Sathya Sai Baba

cityMONK

what about Ramdev Baba of pitnajali ashram haridwar fame.He performs no miracles neither lives in caves.

skk

Interesting 2001 article about the charges of molestation of boys and young men by Sai Baba in salon.com - http://dir.salon.com/story/people/fe...ba/index3.html

Particularly pleasing to me is that some western govts have found the evidence persuasive enough to act on it. Excerpts:

Hari Sampath, an Indian software professional ...a former volunteer in the ashram's security service, is petitioning India's Supreme Court to order the central government to investigate Sai Baba. His greatest concern is for Sai Baba's Indian victims, who generally have a much more difficult time speaking out than Westerners do....
"I've spoken to 20 or 30 boys who have been abused, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are 14-year-old kids made to live in his room and made to think it's a blessing....
Last September, UNESCO yanked its cosponsorship of an education conference in Puttaparthi, explaining that it was "deeply concerned about widely reported allegations of sexual abuse involving youths and children that have been leveled at the leader of the movement in question, Sathya Sai Baba."
... the Sai Organization in Sweden was shut down, along with a Sai-affiliated school...
There is a movement now to urge the British Government to issue warnings to people wanting to visit Baba's ashram."

The oxygen of publicity is exactly what's necessary.

-skk

hash666

@city monk - i dont know bout baba rambev...
in my buddhahood i seek refuge...

hash666

i met a billionaire who met a thousand year baba... even thousand year old babas have time only for the rich...wat about us poor...

cityMONK

He is full bearded fellow you must have seen on telivision on indian channels like astha e.t.c. He teaches yoga to masses
at @ rs 500 to 5100 each.uptil last year he used to go from city to city and will teach yoga and parnayam tricks at a cost and on tv it was supposed to be free.I think whole india got addicted to this channel early in morning and late in evening.Now he has built his huge fivestar ashram and yogpeeth on free prime land alloted by government.Now he invites people to his ashram for learning yoga and talks only politics both time morning and evening.

I have personaly benifited what i learned from him in lieu of Rs 500.00 when he came to delhi.It was amazing to see him without much of clothes in morning chill.But now he is established and rarely ventures out of his deluxe ashram.

hash666

yes city monk i know who he is but look as he said from no star he is now 5 star...look at babas like Ramana maharishi always the same cos money cud not matter...

omtapas

Love in form

I have spend most of the last 10 years of my life in Puttaparthi.
I have seen many come and go, specially when the allegations of sex abuse became public.

Funny that some think that he does anything for money: he just wears a robe, has no watch or jewelery and he lives in a little room next to the mandir.

Millions have been donate and they are mainly used to run free hospitals and water projects around South India.

Many people have opinions and most haven't even met Him; funny how the global mind is working!

For me he is Love in form and the greatest gift of my life.

While I am writing this message, Sai Baba has left Puttaparthi for Pune for 2-3 days.

Blessings and peace to every one

__________________
Videos about my trips and more:
http://www.youtube.com/omtapas
Om Sai Ram - Tapas

skidmark

I couldn’t last through the night at his Puttaparthi ashram. I saw him give darshan and something just started to go wrong in my head from there. As the hours wore by waves of non specific anxiety built and built thought the evening in to the night. I simply couldn’t stand it any longer and had to leave. An Israeli guy in the dorm tried to talk some sense into me but I wouldn’t have it. As soon as I got out the gate the anxiety dropped and calmness came that I hadn’t felt in a while. I spent the remainder of the night on a bench and watched a white washed wall change with the hues of the dawn and caught the first bus out of town.

__________________
Do you feel more like you do now, than you did when you first got here? ~Grace Slick

Aupmanyav

Sells his medicines.No, he was not a humbug. He got every ashram entrant checked for HIV.

omtapas

Very well and very honest story.

So the question is? where was the anxiety coming from?
Out of you or out of the ashram.

For myself, Puttaparthi is the most powerful place I have ever experience in the whole of India. Discomfort is a common state in presence of Sathya Sai Baba, because Truth is so present that it triggers all insanity out of oneself...

Blessings

Goran

most of this "opinions" actually are coming from people that were saying similar things you are saying for years.. long before you got involved with Baba

And others are forming opinions based on different information available today (more than a decade or so ago when the Sai propaganda was basically the only available information). Nor being personally involved or emotionally attached they probably more objectivity in this than you have now.

As en ex I know exactly how it works though once you get "over the line of doubt" and from that point on develop a typical religious selective thinking and accept anything in favor of a certain position ignoring or belittling other info or possible explanations.. so I'm not expecting to change your opinion.. but he is still a bogus guru

P.S. Himalayas are still firmly on their place (for those not understanding this: Baba said that while Krishna lifted a hill he will lift the entire Himalayas.. and become a globally accepted world savior avatar.. something )... he is making us wait, that's for sure But I have no doubts that even after his death some explanation or another will be more than sufficient to the brainwashed followers, it's actually very interesting how this faith thing works

Goran

that's interesting, a friend ex devotee had a similar experience. Letter made easier by ego lifting experiences of getting a lot of attention from "God" (interviews, "materialization".. ) and with that being an "ashram star".. so it is not actually what (typical sect behavior) cult members often say (and there is no lack of that in Parthi): that those going away from the "avatar" (prophet/guru/whatever) have problems with their egos, its actually the other way, staying in such environment is a play of the ego (we are different, specially, chosen, followers of the Avatar, and not just an avatar but a poornavatar and greatest that there ever was, greater than Krishna or Rama in Baba's own words..)

Try to find the BBC documentary on Baba (where btw a highly regarded person in the organization like Tigret, the founder of the Hard Rock Cafe, admitted that allegations are probably real) where the president of the organization was presented with the allegations and shaken said he will investigate.. a little later there was some "ego lifting" by Baba praising him a lot publicly and his faith was immediately restored

No really, studding from outside this cults and the behavior patterns is really interesting. Next time in India I might go around such places a little, just for the fun

Goran

no, because you intuitively feel it is a lot of crap but the indoctrination (and feelings, and desires for psychological and emotional security and ego busts and so on..) keep this voice under control by such stupid "arguments".

omtapas

Take care, Love is contagious!

bjp

Name and Fame.

His satisfaction is in Name and Fame, that he is thought of as a great benefactor. Even that he is imagined to be Bhagavan. He once said that it is not he himself but his devotees who say he is god. Then why does his allow his devotees to write sahasranama that says he is Vishnu, that he is Rama. From that you may know that he is very bad.

The reports of child abuse, of hitting children, have been coming for years, too many to be just people plotting to discredit him.

If he said that, it's because his followers, who in their foolish and superstitious state, think that conjuring tricks (not even actual siddhis) indicate that he is avatar or something, have been told so many times, Krishna and Goverdhan hill.

Sri Bhagavan himself tells in Bhagavad Gita that fools will be fooled, as per their desire, that those dominated by tamas guna are inclined to worship other humans.

Of course, none of these fools read Bhagavad Gita, they only read bits and pieces of puranas quoted by this "sai baba", and endless forwarded email messages telling stories of magic pictures and so on.