What is "universal religion"?
Is it possible? Sathya Sai Baba's answer to this is that the essence
of all true religions express the same basic human values and the
same faith in the existence and benevolence of divinity, in whatever form
it may be represented or worshipped... or as it is thought to be as formless.
Sathya Sai Baba's
teaching can be distinguished from Sathya Sai Baba's rationale for that teaching. The moral
teaching is one thing, the grounds he gives for it's
alleged truth are another. The difference is the fundamental one between morality
and knowledge (i.e. between 'ought' and 'is'). Sathya Sai Baba teaches what we ought to do
or not to do, how we best should live and behave for our own good and that of
all others. The teaching itself may still be accepted as morally right by many
for whom Sathya Sai Baba's account of man and nature are not even half-believable, consistent
or even understandable. Faith in the teaching is strengthened if one can accept
the explanation of its background - the order of all things including the laws
of human life (karma).There is much of value in it, vague though it often
is. But he explains and justifies his teaching as valid by giving an account of
how everything is constituted... the make-up of the human being, the nature of
the cosmos and of the Divine reality or God - as universal being of infinite love
and super-consciousness. All this, without notable exceptions, is very traditional
Indian thought and much of it is highly questionable, while much of it has been
shown by science to fall far short of the truth.
Whatever
else one may think about Sathya Sai Baba, and however one may judge his actions to be for good
or ill, there is a moral basic in his teaching, which is as full of high ideals
and good intentions as one will find in the established religions or mass spiritual
movements. He is versed in Indian scripture, but very evidently not in any other
major religious scriptures (see for example analysis of this made by Brian Steel).
The Vedas and Vedanta, plus the generalised Hindu Indian tradition is
where almost the entirety of his teaching originates. Sathya Sai Baba has said that he his
teachings are not new, they are the ancient Sanathana
Dharma (Perennial Philosophy). His chief aim, often stated quite poignantly,
is to see the reestablishment of ancient Indian values, which he insists include
moral conscience, unselfish service to others and the community, non-violence
in all walks of life, due respect and care for all living beings and nature, and
non-discrimination as to race, colour, and faith. Whether these values were much
practiced in India at any time is a matter open to much controversy, and
what historical evidence there is does not seem to support it very soundly. These
values have very largely been lost very long ago in most of India, as current religious clashes and many other events
keep demonstrating to the full. One can only hope that a world renaissance of
values will take place, and as soon as possible, whether or not one believes that
Sathya Sai Baba is the motivating force, or just a more or less fallible part of it. Comparative
studies and statistical overviews do not indicate that the situation in India
as a whole has improved very greatly since World War II, rather to the contrary
(if one allows for imporved material standards, matters
which Sathya Sai Baba is ever telling us have little or no import anyhow).
Is
Sai Baba's teaching progressive and constructive, or outmoded and revanchist?
Sathya Sai Baba's teaching is 'universalistic'
in that it gives lip service to the need for various approaches to God and regards
the essential 'human values as being shared by all good teachings and people,
whatever their faith. Though this is constructive, it is not such a novel 'progressive'
idea, of course, for tolerance of different faiths was widespread in India for ages and it has become more and more central in
Western values and law. Diversity of faiths is unavoidable, anyhow, in this world
where everyone is placed differently. Though overwhelmingly Hindu-oriented in
its cultural content, values and examples, it stands up fairly well if one does
not go too far into the details.
Sathya Sai Baba
holds education very high on his agenda for world change, especially moral and
spiritual education. He repeatedly speaks out strongly against any kind of intellectualism
that is without adequate practical benefit. He evidently dislikes academics and
books and he constantly and firmly rejects various claims and roles of the sciences.
He attacks the sciences for not being able to tell us anything of any inherent
meaning that human life may have (as Sathya Sai Baba insists life has), and he tends to treat
the scientific enterprise as worthless except for providing material comforts.
This is certainly not supported by the evidence about science, which has removed
countless baseless superstitions - especially scripturally-based and other 'religions'
ones - in the fields of medicine, individual and group psychology, social life,
biology, physics, cosmology and so on and on. Sathya Sai Baba has also shown his understanding
of much science to be minimal and often mistaken, which is neither constructive
nor progressive.
