Newsgroup: it.discussioni.ufo
Titolo: Is Sathya Sai Baba for real?

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I got the following from:
http://psg.com/~ted/bcskeptics/sbmir/db-book.html
Sai Baba: Omniscient and Omnipotent?
Omniscience
To be omniscient is to be all knowing. Such a claim is impossible to confirm
with certainty, for it would involve testing the person's knowledge about
absolutely everything! But it is very easy to refute if it is a false claim.
All that is required is to show that the person making the claim lacks some
knowledge that it is possible for a person to have. For example, one who is
omniscient will know all the human languages of the world. But Sai Baba, by
his own admission and that of his followers, only knows two or three Indian
languages fluently. And in a country where vast numbers of people speak
fluent English, Sai Baba's English is too broken and unsteady for use in
public discourses! In his letters to devotees, Sai Baba makes no pretences
about this, and, for instance, excuses himself to one disciple for not having
written earlier, explaining that he had no translator about so he could not
get his letter translated:
1 - Sai Baba's Letter To Hislop, 8-9-69:
  Hislop accept this shower of Love and Joy. I received all the letters you
wrote, and felt happy, reading them. Since I could not get a moment of
leisure,  due to the various items of work connected with the Whitefield
College, and since the hurdle of language had to be crossed that is to say,
since I could  not write to you directly in Telugu, and I did not have with
me persons who could correctly translate what I write I had to send you this
letter after so  much delay.
                                                                         Sai
Baba's Letter Quoted in Hislop, My Baba & I, p. 235.
2 - Sai Baba's Letter To Hislop, 15-1-70:
  Hislop, accept my blessings. The letters you sent have all been received. I
have read them all...but, I was not able to send you replies, immediately. 
Many thousands of devotees had gathered during Dasara, the Birthday, and the
All-India Conference of Office Bearers of Sathya Sai Organizations;  and so,
I could not avail myself of even a moment's leisure. Besides, since the
building of the college has started, I have been at Bangalore, for about a 
month. Kasturi was at Prasanthi Nilayam, and letters to you had to be
translated, and typed. So, the delay lengthened. This is what happened. 
Therefore, do not imagine that I have forgotten you. I shall never forget
you...
Letter of Sai Baba quoted in Hislop, ibid., p. 238.
So, in Sai Baba's own words, he lacks the knowledge to do certain things--in
short, he is not omniscient! How do we reconcile this obvious contradiction?
One possibility would be for Sai Baba and his followers to show us that they
mean something different by the term "omniscient" than the definition offered
at the beginning of this section. In fact, there is evidence for this: V. K.
Gokak, who for many years was a close disciple of Sai Baba, and an official
interpreter of the Sai Baba message to the world, talks about the various
false expectations Westerners are likely to have about Eastern gurus. One of
them is put as follows:
3 - V.K. Gokak's Views
     The idea that a Master is all-knowing is taken to mean that he must know
every thing trivial about everything and every one beforehand and that he
     should be able to act on it.
                                Gokak, In Defense Of Jesus Christ And Other
Avatars, M. Gulab Singh & Sons P Ltd Publisher. 1979, p. 17.
The definite implication is that for Sai Baba to claim omniscience is not to
claim omniscience or complete knowledge in the ordinary sense. Elsewhere the
same
author states:
4 - More from Gokak:
     Baba is not learned or highly educated. He is a non-matriculate playing
with undergraduates in the Sathya Sai Colleges.
                                  V K Gokak, Sri Sathya Sai Baba, The Man and
The Avatar, Abhinav Publications, New Delhi, 1975, p. 97
Of course, it would not be surprising to discover that someone who was
omniscient was not educated in the usual manner of mere mortals; but the
implication here is that Sai Baba behaves like the unlearned undergraduates
in his college. If Gokak's interpretation is to be accepted, then at least we
can be sure that Sai Baba's claim of omniscience, whatever it means, does not
mean that he knows everything or is omniscient in the ordinary sense. It is
clear, however, that most of Sai Baba's publications present his claim to
omniscience as a claim to knowing everything in the ordinary sense. For
example, Kanu, in Sai Baba, God Incarnate, states that Sai Baba as a boy had
no need of schooling--he already knew everything:
5 - V. Kanu's Claims
     At eight ... he was sent to the Higher Elementary School two and a half
miles away from his house.... He attended the school solely to please his
     parents, and not because he needed a school education, for he was
all-knowing.
