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Will Court Action Outside India Expose Hired Killers In The Sathya Sai Cult
2012-01-21 01:39:00 There is a matter about which I should shortly be able to write. I understand that arrests have been made, money trails unearthed, dangerous and bloody forces exposed through hard evidence and testimony, and that court actions are about to unfold. I am told that a major media force is now preparing a documentary. It will be interesting to see how the International Sathya Sai Organization reacts. Many death threats are, of course, bluffs. Some come from idle nutters who rant or bunglers who don't get very far. But it is important, nonetheless, to keep whatever tracks may have been left by all who threaten. In regard to some types of information, with the assistance of our relevant professional members, we deal with Interpol or other government agencies. In Australia, I have dealt with the (then) head of Interpol in Australia, Paul Weller, and senior officials in DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade). Our USA members have dealt with the FBI and State Department, UK member...
Sathya Sai Baba Birthday Celebrations ? Barry Pittard articles: 2007 to 201
2011-11-22 13:34:00 Below, I have excerpted from my articles posted on or close to each Sathya Sai Baba birthday celebration. These go back to 2007, the year in which I began 'Call For Media and Government Investigation of Sathya Sai Baba. One of the key reasons why Robert Priddy and I continue to expose the Sathya Sai Baba cult is that his worldwide Sathya Sai Organization, though it is in vast public discredit and struggling to remain intact, continues to draw unwitting people into its thrall. Now and then, members of major international media continue to consult us, and find us unflaggingly truthful, carefully analytic and responsible, as do other organizations and persons who stand against cultic dangers to human well-being. Repeatedly, it is the many Sathya Sai Baba devotees who - abjectly forgetful of Sai Baba's constantly harped-upon preachments about love, peace and sweet-spokenness - break the teachings common to many religions and philosophical systems . Their commonsense and decency par...
Puttaparthi Sai Baba Birthday 2011 ? Where Have All The Golden Pomp and Cir
2011-11-20 02:29:00 The late Sathya Sai Baba's birthday celebrations occur on 23 November. As usual, around this time, there is an upsurge of visitors to this blogsite and that of Robert Priddy. However, in comparison to other years, the numbers are much down, very much as Sai Baba himself is forever down in the earth, and his devotees infinitely down in the dumps. After his death in on 24 April 2011, and the terrible fighting over managerial succession at Puttaparthi, and then the discovery - not of spiritual treasure but - untold hoarded treasure in Sai Baba's private quarters, the international Sathya Sai Organization is in vast disarray. See: ?Secret Swami? (Late) Sai Baba: Vast Millions In Hoard Found Hidden In His Palace-Temple and: Sai Baba: hoarding, secrecy, mistrust, powerlessness, deceit Since our work of international exposure via world leading media began in 1999, the cult has suffered regular resignation upheavals, including of foremost leaders. Indeed, many people leave informally....
Occupy Movement Exemplifies Sathya Sai Baba?s Failure As Social Reformer
2011-11-10 02:53:00 In the next days, I shall look at aspects of the Occupy movements, many of whose manifestations show how profoundly Sathya Sai Baba and his international organization have failed. Sathya Sai Baba and his cult always failed to face political and corporate power. They themselves are part of the corrupt system. His successors now fight out power struggles among themselves. The international Sathya Sai Organization ?good works? philosophy plays perfectly into the hands of the power elites, who have nothing against charity. We all like to feel good. Big-name donors to the Sathya Sai cult are legion, especially in India, and from among the Indian diaspora worldwide. Amid untold golden glitter, the late Sathya Sai Baba said that, in his own lifetime, he would save and rule India and then the world Those in the Occupy movements are better educated than ever before, and thus able to use social media such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc., to great advantage. Sathya Sai Baba and his ...
Dr John Hislop. Vaunted ?Perfect Disciple? of Sathya Sai Baba
2011-11-06 10:38:00 Like so many devotees, especially those close to Sathya Sai Baba, ex-foremost leader of the Sathya Sai Organization (outside India), Dr John Hislop knew very well that Sai Baba told lies. Devotees, however, pass these off as, variously, "Baba's funny little ways"; "his sparing of our feelings"; his "Leelas" (meaning his 'divine sportiveness' .... When writing, they use a capital 'L'); "his perfect 'Truth', but our human imperfection" which cannot see that he is teaching us some profound lesson, for example, in learning detachment; and more such Procrustean racking of human reason and commonsense. Sai Baba long exhorted that his devotees: "Love (him) for (his) Mystery". (Of course, his editors and other devotee writers capitalized the 'h' in 'him' and 'his' ..... Hislop also well knew that many devotees were in confusion about his many lies, all his predictions which failed, as did so many of his promised cures and e.g., of placements at his university or his colleges...
