Sathya Sai Baba, God or guru? A matter of perspective
© Alexandra Nagel, 3 June 2003

The Dutch Sri Sathya Sai Baba devotee Geesje Lunshof holds an inner dialogue on a regular basis with the Indian guru. Inspired through it, her second book came out in Spring 2003. Among other issues, the author takes up the seriously disturbing stories concerning this God-man which have in recent years been in the news, ranging from fraud to sexual abuse. How does such information affect a follower?

Recently, the second book of Geesje Lunshof was published. It is the testimony of a Dutch version of An Uncommon Dialogue with God, in other words, a book in line of the genre of the American, Neale Donald Walsch, whose umpteenth work The New Revelations also recently has been released. The crucial difference between these, however, is that Lunshof’s God appears as a human, while that of Walsh does not. Sathya Sai Baba, the disputed Indian guru, is the figure with whom Lunshof holds dialogues. According to her he is an ‘Avatar’, that is, God having taken on an earthly form.

This devotee who lives in The Hague, the Netherlands regularly travels to her guru’s ashram in order to be in his vicinity for two weeks. On the last trip mentioned in her book, December 2002, he blessed her latest work both in the Dutch version, Sai Baba, Levende Vlam van Liefde, and the English, Sai Baba, Living Flame of Love.

He put his hand right on the manuscripts and looked into her eyes most lovingly during darshan (i.e. when Sai Baba walks through the straight orderly lines of people in the temple compound). Prior to thisd, Lunshof had for a whole year had signals that it really was Sai Baba’s wish that she should write a follow-up on her first Innerlijke Dialoog met Sai Baba (1998), (Inner Dialogue with Sai Baba). Several people had asked her when a second part on her experiences with Sai Baba would come out. Preparing the manuscript had gone smoothly and an American devotee received her own (inner) message that the portrait she had made of Sai Baba would become an illustration in Lunshof’s new book – and this at a time when Lunshof herself had not considered a second volume. Unlike with the publication of the first book, this time she did not have any troubles with publishers. Five years previously she had eventually decided to publish her book on her own initiative, whereas this time a publisher had agreed to publish it beforehand. Lunshof puts forward as an explanation that the love of Sai Baba that she experiences as a glowing flame in her heart purified her, and she thought that her former spiritual lessons bore fruit during the process of writing this second book,

Through the diary notes of her inner conversations, the author gives the reader an open and intimate view into a part of her soul, the soft, loving warmth she first experienced over 30 years ago, through Jesus. Only nine years later did she come to know about Sai Baba and she gradually became convinced that God has himself this time personified in the form of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. She also feels a strong connection with St John of the Cross, from whom she has taken the title Living Flame of Love. Her glowing heart is indispensably connected to Sai Baba, also after the doubts that the ‘slander campaign’ in 2000 awakened in her. Lunshof doesn’t say what those allegations against the guru are. As a Sai Baba-devotee one labels such information as negative and negative issues are by definition issues in which, from a spiritual viewpoint, it is better not to get involved. Finally, Sai Baba predicted a long time ago that a shift would take place between the really loyal, devoted followers and those who decide to turn their back on him.

The internet report
For those who wish to know more about the disturbing information regarding Sai Baba, considered a slander campaign directed at Sathya Sai Baba by Lunshof and slimmed down by her to ‘the internet report’, it is extensively available on www.exbaba.com and www.saiguru.net. The accusations vary from arguing that Sathya Sai Baba performs magical tricks presented as real, miraculous materialisations, to indirect, but probable personal involvement of Sathya Sai Baba in murders of four of devotees in 1993. An Englishman who resides in Norway, Robert Priddy, who published a pro-Sai Baba book (Source of the Dream. My Way to Sathya Sai Baba 1994), made thorough inquiries and had extensive contacts with many other devotees, ex-devotees, and non-devotees. He arrived at the conclusion that Sathya Sai Baba cannot be what he claims to be, as Priddy had believed him to be for many years, and to whom he had directed his devotion.

