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Indians Talk About India, Indian Culture and “Parthi Baba”

Balaraman Suresh, Supriya and "Bhakthan"

From the Anthony Thomas Quick Topic Board, July, 2001 (Minor editing for clarity)

Balaraman Suresh 1181

I have been hearing and reading about Parthi Baba's Gay encounters for almost 25 years now. I did not attach much importance to it because I wanted to hold on to him as my savior, and quite frankly I was mesmerized by all those materializations and the rich and powerful people hobnobbing with him.

Personally, I cannot say any one particular incident as the cause of my devotion, because my family believed in him and so as a member of the family, I just joined because that’s how it is in India.

The incidents in June 1993 were a major eye opener for me, as it clearly implicated the Parthi Baba's impotence. Prior to that incident it was in Hyderabad that Doordarshan TV had the footage where Radhakrishnan was handing over the necklace to Parthi Baba. Next day in the Deccan Chronicle it was headline news. Later these murders and killing incidents happened.

Parti Baba should have come out in the open and diffused the situation. Instead he ran away, which a normal person like me also would have done. This really brought Parthi Baba down to a very ordinary person level, but then I could not even then accept him as mere mortal. So I defended him to all devotees, and in fact went one step ahead saying Radhakrishnan deserved to die for he exposed Parthi Baba in Hyderabad.

India Today is one of the major magazines in India published in many languages, and when this magazine printed all the sordid details of Parthi Baba's nonsensical activities, I saw red. In a flash many things which I had doubted myself about Parthi Baba were there now for everyone to see.

If you talk to people living in Prasanthi Nilayam and people in Brindavan, you will get the feeling that not everything is hunky dory as we are expected to believe.

Even those guys don't have welcoming smile on their faces. Instead they look morose and serious, as if Pakistan has bombed us. I also knew Hari Sampath, and he was into Parthi Baba's core company. In fact thru him also I came to know the validity of the victims. One has to only go and look at all the clubs and read the messages of Said, Hari, Paul, David etc.

As the English proverb goes, there is no smoke without fire. Definitely Parthi Baba has been engaging some of his male devotees to all these un-natural acts. Otherwise they are MAD to come out and say things of this nature. Moreover many of the things that these boys say were already written in the Indian Media in Illustrated Weekly too some 25 years back. I think some famous Mr. Singh was the editor.

So all these were there when I started to put together the jigsaw puzzle: Parthi Baba turned out to be a super-duper fraud. In fact I do not think anybody in the United States of America would have thought of this kind of scam at all.

To stop Parthi Baba, all Americans can do is to let the television stations know about all these things. In fact prominent Americans and Indians should join hands and approach the Senators of Indian Caucasus, and turn the heat on the Indian Government, especially when the two nations are cosying to each other politically.

The time is ripe. Please do not expect any legal steps from the Indian side to prevail. Parthi Baba has judges and politicians in his side, but not all are on his side. There are even today absolutely honest and upright people in the judiciary and many political parties. The only way to stop Parti Baba's Un-natural acts are thru the media like newspapers, television, Internet, and above all the WILL OF THE TRUE GOD IN WHOM WE TRUST.

1195 With reference to your post.....”But didn't anyone consider the fate of the students? Or were no adults aware that students were being abused and raped? If so, was the money and power around sb more important to them than the virtue and health of their own children??”

The majority of Indians do not even know Parti Baba. The majority of the population do not even know that he has built schools, colleges, hospitals etc. In a minority congregation, and a minority student community, how on earth can you expect miracles to expos to happen? Please do not get offended, but this is the truth. I myself was believing Parti Baba. Only when I put all the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle did I get the bigger picture. I questioned, I used my God given talents of viveka (discrimination), I used my power of communion with the supreme of all supreme gods and the truth was revealed to me.

By and large Indian families when they have a situation like that, would in majority of the cases brush it under the carpet, shower the kid with love and affection, try to divert the entire episode as a bad dream, refer it to poorva janma karma. Only a minority will do what Hari Sampath has done, challenge it with Public Interest Litigation...

