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Re: avatars...(Sai Baba)
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To: alt-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Subject: Re: avatars...(Sai Baba)
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From: Bon Giovanni <bongiovanni@delphi.com>
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Date: Wed, 10 Aug 94 23:44:56 -0500
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)
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References: <32bqlm$8g8@ucunix.san.uc.edu>
To: mani@srirangam.esd.sgi.com (Mani Varadarajan)
Re: <3296hn$33l@ucunix.san.uc.edu>
This was posted earlier as message ID 32bqlm$8g8@ucunix.san.uc.edu.
In transit several paragraphs were glitched and illegible. This is the same
post, placed again to see if it makes it through whole this time. It was
composed of 7909 bytes before this intro was added...
Namaskaar,
Thank you for posting your views in this forum. I note your enthusiasm to
share the basis of your beliefs; I will gladly look at that basis. Thank you
for the offer.
As you say, you respond because:
>Lest people say, "He's making people feel better. Even if he's a fake,
why not leave him alone?" The issue is more complex than this.<<
Indeed, the issue _is_ more complex. I am delighted that you acknowledge that.
You have my complete attention brother- let no sham pass this point. Let us be
forthright and demand that the real _facts_ be brought to light.
Together perhaps we can put an end to superstition and rumour here and now.
You offer to share in email some data you have at hand, which you apparently
treasure and wish to supply to anyone willing to accept your gift. That is
very generous of you, thank you. Please, do give it to me.
I have read many many reports about Sai Baba. Some of them are very strange
indeed. Tell me brother is the data you have weird, or beautiful? Does it
ennoble the reader, or degrade? Is it kind or cruel ? Is it helpful or
harmful? Can it be established as objective fact, or is it just gossip?
Is it the truth, or a fable?
I cannot wait- for you see I too am, like you, ever eager to attend truth and
share it with others. Give me your treasure, and let us examine it together!
So far most of the `reports' floating about have been conclusively shown to be
mere unsubstantiated blather, just oldwives tales, which in some quarters
prove to be held in very high esteem indeed. No one but me it seems ever
keeps the rebuttals to those little stories. I have many many many `stories'
at hand, and many facts as well. In soc.culture.indian in the thread SANDEHA
NIVARINI SATHYA SAI BABA DISSOLVING DOUBTS many reports about the Parthi Baba
have been addressed. Should you wish to read those files, please do attend
them and attach your data there. Already that thread has a vast readership,
and if you want attention, you have a built in audience there. Should you
wish to present your stored data here rather than there, so be it; I will
attend your every word in either case. Too, should you wish more private
divulgence, I will accept your offer to accept in email whatever stories you
have cached. If the stories you offer prove new to me, I will investigate
them, address the issues therein one at a time, and post the results
publically.
>> A couple of years back, there were a serious of articles posted by many
people detailing the amateurish magic tricks Sai Baba uses to convince his
devotees of his divinity.<<
Please, tell!; that sounds interesting, do please be specific- you have
whetted my curiousity- I have hopes you may have something new to tell. The
articles about his cheap magic tricks which I read turned out to be only silly
third and fourth hand misreadings of Sorcar's interview. Do you have
something more than that to offer? Perhaps the actual interview of the
magician, verbatim- perhaps a videocassette? Is your story about he elder or
the junior Sorcar?
I may already know that story, and have already traced it to its origin. Have
you something new to offer?
Another story floating about was by the exstudent of Sai Baba named Srikanth.
He posted his expose on the Internet July 3, 1993. It surfaces now and again.
I spoke with the fellow myself, and found him a sincere young man. Then after
talking to the registrar at the Brindavan campus, I found his complete history
reveals far more detail than he volunteered. I posted the findings. His
expulsion from the school and the reasons for that expulsion is key to
appreciating the slant of his story. His expose makes for interesting
readings, as do the replies of the other students present at the time he was
with Baba. Those reports are however rarely attached to his expose.
I find that those do read the whole story, check all the facts and consider
all the witnessess, and thus know the _whole_ story of Srikanth's background
those folks just plain no longer repeat his claims. Not even the boy himself
says anything further about it, now that all the facts are out in public.
I find comparing the fact to the rumour quickly puts the rumourmonger to
shame, and silence. That is after all the only other way to end rumour and
superstition- the first way being to ignore rumour and rumour mongerers.
Some of the vandals who are ignored however then run off to another Net area,
and start telling their old tales all over again, neglecting to mention the
facts of the matter, showing only a partial truth. It is amazing how many men
love to wag their tongues like that, as if they were but gossipy old women.
>>There are also some very disturbing details concerning the Baba's dealings
with certain other devotees and associates. I will be glad to email this file
to anyone who is interested.<<
Your gladness at that disturbance is noted. Should you have any evidence such
as your own first hand report, or actual newspaper articles, or television
shows on tape, or published magazine accounts- anything at all that can be
studied by one and all to determine their validity, please do offer those
details. Do. Even if you have nothing that substantial, send it anyway. Truth
is ever welcome. Truth is never as disturbing as lies.
Far too often sly rascals post only a report that is nothing more than `I
heard so and so say this and that'. I hope you agree that only a fool would
then treat that gossip as if it were fact- not even old village women are so
silly as to cherish that mental poison as if it were amrith! Between you and
me, I call people like that, gossipers like that, I call them `vampires', and
I have a good stout stake at hand for each one. The only difficulty is
locating their heart.
Whatever data you have about the Parthi Baba, please do offer it up. I welcome
all _fact_- good and bad. I however am not too keen on reading old wives'
tales, especially the way unmarried college-educated men tell 'em. They tend
to wag on and on going from unproven point to unproven point, as if mere
number of words is sufficient to prove their point. A good wife would shake
that nonsense right out of them. (I know). I now address one issue at a time,
and once it is proven, yea or nay, only then do I go on to the next. (My wife
nods her approval). No gossip in this family.
`Wisely and slow- they stumble who run fast'... as the Bard says.
Forgive me for running on, I just wanted to let you know where I stand
on all this. I await your details.
Pranams
PostScript wherein I must quote you : ``The short answer is -- no one man on
this earth can give you happiness, especially one so thoroughly debunked as
Sai Baba. Render only unto God what is deservedly God's."
Bon whispers:
no one person on this earth can give anyone happiness who is
not already happy, and those happy ones render unto God
absolutely everything. The rest are like misers, beggars,
cripples, addicts. Let the happy heal the unhappy with love,
educate them with joy, and illuminate them with example.
Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavanthu
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