CultNEWS101 Articles: 9/3/2025

Premanand Maharaj, India,  Guru Wars, Legal,  Zizians, Singularism, Religious Freedom

LatestLY: Jagadguru Rambhadracharya Makes Open Challenge to Premanand Maharaj, Says 'Speak Even One Word of Sanskrit or Explain the Meaning of Sanskrit Shlokas That I Have Said' 

Spiritual leader Jagadguru Rambhadracharya has challenged Premanand Maharaj over his knowledge of Sanskrit. In an interview that went viral on social media, Jagadguru Rambhadracharya also said he does not consider Premanand Maharaj a miraculous saint. A viral clip shows Rambhadracharya giving Premanand Maharaj an open challenge and saying that if he is really miraculous, then he should come in front of him and speak in Sanskrit. When asked about Premanand Maharaj, Jagadguru Rambhadracharya told journalist Shubhankar Mishra, "There is no miracle. If there is any miracle, then I challenge Premanand Maharaj to speak even one word of Sanskrit in front of me or explain the meaning of the Sanskrit shlokas that I have said. Today I am openly saying that he is like my child. It is a miracle that he knows the scriptures. He is living on dialysis." As the video moves further, Jagadguru Rambhadracharya says that he considers Premanand Maharaj like his child. "I am neither calling him a scholar nor a miracle worker. Such popularity lasts only for a few days. However, saying that this is a miracle is not acceptable to me. Sing bhajans and read and write," Jagadguru Rambhadracharya added.

AP: Prosecutors seek death penalty against cult member linked to Chatham County raid, border agent's death

"The Justice Department said Thursday it will seek the death penalty against a member of the cultlike Zizians group accused of killing a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Vermont in the latest Trump administration push for more federal executions.

Teresa Youngblut, 21, of Seattle, is among a group of radical computer scientists focused on veganism, gender identity and artificial intelligence who have been linked to six killings in three states. She rented a house in rural Chatham County raided in February by FBI agents.

She's accused of fatally shooting agent David Maland on Jan. 20, the same day President Donald Trump was inaugurated and signed a sweeping executive order lifting the moratorium on federal executions.

Youngblut initially was charged with using a deadly weapon against law enforcement and discharging a firearm during an assault with a deadly weapon. But the Trump administration signaled early on that more serious charges were coming, and a new indictment released Thursday charged her with murder of a federal law enforcement agent, assaulting other agents with a deadly weapon and related firearms offenses.

"We will not stand for such attacks on the men and women who protect our communities and borders," Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Galeotti said in a press release."

KJZZ: Singularism, a religion that uses psychedelic drugs, is testing Utah's religious freedom law

"Last year, Utah lawmakers passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which gives people more power to challenge the government if it interferes with their religious beliefs.

Religious freedom is, in many ways, the backbone of the major religion in Utah — the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — and the Republican-sponsored measure passed easily.

But that law is being put to the test in the courts by an unexpected group — a very small religion that's been targeted by law enforcement for using psychedelic drugs as part of its practices. The religion is called Singularism.

In 2023, police carried out a warrant at its Provo headquarters, seizing its sacramental psilocybin and, later, hitting its founder with criminal charges. Singularism founder Bridger Jensen is suing, and citing this religious freedom law as his argument."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultNEWS101 Articles: 11/15/2022

UFO Doomsday, Gurus, Conmen, Book, Solar Temple

The Guru: Inside a UFO Doomsday Cult in Tubac: Gabriel of Urantia

 "A cult living in an isolated desert commune in Tumacacori/Tubac, AZ near the border has raised alarm over its leaders' UFO doomsday predictions and heavy use of indoctrination, surveillance and control.

• The 120 members are required to turn over their homes, cars, money, businesses and possessions to the cult leader.
• Former followers claim they are covering up child sex abuse and that members have died from being denied medical care and being "worked to death."
• Members are required to work 40-60 hours a week of hard labor for no pay despite old age, illness or physical limitations.
• Gabriel of Urantia told Dateline he was Martin Luther, King Arthur, and George Washington in previous lives. He claims to be the "Planetary Prince" and that a space alien named.

