Ever since I opened my eyes consciously to the world,  the photograph of Puttaparti Sai Baba was always before my eye because my father was an ex-devotee of Sai Baba.

Frankly, I never found Sai Baba divine… but his image had a mystique appeal to me.  I used to stare at that image for a long time.  I used to ask my mother who the curly haired man in the photo was.  She told me that he was Sai Baba who materialised things like magic.  When I asked her what he materialised through magic, she told me that he materialises bibo (tender cashew nuts) and sukke draksha (dry grapes).  She was joking, of course…. but for my infant mind… the impression went very deep.  Whenever I see Sai Baba, I remember bibo &  sukke draksha… because that was what my Mother told me about Sai Baba.

During my adolscent years, I used to hear both divine and slanderous news about Sai Baba.  While the Sai devotees told me tales of miracles, the rationalists told me that he was a fraud. My father was an ex-devotee.  So I was confused.

During that time when I was walking with my father to New Tajmahal Cafe in Mangalore, I seized the opportunity to ask him about Sai Baba.  My father was a very serious and upright man.  I had to watch his mood before talking.  As he seemed to be in a relaxed mood, I asked him this question because I heard that he had burnt photos of Sai Baba after he got disillusioned with him.  Even my Mother did not know the reason for my father’s anger and disillusionment with Sai Baba.  However from her voice, I found that she had deep admiration for two images in the house — one of Sai Baba and the other of (Sangha Guruji) M S Golwalkar (the second Sarasanghachallak of RSS).

Then my father narrated his fascinating encounter with Sai Baba in Puttaparti.  He told me that Sai baba had read his mind and had suggested solution to his problems by just looking at him.  He told me so many good things about Sai Baba — about his powers, about his materialisation et al.

Then I asked my father the million dollar question.  If he is so powerful why he abandoned him.  Why did he burn photos of the Baba?  My father gave me a lame excuse perhaps sensing that I was too young for a delicate issue.  He told me, “Men are men.  God is God”.  That’s it.

After that I had nothing to ask… but I did sense something although I didn’t want to tell him in his face that he was only seeing his own reflection in Sai baba.  That would have been a loaded statement from an inexperienced child to an experienced adult.

Anyway after a long break and after visiting many spiritual masters, somebody asked me whether I have visited Sai baba and my childhood memories came back.  I thought to myself — I have visited all the spiritual masters (except Dalai Lama).  Now why leave Sai Baba.  The thought that I was away from Sai Baba had never occurred to me.  He was there in my subconscious mind as do so many images of deities that are kept in my house.  Remember, every Hindu shares a live relationship wtih the deities.  For me, Shiva, Vishnu, Hanuman and other gods were not just images, they are a part of my childhood collective consciousness.

When I was in Bangalore last year, I just took a train to Puttaparti.  I had no luggage with me.  I just wanted to see Sai Baba and get finished with him.

As soon as I entered the Puttaparti campus, I tried to get accommodation for myself as the darshan was scheduled for the next day.  However, I was refused accommodation because I neither had an identity card nor a luggage.  Some of the volunteers at Puttaparti also behaved rudely with me.  They told me that they would put me behind bars as I looked like a terrorist.  I told them if they dared to do so, they would be in trouble since I was a journalist.  They told me to get lost.  My regards for Sai Baba certainly came down after this event.

However, I just wanted to see Sai Baba and complete my spiritual shopping.  So I stayed in a hotel outside Puttaparti.  I went to a Chinese restaurant there for dinner… and I chanced upon some Iranian devotees.  There I got friendly with a sexy, adventurous Iranian female.  We were talking outside till about 11 pm and then I went to sleep alone.  Obviously that was the only peace that I had in Puttaparti.

The next day, I went for the darshan.  It was a crowded place and I could see the Sai in the wheelchair.  Nothing happened except frenzied audience.  Of course, I was not expecting anything because I was just doing zero meditation.  Perhaps I only got a zero because Masters are your own reflection.

CONCLUSION: I have always said it that my all-time favourite Master is Osho Rajneesh.  I like him for his intellectual acumen and no-nonsense attitude.  I somehow don’t have an affinity with magic.  Anyway, here’s Osho’s views on Sai Baba.  I more or less agree with Osho.

http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Psychic-World/osho_quotes_sathya_sai_baba.htm

Postscript: I have met devotees who got made-to-order divine rings from Sai Baba.  I checked the ring.  It was perfect. Even VHP chief Ashok Singhal got a ring tha was materialised from thin air.  The Sai Magic does work.  Despite this, I am with Osho.  Maybe, that’s the way I am.

Osho on Sathya Sai Baba

1. It happens that when for the first time a meditator attains to some psychic energy, some psychic power, the tendency, a natural tendency, is to exhibit it. And if he exhibits, sooner or later he will lose the power. Then a great problem arises: he cannot do it now, but now he has respectability. He is worshipped and people expect him to do miracles. Now what is he going to do? He will have to turn to magic, he will have to start learning tricks, to maintain his prestige.That’s what happened to Satya Sai Baba and people like that. The first things that they had done were real, the first few experiments that they had done were not phony. But then the energy disappears. And by that time you have become famous, and people start gathering, foolish people, stupid people, and they expect you, and your whole ego depends on your exhibition. Now the only possible alternative is to learn magic tricks so that you can go on maintaining your prestige. If you brag, sooner or later you will become a victim of magical tricks. You will have to learn, and deceive people.