Sathya Sai Baba Cult Now Distraught and Broken, Like Its Founder In Last Ye
2011-10-31 21:46:00 Former devotee outreach to institutions was enormous, an international effort in which people from many professional, trade backrounds put did their best, first of all to warn of the danger of boys and young men coming into the orbit of Sathya Sai Baba. As the participants compared their experiences, evidence ? sometimes gut-sickening ? fast mounted. Other crimes and ethical betrayals came to our notice. To those coordinating activities, such as Glen Meloy, Hari Sampath, myself and, as time passed, Robert Priddy, the sheer volume and richness of evidence allowed many striking confirmations of the veracity of accounts. Many witnesses clearly had no knowledge of each other. Still further, evidence came in from sources well beyond former devotees. Sai Baba had not only practised his sexual and other abuses on his immediate followers but on others who were spiritual seekers traveling through India from one ashram to another.
Sathya Sai Organization Shields Its Accused Members From Investigation
2011-10-13 03:13:00 This lack of speaking up, of questioning, profoundly ails the organization. It is also why, for example, so many costly drives in luxurious venues fail. See: ?Secret Swami? Cult Recruits At Prime Public Venues Those of us who have stood forth have often been assailed by Sai Baba activists such as Gerald Moreno, of New Mexico, USA, who deride Sai Baba's accusers for not having succeeded in court actions. However, the difficulties the victims face are formidable. Many of them wish to hide what they regard as their sense of shame. They do not wish to suffer discrimination against them in their personal or professional lives. Many have friends or relatives still closely associated with the Sathya Sai Organization. Sadly, many of them will not reach out for professional counseling, even though offered excellently qualified professional counseling. These and other formidable obstacles are familiar to all those familiar with the years of denial and cover up in the case of such institu...
Sai Baba of Shirdi: Sathya Sai Baba?s Tall Claims (Part 1)
2011-10-05 09:52:00 A few days back, Robert Priddy posted about Sathya Sai Baba's claims to have incarnated the major Indian saint Shirdi Sai Baba. See: Shirdi Sai stated ?I am not God?, while Sathya misrepresented him For those interested in looking at a few of the issues involved in such spectacular claims, I shall, in the next few days, further give some comments and links. On his way to becoming his own notion of Avatar of all Avatars, did Sathya Sai Baba truly believe that he had incarnated in the 19th century in the north-west Indian state of Maharashtra? Or was he shrewdly aware of practising a deception? My own guess is that, like others who have extraordinary inner experiences, he may have been in the grip of very powerful aspects of mind - especially the right brain - of which we understand far too little. In certain unusual states of mind, an individual believes that extraordinary, real-seeming experiences are actually God's voice speaking out of a burning bush to Moses. Actually, Al...
They?ve Banned the Bulls At Barcelona. By Barry Pittard
2011-09-28 02:42:00 I have been working on this song - words and music - since yesterday. It sprang from seeing the news reports about the banning of bullfighting in Barcelona, Spain. The incident recalled a repeated discovery of prominent figures in confronting the Sathya Sai Organization. Namely, that when you fight a hard cause, you essentially have to fight it pretty well alone. The crowds may cheer or give thumbs down. But one has to focus on the proper work, and not the pro or anti roars of crowds. And of the disappearance of many people from whom one might have wished to see better. Whether one believes in bullfighting or this or that cause or not, the true pain and joy, those great inseparables, is in the deed, and facing it no less than the worthy matador or bull. Those who dare are too few, and would dare regularly if only they knew the sheer satisfaction of making a stand. My supposition is that the prime activists in the fight for animal rights have far more in common with the matadors t...
Some Key Themes In Studying Sathya Sai Baba Cult
2011-09-26 11:08:00 This post is a resource - especially for those such as former devotees as well as people considering leaving the international Sathya Sai Organization, and investigators such as journalists, scholars, and religious, political, civic and other institutions this cult's officials tend to approach. We have had notable success in presenting our evidence such that many responsible organizations refuse to have anything to do with them. Below, selected from a much large corpus, I give thematic headings and link details to, and brief quotation from, articles I have written over time. In turn, these pieces contain further recondite links.
The Long Journey: Exposing Sathya Sai Baba (1)
2011-09-23 11:14:00 The present writer was deeply devoted to Sai Baba for twenty-five years and taught for two years at one of his leading institutions, the Sathya Sai College at Whitefield, via Bangalore, South India. He greatly enjoyed this work, teaching many boys and young men in their three years' degree course. He lived around Sai Baba for several years while engaged in various voluntary social service activities, of which the college teaching was one. It is not the Sathya Sai Organization's good works that we contest. Many of former devotees gave hugely of their time and money in the belief that they served one who was the divine incarnate. Rather, the target of the critique is the long history of wrongdoing, and of its cover-up. And this by arguably India's most historically powerful and influential guru, and, of course, those of his servitors who have been in-the-know, and aided and abetted him. That is to say, who have known of the Sai Baba's serial sexual and other abuses, of the cover ...
