Go to quotations page #4
"Loose" quotations #5
In this page you find a series of various quotations from Sai Baba, taken here and there, with comment. Have "fun"...
An article about Sai Baba from another website
The following is an interesting and synthetic article published on the "David Icke e-magazine", at the page: http://www.davidicke.com/icke/articles2/babafraud.html. Here it follows:
MORE CONFIRMATION THAT SAI BABA
IS A FRAUD WHO MOLESTS YOUNG BOYS
by Acharya
For those who may not know, Baba is an Indian godman with millions of followers, including highly influential politicians and assorted seedy characters, as well as the huddled masses yearning to be free of poverty and pain. For the rich and powerful, Baba is well known to "materialize" luxurious gifts such as gem-encrusted rings, necklaces and Swiss watches (until a tariff was put on them). For the poor folk, he produces "vibhuti" or perfumed ashes composed of cow dung.Baba claims to be the omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent Lord Hisseff, who is in complete control of the entire cosmos and can do anything He wishes, from saving His devotees from afar to resurrecting the dead. Naturally, He is constantly compared to Jesus, although He Himself claims to be higher to Jesus - in fact, the One who sent him.
Dozens of books and videotapes have been made regarding this god incarnate, gushing with the endless "miracles" he has allegedly produced, including not only a stream of jewelry but statues out of the sand and artifacts made from the True Cross! (Naturally, although he is all-knowing, he is unaware that Jesus is a solar myth.)
Unfortunately for all the mystery and magic, Baba has been demonstrated repeatedly to be a sleight-of-hand magician, having been caught on tape at least twice "manifesting" objects in a typical magician's fashion. The vibhuti ash he produces is usually hidden in one hand or in his mouth. (Conveniently, his ashram just happens to produce vibhuti for "other purposes," while what he "manifests" is the "real thing.") In reality, Baba was raised in a traveling circus and had an uncle who was a "tantrik-conjuror," but these facts are not usually disclosed to his credulous followers.
It is claimed by such followers that all these magic tricks are designed to increase "faith" in his message and wisdom. So what exactly are his message and wisdom? Heavy Hinduism, with a mishmash of other world religions: "I am God. But you are too. (Although I am much more so.)" The "extraordinary" advice that women should remain in their traditional roles as wives and mothers - such a visionary! In fact, he is poorly educated, very unscientific and basically repeats the same old guru platitudes, with an enormous dose of egotism in which he talks of himself as the One who created the cosmos and who has come to fix the world. (Sure is taking a long time!)
Such omnipotence, however, was not enough to stop a group of assailants from evidently attempting to murder him in 1996. One report says that while the all-powerful Baba was cowering in his bathroom, the assailants were murdering two of his prominent devotees, including a man who had passed him a necklace during one of the sleight-of-hand tricks caught on tape and exposed around India. With Baba apparently unable to stop the assailants, the police were forced to come in and shoot them. It is said that they were "students with a grudge." Although this grudge was purported to have something to do with "a girl," knowing Baba's voracious appetite for young boys, one might suspect otherwise.
In fact, in addition to the tricksterism, Baba is notorious for sexually molesting boys, many of whom are compelled to service him in his bedroom in order to remain in his school. One confused American in his 20s claimed Baba manipulated him and then saved his sperm in a hanky for some "tantric" black magic purpose. […]Acharya S. - Truth Be Known - WebSite
To know more about this aspect of Sai Baba, go to this page:
A typical example of distorsions and
exaggerations of news on Sai Baba
Here is a typical example of how negligible news regarding Sai Baba, are exaggerated and altered in their contents, maybe even just by exciting and devotion. The following is a letter received by Tony, who time ago was an SB's devotee (today he's no longer a devotee, because of the upsetting disclosures which are emerging about Sai Baba). In a website, Tony had posted an article where it was alleged that the United Nation are actively involved in the Sathya Sai Educational System on Human Values (SSSHV), and that UNESCO would have to meet in Puttaparthi, at Sai Baba's ashram, in september 2000. This letter is a clarification on that topic (I post this letter because Tony himself has posted it on the public club: Yahoo! Clubs: sathyasaibaba).