Madras Courier: On Gurus, Godmen & Conmen

"The self-appointed Godmen of the twentieth century eschewed asceticism and chose a life of opulence, fanfare & power-politics.
The word 'Guru' that has iterated, notoriously, into 'Goldman' in contemporary India does not find mention in the oldest spiritual texts of the Vedas. The Vedic precept of salvation was exclusively sacrificial in nature and concept, and it wasn't until the age of Vedanta or Upanishads (when the focus shifted to Jnana or knowledge as the pre-requisite of 'moksha' or liberation of the soul from the cycle of re-birth) did the need of a Guru warrant to impart that eclectic knowledge. The Pauranika and Tantrika schools of thought in AD 300 transformed Guruism into an institutional lineage, doctrinally sectarian and with the advent of Sikhism in the 15th century, the institution of Guru was redefined structurally into a religio-military entity of the Godman.

An existential vacuum pervaded the West with the fall of Christianity and the rise of science and rationalistic epistemology, the principle of acquisition of knowledge and unravelling of truth through rational means and empirical evidence. Though scientific materialism paved the way for rapid human advances and technological progress, this philosophy was grossly inadequate in addressing fundamental metaphysical, moral and spiritual questions of mankind. Human beings were reduced to mere machines, cogs in the wheel of profit-making enterprises where psychology replaced spirituality, economics substituted humanness and feelings were reduced to mere biochemical reactions.

Every human activity was commercialised and dehumanised. Naturally, human beings rebelled against such a mechanistic worldview, and it provided a fertile ground for exporting Guruism to the West as an alternative, a new counterculture. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Swami Prabhupada led this spiritual renaissance in the West in the rebellious 1960s, long after Swami Vivekananda delivered his historic sermon at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, heralding the resurgence of Hindu mysticism and spirituality. The spiritual quest of man was resuscitated, and these Gurus addressed the imperative of creating a new culture.

In India, renowned as the cradle of spirituality and mysticism, the ancient tradition of the Gurukula system was metamorphosing into Godmen, the 'realised soul', the supreme authority, synchronised with the unitary consciousness of the ultimate reality or Brahman, in the true spirit of monism. The Godman hailing from a non-brahmin caste in the rigid caste hierarchy of India was perceived as a saviour, liberating the faithful from the oppressive class dominance, ostensibly offering them a mediator for their salvation and a wellspring of spiritual nourishment. The rising incomes in the 1980s and 90s and the burgeoning middle class facilitated the mushrooming of the Godmen across the country, catering to all social classes and demographics.

The quantum changes in technology and globalisation, culminating in a socio-economic structure, aggressively competitive, unprecedented and aping the West, resulted in the futility of material pursuits and meaninglessness of life, drawing hordes of people into the asylums of the Godman, who proffered to instil meaning, reinstate purpose and restore identity in the lives of the lost. For the Indian masses, total obeisance to the Godman was merely an extension of the subservience to the patriarchal social system, dominated by a mostly male chauvinistic father in every family, urban or rural.

Unlike in the ancient and medieval periods, where a Guru or a Godman was regarded as an epitome of wisdom and a finite reflection of the infinite divine self, the self-appointed Godmen of the latter half of the twentieth century eschewed asceticism and life-long commitment to a life of detachment from worldly pleasures, ironically chose a life of opulence, fanfare and power-politics. The nobility of mission and purity of purpose, witnessed by great spiritual leaders like Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and Paramahansa Yogananda made India the finest exemplar of spirituality, was ruefully and irretrievably lost in the pursuit of wealth and power of the modern-day Indian Godmen. Equipped with dubious and limited knowledge, by manipulating and misinterpreting the exhaustive collection of ancient spiritual texts, these con artists have betrayed and corrupted a gullible public.

The elite character of socio-economic development through decades post-independence, a non-inclusive growth model that alienated millions of poor Indians from economic participation and prosperity, was also instrumental in mushrooming of Godmen in the country. A quintessential case is Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, a rape convict and his Dera Sacha Sauda religious cult, whose charitable trusts provided free food and education to millions of its followers. The underprivileged Sikhs who had converted from Hinduism, escaping oppression and ostracism from their lower caste status, realised that class division is deeply entrenched in Sikhism, too. However, its cardinal message is equality.

Where the state administration failed in dispensing its basic duties towards its citizens, a charlatan succeeded in restoring social peace and, true to the Needs Hierarchy Theory of Abraham Maslow, instilling in the masses their paramount need for self-esteem. The security of livelihood offered by the cult drew millions of loyal disciples, mostly youth from Punjab and Haryana. Violent protests marked the day of Ram Rahim's sentencing to life imprisonment for raping a minor girl, resulting in arson, vandalising, vehicles set ablaze, train carriages wrecked, and roads blocked, killing 30 people and paralysing life in large swathes of Northern India.

