The
problematical Charter's history
- some background and comments:
The original Charter, 'granted
to' the SSO by SB in 1981, was penned by Dr. S. Bhagavantam (famous for the possibly 'dharmic achievement' of making India's first atomic weapon) together with the ex-politician
and initiator/head of the so-called Sathya Sai Seva Organisations, Mr. Indulal
Shah. Sai Baba had accepted this, however, and it was printed for sale. That
first brief Charter was narrowly conceived in respect of any global, inter-cultural
relevance and was soon replaced with a longer version, which also evidently
was soon found too problematical as a basis for organisation work internationally,
being widely criticized by Westerners. It was unfortunately packaged in largely
unintelligible bureaucratic language, a kind of formal or pseudo-legalistic
jargon.
Around 1990, all countries were instructed to hold series of meetings
to discuss the Charter and send in their comments. Several committees
drawn from European countries worked on the final recommendations in 1991
at 'Mother Sai House' at Divignano near
Milan. Bernhard Gruber of Germany, the
excellent leader of the European region at that time, sent off those recommendations
- but in the end not one had any real effect on the final result (again
penned in its final form by the International Chairman, I. Shah, and eventually
accepted by Sai Baba). The new
The Charter has gone through some small changes since then - officially dividing
the SSO into two variants, one for the Eastern and one for Western hemispheres.
Later the SSO was re-divided into five world zones, which allows for a certain
amount of (unspecified) regional differentiation in actual practice because
five different leaders presumably interpret the Charter somewhat selectively
in respect of specific events according to the needs of their zones.
The Charter has repeatedly proven a stumbling block because of the
requirements it prescribed, including rituals that are largely impracticable
in Western countries or non-Hindu cultures. Therefore, it was - and still
is -frequently ignored in practice both centrally and locally as and when
leaders (or sufficient numbers of engaged ground-level members) see fit.
One example of this should suffice. In Prashanthi Nilayam at the time of its
world conferences, the SSO grants to any foreign visitor who happens to be
staying at the ashram as a member and country delegate, even those who are
merely boarding there for convenience and have never even been to a single darshan in their lives and never even find out that they are 'member
delegates'. Needless to say, this is wholly contrary to the rules for membership
in both Charters. It did not help matters in countries where qualification
as a member is no automatic right, but requires acquaintance with the practices
developed locally like active participation and other requirements for membership.
Locally, one often ignores other culturally unacceptable limits prescribed
by the Charter when inappropriate (e.g. Hindu rituals, stated membership criteria,
and various other rules). Such deviance from the paragraph is common to all
organisations, but the degree and nature vary. It is particularly relevant
in the SSO to examine certain common deviations from the rules as an expression
of problems or conflicts met in social and spiritual practice.
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