"Dear Tony, Sai Ram!
I like to bring to your notice something I noticed in above page. I work for a United Nations system organisation and I know certain things that go on in our UN family. I have been watching United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's (UNESCO's) work in the area of human values. The UN (that is the big New York based political body), UN's Human Rights Commission (Geneva), UN High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR, Geneva), UNESCO (Paris), etc., concentrate only on 2 (namely Peace and Non-violence) of the 5 SSSHV. As you know, the decision makers in all these inter-governmental organisations are the politicians (ministers) of member governments who are assisted by their diplomats and civil servants. States/governments we know are not spiritual, but secular. Many of these people are not at all spiritual. Therefore, we have to be careful in how we write when we link Swami's teachings with governments and governments-owned organisations like UNESCO. This is a sensitive area and we have to be careful to make sure that our enthsiasm will not backfire on us.You wrote on the webpage that 'UNESCO is meeting on human values at Puttaparthi in September 2000'. This is an over-stretched statement. Let me explain. This gives the wrong impression that UNESCO is going to have one of its 'official' meetings at Puttaparthi. This is not so. The conference is very much a Sathya Sai Organisation affair on SSSHV. It is sponsored by SSO under its own auspices and not under UNESCO auspices. SSO wants educational and curricurla planners of different countries to participate in it. Therefore, SSO will (want to) have UNESCO participation to get governmental educational/curricurla planners to attend the conference by using UNESCO's persuasive influence over national educational authorities. That is how UNESCO comes into the picture.
Therefore, a more accurate and safe way of saying it would be, 'A major conference on Sri Sathya Sai Human Values, with the participation of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and by national educational authorities will take place in Prasanthi Nilayam in September 2000'. (Note: It is better to spell out the full name of UNESCO as all do not know what it is. Once a Sainet member asked what UNICEF was. Steve in his website has got UNICEF confused with UNESCO).
In my humble view, it will be prudent to exercise some caution and be modest. Those secular and anti-Sai decision makers at political, governmental and inter-governmental level could prevail upon
UNESCO not to associate the organisation with a particular spiritual leader/movement. Therefore, I suggest that you use a sentence like the one I drafted above. Thanks. […] "
Obviously such acknowledgements of the existance of exaggerations and distorsions are never made public, but they always remain in private form, and in any case the "pumped" stories are never belied, but indeed theri spreading is encouraged, "to the greater glory of Swami (after all, he's God, thus surely these are true stories...)".
Anyway, the picture which delineates from this letter is clear: the UN (and so the Nations and Organizations which are part of it) have nothing to do with Sai Baba and his SSSHV system. Yet opposite rumours keep on spreading, maybe with the aim of strenghtening one of the claims of Sai Baba's propaganda, i.e. that "his influence is spreading al over the world, to alla the governants, and by this way he's going to uplift the world's destinies". It is then worthy of note, the point where the letter's writer says: "The UN ... concentrate only on 2 (namely Peace and Non-violence) of the 5 SSSHV". "Peace and Non-violence" are two values which any international organizations promotes, has promoted in the past and will promote in the future, with or without Sai Baba and his SSSHV. Many others did so before him, and many other will do so after him, and all of them had done it with however poor results.
On the other hand, Sai Baba promotes a cool five human values (Truth, Righteousness, Love, Peace, Non-violence), and he even claims to be "God omnipotent", but he gets very few results: practically nothing. With good discourses he promotes those values, but the practical effect on world's conditions is negligible. Many other organizations, maybe secular and non-profit ones, do their work in silence and get some more result.
An article from London
"Cult recruitment goes into orbit
Evening Standard (London), January 28, 2000
By Lynne Wallis[…] The Sai Baba cult, whose origins are in India, says it is a 'service' organisation whose aim is to help the poor. It emerged in the Seventies and has an estimated half a million devotees worldwide, with about 200,000 in Britain. Many of these members are in London, and actively recruiting. Sai Baba's namesake is believed to be more powerful than God, the Buddha, and Mohammed. Devotees believe he can create sacred dust with health-giving powers out of thin air, and last year the cult converted many members of the cast of Grease to its cause. Sarah Miles is a believer; so is the founder of the Hard Rock Caf‚, multimillionaire Isaac Tigrett. Experts say that when Europeans devote themselves to Sai, they go for it 100 per cent.
