Nithyananda's flop show: Where nobody levitated

Hop turns flop at Bidadi ashram
Bangalore, July 15, DHNS :

Self-styled godman Nithyananda’s invitation to watch the miracles of meditation did not actually set the Bidadi ashram ablaze on Friday. As the media and onlookers watched, the demonstration of levitation turned out to be his devotees trying to hop up from wherever they were seated.

Nithyananda had invited mediapersons along with many of his disciples to his ashram to convince them that he is seriously working to scientifically explore the benefits of his way of meditation or what he called ‘Kundalini awakening’.

He chose Guru Poornima to show his so-called spiritual prowess. Flanked by many of his disciples, Nithyananda took out a ‘grand procession’ from the main gate to the temple.

Later, the procession converged on the main hall where Nithyananda was supposed to show results of his stream of meditation including levitation.

But what was apparently visible throughout the show was that the self-styled godman mistook levitation for hopping.
 

Nithyananda’s instruction to his disciples was to levitate and dictionaries say levitation means, ‘to rise or cause to rise into the air and float in apparent defiance of gravity’.

However, instead of levitating, his disciples were seen merely jumping up and down on the stage as well as off it.

Among the hoppers were some female foreigners seated in the audience.
Some wore a helmet-like contraption said to help raise their Kundalini. Many of the women just swayed about, with their hair loose, as if in a trance.

The show-stopper, of course, was Tamil actress Ranjitha, who too tried to hop about, but the effort looked more out of a Kollywood movie, than a spiritual effort, the frequent loud exaltations by Nithyananda making it more so.

A local mediaperson answered Nithyananda’s exhortations to the media to try the Kundalini experiment. He was asked to jump from where he was seated. He told the Ashramites that he wouldn’t do so since that wouldn’t amount to a miracle.

In a press release, Nithyananda later claimed that his “global message was accompanied by a scientific presentation and live demonstration of Kundalini-awakening and levitation”.

He went on to claim that his demonstration was part of an ongoing scientific study by a team of international researchers on the effects of Kundalini-awakening on physical health, mental clarity and altered states of consciousness.

Source: Deccan Herald