What Does Sai Baba and Swami Narayana claim themselves to be?

[Shivam]

I've always heard of both of them, but I never heard of their stories.

Does anybody have any information on them?

 

Hare Krsna

[Guest guest]

 

I've always heard of both of them, but I never heard of their stories.

Does anybody have any information on them?

Hare Krsna

Millions of Sai Baba followers also firmly believe he is God. There are people who believe they were cured of terminal diseases by his grace. No one can convince them that such things do not happen.

 

Cheers

[Guest guest]

 

Millions of Sai Baba followers also firmly believe he is God. There are people who believe they were cured of terminal diseases by his grace. No one can convince them that such things do not happen.

 

Cheers

Oh really? How do you know that such things do not happen when someone has so much faith in God? Just because it has never been tested in the lab does not mean it does not happen, nor does it mean it can't happen. However, of course, it is alright to be skeptical, but to completely discount the possibility of this ever happening is being narrow-minded.

 

Besides, many avatars and enlightened ones have been said to be able to cure the diseases of their devotees, like apparently Sai Baba.

[Guest guest]

 

Oh really? How do you know that such things do not happen when someone has so much faith in God?

 

Because we have countless "faithful" people who have their prayers go unanswered. We can get into circular logic here: People who do not get their prayers answered are not faithful. How do we know this? Because their prayers were not answered!

 

So how do we know that Sai Baba or Rama or Krishna do not randomly select suffering people and cure them of cancer? Because there is no logic percieved in such an action.

 

The 12th century occam's razor applies. When there are two plausible, different ways of explaining something and you do not have precise information to choose between the two, the one that leaves the least number of questions unanswered should be taken as the correct one.

 

Applying the razor to this context, either ladoos comes out of thin ar or they do not. If I choose option 2, there are no unaswerable follow up questions. But If I choose option 1, it released a hundred questions that cannot be answered. So the obvious choice in this matter is option 2. That is, ladoos do not come out of thin air.

 

By the way, this has nothing to do with atheism. A perfect theist can still reject miracaulous cures of cancer and laddos materializing out of nowhere as bogus stories. To close, check with iskcon. No one there will accept the story of Sai Baba magically curing whitey of cancer that was diagnosed as incurable by Stanford doctors....and they are not atheists.

 

Cheers

[aGnani11]

I will answer the question as directly as possible. Swaminarayana (Swami Sahajananda, 1781 - 1830 CE) has declared Himself in various parts of his spoken Vachanamritam as well as a kirtan composed by Himself ("Maha balavanta Maya Tamaari") that He is the source of infinite avataars and he is an incarnation of Purushottam Narayana. Swaminarayana himself was very affectionate towards Sri Krishna and thus advocated the bhakti of Krishna because of the fact that Vaishnavism was the predominant movement at the time.

He stressed the fact that pure bhakti to your ishtadev reigns supreme in the age of Kal. His monk disciples themselves were profound scholars, poets, and Sanskritists and were firmly fixated on the divine image of Krishna. After coming into the contact of Swaminarayana, they saw the same divinity as in Krishna himself, via his personality, social reformation, deep knowledge as shown in the Vachanamritam, and his personal history of mastering ashtanga yoga in a mere 4 months and performing the most severe austerities and tapas in the Himalayas and across the entire length of India. No human being or even an experienced yogi could practice such intense tapas, but Swaminarayana did it as an act of leela.

 

If you honestly sit down and study the life of Swaminarayana, you will eventually see that there is very little difference between his authenticity and Lord Krishna's.

 

Also, please do not reply to this message with profanities, insults, or unnecessary remarks. I acknowledge the fact that most of ISKCON followers resent Swaminarayana. I am not here to advocate Swaminarayan. I am here to read/participate in discussions of Hindu philosophy, practice, and culture.

[Guest guest]

 

Because we have countless "faithful" people who have their prayers go unanswered. We can get into circular logic here: People who do not get their prayers answered are not faithful. How do we know this? Because their prayers were not answered!