Kanu, Sai Baba, God Incarnate, p. 28
And it is also to be observed that Sai Baba himself when asked about these
matters confirms what Gokak says is the erroneous interpretation! For
example, Hislop, as Sai Secretary for America, asked Sai Baba why Sai Baba
needs to have his disciples actually write letters informing him of the
various goings on in the Sai Centres. At this point it would have been a
simple enough matter for Sai Baba to clarify, stating that daily matters are
not known to him. Instead he denied lacking the knowledge, and justified the
letter writing on the grounds that it was good for the disciples to write
these letters, and, for example, to clear their conscience by writing. Here
is the exchange reported by Hislop (JH is John Hislop, and SAI is Sai Baba):
6 - Sai Baba's Explanations:
     JH: This question will sound silly to Swami, but it is serious to me.
     SAI: What?
  JH: I write many letters to Swami about activities, problems and
accomplishments in the American Sai Organization. But often I think it is
silly to  describe problems and events, since I know from my own direct
experience that Swami is omnipresent and knows all about the events.
  SAI: There is much nonsense about Swami being omnipresent and omnipotent!
People start to think they need do nothing, that Swami will do	everything!
Then they do not bother to do even their daily duty. In spiritual life, the
relationship between you and Swami is heart to heart. But in worldly  life,
Swami has given you work to do. This requires work in the world, activity in
the world. You are required to do your duty to the very limit of the  task.
So far as writing is concerned, the writing of letters to Swami is for your
satisfaction.
     JH: For my satisfaction, Swami?
  SAI: Yes, for your satisfaction. You write to Swami, and your mind is then
free of the matter. It is not that Swami does not know. Suppose you  withhold
some troublesome point, you then have a guilty feeling. But you tell Swami,
and there is no guilty feeling. Do your duty fully and completely in  the
work which Swami has given to you.
Quoted in My Baba and I, pp 214, 215.
And this sort of remark by Sai Baba is not unusual. In a speech reprinted in
the official organ of the Sai Baba movement, Sanathana Sarathi, Sai Baba
states:
7 - Sai Baba Claims Omniscience:
  Remember that Swami knows all that is happening though He may appear as if
he knew nothing. Recognise the difference between the Divine and the  human.
Divinity, although all-knowing and all-powerful acts as if It does not know
anything. The human being, though he is totally ignorant and  incompetent,
pretends to be all-knowing and all-powerful. Students should realise that
Swami knows all about their misbehaviour...
  Sanathana Sarathi, Vol 32, No. 8, Aug l989, p. 211, quoting a speech given
by Sai Baba on June 19 1989.
This last quotation is useful for the purpose of getting a sense of the
reliability of Sai Baba's explanations of matters such as these. Consider Sai
Baba's statement that "The human being, though he is totally ignorant and
incompetent, pretends to be all-knowing and all-powerful." The reader need
only ask, which human beings are totally ignorant and incompetent? Is that an
accurate description of what it is to be a human being? "Totally ignorant and
incompetent"? Also, which human beings actually pretend to be all-knowing and
all-powerful? Isn't it true that most human beings recognize themselves as
limited creatures, creatures who are not all-knowing, and not all-powerful.
It is only a human being who pretends to be Divine who can be described this
way.
Omnipotence
As far as omnipotence goes, Sai Baba, as we've seen, says "I was not able to
send replies". This is not the statement of an omnipotent being. Also Sai Baba
writes
to Hislop to excuse himself for not being able to fulfil his promise to travel
to America, and explains his inability saying that he had to attend to various
matters in
India:
8 - Sai Baba's Letter to Hislop, 8-9-69:
  Hislop, though I wanted to come to America, there were some urgent matters
in connection with the development of the Colleges here, that I had to 
attend to. The Colleges have correlations with the Government of India, and
so, they have to be equipped accordingly; ...Therefore, I had to look into 
all these matters myself.
Sai Baba's letter quoted in Hislop, p. 235.
The only explanation given by Sai Baba himself or his devotees as to why
someone who is omniscient and omnipotent doesn't know English well enough to
translate his own letters, or give public discourses in English, is that Sai
Baba is merely pretending to be ordinary in these respects! This can hardly
be counted as evidence of omniscience or omnipotence. Although we have yet to
consider various specific paranormal powers claims, there is decisive
evidence from Sai Baba's everyday behaviour that he is neither all-knowing
nor all-powerful in the ordinary sense, the sense in which both he and his
disciples (other than Gokak) claim he is.
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On Tue, 05 Jan 1999 20:20:35 GMT, 
aar...@hotmail.com
 wrote:
A proposito di Sai Baba, voi che avete dei contatti, come sta il
fratello di Bettino Carxi? 
Ciao da Gibbo
Questo messaggio viene mandato anche in e-mail
alla persona cui sto replicando.