The self-styled Godmen are the most famous and the most controversial. Their devotees treat them like God or incarnation on earth. These Godmen do everything to appear like a God, to further increase their aura. They portray that they are agents of God and professing gospel for rest of the humanity. At least, some people even believe them. As has happened many times before, their devotees are once again feeling cheated.
These so called Godmen have been accused of doing things which are not even humanly. In the latest case, Asaram Bapu has been accused of sexually exploiting a minor girl. It is still early to say, if the accusations are correct or not, but one thing is sure that he has tried his level best to delay the legal proceedings. First he accused the victim of being characterless and whole episode being a political conspiracy, then he proclaimed of being ill, then it was told that he is impotent, and at last, he tried to create pressure through his numerous followers.
All these Asaram’s efforts created a public perception that he was trying to subvert the legal process. Now even his bail application has been cancelled. The Supreme Court questioned why everybody seems to be his slave?
India is known to be a country of saints. There is no shortage of these saints and the people, who believe on those saints. The saints are supposed to be oasis of goodness in a world of evil, so to increase faith in God. It is not that all saints are fraud, still some decent saints are left (at least I hope so).
Asaram Bapu is not the first God-man to be accused of unholy acts. Here is list of others who have been accused in past list.
- Nithyananda has been entangled in sexual-related controversies. His sleazy video clips with a Tamil actress were telecasted in 2010. Later, he was accused of duping a NRI lady of millions.
- Sant Swami Bhimanand was arrested with two air hostesses and accused of running a prostitution racket.
- Swami Premananda of Premananda Ashram, Tiruchirapally in Tamil Nadu was sentenced to life imprisonment for rape and murder
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- Swami Amrit Chaitnya was arrested in 2008 for raping minor girls and cheating an NRI woman.
On one side, there is faith and devotion and on other, there are professional saints. Many saints speak fluent English and use management lingos. Their appointments are scheduled months in advance. Everything is done to create aura for people who are not use jargons and increase their followings.
Babas are very busy. The big and mighty want to meet him. Baba professes to not care too much about the money. According to him, money is just a myth. But he himself has not been able to get out of same myth. His consultation fees, popularly known as darshan fee, is thousands of rupees.
Babas have empire of their own. Thousands of people work for them. Roles are clearly defined, from attracting new followers (marketing and sales) and organizing satsangs (operations) to live TV telecast (PR) and taking care of followers’ queries (Human Recourse). They have full-time PR officers working on image building and publicity through print, TV, internet and merchandize. The babas are paid for speeches and appear in inaugurations, just Bollywood star.
Number of these self-professed Gods is steadily increasing. Why should not? The aura created around these babas is doing the trick. The followers, who have since childhood heard tales of Ram and Krishna, think they have found next incarnation of Vishnu.
In Bhagwat Geeta, Krishna said that, kalyug will come when human beings will start worship other human being. That is happening now.
The author is a Hindu by birth. He is a self-professed atheist and cynic.
- See more at: http://slugpost.com/2013/09/08/saga-godman-sex-money/#sthash.nrIoAErg.dpuf
In Nithyananda's ashram there are lot of small children that appear to be initiated into his so-called sanyasa. Isn't it a crime to force small children into monk-hood, even if they consent ? Why is the dept of child affairs or the govt/police in general silent on this? Obviously they are afraid of this man.
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