 

So how do we know that Sai Baba or Rama or Krishna do not randomly select suffering people and cure them of cancer? Because there is no logic percieved in such an action.

 

The 12th century occam's razor applies. When there are two plausible, different ways of explaining something and you do not have precise information to choose between the two, the one that leaves the least number of questions unanswered should be taken as the correct one.

 

Applying the razor to this context, either ladoos comes out of thin ar or they do not. If I choose option 2, there are no unaswerable follow up questions. But If I choose option 1, it released a hundred questions that cannot be answered. So the obvious choice in this matter is option 2. That is, ladoos do not come out of thin air.

 

By the way, this has nothing to do with atheism. A perfect theist can still reject miracaulous cures of cancer and laddos materializing out of nowhere as bogus stories. To close, check with iskcon. No one there will accept the story of Sai Baba magically curing whitey of cancer that was diagnosed as incurable by Stanford doctors....and they are not atheists.

 

Cheers

 

That's often stated by theists when miracles do happen and such.

 

Who knows if karma is involved or not? There are a lot of intangibles that we cannot see, occam's razor be damned. Occam's razor is not nessarily representative of the truth, it is just a way of logic, but then again, life is hardly that comprehensible to begin with and does not follow any hard and fast rules except maybe those of science and mathematics (and that too, might be flexible once we know the subtle laws of their being).

 

There are millions of people seeking enlightenment, who seek Krishna or whatever God. To some people he appears, to others he doesn't. Why does he appear to some and not to others? The same logic you applied to discount the idea of miraculous cures could be applied here, and then you would have to discount the idea that people ever see God in any form. Yet, that is not true, and so I immediately discount that reasoning as absurd.

 

I'm not saying laddoos come out of thin air (but I'm open to it being possible, I've read in various autobiographies of yogis in the Himalayas who can do all sorts of things, and string theory might have an answer for this sooner or later, if it's true at all that is), but the idea of cancer being healed or whatever, that's not something that's unprecedented. It has been documented in the Bible that diseases were cured by Jesus, Krishna woke people up from death, etc. It's not UNPRECEDENTED as far as the scriptures go, and while we haven't seen such activities, that doesn't mean they have never happened. Honestly, I've actually read a testimonial account of such a thing in Time magazine as well. Of course it was a blurb in a larger article about faith, where someone claimed his belief in Yahweh made a cancer that was detected in his body disappear the day of the surgery.

 

I don't care if it's not scientifically plausible by today's standards, and if you want a healthy dose of skepticism, fine by me.

 

But science today also seems to indicate prayer doesn't work for other people, and I KNOW I don't buy that. I have someone in my family who was struggling with life and death, and his mom prayed by his bedside day and night. Doctors thought the relative in my family would have amnesia and be brain damaged but seeing his progress in just a few days with his mom by his bedside, they saw a marked improvement in him and he woke up fine for the most part. No amnesia, and he could still take a test he hadn't studied for and pass it because his mom was reading the material to him while he was in a coma.

[Guest guest]

When spiritually ignorant of the universal self

 

1. It doesn't matter which god one prays to.

2. It doesn't matter how many people criticize of other people's god

 

Both of the above set of people are ignorant. Only self-realization of the universal self is the destiny (moksha).

 

Soon, religious bodies have to find new ways of keeping themselves alive. Grabbing marketshare or becoming the largest religion on earth is no longer a way for religious bodies to become richer. Contributing to their own society is the only way.

 

It doesn't matter if people consider sai baba as god. Sai baba contributes to society. His message is unconditional service, like in BG. Sai baba knows pretty well, like how krishna knew, that it really doesn't matter which god the ignorant people pray to. Their love for the ignorant is the same as those knowledgeable.

 

It's out of love of the ignorant people that krishna or sai baba ask people to consider pray to them. This is what most of the future self-realized guru will continue doing. Krishna has set the example of unconditional love.

