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,

.... regarding gurumay...unless she decides to explain her actions, we will probably never really know.

I don't see the organization offering any honest explanations either. Siddha Yoga has a very bad track record when it comes to honesty. It's sad that dissembling and secrecy seem to be built into the organization as part of the basic structure (I'm remembering community meetings and relationships between "insiders" and "outsiders"; the lying was mind-boggling).

In other groups I have been associated with through the years, there were the same kind of power struggles and prefarications but siddha yoga was, by far, the worst.

The lying was very direct and part of policy.. So...I would not expect any kind of transparency or honest communication to devotees about gurumayi, her whereabouts, her plans or anything else about her life.

Recently someone began posting a series of lies online about gurumayi being in such poor health that she was at death's door. However, another person reported being with her the preceding week and that she was just fine.

With all of that, what to make of the whole thing? I knew a guru recently who I described briefly in this forum. He travels all over the country visiting his "family of devotees", making several trips a year from India. I never saw him take anything from anyone; quite the contrary, he always arrived with all kinds of things to give to his "family in the States".

I noticed, the last time I saw him, he had begun to wear a back brace because his body was reacting to the stress of constant traveling, doing fire ceremonies, etc. He was always cheerful despite his pain but, also, very clear about and impatient with any kind of dishonesty or pretense. I

am bringing him up because I could see him having to opt out from all the travel. I also know if he had to do that, he would be completely transparent about the reasons. And he would NEVER hide behind the "guru" role using it to make his devotees feel inadequate or disloyal.

I don't know gurumayi (although I was an intensely committed "devotee" for a number of years and spent alot of time at the Fallsburg ashram, my local center and in India). Her "story" appears tragic to me and she most certainly appears to be driven by personal issues and problems.

In my personal opinion (for what it's worth), she is not very different from many "merchant caste" (and, yes, the distinctions still exist even though they are "outlawed") women I met in Mumbai. Her family mess, alone, should be enough to give people pause.

Generally speaking, one "disavows" one's family when taking monastic vows or sannyas. It's very unusual to maintain personal vendettas against family members, appear in court cases involving property or power, etc. (although, in India, this seems to be getting very popular).

Devotees should simply look at the history of siddha yoga; it's all out there to be read.

Even giving gurumayi tremendous leeway and the benefit of the doubt and excusing her more egregious behavior, why would anyone want to "surrender" to a guru who so relentlesly pursued her own brother with such pleasure, doing everything in her power to destroy him? it makes no sense (except as a family drama she should have been well beyond as an "enlightened siddha") and the "explanation" that he was somehow "corrupting" muktananda's legacy is totally ludicrous, considering what muktananda is guilty of.

As far as "powers" and "siddhis" and the rest of that stuff goes, I have, again, met many very disreputable people both here and in India who are quite capable of creating the same effects.

The public legacy coming from muktananda (both in siddha yoga and in other spin-offs) is, unfortunately, not a very good one at this point.

but...I digress from your original question...the answer is...I don't know what happened to gurumayi..These days, I don't care very much just like I don't care about Andrew Cohen or Gangaji or Eckhardt Tolle but I have tremendous sympathy for all devotees.

There were some wonderful people in siddha yoga. A lot of damage was done by that path and by gurumayi. I guess it all evens out in the end, hard to say. Good luck with it.

Even if you found the perfect "explanation" though, it's probably going to stick in your craw for a while. Closure just kind of happens eventually when you realize you will never know the truth of why people are ok with causing so much suffernig to others.

You just try to be attentive to not causing it yourself and when you realize that you have caused suffering, it helps you to understand how that can snowball and create somebody like gurumayi

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Anonymous said...

On Salon's Letter from SYDA, current ashram dwellers are starting to open up and tell the truth about the lies.

I am appalled that women scream rape and the Kool-aid drinkers try and shut them down.

