The Indian apologist for Sathya Sai Baba, Om Prakash Sudrania attempts to blacken my name (Robert Priddy) in the following much publicised article. Readers can see what he wrote and make up their own minds about him and I. Please also read my final summing up of this person, and peruse his comments on the sex abuse testimony by Hans de Kraker which are scanned from The Telegraph obituary on Sai Baba (see revealing scans of the exchange of comments here)
Sri Satya Sai Baba and His Robert Priddy by Dr. O. P. Sudrania Monday, 18 July 2011 08:17
(http://www.international.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1588:sri-satya-sai-baba-and-his-robert-priddy-&catid=50:dr-om-prakash-sudrania&Itemid=78) Monday, 18 July 2011 08:17
"Please let me dwell here into why I say that Sai Baba is misconstrued. I cannot imagine that a person like Mr Robert Priddy (MRP) will not know it who says he has spent some 18 odd years with Sri Sathya Sai Baba and was a National President of Norway for the similar years; unless his conduct was suspect ab initio. He must have been selected after weighing in possessing qualifications worthy of a National President. Bribes, bites or barterings are simply unwelcome there.
According to the highest Vedic Wisdom, the human senses are broadly classified into two groups - “Higher and Lower” senses. All these are detailed into the various ancient Indian philosophies. Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are perhaps not known to Western Philosophers. Of course it may not be a domain of the subject of Psychology at all but Philosophy should.
Least of it, a person serving as National President for eighteen years in Sai Organisation would not know Patanjali and this base truth that a person indulging in “Lower Senses” cannot exhibit such supematural miraculous powers appear too naive and inconceivable. I would hate to falsify my friend MRP but he needs to explain his veracity to deduct himself from the clouds of suspicion because he claims himself as an “Academician” and Researched and taught philosophy and sociology at the University of Oslo 1968-85. Eighteen years is a long enough time. Peruse more:
http://wwwsaibaba-x.om.uk/16/biblio.htm
Again to persist for eighteen years with such a person intimately to denounce him on charges of sexual misconduct (also unproved) with no sign of abatement after so long again sounds hollow and bizarre."
RP's COMMENT: Unlike Sudrania, I came to know Sai Baba well enough through long interviews and hundreds of darsans. As time went by more and more doubts arose due to things he said, did, did not do or say etc. His editor V.K. Narasimhan (who wanted constant articles from me for Sai Baba's journal) told me many things that a close servitor could observe, and much of it contradicted the claims of healing, especially knowing a range of ordinary facts (which VKN had to edit out or correct!). I had to rationalize many things SB had said - and also done - and managed one way or another to do so after a fashion (including in my writings to interpret his more unlikely assertions in some positive fashion). It was four years after the murders that VKN told me how the Sai officials blackmailed the Puttaparti police into shooting the four intruders who had killed two assistants of SB, citing the words and laughter of the younger brother Janakiramiah to the Indian Home Minister (where VKN was present)´, namely 'Dead men tell no tales'. Even then it took me until the sex allegation flood in 2000 before I could see that SB definitely was deeply implicated in the murders.Two of my male Sai friends then told me they had been abused (oral sex too) and later other I knew had also suffered it. All this is all perfectly sufficient reasons for a major reappraisal and a turnaround… something Sudrania cannot understand because he does not understand how SB was protected to the highest levels of the Indian elite (who has compromised themselves by having been vocal as his devotees). It seems he stick rigidly to whatever he had set his mind to believe and could not go through the hard process of self-inquiry to see why one had been so fully duped. Sudrania considers the charges of sexual conduct unproved… even though hans de Kraker set him straight on the matter. The lack of a court judgement was because the judges, under the influence of ex-High Chief Justice and total devotee P.N. Bhagwati, blocked the petition to the Supreme Court made by former security insider of Prashanthi, Hari Sampath. Further, the Rao government (with S.B. Chavan) quashed the CBI investigation of the murders just before it could deliver its report. All subsequent PMs and Presidents have protected Sai Baba, having invested their prestige in him for many years.
"Only MRP himself can assert guileless but a lot of answering have to be done especially if he targets others needlessly."
COMMENT: To target Sai Baba was after all the revelations exposing him was unavoidable for me, though it took time to investigate the sex abuses (which I could not credit for many months until I had made many contacts and found it undeniable). Other defenders of SB I wrote against had either attacked me or other dissidents in scurrilous ways or said and done things which were patently untrue and the result of sheer denial and other increasingly typical cultist behaviour.
