Re: Travel Hazards and Issues India Nepal Bhutan
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: September 24, 2013 09:29PM
Go to Google Images and run a search. Asaram Bapu Asharam.
Nice digs.
With the rupee relatively weak against the US dollar, wonder if he will try and visit the US? One USD will go a very long way in India.
[www.google.com]
Nice digs.
With the rupee relatively weak against the US dollar, wonder if he will try and visit the US? One USD will go a very long way in India.
[www.google.com]
Spiritual Tourists and Backpackers--Advice From an Indian
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: December 02, 2013 10:23AM
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
"There are plenty of white business people in Bangalore, and they all dress professionally and appropriately. They don’t get nearly as much attention as do white travelers. There’s a reason for that."(quoted from below)
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An Edumacation: On white backpackers.
Here’s the thing about white hippies in India: they’re *crusty*.
They’re the only ones wearing clothes that look like they haven’t seen soap. The clothes are ill-fitting and off-colour. Nothing matches, nothing is even trying to match. The women wear yoga pants and harem pants, the men wear sarongs.
They have dreads.
Their hair is in messy buns and looks like it hasn’t been washed in weeks.
The rest of us? If we can afford to, we look good. There are men and women walking around in designer clothing. Our shirts are well-pressed and well-cared for — after all, clothing is important for making a first impression. Our hair is meticulously styled, our jewelry is on point.
White people come to India looking for a break from their normal lives. They expect Indians to abet them in their quest to find enlightenment — mostly, we just think they’re freaks.
We ask to take pictures with them because they look like clowns.
We’ll give them preferential treatment, because anyone who chooses to dress like that is clearly insane, and therefore might spend a lot of money when they don’t need to.
White backpackers aren’t this crusty in Europe. Oh, I’m sure there’s a certain level of crust, but they can’t be as free and unburdened in Europe. There are people of consequence who could see them. Here, they strut around like they don’t have an audience. Like Indians are foliage, there just to provide an exotic backdrop for your grand adventure — they can’t actually see you. If they do see you, it doesn’t matter.
I was guilty of aiding and abetting this sort of behavior, once. I was eighteen, backpacking with three white friends, and we decided to go as crusty as possible. I went so native that Indians thought I was white as well.
My friends complained constantly about how they were treated like freaks, like sideshow attractions
— my thoughts now are: maybe you should have dressed better. Taken a few showers. Washed your clothes a few times. There are plenty of white business people in Bangalore, and they all dress professionally and appropriately. They don’t get nearly as much attention as do white travelers. There’s a reason for that.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. You’ll still get treated better than any brown person could hope to be treated. You’ll show up to the best restaurant, and the maitre’d will wave you in; you’ll go to a mall and the security guard won’t bother to check your bag. The manager of the establishment will show up and offer to give you a personal tour, or off-menu food — all while ignoring the Indian customers that are trying to get his attention.
So dress however you like, its no skin off my nose. But remember: this is what we think of you.
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(reply #1)This is such a necessary post, amen.
(reply #2)LMFAO. so true. If you’re going to look for salvation and spiritual enlightenment, go to a REAL ashram and see how many times the devotees living there take showers or baths every day.
(reply #3)It’s not just the enlightenment idea. There’s an inherent racist view to this. They come and become as “crusty” as possible because they think that’s how South Asians live. They think they’ll blend in with the spirituals because they think that the holy men and women there have forsaken soap and water. They think South Asians all live in inherent poverty and that by looking as “dirty” as them they’ll fit in. I swear white people are the disease of this world.
---
"There are plenty of white business people in Bangalore, and they all dress professionally and appropriately. They don’t get nearly as much attention as do white travelers. There’s a reason for that."(quoted from below)
---
An Edumacation: On white backpackers.
Here’s the thing about white hippies in India: they’re *crusty*.
They’re the only ones wearing clothes that look like they haven’t seen soap. The clothes are ill-fitting and off-colour. Nothing matches, nothing is even trying to match. The women wear yoga pants and harem pants, the men wear sarongs.
They have dreads.
Their hair is in messy buns and looks like it hasn’t been washed in weeks.
The rest of us? If we can afford to, we look good. There are men and women walking around in designer clothing. Our shirts are well-pressed and well-cared for — after all, clothing is important for making a first impression. Our hair is meticulously styled, our jewelry is on point.
White people come to India looking for a break from their normal lives. They expect Indians to abet them in their quest to find enlightenment — mostly, we just think they’re freaks.
We ask to take pictures with them because they look like clowns.
We’ll give them preferential treatment, because anyone who chooses to dress like that is clearly insane, and therefore might spend a lot of money when they don’t need to.
White backpackers aren’t this crusty in Europe. Oh, I’m sure there’s a certain level of crust, but they can’t be as free and unburdened in Europe. There are people of consequence who could see them. Here, they strut around like they don’t have an audience. Like Indians are foliage, there just to provide an exotic backdrop for your grand adventure — they can’t actually see you. If they do see you, it doesn’t matter.
I was guilty of aiding and abetting this sort of behavior, once. I was eighteen, backpacking with three white friends, and we decided to go as crusty as possible. I went so native that Indians thought I was white as well.
My friends complained constantly about how they were treated like freaks, like sideshow attractions
— my thoughts now are: maybe you should have dressed better. Taken a few showers. Washed your clothes a few times. There are plenty of white business people in Bangalore, and they all dress professionally and appropriately. They don’t get nearly as much attention as do white travelers. There’s a reason for that.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. You’ll still get treated better than any brown person could hope to be treated. You’ll show up to the best restaurant, and the maitre’d will wave you in; you’ll go to a mall and the security guard won’t bother to check your bag. The manager of the establishment will show up and offer to give you a personal tour, or off-menu food — all while ignoring the Indian customers that are trying to get his attention.
So dress however you like, its no skin off my nose. But remember: this is what we think of you.
----------
(reply #1)This is such a necessary post, amen.
(reply #2)LMFAO. so true. If you’re going to look for salvation and spiritual enlightenment, go to a REAL ashram and see how many times the devotees living there take showers or baths every day.
(reply #3)It’s not just the enlightenment idea. There’s an inherent racist view to this. They come and become as “crusty” as possible because they think that’s how South Asians live. They think they’ll blend in with the spirituals because they think that the holy men and women there have forsaken soap and water. They think South Asians all live in inherent poverty and that by looking as “dirty” as them they’ll fit in. I swear white people are the disease of this world.
---
Another comment that followed this story
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: December 02, 2013 10:31AM
This article was blogged elsewhere.
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
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A person from Southern India offered this comment.
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Reply #4)This reminds me of when I was 5 years old, my grandma took me to her village (Hunugund in Karnataka) on the train. On our way back home to Hyderabad, our train stopped at some station and we were getting snacks when we saw this 20-something, white girl with long dreads wearing torn hippie pants and a singlet; she was taking photos of some poor kids on the station platform. That was the first time I had seen a caucasian person irl and I was shocked because she looked awful. My grandma started laughing and was like “this girl looks like an ape, what’s wrong with her hair?! When you move to New Zealand don’t turn into a monkey!”
And the funny thing was that this girl thought that the poor kids she was photographing were crowding around her because they’d never seen a camera and she was trying to show them how to use a camera. But really they were laughing at her and calling her a monkey in Kannada because of her dreads/clothes she wore.
Reply #5)This post just perfectly described this girl at my college lol. Except she lived in a west African country for 10 months and now apparently she is also African and knows everything about the entire continent…….
apart from the fact that Morocco is in Africa. She insists on calling me middle eastern and ‘the arabian girl’ idk
Reply #6)Look at all the racist judgmental immature hate. If I want to go live dirty and free in India and be happy who the fuck are any of you to try and make me feel bad about that and do your ego ticklin’ judging. fuck off.
Freedom, assholes.
Reply #7)Omg. I was reading through all that, especially paid attention to that one line where someone said quote “white people are the disease of the world” I was wondering if anyone was going to say anything, and finally got to the bottom. I’m glad I’m not the only one, that was thinking “who cares” they’re seeking enlightenment, and yes they’re going about it the wrong way, but it’s their journey to make. Don’t judge, you’ve all done silly things at one point or another. And BTW what a way to contradict most of what this post was getting at by saying that my race is the disease of the world. Call these people ignorant, but that statement itself was ignorant.
Reply #8)White people travelling around the world and never fucking bathing ever is part of a rich European tradition going back centuries.
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[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
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A person from Southern India offered this comment.
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Reply #4)This reminds me of when I was 5 years old, my grandma took me to her village (Hunugund in Karnataka) on the train. On our way back home to Hyderabad, our train stopped at some station and we were getting snacks when we saw this 20-something, white girl with long dreads wearing torn hippie pants and a singlet; she was taking photos of some poor kids on the station platform. That was the first time I had seen a caucasian person irl and I was shocked because she looked awful. My grandma started laughing and was like “this girl looks like an ape, what’s wrong with her hair?! When you move to New Zealand don’t turn into a monkey!”
And the funny thing was that this girl thought that the poor kids she was photographing were crowding around her because they’d never seen a camera and she was trying to show them how to use a camera. But really they were laughing at her and calling her a monkey in Kannada because of her dreads/clothes she wore.
Reply #5)This post just perfectly described this girl at my college lol. Except she lived in a west African country for 10 months and now apparently she is also African and knows everything about the entire continent…….
apart from the fact that Morocco is in Africa. She insists on calling me middle eastern and ‘the arabian girl’ idk
Reply #6)Look at all the racist judgmental immature hate. If I want to go live dirty and free in India and be happy who the fuck are any of you to try and make me feel bad about that and do your ego ticklin’ judging. fuck off.
Freedom, assholes.
Reply #7)Omg. I was reading through all that, especially paid attention to that one line where someone said quote “white people are the disease of the world” I was wondering if anyone was going to say anything, and finally got to the bottom. I’m glad I’m not the only one, that was thinking “who cares” they’re seeking enlightenment, and yes they’re going about it the wrong way, but it’s their journey to make. Don’t judge, you’ve all done silly things at one point or another. And BTW what a way to contradict most of what this post was getting at by saying that my race is the disease of the world. Call these people ignorant, but that statement itself was ignorant.
Reply #8)White people travelling around the world and never fucking bathing ever is part of a rich European tradition going back centuries.
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If considering an ashram, check news reports
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: December 30, 2013 10:07PM
The Auroville ashram in Pondicherry has been one of the most famous and honored in India.
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Scandal in the Ashram
The world-renowned Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry has come under a cloud with
Imran Khan
2013-08-10 , Issue 32 Volume 10 Print FriendlyPrint & Email
Comment In a mess? The ashram’s image has taken a beating.
In a mess? The ashram’s image has taken a beating. Photo: Nathan G
All is not well with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, a well-known institution for the spiritually inclined, with the state government considering a proposal to take over its administration from the hands of the trustees. With several allegations of inmates facing sexual and other forms of harassment coming to light, the ashram’s image of piety is under threat.
Last year, more than 50 inmates submitted written complaints to the district collector as part of a probe into what goes on inside the ashram. The Puducherry government had ordered the probe after the Union Minister for Women and Child Welfare Krishna Tirath wrote to Chief Minister N Rangaswamy, following several complaints from the inmates. The probe, though, could not be carried forward as the ashram management moved the court questioning the jurisdiction of the Puducherry administration over matters concerning the ashram. Currently, the case is pending with the Madras High Court.
TEHELKA is in possession of the testimonies submitted by the 50-odd inmates to District Collector SB Deepak Kumar in September last year. The testimonies lay bare a long list of sexual harassment and cruel treatment of the ashram’s residents. “We had been receiving several complaints even before the inquiry started,” says Kumar. “Most of it related to financial irregularities, which is not our concern, and so we did not pay attention. However, serious complaints of sexual harassment and physical torture surfaced after we started the probe.”
Take the case of Jayashree Prasad, 52, an inmate since 1983, who says she was beaten up by a close associate of a trustee in July 1996. While she was working in the dining hall, Nonigopal, who she calls a crony of the then trustee Albert Patel, tried to sexually assault her. She claims she was beaten up when she resisted. Her ordeal was repeated in January 2001 when she resisted the sexual advances made by Krishna Chander, considered close to trustee Ved Prakash Johar. This time she was attacked with metal rods. Her appeal to the trustees for help and protection, she says, went unheeded.
Four of her sisters, too, are ashram inmates. When the youngest of them, Hemlatha, 37, tried to raise the issue with the trustees, not only was she reprimanded but all five sisters were barred from the dining hall and issued a show cause notice threatening eviction from the ashram. Even the police told her that according to the ashram rules, inmates are not allowed to approach them and file cases.
“Until 2009, Rule No. 11 of the ashram forbade residents from reporting internal matters to the media or seeking legal recourse except with the consent of the trustees,” says Raman Reddy, in-charge of the ashram’s archives.
After the rule was revoked, the Prasad sisters managed to file a complaint with the police in 2010. Following this, they allege, they were again asked to move out of the ashram. The case went to the high court, which ruled that the sisters should find accommodation outside the ashram, at Jenny Hostel (an ashram-run establishment outside the ashram premises), until the matter was settled. But as the warden of Jenny Hostel refused to accommodate them, they continued to stay in the ashram.
When the Prasad sisters tried to enter the dining hall, the trustees called the police to stop them. Then, the sisters moved the district court for restoration of their right to food and shelter in the ashram premises. The court ruled in their favour, but the ashram management appealed the verdict in the high court, which said the district court cannot review its order. Following this, the sisters moved a special leave petition in the Supreme Court. On 11 July this year, the Supreme Court ordered status quo to be maintained for three weeks, allowing them to stay in the ashram hostel and have food at the dining hall.
Victimised? Dr Gayatri Satapathy was shunted out of the medical department.
Victimised? Dr Gayatri Satapathy was
shunted out of the medical department. Photo: Nathan G
When asked why she and her sisters insist on staying in the ashram despite the harassment, Hemlatha says, “The ashram belongs to inmates like us and not to the trustees who have been misusing their authority.”
