Re "The Sathya Sai Organisations' Self-publicity and Advertising"

 

Date: 01-12-02

By: Robert Priddy

Website: Sathya Sai Baba - Extensive Information and Articles

 addendum to my posting from: Wednesday, November 20

• The Sathya Sai Org.’s self-advertisement and publicity

Andries KrugersDagneaux of the Netherlands has kindly informed me: "I think apart from Austria the members of the Dutch SSB org contributed quite a lot. There was much food sent by railway. I think about every 2 months there was a railway wagon sent to Croatia. The wagon was loaded near the railway station of Utrecht. I used to help quite often. We used to collect food at supermarkets asking not for money but a donation in the form of basic food such as flour or tins."

There is no doubt that many tons of goods were delivered to Croatia under the auspices of the SSO. However, the initiator and leader, Mr. Richard Friedrich of Austria, himself told me in 1996 while we were at the 70th birthday in Puttaparthi that he had found Sai devotees in Austria and elsewhere (including other leaders in Europe) most difficult to inspire to work on this project and he and his wife had relied much on outsiders. From here in Norway we sent money to him for the Croatia Project, for we had no possibility of any effective distribution of goods and besides, we wanted to take seriously SB's dictum at that time that all should concentrate all efforts locally, not across borders! This dilemma was typical of plenty of others caused by conflicting directions from SB and the Organisation. However, we decided to help anyway.