Stop Press! News of Sathya Sai Baba’s hospitalization is breaking in these last hours.
Only an official Puttaparthi sanitized version of health problems afflicting Sathya Sai Baba is possible. Any reader of informed chroniclers – such as Robert Priddy, Brian Steel, Serguei Badaev, Alexandra Nagel, myself and others – knows how we have extensively, and with much care, often documented the tight control on propaganda emanating from Puttaparthi and the leadership of the international Sathya Sai Organization. One of my most read articles is this one about the deputy chairman of that organization, and the director of Sathya Sai Baba’s attempt to get radio broadcasts into every corner of the world: Sathya Sai Baba’s ‘Minister of Propaganda’ – Dr G. Venkataraman.
A Mahashivaratri 2000 report in Sanathana Sarathi, Sai Baba’s official organ (distributed worldwide), unintentionally makes a mockery of Sathya Sai Baba’s absurd self-presentations regarding his health, of which, by long habit, he forever gives the rosiest reports.