However, as fast as cults are recruiting new members, the lights of people like David Bailey are coming on. A former disciple of Sai Baba, and the leader's right-hand man in the West for four years, Bailey, a 44-year-old concert pianist with a religious background, got sucked into the cult after meeting Sai and being totally overwhelmed by him. He left, disillusioned, a year ago, when it became clear to him that the cult was 'evil'. Bailey says, 'I got drawn in because Sai Baba genuinely seemed to be doing good, and the people who introduced me to him were so convincing. I've always been someone who searches for different things, and, foolishly, I believed he was God.'
Sai Baba has been exposed as a fraud on Irish and Australian TV, and a showcase hospital in India which was ostensibly built to help the poor is, in fact, 80 per cent empty and charging high fees. There are also allegations of bodily organ sales to wealthy Arabs. Bailey says the leader's 'magic dust' is a mixture of cow dung and sandalwood. Bailey's stepson was, he claims, coerced into a French-kissing session with the cult leader, having been told it was an introduction to Tantric sex and would improve his 'kundalini spirit'. There has been an attempt on the leader's life, and several young men have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against him. Their testimonies can be found on the Internet.
Sai Baba's days, however, may be numbered. The man who thinks he is God recently became ill. Bailey concludes, 'Lots of people are beginning to wonder about his immortality. If he really is God, he wouldn't have had a heart attack, would he?' "
An article from India
This article comes from the "Alliance Against Fundamentalism Bulletin":
INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE AGAINST FUNDAMENTALISM
Indian Rationalist Association
P.O.Box 9110, New Delhi 110 091, India
Phone: +91-11-2253255 +91-11-8539526 Fax:+91-11-2256042
E-mail:sakth-@giasdla.vsnl.net.inALLIANCE BULLETIN-8
27 March 1999All reports and informations in this bulletin can be reproduced by recipients. Please acknowledge the source while reproducing:"Alliance Against Fundamentalism Bulletin".
--------------
NO MORE HOLY ASH: RATIONALIST'S CAMPAIGNS EXPOSING SAI BABA SHOW RESULTS
-K.G.Gopal
"To uplift His devotees and to provide them merit the Lord in His mercy has Himself come down to Delhi" -rejoiced a full page newspaper advertisement on 11 March 1999, announcing the arrival of Sathya Sai Baba, the godman of India's rich and powerful, in the capital. Sai Baba visited Delhi after a gap of seventeen years to inaugurate the multi million "Sai International Centre", which houses Delhi's largest auditorium. Amongst other dignitaries the Indian Prime Minister was scheduled to attend the function.
Sai Baba is seen as the most powerful Indian godman. His public appearances are marked by the presence of half the Indian cabinet, his devotees include top politicians across all partylines, diplomats, high bureaucrats and the top industrialists of the country. His seventieth bithday in 1995 was a state event and kept high profile national media attention over several days. Who expected his visit to Delhi to be a similar public sensation, was disappointed.
Something had changed. Sai Baba's power connections may still be intact and he may still be India's godman number one (at least since his competitor Chandra Swamy is facing criminal prosecution), but the fame of his miraculous capacities has taken serious damage since the days of his glory. Sai Baba's visit to Delhi showed that the public awareness about the simple tricks behind his allegedly divine "miracles" has increased considerably, thanks to the work of rationalists.
"Sai Baba has a trick up his sleeve, Rationalists tell PM", titled The Asian Age, one of the leading national English newspapers, slovenly. It was reported that Sanal Edamaruku had called upon Prime Minister Vajpayee to abstain from Sai Baba's function, as the PM prostrating himself in front of the religious leader was a contravention of the secular principles envisaged in the Indian constitution. More over, Sanal was quoted denouncing Sai Baba as charlatan and fraud and challenging him to perform his "miracles" under fraud-proof conditions.
