Experiences of a woman - Åsa Samsioe from Sweden
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Because I am a woman, I have never had any first hand experience of Sai Baba´s sexual molestations.
Nor do I personally know anyone who has... And I don´t know anything about his secret life - only those things that I have heard or read about.
But I have all these experiences of my own, that I share with most of Sai Baba´s devotees.
And I think, after all, these experiences are quite enough to question Sai Baba´s self- declared avatarship.
Probably I would have left him anyway without all this information on the internet...
My first visit to Puttaparthi was quite interesting, the second was rather OK, but the third was more than enough...
I will try to make clear my standpoint, why Sai Baba doesn´t fit my idea of what an Avatar should be like, without taking any notice of what I have read or heard about - just my own experiences...
These are all circumstances that have bothered me since my first visit in Sai Baba´s ashram. Certainly there are many more disturbing points:
Why Sai Baba doesn´t fit my idea of what an Avatar should be like - even if the last years findings were just rumours.
My Avatar shouldn´t be so fond of pomp and show as Sai Baba is. (even if he pretends he isn´t...)
Why does Sai Baba have to walk on red carpets, which his devotees have to brush and clean before every darshan of his?
And why does he have to surround himself with all these monumental and pompous buildings and cars, that smell money and materialism, in stark contrast to the surrounding Indian poverty. There is an ostentation in this, that doesn´t fit my idea of spirituality.
My Avatar should have been a much more humble being, far from the boastful and inflated Sai Baba.
My Avatar´s actions should have been much more difficult to predict. He shouldn´t stick to the same routines day after day.. Not to mention all this ridiculous lineing and lottery... My Avatar should have walked among His devotees in His own unpredictable ways...
And He shouldn´t have underestimated His devotee´s intellect, by discourseing on the same subjects over and over again...
And surely He shouldn´t have surrounded Himself with all these security guards! Nor should He have exposed His devotees to these continuous corporal searchings before darshan.What can God Himself be afraid of?
My Avatar should have appreciated women as much as men. If you are observant, you can certainly recognize the difference... that Sai Baba looks much more harsh and indifferent when he walks on the female side. You can just watch his video cassettes and compare his facial expressions...
Can anyone tell me why Sai Baba always prefer to surround himself with males? What has gender to do with spirituality?
A journey to my Avatar should have resulted in an obvious “charging of the batteries”, not in illnesses
of different kinds, as gastric influenza and other ailments. You don´t expect to feel so weakened after a visit to God Himself...
On the contrary you should have been charged with energy, that would have mobilized your immune system.
Nor do you expect your favourite plant, which had the great honour to be placed beside the portrait
of God/Sai Baba, to be the first one of the plants in the room to wither...
When I first looked at my Avatar, I should have recognized God from that very moment! There shouldn´t have been the slightest doubt, who He is.
Regarding Sai Baba, I recognized him as godlike only after fourteen days in his ashram... when
the brainwashing had been effective enough...
My Avatar should have radiated unconditioned love and compassion towards all His devotees.
Even if Sai Baba´s devotees explain his harsh facial expressions as his “Shiva attributes”, there shouldn´t have been the least doubt of his love towards his devotees.
I have heard people complaining, after their first visit in Sai Baba´s ashram, that there is no love there....
How can God, who is love, conceal His love from His devotees?
My Avatar should have surrounded Himself with the most spiritual an developed souls...
How can it be that many of Sai Baba´s Seva Dals, are not as kind as you would have expected?
To my great surprise, I have watched some of them treating the devotees in a very harsh and
unspiritual way...
How is it possible to be in the continuous physical nearness to God, without obvious and continuous spiritual development...
I thought, perhaps a little naively, that this is what the whole thing is about...
Why should we otherwise travel all the way to India?
My Avatar shouldn´t have pointed out the Indian culture as the most superior in the world.
We all know the large differences between the rich ones and the poor ones in India. Even today mothers in India have to kill themselves and their children, because they have nothing to eat. (Sai Baba himself told us so some time ago)
Neither are the Indian people as peaceful as you would wish, when it for example comes to religious riots, terrorist acts and other incidents of violence - even in the state of Andhra Pradesh...
And according to Sai Baba himself it is spirituality in practice that counts - not religious rituals..
Even if the last year´s information about Sai Baba is not true but just rumours... my Avatar shouldn´t have tested His devotee´s faith, by pouring out rumours, of His molestations (and murders?) of young boys.
He should have understood not to challenge His devotee´s faith, at the expense of their conscience.
If we cannot trust our conscience, where is the ground for any spirituality at all?