I am really feeling sad for the Malti Shetty (who lived with Muktananda and was adopted by him, along with her brother Nityananda as M's co-successors. Malti took teh name Gurumayi)who lived in this atmosphere growing up.

If M (Muktananda) went after the beauties then I believe she was one of them and is a victim who protects her perpetrator. Especially with so much land and money involved.

GM (Gurumayi)was always nice to me, but I will not discount other's realities. I did not live at SMA but went there on certain holidays or weekends. I felt the sevites were out of control and controlling to the max.

I was gossiped about online via my seva supervisor who stupidly send me her nasty email talking about me to another sevite. I busted her to everyone including the steering committee and to her face and let them know how awful their lies and gossip were to me.

The head of the steering committee told me that there were a billion email wars going on in my center. I dropped out after that.

August 30, 2010 10:11 AM

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Inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling journey, fans eating, praying, loving in her footstepsBy Beth J. Harpaz / Associated Press
Posted August 15, 2010 at midnight

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In Bali, they're seeking guidance from a spiritual healer. In Rome, they're lapping up gelato. And in India, they're visiting temples.

Fans of Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir, "Eat, Pray, Love," have been following in her footsteps ever since it was first published in 2006. The book describes a year Gilbert spent living in Italy, India and Indonesia on the rebound from a divorce and failed romance.

Spiritual healer Ketut Liyer of Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, is featured in "Eat, Pray, Love." He says hundreds of foreign tourists have visited him since then.

The Villa Borghese was one of Elizabeth Gilbert's favorite sites in Rome. Her book "Eat, Pray, Love" has become something of a guide book for fans.Alessandra TarantinoAssociated Press

But the travel industry is betting that the Aug. 13 release of a film version starring Julia Roberts will inspire even more globe-trotting. Hotels, tour companies and even guidebook publishers are offering everything from do-it-yourself itineraries to luxury trips.

The movie even has "official" travel partners: Lonely Planet, which created a website at lonelyplanet.com/eatpraylove with recommendations for sightseeing and lodging, and STA Travel, which is advertising a contest for a 21-day trip to the three countries.

Naturally, it is a trip for one.

For high-end travelers, there are invitations like this one: "Eat. Pray. Fall in love with Micato Safaris' Inspirational India Tour." Price tag: $19,795.

But plenty of fans have replicated parts of Gilbert's journey on their own. Australian tourist Zoe Moran was reading the book as she stopped by the San Crispino ice cream shop near the Trevi Fountain in Rome, where Gilbert ate gelato three times in one day.

"I just got to the part in Rome, so I'm trying

to follow the footsteps of Gilbert," she said.

Gilbert writes of savoring good food and soaking up sights like the Villa Borghese and Piazza del Popolo. Canadian tourist Sarah Luong, another "Eat, Pray, Love" fan at San Crispino, said she was "trying to do the same, take my time and enjoy Rome at its best."

Some "Eat, Pray, Love" devotees have found their way to Ubud, the artsy town in Bali where Gilbert seeks guidance from Ketut Liyer, a spiritual healer, and makes friends with a café owner named Wayan.

Gilbert notes in the book that tourism to Indonesia plummeted after a series of terrorist bombings. Liyer even says to her, "If you have Western friends come to visit Bali, bring them to me for palm-reading. I am very empty in my bank since the bomb!"

Liyer's wish came true. Since the book was published, Liyer said in an interview in his home, "I have more foreign tourists visiting me." He estimated the number of visitors to be in the "hundreds."

As seekers dropped by -- including a group from Japan who said they heard about him from the book -- Liyer offered cheerful palm and face readings, predicting luck, wealth and long life. And just as Gilbert described, he asked his guests to help him practice speaking English.

Ngurah Wijaya, head of the Bali Tourism Board, said it's impossible to quantify how many tourists Indonesia is getting because of "Eat, Pray, Love." But he said it has had a "great impact" in making "people understand that Bali is safe."

