Copyright © Brian Steel 2003

Date: 04-25-02

By: Brian Steel

Email: ompukalani@hotmail.com

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

(This brief questionnaire saves the reader the trouble of reading through 150-200 pages of documentary evidence. He or she can do his/her own research - or check the cornucopia available on the Internet.)

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1. Why did SB promote himself so vigorously and unequivocally as Omnipotent Avatar from 1943 to the early 1970s and then drastically reduce his PUBLIC and DIRECT claims of Divinity and Omnipotence to rely on his reputation and his devotees?

2. Why are similar PUBLIC direct claims of Divinity by SB so rare nowadays?

3. Why has the SSO become so insistent recently on promoting SB's charitable works and the visits he receives from famous people?

4. Why do devotee chat groups frantically echo these endorsements and reiterate unsupported allegations of SB miracles and prophecies of SB's avataric "Advent"?

5. Why have favorable (but one-sided) media reports on SB been appearing in the Indian and U.S. Press in recent months?

6. Why are devotee donations spent on some of these expensive promotional exercises and on the two massive official websites which promote SB, who originally asserted that he needed no advertising?

7. Why does the boringly bureaucratic Australian branch of the SSO feel obliged to make this admission on its website:

"It has become necessary to keep everyone concerned informed that our founder Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba attracts professionals, politicians, world leaders, heads of state and also the common man."

(How does this have any bearing on the embarrassing evidence available on the Internet?)
(Does it disqualify any of the documented facts about SB's untenable Divinity claims? - Note that his "Divinity" is not even hinted at by these otherwise unconditional Aussie devotees!)

8. Why did SB insist on publicly highlighting his alleged identity as the reincarnation of the godman Shirdi Sai Baba until 1970 and then suddenly drop the subject for so long?

9. Why did SB begin to concentrate on telling us about his alleged special knowledge of Jesus Christ in 1970?

10. Why are the literal translations of SB's Telugu Discourses no longer available on the Internet?

11. Why was the Premsai site of volunteer devotees closed down last year after the glaring discrepancies had been pointed out on the Internet?

12. Is the SSO ashamed of SB's Discourses and of his speaking style?

13. Why are we offered a translated and heavily edited version of what SB says in his Telugu Discourses, instead of a simple translation? (Why isn't the word of "God" good enough?)

14. Why has there been no official admission of significant errors in SB's Biography?

15. Why are SB's frequent errors, exaggerations, discrepancies, confusions, and probable inventions not acknowledged as evidence of his lack of omniscience?

16. Why has the publication of the second volume of the semi-official biography by Sai Towers (Love is My Form) been delayed since November 2002? (The first volume revealed very embarrassing discrepancies!)

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Postscript:

Why have I been so quiet recently on the Internet?
Because I have been carefully re-examining all the available evidence in the "SB Divinity Case".
Finding this examination so much more conclusive than I had hitherto imagined, I thought that this brief and selective summary might be useful for open-minded readers - in the first instance.