  Source: YouTube. April 2009. To view the video that the world is viewing, click on photo

Sai Baba Internet Man’s Attacks Based On Age and Physical Appearance

I referred to the wonderful Scottish songstress Susan Boyle in my article:  Susan Boyle. Unexpected Divine Chanteuse. Sweet 47. Posted by Barry Pittard on April 17, 2009. Many others, also deeply moved, have written of her – in the media, blogs and elsewhere. Her lovely example, as seen earlier that April on Britain’s Got Talent, challenges us all. 

Many have felt that Susan Boyle can teach us a lot about qualities of true grit. Her singing and courage against stereotyping grounded on age and appearance have swept much of the industrialised world. All of us have something to learn from her, including  Gerald Moreno, of New Mexico, USA, whom important members of the Sathya Sai Organization have encouraged and assisted.

His countless attacks upon former devotees who have spoken out include very nasty references to age and appearance.  For example, denigrating Robert Priddy, Brian Steel and myself and “septuagenarians” (which I do not yet for some time have the honor of being). Another of Sai Baba’s marked insistences is respect for elders, but Moreno’s indulges in slurs such as “senile” and “half senile” etc. He refuses to see that those who have pointed out Sai Baba’s marked physical and mental decline are not making ageist remarks. They are pointing out the failure of his own prediction that, after his sixtieth birthday he would not age physically. He has also said as recently as

The merest glance at his various sites on the Internet, including his ‘Sathya Sai Baba – Life, Love & Spirituality’ show that his preoccupations are far from Sathya Sai Baba’s teachings. One of Sai Baba’s best known sayings is: Help ever. Hurt never. Moreno even intrudes into the lives and attacks those whom he thinks – based on his typically poor logic and tendency to leap to ‘worst-case’ conclusions  – are connected with the exposure of the idol for whom he has such a profound fixation. One whose teachings, moreover, stress the importance of not getting attached to the person of the guru. Practically all of Moreno’s vast output is bent on stereotyping and depersonalizing people. One result is that he demeans himself and the loving person he could be. Truth is what Moreno wants it to be.  To see the Moreno’s photo-tooling grotesqueries is to be able to determine at a glance whether this conduct exemplifies ‘love and spirituality’:

Sathya Sai Baba Man Joe Moreno’s Diabolizing Photo Alterations of Sai Baba Critics

Sathya Sai Baba Man Gerald Moreno’s Photo Attack On Robert Priddy

Who better than Susan Boyle to refer to as someone that many readers can relate to? Despite Sai Baba and his machine’s propaganda, most of the world does NOT know who he is. But vast numbers, at least in the West, and in an extraordinarily quick time, DO know who Susan Boyle is.  At the end of the first section in my article, I put this note: 

NOTE:  Those who came to this blog in regard to Susan Boyle may like now simply to go down to the section highlighted in green

Further Reading

Sathya Sai Baba Man Gerald Moreno – Banned By Eight Wikpedia Editors

Sai Baba Hatchet Man Picks On A Young Child

Joe Moreno – massive internet abuse

Sathya Sai Baba Apologist Joe Moreno’s Random Personal Attack Style (1)

Independent British scholar and author of books on philosphy and religion Kevin Shepherd on Gerald Moreno 

 Sathya Sai Baba: problems

Part Two: Profile of Gerald (Joe) Moreno and the Testimonies to strongly alleged sexual abuse by Sathya Sai Baba

See Part three on the same webpage as this last link:  ‘Part Three: Wikipedia, the rival Citizendium, and the Wikipedia ban on Gerald (Joe) Moreno’.

Susan Boyle. Unexpected Divine Chanteuse. Sweet 47.

