"We should help even those who have harmed us. This is the vow of Sai. No matter if some people criticise or ridicule Me, I will always look at them with kindness." (Sanathana Sarathi June 2002, p. 166). Sai Baba now admits that, "There are many who are hostile towards Me. Many ridicule or criticise Me." (ibid, p. 168.)
[Note that the 'Me' in the above is always with a big 'M', as per usual! As in 'Me and Mine'!]

Can anyone be sure that Sathya Sai Baba's words about his kindness were not rather empty - for once again he advised what can often prove a form of deception, "You cannot always oblige, but you can always speak obligingly". This quite simply also means to pretend that one is obliging when one is not! He claimed nonetheless of his critics that he will always "look on them with kindness" [not that his critics any longer actually cared one bit what he thought of them]. At the same time, he clearly took pleasure in pointing out how much his critics will suffer, saying they were without any spark of divinity and that they will have to suffer through many reincarnations. One of his spurious warnings, obviously directed at any critics of himself, is "Hurting someone who has helped you will result in losing your eyesight". Not only is this a sheer non-factual absurdity, but the context made it clear that he was implying that critics were actually hurting him, even though he later said, "none of it will reach me". But much of it did get to him most certainly, rousing him into making awful threats against his critics in his angry, infamous Christmas Day Discourse of 2000. He called his accusers Judases and demons! (Sathya Sai Baba believes in demons, as well as literally in 14-feet high men like Rama, as he told his deluded US acolyte, Dr. John Hislop!) Such unforgiving talk from this self-promoting 'God the Father' on the birthday of the all-forgiving Jesus Christ! Was this conscious insult to Christians or mere ignorance of their creed? Forgiveness is not a concept that finds much expression, if any, in the traditional Indian spiritual value system as far as I can discover. We see how Krishna was for war and blood at Kurukshetra.

So Sathya Sai Baba continues to speak with two tongues, and even within one and the same discourse. This is not so surprising from a dual entity with a Janus-faced personality - a person who may seem divine but is also 'very human' (Kasturi's remark) with all kinds of failings (admitted by many close servitors). Typically, Sai Baba often stated on fresh occasions the complete contrary of many of his own earlier statements. He told all of us that the whole of humanity working together could never understand him. He has been understood sufficiently, however, to be charged by young men to be a sexual molester, as well as of young boys. Aperson whose oft-reputed unmastered lust makes him much more like Ravana than a Rama, believe what one will.

Incidentally, I do not set out simply to 'ridicule' Sathya Sai Baba - unless that be pointing out what is already ridiculous of itself - though I am certainly criticising him. I am truly only pointing out his self-contradictions, the many discrepancies between his words his actions and his actual observable and widely reported behaviour. The fact is, Sathya Sai Baba talked so exaggeratedly and acted so otherwise in so many things, that he came across as ridiculous (to those who are not totally indoctrinated with his excuses and deceptions about everything wrong he did or said). Rather than follow the totally impracticble 'see only good, hear only good, speak only goodl' I comment critically on all the secrecy and cover-up surrounding much of what he does, and the consequences it all has or can have for truth, good people and social justice. If my deepest conscience did not demand of me to do this difficult service, I would be only to happy to desist. Moreover, I exert considerable constant effort to write nothing that is untruthful or unconsidered about Sai Baba.

GRATITUDE FOR WHAT AND TO WHOM?
"Ever be grateful even for a small help. Do not be ungrateful. Ingratitude is utter cruelty." (ibid p. 166-7).

One must ask what is wrong with Sathya Sai Baba's sense of proportion (or control of his tongue's excessive pronouncements)? "Ingratitude is utter cruelty." Grateful as I was for some things in which Sathya Sai Baba has apparently helped me (though it may be mostly my own imagination and self-recovery), I cannot but help think that – had I his opportunities - I would help everyone with the greatest pleasure. What does it cost to do his leelas and miracles? His time, his energy… but what kind of a sacrifice does this really involve, one can but ask? It is sometimes difficult indeed – frankly quite pointless or even evil-minded – to be grateful for much of what happens to people (all presumable by Sathya Sai Baba's will, if one believes him?) Meanwhile, it is quite possible to have some gratitude to Sathya Sai Baba for some things he has or may have done, if we have proof of it, and at the same time require accountability from him for other things we have discovered about him since then. To be grateful for some things does not mean that one should have to give the helper a carte blanche to neglect justice and truth. To remain grateful everlastingly for some apparent favours does not remove the right to question the same person when on deceits and involvement in other harmful actions (like executions in his own apartment).