In another case, Radha Krishna Das’ wife Shobha Rani allegedly committed suicide in 2003 after facing sexual harassment several times. Das lodged an FIR accusing Nirmal Swain, then the ashram’s legal adviser, of abetment to suicide. The case was dismissed in 2012 by the Puducherry sessions court due to lack of evidence. Two of his daughters, who were ashram inmates, left the ashram after this.
In 2004, Kamal Dora, 60, reported the alleged suicides of residents Kavitha and Meenakshi to the police, and also testified in the Shoba Rani case. He was thrown out of the ashram the next year. Since then, Dora has found shelter in a nearby home for the aged.
SM Annapurna, a former inmate, claims she was thrown out of the ashram for repeatedly raising her voice against sexual harassment of women inmates.
Not just women residents, but also children in the schools run by the ashram have allegedly faced sexual harassment. Lipi Das, who served as a teacher in the ashram school for the past 30 years, says she had faced sexual harassment during her school days. Das says she has been raising this issue periodically in the teachers’ meetings, but “instead of addressing this issue, Managing Trustee Manoj Das Gupta reprimanded me”.
Sunil Sachraj, who grew up in an ashram school, claims he was sexually assaulted by a teacher a number of times. Yet the ashram retained the teacher.
The ashram’s media coordinator Matri Prasad claims that Sachraj never complained about his alleged abuse to the ashram authorities. Radhikaranjan Das, an inmate of the ashram since 1980 and a teacher of Sanskrit and Biology at the ashram school, wrote a blog post in 2008 questioning the “policies and negative stance of the trustees”. He was issued a show cause notice threatening eviction from the ashram and dismissed from his teaching job. Matri Prasad says the ashram had to take disciplinary action because the blog post used “derogatory language”.
The ashram is a tightly knit organisation with five trustees who have absolute control over the 1,400 residents. There are no internal elections for the post of trustees. When a trustee dies, the post is filled purely on the discretion of the remaining trustees. Most of the trustees are also in charge of various departments in the ashram.
An inmate has to submit everything belonging to him or her (including property and academic certificates) to the ashram. The ashram, in turn, takes care of their basic needs like food, shelter and clothing, and allots them work in various departments.
Many residents allege that if they raise their voice against the trustees, they are threatened with denial of basic necessities. Dr Gayatri Satapathy, who joined the ashram’s medical services as a general practitioner in September 1999, says that when she noticed serious embezzlement in the nursing home accounts, she was shunted out of the department by its head Dilip Kumar Dutta, who is also a trustee.
Most police and state government officials refused to comment on matters concerning the ashram. A senior bureaucrat told Tehelka, “These things keep happening. One should not give much air to it. Spirituality is what matters.” Both SSP (Crime) and SP (Law and Order) of Puducherry refused to comment.
Inmates say that all efforts to report abuses in the ashram in the mainstream media have come to naught. Those who have allegedly suffered at the hands of the trustees are demanding that the government should take over the administration of the ashram. They cite the example of Auroville, an “international township” that was earlier under the Aurobindo Ashram but is now managed by a government- appointed administrator. The ruling NR Congress has come out in support of this demand. CM Rangaswamy recently told the Puducherry Assembly that the government is mulling over appointing an administrator to oversee the management of the ashram.
Matri Prasad says that most of the allegations have been levelled by those who are “working against the ashram’s interests” or are not its inmates. “They are miffed because the trustees defended a controversial book written by an American historian living in Puducherry, Peter Heehs (The Lives of Sri Aurobindo),” he says. The book is alleged to hint at a romantic relationship between Aurobindo and his spiritual collaborator, Mira Alfassa, better known as “the Mother”. He claims that the Prasad sisters have been carrying out relentless propaganda against the ashram and were asked to leave the ashram premises as an internal disciplinary measure.
While most of the 50-odd residents who deposed before the district collector last year have been issued show cause notices threatening eviction from the ashram, their allegations will continue to haunt the institution for a long time.
imran@tehelka.com
(Published in Tehelka Magazine, Volume 10 Issue 32, Dated 10 August 2013)
""
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
----------
Scandal in the Ashram
The world-renowned Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry has come under a cloud with
Imran Khan
2013-08-10 , Issue 32 Volume 10 Print FriendlyPrint & Email
Comment In a mess? The ashram’s image has taken a beating.
In a mess? The ashram’s image has taken a beating. Photo: Nathan G
All is not well with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, a well-known institution for the spiritually inclined, with the state government considering a proposal to take over its administration from the hands of the trustees. With several allegations of inmates facing sexual and other forms of harassment coming to light, the ashram’s image of piety is under threat.
Last year, more than 50 inmates submitted written complaints to the district collector as part of a probe into what goes on inside the ashram. The Puducherry government had ordered the probe after the Union Minister for Women and Child Welfare Krishna Tirath wrote to Chief Minister N Rangaswamy, following several complaints from the inmates. The probe, though, could not be carried forward as the ashram management moved the court questioning the jurisdiction of the Puducherry administration over matters concerning the ashram. Currently, the case is pending with the Madras High Court.
TEHELKA is in possession of the testimonies submitted by the 50-odd inmates to District Collector SB Deepak Kumar in September last year. The testimonies lay bare a long list of sexual harassment and cruel treatment of the ashram’s residents. “We had been receiving several complaints even before the inquiry started,” says Kumar. “Most of it related to financial irregularities, which is not our concern, and so we did not pay attention. However, serious complaints of sexual harassment and physical torture surfaced after we started the probe.”
Take the case of Jayashree Prasad, 52, an inmate since 1983, who says she was beaten up by a close associate of a trustee in July 1996. While she was working in the dining hall, Nonigopal, who she calls a crony of the then trustee Albert Patel, tried to sexually assault her. She claims she was beaten up when she resisted. Her ordeal was repeated in January 2001 when she resisted the sexual advances made by Krishna Chander, considered close to trustee Ved Prakash Johar. This time she was attacked with metal rods. Her appeal to the trustees for help and protection, she says, went unheeded.
Four of her sisters, too, are ashram inmates. When the youngest of them, Hemlatha, 37, tried to raise the issue with the trustees, not only was she reprimanded but all five sisters were barred from the dining hall and issued a show cause notice threatening eviction from the ashram. Even the police told her that according to the ashram rules, inmates are not allowed to approach them and file cases.
“Until 2009, Rule No. 11 of the ashram forbade residents from reporting internal matters to the media or seeking legal recourse except with the consent of the trustees,” says Raman Reddy, in-charge of the ashram’s archives.
After the rule was revoked, the Prasad sisters managed to file a complaint with the police in 2010. Following this, they allege, they were again asked to move out of the ashram. The case went to the high court, which ruled that the sisters should find accommodation outside the ashram, at Jenny Hostel (an ashram-run establishment outside the ashram premises), until the matter was settled. But as the warden of Jenny Hostel refused to accommodate them, they continued to stay in the ashram.
When the Prasad sisters tried to enter the dining hall, the trustees called the police to stop them. Then, the sisters moved the district court for restoration of their right to food and shelter in the ashram premises. The court ruled in their favour, but the ashram management appealed the verdict in the high court, which said the district court cannot review its order. Following this, the sisters moved a special leave petition in the Supreme Court. On 11 July this year, the Supreme Court ordered status quo to be maintained for three weeks, allowing them to stay in the ashram hostel and have food at the dining hall.
Victimised? Dr Gayatri Satapathy was shunted out of the medical department.
Victimised? Dr Gayatri Satapathy was
shunted out of the medical department. Photo: Nathan G
When asked why she and her sisters insist on staying in the ashram despite the harassment, Hemlatha says, “The ashram belongs to inmates like us and not to the trustees who have been misusing their authority.”
In another case, Radha Krishna Das’ wife Shobha Rani allegedly committed suicide in 2003 after facing sexual harassment several times. Das lodged an FIR accusing Nirmal Swain, then the ashram’s legal adviser, of abetment to suicide. The case was dismissed in 2012 by the Puducherry sessions court due to lack of evidence. Two of his daughters, who were ashram inmates, left the ashram after this.
In 2004, Kamal Dora, 60, reported the alleged suicides of residents Kavitha and Meenakshi to the police, and also testified in the Shoba Rani case. He was thrown out of the ashram the next year. Since then, Dora has found shelter in a nearby home for the aged.
SM Annapurna, a former inmate, claims she was thrown out of the ashram for repeatedly raising her voice against sexual harassment of women inmates.
Not just women residents, but also children in the schools run by the ashram have allegedly faced sexual harassment. Lipi Das, who served as a teacher in the ashram school for the past 30 years, says she had faced sexual harassment during her school days. Das says she has been raising this issue periodically in the teachers’ meetings, but “instead of addressing this issue, Managing Trustee Manoj Das Gupta reprimanded me”.
Sunil Sachraj, who grew up in an ashram school, claims he was sexually assaulted by a teacher a number of times. Yet the ashram retained the teacher.
The ashram’s media coordinator Matri Prasad claims that Sachraj never complained about his alleged abuse to the ashram authorities. Radhikaranjan Das, an inmate of the ashram since 1980 and a teacher of Sanskrit and Biology at the ashram school, wrote a blog post in 2008 questioning the “policies and negative stance of the trustees”. He was issued a show cause notice threatening eviction from the ashram and dismissed from his teaching job. Matri Prasad says the ashram had to take disciplinary action because the blog post used “derogatory language”.
The ashram is a tightly knit organisation with five trustees who have absolute control over the 1,400 residents. There are no internal elections for the post of trustees. When a trustee dies, the post is filled purely on the discretion of the remaining trustees. Most of the trustees are also in charge of various departments in the ashram.
An inmate has to submit everything belonging to him or her (including property and academic certificates) to the ashram. The ashram, in turn, takes care of their basic needs like food, shelter and clothing, and allots them work in various departments.
Many residents allege that if they raise their voice against the trustees, they are threatened with denial of basic necessities. Dr Gayatri Satapathy, who joined the ashram’s medical services as a general practitioner in September 1999, says that when she noticed serious embezzlement in the nursing home accounts, she was shunted out of the department by its head Dilip Kumar Dutta, who is also a trustee.
Most police and state government officials refused to comment on matters concerning the ashram. A senior bureaucrat told Tehelka, “These things keep happening. One should not give much air to it. Spirituality is what matters.” Both SSP (Crime) and SP (Law and Order) of Puducherry refused to comment.
Inmates say that all efforts to report abuses in the ashram in the mainstream media have come to naught. Those who have allegedly suffered at the hands of the trustees are demanding that the government should take over the administration of the ashram. They cite the example of Auroville, an “international township” that was earlier under the Aurobindo Ashram but is now managed by a government- appointed administrator. The ruling NR Congress has come out in support of this demand. CM Rangaswamy recently told the Puducherry Assembly that the government is mulling over appointing an administrator to oversee the management of the ashram.
Matri Prasad says that most of the allegations have been levelled by those who are “working against the ashram’s interests” or are not its inmates. “They are miffed because the trustees defended a controversial book written by an American historian living in Puducherry, Peter Heehs (The Lives of Sri Aurobindo),” he says. The book is alleged to hint at a romantic relationship between Aurobindo and his spiritual collaborator, Mira Alfassa, better known as “the Mother”. He claims that the Prasad sisters have been carrying out relentless propaganda against the ashram and were asked to leave the ashram premises as an internal disciplinary measure.
While most of the 50-odd residents who deposed before the district collector last year have been issued show cause notices threatening eviction from the ashram, their allegations will continue to haunt the institution for a long time.
imran@tehelka.com
(Published in Tehelka Magazine, Volume 10 Issue 32, Dated 10 August 2013)
Times of India and The Hindu -- Auroville Aug and Sept 2013
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: December 30, 2013 10:14PM
This is a painful situation. Sri Aurobindo, long dead, remains a venerated figure in India. Hence the quite differing view points.
The Hindu-August
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Today's Paper » NATIONAL » TAMIL NADU
PUDUCHERRY, August 6, 2013
Ashram inmates object to govt. move to monitor its functioning
C. Jaisankar
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Strongly opposing CM’s statement in Assembly of appointing an IAS officer,they lodge displeasure with the MLA who raised the issue
The Golden Chain, the alumni fraternity of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (SAICE), has strongly objected to the government’s move of appointing a nominee to monitor the functioning of Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
A group of around 120 aggrieved inmates of the ashram lodged their displeasure to Ashok Anand, the MLA who raised a calling attention in the recently concluded Puducherry Assembly session, demanding the appointment of an IAS ranked officer to monitor the ashram’s functioning citing complaints against the trustees of the Ashram.
They went to the MLA’s house in Avvai Nagar here to lodge their displeasure over the manner in which he handled the issue without verifying facts with the persons concerned.
They also strongly opposed Chief Minister N. Rangasamy’s statement in the Assembly that the government would soon take a decision on the demand for appointing an IAS officer to monitor the functioning of the Ashram.
According to the ashram’s inmates, Puducherry was considered a spiritual town and the Ashram was its heritage and the current events have deeply disturbed them.
“First of all, the allegations are completely false and baseless. They have not been proved in any court of law. Just because some people are making noise, it does not mean something is wrong. When there is no truth in it and nothing has been found so far, what is the need for appointing an observer? It is not acceptable in any way,” Arindam Das, one of the members of Golden Chain, told The Hindu after meeting the MLA.
The Ashram was an 80-year-old towering institution.
There were 1,200 inmates in the Ashram. If the aggrieved persons had solid evidences, they could certainly seek legal remedies. But they were following illegal methods to spread lies.
Meanwhile, a statement signed by Ram Sehgal, Managing Trustee of the Gold Chain Fraternity, said that the members of ‘The Golden Chain,’ inmates of Sri Aurobindo Ashram and devotees from Puducherry felt that there was a calculated attempt being made by a few disgruntled and misguided members in the community with active help from outside to wrest power from the present board of trustees.
The misguided members, who were a small fraction of the community, have been trying to spread false and malicious information with the sole purpose of bringing disrepute to the Ashram leading to external intervention.