"Simply because MRP now has taken a complete U-turn for reasons only known either to him or the God he believes in after this long on mere allegations of “unproved or false charges” of homosexuality and pedophilia (since Baba doesn't meet females alone) against Baba is equally embroiling himself in controversy by priori which MRP is perhaps unaware of. It is an old saying that when we point one finger at others, three fingers point towards us! Those who have their own glass houses should not throw stones at others’ ...! A wise man acts wisely, if he is a wise man? Look at for more: hgp://‘www.vishvarupa.corn/Robert Priddy!"
COMMENT This last statement above is a self-questioning dog's breakfast. Then the worn old (an irrational) saw about three fingers was one of Sai Baba's sayings too (most devotees thought he invented it!) and he often pointed out people in mockery in the interview room, all to raise a laugh or misdirect attention (from sleight-of-hand etc.). vishvarupa.corn (excellent typo!) was the first web site of the infamous Moreno.
"It is highly unfortunate to dub the Yoga practices as ‘primitive’ and incite hatred against the people who expound them. This is bigotry. In fact in my opinion there can’t be anything more primitive than dubbing these most advanced practices and scientific knowledge discovered by the ancient Sages after their hard penance and great sacrifices as primitive knowingly. Please peruse more at: hgp://www jntemationaltofindcx.php?option=com content&vicw=articlc&id=1572:is-yoga-science-or-religion-part-iii&catid=502dr-om-prakash-sudrania&Itcmid=78"
COMMENT: What the above might have to do with me is unclear. Sai Baba told people that yoga and japa were allright but often said that they could never lead to realization. (So that puts the lid on Patanjali and others for you?)
I have not told a single untruth in my entire output and that consequently cannot be proven. Some small errors have crept in at times but I correct anything that is misleading or unclear - or incorrect - as soon I I learn of them, whoever points it out. But Sudrania has his own opinion of the millions of words I have written, which he has clearly not studied more than a few pages.
"MRP is a great man who speaks everything but truth. Many on net questions him for his impropriety and lies but I believe him. As MRP knows that my master wants me to show my humility even against the blasphemers and apostates.
COMMENT: Who is Sudrania to know that I speak everything but truth? He thus (unwittingly) assumes he knows all of what is true and false about Sai Baba? He seems to feel I that am a great man… amusing if it were not a bad attempt at concealed irony! However, I am always truthful, and have been so all my life. What is this pompous fellow trying to say, as many of his sentences do not add up to coherent statements?
"In his eighteen years of carrier as a Sai Senior Officer (I dare not denigrate his status as Devotee being a National President), I am sure MRP would have used a very soft speech and behaved with ultra humility as a President of Norway; he perhaps has now archived them. Beauty is he always speaks like an opinion maker “Academician” and I am sure University of Oslo will be no less proud of its Acadernicians like him. He first writes big loud mouthed dissertations, then going all the way backwards to contradict with all his clever blames (offence is the best difence) newly discovered but mindless of his own slippery position, “Why did he stick to Baba for such a long period silently”? What was he doing or researching on there? MRP claims himself as a researcher and teacher but what failed his researches on his Sai Baba for eighteen years? It must be sign of a double and schizophrenic personality at the least or a sign of his criminal conspiracy against Baba acting on behalf of some agency as a secret spy needs a serious investigation."
COMMENT: More than anything Sudrania shows his total ignorance of indoctrination, induced self-programming to a belief system and the many effects of a large and seemingly good (but actually mostly selfishly-oriented) cult. Sudrania is more like a loud-mouth than I, a barrel that is truly empty, while my experience of SB is replete and carefully analysed, as any serious reader will appreciate (and many have!). A double and schizophrenic personality... makes me laugh, even though i is sheer defamation - though he is uncertain whether instead I am involved in a criminal conspiracy and a secret spy! These are serious charges, themselves indefensible by law, but Sudrania is obviously a person of such little consequence that I can safely ignore them without litigation. I aimed to document and further convince and persuade all those viulnerable people who would otherwise more easily fall into the grasping clutches of Sai Baba, with all his recorded abuses of people's faith, their persons and lives, with all his broken promises to individuals which they have written about.
"MRP will have to learn the very basic definition of ‘science’ in the changing world order. The whole subjects of physics, philosophy, sociology, and science is being re-written - as the current concepts of ‘Matter and Energy’ are being every day researched, experimented, analysed, discussed and re-expounded. They have so far been able to come to deny that there is nothing solid in this universe with ‘Wave and Particle Theory’. Will this merge the two subjects of physics and philosophy together; perhaps we have to wait to see?"