Sathya Sai Baba Made Huge Science and History Mistakes
2011-09-21 00:49:00 Sathya Sai Baba's 'educated' devotees have a great deal to anwer for. Many of his pronouncements directly contradict basic, long-established, irrefutable facts that their own children learn at school. It is little wonder that many Sai devotees children so seriously question their parents beliefs, and that unbridgeable gaps of discourse subsist between these parents and teachers. This factor does not relate to expected intergenerational differences of perception. It is fundamental to the breakdown that occurs in the case of one cult after another. A young person's spirit AND intelligence - unless these qualities have, themselves, been damaged by the absurd belief system - will both rebel. And for the best of reasons. The late Howard Murphet, Australian journalist and author of best-selling books on Sai Baba, with whom he was close for years, wrote:
Barry Pittard ? On Institutional Cover Ups and Psychological Denial
2011-09-05 03:25:00 In many universities, there is reluctance to study the testimony of apostates. But I would commend - perhaps to a younger and less blinkered generation of academics - that perceived problems about validity of testimony can be overcome from the more or less oblique angle of comparative studies. There is no shortage of dissent from major and powerful institutions, and therefore a large witness base. Indeed, I suggest that one perspective for examining this phenomenon is the positive one of health - rather than of pathology. Witnesses from organization oriented to strong belief systems commonly do not know each other, and this fact yields an immense and rich base of non-colusional evidence. Any academic institution which resiles from the study cults per se backs away from taking seriously one of the prime threats to civil well-being. There is a train of thought which keeps coming home to me when I look at the testimony of dissenters from various authoritarian organizations .... Whe...
The Mystification of Sathya Sai Baba Devotees
2011-08-30 12:51:00 Recently, Sathya Sai Baba devotees have suffered terrible shocks. To devotees with any reasoning capabilities intact, no amount of Sathya Sai Central Trust's spin-doctoring will do. It is little wonder that some leaders in the Sathya Sai Organization with more developed democratic tendencies have long fell foul of those such as Indulal Shah. The difficulty here was always there was the thought that Shah and other leaders, however autocratic and unpleasant their manner, were, after all, but mouth-pieces for Sathya Sai Baba. Little did they know ..... Many followers were forced to consider that those servitors, handpicked by Sathya Sai Baba himself, have been party to extremely unaccountable, poor explanations surrounding his sickness and death. They learn, if they did not already know, or else had forgotten, that he foretold that he would die circa 2022 AD. It could not be lost on at least some devotees that many of his prophecies and promises did not materialise. Such anomalies ...
Sexual Abusers Must Be Convicted And A Public Educated (the Sai Baba Saga)
2011-08-08 02:33:00 This article continues from: Sathya Sai Alumni Need To Speak Out. Hiding Maintains A Culture Of Dirt. Posted by Barry Pittard on August 8, 2011 and: The Upside Down Chair In A Sathya Sai Baba College. Posted by Barry Pittard on August 8, 2011 and: Bhagavad Gita and Facing Villains. Will Sathya Sai Alumni Speak Up? And Fight!? ...
Sathya Sai Alumni Need To Speak Out. Hiding Maintains A Culture Of Dirt
2011-08-08 02:28:00 Is it honorable to wrap oneself in the silent icy shadows of unspoken terrible truths, leaving others to stand forth and to take the brunt? When all the details become available, I hope to be able to tell a story of one family's determination to expose the dirty, abusive cabal that surrounded Sathya Sai Baba, and the catching of one of the most prominent of his teachers. All eloquent when on the stage at Puttaparthi. All neat, pressed and white-clad on the outside, but all dirt on the inside. Prison clothes will befit him. He will have to be kept in another section of the prison. Many prisoners love children, and they do not in the least like what, in Australian prison argot, are referred to as 'Rockspiders'. He gave many of you who were part of the Sathya Sai education system a bad time. Some of you lay down in the dirt with him. Some of you perpetrated the same offences on yet others. He, and those like him, took your strength, but only YOU can reclaim it. Mental health prof...
Bhagavad Gita and Facing Villains. Will Sathya Sai Alumni Speak Up? And Fig
2011-08-07 07:03:00 Especially to my former students at the Sathya Sai College, Whitefield, via Bangalore, South India, I would commend as worthy of some contemplation a few thoughts: A number of survivors of Sathya Sai Baba immoral depredations have shown much courage, and determination that, if at all possible, others do not suffer the same sexual abuse at the hands of Sathya Sai Baba and those around him. There remain those who by no means see Sathya Sai Baba's death as the end of the great betrayal. His co-abusers still thrive.They fight for the tinsel and the trash. In some of them gold glitters in their eyes. Others want the wealth to be used towards doing good. But the true good requires exactly what Sai Baba so often said - speaking truth. And speaking it fearlessly.
Ex- Sathya Sai Baba Students Could Aid Sex Abuse Change In India. But Will
2011-08-05 06:45:00 A few years ago, I addressed an 'open letter' to my former Whitefield College Students. On re-reading, I see that its terms can fairly be addressed (give or take the occasion specific reference) to all alumni, past and present. There have been so many revelations of great and pervasive corruption both in Sathya Sai Baba himself and in many of his officials (especially his core servitors) that it may not go amiss to post this communication here. Thousands of Sathya Sai education alumni face a dilemma not only in their immediate communities but wherever they may settle or travel. It is hard to imagine a major education institution in which a founder and certain teachers and Trust officials have been so deeply embroiled in scandal. But when, with searching analyis and deeply thought-through remedial action, what can be so terrible can, with great good will, be transformed into something that is so wonderful. And these alumni, potentially, are faced with a great challenge. Examples ...