This challenge had been already put up back in 1965 by the famous rationalist Prof. Abraham Kovoor who was the first to expose Sai Baba's "miracles". Since then Indian Rationalist Association had from time to time called upon Sai Baba in public fora and in letters to face up to their demand, but for more than thirty years now the Baba kept mum. Meantime, the Asian Age quoted Mr Edamaruku, Sai Baba was caught red- handed: during the celebrations of his 69th birthday, he "materialised" a golden chain by plucking it away from the bottom of a plaque, where it had been pasted up. The scene was filmed by a cameraman of the national TV Doordarshan. Though Doordarshan had blacked out this clipping, copies of a smuggled out cassette from Doordarshan studios were circulated all over India and abroad. The famous British documentary "Guru Busters" on Indian Rationalists, which was originally telecasted by Channel IV in the UK in 1995, reproduced this clipping in slow motion. The documentation has by now been shown in twelve countries. Sai Baba or his institutions have not denied its authenticity so far.
Sanal Edamaruku's statements in The Asian Age, followed by reports in several other newspapers and the evening TV news during the next days, sent out shock waves. Alarmed by the Prime Minister's Office, police appeared in the head quarters of Indian Rationalist Association to politely enquire about further action plans. Did we prepare a demonstration at the Sai International Centre? Did we plan to embarass the the Prime Minister or the Baba during the inauguration? Or did we already sent our 'troups' to the airport to ridicule Sai Baba upon arrival? We told them that we did not intend to do either, but to be on the safer side, security arrangements were stepped up massively. Police was there in all its strength during the few public appearances of the godman. For all greeting ceremonies and "darshans", the public was moreover strictly limited to hand picked VIP devotees with invitations, amongst them besides the Prime Minister (who did not abstain), India's Vice-President, the former President, several cabinet ministers, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the speaker of the parliament. If there was a crowd, it consisted of volunteers of Sai Baba's organisation: eight thousand volunteers were brought to Delhi and camped for several days in the premises of a big school complex. They were entrusted to look after the security and other arrangements for the functions.
But not only the general public was barred from his meetings. Especially the media were kept at safe distance from the Baba. Most of the few press photos which appeared had to be taken with tele-objectives. The godman made it a point that during the "darshans" all press personnel had to leave the premises. Sai Baba has become very careful. So, this time there was not a single picture, neither in the print media nor in television, that showed Sai Baba in action performing "miracles". Not even his trade mark miracle -producing holy ash- was seen. There was not a crumb of holy ash altogether. Sai Baba's media appearance was limited to comparatively short reports, most of them in the inner pages and marred by mentionings of the rationalists' criticism. Some TV channels did not cover the event at all.
But holy ash was produced abundantly the next day. The Star Plus TV science show "Eureka!" had invited Sanal Edamaruku as special guest to show and speak about so-called miracles and he explained all of Sai Baba's trade secrets including the producing of holy materials from the mouth of a volunteer. Since he was not a godman, but a sportsman, he explained to the amused audience in the studio, no holy statues would come from his mouth, but table tennis balls.
John Lennon e Yoko Ono:
guru, father figures and east/west star system
This is an excerpt from a 1980's "Playboy" interview released by the ex-Beatles and his wife (this is the link to the complete interview):
LENNON: "Alot of us are looking for fathers. Mine was physically not there. Most people's are not there mentally and physically, like always at the office or busy with other things. So all these leaders, parking meters, are all substitute fathers, whether they be religious or political... All this bit about electing a President. We pick our own daddy out of a dog pound of daddies. This is the daddy that looks like the daddy in the commercials. He's got the nice gray hair and the right teeth and the parting's on the right side. OK? This is the daddy we choose. The dog pound of daddies, which is the political arena, gives us a President, then we put him on a platform and start punishing him and screaming at him because Daddy can't do miracles. Daddy doesn't heal us."
PLAYBOY: "So Janov was a daddy for you. Who else?"
ONO: "Before, there was Maharishi."
