Response Series, Part Eight
Posted: Barry Pittard.
Date: Tuesday
August 19, 2003
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 reflects many points
scattered throughout many devotee letters received by SSB Exposé
activists.
Soon
to come: After Part
9, responses by highly qualified therapists from different countries,
including an Indian, who have read Seema's letter. They have a keen
interest in the psychological in-denial response of those blind to
their religious teacher's and his (so-called divine) Sathya Sai
Organisation's failings.
Seema's words are in red.
Did any one of these devotees take their sons
to Baba and found out what happened?
Of what use would
this be? Sexual molesters are among the most practiced and devious
liars in the world. In any case, commonly, Sathya Sai Baba’s accusers
(who once so fervently loved and trusted him) wish never to set eyes
on him again. He has shattered their lives.
Confronting him with
local or national constabulary is, for the present at least, out of
the question. State and Central government authorities skip to his
tune – or to the tune of the vast foreign and national revenues he
attracts. In Andhra Pradesh at least, long regarded as the poorest
state in India, he is Imperial Caesar in his own domain.
Concerned devotees
have indeed confronted him. I think of citizens highly respected by
all who know them, such as Dr Terry Gallagher, who was the
Central Coordinator of
the Sathya Sai Organisation, Australia. He resigned
because convinced by his extensive investigations and the direct
testimony to him of Sathya Sai Baba’s college students and long-term
residents at the ashram. See
http://home.hetnet.nl/~ex-baba/engels/witnesses/terry.html
.
Of confronting Sathya Sai Baba, Dr
Gallagher says, “We told him what we had experienced and been
told. Sai Baba made no comment on our accusations and was only
anxious to know who had told us these details, requesting us to tell
him several times! ... SB was tense and agitated and his body language
told us all, that what we had found out about his was the truth.”
There are many
accounts where your guru is depicted as displaying anger and using
insults and threats when male devotees resist his advances. We also
have ample documentation concerning parents and significant others
going to the top world Sathya Sai Organisation leaders and being
shabbily treated indeed.
Fortunately, Dr Timothy Conway, a social
scientist, and former President of the Santa Barbara Sai Centre, USA,
has made public three letters by the late Dr John Hislop, who until
his death was the head of the Sathya Sai Baba for the the USA - and a
goodly distance beyond! - addressed to a small number of US
leaders. These letters dating from 1981, which were never meant to
escape, show the pattern of psychological distortion and of coverup at
its very genesis: http://home.hetnet.nl/~ex-baba/engels/letters/hislopowen.html .
The appropriate
people to approach Sathya Sai Baba are the Indian government, police
and law courts, even though many elements of them are corrupt and
protect him. Certainly, we shall intensify our efforts to bring
international pressure on the Indian government.
Shaming his great
country, India’s longtime Sai devotee Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee
continues to cover up the Sathya Sai Baba issue. As an antidote to
your maligning of your guru’s dissenters, please read my Open Letter
to A.B. Vajpayee (and three high-profile co-signatories of a public
letter), who (either lying outright or else not having investigated)
says that our contentions are "wild, reckless and concocted
allegations made by certain vested interests and people against
Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba."
http://www.saiguru.net/english/news/020927openletter.htm .
Sooner or later, we
can, I think, anticipate a turning of the tide, so that our
representations, and those of our governments, are acted upon. From
very well-informed sources, I learn that once A.B. Vajpayee is out of
office (he increasingly suffers ill-health), there are promising
prospects for our efforts to bring Sathya Sai Baba to justice in
India, even if the Bharatha Janatha Party retains power. My Indian
friends tell me he sorely needs to secure near thirty seats in Sathya
Sai Baba’s imperium, Andhra Pradesh)
Or I guess they have all been trying to get
an interview since and Baba has been hiding because he is so afraid.
Am I correct?
I think, Seema, that
you do an awful lot of guessing, and that sarcasm and emoting replace
a genuine desire to see the situation from any other perspective. The
evidence suggests that he is one of history's great hiders and masters
of deception, whatever may be urged in his favour.
To show no fear in the face of a real threat is pathological.
I cannot understand is why so many
people leave their Homeland and go to Sai
Baba?You people sound like little
puppets on show at an Ashram.
"Little puppets,"
"little homos," “nice little young boy,” “little
Internet bad mothers,” “little
monkey mind,” …That’s a lot of
littles. Why do you wish to do all this belittling,
Seema?
No wonder you all got disappointed. For
twenty five years you went to an ashram.
Yes, twenty-five
years of utter devotion - from November 1975 to October 1999.
Initially, I sought healing. As time went by, it related far more to
seeking the opening of the heart, and, with intense sadhana, to
conquer the qualities that separate us from our essence - which is
Love.
For what reason?
To try to know God? To see who
could get the most interviews? To see who got a bigger watches or
rings from Sai? To see if he can cure your illness? To get your life
in order? To get your kangaroo blessed?
I am pleased at least
that you know we have kangaroos in Australia – even though I am not
Robert, as you would insist, who lives in Norway, where they favour
the elkhound, noted for its unusual intelligence and ability to hunt
big game ...!