In a discourse on May 6, 1998, at Brindavan, Sai Baba publicly told how three boys sleep, not just in his apartment, but in his bedroom. He tells at length how they all have visitations from his long dead mother! Here is the official published text from Sanathana Sarathi, June 1998, p. 142-3.

"Now it is 30 years since the mother of this body passed away. But she is continuing to move about in her physical body around Swami. Three boys sleep in Swami's room. They have also witnessed her presence. I am telling this today because the life of ideal mothers has permanent significance.

In Prashanthi Nilayam, Swami takes breakfast after bhajan and proceeds to His place in Poornachandra Auditorium. Early in the morning one day, mother Easwaramma was standing at the door in her usual form. I asked her, "Why did you come?" She said, "Swami, I have come here with a prayer to You. You are omnipresent and omniscient, but You have to control one thing"! "What is that?" Swami asked. She said, "Devotees and students offer handkerchiefs to You. But, heeding my prayer, please do not receive handkerchiefs from everybody. The times are not good. The handkerchief may be tainted with poisonous stuff. In the usual course, You use the handkerchief to wipe your nose and mouth. So, you may receive handkerchief only from those on whom You have confidence and trust as good devotees. Do not accept from all and sundry."

Mother's love lives on for all times, long after her passing away. Twice she appeared in the night. The boys sleeping in my room noticed her presence. Those boys had not seen her at any time. They wondered who the old lady could be. The key of the lift was in their hands and there was no staircase leading to the apartment. How did she manage to come here? When the boys asked this question, Swami woke up. I went near her and asked why she had come again. She replied, "I cannot live without seeing You often. The moment I see You, I feel happy." After saying so she gave me some piece of advice, "Swami, all persons describe themselves as devotees and who are fake. Totally dedicated devotees will be ready to carry out anything You ask them to do, but there are others who come for their own self-interest. By coming to You they get their desires fulfilled and forget You thereafter. In this manner, you should be very careful."

Swami replied, "I shall take due care. There is no need for you to tell me". After hearing this, she laughed and left the room. I am conveying to you this episode as direct testimony to the greatness of mother's love."  

Comment: A year or so after this, I was discussing with the then-editor of Sanathana Sarathi, V.K. Narasimhan – my very good friend who passed away in March 2000 after long sufferings. While he was yet alive, there were things that could not be told so as to protect him, not least his personal security. These I now consider it my duty to reveal.

Narasimhan had disliked the discourse and considered it a rambling and unlikely story. I asked him why Baba had allowed the publication of his own words, namely, that three boys slept in his bedroom, considering that Tal Brooke had accused SB of pedophilia and this was widely known. I also asked him the age of the boys. He said they were about 18 to 20 years old, and he asked me whether this fact would cause any problems in the West, was there anything wrong in it. I said that it most certainly would cause a major stir if the boys had been under age. He looked quite crestfallen and sat silent for some time, as if unable to know what to say, something very unusual for him, as everyone who knew him will recognise!

As SB’s editor, VKN’s job was to cut down and translate the long discourses to publish a kind of inclusive resumé. Points that could be injurious to SB’s image – especially outside India - were to be eliminated, he had told me, while recounting some of SB’s blunders that he had cut out in the past.  At the time – still a devotee myself – I had come to reason that this was acceptable editing, though I now feel it often just mislead the public into thinking SB to be clear and faultless, which he is not. At that time, I regret, I did not pursue the matter of the exact nature of the relations between these boys and SB further, assuming as I did then that there would be no question of sex, certainly not with minors. (This was before the very different story that now still emerges).  But, like VKN, I though the talk and the claimed unnatural events would strongly reduce the appeal of SB to the world at large.

Interestingly, SB there also exploded a myth that is firmly believed by most devotees: that he never sleeps. For he said, “Swami woke up”. I can well imagine what amusing mental clowning followers will perform to explain that away. I used to be something of an act in that ‘spiritual circus’ myself, as some parts of my many articles in Sanathana Sarathi at VKN’s continual request bear witness to. (Fourteen of which can be seen here - just for the record.)

The discourse continues on the subject of SB’s grandfather, Kondama Raju, whom SB claims attained liberation from rebirth, yet like Easwaramma still visits SB in his body even now. This story hardly fits well with other utterances of SB about after-death conditions, such as “The body drops away and you are the light. That is liberation…. ‘My’ falls away. There is no longer ‘My’” (Conversations with BSSSB by J. Hislop, p. 190 in new ed.). But Easwaramma visits ‘her’ son, Kondamu Raju ‘his’ grandson. However, SB also said, “After the death of the physical body, it is impossible for the disembodied spirit to contact this material world” (Vision of the Divine, E. Fanibunda, p. 98). Make consistent sense of all this those gullible contortionists who wish to try!

The Easwaramma episode, on whatever it may be based, indicates the anxiety in the SB camp - right in his own apartment - about attempts to injure him. These fears surely reflect some real circumstances, and, as SB reassures Easwaramma’s apparition, "I shall take due care. There is no need for you to tell me.”  So he admits that has to take care! He who claims again and again that he is loved by everyone, hiding in his stairless rooms with a locked elevator, and now with armed guards visibly prowling about on his roof too! SB needs not to be told of dangers, he patently knows all too well… no need even for omniscience! So why on earth does an omnipotent God need all the massive security?

Why did SB express all this weird, but often revealing, ghost story? He gives the answer, a kind of classic non sequitur: “I am conveying to you this episode as direct testimony to the greatness of mother's love."  Well, it’s not the most direct or credible testimony I have ever heard of mother love!