Most of these acclaimed Godmen have been convicted of murder, rape, sexual assault and running prostitution rackets in recent years after numerous allegations of sexual orgies and excesses perpetrated in their precincts. Asaram Bapu, Swami Bhimanand, Sant Rampal, Swami Premananda, Santhosh Madhavan, and Swami Sadachari are a few prominent ones, among other scoundrels, who are implicated and currently serving prison sentences, for their various acts of felony, from murder, rape, sexual abuse, financial fraud, cheating and misappropriation. While for a discerning mind, these self-imposed Godmen are just deft tacticians capitalising on human vulnerabilities and insecurities, for their adherents and disciples, they are inviolable, and all allegations are mere propaganda. Convictions and incarcerations are not persuasive enough to label their idols as criminals, and nothing offers a better case study on the cognitive bias known as Confirmation Bias as the resolute clan of the Godmen.

The most entertaining and comical of the lot is Swami Nithyananda, currently a fugitive, wanted by Interpol for allegations of kidnapping and confinement of children to collect donations for his hermitage in Ahmedabad. A consummate conman, who had sold his critical faculties and reason to the Devil, has established a sovereign nation for dispossessed Hindus on an island he bought from Ecuador near Trinidad and Tobago. This nation, named 'Kailasa', has its cabinet ministers and a Prime Minister! While it is conceivable that one could lose his mind, patronising a lunatic by a frenzied crowd defies all logic.

Sadhguru, aka Jaggi Vasudev, who has been accorded the second-highest civilian award, Padma Vibhushan, is a master of pseudo-science. Under the garb of rational discourse, chaste English-speaking skills and ecumenism, his forays into science commentaries on Higgs Boson, evolutionary biology, the relationship between eclipses, cooked food and body chemistry. His prescription of proprietary Shambhavi Mahamudra Yoga and its positive correlation with neuronal brain regeneration and similar absurdities are highly unscientific, fallacious and ridiculous. The political patronage of these conmen for vote-bank is equally objectionable, which offers legitimacy to their irrational, unethical and immoral practices.

Behind the deceptive mask of India's socio-economic advancement and scientific establishments, ushering in the digital and space age, lies a vast majority of the population, from the elitist to the ignorant, who are equally vulnerable and obsessed with myths and legends. Most are believers in superstitions and fairy tales and, invariably, credulous patrons of religious obscurantism and magic. Their intellectual and rational faculties cannot delineate fact and fiction. They look deep into the past to create a future. It seems that India's science education is not scientific enough to permeate a pan-Indian scientific temper."

November 18th is recognized as International Cult Awareness Day 

1997 - Wikipedia: The Order of the Solar Temple (1994-95)

"The Order of the Solar Temple (French: Ordre du Temple solaire, OTS) and the International Chivalric Organization of the Solar Tradition, or simply The Solar Temple, is a cult and religious sect that claims to be based upon the ideals of the Knights Templar. OTS was founded by Joseph di Mambro and Luc Jouret in 1984 in Geneva, as l'Ordre International Chevaleresque de Tradition Solaire (OICTS), and later it was renamed Ordre du Temple Solaire. It is associated with a series of murders and mass suicides that claimed several dozen lives in France, Switzerland, and Canada in 1994 and 1995.

Some historians allege that the Solar Temple was founded by the French author Jacques Breyer, who established a Sovereign Order of the Solar Temple in 1952. In 1968, a schismatic order was renamed the Renewed Order of the Solar Temple (ROTS) under the leadership of the French right-wing political activist Julien Origas."

" … In October 1994, Tony Dutoit's infant son (Emmanuel Dutoit), aged three months, was killed at the group's centre in Morin-Heights, Quebec. The baby had been stabbed repeatedly with a wooden stake. It is believed that Di Mambro ordered the murder, because he identified the baby as the Antichrist described in the Bible. He believed that the Antichrist was born into the order to prevent Di Mambro from succeeding in his spiritual aim.

Some time afterwards, Di Mambro and twelve followers performed a ritual Last Supper. Subsequently, apparent mass suicides and murders were conducted at Cheiry and Salvan, two villages in Western Switzerland, and at Morin Heights—15 inner circle members committed suicide with poison, 30 were killed by bullets or smothering, and 8 others were killed by other means. In Switzerland, many of the victims were found in a secret underground chapel lined with mirrors and other items of Templar symbolism. The bodies were dressed in the order's ceremonial robes and were in a circle, feet together, heads outward, most with plastic bags tied over their heads; they had each been shot in the head. The plastic bags may have been a symbol of the ecological disaster that would befall the human race after the OTS members moved on to Sirius; it's also possible that these bags were used as part of the OTS rituals, and that members would have voluntarily worn them without being placed under duress. There was also evidence that many of the victims in Switzerland were drugged before they were shot. Other victims were found in three ski chalets; several dead children were lying together. The tragedy was discovered when officers rushed to the sites to fight the fires that had been ignited by remote-control devices. Farewell letters left by the believers stated that they believed they were leaving to escape the "hypocrisies and oppression of this world."