But, so far they have not been able to provide even a shred of evidence to point out foul play
Times of India -- August
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Kerala judge to probe Aurobindo ashram affairs
TNN Aug 31, 2013, 03.20AM IST
Tags:
Aurobindo Ashram|
allegations of sexual harassment
CHENNAI: Madras high court has appointed a retired judge of the Kerala high court to probe the allegations of sexual harassment and misappropriation of funds at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust in Puducherry. It, however, rejected pleas for dissolution of the trust and appointment of a neutral administrator to run the ashram.
On Friday, Justice KK Sasidharan, passing final orders on petitions filed both by the ashram and against it, named PR Raman, former judge of the Kerala HC, as inquiry officer by consent of both sides. The judge, who will be assisted by advocate Sathya Sri Priya Easwaran of Kochi, will probe whether there is any truth in four allegations - sexual harassment of women and children; violation of human rights and denial of fundamental rights to the inmates; misappropriation of funds and illegal sale and lease of ashram properties.
Saying the inquiry should be concluded as early as possible, Justice Sasidharan adjourned the matter to November 4 for further proceedings.
The matter relates to an inquiry by district collector of Puducherry into the affairs of the ashram, following complaints by some residents of the ashram and local MLA Ashok Anand. The ashram challenged the inquiry in the HC, which stayed it on October 5, 2012. Since then, the stay was extended periodically.
Counsel for the ashram told the court it was not against an inquiry into the complaints. "The objection was only against the collector conducting an inquiry into the matter with a pre-determined mind," he said. In his counter-affidavit, the collector, however, said opportunity would be given to the ashram to submit its response.
Justice Sasidharan, pointing out the objection was only against the appointment of collector as the inquiry officer and not against inquiry as such, asked whether the parties would agree if a retired judge of a HC is named the inquiry officer. Following their consent, he named Raman to conduct the investigation.
Rejecting the inmates' demand for dissolution of the ashram trust and appointment of an administrator, Justice Sasidharan said a suit for framing a scheme for the administration of the ashram was pending before a district court. "We cannot expand the scope of the petition by appointing an administrator to manage the affairs of the ashram during the currency of inquiry," he said.
Ashram sources said they are happy with the order. "We are never afraid of facing any inquiry. We were concerned with the unfair and partisan manner in which the inquiry was sought to be conducted by the district collector," said a representative of the trust.
Earlier this year, Puducherry CM N Rangasamy had told the assembly that his government would decide on appointing administrators to oversee the trust's functioning after some MLAs alleged financial mismanagement and other irregularities in the ashram. The announcement triggered protests from inmates of the ashram and followers of the revolutionary-turned-poet-philosopher.
-----------
Times of India September
---------------
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Retired HC judge begins probe into allegations against Aurobindo Ashram
Bosco Dominique, TNN Sep 27, 2013, 07.18PM IST
Tags:
Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust|
SAICE|
puducherry news
PUDUCHERRY: Kerala high court retired judge justice P R Raman, who was appointed the inquiry officer to probe the allegations against Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, began his inquiry on Friday.
The retired judge had issued notices to all the respondents, including the Puducherry district collector, deputy collector and tahsildar and others, to appear before him for inquiries on September 27.
More than 15 people, including a representative of the trust, appeared before him and inquiry assistant advocate Sathya Sri Priya Easwaran on Friday. Sources said the retired judge will continue the first round of inquiry until Saturday and will return again to Puducherry at a later date.
The inquiry will focus on whether allegations of sexual harassment of women and children in the ashram are true, whether there is any truth in the allegation regarding violation of human rights and denial of fundamental rights to the inmates of ashram, whether there is any truth in the allegation of misappropriation of ashram funds and whether there is any truth in allegation of illegal sale and lease of ashram properties by the trustees.
It might be recalled that Puducherry district collector S B Deepak Kumar ordered an inquiry by the deputy collector to probe into allegations of sexual harassment of women inmates, financial mismanagement and illegal sale and lease of properties against the ashram trust after receiving a few complaints. However, the trust moved the Madras high court and obtained an interim stay against the inquiry.
While disposing the appeal, Madras high court justice K K Sasidharan appointed the Kerala high court retired judge as the inquiry officer to probe into the allegations after consulting both sides. Again, an appeal was filed by three people before the first bench of the Madras high court against single judge's order of appointing an inquiry office and acting chief justice Rajesh Kumar Agrawal and justice M Sathyanarayanan dismissed the appeal declaring that there was no merit in it.
All India NR Congress founder leader and chief minister N Rangasamy announced on the floor of the legislative assembly in July this year that the government would decide on appointing administrator to oversee the functioning of the trust after consulting the law department. A section of All India NR Congress MLAs claimed that they received several complaints against the ashram trust and urged Rangasamy to appoint an administrator.
The alumni organisation of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education ( SAICE), ashram inmates and followers of the revolutionary-turned-poet philosopher registered their protest against the government's move.
The Hindu-August
------------
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Today's Paper » NATIONAL » TAMIL NADU
PUDUCHERRY, August 6, 2013
Ashram inmates object to govt. move to monitor its functioning
C. Jaisankar
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Strongly opposing CM’s statement in Assembly of appointing an IAS officer,they lodge displeasure with the MLA who raised the issue
The Golden Chain, the alumni fraternity of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (SAICE), has strongly objected to the government’s move of appointing a nominee to monitor the functioning of Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
A group of around 120 aggrieved inmates of the ashram lodged their displeasure to Ashok Anand, the MLA who raised a calling attention in the recently concluded Puducherry Assembly session, demanding the appointment of an IAS ranked officer to monitor the ashram’s functioning citing complaints against the trustees of the Ashram.
They went to the MLA’s house in Avvai Nagar here to lodge their displeasure over the manner in which he handled the issue without verifying facts with the persons concerned.
They also strongly opposed Chief Minister N. Rangasamy’s statement in the Assembly that the government would soon take a decision on the demand for appointing an IAS officer to monitor the functioning of the Ashram.
According to the ashram’s inmates, Puducherry was considered a spiritual town and the Ashram was its heritage and the current events have deeply disturbed them.
“First of all, the allegations are completely false and baseless. They have not been proved in any court of law. Just because some people are making noise, it does not mean something is wrong. When there is no truth in it and nothing has been found so far, what is the need for appointing an observer? It is not acceptable in any way,” Arindam Das, one of the members of Golden Chain, told The Hindu after meeting the MLA.
The Ashram was an 80-year-old towering institution.
There were 1,200 inmates in the Ashram. If the aggrieved persons had solid evidences, they could certainly seek legal remedies. But they were following illegal methods to spread lies.
Meanwhile, a statement signed by Ram Sehgal, Managing Trustee of the Gold Chain Fraternity, said that the members of ‘The Golden Chain,’ inmates of Sri Aurobindo Ashram and devotees from Puducherry felt that there was a calculated attempt being made by a few disgruntled and misguided members in the community with active help from outside to wrest power from the present board of trustees.
The misguided members, who were a small fraction of the community, have been trying to spread false and malicious information with the sole purpose of bringing disrepute to the Ashram leading to external intervention.
But, so far they have not been able to provide even a shred of evidence to point out foul play
Times of India -- August
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Kerala judge to probe Aurobindo ashram affairs
TNN Aug 31, 2013, 03.20AM IST
Tags:
Aurobindo Ashram|
allegations of sexual harassment
CHENNAI: Madras high court has appointed a retired judge of the Kerala high court to probe the allegations of sexual harassment and misappropriation of funds at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust in Puducherry. It, however, rejected pleas for dissolution of the trust and appointment of a neutral administrator to run the ashram.
On Friday, Justice KK Sasidharan, passing final orders on petitions filed both by the ashram and against it, named PR Raman, former judge of the Kerala HC, as inquiry officer by consent of both sides. The judge, who will be assisted by advocate Sathya Sri Priya Easwaran of Kochi, will probe whether there is any truth in four allegations - sexual harassment of women and children; violation of human rights and denial of fundamental rights to the inmates; misappropriation of funds and illegal sale and lease of ashram properties.
Saying the inquiry should be concluded as early as possible, Justice Sasidharan adjourned the matter to November 4 for further proceedings.
The matter relates to an inquiry by district collector of Puducherry into the affairs of the ashram, following complaints by some residents of the ashram and local MLA Ashok Anand. The ashram challenged the inquiry in the HC, which stayed it on October 5, 2012. Since then, the stay was extended periodically.
Counsel for the ashram told the court it was not against an inquiry into the complaints. "The objection was only against the collector conducting an inquiry into the matter with a pre-determined mind," he said. In his counter-affidavit, the collector, however, said opportunity would be given to the ashram to submit its response.
Justice Sasidharan, pointing out the objection was only against the appointment of collector as the inquiry officer and not against inquiry as such, asked whether the parties would agree if a retired judge of a HC is named the inquiry officer. Following their consent, he named Raman to conduct the investigation.
Rejecting the inmates' demand for dissolution of the ashram trust and appointment of an administrator, Justice Sasidharan said a suit for framing a scheme for the administration of the ashram was pending before a district court. "We cannot expand the scope of the petition by appointing an administrator to manage the affairs of the ashram during the currency of inquiry," he said.
Ashram sources said they are happy with the order. "We are never afraid of facing any inquiry. We were concerned with the unfair and partisan manner in which the inquiry was sought to be conducted by the district collector," said a representative of the trust.
Earlier this year, Puducherry CM N Rangasamy had told the assembly that his government would decide on appointing administrators to oversee the trust's functioning after some MLAs alleged financial mismanagement and other irregularities in the ashram. The announcement triggered protests from inmates of the ashram and followers of the revolutionary-turned-poet-philosopher.
-----------
Times of India September
---------------
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Retired HC judge begins probe into allegations against Aurobindo Ashram
Bosco Dominique, TNN Sep 27, 2013, 07.18PM IST
Tags:
Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust|
SAICE|
puducherry news
PUDUCHERRY: Kerala high court retired judge justice P R Raman, who was appointed the inquiry officer to probe the allegations against Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, began his inquiry on Friday.
The retired judge had issued notices to all the respondents, including the Puducherry district collector, deputy collector and tahsildar and others, to appear before him for inquiries on September 27.
More than 15 people, including a representative of the trust, appeared before him and inquiry assistant advocate Sathya Sri Priya Easwaran on Friday. Sources said the retired judge will continue the first round of inquiry until Saturday and will return again to Puducherry at a later date.
The inquiry will focus on whether allegations of sexual harassment of women and children in the ashram are true, whether there is any truth in the allegation regarding violation of human rights and denial of fundamental rights to the inmates of ashram, whether there is any truth in the allegation of misappropriation of ashram funds and whether there is any truth in allegation of illegal sale and lease of ashram properties by the trustees.
It might be recalled that Puducherry district collector S B Deepak Kumar ordered an inquiry by the deputy collector to probe into allegations of sexual harassment of women inmates, financial mismanagement and illegal sale and lease of properties against the ashram trust after receiving a few complaints. However, the trust moved the Madras high court and obtained an interim stay against the inquiry.
While disposing the appeal, Madras high court justice K K Sasidharan appointed the Kerala high court retired judge as the inquiry officer to probe into the allegations after consulting both sides. Again, an appeal was filed by three people before the first bench of the Madras high court against single judge's order of appointing an inquiry office and acting chief justice Rajesh Kumar Agrawal and justice M Sathyanarayanan dismissed the appeal declaring that there was no merit in it.
All India NR Congress founder leader and chief minister N Rangasamy announced on the floor of the legislative assembly in July this year that the government would decide on appointing administrator to oversee the functioning of the trust after consulting the law department. A section of All India NR Congress MLAs claimed that they received several complaints against the ashram trust and urged Rangasamy to appoint an administrator.
The alumni organisation of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education ( SAICE), ashram inmates and followers of the revolutionary-turned-poet philosopher registered their protest against the government's move.
Earlier viewpoints on Auroville
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: December 30, 2013 10:29PM
Local concerns over Indian utopia - BBC NewsMay 24, 2008 ... Auroville sounds like a throwback to the 60s, advocating no rules and leaders
and promising peace and harmony, but Rachel Wright hears ...
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7417864.stm - 59k - Cached - Similar pages
My bizarre childhood in Auroville | News | The Week UKMay 23, 2008 ... The New Age commune revealed on TV is guiltier of child neglect than abuse,
says Loïc Rich.
www.theweek.co.uk/26909/my-bizarre-childhood-auroville - Similar pages
Vananda shiva and Auroville - Lonely Planet travel forumFeb 25, 2012 ... Auroville: I would like to spend about a week in Auroville, again, has ... The
scandal of young local girls and men in Auroville was exposed a ...
www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=2168433 - 111k - Cached - Similar pages
Another Scandal Against a Spiritual Community with the Same PatternJun 4, 2011 ... After years of defeating the “social gravity”, gathering people from all around the
world, Auroville was not always viewed with good eyes by the ...
www.mihaistoian.net/sexual-scandal-auroville/ - 45k - Cached - Similar pages
2008
Local concerns over Indian utopia
Some call The Matrimandir, the giant golden golf ball.
Enlarge Image
Auroville sounds like a throwback to the 60s, advocating no rules and leaders and promising peace and harmony, but Rachel Wright hears claims of exploitation and abuse at the southern Indian community.
Some call it the giant golden golf ball, and the description is just right. The Matrimandir - literally the temple of the Mother - is a huge eight-sided almost-spherical building.
It is surrounded by carefully manicured lawns, something of an achievement in arid southern India, and visitors are allowed in only by special appointment.
I joined a group of tourists, mainly Indians, who were being shown around by a middle-aged Frenchman called Gilles. It struck me as a little strange that a European was showing Indians round a town in their own country.
But then Auroville is a strange place. Gilles, who has lived there since the early 1980s had helped build the Matrimandir.
He enthused about the symbolism, about the symmetry, and about a woman known as the mother, while we stood under an enormous banyan tree, sheltering from the blistering south Indian sun.
The mother was a French woman called Mirra Alfassa, who lived in nearby Pondicherry, a former French colony.
