Response Series,
Part Two
Posted: Barry Pittard,
Australia,
Email:
bpittard@beachaccess.com.au
Note: A long letter from an SSB devotee named Seema is
the basis for this series, in which the one devotee's letter is
seen to reflect many points scattered throughout many devotee
letters received by SSB Exposé
activists.
Seema's remarks are in red.
... and I say to you that I could write a
book about all of the wonderful experiences that I have had with
him.
I have actually written a book about my experiences with SSB, and
of the extended phenomena associated with him - what are often
called 'miracles' and 'leelas.' It had a publisher interested, but
I shall not attempt to publish until I have written up my account
of experiences that depict his other side. Yes, I had
countless magnificent experiences. Writing what became,
unexpectedly, the first part of the book was the utterly loving
labor of three years writing, full time, a huge task. Now, I am
compelled to admit of the terrible just as I admit of the
wonderful. There are other former devotees who have written books
when they were still devotees, which I understand they do not now
wish to publish, because they do not want to extend his renown. In
my own case, I shall be happy to publish, undiluted, what I have
written. However, it will not go without contextualisation of my
experiences since I began to investigate, very intensively and
widely, in September 1999. This followed the seminal Nexus
articles of September-October of that year.
Just because you sat at the feet of Sai
for twenty five years does not mean anything to me. I have seen
people sit at the feet of great men for so long and not even an
inkling of a transformation took place within them.
Why do you take such a remark out of context? My remark intends no
more than suggest that, at best, others and I who have been with
SSB for decades have had plenty of time to be exposed had we been
liars or frivolous people. Yet you presume to say of Glen and well
over four hundred JuST petition signatories that their "lives are
filled with pain and misery because of the lies that they have
told about Sathys (sic) Sai Baba." In fact, the contrary is true:
there is a tremendous sense of loving service and compassion. We
are not liars, and is it not very presumptuous of you to say so?