Shirdi Sai Baba and a Few Dubious Miracles

Shirdi Sai Baba is a rock star in our family. The Elvis who continues to live, breathe, eat and sleep in the hearts of some of my family members almost a century after his death – thanks to the blind devotion and dishonest, deluded propaganda of millions of mindless devotees (There’s also been a TV serial on his life).  Some in my family are life-long devotees and die-hard fans of this so-called “saint”. They believe in Sai Baba’s  miracles so much that even the smallest things are now considered miracles divinely executed by this baba(saint). When I was a believer, I used to faintly believe in some of them, but now that my blindness in God and religion has been cured I see how ludicrous and farcical these claims are.  However, any sceptical questions about his life or miracles are sneered upon by his believers and inevitably leads to livid remarks like “you don’t have the right to say such things about baba”.  Can someone tell these believers that it is not only our right but our moral duty to question such dubious claims.  Btw, did someone say that freedom of speech is guaranteed by our constitution?

 

 

 

Believers often forget, that just because they respect a person doesn’t necessarily mean that othersare bound by some law to respect that person as well. And, the hypocrisy is even more shameless when the same devotee who would turn red with anger at someone’s criticism of his/her object of devotion turn around immediately and criticize someone else’s object of devotion. For example, I have come across many Hindus who wouldn’t tolerate any criticism of Krishna and yet wouldn’t hesitate for a moment before cracking dirty jokes about prophet Mohammad. Muslims and Christian are no less guilty of such behavior either.

Anyway, I digress.  The object of this post was to show how blind, deluded and  ludicrous some of these claims of “divine miracle” are. Recently I stumbled upon this blog (shirdi-saibaba-mydeva) quite by chance and couldn’t stop lauging at the stories published as miracles of Sai baba or “ Sai leela” as the devotees like to call the miracles.  I remembered when I used to be blind and deluded too and was laughing at myself for ever believing in such stupid mumbo-jumbo.

If you are bored, feeling sleepy and coffee is not doing the trick I highly recommend blogs like the one above or thisone. I wonder why people bother to subscribe to joke-of-the-day anyway when we have such crackingly humorous blogs around. You will be amazed at what passes off as miracles and keep wondering how apparently nice, sane, intelligent people can  believe, participate and propagate such ridiculous claims of miracles by a long-dead saint (question to self too).

Ok. So here are the synopses of  the 3 latest posts from this blog -

I Am Carefully Watching Your Inner Heart

There’s this guy (girl?) Ryan who goes to Surinam on a holiday and every morning  prays to Baba to show him a miracle .  And guess what miracle he(she) is hoping for?  

“I always used to pray to Baba that Sai let me buy something for you”

WOW!! Isn’t that a miracle worth asking for? It’s not world peace. It’s not alleviation of poverty. It’s not eradication of disease which I am sure would be a true miracle. Nothing of that sort but a selfish innocent wish. Anyways, so one day this guy finds a giant idol of saibaba at a shopping mall and goes crazy (LOL!!). He requests his parents to buy it but his parents refuse.  That evening he goes to the same shopping mall (miraculously !!) with some family friends and asks his sister to buy it and after dinner his sister obliges and buys him the idol !! Surprised ?? Shocked ?? Inquisitive as to what was the miracle in buying a doll for a pesky child. Here’s the answer from the person himself.

“While I was seeing other Murties (idols) of Baba I realised my murti is special (oh, oh, I can’t wait !! pray tell us how ?) from others I cannot explain in words as what special but something very special which can only be felt (Ah! I thought so ) . Really I still don’t know as how we went to the same mall on the same day and how I bought that Baba’s murti ,its nothing but Baba’s leela only which Sai showed me and increased my faith in his lotus feet. “

Btw did I tell you the miraculous story of how one day, I wanted a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL bulb) and miraculously drove to the same Walmart twice in one day, in the same car and wearing the exact same clothes and bought a spanking new CFL bulb - the last one on the shelf. And did I forget to mention how special it was. No. No. I cannot describe it. You have to feel it to know how special it was. What a miracle !! Praise the Lord !! 

