On every uncomfortable and pathetic Sunday that I accompany my family to get their "Jesus High", I often meet up with a group of Hindus with their own little shed to do their worshiping. They were pretty pleasant people, perhaps much moreso then the congregation. If anything, I only had one "flaw" of sorts with the group: They are Satya Sai Baba devotees.
Yesterday, on 24th April Satya Sai Baba passed away at the age of 84. So rather than talk at ridiculous length on the nonsense of typical holiday hijacking in the name of Jesus, by the world's biggest religion, I've finally around to talk about the man who claimed he was an avatar of Shiva and Shakti. Will I shed tears like I did in my previous post about the late Elisabeth Sladen? No. Do I have any nice things to say of him? Not really. Do I regret that I had not done this post sooner? Well, like most things in life, the answer is not straight-forward. If anything, Satya Sai Baba was proof that with enough charisma, you can persuade anyone that you can do anything or are far more unique than anybody on the planet. Even when it is blatantly, and obviously, not true. He was also proof that Westerners in the apparent disillusionment of the perceived authoritative qualities in Judo-Christian traditions, and newfound love of the Eastern religions, will mindlessly fall in love with a man purporting to be a gateway to spiritual enlightenment. Even when this man is 1. like every other siddhi that came and went and 2. is just as authoritarian as any pastor, priest, deacon etc. would be. And to bring my point home, he even for a short while managed to grab the attention of The Beatles, until they wisened up a bit.
So who is Satya Sai Baba? Born as Sathyanarayana Raju on the 23 November 1926, at the age of 13, he claimed to his parents that he suddenly realised that he was an avatar, specifically the Sai Baba of Shirdi reborn. This was an interesting choice since the Sai Baba of Shirdi was respected amongst Sufi Muslims and Advaita Vedanta Hindus alike, so you see basically where this is getting to. His mother claimed that he was an "immaculate conception" akin of Jesus Christ, another "god-man" that he would liken himself with. To properly respond to the alleged "immaculate conception" claim made by his mother, I have this brief clip on The Princess Bride that readers can watch:
He then would later lead an organisation which over the period of his life would grow to around 6 to 100 million. His doctrine claimed that there is no true path to God, so you can choose the religions of your choice and still follow him. It also had the occasional "Be nice to people, life is valuable, don't do any improper sexual actions, yada, yada, yada..." stuff that I hear ad nauseum, that somehow constitutes as proof that he's a good guy, and built dozens of schools and universities in his name. Of course by this reasoning, with the latter, I could argue that Josef Stalin is the greatest humanitarian ever and world leader for all time because his regime had universal healthcare, and 90% of the whole Soviet Union literate. How this would justify 20 million people dying under his regime, I have no idea.
A key part of Sai Baba's influence comes from his purported miracles, most commonly, the materialisation of vibuti, or holy ash, amongst other things like necklaces, watches, rings etc. One of my favourite ones is when he supposedly materialises a small orb of gold from his mouth. The fact that people seem to honestly fall for his sleight-of-hand tricks makes it all the more sadder, especially when truly laughable excuses like, "His miracles are not a key part of his movement", or "You didn't provide sufficient evidence that he is not who he claims he is" or even, "science works in the realm of the physical, Sai Baba deals with the supernatural" are put forward to his critics (The last one was a claim verbatim that Satya Sai Baba made himself). Even when the responses are 1. "Well his teachings don't seem to be either", 2. "Yes, we did. You're just so caught around the charisma of this man, and was legitimately convinced by his parlour tricks, that you'll deny any evidence to the contrary" and 3, "Well, explain his 'supernatural' abilities look extraordinarily similar to sleight-of-hand manoeuvrings? Is the boundary between the natural and the supernatural really that thin?"
At some point, an organisation in India known as the "Committee to Investigate Miracles and Other Verifiable Superstitions", headed by Hosur Narasimhaiah (or simply H. Narasimhaiah), Indian physicist, educator freedom fighter, translator (of Mohandas Gandhi's work), and rationalist; approached Sai Baba to verify whether he could really materialise holy ash and gold, and surprise, surprise; under scientific scrutiny, he simply ignored his request three times, and pretended that somehow, Narasimhaiah's methods were suspect. Seriously, what does a god-man, have to fear from a little scientific test, which would easily fall apart if said god-man really could materialise objects from nothing, make his face appear on the moon, and was really omnipotent? Oh, that's right...He wasn't one, was he?
There was also the child abuse allegations that were made against him. Now, I would normally put those allegations aside for a moment and deal with simply the propagation of superstition. However, these allegations are widespread. In fact, these is an entire website dedicated to claims from former devotees that Sai Baba sexually abused them. Why haven't any investigations towards those claims ever come into fruition? Ah well, no reason. Just the widespread political influence this man possessed shielding him from most of the legitimate criticism presented towards him. That same influence protected him when six people were killed in his bedroom in 1993, after an assassination attempt, from any investigation into the events that occurred.
If anything, the only people I feel sorry for, is his ever-so-gullible followers. The fact that this man claimed he would live up 96, will undoubtedly have no effect on their blind devotion whatsoever. Indeed, Sai Baba's death had initiated a four-day period of mourning, and received condolences from Indian President Manmohan Singh, and the Dalai Lama...all over a man who used magic tricks to get followers. His body is currently lying in state. This is a joke, if I ever came across one. It really shows the absurd lengths that India's elite will go to protect the image who was essentially a conman. There is only a few things that I take as a form of solace in this shoddy public wailing over the life of a charlatan. 1. One of his opponents, James Randi, outlived him. He even wrote an article about him giving his "goodbyes" to one of his greatest adversaries. And 2. Satya Sai Baba briefly before his death, finally accepted the merits of science. For all his miracles and teachings especially this goldmine, which I'll give the quote in full of his response to H. Narasimhaiah's request for scientific testing:
"Science must confine its inquiry only to things belonging to the human senses, while spiritualism transcends the senses. If you want to understand the nature of spiritual power you can do so only through the path of spirituality and not science. What science has been able to unravel is merely a fraction of the cosmic phenomena ..."...He couldn't even live to fulfill what would be his greatest miracle, and change the world before his death. He needed the hard work and determination of the excellent doctors around him to keep him going as long as he did. So, if you're some spongehead who scoffs at the achievements that science has brought to us and even made our lives better, even for one such as Satya Sai Baba, and remarks on supposed deathbed conversions of the greatest scientists to have ever lived, as some sort of support for your B.S. beliefs, on supernaturalism or whatever, remember this well: When your sick and/or dying, or otherwise incapacitated, we all become rationalists in the hospital room. Try to resurrect yourself out of that one, God-man. And I'm not talking about Jesus.
Happy Easter.
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