A NEW SERIES OF REGULAR EXPOSÉ POSTINGS BEGINS NOW
No. 6: THE MOST EXCESSIVE CLAIMS EVER MADE?
Date: 07-22-02 By: Robert Priddy From: Website: http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/
I should like nothing better than seeing the kind of world-wide moral and social renewal of which SB speaks come about (as he claims to have come to install). But serious reservations keep piling up about his predictions on this, and on more and more aspects of his activities and his teachings. Worse than that, I came to know, alas, that he definitely does not always act according to the very values he preaches, such as non-violence, truthfulness and right action. To have discovered this led to the most disturbing and painful realisations of my life, which took some years of agonising over before gradual acceptance of the facts.
Central to Sai Baba's message, which is mainly about 'Himself' - and is repeatedly repeated - is the need to concentrate on God in all things and with every breath. This is to be done by fixating the mind on a name and form of God. Sai Baba presents himself as God, having a 'taken on' specific name and form, and thus himself as is THE ultimate focus for spiritual concentration. Since the world is filled with persons attributing other names and forms to God, Sai Baba does not insist that only his name and form are appropriate... though he proclaimed that he is "all deities rolled into One" and also explained that, to whichever name or form one prays, the prayer reaches only himself.
This doctrine is certainly not 'universal', as he claims, Nor does it leave any option for those who initially placed their faith in SB to escape the conclusion that Sai Baba alone is God, here and now. All other names and forms are but way-stations to him! Baba advises people to go on worshipping their chosen forms of God, Christians can worship Jesus, Mohammedans can worship Allah and so forth... but the underlying suggestion is always that it makes no difference, it is always him - Sai Baba - who is actually being worshipped!
Nor does it leave any option for those who adopt his teaching to deny that SB alone is God Incarnate, here and now. This is the first mark of any cult... the utter supremacy of the leader! The Sai Baba movement as a whole is increasing its cult status by ignoring massive evidence and protecting an accused sexual abuser and suspected accomplice to murder from any form of investigation or indictment. This complicity is often conscious - but also often unwitting - being based on the out-of-hand rejection of any criticism of any kind against the guru figure in advance of considering the evidence, all in accordance with his teaching about himself.
SB claims to be behind all things that happens, so - by the same preposterous claim - he is necessarily to blame for everything that is wrong. The responsibility can't be shoved onto us, as he nevertheless does, with his Janus faced teaching, when he turns around and says all that is bad is due only to human actions, not his! None of these assertions are ever properly explained by him. Instead, he continually makes use of these claims in subtly devious ways to control others. The un-indoctrinated and the de-programmed devotees can observe how it all functions to increase his status in the eyes of believers and add to his fortune, fame and name at their expense. One would expect God Almighty to be a lot more convincing than this!
SB has inspired and overseen many projects in India that are of considerable value to whoever can benefit from them, and he has apparently motivated many people here and there to try to carry out good works in their own countries. This is not in any way unique, however, despite all the big talk. We live in a world where good works have every been done selflessly and are still to the fore in millions of people's daily lives, but this is not a theme SB takes up, for it is really only his own works that he praises.
Yet there are those who are either know - or are in a position to know - many of the facts, yet who have long since learned to discount in advance and rationalize everything that is or could be said against him. Every fact must be twisted and turned to fit SB's claims, until it becomes second nature and on can no linger think straight (if one has not succeeded in not thinking at all, as SB recommends most highly! Actually an impossibility, as he even self-defeatingly admitted to Hislop once!). The reasons for the split-mindedness (or in many cases sheer duplicity) of devotees are many and various: powerful mental-emotional bonds that give a sense of security and one can hardly free oneself from, dependency attachments to other members, to prestige and privileges within the cult, to having a flat at the ashram, to cheap living in India, spiritual desperation, continual hope of cures and freedom from sufferings, vague ideas of 'liberation' from life itself, and so on... Their lives and psyches are just too involved at so many levels in their fixation on this very personable and powerful gurus for them to be able to listen to, investigate or evaluate facts.
Examples of such blindfolded acolytes, as I was, keep on believing chapter and verse! They have resigned themselves to believe. One can but pity those who accept almost anything they are told to and who have given up the will and ability to distinguish fact and fantasy. Only such persons are qualified to be leaders of SB institutions (the colleges, the Sai Org. etc.) Documentary evidence for this is widely available on the internet. (Many examples are available on the internet. Some are: 1) Hislop's letters to office-bearers about sex abuse in the 1980s (see http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/HislopLetters.htm and http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/owen-hislop.htm). 2) the reactions of Dr. Goldstein to the foully abused young man 'Young' in 2000 (as reported by the victim on film for Danish TV soon to available in English world-wide on DVD). 3) Thorbjørn Meyer in his interview on Danish TV (see under 'News' at http://www.rfjvds.dds.nl/ex-baba/english.html) and in his e-mails to Priddy http://home.no.net/anir/Sai.htm under the heading "A revealing e-mail exchange with the leader of Sai Org. in Europe, T. Meyer of Denmark"