Will Court Decision Topple A Top Sathya Sai Teacher? Male Sexual Abuse Case
2011-07-22 11:36:00 STOP PRESS! Breaking NEWS ...... This morning, Friday, I received important news, the details of which are being wrapped up in an Indian High Court today. Until I access the notes, I shall wait and examine the details, and check on what those on the spot have to report. Witnesses to the court proceedings made such comments as: "Our side had only three 'suits' (ed. i.e., lawyers or solicitors). The Sathya Sai lot had no fewer than thirteen!! Our three advocates ran rings around them. The judge removed the gag". One of the family members I spoke to, who along with other family, have long suffered the effects of Sai betrayal, was so overjoyed at the routing of a formidable accomplice of Sathya Sai Baba that he told me: "I was so happy that I leapt into my swimming pool forgetting that I had my Sat(ellite)Phone in my pocket. I have to get a new one" .... Prison Sentence - More Sentences To Come? I can attest that there is growing determination among those who have t...
Another Sathya Sai Baba Multi Million Haul Found At Puttaparthi
2011-07-20 02:16:00 As major litigation preparations unfold - particularly in regard to Sathya Sai Baba's officials, with the complicity of Indian, local, state and national governments, it does the Sai Baba cause no good that one extraordinary revelation follows another of his secret hoarding of Midas or Croesus like treasures. Andhra Pradesh revenue officials are now readying to seach further parts of the Puttaparthi complex, as well as other venues such as the ashram at Kadugodi. This ashram is, by the way, where I was a lecturer at the Sathya Sai college, Whitefield, via Bangalore (1978-79, teaching in without any remuneration at the behest of one who, all the while, unknown to me, was serially sexually abusing the students whom I loved, and am to this day determined to see, along with many other boys, before and since this time whose lives have been devastated), find a measure of justice. I say to all these boys: Now furnished with great financial and legal resources, a number of us have have ...
Young Male Sex Abuse: International Legal Challenge Will Confront Key Sathy
2011-07-19 11:49:00 Those Sathya Sai Baba accomplices who have so grievously outraged the innocence of boys and young men over many years had best not underestimate the sheer punching power and international outreach of law firms now being consulted. I am assured that they are able, via their experience and alliances in South Asia, to sort out the sheep and the goats in the Indian legal system. Already some of Sathya Sai Baba's officials know ? to their considerable cost ? that three strong legal actions have already succeeded against them. It was unfortunate that, hitherto, these were settled out of court with mutual non-disclosure agreements. However, they should remember that there remain legal pathways ahead that they will not rejoice in facing. Those who wish to litigate or in other ways support legal actions against those who supported the years of homosexual abuse of boys and young men, and other abuses, can, with assurance of strict confidentiality contact my close and trusted colleague Rob...
Reports of Sathya Sai Central Trust Van Laden With Treasure Seized By Andhr
2011-06-19 01:04:00 FLASH This story seems only broken as yet via the India Today television news channel. Overnight (Australian Eastern Standard Time), a usually reliable source of ours with Andhra Pradesh-related police sources reported that Andhra Pradesh State Police have intercepted a Sathya Sai Central Trust van heavily laden with treasure, and arrested three. It seems that the driver has confessed to being an employee of the Trust. Key words noted in the India Today news segment include: "Puttaparthi cash haul"??. " huge cash seized from Sai Baba trust van"???. "Sathya Sai Trust van intercepted and huge cash haul in bags" ??" Van and occupants arrested in Kodikonda checkpost in Ananthapur" ....... "driver confesses being Sathya Sai trust van driver coming from Puttaparthi"??.. "cash seized being held on the spot" ...?currency counting machines being rushed to the spot"
Ex-Chief Justice of India: Sathya Sai Baba ?dictated my every single judgem
2011-05-04 00:39:00 In The Times of India article - ?Sai Baba, my god, dictated my every single judgment? - TNN | May 1, 2011, 03.22am IST - the former Chief Justice of India, P.N. Bhagwati, makes this extraordinary claim. He says: "As a professional, each time I would sit down to write a judgment at 5 ?o?clock in the morning, I was only writing what my god dictated. Bhagwan held my hand as I put pen to paper" One wonders how the pens of judges the world over ever manage to remain upright .... One may like to pause, then - perhaps with the aid of a soothing Indian tea - just to take in the unexpectness of all this. A Strange Notion: A Judge's Own Guru Is Above The Law One may also wonder what the case if any other judges in India of this or that guru other than Sai Baba (and there are plenty of gurus to more than go around in that land) were to do the same thing. And whether they, like Bhagwati, would also - subscribe to the notion that, since their guru is god dictating to them, that they, ...