She was a disciple of a well-known Indian philosopher called Shri Aurobindo, who had moved to the town after he was imprisoned under the British Raj.
Pixie dust
Shri Aurobindo believed that evolution was not at an end. The mother decided that Auroville would be where that evolution could continue, a universal town where people from around the world could live together in harmony and unity, without having to worry about food and shelter.
A place where there were no rules, no leaders and no money.
She proclaimed that at its centre would be the Matrimandir, the soul of Auroville. It was only finished this year, in time for the 40th anniversary.
Gilles took us inside. Everything was completely white; the carpets on the floor, the marble on the walls, even the socks we were given to wear so we would not dirty the floors.
Auroville
We ascended a walkway to the upper chamber, and opened the door to see what was said to be the largest crystal in the world, lit by a single shaft of sunlight.
As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, specks of fluff rose up from the carpet twinkling like pixie dust.
We all sat down on mats in front of white pillars that did not actually connect to the ceiling.
Cushions were handed out to protect the columns from being marked when we lent against them. We sat in silence for 15 minutes.
The idea is not necessarily to pray, but rather to be quiet in a holy place.
As we walked out into a wall of heat, Gilles explained that the building of the universal town was going very slowly.
When they began in 1968 the plan had been for a city for 50,000, 40 years later there are only 2,000 people living there, two thirds of them Westerners.
I asked my French guide whether he thought the ideals of the mother had been realised.
Ideal society?
"For an ideal society," he replied, "you have to have ideal people, and we don't have ideal people."
"So how do you make them ideal?" I asked.
Well, the answer is, according to the philosophy of Auroville, through practising yoga. Later I asked Gilles whether there were some residents here less ideal than others.
"I'd get rid of half of them," he told me conspiratorially.
Auroville [Photo: Rachel Wright]
Around 4,000 people are employed at Auroville
Aurovillians receive a small maintenance grant, partly funded by the Indian government. In exchange they are supposed to volunteer for a few hours work every day, "the rest of the time they are seeking the divine", supposedly.
Actually, they are also in the business of making money, there are at least 120 commercial enterprises operating here, making incense, clothes, silk paintings and so on.
Under the rules, they can keep two-thirds of the profits and pay no tax.
The locals think it is not fair. They are the ones who work full-time, and often for less than the Aurovillians get in maintenance grants.
"I feel like a slave," one of them told me.
It's like being back in the days of the British Raj
Worker at Auroville
"Of course they do provide us with jobs," he said, "but it's very difficult for us local Tamils to become members."
"It's like being back in the days of the British Raj," said another.
Abuse claims
"They are allowed to get away with whatever they like, including paying our children to have sex with them, and we are powerless to complain."
To be fair Auroville does do a great deal for the local community; it employs 4000 people, runs schools for local children and has reforested an enormous area that was once a barren landscape.
But even the Aurovillian authorities admit that the community did in the mid-90s include a convicted paedophile.
They say they have strict procedures in place to deal with any incidents that might arise in the future.
Auroville is certainly a strange sort of place, but some way short, I would say, of being an ideal society.
Watch a full investigation by BBC Two's Newsnight into Auroville which includes a detailed response to the allegations from Carel Thieme of the Auroville Working Committee.
From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 24 May, 2008 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
watch a full investigation by BBC Two's Newsnight into Auroville which includes a detailed response to the allegations from Carel Thieme of the Auroville Working Committee.
[news.bbc.co.uk]
-
(Excerpt) BBC news 2008
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
As we walked out into a wall of heat, Gilles explained that the building of the universal town was going very slowly.
When they began in 1968 the plan had been for a city for 50,000, 40 years later there are only 2,000 people living there, two thirds of them Westerners.
I asked my French guide whether he thought the ideals of the mother had been realised.
Ideal society?
"For an ideal society," he replied, "you have to have ideal people, and we don't have ideal people."
"So how do you make them ideal?" I asked.
Well, the answer is, according to the philosophy of Auroville, through practising yoga. Later I asked Gilles whether there were some residents here less ideal than others.
"I'd get rid of half of them," he told me conspiratorially.
Auroville [Photo: Rachel Wright]
Around 4,000 people are employed at Auroville
Aurovillians receive a small maintenance grant, partly funded by the Indian government. In exchange they are supposed to volunteer for a few hours work every day, "the rest of the time they are seeking the divine", supposedly.
Actually, they are also in the business of making money, there are at least 120 commercial enterprises operating here, making incense, clothes, silk paintings and so on.
Under the rules, they can keep two-thirds of the profits and pay no tax.
The locals think it is not fair. They are the ones who work full-time, and often for less than the Aurovillians get in maintenance grants.
"I feel like a slave," one of them told me.
It's like being back in the days of the British Raj
Worker at Auroville
"Of course they do provide us with jobs," he said, "but it's very difficult for us local Tamils to become members."
"It's like being back in the days of the British Raj," said another.
Abuse claims
"They are allowed to get away with whatever they like, including paying our children to have sex with them, and we are powerless to complain."
To be fair Auroville does do a great deal for the local community; it employs 4000 people, runs schools for local children and has reforested an enormous area that was once a barren landscape.
But even the Aurovillian authorities admit that the community did in the mid-90s include a convicted paedophile.
They say they have strict procedures in place to deal with any incidents that might arise in the future.
Auroville is certainly a strange sort of place, but some way short, I would say, of being an ideal society.
Watch a full investigation by BBC Two's Newsnight into Auroville which includes a detailed response to the allegations from Carel Thieme of the Auroville Working Committee.
From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 24 May, 2008 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.
My Bizarre Childhood at Auroville May 23 2008 -- The Week a UK paper
[www.theweek.co.uk]
The New Age commune revealed on TV is guiltier of child neglect than abuse, says Loïc Rich
BY Loïc Rich LAST UPDATED AT 17:49 ON Fri 23 May 2008
I wasn't surprised by the allegations of child abuse at Auroville - a progressive European community in India - that a BBC news team made this week. As a nine-year-old boy I lived there for three months in 1982. The place is a religious sect which shows up the arrogance, naivety and denial of liberal middle-class values. It puts children in serious danger.
A town of great temple-like structures set among palm trees in the Tamil Nadu region of south-east India, Auroville promotes a humanist philosophy, elements of Indian mysticism and a US 'frontier'-style attitude. This either wore you down or toughened you up.
Adults work in construction, farming or even on a newspaper; parenting is a pretty low priority. Anyone could be a guardian, and children were left to run wild from the age of six.
My own mother left me and my seven-year-old sister to fend for ourselves and disappeared to a remote section of the community to be with her lover. We had somewhere to sleep, a well-managed primary school, and day trips on the weekends. At meal times children ate by themselves, with a set of unwritten rules - if you got your hands on sweets you shared them with the group, else you ate outside.
Adults seemed to be there to provide for us, but with complete emotional disengagement. When the infection from a blister spread throughout my arm and I sought out my mother for help, she just dismissed me as an attention-seeker and I had to cycle to the doctor on my own. He rushed me to a hospital that had run out of anaesthetic. I remember being held down by six medics while one made an incision with a scalpel and another squeezed the poison out of my arm.
I learned to fit in with the other children and we became emotionally dependent on each other; a kind of family, with the older children looking after the younger ones. Sex was a hot topic of discussion. Being only nine I knew little of the facts of life, until they were graphically, alarmingly described by my Auroville peers. I heard of acts between fellow pupils, acts with children from the surrounding Tamil villages, and even what I would now regard as serious child abuse by adults.
Indeed, my sister twice had to fend off an attempted attack by an adult who'd persistently tried to get her to accept a lift home on his bicycle.
There were terrifying incidents of indecent exposure. We children rationalised the alleged abuse as something - along with snakes, monsoons and scorpions - that you just had to deal with in Auroville.
The solidarity among us was part Lord of the Flies, part Jonestown cult. Together we shared a hatred of the local Tamil children, who would apparently engage in sex for as little as five rupees, and those who'd been excluded from school for various misdemeanours. I suffered this fate myself when I was wrongfully convicted of stealing a purse by a self-appointed 'council' of children. I was banned from the primary school, no longer welcome in my lodgings, distrusted even by the adults and sent to live in an isolated hut on stilts in a wood. I found the solitude strengthening; I made friends with two other exotically-named outcasts - Gandalf and Mooney. Despite the horrors, there was something hopeful and well-meaning about the place.
After my mother separated from her partner and fell ill we returned to the UK. Naive young people come to Auroville searching for spiritual contentment. Although it espouses a seemingly charitable philosophy of living in harmony with nature and your neighbours, and although it attracts the support of the United Nations and the Indian Government, the community fails in its most basic purpose. Auroville just doesn't know how to care for the people who come there.(unquote)
February 25, 2012 -- Lonely Planet Discussion Thread
-
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
(quote)
9
The scandal of young local girls and men in Auroville was exposed a few years back. Another reason why the community is a scam is that European's are given priority for entry into the community. A couple of years back people from surrounding villages applied for entry and there applications were halted, while they decided how to deal with them. Meanwhile European applications are still being processed. Most of the inhabitants also use people from local villages for labour / servants, yet they are also not residents of Auroville. Whatever the reasons for establishing Auroville were, they are no longer upheld by a large chunk of the population. (unquote)
-
and promising peace and harmony, but Rachel Wright hears ...
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7417864.stm - 59k - Cached - Similar pages
My bizarre childhood in Auroville | News | The Week UKMay 23, 2008 ... The New Age commune revealed on TV is guiltier of child neglect than abuse,
says Loïc Rich.
www.theweek.co.uk/26909/my-bizarre-childhood-auroville - Similar pages
Vananda shiva and Auroville - Lonely Planet travel forumFeb 25, 2012 ... Auroville: I would like to spend about a week in Auroville, again, has ... The
scandal of young local girls and men in Auroville was exposed a ...
www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=2168433 - 111k - Cached - Similar pages
Another Scandal Against a Spiritual Community with the Same PatternJun 4, 2011 ... After years of defeating the “social gravity”, gathering people from all around the
world, Auroville was not always viewed with good eyes by the ...
www.mihaistoian.net/sexual-scandal-auroville/ - 45k - Cached - Similar pages
2008
Local concerns over Indian utopia
Some call The Matrimandir, the giant golden golf ball.
Enlarge Image
Auroville sounds like a throwback to the 60s, advocating no rules and leaders and promising peace and harmony, but Rachel Wright hears claims of exploitation and abuse at the southern Indian community.
Some call it the giant golden golf ball, and the description is just right. The Matrimandir - literally the temple of the Mother - is a huge eight-sided almost-spherical building.
It is surrounded by carefully manicured lawns, something of an achievement in arid southern India, and visitors are allowed in only by special appointment.
I joined a group of tourists, mainly Indians, who were being shown around by a middle-aged Frenchman called Gilles. It struck me as a little strange that a European was showing Indians round a town in their own country.
But then Auroville is a strange place. Gilles, who has lived there since the early 1980s had helped build the Matrimandir.
He enthused about the symbolism, about the symmetry, and about a woman known as the mother, while we stood under an enormous banyan tree, sheltering from the blistering south Indian sun.
The mother was a French woman called Mirra Alfassa, who lived in nearby Pondicherry, a former French colony.
She was a disciple of a well-known Indian philosopher called Shri Aurobindo, who had moved to the town after he was imprisoned under the British Raj.
Pixie dust
Shri Aurobindo believed that evolution was not at an end. The mother decided that Auroville would be where that evolution could continue, a universal town where people from around the world could live together in harmony and unity, without having to worry about food and shelter.
A place where there were no rules, no leaders and no money.
She proclaimed that at its centre would be the Matrimandir, the soul of Auroville. It was only finished this year, in time for the 40th anniversary.
Gilles took us inside. Everything was completely white; the carpets on the floor, the marble on the walls, even the socks we were given to wear so we would not dirty the floors.
Auroville
We ascended a walkway to the upper chamber, and opened the door to see what was said to be the largest crystal in the world, lit by a single shaft of sunlight.
As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, specks of fluff rose up from the carpet twinkling like pixie dust.
We all sat down on mats in front of white pillars that did not actually connect to the ceiling.
Cushions were handed out to protect the columns from being marked when we lent against them. We sat in silence for 15 minutes.
The idea is not necessarily to pray, but rather to be quiet in a holy place.
As we walked out into a wall of heat, Gilles explained that the building of the universal town was going very slowly.
When they began in 1968 the plan had been for a city for 50,000, 40 years later there are only 2,000 people living there, two thirds of them Westerners.
I asked my French guide whether he thought the ideals of the mother had been realised.
Ideal society?
"For an ideal society," he replied, "you have to have ideal people, and we don't have ideal people."
"So how do you make them ideal?" I asked.
Well, the answer is, according to the philosophy of Auroville, through practising yoga. Later I asked Gilles whether there were some residents here less ideal than others.
"I'd get rid of half of them," he told me conspiratorially.
Auroville [Photo: Rachel Wright]
Around 4,000 people are employed at Auroville
Aurovillians receive a small maintenance grant, partly funded by the Indian government. In exchange they are supposed to volunteer for a few hours work every day, "the rest of the time they are seeking the divine", supposedly.
Actually, they are also in the business of making money, there are at least 120 commercial enterprises operating here, making incense, clothes, silk paintings and so on.
Under the rules, they can keep two-thirds of the profits and pay no tax.
The locals think it is not fair. They are the ones who work full-time, and often for less than the Aurovillians get in maintenance grants.
"I feel like a slave," one of them told me.
It's like being back in the days of the British Raj
Worker at Auroville
"Of course they do provide us with jobs," he said, "but it's very difficult for us local Tamils to become members."
"It's like being back in the days of the British Raj," said another.
Abuse claims
"They are allowed to get away with whatever they like, including paying our children to have sex with them, and we are powerless to complain."
To be fair Auroville does do a great deal for the local community; it employs 4000 people, runs schools for local children and has reforested an enormous area that was once a barren landscape.
But even the Aurovillian authorities admit that the community did in the mid-90s include a convicted paedophile.
