3
3
8
8
1
1
.
.
I
I
N
N
T
T
R
R
O
O
D
D
U
U
C
C
T
T
I
I
O
O
N
N
T
T
O
O
A
A
N
N
I
I
N
N
C
C
A
A
R
R
N
N
A
A
T
T
I
I
O
O
N
N
1.2 Indecent Descent?
Unfortunately, even when the Formless Absolute assumes a form, there are persons, who
impelled by their own attitudes, attribute their own human foibles to the Avatar.
1
One of the first things that Sathya Sai Baba said in my first interview with him
was: ‘Boys are being paid to say bad things about Swami’ (pointing at myself and
another twenty-something year old devotee). At the time, I had little idea what he
was talking about. Living an insulated life at the ashram, I was unaware of the al-
legations of sexual abuse against Sathya Sai Baba that were making headlines in
the outside world. In September 2000, the Organisation had suffered a major set-
back when UNESCO withdrew at the last minute from an International Conference
hosted at Puttaparthi on ‘Strengthening Values Education’
2
—due to a recent bout
of allegations on the internet
3
against Sathya Sai Baba of paedophilia and sexual
abuse
4
. Such allegations are nothing new, first surfacing in the 1970s, but it seems
that they are now beginning to be taken seriously. The US State Department re-
cently published an official warning that all young male travellers to Andhra
Pradesh ought to beware of ‘a prominent local religious leader’
5
, and a motion was
put before parliament in the UK to warn all British citizens against going to see
Sathya Sai Baba
6
. Such responses are largely due to the efforts of ‘concerned for-
mer devotees of Sathya Sai Baba’ who have put up a number of websites seeking
to inform devotees and the general public of what they consider to be Sathya Sai
Baba’s many misdemeanours.
All of this makes Sathya Sai Baba a topical and controversial figure, and this
provides further justification for my decision to focus upon him—all the more
since, as the quotation at top here indicates, he sometimes invokes his religious
persona in defending himself from such criticisms. In this instance, he refers to his
self-proclaimed identity as “the avatar”, and his critics too, have sometimes framed
1
Sathya Sai Baba (24-3-1991) S24 6:55
2
See: http://www.unescobkk.org/Media Advisory.htm [15-09-2000] NB As Eleanor Nesbitt and
Ann Henderson (2003:85) note, such ‘adverse publicity about Sathya Sai Baba’ similarly resulted in
the postponement in 2001 of a Sathya Sai Education in Human Values training course in the UK.
Since, as intimated earlier, education programmes of this type are central to Sathya Sai Baba’s
global mission, setbacks of this kind are a serious problem for his organization.
3
On this see http://www.saiguru.net/english/articles/02ssbinternet.htm [19–2–2006]
4
For other examples (ex-devotee viewpoints) see: http://www.saiguru.net/english/articles/02
guruaccused.htm [19–2–2006]; http://home.no.net/anir/Sai/enigma/SaiSex.htm [29-7-2006].
5
See, e.g., http://home.hetnet.nl/~ex-baba/engels/letters/glendoreen.html [3-8-2006]
6
See, e.g., http://home.hetnet.nl/~ex-baba/engels/shortnews/motion886.html [3-8-2006]
1
1
.
.
2
2
I
I
n
n
d
d
e
e
c
c
e
e
n
n
t
t
D
D
e
e
s
s
c
c
e
e
n
n
t
t
3
3
9
9
their attacks in religious terms. He has been strongly denounced by some Chris-
tian individuals and groups, even being cast in the roles of Devil
7
and Antichrist
(see p.32 above). In the mid 1970’s an American Sai-devotee by the name of Tal
Brooke became disillusioned with Sathya Sai Baba and converted to Christianity,
writing a series of books about his former guru with titles such as Lord of the Air
(titled after a biblical epithet of Satan) and Avatar of Night
8
.
Behind this are Christian beliefs in the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the one
and only Incarnation of the one and only God (who “tolerates no rivals”). These
present an obvious conflict with Sathya Sai Baba’s claims to be “the avatar”. Ani-
mosity arising from such beliefs is nothing new—Geoffrey Parrinder (1970:13), au-
thor of a comparative study of Hindu avatar and Christian Incarnational ideas,
cites an observation by Aldous Huxley that:
because Christians believed that there had been only one Avatar [i.e. The Incarna-
tion of God in the person of Jesus Christ], Christian history has been disgraced by
more and bloodier crusades… than has the history of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Whilst, as Parrinder goes on to say, the particulars of this assertion ‘can be criti-
cized on grounds of theology and history’, he notes that ‘other people have said
much the same [as Huxley]’, and it is not without some justification that a general
(fundamentalist) Christian tendency to (verbally) attack other religious traditions
may be identified today
9
.
Brooke was the first person to call attention to alleged sexual encounters be-
tween Sathya Sai Baba and young male devotees, and it might be tempting to see
this as a reflection of a general (fundamentalist) Christian antagonism towards
homosexuality. But such stories cannot be easily dismissed as fabrications, for
similar (and worse) accusations have since been made against Sathya Sai Baba by
(in addition to Christian detractors
10
) secular skeptics and even academics. In ad-
7
See, e.g., http://www.saiguru.net/english/articles/02guruaccused.htm [19–2–2006]
8
See, e.g., R. T. Brooke, Lord of the Air (Berkhamsted, Lion Publishing, 1976) [Avatar of Night is a
revision of this work]. NB On Tal Brooke see also Howard Levin (1995), pp.147ff. (et passim).
9
On contemporary Christian anti-cult ideas, see Douglas Cowan, Bearing false witness: propaganda,
reality-maintenance, and Christian anticult apologetics (Calgary, University of Calgary, 1999).
10
Pro-Sai activist Gerald Moreno documents further Christian opposition to Sathya Sai Baba (http://
www.saisathyasai.com/baba/Ex-Baba.com/christian-atheist-anti-sai-movements.html [27-7-2006]).
NB Moreno, though he disavows affiliation with Sathya Sai Baba does have a generally favourable
disposition to him and other Indian gurus. He writes: ‘I was a devotee from the age of 18 to the age
of 25. I had/have basic philosophical differences of opinion, with several aspects to SSB’s teachings
(in particular, God Concepts & Karma), and I left the Sai Movement for that reason. Nevertheless, I
have had many beautiful, powerful and spiritual experiences with SSB, as I have had with many
other spiritual personalities’ (http://www.saisathyasai.com/baba/Ex-Baba.com/faq.html [14-7-