Sai Baba - Passed away

[malati]

From Australia's ABC, online 25/04/11

www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/24/3199422.htm


My note: the news did not mention controversies surrounding his life.

Indian guru Sai Baba dies
Updated 11 hours 26 minutes ago


Indian spiritual leader Sai Baba, one of the country's most famous gurus, died in hospital on Sunday (local time), triggering an outpouring of grief from devotees around the world.

He was 85 and succumbed to heart problems, his doctors said in a statement, after being in critical condition for more than three weeks.

Thousands of Hindu followers massed at the Institute of Higher Medical Sciences hospital where Sai Baba was being treated in his hometown of Puttaparthi, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

Police used barriers to hold back mourning crowds, and appealed for public calm after the death was announced.

"Sai Baba is no more with us physically. He breathed his last at 7:40am and died due to cardio-respiratory failure," the hospital statement said.

"His body will be kept for public worship for two days on Monday and Tuesday."

Devotees congregated in the town over recent weeks to hold special prayers asking for a miracle to allow Sathya Sai Baba - as he was properly known - to recover.

He was credited by millions of followers around the world with having supernatural powers, including an ability to conjure objects out of thin air, remember past lives and cure terminal diseases.

He counted former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, judges, actors, generals and other politicians as devotees, as well as Indian cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar and Hollywood star Goldie Hawn.

Sai Baba claimed to be the reincarnation of a former holy man, Sai Baba of Shirdi, who died in 1918.

His organisation has funded health and education projects in India, including hospitals and clinics that say they are able to cure ailments beyond the capabilities of mainstream medicine.

From his ashram in Puttaparthi, he built an empire of schools and centres that spread his influence worldwide.

One of his biggest financial supporters was the former owner of the Hard Rock Cafe chain of restaurants, Isaac Burton Tigrett, who went to live in Puttaparthi and donated much of his fortune to the Sai Baba trust.

Always dressed in saffron-coloured robes with his trademark afro-style hairdo, the guru survived an attack on his life in 1993 when four men armed with knives burst into his private apartment in what was described as an assassination attempt. A fight ensued in which two devotees were stabbed to death before police shot and killed the assailants.

Providing free healthcare and performing an occasional miracle cure was a central part of the image and mystique built around a man whose flock is thought to number tens of millions across more than 150 countries.

As well as hospitals and clinics, the Sai Baba organisation operates drinking water schemes, a university, a museum, a planetarium and thousands of prayer rooms and centres across the globe.

While the charitable work and teachings brought him public respectability, his showman antics in which he would miraculously produce gold coins or watches on stage at public meetings also brought him critics and notoriety.

- AFP

[vkaul1]

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Nation-mourns-Sai-Babas-death-PM-calls-him-iconic-figure/articleshow/8073315.cms

Educated people of today
including timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Nation-mourns-Sai-Babas-death-PM-calls-him-iconic-figure/articleshow/8073315.cms
PM of india who is from oxford
followed satya sai baba. How do you know he is not God? That is how one follower discussed with me. I said I don't know because he had told me before that sentimental bengalis and a few educated fellows followed Sri Chaitanya and you believe that not only he is God, small Gods like advaita acarya etc are with him as if the a small speck of dust in the universe is so important for the entire galaxy of Gods to turn attention to. And in present time, some educated people also believe he is God and 200 years from now this belief will continue.

[malati]

The President of Australia went to Harvard and an atheist, so.... so what?

As one theist who is a lover of Indic philosophy, said in a forum long time ago, "Why is it that only Indians become God in the recent times?" That is something very good for a PhD topic.

And he ran his list:
Sai Baba
Raman Maharshi
Amma
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
P R Sarkar of the Ananda Marga and I'm sure there are more.

Even some IKSCONITES, despite many decisions made by Srila Prabhupad that made the lives of some devotees and children miserable, claim that Srila Prabhupad was directly sent by Krishna.


There's an american GV devotee who has claimed that Michael Jackson is God Krishna because he appeared to him in a vision and he made a very good rationalization why he thought so.

So Vkaul1, would you agree or not that Michael Jackson is God?