A mayor, a journalist, a civil servant, and a sales manager were found among the dead in Switzerland. Records seized by the Quebec police showed that some members had personally donated over C$1 million to Di Mambro. Another attempted mass suicide of the remaining members was thwarted in the late 1990s.[citation needed] All the suicide/murders and attempts occurred around the dates of the equinoxes and solstices in some relation to the beliefs of the group.

Another mass-death incident related to the OTS took place during the night between the 15 and 16 December 1995. On 23 December 1995, 16 bodies were discovered in a star-formation in the Vercors mountains of France. It was found later that two of them shot the others and then committed suicide by firearm and immolation. One of the dead included Olympian Edith Bonlieu, who had competed in the women's downhill at the 1956 Winter Olympics.

On the morning of 23 March 1997, five members of the OTS took their own lives in Saint-Casimir, Quebec. A small house erupted in flames, leaving behind five charred bodies for the police to pull from the rubble. Three teenagers, aged 13, 14 and 16, the children of one of the couples that died in the fire, were discovered in a shed behind the house, alive but heavily drugged.

Michel Tabachnik, an internationally renowned Swiss musician and conductor, was arrested as a leader of the Solar Temple in the late 1990s. He was indicted for "participation in a criminal organization" and murder. He came to trial in Grenoble, France, during the spring of 2001 and was acquitted. French prosecutors appealed against the verdict and an appellate court ordered a second trial beginning 24 October 2006. He was again cleared less than two months later in December 2006."

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Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.

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New Age Spirituality in the USA: Meet The Shamans, Gurus and Cult Leaders of America

Java Discover

October 25, 2022

"Is the USA undergoing a spiritual awakening, or is it falling victim to fake gurus and new age cult leaders? In an America in search of meaning, gurus, healers, shamans and other modern wizards have become the new providers of worth. Festivals, retreats and detox courses promising spiritual wellness are multiplying. We follow emerging gurus like Unicole, who is convinced she was sent to Earth by aliens to start a new religion and uses social media to gather followers. Meanwhile, in Hollywood, Shaman Durek is adored and charges his disciples nearly $1,000 per hour to attend a seance. However, there is a fine line between a spirituality coach and a professional crook. We follow the comeback of James Arthur Ray, sentenced to ten years in prison when three of his members died during a ceremony, as he re-establishes himself on the spirituality circuit in Las Vegas. This documentary was first released in 2020."

https://youtu.be/yYrSoVCjYAw 

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/10/2022 (Transcendental Meditation, Podcast, India, Gurus, Scientology)

Transcendental Meditation, Podcast, India, Gurus, Scientology

A Little Bit CULTY: Episode Eleven - Master of the Cultiverse: Patrick Ryan on Transcendental Meditation

"What do Pete Rose, Grandma Walton, skin boys, Dear Prudence, Brooks Brothers suits, David Lynch, Mary Tyler Moore, Merv Griffin, Mary Tyler Moore, Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds and Margaret Singer have in common? They're all mentioned in this episode, and you'll have to listen to find out why. There's just not enough room in these show notes to tell you. But don't worry, you'll be glad you listened, because Patrick Ryan can tell a culty oral history with the best of them. He joins Sarah and Nippy for the penultimate episode of Season 2, and it's a doozy that just might make you take a second look at your meditation practice. As Stefon on SNL would say, "This one has something for everyone: Yogic flying, off-brand incense, and fake CIA operatives." It's been a batshit year, kids, so enjoy 2021's last A Little Bit Culty episode drop.

More about today's guest: Patrick Ryan is a graduate of Maharishi International University. He has been a cult intervention specialist since 1984. He's the co-founder of TM-EX, the organization of ex-members of Transcendental Meditation, established ICSA's online resource (1995-2013), and has presented 50 programs about hypnosis, inner-experience, trance-induction techniques, communicating with cult members, conversion, cult intervention, exit counseling, intervention assessment, mediation, religious conflict resolution, thought reform consultation, eastern groups, transcendental meditation and workshops for educators, families, former members and mental health professionals at ICSA workshops/conferences. Mr. Ryan received the AFF Achievement Award (1997) from AFF, the Leo J. Ryan Foundation, and a Lifetime Achievement Award (2011) from ICSA. Along with fellow intervention specialist Joseph Kelly, Patrick publishes several cult news sites that are an indispensable resource for all things cult-related."

