In Sathya Sai Speaks we read: "…the world is but a mental image of the individual.” (Vol.9. p.168) and “the world is a structure raised on one strong pillar, 'I'. For, when this 'I' is dormant during deep sleep, there is no world as far as you are concerned.” ( Vol. IV Ch. 48). Further: "Whatever is not in man cannot be anywhere outside him. Whatever is visible outside him is but a rough reflection of what really is in him." ( Sathya Sai Vahini - paragraph ii)

But if one accepts the above (vague theories), one enters a disorienting hall of mirrors a labyrinth of endless dead-ends. Only by having an Ariadne thread of critical thinking - the ability to doubt radically - may one retrace one's missteps and find the exit.

Sathya Sai Baba's so-called ‘spiritual teaching' - when one goes beyond the simple aphorisms and moral exhortations - draws his followers into a hall of mirrors. The key with which one opens the trap-door and enters this labyrinth of self-reflections is his ideas quoted above. These are not unique to him by any means - they are taken from India's religious monistic philosophy, in a confused Sai Baba mix-up of diverse and opposing systems of Indian theology those which adhere either to 'advaita' (total non-dualism) 'dvaita' (dualism) or 'vishtadvaita (modified non-dualism)'.

According to Sai Baba, the world we perceive and live in is only a product of each human ego (or self or 'I') each person lives within isolated from any external reality. Since he holds that reality is only what is within each person, the external world is but a distorted, unreal appearance which reflects that reality. This implies that everyone is trapped within one's own mind in what amounts to one's own hall of mirrors! According to this, what I see and think is only the reflection of my own mind, so I see what I choose to see and think. I cannot know any reality ‘outside' myself, only the labyrinth of self-reflections. Consequently, as Sai Baba also asserts, the way he appears to anyone is simply a reflection of how anyone perceives him – chooses to see him, but in now way represents him in reality!

Ultimately, this 'teaching' has the function of confusing people deeply both about themselves, but equally - or even more so - about him, Sathya Sai Baba. No one can criticize him in any way because he has in advance proclaimed that he is unknowable. Very handy, if one has something to hide!

When I first entered the Sathya Sai Baba labyrinth, the problematical nature of such a convoluted ‘teaching' which almost entirely lacks empirical founding was already familiar to me, having researched and lectured in (Western) philosophy and science for many years previously and also having studied a wide variety of philosophical cosmologies, including Indian philosophies and the writings of several widely acclaimed ‘spiritual masters'. I had already been involved with an Indian swami/yogi of the Ramakrishna Math for years. Further, I had reason to believe that I had been out-of-body and even beyond individual mind on occasion, and completely so, while yet remaining in conscious awareness. However, I did not fully realise at the time how this conviction (or assumption of supra-mental perception) would lead me right on further into an age-old kind of religious and spiritual mental trap. My decision to investigate these matters by plunging wholeheartedly into the ‘spiritual search' led me into deep and virtually endless labyrinths of Indian (speculative) beliefs - which are pervasive and subtle – cost me many years (in spiritual practices). in. Having invested all possible faith in that search - meanwhile checking every nook and cranny for the promised land of spiritual liberation - I could not therefore realise the fuller nature of the cosmological trap until I (due to circumstances not under my control) finally emerged from it and saw it for what it was: a largely irrational and groundless perspective, one which is deeply intertwined with age-old superstitions and beliefs which ultimately cannot be tested by any known means.

I have since observed how many such committed ‘spiritual seekers' have not been able to free themselves psychologically from such a quest, even when they are confronted with facts which are faith-destroying. I cannot but think that there has to be enough energy and genuine self-confidence – along with other crucial circumstances – before one can smash one's way out of the hall of mirrors one has painstakingly internalised (from ‘teachings') and extended further by one's own mind, emotional dependencies, and way of life. It takes years gradually to wean the mind of cherished notions, detach from all that went with these, and so reorient oneself to doctrine-free perception and sane rationality.

While I was deeply involved – seeking further within - trying to discover how properly to practice the teaching (which was often too vague and ambiguous for clear practical application), I wrote the following in one of my many truth-searching articles in Sai Baba's journal at a time when I had not fully plumbed the issue in the way I have since:

‘What is within is also without. A mirror reflects what images it receives, only in reverse and according to its clarity. This world around us, this interminable universe registers itself in our awareness as inconceivably intricate, eventful and whole. It appears to be massively 'material', not mental; it seems to be objective to consciousness and not to be conscious itself. The mind seems powerless to command it or even to penetrate its vastness, limited and localised as we (seemingly) are by the body. Yet because it is 'absent' for the mind which does not cognise it, we cannot be fully certain that it is not somehow a projection of mind.' (Inquiry into the Self - Robert Priddy in Sanathana Sarathi, Apr, '91, p. 101ff ).

This is a version of a well-known theory in philosophy called ‘solipsism'; it is a ‘solo' enterprise indeed, and has been studied deeply and rejected as leading inevitably to contradictions and absurdities not only by Socrates and followers, but by all reputable modern Western philosophers… Despite that, it is still very much alive in Indian spiritual-religious thought, as represented by many supposed ‘illumined masters' and yogis. The Western journalist and spiritual seeker, subsequently a pseudo-guru and bogus ‘Dr.', Paul Brunton, called this kind of standpoint ‘mentalism'. Sathya Sai Baba has employed this solipsistic philosophy (and, characteristically, along with selected parts of a range of other Indian philosophical ideas which are totally incompatible with solipsism!). Sai has used this ‘teaching' to explain to his followers how it is they can never know him as such, only their own subjective ideas, feelings, thoughts of him. Therefore, he claims, it is futile even to try to investigate him, the only way ahead being to investigate oneself and to learn to control one's own mind, perceptions and desires.