In his continually-repeated
negative judgements of the world and its leaders, Sathya Sai Baba virtually rejects and ignores
much of what is best too, from the human rights movement to the defence of workers'
rights through strike action, from the movement against casteism
to the struggle for the even most elemental women's rights. He does not publicly
criticise any specific caste discriminations which still are a major scourge in
India, despite his teaching of non-discrimination due to colour,
creed, caste & religion. He often speaks favourably of the four-caste system
(as it was in ancient India at least), which tends strongly to support the basic
religious ideas underpinning of the present caste system too. While he supports
all religions, but has not a word to say about bestial Sharea
law, as practiced in Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and so on... nor does he take
issue with the major Hindu-supported aberrations such as the thousands of Hindu
temple dancers who are prostituted, Brahmins who maintain very repressive 'caste
hygiene' (actually a kind of 'racial hygiene'). So, though he is not in favour
of discriminatory practices, his support of the Indian caste system in principle
is not followed up by an active or broad-based defence of the persecuted. This
is just another example of his Janus-faced approach to many dilemmas, to agree
with both sides - the one in word the other in practice. Interestingly, he has
also often stated, "Sai says 'yes, yes, yes' to everything!
Again,
though Sathya Sai Baba criticises India's leaders, politicians and their corruption in hefty
and sweeping terms, he clearly avoids direct provoking specific interests. Instead,
he actually praises the corrupt when they are in power, and intervenes on their
behalf through his followers in the judiciary when they have been convicted (eg.
Narasimha Rao). His political policy is expressedly
not confrontation with vested powers and traditions, but rather in stimulating
positive changes. Meanwhile, his antipathy to human rights is evident, unfortunately,
as he never has a good word to say about them, only but criticises that movement
on the grounds that what people need to have is a better sense of their duties.
This is truly black-and-white, semi-reactionary talk, for human rights ought to
go hand in hand with duties, and not be seen as opposing values. Thus, he never
speaks in support of the moderating influence that the activities of the educated
and intellectuals can have on social injustice, rigid ideologies and rabid religious
dogmas, nor of their analysis and criticisms that help to uncover beliefs, policies
and doctrines of all kinds - religious or secular - that can and do wreak major
psychological and social damage. In short, Sathya Sai Baba's traditionalism negates many progressive
egalitarian reforms arising from improved science and well-informed educated people
in the understanding of society, and the many benefits of democratic systems.
This is really and truly a backward-looking traditionalism. It is seen also in
his ambivalence towards women and his preference for the traditional female role
which has always been bound up with their suppression through the ages. (See
A Few of Sathya Sai Baba's Confused and Traditional Views on Women)
In
all his negative judgements of the world and its leaders, he also virtually rejects
much of what is best about it too, from the human rights movement to the defence
of workers' rights through strike action. These omissions are reinforced by his
complete avoidance of mentioning the major and widespread social horrors in India,
such as bonded labour (i.e. lifelong unpaid, enforced slavery), child labour servitude,
the selling of children and women as slaves into prostitution (and almost certain
AIDS infection), all of which are practiced on a large scale in India, Pakistan
and Nepal. Nor does Sathya Sai Baba speak in public clearly against of the suppression of women,
the widespread dispossessing and discriminating against widows or the massive
injustice of wives being burnt by huSathya Sai Babaands or their families in supposed 'home
accidents', usually merely for financial gain. All this avoids confrontation with
any oppressive and evil social systems in favour of placing the burden on individuals
to change themselves... of whom he most often says have no free will whatever
(but at other times says that they do have some).
Sectarian tendencies in the teaching
and its practice: Many
people would deny that there can be any really universal faith, or even
core of common faith, so diverse are the religions and the countless sects
into which they always seem to splinter through time or across differing
cultures and nations. Sathya Sai Baba ignores these differences, however,
by concentrating very much on the positive and unitive
aspects of religious teachings and almost completely ignoring any examination
of the differences. He strongly and often projects his belief that, if everyone
were to follow the human values he prescribes, there would be universal
peace and understanding. This may be a sound belief if the human conditions
for it could be fulfilled. But the likelihood of everyone - or people of
differing religious, political and personal persuasions - even agreeing
on such a basis is so remote, so far removed from practical life today and
in the foreseeable future, that it seems based on too naive and narrow other-worldly
ideals.
