Why the sudden reversal of course? Having instructed everyone to ignore his critics now and again, and a few times lambasting them (eg. in his uncharitable lectern-beating Christmas discourse of 2000), Sai Baba's reputation is getting yet worse and worse, and the news about him is spreading in India once again. Much new emerging evidence shows him up in the worst possible light: Ullrich Zimmermann's description of the avatar wanting - and getting - his penis sucked, on two occasions, in on-line video from the USA! Then his gushing description on Christmas Day - not about Jesus this time, but about his devotee Idi Amin - praise of a ghastly despot and raving psychopath who- when they met - had already achieved a reputation for torturing and killing most brutally as persecutor of the Mau Mau and many others, besides having been a constant and shameless womaniser! This devotee went on to do yet far greater things in the name of God! Now Sai is nothing but positive about him, not a word of censure. What does that tell you?

Sathya Sai's constantly self-blazoned self-praise that he is all loving, all compassionate, all selfless, all pure nature has been shown by his own published words and known acts to be sheer falsehood... to which he now adds more bluster, brickbats and bluff. One simply finds it amusing when he thinks his critics actually envy him! Who would want to stand so credibly accused of what he is? Who other than a badly disturbed and manipulative psychopath would want to rule the roost, allow and condone police murders in his own bedroom, be worshipped endlessly and all the rest?

What kind of Divine Avatar of the Age - Creator of the Universe - is it which is forced to 'descend' to a worldly tactic of lying about his critics taking money? Note how careful he is not to name anyone, as this would have consequences for him with his total lack of evidence. His all-too-human reactions reinforce the certainty of those involved that Sai Baba either knows nothing at all about his critics or their motives, and especially not of their strict adherence (unlike him) to actual truth! Since we - and all those who know us well - know that we take no money for our work - he shows yet again with more indubitable certainty that he is a purveyor of libelous falsities! If he was referring to journalists who cover the issue, or the BBC, well - they do receive money for their work o.k., which is only a normal salary for work carried out. As to the accusations of "greed and hate" - Sathya Sai conveniently ignores (or simply forgets?) that many of his strongest critics are ex-office bearers from his organisation who have collectively donated very large sums of money and endless amounts of energy and time to his projects (which they finally learned are too often riddled with corruption and are used mainly to glorify Sai Baba himself in large, costly propaganda 'museums' etc.). He has obviously not the simple discrimination to tell the difference between 'hate' and 'righteous criticism and exposure of his falsehood'!

They are somewhat different to him, who has never really done any real work other than sound off his opinions, walk on red carpets and accept worship - while carrying out proven fraud in public on a daily basis! Still, Sathya Sai gets everything for free - absolutely everything necessary for a good life in what is totally beyond the majority of Indians and any self-respecting 'saintly person'. Besides, his main activity is indulging himself in endless egocentric self-expression and smiling (or frowning) at his worshippers. However, his followers are so blinded by his power and wily words that they cannot realise what is before their eyes and ears.

This Divine Descent boils down to a person who has 'come to earth' largely to pronounce his own magnificence, erect various kinds of expensive monuments to himself. What is so 'Divine' about managing to collect people's money to 'fix the plumbing' (for a limited areas to combat water shortage in Chennai, but wastefully in Rayalaseema with big setbacks involving technical failings, (unpredicted)severely falling water table, entrepreneur corruption and no one who will maintain it all). Or how specifically Divine is it to use part of the donations to open a couple of hospitals to enhance his name and fame and where his devotees (including foreigners and Indian VIPs) can get hi-tech treatment, but where patients appear to be very scarce in these big half-empty places in an area where the need of the Indian poor is so vast and intense? (Imran Khan has opened a free modern hospital in Pakistan, and many other have done likewise). Is this a Divine Descent? Or are we rather dealing with what The Daily Telegraph called Divine Downfall?

Sathya Sai Condones India's Greatest Evils by Ignoring them Sathya Sai lauds and blesses any politician who visits him and never speaks out against the many inhumane policies, their signal failure to take care of the most basic needs of most Indias, the massive Swiss bank accounts most of them hold, or riding the gravy train while the privileged get richer and richer. Claiming omniscience and omnipotence - Sai Baba never had the guts to speak out against their many powerful and brutal oppressors and utterly vile criminals throughout India... he has never defended in any substantial way whatever the tortured, raped, murdered and utterly desolate people of India, the tribals, the dispossessed, the vast army of beggars. Against Mahatma Gandhi's revered principle, Sathya sai welcomes 'blood money' and even in a public announcement of donors giving at least one crore at his 70th Birthday celebrations (such as Bhangarappa, a known corrupt Karnataka politician, who gave ten million rupees, and two famous Indian 'liquor barons', one of whom, Mr. Reddy, was murdered in Madras in 1996 only a week or so after a personal visit by Sai Baba accompanied by V.K. Narasimhan).

Despite his many earlier 'avataric predictions' that he claims cannot fail, India's gigantic injustices and problems are getting no better - still no social security whatever (all the poor get to live on is sunlight), no reduction of corruption, more infanticide, still bonded labour and life servitude as debtors to criminal moneylenders, child prostitution, a massive and growing AIDS epidemic, unimaginable numbers of child labourers, vast peasant penury, wife killings, ghastly begging mafias which deform babies into 'rat children' and 'spidermen' for profit, not to mention all manner of sexual abuse of children (sic!)… and so now Sai Baba states he is "minded to take a world tour". So has he given up on solving India's problems before he ever would go abroad, as he has repeatedly pledged? The man is a hotbed of contradictions, false predictions and outright lies, surely anyone who looks into it can realise that? It is well recorded how Sathya Sai Baba has told leading devotees on several occasions that he would visit them in their countries - for example USA, Italy, U.K., Southern California and other places - but then he has changed his supposedly all-knowing mind, saying that India must be cured first! Devotees abroad have built mansions to house him and he has even himself caused the rebuilding of a new, lush, balconied apartment for him at Divignano in Italy ('Mother Sai House') because the toilet was not to his liking - i.e. it was European style and not hole-in-the-floor - I have been shown the luxurious teak-floored result myself!