Geo News: Swedish DJ Avicii's final journal entry before suicide REVEALED

" ..At one point, Avicii, real name Tim Bergling, started using Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's meditation techniques.

Of this time, Avicii wrote, "It feels like I am in a new default mode of being which is very new and a little bit scary."

According to the book, a friend who had met Avicii prior to his suicide, had even alerted his father of his concerning meditation techniques. The friend had said that "he wasn't eating or speaking."

A day later, Avicii was dead, with his last entry reading, "The shedding of the soul is the last attachment, before it restarts."

Avicii took his own life with a glass bottle on April 20, 2018, in Muscat, Oman. "

Afternoon Voice: Scheming spirituality and scandals are on the rise

"The sacred land of Bharatvarsha has been sanctified by many spiritually attained people, since time immemorial. It is on the people whether they could recognize them or not. If anyone looks for Guru and spiritual solace outside them than looking for it within, has opted for a fake choice. These so-called Gurus, Babas, religious heads and these typical cults are a market of hypocrites to serve those who opted for false choices. Everyone in this trade has his own business module and selling point."

" ... These days' self-styled spiritual folks are well-written plots. They all have one known-unknown guru, then they have some storyboard to tell you about what made them adopt such practices, then they want celebrities, politicians and people who can pump in money as their tool to the business. A disciple who pays from his pocket to reach such entities to seek something is indirectly spending their hard-earned money in the forms of donation and goodwill, in turn, what they are receiving is an enthralled hoax."

" ... Most people are brainwashed by so-called practices of spirituality. They will never be friends with you because they don't sit with you on the floor, hug you in need, wipe your tears in pain or touch your feet considering you a good human who has visited him. It's you who makes choices and prefers to surrender. The one who needs brand value and money is nothing but a product and business.

Since they are all tax-free, they are already at least 30% better than the rest of us. On top of that, India is a country of diverse beliefs. Most people are scared, restless and can pay you to listen to comforting words and advice. Some of the time this helps (come to think of it, some of the things these spiritual gurus say make sense too, but what they say is not unique, is said by many like them), but it's the hypocrisy that makes you yield to them."

Underground Bunker: Juliette Lewis tells the NY Times she doesn't identify as a Scientologist: What gives?

"'My parents cultivated this rebel, meaning they cultivated the individual spirit.'(They studied Scientology, and Lewis has, too, but she doesn't identify that way. "I'm a spiritualist," she said.)"

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultEducationEvents.com

CultMediation.com   

Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

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Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.

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Gurus Gone Bad in India

How do manipulative cult leaders exploit devout believers?

Karishma Vyas
Aljazeera
August 27, 2018

Sirsa, India - On August 25, 2017, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was convicted of sexually assaulting two women. Across India, such crimes occur with horrifying frequency, but Ram Rahim isn't just another sexual predator. He is a self-styled saint who heads one of the largest spiritual organisations in the country.

Through his ashram, the Dera Sacha Sauda, he has amassed an estimated net worth of almost $36m, and claims to have 60 million followers worldwide. His sprawling headquarters in the north Indian city of Sirsa boasts a state-of-the-art hospital, schools, luxury hotels and a sport stadium.

To his devotees, he is the messenger of God, but many say beneath his saintly persona lies a cruel and conniving criminal. Former followers are now coming forward to expose a network of disciples who supplied Ram Rahim with women he could sexually assault, confidantes who allegedly plotted with him to assassinate critics, and doctors who are accused of castrating hundreds of men on Ram Rahim's orders. Allegations the guru denies.

Why did his devotees conspire with, and cover up for the guru for almost 20 years? And why, even after his criminal convictions, do hundreds of thousands of people continue to worship him?

To understand this blind faith, it's important to understand the psychology of a cult.

"I believed that he was God," says Khatta Singh, who was once a fervent follower of Ram Rahim. "We would take his name morning and night, even before sleeping,"

For 10 years, Singh lived in the Dera Sacha Sauda ashram, working his way into Ram Rahim's inner circle. Like many cult leaders, the guru obsessively controlled his devotees, Singh says.

"He installed cameras around the Dera, and also microphones. When guards would be standing around at night talking, he would record all of it," he recalls.

