Shri Sathya Sai Baba and His Detractors

If you have seen my other web page on the World Organization you will already know that I believe that Shri Sathya Sai Baba is a major Avatar living in the world today. He may also be the most spiritual and powerful Avatar ever to descend on earth.

His teachings are simple. His motto is universal - Love All, Serve All. His religious practices are primarily Hindu. However, he preaches the unity of all faiths, mainly - Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Zoroastrianism. There is nothing in his message that any reasonable person could find fault with. I have been to his Ashram in India several times, but I have never been asked to donate a cent. The stay in Ashram by US standards, though austere, is dirt cheap. Even by Indian standards, the Ashram is cheap and the facilities are excellent. He has millions of devotees, some say over 25 million. This is not that hard to believe, several thousand come for His Darshan every day of the year. He counts among his devotees several prime ministers, presidents, supreme court justices, royalty, industrialists, billionaires, professors, scientists, doctors and also people from probably every country in world (maybe with the exception of closed places like North Korea). His organization is massive with many major donors and vast charitable and educational activities. He is credited with performing many miracles. His trademark miracle is the frequent production of vibhuti with a wave of His hands, seemingly out of air. He then distributes it to the people at darshan. At special occasions, he has been known to produce huge mounds of this vibhuti out of a fairly small vessel. (By the way, this magical vibhuti does taste a bit out of the world, at least to me and I have tried vibhuti from lots of places.) There are several places in the world where pictures of him in the houses of his devotees, are covered by vibhuti which appears magically out of thin air. I never did pay that much attention to stories of his miracles. The profound effect that His Darshan has on me (I can feel it in my forehead), is enough to convince me of his authenticity. At the time of darshan, he often calls on some of the devotees in the audience to meet him (in groups) for an in-person interview. He frequently presents these interviewees with trinkets like rings, necklaces, watches (again apparently created out of thin air). Sometimes he asks one of persons (usually a man) in the group for a private interview. At these he has been known to rub vibhuti or oil on one or more of the person's chakras (not to women though), usually the lower chakras, but also sometimes the heart chakra.

With all this fame, money and mass following, Sai Baba naturally has his critics and his enemies, basically those who are desperately trying to destroy His reputation and His following. The internet is literally full of websites which accuse him of the most horrendous of actions from fake miracles, fake spirituality, inconsistent and incorrect philosophy, to financial fraud, involvement in murders, sexual abuse and then the clincher - the accusation that is guaranteed to destroy any person - pedophilia. What better way for the Dark Forces to destroy an Avatar than to spread such stories about it.

Now as an Avatar, I am sure Sai Baba can take care of Himself and knows exactly how to handle all these people and stories. In fact the accusations have been around for well over a decade, but his fame and following has been growing steadily all the time. So the point of this web page is not to defend him. He does not need my defense - actually the job of meticulously addressing every accusation against him, has already been done by Joe Moreno at his site. The point of this page is to list the different type of detractors Sai Baba has and try to understand their motives. (I must confess I have some difficulty understanding all these people so if you have any thoughts on it, please email me).

Just one thing I do want to mention, about the pedophilia charge - the youngest known accuser is sixteen years old (there maybe another younger one at 15, but he is an anonymous accuser and so easily faked), most of them are in their late twenties or thirties - Europeans who may easily be twice the size of Sai Baba (he has always weighed 108 lbs). These are definitely NOT children. Out of a following of 20 million or more, they number less than 30.

The various types of detractors are:

• Orthodox/Fundamentalist or Evangelical Christian Organizations
  The attempt by fundamentalist Christians to destroy any non-monotheistic religions is nothing new. This has been going on since St Xavier brought the Inquisition to India in 1560 to straighten out wayward Goans. It is apparent from the way many of these fundamentalists talk about Hinduism or Paganism, that they still wish the Inquisition was around. These days however they pretend to have a higher cause - they claim to be 'saving' innocent victims from being exploited by cults. Exposing dangerous cults is of course a legitimate activity. However, Sai Baba and his followers are less cultlike than most Christian churches. They do not proselytize, there is really no group that you are asked to join and if you decide to leave because of doubts, they are rather happy to see you leave.

