Pai said:
Masamune said:
This is interesting Pai,
Pai said:
For those unfamiliar with Sai Baba, he is an Indian 'guru' who claims to be the re-incarnation of the Saint Sai Baba of Shirdi and is renowned for supposedly materialising gold and other valuable objects from thin air. He has been exposed many times over the years as a charlatan and quite probably a paedophile.
Is there any proof of these claims that he is a charlatan and pedophile?
Hi Masamume
In terms of being a Charlatan, Sai Baba claims to be able to materialise golden eggs from inside his body as well as gold necklaces and watches from thin air. Whilst I acknowledge that our current understandings of the laws of physics are limited, this individual is really just using very basic sleight-of-hand techniques. He is exposed here for the conman that he is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOhxftt5Hn4
I really should have stated in my initial post that Sai Baba is 'possibly' a peadophile and not 'probably' as of course I cannot prove this. All I can say is that there have been numerous allegations made against him for sexual abuse although I understand that there have never been any charges brought. I am not a fan of the BBC but they produced a decent documentary about him years ago called 'The Secret Swami' which outlines the nature of both his fraudulent 'miracles' and as I remember, interviews first hand some of the victims who claim to have been abused by him. You can watch it here in six parts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBpoPDVDT10
The claims and counter claims of Sai Baba's exposers/followers are probably enough to fill an entire forum. He is revered all over India and the rest of the world as a living 'Avatar' by millions who refuse to hear a bad word about him or look at the simple trickery of his 'miracles'. The 'Guru' industry is big business in India and Sai Baba is clearly a very wealthy man, deriving his wealth from donations from his followers in exchange for blessings, miracles etc. I suspect that he has been vehemently defended by connections in high places for this very reason. Whether or not he is guilty of sexual abuse I'm not not sure but he is clearly not who he says he is. Personally I put him in the category of 'Grade A dangerous cult leader and criminal' at the very least although others may disagree.
I happen to see him, when he came to my town in india. the controversy about sai baba is always there. In fact, every miracle guru has followers and general debunkers and India media was very critical of these guru's ( , until western media hijacked the entire india media made it another zionist style right wing unit ).
Based on stories of neighbors, friends, relatives, newspaper articles, the main set of peoples who follow are highly educated, fed up with materialization of the society and dishonesty and the other end are very poor people, who doesn't have any outlets of hope of their day to day sufferings. Later new set of groups followed - aspirant politicians for various reasons, some appealing to the "saibaba follower" voters and other things he can influence. who ever it is they are devout ,( whether they tolerate the criticism or not). PERIOD.
One of the main debunker of saibaba's tricks is one of the India's most popular magician called
P.C. Sorcar. This is highly publicised in india. But sai baba seems to had not cared about it or not hid it either. It is well known that there is a inner circle surrounding him. one decade back one story of murder of one of his inner circle man related to money issues. This shook his followers more than any thing. later pedophile stories came, for his followers , all this is just expected noise, as if they found some thing unchangeable.
As usual black & white thinking doesn't work, I believe. After C's comments regarding art of livings sri sri comments , he more seems to be like a 'Diet Coke' than more than that. Indian middle class society ( until recently) very conscious of modern evils like gambling , liquors , spiritual excesses . Spiritual Guru's provided the anesthesia ( which liquor provided for western society ) from the day to day horrors for centuries. Nothing is new.
Many of us didn't come here ( C's) directly. believed in so many half truths , thinking that that is the ultimate truth at that time . so is sai baba is another stepping stone for many others ?. I don't know.
I don't know much about carolyn myss to comment. the short video on narcissism is on the very good and on target.
If our mind contains thousands of I's whose sensors are exposed to million things every second, noise will come inevitably. people like sai baba are trying to address small portion of infinite spectrum with their diet coke ?. Probably. At least he is not like Mother Teresa's 'political deception'.
It is interesting to hear C's opinion. I thought they gave a comment saying 'he may be alright' type of message, but couldn't find it in the sessions.