Amy Graff, who lives in San Francisco and writes about family travel on her blog, "On the Go With Amy," took a trip to Indonesia in 2009 with her husband, kids and another family. Both she and the other mom loved the book.

Kathryn Alice, who describes herself as a "love guru" based in Los Angeles ("I help people find their soul mates"), took one of her followers to Liyer's home and also ate at Wayan's cafe.

"It's really fun to go and experience what she did," Alice said.

But Alice noted that many of the tours being offered by travel companies "have very little resemblance" to the actual places described in "Eat, Pray, Love." "People can go and do it a lot cheaper for themselves," she said. "It doesn't take a whole lot to look these people up."

A number of "Eat, Pray, Love" packages geared to India do not include the ashram where Gilbert is believed to have spent several months, Gurudev Siddha Peeth at Ganeshpuri in Maharashtra, about 85 miles from Mumbai.

Abercrombie & Kent spokeswoman Kelly Brewer explained that the ashram has a "process of application and approval and they do not welcome casual visitors." That's why, she said, Abercrombie & Kent offers a "similarly enriching experience" on its "Treasures of Northern India: Journeys for Women" tour "without having to go through the rigorous screening process."

For "Eat, Pray, Love" fans who lack a passport, look no further than Texas. The Lone Star State is not on Gilbert's itinerary, but that did not preclude the creation of a "Where to Eat, Pray, Love in San Antonio" promotion.

While Gilbert fans are finding their way to Italy, India, Indonesia and maybe San Antonio, the author has moved on. At the end of "Eat, Pray, Love," she falls in love with a Brazilian-born Australian, whom she later marries. And in the August issue of Travel+Leisure magazine, under a headline of "My Favorite Place," Gilbert reveals that her "idea of a perfect city" is nowhere near the places touted in "Eat, Pray, Love."

Instead, she recommends Melbourne.

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When audiences go to "Eat, Pray, Love" this weekend, they will watch as Julia Roberts, blond and brokenhearted, folds her long, long legs into a perfect letter X, chants a mysterious mantra, and magically finds the equanimity that has been eluding her. Viewers will see her undergo life-changing experiences thanks to her guru's grace and the spirit of her guru's master, a man she calls a "South Indian old lion." They will perhaps be awed and enchanted by the exotic spiritual treasure chest that is India. And then they will cheer for her as she finally mends the cracks in her heart and makes her way to Bali to find love.

What they probably won't know is that the unnamed guru is a hugely controversial figure who has disappeared from public view amid allegations of manipulation, financial misconduct and intimidation. And as that guru's organization, the Siddha Yoga Dham of America (SYDA), has come under fire, her own guru (yes, gurus also have gurus), the "old lion," has been accused of sexual abuse, molestation and sexual intercourse with minor girls.

The film, like the Elizabeth Gilbert memoir on which it is based, doesn't name the real-life ashram or guru, and Gilbert has never revealed the guru's identity. *

*(Corboy citizen's opinion--there is nothing more enticing than describing something and not naming it. Its an intellectual equivalent of a cock-tease. After all a best selling book was named The Secret. Years ago, they marketed an antiperspirant called Secret, ha ha)

(Salon continues)

Readers of the book are instead treated to breathless but abstract passages like this: "Then I listened to the Guru speak in person for the first time, and her words gave me chill bumps all over my whole body, even across the skin of my face. And when I heard she had an Ashram in India, I knew I must take myself there as quickly as possible."