I am constantly amazed at the level of infantile thinking of people who write and publish such stuff . Now would they have called it a miracle had some child asked for a barbie doll and got it.  Nope !! We also have to consider that this person didn’t find the idol deep in the Sahara desert or the jungles of Amazon. He actually went an bought it from a shop. Now isn’t that a miracle ? Btw, Surinam’s largest ethnic group constitutes of Hindus (~28%) who are descendants of Indian workers brought by the British more than a century ago. So the chances of finding a famous idol was pretty high in such a country. I challenge the person to ask baba to show the same miracle in the Sahara or  Siberia or Antarctica where the probability of finding such an idol is remote.  Why not from thin air ?  If baba still shows up, THAT would probably qualify as a miracle !!

 My Life Rotates Around Sai – Vikram

Vikram is atheist (what good is religious propaganda if it cannot convert non-believers to believers) who is also a struggling engineering student. A professor of his has a grudge against him and is failing him constantly in his exam. He has managed to pass all engineering exams but has been flunking in this professor’s paper for the last 3 years. Then one day he escorts his cousin for a holy pilgrimage to Shirdi (the home town of Sai baba) and just for the sake of it offers his prayers and asks baba to help him pass the exam.  While returning from Shirdi, this guy has high fever and vomits several times. On returning home, his mother gives him some milk and medicine. But (surprisingly??!!) he gets well the next morning and he’s amazed that he got well so soon (read miraculously). But wait ! That’s not the end of the story although you probably guessed it. A week later a friend of his calls him and guess what he conveys ? Lo and behold,  he PASSED the exam !!!

And here is what he thinks of this incident

“Today, I realize how Baba had pulled this sparrow (me) towards him. How he cleaned my body of impurity and negativity by making me vomit throughout the trip back to Mumbai. How great he is, I cannot explain.” 

How could this happen?!! How can a person who has been given medicine be cured so quickly of fever? This must be the first incident in the annals of human history where a person has been cured overnight after taking medicine. Never mind the fact that the fever may have been caused by excessive heat, bad food, polluted drinking water or a variety of other factors. Nopes. It must be this dead saint cleaning his body of impurity from the heavens. Oh ! and  I almost forgot. Silly me. Every time you see someone vomiting or running high fever, don’t give him(her) any medicine. Because, it is actually the Sai working his magic from his heavenly abode and cleaning millions of people of impurity and negativity.

And the exam incident? How can a person who has been studying one single subject for the last 3 years pass the exam? He did study and physically appear for the exam didn’t he? He probably was a straight A student too? So logic dictates, that if you have been studying a subject for 3 years and physically appear to take the exam, you should surely fail, right? So how did he pass? What changed the heart of such a heartless professor? It is also unlikely that the professor or the department got tired of him and kicked him out. After all they lovingly kept him for 3 years, didn’t they? No, No. That’s impossible. It must be Sai’s miracle.   And, Yes, 2 + 2 = 5.

Sai Helped Me Also On O’Hare Airport

Ranjith is trying to reach Cincinnati on Christmas day but misses his connecting flight due to bad weather at Chicago O’hare airport.  He doesn’t have a cell phone and when he calls up his friend in Cincinnati from the pay phone his friend doesn’t pick up the phone (Baba’s miracle after all !).  He also doesn’t have his friend’s address, so is wondering what would happen if he reaches Cincinnati and his friend isn’t there (we can only hope that his friend is smart enough to check  flight schedules before coming) . Anyway this person is crazy scared and is almost on the verge of tears as it seems he won’t get a flight to Cincinnati in the next day or two (and what if baba forgets to check his miracle-manifesting appointment book and doesn’t come to his help?!).