"In the morning, he would summon them and ask, 'At this time were you talking about this?' They would say, 'Yes, sir'. So, people started thinking that he knows everything."

Hans Raj Chauhan is another former follower who lived under the guru's iron fist. He was just a teenager when his devout parents sent him to live and work in Ram Rahim's ashram. He says his indoctrination began immediately.

"We could only read literature that our guru had given us," he tells Al Jazeera.

"You're not allowed to listen to the radio or watch TV. You have to eat and drink whatever the guru had decided."

"You have to do everything inside the Dera … We couldn't go to the market. If we had to buy some clothes or shoes, we'd have to come back very quickly. They would log our movements."
Chauhan says, like all the disciples living in the ashram, he was brainwashed and cut off from the outside world, including from his family.
"My parents would visit every two or three months, but there was a limit on how long we could meet for. And we would always have one of the guru's spies standing in the corner. Whatever you said would get back to him."

What is being reported in the media is only five percent of what he [Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh] has actually done. I've seen the girls going in and out of his room myself, because I was standing right there. -- KHATTA SINGH, FORMER FOLLOWER OF GURMEET RAM RAHIM SINGH

Both Singh and Chauhan admit that they knew Ram Rahim was committing heinous crimes, including rape.

"What is being reported in the media is only five percent of what he has actually done," says Singh. "I've seen the girls going in and out of his room myself, because I was standing right there."

Singh says he even witnessed his guru order other disciples to murder a journalist. He believes he was also involved in the assassination of a former devotee.

"He's a very dangerous man. I've seen it up close. Ram Chander Chhatrapati, Ranjit Singh ... He gave the order one day and the next they were killed."

And then came the day that Chauhan says he, too, was targeted. He says Ram Rahim ordered doctors in the ashram to castrate him, and hundreds of other followers, without their consent.

But Chauhan says even that didn't destroy his faith in Ram Rahim. Like Khatta Singh, he remained loyal to the guru for years. This blind faith does not surprise author, Bhavdeep Kang.

"Surrender is a very important aspect of the guru-devotee relationship," says Kang, who has written about India's best-known gurus. "You have to completely surrender yourself to the God-man, which means even when he's wrong, he's right."

Kang says it can take years for devout followers to extricate themselves from the control of their gurus, because they believe they have too much to lose.

"What the God-man offers you is membership of a larger community. A sense of belonging. You become so invested in that that it becomes very hard to leave. It becomes so much a part of your existence, of who you are," she says.

Surrender is a very important aspect of the guru-devotee relationship. You have to completely surrender yourself to the God-man, which means even when he's wrong, he's right.
-- BHAVDEEP KANG, AUTHOR

"In some ways, as a devotee, I am more invested in the God-man's divinity than the God-man himself. Having surrendered myself to you, I have to justify it. I have to justify having given up everything for you.

"So, you build up an image of that person in your head, which is not necessarily based on reality."

In Ram Rahim's case, both Singh and Chauhan say fear also played a key role in keeping them loyal to their guru.

"There were a lot of reasons to be afraid," says Chauhan. "I found out that a very good journalist, Ram Chander Chhatrapati was murdered. Ranjit (Singh) was murdered … So, I was terrified. And being from a poor family, I did not have the guts to speak out."
Singh says this fear was justified.

"If I had spoken out, it was possible he'd have me and my entire family killed," he says.
"When I stopped going to the Dera, they sent followers to my house. They'd spit on me. They said, 'If you say anything, we're ready for you'. There was so much pressure on me that I just couldn't speak out."

Singh and Chauhan are now helping the government prosecute their former guru for murder and castration. But even as Ram Rahim serves a 20-year prison sentence for the sexual assault of two female devotees, hundreds of thousands of disciples continue to flock to his ashram.

"He's my guru. He's the answer to all of my questions," says Prakash Singh Salwara, a spokesman for Ram Rahim and his ashram. "He's a mother, a father, a brother, a friend. He's everything."

Salwara, who has been a devotee for almost 30 years, does not believe any of the charges against Ram Rahim. Instead, he says, his guru is a victim of a conspiracy by journalists, politicians and federal investigators.

"From the beginning to the end, I have tried to understand and investigate these allegations. I never say anything that indicated that a crime has been committed," he says. "People are saying that this is politically motivated. The truth hasn't been completely buried. And I believe that someday, it will come out."