[[The key with which one opens the trap-door and enters is in his ideas like this: "the world is but a mental image of the individual. How this happens is a mystery. One can only say, that just as sleep is the cause of dreams, maya or the Basic ignorance is the cause of Creation." ( Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol.9. p.168)

This central part of Sathya Sai's ”teaching” makes each person isolated from any external reality, livings with their private hall of mirrors. He holds that reality is only what is within us This means, within the mind…even though spiritual teaching tries to convince people that the “true self “ completely transcends the mind and they call it ‘eternal spirit' or ‘heart' or ‘universal consciousness'. (Incidentally, consciousness must always be consciousness of something, or else it is not consciousness). However, the fact remains that the human mind is always there as long as we are conscious at all as the medium of everything we experience – for as long as there is life. [Note that claims presented so as to refute this - that consciousness persists after clinical death, and that people have been literally ‘resurrected' in surgeries after total brain death – are so far not properly documented or scientifically proven]

Sai Baba says:-
1) no one can understand him or his mystery, not if all humanity combines in the effort for thousands of years.
2) that God can be know by anyone who practices sadhana and attains self-realisation, because God is in the heart and everyone is God.
Both cannot be true. Logically, one view could be true, but equally, both views could be false at once.

Further, Sai Baba's view is that good and ill seen in others is only one's own reflection and what is outside is a rough reflection of what is within. (see Sathya Sai Speaks Vol 25, p.296 and Sathya Sai Vahini ii).
Therefore, it follows with logical necessity that one can never know anyone else, only oneself. Obviously, this view can only be false. Yet Sai Baba and other sometime advaitist speculators disagree arguing that the self is the universal self within each of us, which is the same one self in every case - but it is only the individual ego's which differ! This is useless speculation since for all who live in the world, knowing the similarities and differences between individuals - whether regarded as egocentric or unselfish selves - is an essential to life, and even to personal survival.

Sai Baba's unoriginal solipsistic ideas lead into a circular mental and emotional trap, ultimately tending to cut one off mentally (and even emotionally) more and more from any real persons or objectively existent facts and realities. The human psyche invariably has tremendous flexibility and tolerance of conflicting ideas, however, so that those who believe in such a view still cannot bring themselves to apply it consistently in all things. Far from it. To ignore the existence of anything but the supposed universal self within oneself (which one cannot even find) means that one cannot carry function in the world of practical and social interaction, nor accept the assumptions and goals that society and living imply. The less one regards this theory as an absurd and impracticable fancy – the more one has to believe that one cannot really know anyone or anything in reality. That way lies madness.

On the solipsistic theory of 'universal selfhood': If, on the solipsistic theory of 'universal selfhood', I assume or attribute good of someone, it can only be my own good thinking. I am 'projecting' this onto them, them also being an aspect of myself. Likewise if I project badness, then it is my own badness. On the same principle, the same applies to everything else I seem to know outside of me; it is not outside me nor existent independent of my mind in reality, so I can only ever know them properly by self-examination! This is what Sathya Sai Baba believes and preaches constantly. Further, he repeatedly warns that, since the mind (in his view) creates all we experience, one should think, hear and see no evil but rather ‘wear rose-tinted glasses' and only see good, think good!. As the teacher of this – Sathya Sai as a living person in the real world – puts himself beyond my mind and totally beyond everyone's understanding.

Whether or not he was himself entrapped in these ideas from childhood (common among Indians) or whether he is intentionally engaging in promulgating a deceptive chimerical entrapment, he came to use these ideas more and more to protect his real self from devotees' investigations and criticisms. He enforces this doctrine – that he is beyond understanding and criticism - imperiously towards all who try to question him in the slightest critical manner. By this subtle and time-worn ‘ teaching' – however aware he may or may not be of its' effects on people - he deludes his devotees into trying not to think or be willing to think anything negative, more especially about himself. All facts about his real person which do not fit with the pure and divine image of himself as the God of love and goodness which he implants in people's minds are, however well documented and certain - are considered to be slander and products of impure minds and ‘bad people'! At the same time he claims to be present in - and aware of everything in - the heart of every being. What a subtle way this is to decoy people into the binds and bonds of being a passive worshipper of Sathya Sai himself and to be held (by him) entirely to blame for all the bad experiences they have. Meanwhile, ‘God' goes scot free and ever invisible beyond the borders of the mind and, so to speak, “on the other side of the mirror”! Making sense of this oxymoron has kept millions of religionists occupied for millennia, but none can provide an answer which is both self-consistent and in accordance with real (as opposed to imaginary or illusory) experience.

Even when we may seem to experience that we are beyond mind and in pure spirit - as can occur in many ways from extreme meditation and asceticism to the ingestion of the strongest psychedelic substances or in near-death instances – the brain/mind is still always the medium of what one experiences. The only reasonable and empirical accounts of the mind require this. The brain in which it arises as a subjective counterpart of objective processes is the hurdle spiritual speculators try to avoid, but however much they try to negate the mind, stop it, and struggle to ‘cleanse' it of all worldly aspiration and thoughts or otherwise deny its presence, the functioning brain is still the only demonstrable instrument of the mind.

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