They say they have strict procedures in place to deal with any incidents that might arise in the future.
Auroville is certainly a strange sort of place, but some way short, I would say, of being an ideal society.
Watch a full investigation by BBC Two's Newsnight into Auroville which includes a detailed response to the allegations from Carel Thieme of the Auroville Working Committee.
From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 24 May, 2008 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
watch a full investigation by BBC Two's Newsnight into Auroville which includes a detailed response to the allegations from Carel Thieme of the Auroville Working Committee.
[news.bbc.co.uk]
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(Excerpt) BBC news 2008
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As we walked out into a wall of heat, Gilles explained that the building of the universal town was going very slowly.
When they began in 1968 the plan had been for a city for 50,000, 40 years later there are only 2,000 people living there, two thirds of them Westerners.
I asked my French guide whether he thought the ideals of the mother had been realised.
Ideal society?
"For an ideal society," he replied, "you have to have ideal people, and we don't have ideal people."
"So how do you make them ideal?" I asked.
Well, the answer is, according to the philosophy of Auroville, through practising yoga. Later I asked Gilles whether there were some residents here less ideal than others.
"I'd get rid of half of them," he told me conspiratorially.
Auroville [Photo: Rachel Wright]
Around 4,000 people are employed at Auroville
Aurovillians receive a small maintenance grant, partly funded by the Indian government. In exchange they are supposed to volunteer for a few hours work every day, "the rest of the time they are seeking the divine", supposedly.
Actually, they are also in the business of making money, there are at least 120 commercial enterprises operating here, making incense, clothes, silk paintings and so on.
Under the rules, they can keep two-thirds of the profits and pay no tax.
The locals think it is not fair. They are the ones who work full-time, and often for less than the Aurovillians get in maintenance grants.
"I feel like a slave," one of them told me.
It's like being back in the days of the British Raj
Worker at Auroville
"Of course they do provide us with jobs," he said, "but it's very difficult for us local Tamils to become members."
"It's like being back in the days of the British Raj," said another.
Abuse claims
"They are allowed to get away with whatever they like, including paying our children to have sex with them, and we are powerless to complain."
To be fair Auroville does do a great deal for the local community; it employs 4000 people, runs schools for local children and has reforested an enormous area that was once a barren landscape.
But even the Aurovillian authorities admit that the community did in the mid-90s include a convicted paedophile.
They say they have strict procedures in place to deal with any incidents that might arise in the future.
Auroville is certainly a strange sort of place, but some way short, I would say, of being an ideal society.
Watch a full investigation by BBC Two's Newsnight into Auroville which includes a detailed response to the allegations from Carel Thieme of the Auroville Working Committee.
From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 24 May, 2008 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.
My Bizarre Childhood at Auroville May 23 2008 -- The Week a UK paper
[www.theweek.co.uk]
The New Age commune revealed on TV is guiltier of child neglect than abuse, says Loïc Rich
BY Loïc Rich LAST UPDATED AT 17:49 ON Fri 23 May 2008
I wasn't surprised by the allegations of child abuse at Auroville - a progressive European community in India - that a BBC news team made this week. As a nine-year-old boy I lived there for three months in 1982. The place is a religious sect which shows up the arrogance, naivety and denial of liberal middle-class values. It puts children in serious danger.
A town of great temple-like structures set among palm trees in the Tamil Nadu region of south-east India, Auroville promotes a humanist philosophy, elements of Indian mysticism and a US 'frontier'-style attitude. This either wore you down or toughened you up.
Adults work in construction, farming or even on a newspaper; parenting is a pretty low priority. Anyone could be a guardian, and children were left to run wild from the age of six.
My own mother left me and my seven-year-old sister to fend for ourselves and disappeared to a remote section of the community to be with her lover. We had somewhere to sleep, a well-managed primary school, and day trips on the weekends. At meal times children ate by themselves, with a set of unwritten rules - if you got your hands on sweets you shared them with the group, else you ate outside.
Adults seemed to be there to provide for us, but with complete emotional disengagement. When the infection from a blister spread throughout my arm and I sought out my mother for help, she just dismissed me as an attention-seeker and I had to cycle to the doctor on my own. He rushed me to a hospital that had run out of anaesthetic. I remember being held down by six medics while one made an incision with a scalpel and another squeezed the poison out of my arm.
I learned to fit in with the other children and we became emotionally dependent on each other; a kind of family, with the older children looking after the younger ones. Sex was a hot topic of discussion. Being only nine I knew little of the facts of life, until they were graphically, alarmingly described by my Auroville peers. I heard of acts between fellow pupils, acts with children from the surrounding Tamil villages, and even what I would now regard as serious child abuse by adults.
Indeed, my sister twice had to fend off an attempted attack by an adult who'd persistently tried to get her to accept a lift home on his bicycle.
There were terrifying incidents of indecent exposure. We children rationalised the alleged abuse as something - along with snakes, monsoons and scorpions - that you just had to deal with in Auroville.
The solidarity among us was part Lord of the Flies, part Jonestown cult. Together we shared a hatred of the local Tamil children, who would apparently engage in sex for as little as five rupees, and those who'd been excluded from school for various misdemeanours. I suffered this fate myself when I was wrongfully convicted of stealing a purse by a self-appointed 'council' of children. I was banned from the primary school, no longer welcome in my lodgings, distrusted even by the adults and sent to live in an isolated hut on stilts in a wood. I found the solitude strengthening; I made friends with two other exotically-named outcasts - Gandalf and Mooney. Despite the horrors, there was something hopeful and well-meaning about the place.
After my mother separated from her partner and fell ill we returned to the UK. Naive young people come to Auroville searching for spiritual contentment. Although it espouses a seemingly charitable philosophy of living in harmony with nature and your neighbours, and although it attracts the support of the United Nations and the Indian Government, the community fails in its most basic purpose. Auroville just doesn't know how to care for the people who come there.(unquote)
February 25, 2012 -- Lonely Planet Discussion Thread
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(quote)
9
The scandal of young local girls and men in Auroville was exposed a few years back. Another reason why the community is a scam is that European's are given priority for entry into the community. A couple of years back people from surrounding villages applied for entry and there applications were halted, while they decided how to deal with them. Meanwhile European applications are still being processed. Most of the inhabitants also use people from local villages for labour / servants, yet they are also not residents of Auroville. Whatever the reasons for establishing Auroville were, they are no longer upheld by a large chunk of the population. (unquote)
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Re: Travel Hazards and Issues India Nepal Bhutan
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: December 30, 2013 10:32PM
Lonely Planet discussion was in February 2012
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Auroville is OK for a visit but a bit of an odd place. I would have thought the main reason for a visit (as a foreigner) would be to volunteer somewhere or attend some sort of programme? Otherwise it is a European-dominated bubble in the middle of India. The philosophy behind it's set-up is not really maintained.
SoulCurry
SoulCurry avatar
Feb 27, 2012 7:28 AM
Posts: 13,454
9
The scandal of young local girls and men in Auroville was exposed a few years back. Another reason why the community is a scam is that European's are given priority for entry into the community. A couple of years back people from surrounding villages applied for entry and there applications were halted, while they decided how to deal with them. Meanwhile European applications are still being processed. Most of the inhabitants also use people from local villages for labour / servants, yet they are also not residents of Auroville. Whatever the reasons for establishing Auroville were, they are no longer upheld by a large chunk of the population.
Nalu
Nalu avatar
Feb 28, 2012 2:20 PM
Posts: 16
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Auroville is OK for a visit but a bit of an odd place. I would have thought the main reason for a visit (as a foreigner) would be to volunteer somewhere or attend some sort of programme? Otherwise it is a European-dominated bubble in the middle of India. The philosophy behind it's set-up is not really maintained.
SoulCurry
SoulCurry avatar
Feb 27, 2012 7:28 AM
Posts: 13,454
9
The scandal of young local girls and men in Auroville was exposed a few years back. Another reason why the community is a scam is that European's are given priority for entry into the community. A couple of years back people from surrounding villages applied for entry and there applications were halted, while they decided how to deal with them. Meanwhile European applications are still being processed. Most of the inhabitants also use people from local villages for labour / servants, yet they are also not residents of Auroville. Whatever the reasons for establishing Auroville were, they are no longer upheld by a large chunk of the population.
Nalu
Nalu avatar
Feb 28, 2012 2:20 PM
Posts: 16
Re: Travel Hazards and Issues India Nepal Bhutan
Posted by:
Vera City
()
Date: January 01, 2014 07:01PM
Interesting posts on travel to India and psych
repercussions.
Years ago while traveling in Europe, my traveling companion and I decided we should go to India.
We got as far as Spain... thank my lucky stars.
I would not have been mature enough or prepared.
While I was in Florence, Italy I had long conversations
with an older, English gentleman camping in the same park with us.
He had spent a lot of time in India. When I shared my dream,
he told me the reality of India with the corpses on the roadside, the stench, the filth,
the untenable poverty...
That I would be shocked at the fact that most of the gurus are fake and most Indians think ALL American women are whores and sluts.
What he spoke about really disturbed me and contradicted what I had been hearing and reading about India...you know, the Beatles, Mia Farrow, sitar music...
I was pissed off that he busted my bubble, but I am glad he did because we decided to go back home and finish college. Good move.
It also gave me the backbone to question friends who were joining eastern flavored groups...and later when I encountered individuals escaping the Butler cult.
At this same park in Italy we also ran into a guy who had hitch-hiked
across Turkey, Iran, to India. He was well educated and from a wealthy family. This was in the late 60's before the Islamic revolution. (You can't do this now). He said that his female companion had to periodically pay with sexual
favors along the way for rides, especially in Islamic areas. They were not a couple and she was a "free-wheeling" hippie chick who was not bothered
by this; but rather chalked it up to "life experience". This horrified me!
Ever read the book or see the movie "Hideous Kinky"?. It's a true story. Written from a child's view of a mother who drags her two young daughters into one of these "life experiences" in Marakesh.
"Hideous Kinky"
and book HIDEOUS KINKY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
I know, I know, people go to India and have a great time and don't get mixed up with crooks and crazy gurus and hideous, kinky experiences.
It is an amazing country and culture.
But they go there knowing where to stay, what to eat, how to deal with the culture. But many still get swept away. So it's better to be cautious to have enriching experiences. Understand your own naivete and vulnerability as a westerner traveling in India.
Here is a delightful and funny movie I thought I would hate but ended up loving: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
repercussions.
Years ago while traveling in Europe, my traveling companion and I decided we should go to India.
We got as far as Spain... thank my lucky stars.
I would not have been mature enough or prepared.
While I was in Florence, Italy I had long conversations
with an older, English gentleman camping in the same park with us.
He had spent a lot of time in India. When I shared my dream,
he told me the reality of India with the corpses on the roadside, the stench, the filth,
the untenable poverty...
That I would be shocked at the fact that most of the gurus are fake and most Indians think ALL American women are whores and sluts.
What he spoke about really disturbed me and contradicted what I had been hearing and reading about India...you know, the Beatles, Mia Farrow, sitar music...
I was pissed off that he busted my bubble, but I am glad he did because we decided to go back home and finish college. Good move.
It also gave me the backbone to question friends who were joining eastern flavored groups...and later when I encountered individuals escaping the Butler cult.
At this same park in Italy we also ran into a guy who had hitch-hiked
across Turkey, Iran, to India. He was well educated and from a wealthy family. This was in the late 60's before the Islamic revolution. (You can't do this now). He said that his female companion had to periodically pay with sexual
favors along the way for rides, especially in Islamic areas. They were not a couple and she was a "free-wheeling" hippie chick who was not bothered
by this; but rather chalked it up to "life experience". This horrified me!
Ever read the book or see the movie "Hideous Kinky"?. It's a true story. Written from a child's view of a mother who drags her two young daughters into one of these "life experiences" in Marakesh.
"Hideous Kinky"
and book HIDEOUS KINKY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
I know, I know, people go to India and have a great time and don't get mixed up with crooks and crazy gurus and hideous, kinky experiences.
It is an amazing country and culture.
But they go there knowing where to stay, what to eat, how to deal with the culture. But many still get swept away. So it's better to be cautious to have enriching experiences. Understand your own naivete and vulnerability as a westerner traveling in India.
Here is a delightful and funny movie I thought I would hate but ended up loving: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Analysis by Indian Social Scientists of Ashram Hazards
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: February 06, 2014 12:04AM
[dialogueireland.wordpress.com]
(quote)
RSS comments feed: [dialogueireland.wordpress.com]
The Sex Lives of Godmen Of spiritual Healers, hypnosis artists and sexual exploiters BY Mihir Srivastava
Posted on December 10, 2013 by dialogueireland
This essay from Open Magazine/ 5 October 2013 is a very helpful analysis from an Indian perspective of the issues we have been dealing with in regard to both sexual abuse in some Christian contexts, but more directly in regard to our commentary in regard to Tantric Sex in Lamaism. Because it does not directly look at the Tibetan Tantra directly, but shows the way westerners approach this subject it is a helpful mirror to hold up to these practices in the West. It also has relevance for those studying the influence of Tony Quinn.12414.sexlives-1
Indian and Western nirvana seekers differ in their attitudes to sexuality.
[www.openthemagazine.com]
Asaram Bapu is no longer on Aastha channel, his sermons on which had become something of a morning ritual for many Indians over the past few years. He is now in jail, accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl at his ashram in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. The term ‘bapu’ is an honorific. It means ‘father’ in Hindi, and in a culture where such an elder gets utmost respect, the irony is not lost on all those who sympathise with the victim of his alleged assault.
While there is no reason to suspect all godmen of depravity, it is alarming how common it is for them to sexually exploit their trusting disciples. This report is based on dozens of FIRs and testimonies of victims, as also the views of sociologists and psychologists who have helped victims and interacted with godmen. The term ‘godmen’ here refers not only to cult leaders like Asaram, but all yogis, maulvis, fakirs, gurus, swamis, pastors and priests who make mystical claims and hold devotees in awe.