COMMENT: Sudrania's rambling maundering above is laughable. He proves has no conception of the range of my studies, which is far greater than he gives me credit for as he has not bothered to see what I have written about. He thinks I must learn "the very basic definition of science", but I have researched into the philosophy of science - including that of the physical and social sciences for decades (while he was still in knee pants, no doubt). I think he knows very little of the subject of philosophy or sociology… I taught both subjects at the University of Oslo. I now also write from a philosophical angle on many related subjects, such as at robertcpriddy.wordpress.com
Sudrania has his speculative doubting hypothesis about my truthfulness and motives, but he has not tested them even by reading my book on how I came to Sai Baba, or how I came to learn the truth about him. The many sexual abuses are "not proven" he says, only not within the Bhagwati-corrupted Indian judiciary. Proof of that has been produced and this is well known to many Indian journalists. Sudrania should not speak too soon, the times in India are changing and proof will surface on a wider and wider front.
This Dr. Om Prakash Sudrania is an eye doctor. One can see from all he writes, however, that he is a wearer of the rose-tinted glasses as recommended by his guru and Divine Being, Sathya Sai Baba - who, incidentally, he never met in interview. Thus he does not talk from personal experiences, as de Kraker and I have always done. Inconsistently, he does not see me in rose colours, that's for sure, as his following little diatribe demonstrates fully enough. It appears from his haggling comment that he is somewhat envious of academicians (which I was for most of my active public career) and would like to appear as something of an open-minded philosopher himself. He is not at all so; I think that he would have failed all the examinations in that subject I used to set. He bases most of his criticism on me on the countless writing against me (and all the many other ex-Sai Baba dissidents - plus diverse other persons against criminal sex gurus (like Premanand, Muktananda and more). Gerald Moreno worked tirelessly 24/7 to libel, stalk and defame over 100 such persons, as one can soon see by searching the www. The unseeing Dr. Sudrania, however, has done no homework whatever on the matter. He makes a false claim about Hans de Kraker in the following cocksure words "Regarding you allegations on the shooting incidence, I am sure you were not present in the Ashram nor have you tried to verify the cause." But Hans de Kraker was present, as he confirmed in his reply. Further proof of Sudrania's biased and superficial 'research' and jumping to conclusions about people he does not know from Adam, he recommends the extremely biased ad hominen attacks of the web stalking, misinforming, outright defamatory liar and web stalker 'Joe' Moreno. This is what he takes as gospel about myself, while fanatical unscrupulous believer Moreno did everything he could to blacken my reputation and character with dirty tricks and contrivances that do not stand up against my rebuttals. Just search Gerald Moreno or Joe Moreno on the www. This represents Dr. Sudrania's further downfall as a decent person.
In web outpourings, Dr. Sudrania much of how greatly he respects and god-blesses those he opposes all the time, such as the sex-abused young man Hans de Kraker, whose replies he continued to imply were not true (i.e. only true as subjective feeling, it seems). See the discussion on comment pages to The Telegraph obituary. He makes every effort to avoid accepting that de Kraker (or 100 other former devotees who knew SB well) was telling the truth about Sai Baba, despite his evidence and his having registered a legal affidavit and much else. Seldom can one meet such figurative writhing, sinuous avoidances of issues, sanctimonious diversions and sheer flummery as D. Sudrania achieves there. He makes himself appear as humble as hand-wringing Uriah Heep, and clearly he is in a state of intense denial about what he holds so dear, the alleged purity and divine nature of Sathya Sai Baba.
Dr. Sudrania is in awe of Sathya Sai Baba, he makes abundantly clear, and he cannot therefore admit that Sai Baba's failure to predict his own life span, though he gave three different documented guesses shows that he was no omniscient God. Instead he wanders disconnectedly into unrelated quotations by Sai Baba.
One may agree with him saying (in his comments below) "I am the least competent and deserving person to start any kind of even a simple talk or discussion about the life and work of a great saint like Sai Baba" But in those words he states the hypothesis, against which there is a mass of evidence, that Sai Baba was a great saint." That SB was a "figure to reckon" with is so, but no numbers of followers prove anything about him being good and divine… as even recent world history insists!
The problem with the hypotheses Dr. Sudrania evidently adopts is that they include basic beliefs are not verifiable, and he has assimilates these to an extent that he no longer is able to examine them critically. The Vedas are certainly not the highest wisdom, they lack almost all knowledge of the cosmos for a start and spring from many speculative assumptions long since discredited by millennia of human experience (and science!). Yoga is not a perfect teaching, it comes in all variants, shapes and forms and most of them are futile except for bodily health (though this is now contested even by some of the most successful hatha yoga teachers - it can destroy the knees). Sudrania evidently has hypothesis about my truthfulness and motives, but he has not tested them even by reading my book on how I came to Sai Baba, or how I came to learn the truth about him. The many sexual abuses are "not proven" he says. To that one must add, only not within the Bhagwati-corrupted Indian judiciary - with the highest governmental protection. We have plenty of proof - and affidavits. Sudrania should not speak too soon, the times in India are changing and proof will surface without any doubt, and in the courts.