Critical failings in Sathya Sai Baba's teachings
- MAJOR FLAWS AND FALLACIES -
by Robert
C. Priddy
(see also WIKIPEDIA
- ROBERT PRIDDY)
The main
problem is that the positive aspects of this 'teaching' are spoiled by
excessive moralism and fundamentalist ideology and further confused by
sheer primitive superstition and extraordinary ignorance of much established
physical science, history, and medicine. Aphorisms and vague platitudes
seduce people because you can hear in them almost any meaning you want.
They have something even for persons of conflicting beliefs and of opposed
and inimical viewpoints because they remains so vague and ambiguous, most
often what is publicised widely is at the level of the 'penny proverb'.
Sathya Sai Baba thrives on such vague and ambiguous 'catch-all teachings'
which are often therefore impracticable. He tells what everyone ought
to do or not do, how we best should live and behave for our own good and
that of all others in an over-generalised and hence ambiguous way. This
is further complicated by many and often striking contradictions between
what he has said at different times on almost every subject.
Traditional Hindu-based moralism
Sai Baba's
doctrine is mostly a simplified form of traditional Hindu moralism that
part of the culture rooted in traditional views on life, religion, society,
women, and science and also which is much rooted in scriptural mythology
and Indian legend - justifying itself from an imaginary semi-utopian 'Vedic'
past and highly improbable prophesied future events. His claims about
himself are very largely drawn from Indian mythology about avatars and
incredible legendary events, which also form the basis of his 'teachings'.
It is SO incredible, but also so attractive an idea to otherwise disillusioned
persons who are seeking hard for something to bring them spiritual benefits,
that some think it is not impossible, or could just be true, then even
perhaps likely considering all the documentation… and then the fatal
leap of faith is made. The equivalent to Sai Baba's schemes to save and
change humanity - which he puts across with great chutzpah and subtle
deception - would have their equivalent in the more ordinary world of
conmen who try to sell people the Eiffel Tower.
Charisma as the main draw card
Due to Sathya Sai Baba's undoubted charisma, ability to charm
and flatter (yet also to reject and 'punish') and his so-called psychic
powers of a genuinely hypnotic or manipulative nature (in addition to
many fraudulent 'manifestations'), his moralistic teaching is accepted
as infallible even by many for whom his account of man and nature are
not really believable, consistent or even understandable (which doubts
can only be mentioned in private). The teaching is apparently strengthened
if one can accept the explanation of its origin, on which it depends heavily…
that the teacher Sai Baba is God Almighty. According to this, he - qua
the Divinity - only ever does good and all ills are entirely the fault
of everyone else. In fact, one's delusions are only reinforced. Overall,
Sai Baba propounds a self-defeating teaching par excellence! Had his followers
been capable of any critical thinking and deeper study of his statements,
there would have been far fewer of them.
Practice predominates, theory and understanding stagnates
Though Sathya Sai Baba supports and repeats the
ancient Hindu strand of teaching about the divinity of everyone, deep study (and recommended practice) fails to make consistent sense out of it. He rejects any such study if it is intellectual (or critical) and insists oinstead only on 'spiritual practice'. He preaches that realisation of one's true (divine) nature is achieved primarily by constant prayer to God (really meaning himself, since he has declared he is the Deity of all Deities to whom all prayers eventually arrive). This requires endlesds [and preferably mindless!] repetition of his name,
constant worship and service to God [who is supposedly represented in each human being].which he has very willingly accepted for many decades]. All this 'spiritual practice' (sadhana) is designed to create a constant condition of self-denial and self-sacrifice keeping conscioussness only on God. This involves of course, negating all human desires, abasing oneself (before God, preferably Sai baba) and relinquishing all autonomy, freedom of choice and responsibility. Actually, this is a patent impossibility, but it does not stop him insisting and his devotees doing their best to believe and follow this prescription! The consequences for those who do best at it are often very pitiful to behold.
Religious 'cash and carry'?
His teaching as a whole is a catch-all web of ancient Indian though, religious sentiment, myth and supersitition. While also containing all variants of the six Indian
philosophies (watered-down and often mixed up with an unintelligible intermingling of dualistic,
monistic and vishtadvaitic perspectives) - plus some imported Christian values and ideas already well-known in India (eg. via Ramakrishna,
Yogananda and others) . The whole amounts to a grand hodge-podge
of conflicting elements and sweepingly vague directions. A kind of 'religious
cash-and-carry'. Yet because its horizons do not stretch more than a little beyond the Hindu-oriented
world view, it
fails signally to engage more than a tiny handful of semi-Muslims, Buddhists, Christians
etc. (Westerners are all classed as 'Christians' at Sathya Sai Baba ashrams - be they
Jews, Mormons, agnostics, disinterested... or whatever).
Non-worldly, anti-scientific and fallacious 'knowledge'
All this
is compounded by Sai Baba's flawed 'knowledge', that is, often incorrect
and unfounded historical and other nonfactual statements. He bases his
moral views on a rambling and inconsistent, weird 'ancient' account of
how everything is constituted... the make-up of the human being, the nature
of the cosmos and of the Divine reality or God - as the Universal Being
of Infinite Love and Consciousness ( embodied most fully in himself, according
to him). This teaching he calls 'Saience' in opposition to 'Science'!
Some of the many fads, simplistic fallacies and hidebound tranditional doctrines he has published are discussed in thes following articles:-
THE DOCTRINE AS SELF-PROGRAMMING FOR UNCRITICAL BELIEF
SAI BABA'S FALLACIOUS IDEAS ABOUT
NATURAL PHENOMENA AND SCIENCE FACT
AN EXAMINATION OF SOME SAI BABA
DISCOURSES AND TEXTS