12414.sexlives-2
The way many of them operate as sexual predators can be generalised. In terms of psychology, they create the paraphernalia to overcome what they suffer from: typically, some form of paraphilia (‘other attraction’ literally) or psychosexual disorder in which they obtain sexual gratification through unusual practices that are harmful or humiliating to others (and socially repugnant). Voyeurism and paedophilia are among the forms it could take.
12414.sexlives-3
Many of them try to draw legitimacy from dubious interpretations of ancient beliefs. “There is a whole esoteric tradition of tantra, where spiritual bliss is achieved by sexual union,” says Kiranmayi Bhushi, a Delhi-based sociologist who has a keen interest in religion and tantra, “They exploit this tradition to lure unsuspecting nirvana seekers, especially from the West.”
Typically, the victims of such predators are either foreigners seeking spiritual solace or girls of middle-class families struggling with the pangs of early adulthood. Sometimes the victims are children, sometimes girls and boys with disabilities.
12414.sexlives-4
+++
Rape, defined mildly, is sex without consent. A rapist creates an environment or situation where the seeking of consent becomes redundant. This is because the power equation between the perpetrator and the victim is skewed against the latter. For this reason, ashrams are “potentially prime sites of violations”, says Sanjay Srivastava, a professor of Sociology at Delhi University’s Institute of Economic Growth. At an ashram, the presiding guru is supreme. By tradition, he is not to be questioned. He is a spiritual master at whose feet his disciples are required to relinquish their ego. “The disciples are abject in front of the guru,” says Srivastava. The idea of consent, in contrast, is one of equality. It is a modern concept, he says. And in a situation where the very individuality of the disciple is rendered non-existent, consent loses relevance.
Gurus who prey on their disciples often pretend to be spiritual healers who, inspired by a higher purpose, insist on the use of their sexual organs to bestow them with beneficence. They draw strength from superstitions, thrive on the naivete of those who see them as godly, and pose as mediators of divine favour. Their seduction scripts may vary but are always purposive and well-rehearsed with spiritual talk to trap gullible children, women and men.
“I have stopped commenting on people’s sex lives,” says Sudhir Kakar, a leading psychoanalyst and writer, in response to a question on the phenomenon. His refers me to his book Mad and Divine that examines the relationship between religious rituals and healing traditions, both Eastern and Western, and also details the lives of some extraordinary men. The book has chapters on Osho Rajneesh, Satya Sai Baba and the Buddhist seer Drukpa Kunley. Among the points Kakar’s book makes is that godmen often repress their sexuality, denying it vent, very early in their lives. As they age, however, they begin to lose their carnal restraints as their sexuality re-asserts itself forcefully. It is a potent urge that needs to be integrated with their day-to-day selves. And being in positions of power with so many devotees in such abject genuflection to their larger-than-life images, they find easy opportunities to indulge that urge.
12414.sexlives-5
+++
Sex at such ashrams is marketed as a healing tool. Take the case of this working couple in their early thirties, married for five years and living in south Delhi: the Sharmas. Their basic problem, as they explained to a cult leader they had faith in, was that they had no problem big enough to challenge them anymore. They had lost the magic in their relationship and lives.
The cult leader, a prominent figure on television, gave them a close hearing and asked them to stay over at his ashram located in the Himalayan foothills. Within two days of their arrival there, they were huddled into a dimly lit hall with about 50 other people—singles, couples, even groups, most of them approaching middle-age—to be treated to a rhythmic recital of musical mantras.
After a brief sermon on the merit of ‘letting go’, the session started. As it went on, the lights grew dimmer and the music deafening till the point that the Sharmas could neither see nor talk to each other. Like everyone else, they were swaying with the rhythm, and were soon separated in a maze of dancing silhouettes. It was now a hallful of warm bodies, a sort of single organic mass with all identities blurred, as everyone began hugging, patting and kissing someone or the other. The Sharmas did, too—who, they did not know.
“This way, they destroy all previous bondings,” says J, a 45-year-old British woman who was sexually exploited by a yoga guru with whom she was staying. She speaks of her experiences here over Skype. She loves India, J says, but loves to hate godmen. They destroy all bonds that people may have had before they reach the ashram, as if everything one did till that point was futile. She chafes as she recollects her time in Pune, where she was reduced to a sex worker for a guru she does not want to name. “I was like his dasi (slave),” says J, “I was made to believe his sexually exploitation of me was a gift to cherish.”
It is usually about the forging of new bonds, the most potent being the one with the godman himself. This is the bond that defines everything else. It is an unequal one, in that it is taboo even to think of asking the godman a question.
12414.sexlives-6Pictures by RAUL IRANI
Disciples must commit themselves to unconditional faith in him. The godman works his charm through a skillful modulation of voice, which has a “hypnotic quality to it”, says J. “I would feel that the voice is coming from distant place when he spoke to me.”
After their dim hall session, the Sharmas had sexual liaisons— individually—with many others. They felt elated by the experience. It was what their dull lives had been missing, it seemed. Their guilt in the extramarital romps subsided as the evening proceeded and euphoria rose. There was a hum in the air as they subsumed their selves in the larger whole. It was all about selfless devotion. Sexual devotion to the guru usually follow such communes. “[Godmen] have in them an insatiable need to have sex because they practice yoga, which activates their kundalis—the centres of their consciousness,” says one of the Sharmas.
One-on-one sessions are held in the privacy of the guru’s chamber, and disciples are informed of the schedule in advance. These invitations are issued with words that portray it as an honour, a profound event that would uplift and change their lives forever. Disciples are often given some reading material which they may not share with anyone else. In a few cases, a private date with the godman is announced all of a sudden, taking the victims and their families by surprise. Asaram Bapu was known for such instant turns of whim.
Sharma, the wife, remembers the private ‘blessings’ they received at the ashram only faintly, in disjoint flashes of memory. Her husband was asked to spend that night meditating. She has vague recollections of being touched, embraced, of a damp floor in a smoky room with a flickering red lamp, and of an abdomen stirred with sensations. After that, she remembers nothing. She woke up when two women shook her. “You have been blessed by the Guruji,” she was told.
+++
Victims rarely speak out, but do disclose how godmen seek to combine yoga with sex. In many cases, the chosen person is asked to sit in lotus position in front of the godman amid elaborate preparations for a ritual: fire, incense, fruits and so on. The guru maintains a meditative pose with eyes shut, as if in direct communion with divinity, and then makes a short sermon that involves touch as a means to get the message across.
A Russian girl who was raped in Rishikesh multiple times told a psychologist that when her rapist godman would touch her forehead, she would feel his energy transfer into her. “It was so soothing,” she recounts of her first time. The touch turned into an embrace, and she remembers the security of the warmth she had felt. He then asked her to take her clothes off for an unimpeded transfer of energy, had her sit on his lap, and went ahead.
Some brazenly sexual acts are accorded the status of divine rituals. According to a 27-year-old girl, a software engineer based in Bangalore, she was made to perform rudrabhishek on a guru in Pune who she had trusted. This ritual required her to pour milk and honey on his penis and fellate him.
In another case, a cult leader who was once hailed as one of India’s biggest individual earners of foreign exchange, asked a Frenchman who was 35 at the time to lie flat and naked on the floor. After applying sandalwood paste on his chest and forehead, the guru placed a foot on his abdomen as if he was a doormat, and then bent forward and held his penis in his fist for half an hour as a conduit of energy.
“This is not spiritualism,” objected the Frenchman as the godman began a session of oral conduction. But so taken was he with the “enormously gracious” presence of his guru, he gave in to his will without further protest. “His fingers had an electric charge,” he says, recalling how the guru ran his hands through his hair as he performed oral sex. “He made perfect sense to me about what I was experiencing in my life at that point,” he says.
Today, the Frenchman has mixed feelings about that experience. He hadn’t felt violated, but was left puzzled. “It is the undigested part of my spiritual appetite,” he says, in recognition now of the farce that it was. His fascination with spiritualism in India, however, has not diminished. He is camping in Dharamshala these days.
While some have vivid memories, many of those exploited have only foggy details of it, a result of the hynoactive methods these godmen use—often along with sedatives and psychoactive drugs. “Godmen redefine reality for them,” says Rajat Mitra, a psychologist who has dealt with godmen and their victims, “They shake their core identity traits. They convince what they did so far was all in vain. They have a powerful pull.”
It is not uncommon for those who believe they need healing to have their bodies respond receptively to sexual stimuli. An orgasm, in such a paradigm, is a form of spiritual awakening.
+++
A psychologist who has studied cases of rape was hired by a renowned church in north India to monitor a preacher who was transferred from Europe, where he was found indulging in acts of paedophilia. He was in Delhi for a year and the psychologist would hold regular psychoanalytical sessions with him.
Later, the preacher was found to have established liaisons with young boys even in India. “They just can’t control themselves,” says the psychologist, who doesn’t want to be named. The higher authorities of the Church were informed of the preacher’s inclinations, and he was transferred to a country in Africa.
The following incident is bizarre. A 15-year-old girl was raped on the first floor of her own family house in West Delhi by a tantric. Her family members heard her cry out, but did not intervene because they assumed it was part of an occult ritual. The tantric had promised the family a change in their fortunes if they let him perform this hours-long exercise in isolation except for the company of a ‘pure soul’, which he convinced them resides in the bodies of adolescent virgin girls. The family volunteered their own 15-year-old daughter. The tantric left with assurances of a turn in the family’s luck. The girl was too dazed to say anything. Later, when she told them what had happened, the family refused to believe her. By the time they realised the enormity of the crime, it was too late to haul up the tantric. He had gone missing.
In another shocking case, the Gurbani lessons of a teenager turned to horror. The girl, the daughter of a university professor in Delhi, always sang well and so her parents arranged for a granthi (learned in the Guru Granth Sahib), a man in his late twenties, to visit their home twice a week to give her lessons in religious singing. She found his pats of encouragement inappropriate, and so she complained to her parents of discomfort with the teacher’s touch. They did not see anything amiss and asked her to carry on taking classes. And then one day, when the girl’s parents were away, he sexually assaulted her.
The case of K Ramesh, a priest at a church in Gosavedu village in Gampalagudem mandal is another example of such a sickening violation of trust. Ramesh was arrested on charges of raping a 16-year-old Scheduled Tribe girl who he had taken to Hyderabad with her parents’ permission on the assurance that he would take care of her education. He raped her several times over the next few days, returned with her to Gosavedu, and assaulted her again. The girl’s father reported the matter to the police.
+++
“Sex is the only way they get a high,” observes Mitra, who has a close understanding of the phenomenon.
Victims do resist the advances of godmen, but they often do not even realise when a red line of violation has been crossed.
No consent is either sought or obtained, since rape is packaged as a healing process or some other form of blessing.
The Briton who was raped about seven times over a span of ten days by a yoga guru in Haridwar smelt a rat when he told her that she would have to sleep with other preachers at the ashram for the upliftment of her soul.
According to Mitra, ill-intended commune activities tend to dismantle those aspects of victims’ personalities by which they invoke individual choices. This blurs their instinct of self-preservation, leaving them vulnerable and emotionally dependent on the godman. “The collective sessions are hypnotic in nature,” says Mitra, “and they make your previous self dissolve in the collective… This gives [victims] a sense of liberty because they are detached from their past—a cause of stress and indignation in their lives. But this liberty is laced with vulnerability.”
Having observed godmen, Mitra points out some common aspects of their behaviour and psyche. For example, by raising their arms and spreading them wide while facing their followers, they adopt a posture that gives them a sense of power. They have usually had difficult childhoods, been exposed to scriptures and spirituality early in life (impressing onlookers), and are typically rebellious attention-seekers as a personality type.
The sad part is how often they get away with their exploitation of devotees. Many victims do not lodge complaints, says Mitra, as they are ashamed of how they allowed it to happen in the first place. In the broader social context, Srivastava speaks of a need for people to anchor themselves firmly against insecurities caused by rapid changes in the environment and economy. Godmen sometimes give followers a moral blanket of security that helps restrain their consumerist streak. It is a notional shelter that need not be as safe as they suppose. Srivastava also says that Indian and Western nirvana seekers differ in their attitudes to sexuality. In India, he says, the faculties that “question hierarchies” remain stunted. Also, rape here is seen as defilement of a woman’s body. In the West, ever since the alternative movements of the 1960s, rebels against the strict sexual norms of Christianity have looked towards India as a relaxed place where sex is seen as ennobling, as part of a spiritual quest.
“In Goa, they do it openly: sex, drugs and spiritualism is one wholesome package,” says a 43-year-old Russian painter who spends three months in Goa every year and has visited dozens of ashrams and retreats in India. “Many ashrams in Varanasi do the same,” she says, bemused, “but never acknowledge it as carnal.”
Such godmen thrive on cult support, of which they have found plenty overseas, says J. The Western youth of the 1960s and 70s were experimental, she says, and since they were rebellious and did not know what they wanted, they saw deviant lifestyles as profound. This demand drew legions of godmen of all descriptions, all of them holding aloft the prospect of a better life by blurring the line between carnal and spiritual pursuits. “These two worlds merge,” says J. One day, she promises, she will write a book about how ungodly these godmen are.
(unquote)
(quote)
RSS comments feed: [dialogueireland.wordpress.com]
The Sex Lives of Godmen Of spiritual Healers, hypnosis artists and sexual exploiters BY Mihir Srivastava
Posted on December 10, 2013 by dialogueireland
This essay from Open Magazine/ 5 October 2013 is a very helpful analysis from an Indian perspective of the issues we have been dealing with in regard to both sexual abuse in some Christian contexts, but more directly in regard to our commentary in regard to Tantric Sex in Lamaism. Because it does not directly look at the Tibetan Tantra directly, but shows the way westerners approach this subject it is a helpful mirror to hold up to these practices in the West. It also has relevance for those studying the influence of Tony Quinn.12414.sexlives-1
Indian and Western nirvana seekers differ in their attitudes to sexuality.
