Sathya sai international organisation

Swami Vivekananda's experiences

Below is the excerpt referred to by Colonel Bose from Swami Vivekananda's lecture ‘The Powers of the Mind’ in which he narrates his experiences with people who demonstrate powers similar to and even beyond what Madhusudan Naidu has shown:

I once heard of a man who, if any one went to him with questions in his mind, would answer them immediately; and I was also informed that he foretold events. I was curious and went to see him with a few friends. We each had something in our minds to ask, and, to avoid mistakes, we wrote down our questions and put them in our pockets. As soon as the man saw one of us, he repeated our questions and gave the answers to them. Then he wrote something on paper, which he folded up, asked me to sign on the back, and said, "Don't look at it; put it in your pocket and keep it there till I ask for it again." And so on to each one of us. He next told us about some events that would happen to us in the future. Then he said, "Now, think of a word or a sentence, from any language you like." I thought of a long sentence from Sanskrit, a language of which he was entirely ignorant. "Now, take out the paper from your pocket," he said. The Sanskrit sentence was written there! He had written it an hour before with the remark, "In confirmation of what I have written, this man will think of this sentence." It was correct. Another of us who had been given a similar paper which he had signed and placed in his pocket, was also asked to think of a sentence. He thought of a sentence in Arabic, which it was still less possible for the man to know; it was some passage from the Koran. And my friend found this written down on the paper. Another of us was a physician. He thought of a sentence from a German medical book. It was written on his paper.

Several days later I went to this man again, thinking possibly I had been deluded somehow before. I took other friends, and on this occasion also he came out wonderfully triumphant.

Another time I was in the city of Hyderabad in India, and I was told of a Brahmin there who could produce numbers of things from where, nobody knew. This man was in business there; he was a respectable gentleman. And I asked him to show me his tricks. It so happened that this man had a fever, and in India there is a general belief that if a holy man puts his hand on a sick man he would be well. This Brahmin came to me and said, "Sir, put your hand on my head, so that my fever may be cured." I said, "Very good; but you show me your tricks." He promised. I put my hand on his head as desired, and later he came to fulfil his promise. He had only a strip of cloth about his loins, we took off everything else from him. I had a blanket which I gave him to wrap round himself, because it was cold, and made him sit in a corner. Twenty-five pairs of eyes were looking at him. And he said, "Now, look, write down anything you want." We all wrote down names of fruits that never grew in that country, bunches of grapes, oranges, and so on. And we gave him those bits of paper. And there came from under his blanket, bushels of grapes, oranges, and so forth, so much that if all that fruit was weighed, it would have been twice as heavy as the man. He asked us to eat the fruit. Some of us objected, thinking it was hypnotism; but the man began eating himself — so we all ate. It was all right.

He ended by producing a mass of roses. Each flower was perfect, with dew-drops on the petals, not one crushed, not one injured. And masses of them! When I asked the man for an explanation, he said, "It is all sleight of hand." Whatever it was, it seemed to be impossible that it could be sleight of hand merely. From whence could he have got such large quantities of things?

Well, I saw many things like that. Going about India you find hundreds of similar things in different places. These are in every country. Even in this country you will find some such wonderful things. Of course there is a great deal of fraud, no doubt; but then, whenever you see fraud, you have also to say that fraud is an imitation. There must be some truth somewhere, that is being imitated; you cannot imitate nothing. Imitation must be of something substantially true.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda/Volume_2/The_Powers_of_the_Mind

SUMMARY 1. Vivekananda describes meeting two seemingly ordinary men, both of whom had powers far beyond what Madhusudan Naidu has displayed. 2. The first was able to see the future as well as read the minds of Vivekananda and his friends. 3. The second was able to produce anything asked for on request and went on to materialise so much fruit and flowers that Vivekananda said the quantity produced would have been heavier than the man himself. 4. Rather than praising them as divine, Vivekananda says that both of these were just ordinary men and that such things were commonplace - he saw many people who could do the same things. 5. This illustrates Swami's point that so called miracles are not miracles nor are they any proof of Divinity.

Howard Murphet's testimony

Howard Murphet, in his famous book, Man of Miracles, describes the dangers inherent in the kind of communication phenomena that Madhusudan Naidu claims to practice:

Other psychic happenings reported from here and there include automatic writing, and written messages seen by clairvoyants either in rangoli powder or on plain walls and ceilings. These messages purport to be from Sai Baba. The people closely concerned with such phenomena (at least the ones I have personally met) seem sincere and high-minded. They describe enthusiastically how the messages are used to help the sick, to give ethical training in action and habit, to assist people in distress concerning their personal relationships, their jobs, and so on. So the power at work seems to be a good, compassionate one.

But there is, of course, a danger in communication phenomena. For one thing, as occultists know, the lower astral plane contains plenty of impostors, pretenders and worse, ever ready to seize a chance of communicating with this world. Therefore psychic forces not so good, not so benevolent, might easily begin to manifest under the guise of the great spiritual name. Thus people may be fooled and misled. And the eventual result would be to foster man's pride, egotism and lower desires rather than his higher spiritual aspirations.

There were indications that greed and desire for notoriety were already being stirred among followers when a notice appeared in the ashram magazine, under the direction of Baba. The notice said: "Some persons misuse the name of Baba, and announce that Baba is in communication with them, giving them messages, answering questions and granting interviews, their object being to earn money or fame." The notice goes on to say that such phenomena have to be explained either as the manifestation of spirits or as sheer fakes by cranks or crooks: "It is the duty of devotees to stop all such trickery by wise counsel and firm denial."

Baba makes it clear that recipient must judge the genuineness of any psychic happenings for themselves, but they should never use them as a means of drawing a crowd around for publicity, fame or making money.

Sai Baba Man of Miracles, pp147-148: http://www.saicenter.us/books/Sathya_Sai_Books1/Sai%20Baba%20Man%20of%20Miracles.pdf
We recall again Swami's words in the book, Sri Sathya Sai Anandadayi:

Evil spirits have slightly greater strength than man. With this extra strength, they have the power to masquerade themselves as Gods. (Do not get cheated by these spirits. Beware!).

Sri Sathya Sai Anandadayi, p.292 or http://scriptures.ru/jws_exc.htm

SUMMARY 1. Howard speaks about seemingly good and sincere people who had messages purporting to be from Sri Sathya Sai Baba appearing on their walls. 2. These messages were "used to help the sick, to give ethical training in action and habit, to assist people in distress concerning their personal relationships, their jobs, and so on. So the power at work seems to be a good, compassionate one". 3. He warns that there is a danger in communication phenomena because we don't know what is communicating with us. There are many low or evil spirits who will pretend to be a great spiritual being with the result that these phenomena end up fostering man's pride, egotism and lower desires rather than his higher spiritual aspirations. 4. Howard tells us that despite the apparent sincerity of the people connected with these phenomena, soon after Swami issued a warning in Sanathana Sarathi to say: 5. "Some persons misuse the name of Baba, and announce that Baba is in communication with them, giving them messages, answering questions and granting interviews, their object being to earn money or fame." The notice goes on to say that such phenomena have to be explained either as the manifestation of spirits or as sheer fakes by cranks or crooks: "It is the duty of devotees to stop all such trickery by wise counsel and firm denial." QUESTIONS 1. How do we know that this isn't what is happening at Muddenahalli? 2. Howard says that the eventual result of these false manifestations is pride and egotism. Are the messages being conveyed by Madhusudan Naidu fostering pride and ego?