When is sai baba supposed to die

In the s and after, riding a wave of popularity in the West he became a celebrated global guru, often providing solace through his twice daily darshan sacred sighting to the tens of thousands of devotees, interacting with them, magically manifesting healing vibhuti sacred ash or talisman for those who sought his blessings. Devotees scrambled to get a good seat during darshan often waiting hours in long queues His devotional base grew to an estimated 20 million in countries around the world and they were predominantly middle class and professional.

Sai Baba used his enormous influence to harness this human power to do seva charitable works including raising money for educational institutions, hospitals to treat the poor and drinking water to parched rural districts in and around his home town.

He grew the Sai Movement into a transnational phenomenon allowing people to remain in the faith they were born into yet offering them hope and solace as his devotees through a strategic set of embedded practices, multivalent symbols and ambiguous performances. He never denied the magic but rather claimed that the talismen produced were magical merely a pathway for his larger maya divine magic of devotional transformation to occur. In the s a Commission to investigate Miracles and other Superstitions was set up by Dr.

More recently ex-devotees and former devotees have accused Sathya Sai Baba and the Sai Trust of more serious infractions including embezzlement, fraud and sexual abuse of young boys which they claimed culminated in the death of four young men within the ashram in A series of films and internet websites detail these allegations. But neither Sai Baba nor the Trust were ever convicted of any wrongdoing.

Rather Sai Baba and his devotees, on his behalf, claimed that he was vilified in the public arena by disaffected devotees. The Anti Sai movement has been appropriately silent about the current happenings in the ashram.

It is a real test of interreligious openness to move beyond respect for the scriptures of another religion to ponder a contemporary representative of another tradition. It is one thing to admire famous figures of the past, or to imitate a reformer like Mahatma Gandhi — but quite another to reflect on the meaning of a figure whose power lay primarily in himself, his claim to divine status; it was on that basis that millions have been devoted to him, and perhaps it is impossible for us to respond to Sai Baba in that way.

But read about Fr. My own contact with Sai Baba was minimal. The government of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where Sai Baba was born, declared four days of mourning. Hundreds of police were deployed in his hometown of Puttaparthi, to maintain order among the thousands of devotees who had gathered over recent days.

In the city of Bangalore, followers walked through the streets carrying portraits of the dead spiritual leader and chanting "Baba is not with us physically.

But he remains with us forever. In Delhi, worshippers gathered to pray at temples across the city. Many refused to accept that the guru was dead.

Wait 48 hours. He will be back," Vandana Bhalla, a year-old housewife in the Indian capital's middle-class Ashok Vihar neighbourhood told the Guardian. Among Sai Baba's estimated six million followers are hundreds of top Indian politicians, industrialists, tycoons, Bollywood stars and sportsmen such as cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. Sarah Ferguson has visited one of his ashrams.

The most interesting aspect of existence of Sai Baba is His reincarnations. Many of His devotees consider Him to be one of the avatars of Lord Shiva, the most powerful deity of the Hindu religion. Sai Baba has had two incarnations till now and the third incarnation is awaited by His devotees. He sought residence in temples and mosques where His devotees visited Him and told Him of their troubles.

He would give life lessons and advice to His devotees and heal them of their problems. It cannot be weighed against his crimes and the damage he has done to the Indian society. In December , I wrote a letter to the then President Dr. I demanded criminal investigations against Sai Baba. If his social development projects are meant to be indulgence to nullify his crimes, this procedure is unprecedented and unacceptable, I wrote.

It is a shame for India that well-founded accusations and numerous reputed witnesses against Sai Baba are ignored without any investigation.

Do saffron clothes make an offender untouchable for the law? Do we have to tolerate that political protectionism raises its head so boldly, mocking India's democracy? Sathya Sai Baba caused great damage to India. His irresponsible political patrons corrupted the political culture of India.

Encouraged by the clout of Sathya Sai Baba, a new clan of miracle mongers imitated him. India would have been a better place without Sathya Sai Baba. Sanal Edamaruku is president of the Indian Rationalist Association. Jehovah Wanyonyi, founder of a cult in Kenya and Uganda, claimed he was God.