If free speech is to prevail in the world, certain supposedly ‘spiritual’ teachings must be brought into universal disrepute. Such a doctrine was promoted by Sathya Sai Baba – at least in preaching, though not always at all in many of his discourses or interview statements. (See scan on right). If this were taken seriously we all risk becoming slaves in a society like Orwell’s 1984, where an omnipresent Big Brother enforced ‘Newspeak’, a means of controlling how people speak and by extension how they think.

The inherent self-contradiction of the ‘teaching’ is obvious if one thinks a bit about it. The abused and the abuser, the critic and the criticised, are not at all one and the same. Not if one rejects speculative theological claims such as ‘in transcendent reality we are all god, all divine’ (especially in Hinduism and advaita vedanta). A person who kills another does not kill himself, he survives. Unless one is taken in by the inevitable rebuttal speculative Hindus make – but he will be killed in a later life due to the law of karma – it makes no sense whatever to claim ‘all are one’, because all is all and one is one. This is no more illumining than saying 'All is all' or 'everything is everything'.

Were societies to take such a false teaching seriously and apply it across the board, they would have to abolish all systems of law which hold wrong-doers responsible for their crimes. The utter impracticability of such a nonsense is evident to anyone who has to lodge any kind of complaint against another for anything. Little wonder, therefore, that Sai Baba himself could not refrain from heaping abuse on others – mostly in general, but also by name (which he constantly did in his group interviews when it suited him, and also whether or not the object of his ill will was present or not). Little wonder, either, that his devotees, who sat through endless repetitive harangues about always not back-biting, always speaking softly and obligingly, never criticising others could never refrain from exactly those things, as well-documented evidence proves entirely (see a selection of abuses and defamation by devotees against dissidents and critics here.

While Sai Baba was still alive, I wrote about this as follows:-

Sathya Sai Baba has said “If anyone starts talking ill of others, go away from that place without lending your ears to such evil talk.” (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 27, p. 95). Followers of Sathya Sai Baba should recall that he claims that his life is his message and his acts are all a perfect example and that experience of him and facts about him speak otherwise. Sathya Sai Baba has commented sarcastically and in a defamatory way in public on certain easily identifiable persons – such as his rationalist critics, easily recognised to observers as the much-publicised Mr. Narasimiha of Bangalore University who carried out an investigation into Sathya Sai Baba and Basava Premanand who has published much about cover-ups by Sathya Sai Baba and his people. Not least by far was he strong attack (during his public discourse in July 1993) on an identifiable body of Indian journalists who had visited the ashram after the 1993 murders in Sathya Sai Baba’s bedroom and reported on what they could unearth in the face of massive secrecy and impediments from Sai Baba and his officials.

A constant exortation of his was never to criticise others, always to speak obligingly, always softly and never harshly... to take the 'three wise monkeys' as your model and so on in that vein. In its original and grossest form it commands "See, hear and speak no evil".

So a typical dilemma for Sai devotees and their leaders is the conflict between not speaking ill of others and refuting the many allegations against Sathya Sai Baba by defaming critics. Those who leave Sathya Sai Baba and especially his outspoken critics have repeatedly been referred to in Sai circles and the Sai Org. as ‘having too big an ego’, or as a ‘bad man’, a term taken up from Sathya Sai Baba who often uses it when warning about persons not present in interviews. Following Sathya Sai Baba’s constant criticisms of others as persons jealous of others and/or Baba’s achievements’ and, more recently, by the demonstrably mendacious Indulal Shah as ‘representing vested interests’. (But in fact he is telling an untruth and in actual fact he represents the vested interests of the Sai mini-financial empire!).  ‘Disgruntled’persons is a favourite label used indiscriminately of all critics in correct ‘Prashanthi-speak’. Even when known to be groundless, these pseudo-explanations are part of the Sai liturgy and function like protective mantras. Sai leaders are particularly in the forefront in branding others to draw attention away from the main culprit and to ‘protect’ devotees from knowing why other devotees can even consider ‘leaving God’ or from finding out any of the very sound reasons for their disaffection. These are the unmistakable symptoms of a truth- threatened cult closing ranks.