"See how much help Swami is giving to the poor and needy. It is all for their welfare. But some people are not at all realising the value and are not grateful for it." (ibid p. 166). How can one who boasts that he owns nothing, give anything other than time and interest? The overwhelmingly main body of all so-called Sathya Sai projects were carried out by his well-meaning followers and believers in him, not by him as such. But he has to boast and rub it in again and again. Why? Instead, he berates foreigners for giving indiscriminately, as follows (in original discourse, edited out of his own words published in his journal Sanathana Sarathi).

"Today all the foreigners are distributing money, distributing money, distributing money, and they are making the country of Bharath very low." This is yet another preposterous sweeping false statement about India by Sathya Sai Baba! If foreigners did not distribute money to him and his projects, he would have to boast about something else than any social achievements made in his name. In the discourse he also waffles on about someone who became the US President, but without naming him, Lincoln is evidently intended. But what he says about Lincoln's politics towards the black population demonstrates his very basic ignorance of the facts.

Further, I have not seen anywhere in his thousands of discourses - or any books about him - that Sathya Sai Baba has expressed his gratitude to anyone for the help he personally receives! As usual, Sathya Sai Baba claimed: "I do not accept anything from anyone" (p. 168). How can he really not receive ANYTHING, just like everyone else alive does? Did he grow and harvest his own produce (ragi and watermelons, coconuts, rice and wheat for chapattis etc.)? Did he make his own robes? (Or is the Emperor without clothes?). Did he make his own furniture, build his own rooms, decorate his own showy thrones or does he receive the hundred and one things necessary even to his subsistence from the labour of others? He remarked too, while telling how he totally ignored for three days a would-be donor to him of replacement cars (i.e. shining example of divine ingratitude?), stating that "I already have a sufficient number of cars" (p. 168). So HE does HAVE some! So how many does one man need? If everyone in the world followed his divine example with up to 5 cars per person, the atmosphere would likely soon kill everyone! Moreover, I have never heard of him saying 'thank you' to anyone for any favours received, and many he certainly does accept! In fact, he is provided with everything by others and never has had to lift a finger himself for many decades. Yet Sathya Sai Baba has the cheek to pretend he wants nothing, as follows: "Take My cars if you need them! I don’t like to travel in very big cars. However, they have sent them from foreign countries. After they send it, it is not possible to do anything else with them." How transparently deceitful can one talk ... he could have donated them all to hospitals or wherever needed, and get just one small one for himself!

Ah, some know-alls will say, 'you must understand that Swami is in everyone, in everything - he has countless hands, eyes...' and all that jazz. Don't we all, ultimately share in that unity since he insisted we are all nothing less than Atma, the Universal Spirit? Besides, is it not a weird and confused proposition... that this person Sathya Sai Baba is necessarily as much 'in' every victim and perpetrator of every evil deed as in everything else? He is physically-embodied who thus shows all the outward signs of being like many others, for better and for worse, with many self-expressed likes and dislikes, anger and sympathies, with a fairly typical village mentality in many things. Doesn't it seem far removed from the facts and from sane considerations for him tohave pretended he was not personally involved in anything he did? The answer is, evidently not... not to many unworldly, life-despising, liberation-yearning, unfulfilled, suffering or dissatisfied devotees who cling to this imagined saviour, who lets his closest devotees die in accidents (Mrs. Sinclair, students in car accidents) suicides (numerous), murders (not least in his bedroom), with great physical sufferings (eg., Kasturi, Narasimhan) and with his earlier promise of liberation withdrawn (Dr. John Hislop).

His claim of omnipresence has nothing whatever to do with questions like gratitude, possessions, kindness towards critics on which Sathya Sai Baba propounded. For, if we are really to take the advaitic view at all seriously - that all are indistinguishably one with Divinity - then who is to feel grateful to whom? Why does Sathya Sai Baba need gratitude so badly himself, and accept it on as huge a scale as he can?

Return to main page