The Sai Baba Phenomena:

If there was one personality among contemporary Indians who evoked frenzied admiration and loathing in almost equal amounts, it has to be the Sai Baba of Putaparthy. I for one am an agnostic verging on atheism. Hence in my personal opinion someone claiming to be God has to be a sham. However, it is not that simple. Even if he were not a God, there is no denying the myriad activities that he has undertaken for the benefit of mankind. My major grouse with him his that why did he have to resort to silly gimmicks to arouse devotion? Why did he have to announce that he was the reincarnation of Satya Sai Baba of Sirdi. Why could he have not simply stuck to the truth – that he was a good man and an ardent devotee of the Almighty with a zeal for helping the downtrodden?

That he is intelligent is a non debatable issue. Knowing the Indian psyche, he must have realized early on that simply being good and pious is not going to loosen the purse strings so badly needed to help out mankind. The hospital and educational institutes he helped set up could not have been built on good wishes alone. Hard cash was what was needed. So he must have gone about it methodically.

The easiest way, in India at least, to convince someone to part with his money, is to evoke the Almighty. We see hundreds of examples of that in our daily lives. But the Sai Baba was the pioneer in that field. He did not ask money for God. He declared himself to be God incarnate aided by certain methods (materializing Rolex watches and ash out of thin air – a common trick which is the staple fare of magicians all over the world) and then he did not have to ask anyone for money – ever. That is the real magic that the Baba worked on the masses.

But in all fairness – he did put some of the funds thus collected to very good use. He built up some of the very best hospitals and educational institutes in the country. These provided state of the art treatment and education, free of cost, to some of the needy patients – though the majority, I suspect, would still be paying through all their orifices.

But coming back to the main question – is he a God incarnate? That, I fear, like the very existence of God, can never be answered one way or the other. If he really were God, what is the point of putting himself on a ventilator? He had announced way back, in a moment of madness, that he would live up to the ripe old age of 96. Today he is 86. If he really does survive till 96 (as millions of his devotees believe – after all why would God lie over such a trivial issue), then there might be some substance to his assertions. But I, for one, would not bet on that. Would you?

Free will or Fate?

He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned. ~Author Unknown

Was discussing this with a dear friend of mine recently. Are the events that happen with us decreed by fate or does free will have a role to play? If I meet with a accident and break a leg then was my careless driving responsible for this or was this fated to happen as a balancing act for all the negative karma that I seem to have stockpiled? If you think about this you realize that it is impossible to prove or disprove this either way. This question has been the base of most religions. If one assumes that all the things that happen to us are a result of previous deeds then is it free will in play or is it fate?

Dumping everything on fate seems to be the easy way out for lazy shit heads like me. Assuming that you have control over everything appears reassuring and terrifying at the same time. Some times it is easy to decide – you study hard and you do well in exams – free will; you buy a lottery ticket and you win the 50 million prize money – fate. But at other times it is dicey – you contract cancer although you have the healthiest life style and puke at the very mention of booze or cigarettes – fate? Even if you blame genes for this – the fact that you were born to a particular set of parents among the millions of couple heaving between sheets every night weighs heavily on the side of fate. You are planning to woo your college sweetheart in the park on a dry summer night and it pours buckets (although the weatherman had cheerfully predicted a dry and dusty night) – tough luck? Fate? Unless of course your beloved is wearing a flimsy chiffon nothing and you have a sicko bent of mine like yours truly, it has to be your old nemesis – fate – deciding on this very night to collect on some of your collected karmic debts.

Wouldn’t it be simply great if it was proved conclusively that everything is fated. All the good things are serendipity and all the bad things are decreed. We would thank our stars for every happy event and simply lie back and take destiny take its course for every unpleasant event without so much as batting an eyelid. But the fact is that this will never be proved. Hence we will continue to struggle on vainly – crying our hearts out at the tiniest perceived insult and rejoicing over our token victories. That – it appears – is the fate of humankind but then that is also the very thing that makes this life worth living. What say?