But if you’re somewhat familiar with India’s spiritual landscape, it’s easy to figure out that this "feminine, multilingual, university-educated" guru is Gurumayi Chidvilasananda — the head of the SYDA. For starters, India doesn’t have very many female gurus, and fewer still that speak impeccable English and reside in the United States. Gilbert also dedicates a sizable chunk of the India portion of her book to the troubles she has with the "Gurugita," an obscure 90-minute-long hymn that Gurumayi's devotees are required to chant every morning. Having been to a Siddha Yoga meditation workshop myself, I’m well acquainted with the tedium that is the Gurugita, and as far as I know, Siddha Yoga is the only Hindu spiritual order to have made the Gurugita such an essential part of a devotee's daily practice. The ashram in the book is located in a small village just outside Mumbai, while SYDA's India ashram is tucked away in a rural idyll called Ganeshpuri, some 50 miles from Mumbai. The book is littered with other telling biographical details about Gilbert's guru that match up with Gurumayi — that she joined the entourage of an Indian swami (a Hindu religious teacher) as a teenager, that she served him as a translator for years before being given guru-hood, and that she was only in her 20s when she became his successor. Earlier this week, the New York Post drew the same SYDA connection to "EPL," as others have. When Salon contacted Gilbert's publicist at Viking to confirm that Gurumayi was in fact her guru, we were told, "No comment. Liz has always made a concerted effort to respect the privacy of the ashram." But the evidence is overwhelming.

Known to her followers as just Gurumayi, Malti Shetty is undeniably beautiful — slender and brown-eyed, with dimples that dig deep commas below her high cheekbones. Shetty says she is the sole successor to SYDA, a new Hindu religious movement that is based on the tradition of Vedanta. Her predecessor and guru, the man who appointed her to his throne, is Swami Muktananda.

SYDA is headquartered in a large complex in South Fallsburg, N.Y., a town set in the Catskill Mountains. In the 1980s and '90s — the decades during which the SYDA reached its height of popularity — the foundation was said to have some 70,000 followers across the world. Its devotees, mostly the wealthy and well-educated, included celebrities like Melanie Griffith, Isabella Rossellini, Diana Ross and Don Johnson.

In 1983, an exposé by journalist William Rodarmor in CoEvolution Quarterly (a Stewart Brand magazine that eventually became Whole Earth Review) suggested that before his death, Muktananda had been having sex with several young girls in his ashrams. The septuagenarian guru, said the piece, used to stand behind a curtain and spy on girls in the female dormitory. He even had a special area equipped with a gynecologist's table that was used for his sexual dalliances. In public, he announced that he was celibate, insisting that sexual acts took away from spiritual energy. But in private, a parade of girls would be trooping in and out of his bedroom all night. The story even describes the violence and intimidation used by Muktananda to control his devotees. There are accounts of him beating hapless Indian peasants outside the ashram grounds, of stabbing his valet with a fork, and of sending burly enforcers to take care of devotees who refused to toe the party line.

In an account posted on the website Leaving Siddha Yoga — which encourages former devotees to come forward with stories of their abuse and mistreatment — a former devotee, Joan "Radha" Bridges, describes her sexual encounters with Muktananda. Bridges, then 26, says she was slowly wooed by Muktananda's translator, Malti Shetty. As the account reads: "I was given an invitation by Malti to come to the Boston Ashram with a small entourage. This was a privilege — I was thrilled to be included." Soon, Muktananda started kissing her and grabbing her breasts, eventually pulling her into his room to inspect her vagina. The next night, she says, Muktananda brought her back into his quarters. "All the while he told me, 'Don't tell anyone,' and, 'Don't tell your husband.' Muktananda put me on a high table, pulled my legs back to expose my vagina and pulled out his flaccid penis. He placed his penis as far up inside me as he could and remained in that position a very long time." It took years for her to accept that she had, in fact, been a victim of sexual abuse.

