MYTHS PROMOTED BY THE ORG.
I had heard all the myths in
my earlier years as a "devotee" of Sai Baba. In my later years, I was
a volunteer and had the opportunity to work in the Ashram intelligence and
security wing. This put me in contact with a lot of senior volunteers and
Ashram residents who had been around for long. By talking to them about the
specific circumstances of the so-called miracles I was able to find out what
had exactly happened in all of the above cases.
In this context I wish to inform everyone about a few things that the Ashram
intelligence does. As stories of Sai Baba's miracles are really huge in
numbers, there have been several instances where some people had tried to make
money by "arranging" Sai Baba "miracles" and saying that by
worshipping in this house or that, all problems will be solved and it is Sai
Baba who has appointed this "agent" etc. This is rather common in the
southern states of India.
The Ashram intelligence had developed a mechanism by which they investigate the
source of these "miracles" and check out the motives of the persons
behind them. This is also done to prevent Sai Baba from being associated with
any "miracles" that may possibly be exposed as fraud at a later date,
and give Sai Baba bad publicity. Of course, the original intention of the
Ashram intelligence wing is to protect the "genuineness" of Sai
Baba's "miracles", and prevent unscrupulous elements from
"using" Sai Baba's name. Most of the people involved with intelligence
and security at the Ashram really believe in Sai Baba's divinity and so they
act like this. In fact this setup exists specifically on Sai Baba's orders, and
I have personally investigated so many "miracles" myself.
But what is most important is, during these processes of investigation, I have
come across so many "genuine miracles", attested and approved of by
Sai Baba , that I know personally to be totally mistaken cases, and often
deliberately "arranged" by the inner coterie themselves.
Naturally, in these instances, I could not take it up to the higher authorities
in the Sai Baba org, as they themselves were guilty of arranging
"miracles" and Sai Baba himself is perfectly aware of all this. There
are hundreds of "famous miracles" that I had personally verified to
be cases of MISTAKE by the people experiencing them, and actively promoted by
the Sai Baba org , and also several more "miracles" that are a result
of misinformation spread by over enthusiastic devotees, who do not even bother
to check facts properly.
The Sai Org's strategy is very clear on how to approach this.
1. If some outsider is trying to "use" Sai Baba's name to make money,
they simply ask the intelligence wing to investigate, and confirm it and put
out a notice in Sanathana Sarathi, or make general announcements. This also
gives the impression of other "miracles" approved by Sai Baba as
being genuine.
2. If it is case of mistaken "miracles" spread by over enthusiastic
devotees, then the Ashram intelligence reports it as such, and the Org
officials "allow" it to stay and circulate, thereby gaining
"good publicity" for Sai Baba's "miracles" , while at the
same time the Org can always dissociate from the stories if they were seen to
be mistaken cases by the devotees and public later.
3. In the case of a "miracle" that was arranged by the Org itself,
and usually this is done very carefully by trusted inner coterie members and
targeted at wealthy western devotees or someone working on a book, if the
Intelligence wing happens to uncover this, the instructions were to simply turn
away and not talk to anyone about it. The explanation always was "Sai Baba
is God and we cannot understand all these things, so ignore it".
I am sure that all of you would be able to relate to the manner in which the
Sai Baba org controls things, as you yourself may have seen examples of all the
above things, somewhere, sometime.