This is my honest opinion, to be a God nowadays, especially in India requires a not very extraordinary requirement. Many people have the tendency to create myths around saints and sadhus.

I am not understating the inspirations these great saints have contributed to the search for the meaning in the lives of so many people but its just that I have a high requirement before I will believe that a certain person is God.

To be honest, I dont care if I am not fortunate enough to have met the God in this lifetime or in anymore number of lifetimes, I will still attest that God Krishna is real in my life.

I will agree that those in the list above are Gods but only in as much as we all are! Is not that what the Advaitins say?

Dont get me wrong, I am a follower of Krishna but to me an extraordinary claim needs a very extraordinary evidence by empirical proof or mere reasoning.

That is why, although I see the no-self teaching of Buddhism as crap, in a way I like the Dalai Lama because when his followers started to see him as the reincarnation of the enlightened one, the Buddha, he brought them down to reality and adviced them that he was just a simple monk.

I bet most of those on the list never claimed they were God, its only their disciples that make the claim.

BTW, I do not believe that Advaita Acharya was demi-God. Yes he was a great rasika saint and had more wisdom on the tip of his fingernail than I have in my entire body but my honest study and my heart tells me that he was not what his followers claim he was.

You all need not worry I have adviced Advaitadas where I'm at at present.

When I told him, I do not believe that Mahaprabhu is God, Krishna even Advaitadas who is very welll versed on the shastras said to me that there is indeed not much evidence in shastra for Mahaprabhu being Krishna, it is a matter of experience, as Gopinathacarya told Sarvabhauma. And in this case I follow my heart.


I think we need to get a grip on reality.

Still, I wish you the best

[vkaul1]

Apr 25, 2011 0:22:36 GMT -6 malati said:

The President of Australia went to Harvard and an atheist, so.... so what?

As one theist who is a lover of Indic philosophy, said in a forum long time ago, "Why is it that only Indians become God in the recent times?" That is something very good for a PhD topic.

And he ran his list:
Sai Baba
Raman Maharshi
Amma
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
P R Sarkar of the Ananda Marga and I'm sure there are more.

Even some IKSCONITES, despite many decisions made by Srila Prabhupad that made the lives of some devotees and children miserable, claim that Srila Prabhupad was directly sent by Krishna.


There's an american GV devotee who has claimed that Michael Jackson is God Krishna because he appeared to him in a vision and he made a very good rationalization why he thought so.

So Vkaul1, would you agree or not that Michael Jackson is God?


This is my honest opinion, to be a God nowadays, especially in India requires a not very extraordinary requirement. Many people have the tendency to create myths around saints and sadhus.

I am not understating the inspirations these great saints have contributed to the search for the meaning in the lives of so many people but its just that I have a high requirement before I will believe that a certain person is God.

To be honest, I dont care if I am not fortunate enough to have met the God in this lifetime or in anymore number of lifetimes, I will still attest that God Krishna is real in my life.

I will agree that those in the list above are Gods but only in as much as we all are! Is not that what the Advaitins say?

Dont get me wrong, I am a follower of Krishna but to me an extraordinary claim needs a very extraordinary evidence by empirical proof or mere reasoning.

That is why, although I see the no-self teaching of Buddhism as crap, in a way I like the Dalai Lama because when his followers started to see him as the reincarnation of the enlightened one, the Buddha, he brought them down to reality and adviced them that he was just a simple monk.

I bet most of those on the list never claimed they were God, its only their disciples that make the claim.

BTW, I do not believe that Advaita Acharya was demi-God. Yes he was a great rasika saint and had more wisdom on the tip of his fingernail than I have in my entire body but my honest study and my heart tells me that he was not what his followers claim he was.

You all need not worry I have adviced Advaitadas where I'm at at present.

When I told him, I do not believe that Mahaprabhu is God, Krishna even Advaitadas who is very welll versed on the shastras said to me that there is indeed not much evidence in shastra for Mahaprabhu being Krishna, it is a matter of experience, as Gopinathacarya told Sarvabhauma. And in this case I follow my heart.


I think we need to get a grip on reality.

