THE LINGAM QUESTION

by Robert Priddy

Part One

The production of lingams at the Shivarathri festival was discontinued in the 70s because the crowds were too large and injuries were being caused. It is of note that SB started up the lingodbhava in public again when the allegations had broken on the world and the crowds were thinning and the donations doubtless too. (Note: The whole 76th birthday crowd - overwhelmingly Indian - fitted into the Kulwant Mantap with max. capacity ca. 15,000, so the Hillview Stadium was not needed).

Two main lingam films, from 2000 and 2001, show Sai Baba apparently 'regurgitating' a golden lingam. In the sequences from 2001 (one taken head-on, and one from the side filmed by Dr. Sara Pavan) SB holds a towel before his mouth and fiddles with it for several seconds, appearing to put the regurgitated lingam back in his mouth (or else insert one handed to him), before letting it come out in full view slowly (but it drops before he catches it) is interesting.

There are three main possibilities:

1) It is a genuine lingam production in the stomach of the object emerging through his throat.

2) It is brought into his mouth by hand behind the towel (the violent seeming regurgitation being only a fake movement).

3) It comes up his throat when he gags, but he puts it back into his mouth behind the towel to let it seem to emerge.

I find 3) the most likely, then 2) and then 1) the least likely. I believed fully for about 18 years that the lingam productions were all genuine (I have also films of lingodbhava from before he stopped in the 70s. The whole episode looked very much the same as nowadays. The reason for believing most in 3) is that there were much larger crowds than usual due to SB having pronounced after the lingam production in 2000 that everyone who saw this actually emerge would gain liberation from the cycle of birth/death, and this would apply again in future. Therefore he surely did not want to disappoint all those there, so presumably put it back in his mouth after it 'came up' so most people would be ready and able to see it emerge. If this was not the 'real emergence', the obvious question then is, did he want to give people the false belief that they would achieve liberation (assuming that liberation could possibly ensue from seeing the actual emergence)? This will be discussed under Part Two of 'The Lingam Question'.

Some reasons for considering 3) most likely and that all lingam regurgitations are fakes are:

1) The technique of swallowing things - not least lingams - so as to regurgitate them is performed by all kinds of wandering fakirs, Tantrics, nagas, 'yogis', showmen in India. The object can be kept in the stomach or throat for several hours at least before regurgitation is stimulated by some physical means (massage, vomit-inducing medicines etc.)

 

2) Apropos evidence, one can see a lingam production from the mouth by some yogi a German film crew met around 1990, which shows how common this 'feat' is in India. On the same film we see who could swallow a very large number of very large nails, then regurgitate them four or five at a time. The nails could be seen on X-ray in an extended part of his lower throat. ( 'Das Mysterium Der Shiva - Heilige Männer' . It was shown in Germany in a series called 'Terra X  - Rätsel alter Weltkulturen'  'Ein film von Eberhart Thiem, Helga Lippert, Arno Peik")

3) Swami Premananda (formerly of Sri Lanka and Tiruvannamalai, now in prison in Tamil Nadu for life for rape and murder) produced three lingams at Shivarathri (before his trial) witnessed by a good friend of mine. There are many reports of him having done the same as SB year after year, once even when visiting UK. He was also celebrated as ' the avatar' in his ashram's publications etc.

There is no reason why the very young Sai Baba should not have learned this technique at the time when he got involved in activities like performing in public and doing peculiar feats, as described once even in Prof. Kasturi's 'official' biography 'Sathyam, Sivam, Sundaram'. (See end of 3rd chapter of Vol. 1., p. 20 in some eds.) SB copied another artist - a young girl - who picked up a kerchief with her eyelids from the ground when bent over backwards. SB surpassed this "tortuous feat" in public by picking up a needle with his eyelids from the same position. A kind of Tantric or fakir performance, for which feat SB was said to have had to suffer a dreadful eye affliction afterwards! Somewhat unbelievable, but still revealing - even that Kasturi believed it.
 

Part Two: Promises of liberation?

In common with most Indian gurus, Sai Baba has promised liberation from the cycle of rebirths to a number of his followers... sometimes in private, sometimes in public. That this is a much sought-after boon is perhaps hardly surprising, not least when considering the longing for salvation that is a driving force in much religion, frequently doubtless stronger even than the desire to be physically healed of serious chronic or fatal illness.