 

From the perspective of sai baba followers, he's a living god for now. His followers might consider themselves better off than others praying the non-living.

 

As said earlier self-realization of the universal self in each one, is the only thing that matters.

[akshar]

When swaminarayan (not swami narayan) was being named at young age he had a fewnames but two of his senior names were ghanshyam and krishna, so in the shikshapatri he is refering to himself. He is truly parmatma. Since krishna was a avatar of vishnu he isn't parmatma, there are two above the trinity. Akshar and purshottam, swami and narayan, brahma and parabrahma etc. Mostly akshar is the one responsile for avatars. Luckily purna purshottam itself (not male or female in true form) came on earth as Sahajanand swami and graced the earth. We too are being graced by Param Pujya Pramukh Swami. I also think many devotees are jealous of akshardham, which is verry sad. BAPS is the true swaminarayan sanstha as they believe in the doctrine of akshar-purshottam. Sooner you learn this the better. I think i heard prabhupada say that even if you chant krishna offensively you will slowly become a good devotee, it's the same with swaminarayan maha-mantra. Did Sai Baba himself claim that he was god?

[akshar]

Don't be under the impression that BAPS followers don't worship krishna, that is totally wrong because in every BAPS mandir there is a murti of radha-krishna. The reason why swaminarayan put radha-krishna murtis in the centre of his central shrine is because out of all the avatars krishna has taught humainty the most and it would look arrogant if a man worshipped himself. Through krishna swaminarayan can be realised.

[hittupatel]

 

I've always heard of both of them, but I never heard of their stories.

Does anybody have any information on them?

 

Hare Krsna

 

I don't know about Sai Baba, but if yo ureally want to know about lord swaminarayan then visit "www dot baps dot org" and please read and understand the english version of "vachanamrut". Any questions please email me directly. "hittupatel at dot com"

[Guest guest]

swaminarayan is guru, he tought his followers to worship krishna! they didn't listen!

[Guest guest]

you people need to think what you are saying. you know what i'm saying

 

krishna is THE ultimate truth, there is nothing beyond him, there is nothing that compares to him. so ple\ase do not make these sai baba claims that he is god because he has never even possessed the qualities of even a devotee of krishna

 

jay swaminarayan

[Guest guest]

may i also add swaminarayan was another manifestation of krishna in kaliyug

 

so please do not compare or differentiate between them

 

hari-krishna maharaj ki jay

[Guest guest]

 

may i also add swaminarayan was another manifestation of krishna in kaliyug

 

so please do not compare or differentiate between them

 

hari-krishna maharaj ki jay

 

I met swaminarayan today and seen Him speaking, so many souls are dancing on His face. Very beautiful indeed.

[Guest guest]

 

I don't know about Sai Baba, but if yo ureally want to know about lord swaminarayan then visit "www dot baps dot org" and please read and understand the english version of "vachanamrut". Any questions please email me directly. "hittupatel at dot com"

 

I also seen Sai Baba sitting above the moon. Sai Baba is incarnation of Lord Shiva and this is correct.

[Guest guest]

 

I also seen Sai Baba sitting above the moon. Sai Baba is incarnation of Lord Shiva and this is correct.

 

 

Yea right,he can hardly walk these days and u seen him above the moon.Y r u lieing so bluntly,y dont u make up a story which people believe,Sai Baba tries so hard to bring a Linga out of his mouth and u people call it a miracle.Even a magician brings stuff out of thin air at times.

[Devarsirat]

 

I will answer the question as directly as possible. Swaminarayana (Swami Sahajananda, 1781 - 1830 CE) has declared Himself in various parts of his spoken Vachanamritam as well as a kirtan composed by Himself ("Maha balavanta Maya Tamaari") that He is the source of infinite avataars and he is an incarnation of Purushottam Narayana. Swaminarayana himself was very affectionate towards Sri Krishna and thus advocated the bhakti of Krishna because of the fact that Vaishnavism was the predominant movement at the time.