  Among the evangelist christians, the main Sai Baba critic is Tal Brooke. He used to be Sai Baba disciple before he converted to Christianity through the assistance of missionaries in India. He regards the New Age as a 'Satanic Conspiracy' and anyone associated with it as tools of the devil. He also promotes Creationism/Intelligent Design and other favorite fundamentalist Christian issues.

  Another Christian with the largest Anti-Sai Baba site is Reinier van der Sandt. His site is advertised as the 'website of concerned former devotees'. However, I am not sure that Sandt was ever a devotee himself. This website tries not to be anti-Hindu or anti-New Age like Tal Brooke's organization. They prefer to make it appear that they maintain this site as a public service. The site has uncorroborated 'testimonies' of about twenty ex-devotees who claim to have been sexually abused (this out of a total of several million followers). The rest of the site is enormous with many articles, letters, claims of fraud etc, but does not contain anything very significant (the bit about 'murders' is just fanciful and silly. Those killed were actually victims of the trigger-happy Indian police). Apart from doing his best to discredit a non-Christian organization which may be gaining a world-wide following, I am not sure what his motive is. That he is just trying to save new victims from sexual abuse, merely out of the good of his heart, does not seem likely. Afterall, 20 or 30 accusers (most of them in their 30s) out of several million Sai Baba followers, is not that many. He would probably save more young boys from sexual abuse, by asking them to stay away from the Catholic church. If his motives were really that altruistic, there are many ways he could be helping young men looking for spiritual guidance - he just seems to be anxious to keep them away from non-Christian leaders like Sai Baba.

  Other large anti-Sai Baba websites are mostly copies of this one (with maybe a couple of new pages added). Whether they are run by the same person (RVS) or not is not clear.

• Professional Skeptics.
  Professional skeptics like James Randi make an excellent living in the US by giving lectures and by letting other people with the similar skeptical minds, hear what they want to hear. India has its own 'professional skeptics'. However, in India it is more difficult to make a living off of it. Many of the earlier members of the Rationalist Society of India were atheists who joined it because of their anger (very justified) at the treatment of low caste people by Hindus. These days there are self-appointed 'Guru-busters' like Besava Premananda who do not come from a low caste background but are very angry none the less. The very idea that someone makes claims about their own spiritual status or powers, makes these people very, very angry. If their citicism is indeed based on their 'rational' and 'scientific' way of evaluating spirituality, I don't really understand the reason for so much anger. They think ALL those who make ANY spiritual claims are fakes. The bigger the following a spiritual leader has, the more extreme their anger. And once they have decided on specific targets of their anger, they will go to any length to discredit them - some kidney transplant in a hospital is bungled and it is Sai Baba's fault, devotees are given gold trinkets and Sai Baba has violated the Gold Control Act (or the trinkets are too cheap), there is some alleged financial mishandling that is also Sai Baba fault (never mind that there are strict instructions about not asking for donations in the Sai movement) .

• Muckraking Journalists
  Journalism today, is not just about concentrating on sensationalist stories, but also about taking down the powerful and famous. With the kind of journalists we have today, John F Kennedy would have never become president, most journalists would have spent all their time writing about his womanizing. Martin Luther King would never have become a great civil rights leader, they would have filled the news channels with stories about his regular trysts. Mahatma Gandhi would have not have much credibility as a voice of freedom for the downtrodden and the exploited - they would have been too busy talking about his 'experiments'. So when Tanya Datta makes a BBC documentary on Sai Baba, guess what she thinks she should give the most time to? This is the same kind of journalism that would make a documentary assessing the entire eight-year Clinton presidency and spend most of the show's time on the Monica Lewinsky episode.