In 1994, the New Yorker revisited these accusations in the article "O Guru, Guru, Guru," written by Lis Harris. Harris found several other women who said that Muktananda had forced them to have sex with him. But she also chronicled Shetty's behavior as the new guru. Shetty displayed many of the same traits as her mentor. She ran a hate campaign against her brother, who had been named as a co-successor by Muktananda, beating him and isolating him until he finally gave up his claim on the SYDA's spiritual mantle. She denied all allegations of Muktananda's sexual abuse and shielded other sexual predators inside the ashram, including a man called George Afif, who was convicted of statutory rape. Harris' piece even hinted that Shetty herself had had sexual relations with Afif. "While I was working on the story," Harris told Salon, "I was constantly followed [inside the ashram]. Men with walkie-talkies wouldn't let me go anywhere on my own. They were always asking my driver questions. A woman who I worked with in the ashram's kitchen was even noting down every word I said. It was very Big Brother-like."

The organization tried hard to keep the New Yorker from publishing the story, even threatening it with litigation. According to Marta Szabo, a one-time devotee of SYDA who wrote the book "The Guru Looked Good," Shetty once called a secret meeting to chant and perform "weird Reiki" against Lis Harris and the New Yorker's then-editor, Tina Brown. "When the article finally came out, they took every copy of the magazine that they could find and burnt them in a great pile," Harris says.

Rumors also abound of untold millions stashed away in Swiss bank accounts. (Rodarmor's exposé features Muktananda talking about just such a thing.) The foundation's workshop fees run into hundreds of dollars, and devotees who work at the ashram are mostly unpaid. "Just the money I collected from a single intensive [meditation workshop] amounted to $14,000," says Szabo. Daniel Shaw, a former devotee who now runs Leaving Siddha Yoga, says that using human conduits to ferry cash from the U.S. to India was a common practice within Siddha Yoga. "I've been asked to carry large amounts of cash under my clothes during several trips to India. Others used to carry jewelry," he says.

Charges have never been pressed against the organization. Shetty stopped speaking to the press soon after she became Gurumayi and has not publicly addressed any of the accusations in a long time. But when Rodarmor spoke to her for his piece in 1983 — just after she had taken on the mantle of guru-hood — she denied all allegations of sexual abuse against Muktananda and of the existence of Swiss bank accounts. In Harris' piece, the group's swamis (high-ranking members) steadfastly maintained that Muktananda never broke his vows of celibacy. The SYDA did not respond to Salon's request for a comment.

SYDA is now a shell of its former mid-'90s self, despite the bestseller and newfangled Hollywood associations. The South Fallsburg ashram, which once hummed with as many as 4,000 devotees, looks forlorn. Many defectors say that they left because of Shetty's increasingly authoritarian behavior and her subtle attempts at control and manipulation. "She was just mean. She humiliated me in public. She certainly wasn't enlightened," says Szabo, who was once part of a team that edited and rewrote parts of the public talks for which Shetty was revered.

In 2004, presumably about a year after her encounter with Gilbert (whose book came out in 2006), Shetty disappeared from public life. Now followers only get an occasional video message from their master. Shaw believes that the appearance of websites like Leaving Siddha Yoga caused Shetty to retreat into a world where she has full control. Others say that she's just tired of playing guru.

It's anyone's guess if "EPL's" film release will cause a renewed surge in SYDA's membership. Or if a new wave of popularity will force Shetty to come back into public view. But Gilbert's account of her time in India, her naive view of her guru as a "compassionate, loving" and "enlightened" master, and her faith that Muktananda was a "world-changing" and "self-realized" leader are all a sad chronicle of the human need to find spiritual anchors, and then to believe that these ordinary, and often deeply flawed, men and women are the path to our salvation

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Spiritual healer Ketut Liyer of Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, is featured in "Eat, Pray, Love." He says hundreds of foreign tourists have visited him since then.

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Villa Borghese was one of Elizabeth Gilbert's favorite sites in Rome. Her book "Eat, Pray, Love" has become something of a guide book for fans

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Actress Julia Roberts is photographed with Swami Dharmdev at the Hari Mandir Ashram near New Delhi, India, in this Sept. 22, 2009, file photo. Roberts, who plays Elizabeth Gilbert in the new film "Eat, Pray, Love," also shot scenes in a nearby village