One issue among others that Priddy brings up to illustrate his disillusioned standpoint, is a gold ring with a large ‘green diamond’ that Sathya Sai Baba had produced for him apparently from thin air on December 23, 1986, and which he had worn for many years. After an investigation carried out in October 2002 by Peter Hertz, jeweller to the Danish Queen Margarethe, it was valued at around US$ 200.- in very expensive Denmark, a sum based more on the amount of gold, not the stone. What was claimed by Sathya Sai Baba to be a special diamond was found – when the casing was opened - to be a synthetic green sapphire with reflecting tinfoil behind it, the value between US$ 10 (India) and US$ 40 (Denmark). Sathya Sai Baba had given the ring to Priddy a day after he had told the guru during a group interview he wanted to donate money to his Trust. During the past 20 years, Priddy and his wife have donated altogether circa £15.000.

A source of information that Priddy valued highly, which added to his decision to turn against Sathya Sai Baba, was the conversations he had with V.K. Narasimhan, a travelled, laureated Indian journalist and a peace-loving Gandhian, who was often privately critical of Sathya Sai Baba In 1977 Narasimhan became editor of Sathya Sai Baba’s English journal Sanathana Sarathi. He regularly translated the lectures of Sai Baba into English. Before Narasimhan, passed away at the age of 87 in March 2000, he shared with Priddy the many positive but also puzzling experiences with the guru and the happenings around him. One of the topics concerns a murder in 1989 of a Swiss devotee. The police had let the two murderers go in exchange for the money they stole, Rs 80.000. The woman had taken out the money from her bank account, just prior to her murder. These details were known to officials of the ashram and the Sathya Sai Central Trust, together with the younger brother of Sathya Sai Baba, Janaki Ramiah, who blackmailed the police into executing in the temple the four intruders who had been trusted devotees. Referring to this blackmail by Sai officials, Narasimhan told Priddy “They did a terrible thing.” It had weighed heavily on Narasimhan to know that the accountable persons close to Sai Baba had done something that legally and ethically could not be justified. The fact that people of Sai Baba’s inner circle let the police go, implies that these same people can put pressure on the police in case they want something done from them. (This last sentence bears no relation to the facts and can only confuse the issue)

The murders were committed on June 6, 1999 after four men had entered the quarters of Sathya Sai Baba, and on their way had killed to Sai-devotees, Sai Baba, Janaki Ramiah and Col. Joga Rao (one of the members of the Sathya Sai Central Trust) conferred apart for ten minutes and, not long thereafter Janaki Ramiah was reported by a witness to the press as having ordered “Vallani kattesinaru, champeyundira,” ‘They are tied up, now kill them,’ which is precisely what happened. The investigations of the case had to be transferred from the police, whose reports were obviously completely concocted, to the CBI. However, this investigation was quashed by government order before any results were presented. The case has never been investigated and no one has ever been charged for the murders. (The entire investigation is fully documented in B. Premanand’s book ‘Murders in Sai Baba’s Bedroom)

Knowing that Janaki Ramiah had in front of Narasimhan laughed when congratulated by the government home minister on getting the four killed and said “Dead men tell no tales”, Priddy had to recognise the guilt of Janaki Ramiah and the passive complicity of Sathya Sai Baba himself. (Janaki Ramiah was shortly thereafter appointed by Sathya Sai Baba to administer his Central Trust’s massive funds.)