In the face of incongruous beliefs and warring
sects, Sathya Sai Baba always asserts the Vedantic
view as the most inclusive and ultimate. This is itself an implicit denial
of universal religion, for it ignores the fact of basic differences in both
the conceptions and practices of even the major religions. However, that
he insists that he alone is the God Avatar, God in human form who has come
down to redeem the world, makes him one contender among the many claimants
and faiths. Such a claim - of divine embodiment - is flatly and fundamentally
rejected by Islam and mainstream (mahayana)
Buddhism. Islam regards the idea of God having any form whatever as sheer
blasphemy. Even the human form, because it is of divine origin, cannot be
portayed in Islam. Little wonder, then. that
only a mere handful of Muslims are ever seen near Sathya Sai Baba, and these
are from peripheral sects with unconventional ideas, like the Sufis.
In the detail of his teachings, the difference
of what he teaches from what is believed in other mainstream religions becomes
evident on many controversial points. Just compare his accounts of Jesus'
boyhood and many subsequent travels and spiritual education in with the official belief of about 1 billion Christians.
Altogether, Sathya Sai Baba says enough to contradict Christian scriptures and creeds
to amounts to a major disavowal of the history of Jesus' life and a rebuttal
of the doctrine of forgiveness in favour of explaining everything as deserved
karma. He has asserted that Jesus did not actually die on the cross,
but survived to travel eastwards after the crucifixion to live long and
die in his eighties or later. Though this could perhaps
be true, despite Christian doctrine. But whether true or false, it
goes to show how non-universal any religious-historical teaching such as
Sathya Sai Baba's unavoidably becomes. Much of Sathya Sai Baba's ramblings about Jesus' life are
too confused, seriously ill-informed or historically absurd to have any
credence. (See http://bdsteel.tripod.com)
An
'avatar' is an exclusively Hindu concept not compatible with universalism: Sathya Sai Baba is set up by his devotees in public as the one and only supreme teacher,
his teaching representing the truth of all religions and himself being the actual
full embodiment of the God to whom anyone prays, however
they may themselves conceive Divinity. This is, of course, what Sathya Sai Baba has himself
asserted! One cannot conceive of a more tremendous claim than this, however much
one may try! Sathya Sai Baba refers to himself as the God of all Gods, the one whom all prayers
to whichever deity must end up at, only One behind all
divine forms, "all gods rolled into one"! This implies strongly that
he is really the one whom all should follow, even while denying that he wishes
everyone to worship him. This cannot be other than a divisive religious claim...
a most disrupting and tradition-ignoring social and political idea. It is about
as exclusive of other faiths and as misguided as all those Christians who wrongly
insist that the only way to God is through Jesus Christ and that all others are
misguided, even calling them 'unredeemed', 'lost souls' and so on. It is the kind
of stuff of which inquisitions and holy jihads have been made.
An English friend who has visited Sathya Sai Baba twice
and had an interview in 1986, and who has since joined the Sufi movement,
wrote to me recently after hearing about the accusations of paedophilia
by Sathya Sai Baba: "I have always had a problem with the Avatar concept, as we
have discussed several times - it is not in my repertoire of concepts. I
worship God, and I cannot worship a human being. I have great respect, and
wish to learn from the God-realized, whether they reach this realization
during life, or are born in this state. For me, every human is fallible
and can make mistakes." Sathya Sai Baba virtually admits this himself sometimes,
as in: "God assumes a role in the dharma of the world in human form.
He has to behave as a human being only. This should be clearly understood
by all." (Sathya Sai Speaks
- Vol 26. New ed., p. 229f). An English friend
who has visited Sathya Sai Baba twice and had an interview in 1986, wrote to me recently
after hearing about the accusations of pederasty, "I have always had
a problem with the Avatar concept, as we have discussed several times -
it is not in my repertoire of concepts. I worship God, and I cannot worship
a human being. I have great respect, and wish to learn from the God-realized,
whether they reach this realization during life, or are born in this state.
For me, every human is fallible and can make mistakes."
