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In a discourse
on May 6, 1998, at Brindavan, Sathya Sai Baba (SSB) publicly told
how three boys sleep, not just in his apartment, but in his bedroom.
He tells at length how they all have visitations from his long dead
mother, Easwaramma! Here is the official published text from Sanathana
Sarathi, June 1998, p. 142-3:-
"Now
it is 30 years since the mother of this body passed away. But she
is continuing to move about in her physical body around Swami. Three
boys sleep in Swami's room. They have also witnessed her presence.
I am telling this today because the life of ideal mothers has permanent
significance.
In Prashanthi
Nilayam, Swami takes breakfast after bhajan and proceeds to His place
in Poornachandra Auditorium. Early in the morning one day, mother
Easwaramma was standing at the door in her usual form. I asked her,
"Why did you come?" She said, "Swami, I have come here
with a prayer to You. You are omnipresent and omniscient, but You
have to control one thing"! "What is that?" Swami asked.
She said, "Devotees and students offer handkerchiefs to You.
But, heeding my prayer, please do not receive handkerchiefs from everybody.
The times are not good. The handkerchief may be tainted with poisonous
stuff. In the usual course, You use the handkerchief to wipe your
nose and mouth. So, you may receive handkerchief only from those on
whom You have confidence and trust as good devotees. Do not accept
from all and sundry.
Mother's
love lives on for all times, long after her passing away. Twice she
appeared in the night. The boys sleeping in my room noticed her presence.
Those boys had not seen her at any time. They wondered who the old
lady could be. The key of the lift was in their hands and there was
no staircase leading to the apartment. How did she manage to come
here? When the boys asked this question, Swami woke up. I went near
her and asked why she had come again. She replied, "I cannot
live without seeing You often. The moment I see You, I feel happy."
After saying so she gave me some piece of advice, "Swami, all
persons describe themselves as devotees and who are fake. Totally
dedicated devotees will be ready to carry out anything You ask them
to do, but there are others who come for their own self-interest.
By coming to You they get their desires fulfilled and forget You thereafter.
In this manner, you should be very careful."
Swami replied,
"I shall take due care. There is no need for you to tell me".
After hearing this, she laughed and left the room. I am conveying
to you this episode as direct testimony to the greatness of mother's
love."
Comment:
A year or so after this, I was discussing with the then-editor of
Sanathana Sarathi, V.K. Narasimhan – my very good friend who
passed away in March 2000 after long sufferings. While he was yet
alive, there were things that could not be told so as to protect him,
not least his personal security. These I now consider it my duty to
reveal.
Narasimhan
had disliked the discourse and considered it a rambling and unlikely
story. I asked him why Baba had allowed the publication of his own
words, namely, that three boys slept in his bedroom, considering that
Tal Brooke had accused SSB of pedophilia and this was widely known.
I also asked him the age of the boys. He said they were about 18 to
20 years old, and he asked me whether this fact would cause any problems
in the West, was there anything wrong in it. I said that it most certainly
would cause a major stir if the boys had been under age. He looked
quite crestfallen and sat silent for some time, as if unable to know
what to say, something very unusual for him, as everyone who knew
him will recognise!
As SSB’s
editor, VKN’s job was to cut down and translate the long discourses
to publish a kind of inclusive resumé. Points that could be injurious
to SSB’s image – especially outside India - were to be eliminated,
he had told me, while recounting some of SSB’s blunders that he had
cut out in the past. At the time – still a devotee myself – I had
come to reason that this was acceptable editing, though I now feel
it often just misleads the public into thinking SSB to be clear and
faultless, which he is not. At that time, I regret, I did not pursue
the matter of the exact nature of the relations between these boys
and SSB further, assuming as I did then that there would be no question
of sex, certainly not with minors. (This was before the very different
story that now still emerges). But, like VKN, I thought the talk
and the claimed unnatural events would strongly reduce the appeal
of SSB to the world at large.
Interestingly,
SSB there also exploded a myth that is firmly believed by most devotees:
that he never sleeps. He said so himself:-
Sai Baba:
"Swami never sleeps. At the middle of the night,
he turns off the light and rest in the bed because if light is on
devotees gather." (J. Hislop.
Conversations with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. SSSSB&P Trust. ed.
after 1995, ch.XIX, p.72)
But above
here he said, “Swami woke up”! I can well imagine what amusing mental
clowning followers will perform to explain that away. ("He meant
'woke up to th world" or "He only said this as a test of
faith"? Ha ha!) I used to be something of an act in that ‘spiritual
circus’ myself, as some parts of my many articles in Sanathana
Sarathi at VKN’s continual request bear witness to. (Fourteen
of which are on this site, just for the record.)
The discourse
continues on the subject of SSB’s grandfather, Kondama Raju, whom
SSB claims attained liberation from rebirth, yet like Easwaramma still
visits SSB in his body even now. This story hardly fits well with
other utterances of SSB about liberated or after-death conditions,
such as “The body drops away and you are the
light. That is liberation…. ‘My’ falls away. There is no longer ‘My’”
(Conversations with BSSSSB by J. Hislop, p. 190 in new ed.).
But Easwaramma visits ‘her’ son saying, “I cannot live without seeing
You often. The moment I see You, I feel happy”. (Is liberation as
granted by the avatar to be unhappy, and ‘unable to be lived’, then?)
Kondamu Raju also visits ‘his’ grandson. However, SSB also said,
“After the death of the physical body, it is
impossible for the disembodied spirit to contact this material world”
(Vision of the Divine, E. Fanibunda, p. 98). Make consistent
sense of all this those gullible contortionists who wish to try!
The Easwaramma
episode, on whatever it may be based, indicates the anxiety in the
SSB camp - right in his own apartment - about attempts to injure him.
These fears surely reflect some real circumstances, and, as SSB reassures
Easwaramma’s apparition, "I shall take due care. There is no
need for you to tell me.” So he admits that has to take care! He
who claims again and again that he is loved by everyone, hiding in
his stairless rooms with a locked elevator, and now with armed guards
visibly prowling about on his roof too! SSB needs not to be told of
dangers, he patently knows all too well… no need even for omniscience!
So why on earth does an omnipotent God need all the massive security?
Why did
SSB express all this weird, but often revealing, ghost story? He gives
the answer, a kind of classic non sequitur: “I am conveying
to you this episode as direct testimony to the greatness of mother's
love." Well, it’s not the most direct or credible testimony
I have ever heard of mother love!
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