Notes
on the above showing that Sai Baba has lent substance to some points in published
talks:-
Point 30. about India
being 'ruled by Baba's students' partly accords with what Sathya Sai Baba predicted
to Dr. John Hislop about his students in 1968 as transcribed in 'Conversations
with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba...' (p. 39 old edition, p. 47 new edition), where
Sai Baba claims his students will bring about a "great change in the Indian
nation" within ten years (which meant by 1978). So far this prediction
is certainly totally unfulfilled.
The lifting a mountain
range was predicted by SB in one of his published public discourses
(p.92 in Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 3 new 1990s edition). In the former
edition, p. 25 in Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 3 - more correctly,
he claimed he would lift two mountain ranges. This is, of course, a
kind of re-enactment of the Krishna myth in which he supposedly lifted
up with one hand the Govardhana mountain to shelter devotees under it
from a deluge. It is truly amazing... i.e. what grown-up people will
credit!
The allegedly "all-knowing" Sathya Sai Baba let this scaremongering continue
to spread unchecked until faced with a pending crisis in the Sai movement.
The rumours were so rife and widely reckoned to contain some truth that
leaders of the Sai movement and Organisation were repeatedly questioned
about them, but could neither confirm nor unconfirm them. Peggy Mason informed
that she was phoned up from around the world by disturbed followers (often
neglecting time zones and waking them in the mid of night). Around Christmas
1991, Sai Baba responded with denials of the rumours to worried questioning from
a series of top foreign Sai Org. officials, including Michael Goldstein,
Robert Bozzani and Bernhard Gruber. The concern and anxiety did not die
down even then, and so Sathya Sai Baba made a public denial in his Shivarathri discourse
in 1991, where he massively berated the 'rumour-mongers' in quite threatening
terms. This was a great relief to some leaders in the Sai Org., for at last
they were able to refute the rumours.
However, in addition to the 27 and/or 38 predictions, a number of reports
tell of Sathya Sai Baba allegedly materialising maps and sometimes a globe in interviews,
showing how the world would look after a global catastrophe. These tend
to back up the likelihood of Sathya Sai Baba having actually made the predictions, despite
his last ditch denials made more than a decade later. In the late '80s,
rumours were circulated (and reached me) of a Hungarian group that had been
shown such a globe in an interview. Allegedly, much of the known world had
disappeared and little remained of Western Europe but for England isolatedly
in the Atlantic ocean. A Danish friend knew the Hungarian man who reported
this, but it was impossible to trace him again. I made various attempts
to identify and question this group, including one through Mr. Lucas Ralli
(then the UK Central Coordinator who was receiving many questions about
this). Ralli knew well the leaders of the Sai centre in Budapest, but they
could not confirm anything to him. However, Mr. Bernhard Gruber of Germany,
then Central Coordinator for Europe, told the European leaders' group (Easter
1991, where I was present and heard him at Sai House, Divignano, Italy)
that he had at a recent interview asked SB about the disaster predictions
from the Hungarian source. Sai Baba had told him there was no substance in it.
Then he asked whether Sathya Sai Baba had produced the globe in an interview, to which
he said Sathya Sai Baba replied as if affirmatively, then adding the following exact
words "...it is not ready yet". No more could Gruber ascertain
than that!
Further, at that time, I knew an American lady, Mrs. Marge Hendel,
who assured me that a Californian family she knew had been given by Sathya Sai Baba
in an interview a map of the future post-catastrophe world (which in fact
agreed on several major features with the above predictions), which she
claimed to have seen herself. She said the family had rejected Sathya Sai Baba and so
had eventually thrown the map away. Similar reports of maps and predictions
by Sathya Sai Baba in interviews are found in some of the writings of devotees in the
ever-growing hagiography by amateur writers on Sathya Sai Baba.
The once-prominent US devotee, Al Drucker who held lectures for foreigners
in Prashanthi Nilayam in 1984/5, stated that he had been present at Ootacamund
teaching a class of boys when SB entered the classroom and began to tell
them stories about his childhood and youth. Then Drucker, who had sat at
the back of the room, told how Sathya Sai Baba 'materialised' a kind of metal globe
and sent it around for examination, saying that the names of 18 students
who would run the 18 states of India at some future date were inscribed
on it. The boys produced a magnifying glass to try to study the characters
on the object, but Sathya Sai Baba became thunderously angry and told them they should
concentrate instead on him, the avatar, in whose presence they were so fortunate
to be. He then took the globe-like object and threw it into the corner of
the room, where Drucker said it could not be found later on. Believe what
one can of all this... but the account itself is at least further evidence
that Sathya Sai Baba indeed HAS made these kinds of predictions.
Most of the 38 points of the above predictions seem to be a hodge-podge
concocted partly of borrowings from prophesies by various known soothsayers,
including the alleged US clairvoyant Edgar Cayce (eg. as to the sinking
of continental masses and a time of excessive overheating of the earth).
Apropos, none of Cayce's predictions have so far come true. Some are proven
false already, for he predicted that Bermuda would sink beneath the waves
before 1950!). Whether or not Sathya Sai Baba really made these predictions, despite
his vehement but very belated denial (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol 24 - p 37f)
is not really so important. Firstly, there is already enough evidence to
show that he denies what he has has predicted in private and tells untruths
as it suits him. Secondly, he did not lift a finger to quell the massive
unease among many devotees for many years... which shows that he does not
care or that he is far from omniscient... but most likely both at once!
The incident with the 18 students above is doubtless the same as referred
to by Ra. Ganapati in his semi-official biography of Sathya Sai Baba Baba: Sathya
Sai Vol II - page 85) where he wrote:
His college students had the privilege to see
another unique creation in the Ootacamund Summer Course in June 1976.
Svami, who declared that He would live to see ninety six years in this
body, mentioned that eighteen important institutions would be established
by Him all over India in the remaining forty six years, and circled
His hand.
Immediately there appeared in His hand a big medal with the map of India
engraved. There were inscribed therein the eighteen institutions that
are to appear in the next near-half-century. Not only that, the medal
also carried the important 'achievements-to-be' of Svami in the future,
in microscopic Devanagiri characters in the Samskrit language." |
The discrepancies between this account and that of Al Drucker, who told
a group of us in the Prashanthi lecture room in January 1985 that he was
the only adult present to that incident, are considerable. This is just
typical of the highly varying accounts and rumours that fly about every
incident due to the secretive Sathya Sai Baba and his staff. Drucker had remained behind
after the Summer Course to be with some students, and it was then that Sathya Sai Baba
- who was believed to have left Ootacamund - came into the room without
warning.
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