Sathya Sai Baba Teaches: ‘We are not this body’. Why Are His
Devotees Such A Police Security Problem?
At 'Call For Media and
Government Investigation of Sathya Sai Baba', see the article:
Posted by
Barry Pittard
on April 24, 2011
QUOTE
Cited several times
in the Indian media’s sudden, unaccustomed, large coverage of
Sathya Sai Baba, are accounts of “eminent” Sai devotees stating
that he will not die because he has promised to remain in the
physical body until he is 96 years.
Outside India, the
notion of outstanding professionals giving credence to such
way-out beliefs must seem strange. For the facts to sink in to a
foreign brain, one has to live and work in India. One has to
experience at first hand the sheer extent of superstition from
top to bottom in that society of such mutual kindness and
cruelty, beauty and tragedy. Valiantly, many Indians struggle on
behalf of sense and reason, but what they face is formidable in
the extreme.
For decades, Sathya Sai
Baba’s constant evangel has been for his followers not, except
for a few concessions to practicality, to regard the body – a
decaying, temporary encasement. In hundreds of his discourses,
he has told them not to become attached to his, or indeed, to
anyone’s bodily form. Why, then, the overwhelming scenes of
weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth?
And why are so
many of his followers now – disrespectful of life and limb with
all their intemperate milling and thronging at Puttaparthi –
causing such trouble to the local and state police? According
to official statements, there are some 2000 police engaged in
crowd control and other security duties at Puttaparthi, with
another 2000 or so on standby. This is in addition to Sathya Sai
Baba’s large cadres of well-drilled Seva Dal (service volunteers).
One may ask, too, why
such unseemly arguments attend the deliberations among some of
his closest servitors?
The Times of India
reports:
IANS, Apr 21, 2011, 03.45pm IST
HYDERABAD: Though the condition of spiritual leader
Sathya Sai Baba is worsening, some of his devotees are
confident he will recover and live for 96 years as he had once
predicted.
A group of eminent devotees, including former judges,
police officers and physicians, believe that the 85-year-old
Sathya Sai Baba’s present condition is because he has taken on
himself the sufferings of one of his devotees ...