• People with Low Self-Esteem
  There are some people who have such low self-esteem that the only way they find value in themselves is by destroying or ridiculing someone else. If someone like Sai Baba claims to be super human, this exacerbates the low esteem of these people and they are even more eager to take him on. I believe Sanjay Dadlani is one such person. He is not scandalized or angry or self-righteous like the rest of the Sai critics - he just wants everyone to know how clever and funny he is. In a way he is easily the worst of the lot, because he is on a self-gratification trip. When his turn comes to be judged for his life on earth (if there is such a judgment day), Mr Dadlani will giggle and tell the judge (St Peter or Yama, I am not sure which) a joke, he will then be very upset if he does not get any laughs and then go around making fun of God for not having a sense of humor. This man is desperate for attention and he is getting it with his website about Sai Baba. But still he gets no respect, so he may do something else spectacular soon. Dadlani claims to be a former Sai devotee who decided to leave because of 'philosophical' differences. I am not sure if Dadlani understands philosophy (Indian or Western) - perhaps that is the reason he has not elaborated on these 'differences'.

• Mentally Deranged or Unstable People

  Most of the accusers themselves, either of sexual abuse or of some kind of fraud (no real miracle, only magic trick etc), don't seem mentally very stable to me. Doctors usually do not want to examine such people alone, because you never know what they will accuse the doctors of having done during the examination. They remind me of Cathy O'Brian who wrote a book claiming to have been a sex slave and having had sex with all the US presidents in recent years (including their wives). If Tanya Datta made a documentory on the US presidency, she probably would interview Cathy O'Brian first. The thing to realize is that Ms O'Brian can be quite convincing because she actually believes in her own story. Some of Sai Baba's accusers seem to be similarly deluded - but among several million devotees you would expect to find a few like that. If the target was not Sai Baba and there were not so many with vested interests in discrediting him, such people would usually be ignored.

Update (4/2011):

Extracted from another of my webpages: I have to report the sad news that Sathya Sai Baba died recently at the age of 85. This is really unfortunate for the world, since Avatars like Sai Baba, by incarnating in a physical form, anchor 'good' on the physical plane, reducing the influence of 'evil' or the Dark Forces on humanity. His early death is a bit confusing since Sai Baba had himself predicted that he would live till the age of 96 and leave his body in 2022. How can a divine being or Avatar be wrong or unable to fulfill his own prediction? I don't know the answer to this, but I can think of two possible explanations (both could be incorrect):

1. Sai Baba thought his work was accomplished and it was time to leave his body. However, I don't think this is true. The world needs him now more than ever.
2. Another explanation - Masters and Avatars like Sai Baba control events on the mental plane and higher planes. However, the physical and astral planes are a constant battleground between 'good' and 'evil' - between the Forces of Light and the Forces of Darkness. Perhaps the Forces of Darkness managed to somehow cause his illness and precipitate his early death. We may never learn the real explanation.

Puttaparthi was always like a second home to me, maybe even my main home. Though I did not know anyone there, Baba's presence in the town always made me feel welcome. The whole place had this atmosphere like you were practically inside Sai Baba's aura. I never actually talked with or met Sai Baba personally, but I will miss my visits to his aahram and to Puttaparthi (they were not that frequent because of the cost). I feel like an orphan now.

Update (12/2015):

A new phenomenon has been reported - the return of Sathya Sai Baba in the 'subtle' or astral body. B.N. Narasimha Murthy is the warden of the Sai Institute at Muddenhalli while Madhusudhan Naidu is a former student of the Institute. Sai Baba has been coming in Murthy's dreams and giving him instructions on what tasks he and the Sai organization needs to take in order to continue his mission. Sai Baba has also been appearing to Naidu, however Naidu can actually see and hear SaiBaba in his astral form while awake. These two are together continuing the philanthropic tasks of SaiBaba of opening new schools and hospitals. Naidu is even conducting darshan sessions with translated discourses very much like the ones taking place when SaiBaba was in his physical body. This has caused a grave schism in the Sai community with many calling the activities of these two persons, fraudulent and fake. For what it is worth, I believe the messages and visions received by the two are genuine and Sai Baba is indeed continuing his mission in the astral body because he died prematurely. If you are a devotee and have doubts about this phenomenon, my advice is that you just ignore it without indulging in the urge to denigrate or malign what you do not understand and can not accept. Apparently SaiBaba's plan is to continue his work in this manner for the next seven years until 2022 (as was his original plan).

Here is a mesage from Sai Baba especially for Americans: