Response Series, Part Eight

 

 

 

 

 

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 ...!