Since 1999, SB again produced lingams from his mouth during Shivarathri (after over 20 years of not doing so in public) and has said that all those who see one actually emerging will get liberation. This is a guarantee he had announced on a few occasions during past Shivarathri celebrations and again after the Shivarathri celebrations in 1999. The promise of being free from the necessity of being reborn certainly exerts one of the most powerful psychological bonds there is, in this case to the guru. It has long been part and parcel of the guru-disciple relationship in India. To keep believing in the guru, obeying him implicitly in all things, is apparently most often 'part of the deal', but the guru's promises may only be conditional... for who can ever tell? This definitely applies to SB's promises of liberation too, judging by the people I know who imagine they can be granted such a boon, or actually believe that they have been promised it.

Naturally, those who consider they have achieved this apparent boon will be very loath to relinquish it, such as by refuting anything SB says or does. Such a promise by someone one accepts on his own word to be the God Avatar of an entire aeon - once given - ought to be as if 'set in rock'. However, there are instances where this promise is not to be honoured, according to SB's own (self-contradictory) words. Dr. John Hislop, who passed over in 1996 without taking any medication for his cancer - wrote that he had once seen SB bring one linga out of his mouth complete with a 3-legged metal stand. Another time he is said to have witnessed the linga coming from the mouth as a blue light that then coalesced into the object. Despite this, he was told by Swami that he would have to be reborn:-

Baba said: "Another birth is best for you..."
Hislop: "No freedom yet!"
Baba: "Yes, another birth is best. In that you will get total, final liberation"
Hislop: But, Swami, I don't want to go through youth again. Youth is not a good experience - it is dangerous and difficult."
Baba: It will be a better life than this one. Don't waste time thinking of the future."
("Conversations with Bhagavan SSSB" by J. Hislop. 1996 revised extended edition, p. 227)

What does this tell us about SB's 'guarantee' of liberation for all those who see the lingam actually emerge from his mouth? It has been pointed out to me that SB - being God -may countermand this or any other promise (for one lifetime... or more?) and this could even be a boon... to be reborn, for example, to accompany Prema Sai, as two others who also often saw the lingam emerge, Prof. Kasturi and his closest attendant Swami Karunyananda (both now deceased), were both told they would. But this is certainly not how Baba many times has described rebirth... which he holds to be the greatest tragedy that can befall anyone, to have to cry 'Koham?' in complete ignorance of our nature and so forth! He had even once before told Hislop, as recorded in his writings, when he had suggested it could be a boon to be reborn with Prema Sai, that it was definitely not so!

It is frequently described by devotees how SB makes promises, but fails to keep them. These broken promises are usually 'explained away' somehow by the writer. SB has himself sometimes tried to explain them away too. He will promise an interview next day, but ignore this completely when the time comes, and so on again and again. Like many people I have met at the ashrams, I have experienced broken promises by Sai Baba both as regards trivial matters, such as when he promised my wife and I a room in Brindavan, but also as regards several much more weighty matters, one of which was a promise of 'a healthy life' and 'I will look after his health'. However, my chronic back problems have slowly deteriorated, while various other ailments have come (all this long before I began to discover things which made me doubt much and consider SB as something quite other than what he claims to be). Therefore, promises of liberation also must look decidedly shaky!

SB has time and again made a great fuss about how "it is impossible for anyone to understand or explain the meaning and significance of Swami" (Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 10 new ed., p. 170) and, "In truth, you cannot understand the nature of my reality either today, or even after a thousand years of steady austerity or ardent enquiry, even if all mankind joins in the effort." (Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. II. Old. ed. p. 90). If this is so, how can one really trust anyone who is so non-understandable, so unpredictable? Good luck to those who do so, they'll most probably need it, but rather them than I!

It certainly seems that SB needs to get more and more followers so badly that he now promises to anyone who will come to his ashram at Shivarathri, not the earth, not even heaven, but eternal bliss in some undefined, unproven limbo. It is remarkable that so many so unquestioningly take all these guarantees as more than boasts and entrapments.... but then most people choose to believe just what they want should be true, even though they don't have a clue what this might involve. However, billions of people - including Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and many another denomination - will obviously never accept SB's claims about this, that is for certain. This does not look tremendously positive for SB’s claims about his effect on world affairs!