On Sathya Sai Baba: Times of India, Ex-Chief Justice Interview. What Judge
2011-05-01 14:14:00 The sort of questions I'd like to be asking ex-Chief Justice of India, P.N. Bhagwati (I'll follow the present spelling), I have put in blue highlight. In his interview just conducted by the Times of India (on which he has long been a director, by the way), Bhagwati, about to head the late Sathya Sai Baba's Central Trust, makes a number of comments which cannot but alienate him from present and former Commonwealth judges, and, indeed, judges, lawyers and citizens far beyond. He says, for example, that for long, in writing his judgements, he has been receiving guidance from Sathya Sai Baba. The account he gives sounds very like automatic writing. If it was not, he needs to have been clear about what he means. Judges are meant to be clear, are they not? He also shows some disconcerting lapses (???) of memory. He clearly say that because Sathya Sai Baba is God, there is no need for investigation of any allegations.
Sathya Sai Central Trust Says ?millions and millions? of Devotees Worldwide
2011-04-25 08:29:00 Below is the report of The (UK) Guardian's report on Sathya Sai Baba's death yesterday morning. I shall exerpt from, and comment on, it.
Sathya Sai Baba Is Dead. Said He Would Rule the World and Die Aged 96
2011-04-24 14:23:00 Sathya Sai Baba died today, Sunday morning. A Puttaparthi hospital official says: "Sai Baba is no more with us physically. He breathed his last at 7:40am and died due to cardio-respiratory failure." The self-described fullest incarnation of God ever to visit the earth has been clearly documented as saying that he would live until circa 2022, aged 96. But 85 years of age cannot, by any miracle, be said to be 96. And well-documented promises that he would rule the world before leaving it have clearly not even begun to look at all likely. His devotees - with many sections of unquestioning sections the media following them - speak, as a Sathya Sai Central Trust bulletin of only days ago, of "millions and millions" of devotees around the world. See: Sathya Sai Trust Officials Say Sai Baba Out of Hospital Soon. Posted by Barry Pittard on April 16, 2011. This statement appeared in the long and anxiously awaited "Important Press Release by Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust", Friday, Ap...
Sathya Sai Baba Teaches: ?We are not this body?. Why Are His Devotees Such
2011-04-24 00:26:00 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. The Times of India reports: Sai Baba's devotees believe he will live for 96 years IANS, Apr 21, 2011, 03.45pm IST ...................
Barry Pittard?s Articles Most-Sought During Sathya Sai Baba Health Crisis (
2011-04-23 08:39:00 In that the links may be useful for readers - especially those new to, or less familiar, with this blogsite - I shall give below a list of Urls (Part 1 of 3) at this blogsite which, as I can see from an internal statistical read-outs, are getting solid 'hits'. To put the matter mildly .... Plenty of these usages originate from: Google and other search engines. Our allied blogsites and websites, such as Robert Priddy's highly organized main website: Sathya Sai Baba In Word and Action and his blogsite: Sathya Sai Baba Deceptions Exposed and from the general website Exbaba.comwhich contains a huge amount of contribution by former devotees from many countries. Important locations, especially for those who wish extensive, scholarly presentation are Brian Steel's writings at: Sathya Sai Baba: The Guru Who Claimed to be God on Earth and Recent Research on Sathya Sai Baba and A Bibliography of Apologetic Writings Many 'hits' come from individuals who search within 'Call For M...
Human Rights Commission Probe Fronts Andhra Government On Sathya Sai Baba T
2011-04-19 00:31:00 In the last hours, many Indian newspapers have run the story on the direction by the Andhra Pradesh Human Rights Commission to the State government to produce a report on Sathya Sai Baba's health condition. None too early in the piece, Sathya Sai Baba devotees themselves are now, at least via their lawyers, demanding answers concerning the workings of the Sathya Sai Central Trust. Readers of this blog, and that of Robert Priddy and of related websites, have long been presented with evidence of grievous lack of accountability in the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, and, at large, the international Sri Sathya Sai Organization. There are trust issues indeed. Since circa 2000, when the internet began to allow the rapid universal spread of information and communication, constant execration and libel have been heaped on the efforts of former Sathya Sai Baba followers to present a critique of the corrupt workings of the Sathya Sai apparatus. It is one of history's odd ironies that Sai de...
Indian Lawyers Challenge Sathya Sai Baba?s Central Trust On Secrecy and Fou
2011-04-18 10:45:00 In the last days, there has fast emerged a major new turning point in the Sathya Sai saga. A climate is emerging in which Sai Baba devotee appointed lawyers are seriously looking at what their clients aver is the severe unaccountability of Puttparthi officialdom. See: Downturn In Sathya Sai Baba?s Condition (April 17th 2011) Posted by Barry Pittard on April 18, 2011 and Sathya Sai Devotees Suspect Foul Play In Guru?s Health Crisis. Seek Court Order Posted by Barry Pittard on April 16, 2011 These lawyers and their clients may pause to consider that networked former devotees have long spoken out about the extreme lack of accountability and duty of care in the international Sri Sathya Sai Organization. Indeed, some of these who have spoken up at great sacrifice to themselves and families were previously prominent leaders highly respected down the many years in which they served Sathya Sai Baba and his international organization. See: The Sathya Sai Organization: Almost overnight, d...