1194 Dear Brothers And Sisters, ...I wish to tell especially Western Ex-devotees that Parti Baba is not the recognized spiritual leader of INDIA. In fact majority Indians don’t even like this kind of magical tricks that this man is resorting to. He is the man for the rich people, by the rich people. The true life of India is in the villages where even today the purity of Rama, Krishna, Durga, Saraswathi, Jesus Christ, Allah, Guru Nanak etc. are followed with sincerity and devotion.

But most people run up against the wall in the expose of Parti Baba is because they are using the wrong stick to beat him. Ninety percent of the work done by Parti Baba is exemplary and is no mean achievement of sorts for the general public. Ten percent of Parti Baba's work is his personal weakness for male devotees. It's a no-brainer, when you use and try to harness this ten percent of the activity of Parti Baba and expect results that you look for. Sometimes, I feel doing things covertly to bring Parti Baba down will yield results.

...The true fact is, the majority Indian population "DO NOT CONSIDER PARTI BABA AS GOD." In the North you have Shankaracharya of Kashi; In the East the Shankaracharya of Puri; In the West the Shankaracharya of Dwaraka; In the South the Shankaracharya of Sringeri. The South has the unique distinction of Shankaracharya of Kanchi, as it is believed that Shankaracharya after establishing all the mutts in the different parts of the country, resided in Kanchi and breathed his last and attained MOKSHA there. These acharyas are the Peedathi Pathi's that Parti Baba was talking about in his discourses and ridiculing them.

Bhakthan 1190

Dear Suresh and other friends,

It is pertinent to note that valiant efforts have been made in the past (as early as 1965) which continued till 1980 to educate the public on the false claims of sai baba and expose him as a magician claiming godhood. One has only to recall the tireless efforts of Abraham Kovoor, Prof. Narasimmiah of Bangalore University, Mr. Gora, the veteran Gandhian.

But, the power of money coupled with the mass following which any religious cult generates in India made these efforts to expose Baba futile despite several telltale signs, prominent of which was the murders in 1993. The critical eye of a neutral observer without any blind faith visiting Whitefield/Puttaparthy can easily recognize that this is a well organized movement with vested interests but has gained respectability and acceptance amongst innocent millions by virtue of the " religious and charitable coating" given to the cult and the endless stories of "miracles" put out by word and boldly in print.

The " truth" can be easily realized by the devotees if only they decide to ask themselves this question:

Why doesn’t the so-called omnipresent god walk in the open streets on foot without the pomp and splendor seen in the so-called ashrams and why doesn’t he perform his tricks in the open air before thousands of the poor and penniless Indians who live under the open sky?

Will his ashram security open the doors of Whitefield and Puttaparthy and allow unfettered access to the ordinary poor Indians who are allowed unrestricted entry into India temples?.

Supriya 989

.....in response to your remark about no one saying anything intelligent about kundalini: The reason may be that there is nothing intelligent that can be said about it. In India TODAY spiritual matters are largely an export commodity. It is a national resource like coal, lead, and oil. It generates hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign exchange each year from tourists, pilgrims, backpackers, and the ever popular ashram circuit.

However for the mainstream population of India TODAY, religion is not based on faith so much as Hope. Hope for a better life, hope for a good grade, the hope of finding a kind husband, etc. We go to the temple on gurupurnima, Mahashivaratri, etc, because, culturally, it is the proper thing to do. Mostly we go to the temple to beg the Lord for favors.

"Spirituality", is an English term. A holdover from the days of British rule. In India today we are concerned with accumulating wealth to secure the future of our children. Only westerners and those who make a living catering to their interests in "spirituality", have any interest in such matters. In our homes and universities, such topics are never heard. (Except at certain “fundamentalist” schools)

Of course the goal of life is some ephemeral thing called "Moksha." I can't tell you what is because I have not “experienced” it.

If you ask a million Indians today, "what is kundalini," they will all give the same answer: "I don't know." There is no interest. Kundalini is an export commodity from Rishikesh.

Life is very fast, it's over in the blink of an eye, we've children to raise, and elders to care for, where is the time for yogis and gurus??? We (largely) ACCEPT that "life is a dream,” an inscrutable Divine "Leela," so instead of searching for meaning, we seek security, and shelter from life's storms.

I hope this answers your question.

With kind regards,

Supriya