 

 

 

So he musters enough courage to approach the airlines staff and asks them if they can put him on the 9:30 pm flight to Cincinnati. One of them, after looking at the computer monitor, informs him that all the flights are booked and he has to wait for the next available flight. But then out of nowhere (by baba’s miracle) the other staff says ” hey wait its not possible because my system says that there is one seat” (the fact that this staff knew instantly and confidently claimed that it not her system making the error but the other staff’s, is also a miracle if you come to think of it). Anyway both of them are confused about this discrepancy but finally gives the seat to  Ranjith who safely reaches Cincinnati to find his friend waiting for him, even after 4-5 hours. A Miracle indeed !!

 

Reading this story, one would be inclined to think that such incidents happen one-in-a-thousand times (or a million, which still would not make it a miracle but a highly improbable event statistically). But unfortunately it is not. In all my years of travel, whenever I have been stuck due to bad weather, I have always been able to find a flight within a few hours of the weather getting better, even when all flights were booked. In fact when I first came to the States, I remember missing my connecting flight (which was the last flight that night) from Chicago Ohare due to exactly the same reason (weather) and the airline not only provided me with food and hotel accommodation (which they are not obligated to do as per their policies), they also could provide me a seat on a flight the next morning, in spite of all flights being booked (and I have never been a Sai devotee. Maybe baba is just too kind to everyone including agnostics like me whom he himself didn’t like too much). Yes, people have been stranded at airports for days due to bad weather but not due to flights being booked (the fact that he could fly to Cincinnati means that weather was flight-worthy) and if it happens, it’s more of a rarity than a rule (remember these airlines are running a business and wouldn’t want that for the sake of their business).

Moreover, if technical glitches in softwares were highly uncommon (not that there was a glitch but maybe the first airline staff overlooked an empty seat) and this gentleman was the only one out of several thousand passengers who got a ticket due to that (which I doubt), then it could still be considered a miracle. But anyone who has travelled considerably or worked with any reservation software will attest that such software glitches do happen and people often find themselves in favorable or unfavorable circumstances irrespective of their belief in Sai baba.

 

In this post, I have taken a few examples from that blog to show how faith operates and how it makes one blind to other possibilities.  It shows that some people are so blinded by their faith that they seem to find miracles in everything and even when there isn’t any, they interpret events in such a way so as to make them seem like miracles. I am not a psychiatrist but it is possible that a belief in miracles make these people feel special. Makes them feel that someone is out there looking out for them. For these  people the outcome of a favorable event has one and only one possibility – the deity or their object of devotion working in ways to help them achieve what they want.

Yet, they never stop to ask ,if Sai baba is really that powerful why isn’t he helping each and every devotee and granting each and every wish? What is so special about them that baba favors when thousands of other Sai devotees suffer from poverty and disease and mishaps? Why is their suffering no less than people of other faiths or of agnostics/atheists (I personally know of  an extremely devoted Sai devotee who suffers from excruciating arthritic pain )? These people forget that for every claim of a so-called miracle, there are thousands of other devotees who are suffering from the same problem or affliction without getting cured. The typical answer is “it is their karma”, “they are not devoted enough” or “Sai in his divine wisdom knows best” and the best one ” You will know if you accept him in your heart” . Oh Really ! Then why don’t you tell me.

These devotees are so rationally-challenged that they are always making the same connection – if X then only Y. It’s never if X then W, Y or Z. These devotees are always trying to escape the reality of the situation with dogmatic excuses like the ones I mentioned above. Not that they never have doubts. They do, but as soon as they have them they drown it under the weight of their own blindness and call it “faith”, and they are mighty proud of it. 

Frankly, I don’t care whom they are praying to and how they are praying. Well, Ok I take that back. I do care a bit. Yes, I do want them to think and reason. I do want them to critically evaluate these questions and then decide whether to keep them or to throw them away . But hey, I can’t expect people to live their lives by my standards. I can’t cure a blind person if he/she willingly accepts his/her blindness. However my contention is with the false, misleading propaganda and outright lies some of these people engage in. The huge leaps of logic they are wiling to make to prove a point. The dogmatic insistence that something is true without providing reasonable proof. Yes, I do take that seriously and will continue to write,ridicule and point it out.  If that means offending their religious “sentiments” , if that means “hurting” their inocent ”feelings”, then so be it !!