Downturn In Sathya Sai Baba?s Condition (April 17th 2011)
2011-04-17 23:35:00 Reports say that Sathya Sai Baba's health has relapsed. This is in marked contrast to to the optimistic view released by the Sathya Sai Central Trust last Friday. It stated: "In the latest review, as of today, the doctors attending on Him have expressed confidence that He is in a stable condition and is responding satisfactorily to the treatment being given to Him by the team of doctors, though somewhat slowly. They are confident that, if the progress continues to be stable and satisfactory as at present, it might be possible to shift Him from the hospital to His residence at Prasanthi Nilayam in about a fortnight". To follow the emerging picture, one must keep a careful eye on the dates. Today's Deccan Herald, 18th April (see below), indicates that there is no chance of Sai Baba's being removed from hospital, so serious is his condition. For a sense of the rapidly changing reports, I draw my readers' attention to the following reports in my last days' blogs. The latest rep...
Sathya Sai Devotees Suspect Foul Play In Guru?s Health Crisis. Seek Court O
2011-04-16 12:25:00 In some major Indian newspapers, there are now reports of Sai devotees taking action that challenges the conduct of those close round Sathya Sai Baba, including urgent recourse to law. They suspect the gravest chicanery practised by forces vying for control of Puttaparthi. Those accused number prominent members of the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust. If these followers can sustain their case, the chances are that the scandal will be very great. Hitherto, we have had utmost difficulty in getting any but the media outside India to investigate the Sai Baba cult. One of the foremost Indian editors privately told me: it is not possible to investigate Sai Baba - his people are too powerful. I may add that the mass circulation magazine India Today was a rare exception. One of the journalists associated with the India Today cover story, Vijay Jung Thapa, had to have security mounted (?close body protection?) during and for some time after he was involved in the exposure story on Sathya Sa...
Sathya Sai Trust Officials Say Sai Baba Out of Hospital Soon
2011-04-16 02:03:00 A Sathya Sai Central Trust "important press release" just to hand (see notice below) has begun to appear on various prominent Sathya Sai Baba related sites on the web. It notes that "for several days, His (sic) condition was a cause for concern". In other words, presumably, there is now NOT now cause for concern. But how can it be? Given his advanced age (supposedly 85 years, although this has been disputed in scholarly discussion), and the severity of his many symptoms, one might expect an even more reduced shell of his former self than hitherto. The bulletin refers to: "the spontaneous upsurge of prayers, bhajans, namasmarana, candle light processions of millions and millions of His devotees all over the globe for His very early and total recovery". I invite my dear reader to the simple expedient of sticking his or her head out the window just to check whether they can see any of it ..... If you should enjoy processions, some you may have to wait for Saint Patrick's Day in,...
Is Sathya Sai Baba?s Survival Divine? But Treatment Keeps Many Elderly Sick
2011-04-13 22:41:00 When contrasted with the critical and prolonged illness of Sathya Sai Baba, many texts from his discourses are to be seen as mere hyperbole or some form of belief system that he, who claims to be perfection itself, cannot sustain in his own case. He says: ?Desire to which you are too fondly attached breeds anger and its nefarious brood. Discard it and you can have perpetual youth! The Aanandha that the Aathman can manifest will keep age and ageing away!? Discourse of Sathya Sai Baba, Prashanthi Nilayam, 22 Feb 1971. Published by Sri Sathya Sai Books and Publications Trust. Although it is widely known that most of the Media in India will not go up against Sai Baba's and his core servitors' political and religious clout, the following two reports have a touch of realism about them - very different to the positive spin which one fails to find in official Sathya Sai Organization as well as in rank-and-file devotee responses to be seen across the internet. They leave out of account t...
Sathya Sai Baba?s Pacemaker Implant ? His Promised Health and Longevity In
2011-03-31 23:31:00 Increasingly sick and ailing over recent years, Sathya Sai Baba has said: ?Purity, patience and perseverance. With these three you are bound to acquire good health and bliss. You may believe it or not. But the truth is that these three are responsible for my health (Arogya) and bliss (Ananda)? (Sanathana Sarathi July 1995, p. 173) But, sadly for himself and his devotees, he is not all-powerful, as he proclaims himself to be. But all-senile. This decline into senescence, was of course gradual but not exactly, even when it became glaringly evident, a topic for public discussion among his devotees. Several years back, when our laymen's eyes spotted the physical changes, senior cardiologists and other doctors among our number confirmed our own naive-level, but realistic, observations. Even brief extracts from articles over time at this blogsite give unmistakeable evidence of what devotees cannot truthfully rationalize or wish away. Namely that their supposedly all-powerful guru has...
Sathya Sai Baba Hospitalized, Despite Hailing His Extraordinary ?Health?