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/gurus-bad-india-180822071025661.html

The Black Man from Missouri Who Became an Indian Guru | City of the Seekers

Tanja M. Laden — Sep 29 2016

In the late 19th century, Southern California attracted misfits, idealists, and entrepreneurs with few ties to anyone or anything. Swamis, spiritualists, and other self-proclaimed religious authorities quickly made their way out West to forge new faiths. Independent book publishers, motivational speakers, and metaphysical-minded artists and writers then became part of the Los Angeles landscape. City of the Seekers examines how the legacy of this spiritual freedom enables artists to make creative work as part of their practices.

The year is 1949, and the place is a housewife's home in suburban Los Angeles. On a local TV channel, a sexy, mysterious man in a turban soulfully plays the organ, wooing viewers while wordlessly delivering notes of the distinctly American sounds of early "exotica" music. Yet while he was known as Korla Pandit, the man in the turban was not, as he claimed, the New Delhi-born son of a Hindu Brahman and a French soprano. Instead, he was John Redd, the Missouri-born African American son of a reverend growing up in the midst of segregation. A new documentary called Korla tells Pandit's fascinating story, and illustrates just how someone with charisma, talent, ingenuity, and conviction can transcend his epigenetic inheritance by forging a new identity, ultimately becoming who he believed he was all along.

For 35 years, John Turner worked in the news department at a San Francisco TV station. After retiring, he set out to work on a feature documentary with co-director Eric Christensen about Korla Pandit, which took nearly four years to make. The film includes a variety of intimate interviews with original Pandit fans as well as scholars and contemporary musicians who continue to be influenced by Pandit's legacy. Yet as the film reveals, behind the carefully crafted persona of Korla Pandit was a sincerely spiritual man who not only used music as a force for unity, but was also deeply influenced by LA's spiritual heritage.

"Korla devoted much of his time on and off the stage to promoting what he called 'the universal language of music,' a harmonic blessing from spirit sources, expressing universal love through tonal vibrations from an ethereal place," Turner tells The Creators Project. "Korla's spiritual side, drawn from being raised in a Baptist household, congealed in Los Angeles, where he became friends with Manly Palmer Hall, the founder of the Philosophical Research Society. Korla often lectured there, stressing the blending of cosmic and musical unity. There were quite a few people I talked to, from record producers to fans, who were impressed with Korla's sincerity and his devotion to his message."

Though Korla Pandit became the musician's final identity, it was not the first he created. In the mid-40s, he played the organ on local radio stations and in various clubs as Juan Rolando.

"In the beginning, when I started out on television, the organ did not have much approval in the entertainment industry," Pandit is quoted in the film. "It was something like the harmonica. There were few exceptions. They either associated it with church and weddings and things, or they thought of it as a soap opera or skating rink. So I said, 'The organ can do anything that the orchestra can do [...] And we made it an entertainment unit."

Author of The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African American Renaissance, R.J. Smith was conducting an interview with Sir Charles Thompson when he made the surprising discovery that Korla Pandit was actually John Redd from Columbia, Missouri. "There are a lot of reasons for reinventing yourself in Hollywood," Smith says in the film. "Maybe your name was too ethnic, or too Polish or something, and you wanted to appeal to mass audiences in a way that studios felt comfortable—the way Bernie Schwartz became Tony Curtis. Maybe you had a history that you didn't want people to know about. Maybe you just wanted a fresh start. But Hollywood was the place where you could get a fresh start."

After he married Beryl June DeBeeson, Korla Pandit was "born," perhaps partially in an effort to avoid the hateful stigma behind interracial marriage at the time. As Korla Pandit, the musician was able to comfortably appear in public with with his wife and have a family, all the while making music and hobnobbing with the likes of Bob Hope and Errol Flynn.

"With his hypnotic Svengali look, reaching through the television into housewives' homes—white housewives' homes in Southern California, then other places in the country—he was establishing an emotional, intimate connection, as an Indian," Smith says. "If an African American man had established that kind of connection, he would have been beaten, thrown into a police car. Bad things would have happened."

So Pandit wore a turban and maintained that he was a Hindu. But in India, only Sikhs wear turbans, and not with a big fat jewel dangling from the proverbial third eye. Pandit would also make it a point to avoid people who were really from India for fear of discovery. The real persona lay beneath, but few bothered to look for it while he was alive. Still, it seems the fact that he was able to take this secret to his grave, and may or may not have hidden it from his own children, is eclipsing his true legacy as an unofficial yogi who proselytized the power and vibration of the universal language of love and music.


