Full publicity by Sathya Sai Baba about 'His' good works

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On 11/8/2001, Sathya Sai Baba (SSB) held a discourse (published in Sanathana Sarathi, September 2001) where he detailed the running costs of the two hospitals, the colleges etc. and how much investment is needed to cover these. This sum - amounting to the interest from 600 crores of rupees (about $150 mill), is perhaps surprisingly little. Half the interest goes to the Bangalore hospital, 2/6th to the Puttaparthi hospital and 1/6th to all the educational institutions together. Sai Baba asks rhetorically, "Wherefrom does it all come?" And adds so self-deprecatingly, "However, I am giving it" (p. 264). Does Sai Baba himself have any money to give, then?

In a discourse, Sai Baba announced that he had received news that 600 crores of rupees (ca. $150 mill.) from a person in the US with whom he had no direct contact. This covered all expenses then incurred, so what about the other massive donations, often $100 million and more that have even been announced now and again? The kind of figures Hari Sampath worked out as an estimate of the entire Sai holdings to be at least $45 billion - though appearing to be done in a quite rational way- seems too incredible as a ‘conservative estimate’. However, since all information everything about the Sai empire, including the secrets of its vast wealth and the many sources from which it comes, is protected by the courts and government, one certainly wonders where it all goes! Speaking of 12,000 heart operations performed at the Puttaparthi hospital, he boasts, "I leave it to your imagination to appreciate who is responsible for saving so many lives." (p. 262)

Could he mean the donors, the doctors, all the selfless hospital workers? If he is saying it is all his miraculous aid, then why does he bother with the hospitals? Ah, yes! who can fathom Sai Baba, beyond all sense and reason! But it is striking how Sai Baba in discourse after discourse publicises and praises himself in a way which one will be hard put to find elsewhere. He goes on, for the n`th time, "I have no personal desires or selfishness in Me at all. I have not asked anybody for help. Will anybody simply give hundreds of crores for the mere asking? None."

Does Sai Baba - who says he knows everything - not even know that there have been thousands of huge benefactors of mankind who have not been asked, and who have behaved with modesty - giving full credit to all those involved without whom their part would not have been possible? Examples are rife: Robert Owen, Washington Carver, Carnegie, Henry Ford, Rockefeller, Guggenheim, Peabody, Getty, Imran Khan, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. Why would an avatar need to harp on continually about his own excellence, hardly ever mentioning all the others who contribute selflessly in various ways? There were often 'ordinary unenlightened' people (eg. Bob Geldoff) leading big charitable projects or relief work without making any such fuss about themselves.

While on the subject, when money donors to the water project were publicly named and thanked on Baba's 70th birthday, the list included only those who had given over a very high amount (1 crore of rupees), without mention of any or all others who were not so rich but had also contributed. Along with his self-praise comes repeated talk of his supposedly being unaffected by praise or blame! "All that I do has a great ideal for humanity." Does this include his having stood by without lifting a finger while his officials persuaded the police to shoot young men armed only with knives in cold blood? But, though he would not answer any questions the press put to him about this, he says, "There is nothing hidden in My actions". Nothing could be further from the truth, as anyone who has tried to find out what Sai Baba is really up behind the scenes and the layers of security and protection will know without a shred of doubt! (p. 266)

Public works done with full publicity: All publicity about the service works of the various Sathya Sai organisations or institutions is specifically formulated so as to try to enhance his name and fame. This reveals the sheer hypocrisy of Sathya Sai Baba in instructing all followers to 'Give Help Without Publicity' (because he says one should not do service to impress (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 28, p. 341) and he also deplores "the egoism and poisons the Seva of even veterans in the field, who go about extolling themselves as founders and promoters" (p.97). This is exactly what he does constantly!

His hospital in Puttaparthi, about which he has spoken in the most glowing terms on many occasions, has been publicized for all it is worth in every video allowed by the Sai authorities for years. One is left without a shred of doubt as to who is the benefactor, for huge God-sized portraits of Sai Baba are seen everywhere and the commentaries drip with condensed sugar water when mentioning him. (The US owner of Hard Rock Café, Isaac Tigrett - whose donation made it all possible, is now not mentioned officially. Doubtless due to the intense jealousy he has described from Indian Sai officials when he was put in charge of hospital planning by Sai Baba, Tigrett's name has even been completely removed from the reprinted discourses in the Sathya Sai Speaks series, though his name was included when they were published in Sanathana Sarathi).

If there should be no publicity, why do so many officially blessed and widely advertised Sai videos contain long sequences of Sai Baba feeding the poor, marrying off poor people, giving away hand-driven tricycles to the handicapped and sewing machines to women. (The Sai-propaganda video 'Song of Service' is one example and another such is the film 'Sai Baba as in a mirror'). These are sold world-wide and, from the central leadership, efforts are urged from devotees to bring such public works to the attention of broadcasters and the media.

In 2001, the Sai Central Trust took a double page spread in a Bangalore newspaper to promote the Sathya Sai Speciality Hospital there. (The hospital was not even mentioned editorially, however). Sai Baba's teaching that service (seva) is of no spiritual value if it seeks the limelight just does not fit with such publicity. In Jnana Vahini, Sai Baba criticises "self-aggrandisement; when self holds sway over the heart, no deed worthy to be styled Service can emanate." (p.34). So what about Sai Baba's self-aggrandisement?

Compare the unlimited self-centeredness of what Sai Baba calls 'My' water projects and his repeated detailing of how 'He' did it with, say, Bob Geldof's world-famous Food for Ethiopia projects and his praise of all the donors and taking no credit other than 'it was my good luck to be there at the right time and place'! Does it become 'The' God avatar constantly to put himself on a mighty pedestal and take all the credit for everything good, while denying any of his demonstrable ---failings?

Sathya Sai's continued declarations and clear directives insist that the Sathya Sai Organization is not to seek publicity other than through the example of the good behaviour and selfless work done by the devotees who are its members. He has time and again insisted that any kind of self-advertising is entirely foreign to the true spirit of selfless service. He repeated this in 1999 “Sathya Sai Organization abhors campaigns and advertisements. It does not function for the sake of advertisement. It is only Love that should bind us as one. It is our service activity that will broadcast our ideals, not advertisements.” (from Sai Baba’s 1999 Yugadi Discourse).

Despite Sai Baba's words, Sathya Sai Organization (SSO) leaders exert increasing pressure on members to contribute to spreading news of the SSO via the media. That true service of mankind is a private concern between oneself and God is evidently no longer to be much observed.

For example, photos of service work are frequently called for to mount exhibitions at the ashram for various festivals and conferences, or travelling showpieces of the Sai Organizations's work! In 2000, each country was instructed by the leaders of the International Sathya Sai Organization to “take action to project awareness” of Sai Baba by organising publication of articles, special supplements in the local press, talks, shows on local TV etc., in which Sai Baba’s service activity and his contributions to society were to be prominent.

Perhaps one should not be surprised at the Sathya Sai Organization, for they are but following Sai’s actual example (See more documentation here) ! In discourse after discourse, however, Sai himself praises to the skies the various projects for which bear his name (schools, colleges, hospitals, water scheme etc.), saying that no one does one thousandth of what he does and there is nothing like his free schools & hospitals anywhere else in the world! In his demonstrated ignorance of Western society, welfare state education and health, or of the world’s many charitable non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) and voluntary organisations, he claims that his projects are unique in human experience because they offer free education and free health services! Clearly, he follows a different ideal of publicity to what he preaches.