HIDDEN FEAR OF 'THE AVATAR'

Sathya Sai Baba's refusal to explain anything other than what pleases himself makes it difficult to have confidence in many of the statements he makes on whatever subject, quite apart from what concerns the 'unseen' world of spiritual realities. Sathya Sai Baba 's demand is that the devotee has implicit and wholly unquestioning trust in him, all his works and anything he utters. If it fails to make sense or is not in accordance with observable fact or other statements of his, this has to be put down to our human ignorance. It is therefore not entirely wrong to say we cannot properly understand him! He holds that virtually everyone alive today is ego-laden, sense-attached and impure who really knows nothing about anything! But we do know with demonstrable certainty that Sai Baba gets his facts wrong time and again, laughably so! And he was, by all appearances, unaware what a storm the world would raise against pedophilia, probably because it is common and yet is not talked about openly in the region where he grew up. A long-standing suspicion seems justified, namely that this kind of homosexual exploitation of boys in India is very widespread and is tacitly accepted in many segments of society- such as in backward parts like the Andhra Pradesh villages of the Puttaparthi region. This is the result of the wall-to-wall culture of repressive censorship against such sexual deviance in most of India.

It is evident that many close followers of Sai Baba hold him in awe, but - more than that - fear him personally. There is plenty of written evidence by followers showing this. And the murders of 1993 have increased this fear without any shadow of a doubt. The fear is seldom talked about but can at times be seen in faces of those often in contact with him. One can simply imagine the effect on those under his control, especially his students. Sathya Sai Baba has told that his close servitors have three chances of obeying him when he tells them something. If not, terrible consequences can follow. As in the case of Baba's driver for two decades, who burned himself to death in the Hillview Stadium after failing to follow Sathya Sai Baba 's warning to drive more slowly! One does not have to circulate for long among Sai devotees to know the general paranoia or come across the aura of unexpressed fear around questions of what one can and cannot say and do.

Sathay Sai Baba's imperious and down-looking attitude does not exactly make for a feeling of overflowing divine acceptance and love, which he is always talking about as being his entire nature etc. He can smile and be charming, but love is shown only in action. What does he mostly do? Stroll about looking distant and often as strict as a headmaster who will never abide to be gainsaid or crossed in the least way? This is a manner which invites private anxiety and even fear. He certainly sets up considerable barriers to knowing him and so also to loving him, for how can anyone love what they do not know? This feeling is not confined to relatively peripheral persons such as I, for it is quite evident at times even between Baba and some of his most trusted office-bearers. I heard from Prof. N. Kasturi's own lips the account of how Sathya Sai Baba - without any provocation - scared the wits out of him with a raging lion-like expression, after which he ignored him totally for a long period. When Kasturi finally was able to ask him what he had done wrong, Sai Baba told him he had granted interviews to persons who clamoured to have private meetings with him when on a tour... but the 'interviews' were prearranged by others who were hosting Kasturi, so he felt he had to comply. Sathya Sai Baba's aim was almost certainly to ensure that he could keep him in line by cowing him totally, it certainly appears. This he is known to do through rejection, disdapproval, anger and threatening looks to many followers, especially his staff and personal servitors. This is a typical psychopathic trait - to combinemuch charm and flattery with sudden rejection and anger, and so on in a push-pull manipulation which creates uncertainty and self-negation with the purpose of controlling others.

Another example of how Sai Baba uses fear is given by Al Rahm, in describing how he reacted to Alaya (his son) telling him of the long ans vile sexual abuses he had been subjected to by Sai Baba"-
("SAM"s father - Al Rahm) We were shocked when we heard it and the both of us just embraced our son at that time and we said, "That's it. It's over. It's finished." And the thing that was most impactful there, was that when we said to him, "Why didn't you tell us?", and he said, "The greatest fear that I had was that my family would choose Sai Baba and I would lose my family." And that he had lived with that fear..."

The fear of God is often carried over into fear of Sathya Sai Baba from other religions, not least Judaism and Christianity. Consider the Bible: "Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD." (Psalms 34:11) "The Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love." (Psalms 147:11) "The Father knows His children must look solely and complete to Him for everything so, through Solomon, He makes this statement: "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

All this sets standards and examples. In the Sai movement, both foreign and Indian officials in the Sathya Sai Organization are unduly tight-lipped and worried about all even remotely sensitive matters having to do with Baba, his organisation or other works. Towards the ordinary members (foot soldiers) they always have to be in the right, one cannot question anything that is decided by whoever decides things in the top-down organizational hierarchy. [Members are even sometimes expelled without any explanation, as in the case of the Moscow centre's president, who allowed discussion of the sexual allegations against Sathya Sai Baba.] The personal qualities of most top leaders in the Sai movement make for a social and mental-emotional gap between Sai officials and 'ordinary' hard-working followers, with few exceptions. This has had the effect of consolidating an inner circle who are subservient to the International Chairman and the Central Trust - a kind of international jet-set elite who invite one another around the world to hold forth - often mainly to regurgitate or repackage Sai Baba aphorisms - and who evidently confer to hush up anything they can which might affect their own positions in Baba's favour and within the organisation that bears his name.

Feasr of Sathya Sai Baba - qua God Almighty - is the basis for the many cover-ups. The 1993 murders and the many pedophile accounts involving Sai Baba (some going back decades), have been kept from the main body of devotees for so long through this organised deception. However, there IS cause for fear of justice, but from human courts, by those who have committed - or covered up - crimes of pedophilia. The growing recognition in the world for the duty of mandatory reporting of known cases of sexual interference or abuse - a legal requirement in many countries - will surely eventually bring forth court actions and large compensation claims against leading Sai office-bearers who can be demonstrated to have failed in this reporting duty. This has occurred at last in the case of the Catholic Church and other religious and social bodies in many countries with a properly functionling judicial system. Experience with many legal systems shows that time limits on claims can be waived in the case of sexual abuse, especially awhen it occurred at an early age. All Sai officials would be very well advised to "sweep their hearths and keep their houses clean" on this count from now on, for the information is presently freely available to every one of them.

When fear is felt but cannot be expressed it is all the more effective. Once the fears can be confronted without the possibility of retribution - such as by removing oneself from their source both physically, socially and emotionally - it becomes evident that, as F.D. Rooseveldt put it "there is nothing to fear but fear itself".