Over the course of his music career, Pandit issued over 20 albums, 15 of which were recorded in five years. But in the 1970s, Pandit found himself working odd gigs in places such as grocery stores and pizzerias. In 1994, he appeared as himself in a cameo in Tim Burton's biopic, Ed Wood. But throughout his life, Pandit never lost his love for music or his devotion to Paramhansa Yogananda, who once wrote the liner notes for one of Pandit's songs, and for whom Pandit performed at the guru's funeral.

"While it was the Beat writers who brought Buddhism to a wider American audience, it was Paramhansa Yogananda who introduced the sister religion of yoga to Hollywood through his teachings at the Self-Realization Temple of All Religions," Turner says. "It was there in 1953 that Korla gave a concert at which Yogananda said, 'It has been my great dream from childhood to see the best of Eastern and Western music given to the world so that they can find that there is a universal music which can interpret all. When I saw Korla Pandit playing on television, I was so happy, I rejoiced like a little child that the contact had come.'"

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/black-guru-from-missouri-city-of-the-seekers

Kripalu Maharaj and Prakashanand Saraswati in Barsana Dham in 2007

RISHIKA
October 23, 2012

Prakashanand Saraswati is a notorious person among members of the transcendental meditation community who were in Fairfield, Iowa, in the 1980s. That’s when he arrived in the U.S., and tried to recruit followers away from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of TM. In one infamous advertisement, Prakashanand even equated the Maharishi to Satan and in lectures claimed he was “bringing people into darkness.”

It was a curious comment, since he and the Maharisihi briefly shared a guru in the 1950s — the Jagadguru Shankaracharya Brahmanand Saraswati, known as Guru Dev. He was the Shankarcharya of Jyotirmath, a very prestigious religious seat in India. The Maharishi was his secretary for many years, until Guru Dev died in 1952.

As for Prakashanand, according to his official biography, he claims he was offered the guru’s official seat, even though he was only 22 and had known him for less than two years. What’s more, there were several official successors to the seat. Nonetheless, here’s how Prakashanand stated his version of history in his bio:

Swami Prakashanand Saraswati flees US to escape molestation charge

Indian ExpressSeptember 26, 2012

Houston : An 83-year-old wheel-chair bound Indian spiritual guru, a fugitive after being convicted of groping two young girls, may have sneaked clandestinely into India, a US court has been told.US Marshals, still looking for him, suspect that Prakashanand Saraswati, known to his devotees as Swamiji, may have fled America in connivance with his close associates.

Just days after a Hays County jury in Texas convicted him in March 2011 on 20 counts of indecency for molesting two teenagers, the self-styled guru has been missing.

A judge sentenced him in absentia to 14 years in prison on each count and the guru also forfeited USD 1.2 million in bond and promissory notes.

Newly filed court documents reveal that Prakashanand, who moves around in wheelchair apparently crossed over into Mexico two days after his conviction while being at large on bail and may have used a network of devotees to make his way to India.

Eighteen months later, federal officials are still unraveling the mystery of how he got out of the country and who helped him.

Deputy US Marshal Robert Marcum, who is leading the investigation to track the guru down, called his flight with the help of his religious adherents in Texas, Pennsylvania, California and Florida as "the most sophisticated scheme I've seen as far as fugitive investigations go. They were very smart about what they did."

Marcum added it is likely some of the guru's devotees will be charged with harboring a fugitive, aiding and abetting escape or making false statements to a government agent.

The information, as well as detailed accounts of how guru's followers moved him around the country while evading law enforcement, is part of the documents filed recently in court.
One of the girls, who was kissed and groped by the guru, said his escape to India effectively ends the case against him. "I feel the door is closed on it," she said.
"There's nothing more to be done." She added: "I'm sure we'd all sleep better if he were locked up. But he's in his own little prison."

Karen Jonson, who this year published "Sex, Lies, and Two Hindu Gurus," a book about her life at the ashram, said: "While a measure of justice was served by his conviction, it would still be the right thing for Prakashanand to have to endure the result of his crimes against children, to serve his punishment as determined by the courts of this country."
Still, she added, "as long as he is alive, there will always be hope for his capture and return to Texas."

According to US Customs and Border Protection records, the suspicions that fugitive Swami may have used the Mexico route was strengthened by the fact that his Radha Madhav Dham ashram employees frequently crossed the Texas-Mexico border throughout 2011.

When contacted by marshals investigators, most either declined to be interviewed in detail, or "stated that they did not believe guru was guilty of the convicted offenses, and they hoped he would evade capture and never go to prison."

One of the devotees named in the affidavit, Jenifer Deutsch, also called Vrinda Devi, has been a spokeswoman for Radha Madhav Dham.