2011-03-29 14:12:00 Stop Press! News of Sathya Sai Baba's hospitalization are breaking in these last hours. Only a sanitized version of health problems afflicting Sathya Sai Baba is possible. Any reader of informed chroniclers - such as Robert Priddy, Brian Steel, Serguei Badaev, Alexandra Nagel, myself and others - knows how we have extensively, and with much care, often documented, the tight control on propaganda emitting from Puttapathi and the leadership of the international Sathya Sai Organization. One of my most read articles is this one about the deputy chairman of that organization, and the director of Sathya Sai Baba's attempt to get radio broadcasts into every corner of the world: Sathya Sai Baba's 'Minister of Propaganda' - Dr G. Venkataraman. A Mahashivaratri 2000 report in Sanathana Sarathi, Sai Baba's official organ (distributed worldwide), unintentionally mocks the absurdity of Sai Baba's self-presentations regarding his health, of which, by long habit, he gives the rosiest...
What Is A Cult? Does Sathya Sai Baba Preside Over A Servile, Worldwide Cult
2011-03-21 04:12:00 Is the Sathya Sai Organization a cult? It is a fair question. No careless use of terms will serve us well. We might also enquire - perhaps of our own selves, more than anyone else, whether there are significant cultic elements in those institutions we may too readily deem 'mainstream' or liveable-with, or somehow 'rational', 'normal', and so forth. Does not the human mind tend to cling to certain presumed verities? How would we do traveling, for a while, without them? Even if such 'verities' had some substance to them, does the clinging in itself nullify any more profound nurturing of our being that we would wish to be mediated via our belief systems? I pose questions, here, rather than wish to plunge into answers. Perhaps it is our human readiness to come up with answers, and structures and tenets that traps instead of frees us. Perhaps we need, first, to posit, for the sake of argument or simply the fun of it, that we are trapped in our 'verities' and 'solutions'...
Many Notable Sathya Sai Baba Cult Leaders Resign
2011-02-18 01:05:00 One of the potent, indirect damages to the Sathya Sai Organization comes via the concerned activities of very large numbers of those who are non-devotee family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers in the professions, business, fellow college and students, etc. These well-wishers of devotees actively confront followers in a way those such critical writers could never directly achieve. Sathya Sai Baba and his leaders tell followers that they must not look at the critical writing - especially on the internet - about their leader and organization. Fortunately, this constraint does not apply to those non-devotees who keenly wish for the well-being of those they know who are Sai Baba followers. This very large group of well-wishers who DO examine the critical material are often no fools at all, and come from many socio-cultural, educational backgrounds. They are able to form their own independent view about whether prominent critics write with acceptable tones of public discourse....
Sathya Sai Baba and His Sect: Links to Critical Blogsites and Websites
2011-01-21 23:16:00 Sathya Sai Baba And His Sect: Links to Critical Blogsites and Websites. Including the following and many others ..... Sathya Sai Baba In Word and Action An extensive, highly organized site by the former long-time head and co-founder of the Sathya Sai Organization in Norway. He was a notable contributer to the official organ, Sanathana Sarathi, whose writing was much valued by the Editor of this publication, his friend V.K. Narasimhan, a courageous and legendary Indian journalist.
Is Puttaparthi Glitter the ?Shining India??
2010-12-15 23:31:00 Many are the demonstrably mistaken accusations thrown at those who have stood forth to expose Sathya Sai Baba and his international sect. For example, typically taking our remarks badly out-of-context, it is said that we are: "India bashers". But they do their cause harm; and we learn that many Sai devotees will have nothing to do with them - although we also know that some who are close to Sathya Sai Baba have assisted them in various ways. Indeed, the absurdity and intellectual dishonesty of their attempts to defame will not win them the favour of astute and questioning readers.
Avatar of Deception: Sathya Sai Baba. 85, But Says He Will Rule World
2010-11-26 21:48:00 As the international Sathya Sai Organization knows to its immense cost (both financially and morally), many have left, having been able to analyse for themselves the many and terrible distortions of fact generated by Sathya Sai Baba and his core servitors. Many shockingly suffering individuals and families around the world have needed to perform no analysis at all, since they have been prime victims of Sathya Sai Baba's and his officials' grave misconduct. For those still in the throes of leaving the Sai cult, it is a time of profound emotional, intellectual and social upheaval. These afflictions cannot be expected to go away quickly. Those of us who have stuck at the job of exposure commonly find that leave-takers of the organization take a year or two, and sometimes much longer, to collect their thoughts in a consecutive way. Those who make a quick matter of transition to replacement life styles often say that they have 'moved on'. There is a whole psychological literature t...
The BBC?s ?The Secret Swami? (Sathya Sai Baba) On YouTube: A Tamil Version
2010-10-20 22:26:00 Calling Tamilians .... Kindly pass the word along. Someone has posted a Tamil version of the BBC's ''The Secret Swami'on YouTube. Amusingly, someone else has gone to all the effort of flooding the consecutive YouTube pages with quotes from Sathya Sai Baba.