[www.openthemagazine.com]
Asaram Bapu is no longer on Aastha channel, his sermons on which had become something of a morning ritual for many Indians over the past few years. He is now in jail, accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl at his ashram in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. The term ‘bapu’ is an honorific. It means ‘father’ in Hindi, and in a culture where such an elder gets utmost respect, the irony is not lost on all those who sympathise with the victim of his alleged assault.
While there is no reason to suspect all godmen of depravity, it is alarming how common it is for them to sexually exploit their trusting disciples. This report is based on dozens of FIRs and testimonies of victims, as also the views of sociologists and psychologists who have helped victims and interacted with godmen. The term ‘godmen’ here refers not only to cult leaders like Asaram, but all yogis, maulvis, fakirs, gurus, swamis, pastors and priests who make mystical claims and hold devotees in awe.
12414.sexlives-2
The way many of them operate as sexual predators can be generalised. In terms of psychology, they create the paraphernalia to overcome what they suffer from: typically, some form of paraphilia (‘other attraction’ literally) or psychosexual disorder in which they obtain sexual gratification through unusual practices that are harmful or humiliating to others (and socially repugnant). Voyeurism and paedophilia are among the forms it could take.
12414.sexlives-3
Many of them try to draw legitimacy from dubious interpretations of ancient beliefs. “There is a whole esoteric tradition of tantra, where spiritual bliss is achieved by sexual union,” says Kiranmayi Bhushi, a Delhi-based sociologist who has a keen interest in religion and tantra, “They exploit this tradition to lure unsuspecting nirvana seekers, especially from the West.”
Typically, the victims of such predators are either foreigners seeking spiritual solace or girls of middle-class families struggling with the pangs of early adulthood. Sometimes the victims are children, sometimes girls and boys with disabilities.
12414.sexlives-4
+++
Rape, defined mildly, is sex without consent. A rapist creates an environment or situation where the seeking of consent becomes redundant. This is because the power equation between the perpetrator and the victim is skewed against the latter. For this reason, ashrams are “potentially prime sites of violations”, says Sanjay Srivastava, a professor of Sociology at Delhi University’s Institute of Economic Growth. At an ashram, the presiding guru is supreme. By tradition, he is not to be questioned. He is a spiritual master at whose feet his disciples are required to relinquish their ego. “The disciples are abject in front of the guru,” says Srivastava. The idea of consent, in contrast, is one of equality. It is a modern concept, he says. And in a situation where the very individuality of the disciple is rendered non-existent, consent loses relevance.
Gurus who prey on their disciples often pretend to be spiritual healers who, inspired by a higher purpose, insist on the use of their sexual organs to bestow them with beneficence. They draw strength from superstitions, thrive on the naivete of those who see them as godly, and pose as mediators of divine favour. Their seduction scripts may vary but are always purposive and well-rehearsed with spiritual talk to trap gullible children, women and men.
“I have stopped commenting on people’s sex lives,” says Sudhir Kakar, a leading psychoanalyst and writer, in response to a question on the phenomenon. His refers me to his book Mad and Divine that examines the relationship between religious rituals and healing traditions, both Eastern and Western, and also details the lives of some extraordinary men. The book has chapters on Osho Rajneesh, Satya Sai Baba and the Buddhist seer Drukpa Kunley. Among the points Kakar’s book makes is that godmen often repress their sexuality, denying it vent, very early in their lives. As they age, however, they begin to lose their carnal restraints as their sexuality re-asserts itself forcefully. It is a potent urge that needs to be integrated with their day-to-day selves. And being in positions of power with so many devotees in such abject genuflection to their larger-than-life images, they find easy opportunities to indulge that urge.
12414.sexlives-5
+++
Sex at such ashrams is marketed as a healing tool. Take the case of this working couple in their early thirties, married for five years and living in south Delhi: the Sharmas. Their basic problem, as they explained to a cult leader they had faith in, was that they had no problem big enough to challenge them anymore. They had lost the magic in their relationship and lives.
The cult leader, a prominent figure on television, gave them a close hearing and asked them to stay over at his ashram located in the Himalayan foothills. Within two days of their arrival there, they were huddled into a dimly lit hall with about 50 other people—singles, couples, even groups, most of them approaching middle-age—to be treated to a rhythmic recital of musical mantras.
After a brief sermon on the merit of ‘letting go’, the session started. As it went on, the lights grew dimmer and the music deafening till the point that the Sharmas could neither see nor talk to each other. Like everyone else, they were swaying with the rhythm, and were soon separated in a maze of dancing silhouettes. It was now a hallful of warm bodies, a sort of single organic mass with all identities blurred, as everyone began hugging, patting and kissing someone or the other. The Sharmas did, too—who, they did not know.
“This way, they destroy all previous bondings,” says J, a 45-year-old British woman who was sexually exploited by a yoga guru with whom she was staying. She speaks of her experiences here over Skype. She loves India, J says, but loves to hate godmen. They destroy all bonds that people may have had before they reach the ashram, as if everything one did till that point was futile. She chafes as she recollects her time in Pune, where she was reduced to a sex worker for a guru she does not want to name. “I was like his dasi (slave),” says J, “I was made to believe his sexually exploitation of me was a gift to cherish.”
It is usually about the forging of new bonds, the most potent being the one with the godman himself. This is the bond that defines everything else. It is an unequal one, in that it is taboo even to think of asking the godman a question.
12414.sexlives-6Pictures by RAUL IRANI
Disciples must commit themselves to unconditional faith in him. The godman works his charm through a skillful modulation of voice, which has a “hypnotic quality to it”, says J. “I would feel that the voice is coming from distant place when he spoke to me.”
After their dim hall session, the Sharmas had sexual liaisons— individually—with many others. They felt elated by the experience. It was what their dull lives had been missing, it seemed. Their guilt in the extramarital romps subsided as the evening proceeded and euphoria rose. There was a hum in the air as they subsumed their selves in the larger whole. It was all about selfless devotion. Sexual devotion to the guru usually follow such communes. “[Godmen] have in them an insatiable need to have sex because they practice yoga, which activates their kundalis—the centres of their consciousness,” says one of the Sharmas.
One-on-one sessions are held in the privacy of the guru’s chamber, and disciples are informed of the schedule in advance. These invitations are issued with words that portray it as an honour, a profound event that would uplift and change their lives forever. Disciples are often given some reading material which they may not share with anyone else. In a few cases, a private date with the godman is announced all of a sudden, taking the victims and their families by surprise. Asaram Bapu was known for such instant turns of whim.
Sharma, the wife, remembers the private ‘blessings’ they received at the ashram only faintly, in disjoint flashes of memory. Her husband was asked to spend that night meditating. She has vague recollections of being touched, embraced, of a damp floor in a smoky room with a flickering red lamp, and of an abdomen stirred with sensations. After that, she remembers nothing. She woke up when two women shook her. “You have been blessed by the Guruji,” she was told.
+++
Victims rarely speak out, but do disclose how godmen seek to combine yoga with sex. In many cases, the chosen person is asked to sit in lotus position in front of the godman amid elaborate preparations for a ritual: fire, incense, fruits and so on. The guru maintains a meditative pose with eyes shut, as if in direct communion with divinity, and then makes a short sermon that involves touch as a means to get the message across.
A Russian girl who was raped in Rishikesh multiple times told a psychologist that when her rapist godman would touch her forehead, she would feel his energy transfer into her. “It was so soothing,” she recounts of her first time. The touch turned into an embrace, and she remembers the security of the warmth she had felt. He then asked her to take her clothes off for an unimpeded transfer of energy, had her sit on his lap, and went ahead.
Some brazenly sexual acts are accorded the status of divine rituals. According to a 27-year-old girl, a software engineer based in Bangalore, she was made to perform rudrabhishek on a guru in Pune who she had trusted. This ritual required her to pour milk and honey on his penis and fellate him.
In another case, a cult leader who was once hailed as one of India’s biggest individual earners of foreign exchange, asked a Frenchman who was 35 at the time to lie flat and naked on the floor. After applying sandalwood paste on his chest and forehead, the guru placed a foot on his abdomen as if he was a doormat, and then bent forward and held his penis in his fist for half an hour as a conduit of energy.
“This is not spiritualism,” objected the Frenchman as the godman began a session of oral conduction. But so taken was he with the “enormously gracious” presence of his guru, he gave in to his will without further protest. “His fingers had an electric charge,” he says, recalling how the guru ran his hands through his hair as he performed oral sex. “He made perfect sense to me about what I was experiencing in my life at that point,” he says.
Today, the Frenchman has mixed feelings about that experience. He hadn’t felt violated, but was left puzzled. “It is the undigested part of my spiritual appetite,” he says, in recognition now of the farce that it was. His fascination with spiritualism in India, however, has not diminished. He is camping in Dharamshala these days.
While some have vivid memories, many of those exploited have only foggy details of it, a result of the hynoactive methods these godmen use—often along with sedatives and psychoactive drugs. “Godmen redefine reality for them,” says Rajat Mitra, a psychologist who has dealt with godmen and their victims, “They shake their core identity traits. They convince what they did so far was all in vain. They have a powerful pull.”
It is not uncommon for those who believe they need healing to have their bodies respond receptively to sexual stimuli. An orgasm, in such a paradigm, is a form of spiritual awakening.
+++
A psychologist who has studied cases of rape was hired by a renowned church in north India to monitor a preacher who was transferred from Europe, where he was found indulging in acts of paedophilia. He was in Delhi for a year and the psychologist would hold regular psychoanalytical sessions with him.
Later, the preacher was found to have established liaisons with young boys even in India. “They just can’t control themselves,” says the psychologist, who doesn’t want to be named. The higher authorities of the Church were informed of the preacher’s inclinations, and he was transferred to a country in Africa.
The following incident is bizarre. A 15-year-old girl was raped on the first floor of her own family house in West Delhi by a tantric. Her family members heard her cry out, but did not intervene because they assumed it was part of an occult ritual. The tantric had promised the family a change in their fortunes if they let him perform this hours-long exercise in isolation except for the company of a ‘pure soul’, which he convinced them resides in the bodies of adolescent virgin girls. The family volunteered their own 15-year-old daughter. The tantric left with assurances of a turn in the family’s luck. The girl was too dazed to say anything. Later, when she told them what had happened, the family refused to believe her. By the time they realised the enormity of the crime, it was too late to haul up the tantric. He had gone missing.
In another shocking case, the Gurbani lessons of a teenager turned to horror. The girl, the daughter of a university professor in Delhi, always sang well and so her parents arranged for a granthi (learned in the Guru Granth Sahib), a man in his late twenties, to visit their home twice a week to give her lessons in religious singing. She found his pats of encouragement inappropriate, and so she complained to her parents of discomfort with the teacher’s touch. They did not see anything amiss and asked her to carry on taking classes. And then one day, when the girl’s parents were away, he sexually assaulted her.
The case of K Ramesh, a priest at a church in Gosavedu village in Gampalagudem mandal is another example of such a sickening violation of trust. Ramesh was arrested on charges of raping a 16-year-old Scheduled Tribe girl who he had taken to Hyderabad with her parents’ permission on the assurance that he would take care of her education. He raped her several times over the next few days, returned with her to Gosavedu, and assaulted her again. The girl’s father reported the matter to the police.
+++
“Sex is the only way they get a high,” observes Mitra, who has a close understanding of the phenomenon.
Victims do resist the advances of godmen, but they often do not even realise when a red line of violation has been crossed.
No consent is either sought or obtained, since rape is packaged as a healing process or some other form of blessing.
The Briton who was raped about seven times over a span of ten days by a yoga guru in Haridwar smelt a rat when he told her that she would have to sleep with other preachers at the ashram for the upliftment of her soul.
According to Mitra, ill-intended commune activities tend to dismantle those aspects of victims’ personalities by which they invoke individual choices. This blurs their instinct of self-preservation, leaving them vulnerable and emotionally dependent on the godman. “The collective sessions are hypnotic in nature,” says Mitra, “and they make your previous self dissolve in the collective… This gives [victims] a sense of liberty because they are detached from their past—a cause of stress and indignation in their lives. But this liberty is laced with vulnerability.”
Having observed godmen, Mitra points out some common aspects of their behaviour and psyche. For example, by raising their arms and spreading them wide while facing their followers, they adopt a posture that gives them a sense of power. They have usually had difficult childhoods, been exposed to scriptures and spirituality early in life (impressing onlookers), and are typically rebellious attention-seekers as a personality type.
The sad part is how often they get away with their exploitation of devotees. Many victims do not lodge complaints, says Mitra, as they are ashamed of how they allowed it to happen in the first place. In the broader social context, Srivastava speaks of a need for people to anchor themselves firmly against insecurities caused by rapid changes in the environment and economy. Godmen sometimes give followers a moral blanket of security that helps restrain their consumerist streak. It is a notional shelter that need not be as safe as they suppose. Srivastava also says that Indian and Western nirvana seekers differ in their attitudes to sexuality. In India, he says, the faculties that “question hierarchies” remain stunted. Also, rape here is seen as defilement of a woman’s body. In the West, ever since the alternative movements of the 1960s, rebels against the strict sexual norms of Christianity have looked towards India as a relaxed place where sex is seen as ennobling, as part of a spiritual quest.
“In Goa, they do it openly: sex, drugs and spiritualism is one wholesome package,” says a 43-year-old Russian painter who spends three months in Goa every year and has visited dozens of ashrams and retreats in India. “Many ashrams in Varanasi do the same,” she says, bemused, “but never acknowledge it as carnal.”
Such godmen thrive on cult support, of which they have found plenty overseas, says J. The Western youth of the 1960s and 70s were experimental, she says, and since they were rebellious and did not know what they wanted, they saw deviant lifestyles as profound. This demand drew legions of godmen of all descriptions, all of them holding aloft the prospect of a better life by blurring the line between carnal and spiritual pursuits. “These two worlds merge,” says J. One day, she promises, she will write a book about how ungodly these godmen are.