LENNON: "Maharishi was a father figure, Elvis Presley might have been a father figure. I don't know. Robert Mitchum. Any male image is a father figure. There's nothing wrong with it until you give them the right to give you sort of a recipe for your life. What happens is somebody comes along with a good piece of truth. Instead of the truth's being looked at, the person who brought it is looked at. The messenger is worshiped, instead of the message. So there would be Christianity, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Marxism, Maoism-- everything-- it is always about a person and never about what he says."
ONO: "All the 'isms' are daddies. It's sad that society is structured in such a way that people cannot really open up to each other, and therefore they need a certain theater to go to to cry or something like that."
LENNON: "Well, you went to est."
ONO: "Yes, I wanted to check it out."
[…]
ONO: "Anyway, when I went to est, I saw Werner Erhardt, the same thing. He's a nice showman and he's got a nice gig there. I felt the same thing when we went to Sai Baba in India. In India, you have to be a guru instead of a pop star. Guru is the pop star of India and pop star is the guru here."
Child brainwashing
This argument has been put on a separate page because of its lenght. It is a dialogue between Sai Baba and a 9 years old child, which exemplifies the way Sai Baba and his Organization mean to "grow" and "educate" children. If you are interested,
click here to read the related page.
A great piece of reasoning...
Or: the logic according to Sai Baba. Here is an interesting "reasoning", from a speech of his:
"If someone says things contradicting what he believes we will be negatively influenced and our mind will become weak. I someone says that God doesn't exist and you are convinced of His existance, then you have to accept the challenge.
There are two categories of people at this regard: one says: «God doesn't exist!», and the second says: «If God does exist why don't you show him to me?».
If someone says that God doesn't exist, then how can he ask you to show him God? If, therefore, they don't believe in the existance of God, why do they trouble us? What will be the answer we will have to give them? We would have to say: «Look! You say that God doesn't exist while I say that for what it concerns me he exists, what right do you have to tell me that he doesn't exists? Maybe your God doesn't exists for you, but Mine for me exists». This is the force of conviction!
The second category says instead: «O.K. if God does exist could you show him to me?» The answer you will have to give is the following: «If you really want to see Him, follow me! If you don't want to follow me you will not able to see Him!»"
(from a speech of 24 November 1985, personal translation from italian edition)
This kind of Sai Baba's reasonings are usually regarded as "divine lessons", or as examples of how SB is able to "defeat" his detractors... in reality they only show his poor ability to build meaningful reasonings, and the precariousness of the things he says. Let's see:
"If someone says things contradicting...": not bad as opening, considering that Sai Baba is a true master of the contradictory speaking...
SB dice: "There are two categories ... one says: «God doesn't exist!»", and then he goes on saying to the audience: "If someone says that God doesn't exist, then how can he ask you to show him God?". But his hypotetical "atheist adversaries" have never asked it! And do notice that SB himself has built this imaginary dispute between atheist and believers, and therefore he himself has made them not to ask it, since only the second category asks: "«If God does exist why don't you show him to me?»"! Perhaps SB is unable to follow his own reasonings, according to the premises laid down by he himself?
Let's go on, here is SB's answer to the atheists: "Look! You say that God doesn't exist while I say that for what it concerns me he exists, what right do you have to tell me that he doesn't exists?". According to the rules of civilized discussion (and not according to the Sai Baba's ones and accepted by all his followers, based on the assumption: "I am God, therefore I am right"), an atheist has as much right to deny the existance of God than the right of a believer to affirm it.
And more: "Maybe your God doesn't exists for you, but Mine for me exists." Interesting: if SB himself, at the beginning of the dispute, has made the atheist say: "«God doesn't exist!»", then how can he say now to him: "your God doesn't exists for you"? How can the atheist have a "his God that doesn't exists", since he has stated exactly that God doesn't exist?
Finally: "This is the force of conviction!". Wow! This is really the final defeat of athesim... any priest from any parish would be able to give a more effective sermon, and with better arguments.
After that, to the question of the second category of people: "«O.K. if God does exist could you show him to me?»", SB make his devotees to answer this way: "«If you really want to see Him, follow me! If you don't want to follow me you will not able to see Him!»", so confirming the only thing that he seems to be able to do, i.e. claiming to be God despite any contrary evidence.
Here is another lasting example, drawn from the same speech: