Book Excerpt The 99th Monkey Gurus & Saviors

Spiritual Journalist Eliezer Sobel Shares His Humorous Account of a 30-Year Search for Spiritual Enlightenment

Excerpt from Chapter 5 of The 99th Monkey: A Spiritual Journalists Misadventures with Gurus, Messiahs, Sex, Psychedelics, as well as Other Consciousness-Raising Experiments

Messiah #3: Sathya Sai Baba

At a other finish of a spectrum in a advocate dialect is Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi, India, who boasts of a tiny 30 million followers, or more, worldwide. So if it ever comes down to a vote, hes a shoo-in.

Baba is important for his wild frizzy hair, orange robe, as well as a fact which he can call his palm around as well as have vibhutiholy ashmaterialize as well as flow from his fingertips. Hell spasmodic pop for ring, necklace, or new gimmick manifestations in this demeanour as well. Ram Dass once said which he was sensitive by a tighten advocate of Sai Babas which Baba doesnt create these things; he simply transports them from his warehouse.

Ram Dass additionally reported which Baba, knowing he was traffic with a Western educational as well as skeptic, rolled up his sleeves as well as placed his open palm right under Ram Dasss eyes, who afterwards witnessed a blue shimmering light unexpected process in to a tiny trinket. (But usually consider which room for a moment, piled floor to roof with rings as well as trinkets which Baba probably gets wholesale. Some of them may still even have a label on: Materialize with Care.)

I spent 3 weeks during Sai Babas ashram in 1990, along with about 20,000 others, marked down from a dual million who had usually been present for Babas 65th birthday celebration. (That would have him about 83 now.)

His method of extenuation darshan to a collected million! s had be en to fly over a crowd in a helicopter as well as wave. So if its personal cognisance youre after, Hes not a Messiah for you, unless we occur to be young as well as male, yet some-more on which in a bit.

Time during a ashram was organized around dual main events daily: each morning wed climb during 4:30, skirt in white, as well as wait in long lines for hours until being certified in to a church compound. Lottery determined a order of entry; a initial line inside got to sit in a front row as well as have a better look during Baba when he would eventually emerge as well as solemnly perambulate a drift for all of 10 minutes.

A similar routine was steady in a late afternoon, except a lottery winners got to go inside a tiny church as well as intone with Baba. we sat in a initial or second row multiform times, usually a couple of feet from him, pity direct eye contact for mins during a time, so we figured which if there was a delivery to be delivered, we was in a best position. But alas. Other than that, there wasnt much to do all day except sit around as well as listen to people attribute all of their every day life practice to Babas Grace: we was station during a corner, as well as Baba done a light turn green. we have dysenteryBabas cleaning me out. And so on.

Like Da as well as Maitreya, Baba is additionally deliberate by his followers to be a Absolute Living Avatar of a age, a direct appearance of God in a midst. He promises massive, baleful changes in a near future, putting many parts of a planet underwater. I, similar to countless others, witnessed his many obvious as well as frequent miracle: station less than 10 feet from me, sleeveless, we watched him call his palm in a air as well as have outrageous quantities of vibhuti come streaming from his fingertips.

Debunkers, on a other hand, explain which slow-motion videos will reveal Sais masterful sleightof- pa! lm maneu vers. Most interesting, perhaps, have been those, similar to Ram Dass, who will contend which a materializations have been genuine yet utterly superfluous when it comes to whats important in devout life. Baba himself says a miracles have been his calling card, as well as which we give we what we wish until we wish what we have to give.

The ashram had a notable relic of world religions, which enclosed state-of-the-art displays, behind glass, about Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, as well as a couple of others, maybe Jainism as well as Zoroastrianism. Tucked away in a corner, as if it was an afterthought, was a tiny thrown-together exhibit of Judaism. Essentially it consisted of a table with a couple of ritual items tossed on it, mislabeled in someones scribbled scratch on index cards.

The tefillin were identified as a menorah, a menorah as a yarmulke, as well as a yarmulke as a tallis. (Tefillin have been tiny tanned hide boxes containing passages from old testament which Jews strap to a arm as well as head for every day prayer. It is deliberate by Orthodox Jews to be a visionary two-way air wave of sorts, providing a direct line to God. A tallis is a prayer shawl, as well as a yarmulke a skull cap.) we switched all a tiny cards around, as if we was personification a Jewish chronicle of three-card monte: Watch a cards, follow my hands, which a single is a tallis?

Sai Babas logo is a mystic representation of all a worlds major religionsan Om, a cross, etc. Someone once asked him why Judaism wasnt represented, as well as Babas responsethis from a Avatar of a Age, God to over 30 million followerswas to say, we suspicion Judaism was enclosed in a cross. Of march to devotees, who hold Baba to be infallible, this was a mysterious reply with a dark teaching. Given what we saw in his museum, we didnt think so.

Crowd of 300,000 greet Sai Baba as he arrives in his B! enz

< p>While millions of people worship Baba as God, he himself says which You have been God, we usually dont know it. we additionally am God, yet we know it. And yet a feeling during a ashram was really which Baba was a genuine God as well as a rest of us 20,000 schleppers had to goal as well as pray which he competence hear a prayers as well as collect us out of a mob a single morning for a every day small-group interviews, where a indeed sanctified perceived a ring or necklace which Baba would materialize.

Devotees will discuss it we spectacle story on spectacle story about Sai Baba, from vibhuti appearing on their photographs of him to tales of raising a dead. Perhaps a many outlandish story we heard is which he has 12 disciples vital distant up in a Himalayan cavern with usually a magical crockpot for sustenance, which Baba fills from distant with their every day meals, as well as he spasmodic teletransports to crop up prior to them as well as broach further instructions. Now thats Messiah material, if we ask me.

To be fair, a tiny rsther than remarkable coincidences as well as startling events did occur to me there. Out of a 10,000 or so masculine visitors during a ashram, we found myself assigned to a bed opposite from Alan Levy, a follower of Hilda Charltons from a old days whom we hadnt seen in maybe 12 years. He usually happened to be traveling with copies of a just-released book we knew nothing about, entitled The New Sun, a collection of Hildas articles from my own magazine! And there on a initial page of a introduction my own name was mentioned.

Hilda had been very lustful as well as respectful of Sai Baba, as well as to receive her book from Alan over a decade later, sitting in a bed opposite from me during Babas ashram, a 1 in 10,000 chancewell, it gave me pause, to contend a least. Another even some-more remarkable thing happened to me during Babas which we will get to later. But for now, these felicitous events notwithstanding, a day we was to skip from a ashram, a tiny gr! oup of n ew friends we had been unresolved out with had figured out which we was not a genuine devotee, not sold on Baba after 3 weeks there.

One of them laughed quietly as well as said to me, Just wait as well as seethere have been regularly stories similar to this. Someone comes here as well as doesnt really connect to Baba, as well as afterwards as soon as they leave, something happens. You could be walking in Bangalore as well as a complete foreigner could come up to we on a travel as well as contend something about Baba, as well as youll usually get it. He as well as a others bid me an sexual farewell, not a doubt in their minds which Baba would delight over my insurgency in a end.

Ordinarily, we suffer getting out of a dispatch of a city in to a still repose of a devout ashram. In this case, though, when we got in to Bangalore we felt amazingly liberated, as if a ashram had been a enclosure as well as we was free again.

And then, sure enough, as everyone predicted, we was erratic a streets when a sum strangeran Indianapproached me utterly out of a blue, as well as said, You have usually come from Sai Babas? Boing! My heart jumped. Well, he went on, we usually wish to discuss it we which we lived there with my mother as well as children for fifteen years as well as we eventually had to leave in offend since we found out all his materializations have been a fake, theyre usually sorcery tricks, as well as we additionally found out he is a homosexual as well as creates love to a tiny schoolboys who come to encounter him.

I have no thought if any of which is true. we goal it isnt, yet a Google search will reveal an enormous can of worms; an assortment of scandals as well as accusations, including murder; as well as sure Christian fundamentalist groups have identified him as a Antichrist.

My reply on hearing this strangers inform on a travel was to pranambow with my hands in a prayer positionand say, Thank you. For it liberated me, as well as enabled me to stop thinking about Baba! as well as whether once again we had usually met God Himself materialise as well as longed for a Ultimate Boat due to my perfect inability to surrender, see a light, whatever. Being a 99th Monkey is an incredibly tough job: we even get to encounter a Avatar of a Age face to face as well as remain impervious.

2008 by Eliezer Sobel

Published by Santa Monica Press