Nowadays I see an aging man with mangy hair who has begun to get thin (also according to what I also heard from an acquaintance who recently saw him. This person told me that SB was almost bald on the back of his skull) and with features that are getting more and more marked in the way of old men, almost like a caricature. (he was so beautiful in his youth, SB...)

If one studies the first portrait (in colour) in the said edition (October, 2002) one can clearly see that neither does he look happy there. He looks tired. But he still has to keep a front up and live up to the avatar principle... on p. 319 one reads: "The attributes of the Avatars are beyond human comprehension.... Rama and Krishna were ever youthful. Have you ever seen a picture of Rama or Krishna with grey hair?....." (I have read somewhere that SB tints his hair himself - so now I have the answer to why he does so... but he has not succeeded in concealing the thin hair at the back... maybe time to have a wig now?).. On the same page he continues: "Usually old people have wrinkles on their faces... I do not have any signs of old age. (loud applause)- There is not a single wrinkle on My face" .... Oh really? He looked pretty well tired out, if you ask me... his has a 'turkey throat'... and so he adds, on page 320: "Some devotees think that there is something wrong with My legs when I walk slowly. I do not have any trouble with My legs .... My robe is stitched to the very hem, preventing Me from taking long steps"... so good to get the answer to that one too... and so that no one need be struck by doubts he adds, on the same page: "Nobody knows My power and strength. But I use them according to the need and the situation" In other words... none of us can know with certainty when or how we are subjected to SB's power... Only he knows...

He must have one heck of a job, SB... it can't be easy to age in his situation, besides being under so much criticism as he has recently been... not surprising that it leaves its marks. Occasionally I think 'poor man'... feel some pity for him. A whole life built on lies... captured by the myth about himself... to be the object of the projections of millions... and to be forced , at least outwardly, to live up to all the expectations put to him... to always have to have all those people around him.

One or another thing he has yet taught us... perception is selective according to the glasses one puts on... Once, when I used to have "miracle glasses" on, I interpreted every odd coincidence in my life as his work. Today, when I read in Sanathana Sarathi, I have taken off my "miracle glasses" and replaced them with my "investigative glasses". So I see quite other things (despite the fact that touching-up editing has been carried out on the original text, according to what I read...) A number of things one reads about are so obviously embarrassing that even those who are committed devotees ought surely to react...

I am thinking of the low intellectual level of the contents. Why is what happens around the world never of interest to SB? It should, I imagine, be possible to apply the Vedic scriptures as an instrument for making intelligent contemporary analyses? Even though one reads on p. 314: "The Ramayana has a great value for the modern trouble- torn society as it presents an ideal in various fields of human activity and human relations"...there is never any deep analysis of anything. He rolls out his standard phrases and we have to be satisfied with that. It all boils down to the usual disgruntlement (page 313): "Today the children do not respect their parents and the parents lack affection for their children. Modern disciples do not respect their teachers; likewise teachers have no love for their disciples. The parents no longer act as role models for their children..." and so on and on without end. In other words, everything was better before... the more ancient the better...

Even though SB wants to make his discourses available to all, does he need to underestimate us and tell the same stories for the hundredth time, over and over? Does he never tire? Or is it quite simply that this is all he knows and masters, all he can risk speaking about? To diverge from his known ideas would probably expose him mercilessly??? Is this why he constantly always looks down on all intellectual effort and values only spiritual matters?

(Translator's comment: He has in fact recently begun to try his hand at what he thinks is physics, astrophysics etc. with completely disasterous  and utterly laughable results. See, for example, his 2002 discourses on atoms, magnetism etc., as variously posted and analysed on www.exbaba.com and www.saiguru.net)

Another embarrassment is SB's male chauvinism: On page 308, he is quoted: "When it comes to devotion and surrender, women are superior to men..... Sometimes, they too have some weaknesses. But never consider them inferior to men and never look down upon them ......" What a magnanimous and generous man he is, and what prejudices he bears. This is about as intelligent as saying "red-headed people are also human" (implying 'even if one believes the contrary') Is it actually necessary to point this out in a country which SB holds forth as superior to all other cultures?

On page 306 one can read: "During the lifetime of any Avatar, it is only the women who recognise His divinity first. They are the ones who lead their husbands to the path of divinity. It is only because of the devotion of women that men cultivate devotion to some extent at least. But for women, few men would have devotion." There we received the final answer as to how he views us women and our function. We are there to feed him with his male devotees... no other function do we supposedly have for him. We might have figured this out long ago. Now I must soon stop reading this rotten rubbish... I only get into a bad mood and feel shame about having swallowed that muck for so long... But it was my good fortune to have woken up at last...

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