‘Full many a gem of purest ray serene’ …

Divine British Nightingale Susan Boyle. Sweet 47. ‘Never been Kissed’ (Though Ms Boyle, given to country humour, said later that this was a joke’)

Judgementalism on the grounds of a person’s body shape, place of origin, social status, and so on, is, course, one of humanity’s most destructive tendencies. Is there a profound lesson to be learnt by every one of us? In a few moments, I shall come to the wondrous Susan Boyle, from a small village in West Lothian, Scotland, U.K., whose triumphant performance on ITV1 in UK in April 2009 would, I should think, make many of you weep freely and give her a standing ovation in your heart. May already have done so, because she has now been heard by tens of millions of people around the world.

Ms Boyle’s story inescapably reminded me of the lines of the English poet, Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

Thomas Gray. A Favourite English Poet

in his poem ‘Elegy written in a Country Churchyard’:

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

And I thought, too, of the stark lines in Leonard Cohen’s song ‘Chelsea Hotel’:

Leonard Cohen. Ever Loved Singer-Songwriter

“for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music”.

Some lines of Ms Boyle’s song – ‘I had a dream’ from Les Miserables – English lyrics by

Herbert Kretzmer, Lyricist

– deepen yet futher such a theme and its resonance for us:

“But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame”

I shall come to Ms Boyle in few moments. Her moments will last forever …

NOTE:  Those who came to this blog in regard to Susan Boyle may like now simply to go down to the section highlighted in green

Judgementalism and Discrimination

Scarcely hours before I had the beatific priviledge of viewing the Susan Boyle footage, I had been musing on the topic of judgementalism on the grounds of (supposed) physical appearance.

Gerald Moreno – allied with key individuals close to Sathya Sai Baba – e.g., the saibabaofindia.com consortium – and involved in extreme defaming one after another of many around the world who have called for proper third party investigation, and raised terribly serious questions about Sai Baba and core leaders of his worldwide Sathya Sai Organization, has this to say:

“Let us see if Barry Pittard looks any better than Sathya Sai Baba does (according to one email source, his face is heavily and deeply wrinkled, his head is mostly bald and he is physically unattractive). Barry Pittard also collects a disability pension (the details of which are fanatically guarded secrets) and shows all the signs of old age. Despite this fact, Barry Pittard hypocritically points out faults in a much younger-looking Sai Baba! Barry Pittard sounds more intent on revenge & ridicule than he does on “justice”.

This piece of high spiritual felicity appears on Gerald Moreno’s ‘Sathya Sai Baba – Life, Love & Spirituality’  blog, which fairly bursts with content that surely no genuine Sai Baba follower could ever regard as embodying Sai Baba’s teachings on life, love and spirituality whatsoever.

Barry Pittard, of course, does not – as does Sathya Sai Baba – claim that he will not age or that he is, and will forever be, the fullest incarnation of God to appear on the earth. Or that he will save the entire the world before he dies circa 2022.

Strangely, Moreno published a photograph which he most mistakenly claimed to be of me with my son, whom he disgracefully named. This action, he has continued, with his customary spurious logic of a sort that will long continue to mar his work, to justify. The photo was in fact of her model! There is not a wrinkle to be seen, not a luxuriant hair out of place. He carries some other child not known to me.

Moreno set up a series of stratagems to divert business away from the company which she, with great courage, integrity and hard work has built up. He justified his misconduct by arguing from dates that he has entirely misinterpreted. It is his typical practice. Take a fact, or alleged fact, and spin it with hostile intent.

But can Moreno, at all, be referring to the fine creature I see before me in my never-cracking mirror each morning? Might this gentle critic have got me mixed up with the Elephant Man?

Sathya Sai Baba Has Said That He Will Not Age After His Sixtieth Birthday

But of course, pointing to Sai Baba’s present physical condition is entirely proper comment. It is known to many devotees and former devotees alike that he said that, after his 60th birthday, he would not age. It is but one of his many unfulfilled prophecies – impossible for Moreno or anyone to refute. See:

When Disasters Overtake S. Sai Baba’s Promises

Behold Gerald Joe Moreno’s Ageless Idol

…  the “much younger-looking Sai Baba”

“Usually old people have wrinkles on their faces … I do not have any signs of old age. (loud applause). There is not a single wrinkle on My face”. Sanathana Sarathi, October, 2002.

