Is Sai Baba only what we imagine
him to be?
Date: 02-29-02
By: Robert Priddy
Website: http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/
John Bright, in his highly credible but very shocking account on the Internet of how Sai Baba molested him sexually, refers to Craig Parker-Hamilton, whose website allowed him to discuss this openly, saying:-
"Before I go I want to thank you Craig for being open enough to allow this open debate despite your beliefs in Sai Baba's authenticity. However, there are two things that you mentioned that I want to address. You said that if a person sees Sai Baba as a molester then Sai Baba will become a molester and if we see him as God he will become God. I think I see where you are going with that. There is a philosophy that mind is the builder and that perception and belief create reality; while I believe there is truth in this I also believe that it gets twisted. For example: I may choose not to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow and this belief may prevent me from accepting that the sun will rise tomorrow but my belief will not prevent the objective fact that the sun will rise tomorrow. In a similar way my personal belief that Sai Baba is or is not a molester will in no way change the objective reality. Sai Baba either is or is not a child molester; my personal belief doesn't change the objective truth about Sai Baba only my acceptance or rejection of it."
Hamilton-Parker's view can also be said to take away all responsibility from Sai Baba for what and who he is, and placing it on each person who relates to him - depending on how they happen to experience him at any time. This is a confused idea of Baba, common enough, especially among various less intelligent would-be 'spiritual teachers'.
Sai Baba has said that he merely 'reflects, resounds, responds' to the attitudes and expectations of devotees, so if we think of him as God he will become that in our minds and if we think of him as a molester, he becomes that in our minds. But he does not himself independently become any of the many or even opposite things various devotees have in their minds. He exists independently of their minds (indeed, of all mind, he claims) and moreover, has a human form and body too. This we we perceive and understand with the aid of our minds, whatever he thinks about it. He acts in the world like anyone else, falls on his soap and gets a hairline fracture of the hip, fell flat at darshan when a devotee held around his feet and threw up his dinner on the podium before Indian dignitaries and so on. Either Sai Baba is a sexual molester or he is not. The evidence that he is, however, has become so crushing that anyone who goes into it fully even with a half-open mind and heart will be convinced.
Robert Priddy