(unquote)
comments from article printed above
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: February 06, 2014 07:51AM
(Comments)
11 Responses
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 7:10 pm said:
Tibetan “Buddhism’s Lamas are the same Godmen. This is what they
inherited from India, and Padmansambha , an Indian Sadhu of Tantric Varjayana, ‘their highest teaching’ after the seduce everyone into the Tantric miasma, with just the words of the Buddha, such as compassion. It is the Gods of Hindu Tantra whom these Lama cults worship not the Buddha or his teachings. Once the connection is made between these sexually abusing Hindus and sexually abusing Lamas, a ‘lightbulb’ will go off and illuminate and cut through these Lama deceptions. Between the Yoga Tantra ‘meditations’ of the Hindus, and the Tantra of the Lamas, our young western women are being seduced into these cults, or at the least influenced by these cult ideas, while believing it is about more freedom.. It is to dumb generations down further and further into great confusion and unhappiness while promising the ‘bliss of happiness.’ with these Lamas and god men.
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 7:23 pm said:
Padmasambhava , correct spelling. Padmasambhava brought Indian Tantra to the masses of the people in Tibet, from India, and as it spread further, the Tibetan people became mentally and physically enslaved to these God men Lamas. Their whole culture ‘stopped’ in a time warp. and they were then plunged into darkness and misery.
That is what they are doing throughout the world now, as their tax free empires , worth multimillions, 100?s and 100?s of these Lama centers everywhere are being built to prepare for the the great Lama Buddhocracy that they wish to usher in, when the whole world , they believe, will be under their sway. That is the prophecy of the Kalachakra of the Dalai Lama, which is really about a violent holy war with the non-Tibetan ‘Buddhist religions” their goal is to enslave whole populations as they did in Tibet through their sexual occult tantra.
This is the most terrible ‘trojan horse’ the world has ever seen, while pretending to be here to bring more ‘happiness’ and ‘peace.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. Since they have spread their tantric vajrayana, they have influenced even traditional religions, they spread confusion and chaos, they break up families,spread promiscuity and more misogyny, they distroy order in a society, but that is there goal to spread confusion and chaos, in order that their Tibetocracy can bring in a repressive authoritarian ‘order’ out of the chaos. That is the real ‘Shift in Consciousness’ that they are planning. Everywhere they infiltrate , they bring more chaos and violence, not peace.
The time of ‘moral relativism’ that they are spreading must cease.
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 7:33 pm said:
One of the greatest contributions of Dr. Ambedkar , a Columbia University Phd, professor and later joined the London School of Economics, who was part of writing the Constitution for Indian, Democracy, in respect to”Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy enshrined in the Constitution of India”.
The Fundamental Rights provide for freedom, equality and abolition of Untoucability and remedies to ensure the enforcement of rights. On the 14th of October, 1956, Babasaheb Ambedkar, a scholar on Hindusim embraced true Buddhism and he launched a crusade to expose the corruptions of Hinduism that continued to prevent ending the caste system in India, which still exists, thanks to these Godmen of Hinduism and Tantra Vajarayana master slave paradigms.
Ambedkar referred to the Tibetan Lamas, as The “Brahmin Buddhists”, not true Buddhism at all , but simply more of the same, theme and variation of the Hindu Godmen.
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 7:36 pm said:
Between the spread of tantric HInduism , Indian style, through Yoga centers and Ashrams, and the spread of tantric Hinduism, Tibetan Lama style, the west is being colonized by another radical ‘fundamentalism” by stealth, while worrying about Islam.
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 7:59 pm said:
Correction “holy war with the non “Buddhists” particuarly Muslims. We have opened the ‘floodgates” to energies we little understand and cultures we haven’t a clue about we are so naive.
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 8:09 pm said:
quote that was up on the 969 website,(found on the link below) on Sept 2013, about the Kalachakra, but was since taken down, probably by the controlled media influenced by the Dalai Lama clique still:
“The Kalachakra is a Tibetan Buddhist doctrine on the cycles of time. In addition to being a text, meditation practice, and initiation ritual, Kalachakra is a prophecy for the victory of the Buddhist religion in a war with Islam.
Beginning in 712AD and continuing through 1030AD, India was subject to massive annual invasions from Muslims who eventually conquered and destroyed much of the cultural heritage of India. In a final desperate act to annihilate Buddhism, in 1193, Nalanda University which was home to the greatest center of learnings in the East was destroyed, with thousands of monks beheaded. The destruction of the temples, monasteries, centres of learning at Nalanda and northern India to be responsible for the demise of ancient Indian scientific thought in mathematics, astronomy, alchemy, and anatomy. Much of what modern scholarship of Buddhist studies puzzles over today was contained in the manuscripts and minds of those who were lost during this calamity. However as the Kalachakra Tantra shows, the war between Dhamma and Islam is not over, nor is it. The prophecy includes detailed descriptions of the future invaders as well as suggested ways for the Buddhist teachings to survive these onslaughts.
The Dalai Lama has stated that the public exposition of this tantra is necessary in the current degenerate age. The initiation may be received simply as a blessing for the majority of those attending, however, many of the more qualified attendees do take the commitments and subsequently engage in the practice.”
From the CSC Center for Strategic Communication”
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 11:17 pm said:
This is an old film on the Dangers of Indian HInduism Guruism and Yoga. It was of course dismissed as too Christian , but its warnings are more relevant than ever more than 25 years later when Hindu culture and its concepts and beliefs are everwhere now, even within Christianity:
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 11:41 pm said:
TM a Hindu Based meditation- is now infiltrating into the army along with Insight Meditation a mix of Theravadin Buddhism and Tibetan Lamaism meditation, Sharon Salzberg, devotee of Sogyal R and honored by Oprah, founded “Insight meditation” Now they have infiltrated Homeland Security and the U.S. Army::
[inhomelandsecurity.com]
Chris Chandler, on December 11, 2013 at 12:50 am said:
The Dalai Lama has been meeting with the Vishva Hindu Parishad for years. from their own words :
“The right wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad organization was formed in 1964 by Swami Chinmayananda as president and former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) member S.S. Apte as general secretary, with Master Tara Singh as one of the co-founders[4]. It was first mooted at a conference in Pawai, Sandipani Sadhanalaya, Mumbai on 29 August 1964. The conference was hosted by RSS sarsanghchalak M.S. Golwalkar. The date coincided with the festival of Janmashtami. Several representatives from the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain faiths were present in the meeting, as well as the Dalai Lama. Golwalkar explained that “all faiths of Indian origins need to unite”, saying that the word “Hindu” (i.e. people of “Hindustan”) applied to adherents of all the above religions[5]. Apte declared:
Tibetan ‘Buddhism’ is not Buddhism it is Hinduism. They are working together openly now Hindu occultism and Tibetan Lamaism are the same. Except Lamaism uses the concepts of Buddhist ‘compassion’.
. Tsoknyi R , enabler of Sogyal and ‘best friend” incorporates Hindu Hare Krishna chanting in his so called Dzogchen retreats.
Notice that the Hindus use the same technques, as the Dalai Lama does through his Mind Life Institute i.e. a ‘scientific mask’ that it is not ‘religious’ but “scientific” they both use ‘deception’ to infltrate and colonize
11 Responses
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 7:10 pm said:
Tibetan “Buddhism’s Lamas are the same Godmen. This is what they
inherited from India, and Padmansambha , an Indian Sadhu of Tantric Varjayana, ‘their highest teaching’ after the seduce everyone into the Tantric miasma, with just the words of the Buddha, such as compassion. It is the Gods of Hindu Tantra whom these Lama cults worship not the Buddha or his teachings. Once the connection is made between these sexually abusing Hindus and sexually abusing Lamas, a ‘lightbulb’ will go off and illuminate and cut through these Lama deceptions. Between the Yoga Tantra ‘meditations’ of the Hindus, and the Tantra of the Lamas, our young western women are being seduced into these cults, or at the least influenced by these cult ideas, while believing it is about more freedom.. It is to dumb generations down further and further into great confusion and unhappiness while promising the ‘bliss of happiness.’ with these Lamas and god men.
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 7:23 pm said:
Padmasambhava , correct spelling. Padmasambhava brought Indian Tantra to the masses of the people in Tibet, from India, and as it spread further, the Tibetan people became mentally and physically enslaved to these God men Lamas. Their whole culture ‘stopped’ in a time warp. and they were then plunged into darkness and misery.
That is what they are doing throughout the world now, as their tax free empires , worth multimillions, 100?s and 100?s of these Lama centers everywhere are being built to prepare for the the great Lama Buddhocracy that they wish to usher in, when the whole world , they believe, will be under their sway. That is the prophecy of the Kalachakra of the Dalai Lama, which is really about a violent holy war with the non-Tibetan ‘Buddhist religions” their goal is to enslave whole populations as they did in Tibet through their sexual occult tantra.
This is the most terrible ‘trojan horse’ the world has ever seen, while pretending to be here to bring more ‘happiness’ and ‘peace.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. Since they have spread their tantric vajrayana, they have influenced even traditional religions, they spread confusion and chaos, they break up families,spread promiscuity and more misogyny, they distroy order in a society, but that is there goal to spread confusion and chaos, in order that their Tibetocracy can bring in a repressive authoritarian ‘order’ out of the chaos. That is the real ‘Shift in Consciousness’ that they are planning. Everywhere they infiltrate , they bring more chaos and violence, not peace.
The time of ‘moral relativism’ that they are spreading must cease.
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 7:33 pm said:
One of the greatest contributions of Dr. Ambedkar , a Columbia University Phd, professor and later joined the London School of Economics, who was part of writing the Constitution for Indian, Democracy, in respect to”Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy enshrined in the Constitution of India”.
The Fundamental Rights provide for freedom, equality and abolition of Untoucability and remedies to ensure the enforcement of rights. On the 14th of October, 1956, Babasaheb Ambedkar, a scholar on Hindusim embraced true Buddhism and he launched a crusade to expose the corruptions of Hinduism that continued to prevent ending the caste system in India, which still exists, thanks to these Godmen of Hinduism and Tantra Vajarayana master slave paradigms.
Ambedkar referred to the Tibetan Lamas, as The “Brahmin Buddhists”, not true Buddhism at all , but simply more of the same, theme and variation of the Hindu Godmen.
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 7:36 pm said:
Between the spread of tantric HInduism , Indian style, through Yoga centers and Ashrams, and the spread of tantric Hinduism, Tibetan Lama style, the west is being colonized by another radical ‘fundamentalism” by stealth, while worrying about Islam.
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 7:59 pm said:
Correction “holy war with the non “Buddhists” particuarly Muslims. We have opened the ‘floodgates” to energies we little understand and cultures we haven’t a clue about we are so naive.
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 8:09 pm said:
quote that was up on the 969 website,(found on the link below) on Sept 2013, about the Kalachakra, but was since taken down, probably by the controlled media influenced by the Dalai Lama clique still:
“The Kalachakra is a Tibetan Buddhist doctrine on the cycles of time. In addition to being a text, meditation practice, and initiation ritual, Kalachakra is a prophecy for the victory of the Buddhist religion in a war with Islam.
Beginning in 712AD and continuing through 1030AD, India was subject to massive annual invasions from Muslims who eventually conquered and destroyed much of the cultural heritage of India. In a final desperate act to annihilate Buddhism, in 1193, Nalanda University which was home to the greatest center of learnings in the East was destroyed, with thousands of monks beheaded. The destruction of the temples, monasteries, centres of learning at Nalanda and northern India to be responsible for the demise of ancient Indian scientific thought in mathematics, astronomy, alchemy, and anatomy. Much of what modern scholarship of Buddhist studies puzzles over today was contained in the manuscripts and minds of those who were lost during this calamity. However as the Kalachakra Tantra shows, the war between Dhamma and Islam is not over, nor is it. The prophecy includes detailed descriptions of the future invaders as well as suggested ways for the Buddhist teachings to survive these onslaughts.
The Dalai Lama has stated that the public exposition of this tantra is necessary in the current degenerate age. The initiation may be received simply as a blessing for the majority of those attending, however, many of the more qualified attendees do take the commitments and subsequently engage in the practice.”
From the CSC Center for Strategic Communication”
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Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 11:17 pm said:
This is an old film on the Dangers of Indian HInduism Guruism and Yoga. It was of course dismissed as too Christian , but its warnings are more relevant than ever more than 25 years later when Hindu culture and its concepts and beliefs are everwhere now, even within Christianity:
Chris Chandler, on December 10, 2013 at 11:41 pm said:
TM a Hindu Based meditation- is now infiltrating into the army along with Insight Meditation a mix of Theravadin Buddhism and Tibetan Lamaism meditation, Sharon Salzberg, devotee of Sogyal R and honored by Oprah, founded “Insight meditation” Now they have infiltrated Homeland Security and the U.S. Army::
[inhomelandsecurity.com]
Chris Chandler, on December 11, 2013 at 12:50 am said:
The Dalai Lama has been meeting with the Vishva Hindu Parishad for years. from their own words :
“The right wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad organization was formed in 1964 by Swami Chinmayananda as president and former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) member S.S. Apte as general secretary, with Master Tara Singh as one of the co-founders[4]. It was first mooted at a conference in Pawai, Sandipani Sadhanalaya, Mumbai on 29 August 1964. The conference was hosted by RSS sarsanghchalak M.S. Golwalkar. The date coincided with the festival of Janmashtami. Several representatives from the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain faiths were present in the meeting, as well as the Dalai Lama. Golwalkar explained that “all faiths of Indian origins need to unite”, saying that the word “Hindu” (i.e. people of “Hindustan”) applied to adherents of all the above religions[5]. Apte declared:
Tibetan ‘Buddhism’ is not Buddhism it is Hinduism. They are working together openly now Hindu occultism and Tibetan Lamaism are the same. Except Lamaism uses the concepts of Buddhist ‘compassion’.
. Tsoknyi R , enabler of Sogyal and ‘best friend” incorporates Hindu Hare Krishna chanting in his so called Dzogchen retreats.
Notice that the Hindus use the same technques, as the Dalai Lama does through his Mind Life Institute i.e. a ‘scientific mask’ that it is not ‘religious’ but “scientific” they both use ‘deception’ to infltrate and colonize
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