Global Sathya Sai Cult White-ants Itself
2010-01-18 22:57:00 Why is the Sathya Sai Baba cult so vulnerable? What is its 'archilles heel'? Part of the answer is exemplified in the information that comes to us from those who, to greater and lesser degree, have been Puttaparthi insiders, such as students and former students of Sathya Sai Baba education institution and former leaders. They attest that, when they read blogsites such as this one and the blogsites and websites of others such as Robert Priddy and Brian Steel, they realize from the very first that our sources are frequently spot-on. This means that, along with apostasy in regard to Sai Baba round the world, such knowledge is held far beyond the resources of any of the critical commentators. Those levels of permeation errode the Sai project in ways well-exceeding the efforts of a few writers. In short, the Sathya Sai cult is its own worst enemy. The corruptions and suppressions are the 'white ants' which bring it down. Yet even if - somehow - it were reformed, it would surely rem...
Democratic Societies Need To Face Issues On Cults
2010-01-08 23:21:00 In my colleague's and my extensive experience in exposing the global Sathya Sai Baba cult and its leader, India's most famous guru, we have found a striking fact: governments, and indeed whole societies, fail to face the problem of cults. The 'answers' of totalitarian regimes is of course to be repudiated at the outset. Indeed, in their authoritarianism, these closely resemble a great many cults, in any case! In some sense, they can indeed be deemed cults. Charismatic, autocratic leadership, enforcement of group-think, and punitive styles exercised against those who question are some characteristics that loom large.
Barry Pittard?s Articles On Sathya Sai Baba and His Global Movement (1)
2009-11-23 22:33:00 For more recent readers in particular, this series points to some of my articles at Call For Media and Government Investigation of Sathya Sai Baba - http://barrypittard.wordpress.c-om - on Sathya Sai Baba and his global sect, extending to January 2007.
Michelle Goldberg, US Author-Journalist, on Sathya Sai Baba (1)
2009-10-07 23:53:00 It is one of the gambits of pro Sathya Sai Baba activists like Indulal Shah (when he was active), Dr G.Venkataraman and his virtual counterpart Gerald Moreno, to portray highly reputed media journalists as sensationalist, and so on. In their offensive and denunciatory style, they fail to credit world leading media journalists, and the researchers as well, ...
Sathya Sai Baba and Dr G.Venkataraman: Will They Disavow Their Idi Amin Fon
2009-10-01 23:09:00 Deputy head of the international Satahya Sai Organization and Head of Sai Global Radio G. Venkataraman?s ?Mr Idi Amin? Report (/Journals/Vol_05/01JAN07/11-pr-asanthi-diary) stands as an appalling affront to those who suffered at this monstrous dictator's hands. Note how Venkataraman, on Sai Global Radio, refers to Mr Idi Amin. I may add that it is interesting that Amin claimed to have a direct line to God. Did he have in mind, specifically, Sathya Sai Baba? Perhaps Amin scholars may have something among their files, and can let us all know. Here is what G. Venkataraman wrote:
Dr G. Venkataraman, Sathya Sai Baba?s Nuclear Boon Companion
2009-09-29 00:18:00 Robert Priddy is the former long-time head of the Sathya Sai Organization in Norway and a retired philosopher in the Social Sciences, University of Oslo. He has written insightfully on the extraordinary, often procrustean efforts of Sathya Sai Baba's head of Puttaparthi propaganda programs to rationalise his beliefs in Sathya Sai Baba. Though not a physical (actually, nuclear) scientist like Dr G. Venkataraman, he has an abiding interest in the sciences, and how a certain variety of scientists, in a great minority but with unfortunate influence far beyond their importance, falsely use science to buttress up their religious claims. The following information may be of particular value for journalistic and scholarly investigators, and also those institutions and agencies which the Sathya Sai cult in many countries attempts to influence - but without portraying their real agendas. For those who may like to hunt and peck among Priddy's writings on G. Venkataraman, I have excerpted fro...
Most Former Sathya Sai Devotees Respond Without Hatred
2009-09-26 01:40:00 Here is a quite typical note from a defender of Sathya Sai Baba, and the reply from one who is no long partial to him. The writer had written a number of emails to the recipient, who did not retaliate to any of the points. Some of the language of the other emails was couched more unkindly than anything in the following. The former devotee responded because of the basic decency and sincerity of the person who wrote:
Muslim sects trade threats in Indonesia
2008-06-02 12:41:00 An Islamic hard-liner in Indonesia urged his followers Monday to prepare for war against a minority Muslim sect and said he would not hand over supporters involved in a bloody attack on the group.Habib Rizhiq's remarks raised the threat of more violence in the country and set the stage for a showdown with Indonesia's secular president, who has called on police to crack down on Rizhiq's followers."We are not prepared for even one of our members to be arrested. We will resist to our last drop of blood," he said.Detective chief Lieutenant General Bambang Hendarso Danuri told reporters that officers had identified five suspects in the attack, and that "hopefully" they would be arrested later Monday.President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - who has been under fire for failing to speak up against the intimidation campaign by hard-liners ? criticised Sunday's attack and urged police to arrest the perpetrators."The violence had sullied our country's reputation," Yudhoyono said at a news con... |
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