THE STORY OF MY DISQUALIFICATION
by Serguei Badaev
(ex-President of Sathya Sai Organization, Moscow Centre, ex-deputy National Coordinator and National SSEHV Coordinator, Russia)

It started about 2 years ago when we (I mean Russian devotees) were informed that David Bailey left the Sathya Sai Organisation and disseminated dirty rumours about Sai Baba. It was a sort of a shock because D. Bailey had visited Russia several times (with Faye) and had given talks and looked to be a dedicated devotee. We were not told the reasons so we were puzzled very much. The situation was similar with Conny Larsson. Then again with Dr. Naresh Bhatia. It was like a mysterious virus which struck people and converted them against Swami.

Then we learnt that some information can be found on the Internet. After some web sites with negative information were located, we looked them through and realised that the accusations were serious enough not to be ignored. We decided to discuss them during the special meeting of the active members in the Moscow Sai centre. I sent to Steen Piculell (central coordinator for region 16) 2 questions about false materialisations and homosexual activities. Both questions were formulated like this: do you know (or believe) that the information about ... is a fake or they do exist and have some special spiritual meaning? Steen Piculell did not answer. He forwarded it to Thorbjorn Meyer (Chairman for the zone 4), who replied not to me but to the Moscow Sai centre. He told us that we were not allowed to arrange such a sort of meeting and that if Serguei Badaev could ask such questions that meant he did not have enough faith to be an office bearer in the Organisation.

The Moscow centre wrote a letter to Indulal Shah and 7th World Conference with the appeal to acknowledge these facts and ask Bhagavan for their spiritual explanation. The letter was passed to our National Coordinator who went to the 7thWC and he passed it to S. Piculell and T. Meyer. As far as I understand it never went further. In the beginning of January the National Coordinator phoned me and announced about my disqualification as a deputy of the National Coordinator and National SSEHV Coordinator. He told it was a sort of recommendation of T. Meyer. When I asked about the reason the answer was - "lack of faith in Bhagavan Baba and His teaching".

That time my tenure as a President of the Moscow Sai centre after 4 years was finishing, but the active members meeting decided to postpone the change of the President in regard to this situation. When the National Coordinator learnt about it he disqualified me as President of the centre. The Moscow centre wrote a letter to the National Coordinator asking him to come to the Moscow centre to have a meeting with the active members. He failed. I wrote a letter to all the Central Council members with the appeal not to accept this decision until collective settlement would be reached. Soon after that the meeting of the Central Council of Russian speaking countries was held. S. Piculell and T. Meyer came there. I was not invited. But I went as an observer as well as a delegation of the office bearers and active memebers from Moscow, about a dozen people altogether. During the meeting of the Central Council people from Moscow were not given a word. After all the previous decision was confirmed and imposed on the CC members who were keeping absolute silence. So that is the story in brief.

According to the Sathya Sai Organization Charter the reason for disqualification is deliberate violation of 9 Points of Code of Conduct. That was not the case. But during the CC meeting T. Meyer clearly formulated that a National Coordinator has the right to disqualify any office bearer under his supervision without assigning any reasons. I have never seen or heard about such regulations in the Organisation. Soon after this CC meeting National Youth Coordinator, Maria Ponomareva-Stepnaya, resigned.

Serguei Badaev March 2001