Divisive
teaching on avatarhood As soon as Sathya Sai Baba is set up by devotees in public as the
supreme teacher whom all should follow, it becomes a divisive social and political
idea. To hold that Sathya Sai Baba is the only existing divinity - as so many Sai followers
do even after decades of listening to his denials of this in discourses - is about
as exclusive of other faiths and as misguided as all those Christians who wrongly
insist that the only way to God is through Jesus Christ and that all others are
misguided, even calling them 'unredeemed', 'lost souls' and so on.
The way the Sathya Sai Baba doctrine turns
out in actual practice in the various Sai organisations around the world
indicates some of the fundamental contradictions inherent in the claim of
avatarhood combined with an ideal of universal
spirituality. (See my participation/observation-based sociological
analysis of the Sai Organisation) The organisation has to be steered
centrally, and in this case it is led by Indian Hindus. It therefore invariably
takes on the character of Hindu religion, however many efforts are made
to ameliorate this and incorporate other beliefs and persons of different
spiritual inclination. In all countries where I have observed attempts to
'universalise' the Sathya Sai Baba teaching, the groups soon gravitate towards
an exclusive membership, of which the first requirement is belief in Sathya
Sai Baba and at least the basics of his teaching. Non-members are tolerated,
but room is never made for them within the heavily Hindu-oriented doctrine
that prevails in both the Charter, in the nature of all central conferences
and festivities and in devotional gatherings … however much one tries to
involve other faiths. There is also an inbuilt inertia towards Indian rituals
rather than those of any other faith. This is not an inclusive practice,
though it is highly natural and probably unavoidable in any culture… one
sticks mainly to one's own time-worn symbols and behaviour. The only persons
of other faiths who interact with the Sai organisation are those who also
accept or tolerate silently the claim that Sathya Sai Baba is nothing short
of the Divinity Itself. One does not have to be much of a deep thinker to
see what limitations this sets upon the spread of the doctrine preached
by Sathya Sai Baba, though faith also can have great power in clouding sensible
judgements… and such beliefs can and do often stultify human moral conscience.
Sathya Sai Baba's
religious fundamentalism: Though Sathya Sai Baba allows that some agnostics and atheists may
be good people, he often ridicules their lack of belief in any god. In emphasising
the postulated existence of an universal core of values
and truth in all religions, and in stating these values and this truth in a definitive
fashion, Sathya Sai Baba puts himself firmly among religious fundamentalists. Fundamentalism
is based on the belief and fear that modern secular society wants to wipe out
religion and deny the existence or authority of God. A godless world is what fundamentalists
fight against. As such, there are always elements of anti-secular and anti-democratic
values present. Justice is something only God can dispense, so human justice would
be disregarded whenever a conflict between the two sets of values arose. This
is seen very clearly in the attempts at introduction in Muslim communities of
fundamentalist Sharea law, where human values and Sharea justice are tremendously at odds.
The
same conflict between secular human values and 'divine justice' has been demonstrated
in Sathya Sai Baba's ashrams, where justice for anyone who claims to be an injured party is
denied a hearing and is ostracised, physically threatened or even killed. The
1993 murders in Sathya Sai Baba's bedroom episode illustrates this
most clearly (see Premanand's book). Further, Sathya Sai Baba insists that one should not
and cannot "bargain with God". (see Sanathana
Sarathi 11-89, p.297 or Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 4, p. 386 or Vol. 22,
p. 213, and E. Fanibunda's Vision
of the Divine, p. 70). According to his own previous close official, Dr. Bhatia,
this was exactly what Sathya Sai Baba said him in anger when he tried to defend an injured
party - an extremely upset 8th grade child whom he had examined in his capacity
as a doctor and found to have been anally raped by Sathya Sai Baba.
As to the factual aspects of
the Sathya Sai Baba teaching, there are very many documented errors in his descriptions
and explanations of events, how the world works, and on what human health,
social welfare and the like depend. His language is more often than not
vague and unspecific, always packed with sweeping generalisations that are
misleading and intellectually primitive (from the viewpoint of balanced
thinking or linguistic-empirical analysis).
Please go to the Public Petition for
Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization
Spanish version PETICIÓN
PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN
A NIVEL MUNDIAL
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