A Premature Prema Sai or Just Local Competition?

 

Date: 07-29-02

By: Brian Steel

Email: ompukalani@hotmail.com

Website: http://bdsteel.tripod.com/index.html 

I'm supposed to be on holiday, for Pete's sake! And it's the wrong time of the month. But as a writer and journalist, I just can't let this serendipitous discovery go without comment.

In 1973 (January 8), in Penukonda, a village or small town close to SSB's Puttaparthi, Kaleshwar was born.

Check out his credentials (they may just sound familiar):

- A saint told his Grandpa that the latter's son's third son would be... yep! ... divine!

- Since his birth in 1973, little (later Swami) Kaleshwar has followed a local procedure which may also be familiar to many of you:

- he claims inspiration and guidance (but not reincarnation) from Shirdi Sai Baba, not only for himself but for his previous incarnation;

- he performs abundant miracles, including the production of lingams, but with a novel twist: they emerge from the red-hot embers of a fire, which he holds in his hand;

- a picture of Shirdi Sai Baba is prominently displayed on his webpages (http://www.kaleshwar.org);

- a king cobra was miraculously involved somewhere along the path (but not at birth).

Kaleshwar's website coyly makes no mention of his famous guru neighbour in Puttaparthi and he has neatly upstaged SSB by visiting USA (first visit, 1997, according to the website).

While not wishing to be a party-pooper, nor much less a "Hindu-basher", I feel compelled to add the following questions and comments to this exciting news from Andhra Pradesh:

1. Is Kaleshwar a premature form of Prema Sai? (In which case, could someone please say if the reincarnated Prof. Kasturi was the Mother?)

2. Is Kaleshwar the final fulminating proof of SSB's omniscience? (Foreseeing the current "credibility problems", SSB arranged long in advance for Kaleshwar's birth in 1973, as Prema Sai-in Waiting, so that he could pop up right NOW and utterly confound and discredit all those pesky critics who keep on being so nasty. But how did he keep his existence so secret?)

3. OR: Is it more simply:
a) a case of an intelligent local attempt to emulate SSB's success story?
b) a dastardly CIA plot, masterminded by one of those gung-ho "exposé" guys and guyesses?

Over to you, ladies and gentlemen of the (kangaroo?) jury. BUT, take this into consideration before making up your mind:

The announced Guru Purnima Visit by Kaleshwar to USA (17-25 July 2002) had to be cancelled, "due to unavoidable circumstances". Unavoidable? Here we go again! Another illness taken on by the guru for a devotee, perhaps?

P.S.
For those of you (most?) young enough to be potential members of the Kaleshwar "exposé" group of 2050, may I add the advice of one who may not he able to stay around on the Internet until then, "due to unavoidable circumstances": Start checking the FACTS NOW!! It will save a lot of trouble and argument later.