He stressed the fact that pure bhakti to your ishtadev reigns supreme in the age of Kal. His monk disciples themselves were profound scholars, poets, and Sanskritists and were firmly fixated on the divine image of Krishna. After coming into the contact of Swaminarayana, they saw the same divinity as in Krishna himself, via his personality, social reformation, deep knowledge as shown in the Vachanamritam, and his personal history of mastering ashtanga yoga in a mere 4 months and performing the most severe austerities and tapas in the Himalayas and across the entire length of India. No human being or even an experienced yogi could practice such intense tapas, but Swaminarayana did it as an act of leela.

 

If you honestly sit down and study the life of Swaminarayana, you will eventually see that there is very little difference between his authenticity and Lord Krishna's.

 

Also, please do not reply to this message with profanities, insults, or unnecessary remarks. I acknowledge the fact that most of ISKCON followers resent Swaminarayana. I am not here to advocate Swaminarayan. I am here to read/participate in discussions of Hindu philosophy, practice, and culture.

[Guest guest]

Nothing much to say.. but i cant bring myself to believe something where many are still doubtful.. Read many coutless news an in media that he is a homo.. Read for your selves.. afterall he is a human too, and can have earthly feelings too.. read..

 

home.no.net/anir/Sai/enigma/SaiSex.htm

[Guest guest]

Srila Prabupada has strictly mentioned not to fall prey to anyone claiming themselves to be GODS,its a big sin to not follow Krsna and consider some one else as GOD.

[rockerz]

there is many god

but only 1 main god

like president

[Guest guest]

I have not been much of a follower or understood the histories

However, I picked up and read the Hindu Holy book "the Bhagavat Gita" as it is...

 

I due believe Krisna is God-Head...

 

What I can't seem to understand, With all due Respect, is;

Why do for example, swaminarayana followers have to follow Swami Ji... and

and NOT Krisna Himself ???

 

I do not understand the logic...

 

I have no comment about the followers of/or sathya sai baba... Very difficult to comprehend... I will leave it at that....

 

Respect to ALL!!!

 

Hare Krishna....

[Guest guest]

I don't know much about shri sai baba and shri Ravi shankar, but when a fraud and criminal father and son calls themselves god it hurts. check out this link

 

guruashram.com/asarambapusson.html

 

 

It's a shame that fahter and son call themselves as god whereas victims of these duo consder them as vultures who have ruined thier family lifes. Both father and son are criminals and have mastered the art of folling people in the name of spirituality.

[Guest guest]

 

What I can't seem to understand, With all due Respect, is;

Why do for example, swaminarayana followers have to follow Swami Ji... and

and NOT Krisna Himself ???

 

I do not understand the logic...

 

Because Swaminarayan followers believe Swaminarayan was/is an incarnation of Krishna and hence non-different from Krishna.

 

Imagine this: Why worship Krishna, instead of worshipping Narayana himself directly? After all, Krishna is just another avatar.

 

Perhaps, now you understand the logic.

[Guest guest]

 

Srila Prabupada has strictly mentioned not to fall prey to anyone claiming themselves to be GODS,its a big sin to not follow Krsna and consider some one else as GOD.

 

And the only person who can claim himself to be God is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and he alone is to be believed. The rest are fakes. Need some consistancy please. It is similar to christians claiming Jesus alone to be God, and no one else.

 

P.S

 

I have nothing to do with Saibaba or Swami Narayana, and they mean nothing to me.

[Guest guest]

 

Because Swaminarayan followers believe Swaminarayan was/is an incarnation of Krishna and hence non-different from Krishna.

 

Imagine this: Why worship Krishna, instead of worshipping Narayana himself directly? After all, Krishna is just another avatar.

 

Perhaps, now you understand the logic.

 

No I don't understand the Logic..

 

How have you come to the conclusion that Krsna is just another Avatar?

 

This like saying a Swamiji, preaching good to mankind can suddenly become an incarnation of Krsna... I don't understand the logic??

 

Please don't get me wrong, I am just giving a bold notion!