Still, I wish you the best

I obviously brought up this issue for the same reason. In India becoming God is not extra-ordinary achievement. So Advaita das said it is matter of experience. Swaminaryana devotees also say that it is a matter of experience and he showed the universal form to some of his associates. I am sure no body apart from Kavi Karnapura saw all the associates of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as people from Krsna Lila. His book now as treated like a book of math equations where equivalences are stated axiomatically.

I have my sympathy with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and I am open to the possibility that he is an avatar. However, my head doubts it even though my heart wants it. It is like Nitai ji!! I hope Nitai ji will comment on this post.

[vkaul1]

Also there is good prediction of Sai Baba being an avatar by all the sages www.saibaba-aclearview.com/contents2.html and his sexuality is embraced by his disciple. Why will the purana avatar shun sexuality?
Removal of Sexual Karma (Nice expression going along the lines Jagat is talking about) www.saibaba-aclearview.com/contents1.html



One legitimate reason for sexual contact between a Master and devotee is the removal of sexual karma from a devotee’s previous incarnation - and I believe this is probably the underlying reason for most of Baba’s tantric work. Many souls on this planet have had the karmic thorn of lust deeply embedded in their hearts, due to repeated misuse of sexual energy in the human realm, thus creating a painful obstacle to their happiness and spiritual evolution. As an incarnation of God, Baba will know just how to most efficiently remove those thorns, which otherwise could burn and fester in those souls for eons. Sometimes the best way to remove a thorn is by using a similar thorn to dig it out; then both can be thrown away

In addition, various ‘palm-leaf prophecies’ - elaborate predictions of future events written by the ancient sages - declare that Sathya Sai Baba is the second in a triple incarnation of God. (These prophecies are found in the Book of Bhrigu, the Shuka Nadis and the Agastya Nadis, which can still be read in various places in India.) According to those sages (and Baba Himself), in His previous incarnation He was known as Shirdi Sai Baba, the great Master who is arguably the most widely revered Saint in India today. Shirdi Sai Baba left His body eight years before the birth of Sathya Sai Baba, who tells us that eight years after He leaves His current body, He will return to the Earth in a new human form. In that incarnation He will be known as Prema Sai Baba, and will then complete the divine work He began as Shirdi Sai."

[Ekantin]

Vkaul, I saw that discussion Jagat started. Even if he didn't say so, it is obvious that he started it in the wake of SB's recent death and the resurfacing mentions of the sex abuse scandals that dogged his career.

Even so, I was unnerved to see Jagat starting a discussion that seriously suggests there can be something 'positive' about having sex with one's spiritual master. And further, that one should have sexual relationships with their spiritual masters. Presumably he can only be talking about male masters and female disciples, because I'm sure more than eyebrows would be raised at the thought of male masters and male disciples.

As for the 'prophecies' about Sai Baba on that unclear view site, they are junk. Ram Das Awle (or whatever he calls himself these days) may "embrace" his master's sexuality, but he has obviously not met a single 'molestee' who was the unfortunate victims of Sai Baba's leery drooling. In fact, this site originates with all the other propaganda that started surfacing in defence of Sai Baba after his sexual exploits with male disciples and little children started hitting the news. It is so clearly a put-up propaganda job that I am surprised anyone would take it seriously.

[Ekantin]

Sorry, please let me clarify: Jagat is a sahajiya. That's the official type of sahajiya, the ones who incorporate sex as part of their sadhana. Jagat spends his days thinking of ways to do this and how such sexual feelings can be properly conducted so that they become an act of worship. So in that context, I understand why he wants to seriously consider the idea of disciples having healthy sexual relationships with their spiritual masters.

Sai Baba, however, is an extremely bad example of this. For a start, there is no data (or at least very little data) that any of the sexual relationships he engaged in (and which the majority of his followers never knew about) were with people who enjoyed it, because the majority were of the coercive and exploitative kind. They were not consensual, and that is an understatement when you have to explain to a child why he needs anal rupture surgery. Awle's unclear view is a very poor example of brainwashed justification of his master's acts, along with several other examples, because the nature of the activities that were engaged in mostly amounted to paedophilia.