The living god dies

"I am God. You too are God. The only difference between you and me is that while I am aware of it, you are completely unaware."

Despite Sai Baba having previously assured his followers that he would not die anytime soon, Hindu guru Sathya Sai Baba was hospitalised a month ago and needed breathing support and dialysis. Two days ago doctors announced he was suffering from multiple organ failure and had stopped responding to treatment. After the 86-year-old's death was announced yesterday morning. Narendra Nayak, President of Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, speaking before the guru's death said: "Sai Baba is a third rate prestidigitator and manipulator who is now paralysed and he cannot cure himself. How can he cure others? There is a saying in English – physician heal thyself. So I would say Baba heal yourself."

The guru had a vast following and his movement established ashrams in more than 126 countries. His supporters included high-ranking politicians, movie stars, industrialists and athletes. His death has set off speculation as to who will inherit the leadership of his network. The late Sri Sathya Sai Baba was a Living God to millions of his followers but was also the holder of a more mundane title - chairman of the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, formed in 1972. The Trust controls assets of more than $8 billion. The trust runs a university complex, a 220-bed hospital, a world religion museum, a planetarium, a railway station, a hill-view stadium, a music college, an administrative building, an airport and an indoor sports stadium. Court documents allege he owned two Mercedes limousines, two BMWs, one Daimler, one Jaguar, and plenty of other Indian vehicles. The documents also allege he had the roof of his temple lined with solid gold. The grounds of his ashram contain a museum, mostly dedicated to his own works and there are numerous statues, including a slightly larger than life gold statue of Sai Baba himself, a gold chariot, a silver chariot and a cricket pitch laid for an international tournament for which he offered as a trophy a solid gold cup weighing 20kg and valued at £150,000.

In the UK his organisation has exploited the requirement for schools to provide spiritual, moral and cultural development, which was introduced in the 1988 Education Reform Act. It promotes the lessons as a way to reverse the trend towards anti-social behaviour and the international Sathya Sai organisation says almost 200 schools across the UK have acquired its manuals. The UK courses were written by Sai Baba follower Carole Alderman, a regular visitor to his ashram and a devout believer. She has no teaching qualification but did run the Christmas play at his ashram for six years. Asked in an interview with the Sai radio station about the relevance of his teachings to the challenges faced by contemporary society, she replied: "I'm happy! Almost all of the time. And if I have any problems, I can just turn to Him and He'll sort them out for me." Former Sai organisation teacher Robert Priddy, who helped set up the teacher training model, said most people teaching the programme were unqualified to do so. "The aim of embedding 'spiritual' values in children was heavily imprinted with indoctrinating them to believe in Sai Baba's divinity and doctrine."
Sai Baba had also been denounced by the Indian Rationalists Association, who debunked his "miracles" and pointed to numerous videos available on the internet which show the one-time conjurer producing items from various places where he has concealed them, including his mop of hair.

He was never slow to proclaim his own divinity, insisting that his arrival on earth was prophesied by Jesus, that he was the one who originally sent Jesus to Earth and that he was clearly the Lamb of God because his name – Ba Ba – is the noise a sheep makes. But for his growing army of critics, he was nothing short of a child-molesting fraud who had for years taken advantage of the gullibility of his young male followers to sexually abuse them during private audiences in his rooms. For many years the US government warned its citizens to stay away from the ashram because of the risk and UNESCO, the UN's Educational, Social, and Cultural Organisation, pulled out of a conference at the ashram citing deep concerns about "widely-reported allegations of sexual abuse".

In 1974 Sai Baba announced that he would live to the ripe age of 96. Nayak said that his failure to reach the age at which he had claimed he would die should be enough to convince people Sai Baba was no God.