Usually, elderly people don’t have their hair dyed, either, but go along with nature’s inevitable processes.

Sathya Sai Baba Video. Too Weak To Cut Birthday Cake

Sathya Sai Baba Continues To Ail

Sathya Sai Baba’s Tips To Keep Ageing Away.

The Magnificent Susan Boyle

Now to Susan Boyle, the British television video of whom will, I think, give you some wonderful moments of genuine life, love and spirituality. I rather suspect some will want to download the footage and keep it as a treasure. There are some versions on the Internet which do not include the extra minutes. But the off-stage moments, the many revealing shots of the audience and judges AND her singing of  ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ from Les Miserables are all to be savoured in the YouTube version, see below. No doubt many parents and teachers will use it in educating their charges on the issue of judgements and stereotypes. Not too much use doing that unless we educate ourselves, first.

A Cry For Blood Is Not A Far Cry Away From A Cry From The Heart

And then to drive the question, first, to ourselves and then to our societies: What supposing Ms Boyle had not triumphed in her song?! Are we some frenzied mob at the athenaeum-bear pit-meatmarket? Are we forever to cooperate with the forces that only allow ‘glamorous’ figures and faces to appear on stage and in videos and movies?

“I’m going to make that audience rock”.

Did you ever see a standing ovation like this one? Was there anything that did not tell against her?

Unless it was her cheeky and absolutely justified self-confidence. With her radiant naturalness and marvelous self-purpose, seconds before going on stage, the Divine Ms Boyle says, “I’m going to make that audience rock”.  At first, the audience and the judges barely prevented themselves from falling over.

Wave on wave of scorn, disbelief, judgementalism, ageism and cynicism crashed towards her. For no better reason than the profound brainwashing of all of us by the movie, fashion and advertizing industries and other forces of human immaturity and oppression.

There were her age, her bodyshape, her dress sense (or lack of it), her … um … primal hairdo, her el cheapo neck chain, her humble village origins. Her whole self, as she purposely strode onto the stage, stood against the stereotype of success, whether on stage or in (so-called) ‘real life’ at large. Moments before going on-stage she even grabbed a bit of a sandwich – white bread and all!

In the video, note audience’s and judges’ air of barely concealed cynicism, disbelief, patronisation, and judgementalism. And then, from the first moments of her opening her mouth to sing – the powerful wave of change … Or rather, of transformation. Our transformation. She is already transformed, having duteously served her sick mother over the years, and became love in the village which, too, gave her life.

All mockers are confronted by their good angel. Dressed like it is thought that angels don’t dress.

Judging and Self-judging

In the moments after Susan Boyle has sung in her crowning triumph, the judges – Amanda Holden, Simon Cowell, and Piers Morgan – variously make comments such as:

“We were all being very cynical. That was the greatest wake-up call – ever!”

“Without a doubt, this is the biggest surprise I have had in the three years of doing this show”.

“The biggest ‘Yes’ I have given anybody”

Widetrends reports:  “Susan Boyle is also being lined up for an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show which would give her the chance of a number one album in the US”.

Here are the responses of two children to whose lovely responses on the Susan Boyles video segment I was privy, and wrote down verbatim straight after:

6-year old girl

Adult: Why did all the people laugh at the lady when she walked on stage?

Girl: Because she is fat they think she can’t sing, and they don’t want her to be on the stage.

Adult: Why did the people change their mind?

Girl: Because she sang so beautifully.

9 year old boy

Adult: What did you reckon about the lady?

Boy: She’s not scared. She didn’t care what the people thought, she walked fastly and stood straight.

The Divine Ms Boyle. Coming World, Ready Or Not

Source: YouTube. 2009. To view, click on photo

………………………………………………………………

General

Excerpt From Public Petition

(Note: The above articles contextualizes. Or you may prefer to proceed 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)