5
5
4
4
1
1
.
.
I
I
N
N
T
T
R
R
O
O
D
D
U
U
C
C
T
T
I
I
O
O
N
N
T
T
O
O
A
A
N
N
I
I
N
N
C
C
A
A
R
R
N
N
A
A
T
T
I
I
O
O
N
N
from you, how to talk to you nicely, and once his need for you is over, how to keep
you at arms length. …He knew all the tactics of ‘divide and rule’.
As Haraldsson (1997:184) goes on to note, however, Sathya Sai Baba—in com-
menting upon the first edition of his book—took exception to the testimonies of
the ex-devotees just cited, psychopathologizing (in his own way) the same: ‘Those
of my devotees who get their desires fulfilled praise me, those who don’t tend to
give bad accounts’. His critics, he said, were ‘young at that time, not very religious
or serious’, and, in contrast to their portrayals
50
, ‘he (Sai Baba) would, for exam-
ple, never ask anyone for anything’. Perhaps this is simply “damage control” (a
favourite term of the anti Sathya Sai Baba movement
51
) on Sathya Sai Baba’s part,
but, it is at least clear that religious considerations are integral to the views of at
least one of his dominant personae. As Haraldsson elsewhere points out:
To display Sai Baba simply/only as some sort of a rogue is far too simplistic and
really ridiculous to practically anyone who has had even a slight acquaintance with
him. Sai Baba is a very complex and multi-faceted personality.
52
Such complexity is evident in much of what we have seen thus far. I hope to have
shown that this, intensified by the controversies that I have touched upon in this
section, and by his extraordinary popularity, renders him—and especially his reli-
gious persona—a fit topic for my proposed investigation, a topic deep enough and
important enough to justify academic attention being devoted to it.
50
See, especially, p.209 below.
51
See, e.g., http://home.hetnet.nl/~ex_baba/engels/articles/barrynorajones.html [11-3-2007]
52
From a letter to Dale Beyerstein (cited above), dated 21-10-1988, published in the Indian Skeptic
magazine (http://www.indian-skeptic.org/html/is_v01/1-10-10.htm [1-6-2002]).
1
1
.
.
3
3
E
E
x
x
p
p
l
l
a
a
i
i
n
n
i
i
n
n
g
g
E
E
m
m
b
b
o
o
d
d
i
i
m
m
e
e
n
n
t
t
5
5
5
5
1.3 Explaining Embodiment
It is impossible for anyone to understand or explain the meaning and significance of Swaami.
There can be no possible means of approach to this manifestation, from the stage which you
can attain. This is an Incarnation, an Embodiment, which is beyond anyone's comprehension.
Trying to explain Me would be as futile as the attempt of a person who does not know the al-
phabet to read a learned volume, or the attempt to pour the Ocean into a tiny waterway.
1
“What type of teacher is she?” Sathya Sai Baba suddenly intoned, looking at me,
and inclining his head towards Mata Betty, one of his long-time devotees, leader of
the group to which I belonged (at centre, without a red scarf, in Fig.6). I did not
know then that there were any “types” of teacher—let alone what sort Mata Betty
might be—so I shrugged my shoulders
and looked at Sathya Sai Baba for the
answer. What I got from him, after his
typical Socratic fashion, was another
question: “How many types of teacher
are there?” Again, I was at a loss for an
answer, but, in this case, Sathya Sai
Baba was happy to provide one for me:
“There are three kinds of teacher: those
that complain, those that explain, and
those that inspire”
2
.
The third of these types, presumably,
is the ideal, but, whilst I may say that I
am fortunate to have mostly been
blessed with teachers of this kind, this
does make writing a methodology section—in which, presumably, I am to explain
what precisely it is I propose to do—somewhat difficult. From Sathya Sai Baba’s
perspective too, as the passage at top indicates, any approach to understanding or
explaining him is inherently problematic. But, as a scholar, I must make just such
an “attempt to pour the Ocean into a tiny waterway”. It is an apt metaphor, for, as
we will see, there is a vast amount of both primary and secondary source material
1
Sathya Sai Baba (9-10-1970) S10 28:170
2
NB Sathya Sai Baba had said much the same thing in a public discourse some two decades earlier
((16-6-1983) http://www.sssbpt.info/ssspeaks/volume16/sss16-13.pdf [24-3-2007]), but I had not
come across this at that time. For the record, Sathya Sai Baba went on to say that Mata Betty was
the type of teacher who “explains”. Oddly, Mata Betty took this as an injunction to “explain more”
in the course of her teaching, but she remains one of the most inspiring people I have ever met.
Fig.6 Myself (bottom left) and some members
of the group of fellow New Zealander devo-
tees (led by Mata Betty, centre) with which I
visited Prashanthi Nilayam in August of 2002.