2. Satya Sai Baba is neither a mystic nor a philosopher, just an ordinary magician.
   
3. One hypocrite in India is Satya Sai Baba. I call him a hypocrite because he knows nothing of yoga. There is nothing wrong if you don’t know anything of yoga — I don’t. I can afford to be sick, nobody can object; it is my birthright to be sick. I don’t know yoga. But Satya Sai Baba declares himself a great yogi; then the problem arises. Then for his appendix operation he has to go to Goa secretly. And he has to pay ten times more to the doctor so the secret should not be known, because a great yogi going for an operation? What control has he over his physiology? But it is difficult to hide because his whole ashram became curious: where has Baba disappeared? His own people became curious about where he had gone. And after the operation he had to rest for two or three days in Goa. They found out, and the media and the press — everybody was there, and the doctor had to confess that he had done the operation.
   
4. You may go and seek Satya Sai Baba, because that will be a deep fulfillment of your greed. You will see: here is the man. If he can produce things out of air, he can do anything. Now your greed is provoked. Now a deep affinity happens immediately. That’s why you will see thousands of people around Satya Sai Baba. If a Buddha exists, you will not see multitudes there, because there is no affinity. Satya Sai Baba has an appeal deep inside you: your greed is provoked. Now you know this is the right man. But you are wrong. How can you decide who is the right man? You create your deceivers, you give them the opportunity. You follow magicians, not masters.If you really want to seek a master, drop greed and drop your beliefs. Go to a master completely nude in the mind, with no beliefs; as if you are a tree in the fall with no leaves, naked, standing against the sky. You go and seek a master with a naked mind, with no leaves, with no beliefs. Only then, only then, I say, will you be able to see without projection; only then will something penetrate into your life from the above. Then nobody can deceive you.

5. Don’t ask for miracles. A man of meditation is himself a miracle. Whatever he does is a miracle. It is a beauty, it is magic, but it is all spontaneous. It is not practiced, it is not rehearsed. But most people are interested in supernatural powers, healing people with supernatural powers, or creating things out of nothing, just as Satya Sai Baba is doing. All kinds of frauds… but people become interested in them, thinking that here is a man of miracles. And what is the miracle if you can produce a Swiss watch which was hiding in your sleeve…?One old Parsi woman came to me in Bombay. Satya Sai Baba used to stay at her place, and she told me, “One day when he had gone into the bathroom, just out of curiosity I looked into his suitcases. They were all full of watches! I could not believe that this man was deceiving.” She said, “I kicked him out. I told him, `Never again come in my house!’ I cannot be a partner to any kind of fraud.” She told me, “I am an old woman. Nobody listens to me, they think I have gone senile. I have come to you… perhaps you can do something about it.”

   I said, “I have been challenging Satya Sai Baba, saying that this is stupid. When the country is dying of starvation, produce more food out of your miracles. He should bring rain to Hyderabad” … where the Shankaracharya of Puri is going to force a woman to be burned alive on her husband’s funeral pyre, and only then rain will come. And Satya Sai Baba is not far away from Hyderabad. Bring rain to Hyderabad — do some real work! All that he produces is ash, and he gives you the ash and you think it is great. It is so simple that any street magician can do it. In fact the more experienced street magicians can do it in a far better way, and can do many more things than he is doing.
   I have no objection to him as a magician, but he should not pretend to be a spiritual man. It is not only a question of a single person pretending to be spiritual when he is not. The question is that he attracts thousands of people, mediocre people, who believe that this man of miracles may impart something to them, may lead them to the ultimate truth.

6. People ask me why Indians are not here. They cannot be here because we are REALLY interested in meditation. They go to Satya Sai Baba because meditation is not the question there — miracles are happening. They can hope. They are ill: maybe Satya Sai Baba, by his miracle, can take their illness away. Maybe they are unemployed: by his blessing they will be employed. They are poor: by his blessing they will become rich. They go to Satya Sai Baba — he deals in things which they need. And they are really surprised when Swiss-made watches appear out of nowhere. That is their real object — they want Swiss-made watches. Stupid people, and stupid are their saints. Now a saint playing games, magic games, ordinary magic games! We have sannyasins — Avinash can do it, Sarvesh can do it — just small games, of no value at all, of no religious value at all. Maybe entertaining.
   
7. The curtain of attachments is so dense and thick that even if you go towards religion you look for miracles. If you find Buddha standing before you, you will not recognize him. If Buddha and Satya Sai Baba are both present you will definitely move towards Satya Sai Baba, and not towards Buddha, because Buddha is not so stupid as to conjures things out of the air! You are in search of magicians. You are impressed by miracles, because your deepest desire is for the world and not for God.