Sweet pie

Via a completely other road, the Australian with English roots, Brian Steel, author of two pro-Sai Baba-books The Sathya Sai Baba Compendium (1997) and The Powers of Sathya Sai Baba (1999), has tried to bring order in his beliefs concerning the guru. Steel too left years of devotion behind when he began to get doubts. And it was not because of the fraudulent materialisations, the accusations of sexual abuse of mainly young men, sometimes even minors, or the possible involvement with murder, but the inconsistencies and contradictions found in Sai Baba’s claimed divinity. Endless lectures of Sai Baba Steel has analysed, and his conclusion is that Sai Baba hardly has command of the English language (whereas the saying goes that he is omniscient, i.e. he knows all) and that many of Sai Baba’s miracle stories in the course of time do change, sometimes taking on ever increasing properties. Sai Baba himself amends the stories. He adds details, leaves other ones out, as is the case in the (claimed) encounter with the Polish psychic Wolf Messing. Sometimes Sai Baba seems to make up things out of the blue, for instance the manner in which he explains how words in Sanskrit are etymologically constructed (see note below for an example). Furthermore, passages of Sai Baba’s lectures, usually spoken in Telugu, fall away when the notes are translated to English. Sai Baba’s lengthy way of talking is shortened, thereby bringing in some order, but also loosing essential elements. However, the unsuspecting, devoted follower swallows all as sweet pie. Often they add their own personal bit of experience or interpretation. The result being an endless mixture of miracle stories having become to live a life on their own.

Well, none of this kind of information is to be found in Geesje Lunshof’s book. She tackles these difficult, complex matters not through describing them in depth, but to write about the inner havoc the ‘internet report’ and what followed caused her. This so-called internet report, titled The Findings, appeared in March 2000. It is mainly a compilation of messages spread through the internet, and collected by David & Faye Bailey, who added a foreword and postscript to it. Before the publication of The Findings, the Baileys were considered a loved and successful couple by many devotees, brought together by Baba himself. During a relative short period in the Netherlands, and as a result from The Findings, a small group, nowadays ex-devotees, has been active in 2000-2001 in alerting others of all kinds of abuses around Sathya Sai Baba, also by the guru himself. On itself it is noteworthy that Lunshof has raised the ‘slander campaign’ in a book. To my knowledge it is the first book that acknowledges the issue, and that informs the reader how a devotee can think and react when confronted with disturbing stories concerning their guru. A section of Lunshof’s inner dialogue, originally held July 1, 2000, to be found on p. 114:

‘Question: Dear Baba, I hear such terrible rumours about you. Those can’t be true, can they?
‘Baba: No, they are not true.
‘Question: How then, is it possible that those are spread?
‘Baba: Negativity rules in such occasions/cases.
‘Question: What precisely do you mean?
‘Baba: People prefer negativity.
‘Question: But you can stop that, can’t you?
‘Baba: That will happen
‘Question: Will this not have consequences for your Avatarhood?
‘Baba: Of course not. This has been willed by me. People have a choice: they go along with it, or they leave it for what it is.
‘Question: But the fact that X here in the Netherlands heralds this?
‘Baba: X is a troublemaker, and that you already knew.
‘Question: Yes, I experienced that two years ago.
‘Baba: Now you see, people load themselves with blame and accuse God of it. What is nicer to shove off the guilt of one self, and who is more willing to accept to take it on than God. Think of Jesus.
‘Question: But that is a heavy karma he takes on himself.
‘Baba: It is his way.
‘Question: And what about the internet report?
‘Baba: The same is at play here. People loaded with guilt turn God into the scapegoat.
‘Question: Do you still love them?
‘Baba: What a Question. They are my children and as dear as all.’

Nonetheless, the doubt remained. On September 14, 2000, Lunshof was in the ashram and wrote how all kinds of thoughts kept her awake (p. 131): ‘And then what about this glowing heart? Jesus gave it to me first. Should I begin to doubt that too? And the inner dialogue? No, he is good and thus God. It was a struggle within myself and at the same time I was feeling guilty about these fear obsessions within my head.’
She finally falls asleep after ‘Baba as sweetness’ had come into her heart. During darshan the next day, he even grants her a look into his eyes. Yet, although she wishes to let it go, the doubt remains. Then again another inner dialogue takes place (p. 132):

‘Question: Baba, have I turned completely mad?
‘Baba: No, deeper layers come up. A deeply rooted fear, taken on in your youth, for the eternal damnation. Let me tell you, eternal damnation does not exist. Each man, and with that I mean each man, is destined to reunite in the end in God. (…)
‘Question: Baba, please help me to overcome this fear.
‘Baba: Yes, all will be all right, but it all has to come out. Not one grain may be left over. It is a very worthwhile process you are going through now. Leave it up to me. I will help you with it and lead you through it.’

What can one bring against this? In the case Sathya Sai Baba there are such opposite, conflicting interpretations of experiences and observations that a fair, rational discussion about them seems doomed beforehand. Lunshof has her vision, her belief, her trust and proof that Sai Baba is an Avatar, and will dismiss as negative all issues that people like Robert Priddy and Brian Steel raise as arguments testifying that Sai Baba cannot be God-in-human-form. The fact that both Priddy and Steel took years before they could end their long-term devotion towards Sai Baba, and that they are not writing about it to bring forth slander, seems beyond the scope of Lunshof. Nothing in Sai Baba, Living Flame of Love hints the probable option that followers base their decision to become ex-devotees upon long and profound reflection, and that their aim is to get parts of the truth unravelled. It is as if such an option does not exists in Lunshof’s experience.
It remains to me to point out that Geesje Lunshof is more or less is an odd one out is in the de official circle of Dutch Sai-devotees. The Dutch Sathya Sai Baba Organisation does not acknowledge the inner dialogues Lunshof maintains with Sai Baba as coming from Sai Baba, since Sai Baba at some point has said he never speaks through others. Naturally one can then pose the question why Sai Baba has blessed Lunshof’s manuscripts by putting his hand on it in full, while at the same time looking her lovingly in the eyes…

Geesje Lunshof Sai Baba, Vlam van Levende Liefde, uitgeverij Akasha, isbn 90.73798.94.9, € 15,95.

Note
Copied from the website of Brian Steel, http://bdsteel.tripod.com/More/index.html, but (in consult with Steel) amended somewhat. It concerns quotes of Sai Baba concerning the word guru as to be found in Sathya Sai Speaks (SSS), the series in which Sai Baba’s translated and corrected lectures are published.

Guru
The first two explanations below sound reasonable, but the rest shows that Sai Baba either does not know what is involved in etymological derivation, or doesn't care, or assumes his listeners will not notice:
"Guru means Big. Guru has also another meaning: Gu means darkness and Ru means dispelling. Guru means one who dispels darkness. ... Guru Purnima is the day on which one celebrates the dispersal of teh darkness of ignorance from the mind." (SSS XXVII, 21:181)
"Guru means (Gu - ignorance, Ru - destroyer) he who removes the darkness and delusion from the heart and illumines it wit the Higher Wisdom." (SSS IX, 16:87, 29-7-1969)
The last one is contradicted the following year, but illustrates the same point:
"Gu means darkness and ru means light. Guru scatters [=dissolves] darkness through light."(SSS X, 15:96)
An early invention in 1956 was: "Gu = Gunaatheetha, one who has transcended the three gunas [the three primary human qualities that make up the behaviour: sathwa (harmony), rajas (passion), and thamas (passivity)]. Ru = Rupa Varjitha One who has grasped the formless aspect of Godhead." (SSS I, 3:21, 1956)
Baba's inventive stretching continues with the later: "Do not seek human Gurus, however great their reputation. They are not gu (gunatheetha – beyond the Gunas); they are not ru (beyond Form); they are still in need of Form..." (SSS X, 15:97)
All this is remarkable since in one of his early Discourses, Baba had made a very disparaging remark about speakers who, to illustrate a point, pretentiously use references to etymology. He (with the self-consciousness, perhaps, of someone new to public speaking) complains of a previous speaker: "... saying Na meant this and Ra meant that and so on; it all sounded very learned and is really very clever; but no one can go on endlessly in this way, saying Na means either this or that..." (SSS II, 21:105)
So in this early phase, the high-falutin' academic way is not the Baba way. Baba prefers simple, clear and direct language for his mainly uneducated Indian audiences. But, in fact, as a study of the Discourses demonstrates, Baba quite quickly adopted and adapted the device of etymological references. He then went on to makeup etymologies to suit his theme or message. "If you can't beat them, join them!"