“It (is) not easy ... to draw a line between Hindu nationalism and true nationalism. The two overlap as India is the only home of Hindus and they form a majority there.” — J. Nehru in Glimpses of World History
Those who permit slaying of animals; those who bring animals for slaughter; those who slaughter; those who sell meat; those who purchase meat; those who prepare dishes out of meat; those who serve that meat and those who eat it are all murderers. — Manusmriti
When I think of all the harm the Bible has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it.” — Oscar Wilde
“Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.” — Voltaire
“Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned, [and molested]: yet we have not advanced one inch towards humanity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support error and roguery all over the earth.” — Thomas Jefferson
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. […] We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. — Karl Popper
Filed under: india, USA | Tagged: child sex abuse, prakashanand saraswati, sex scandal, vaishnava sampradaya |
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Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgement. — Seneca
To teach superstition as truth is a most terrible thing. — Hypatia
The world has produced three great impostors: Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. — Frederick II of Sicily
Christians must acknowledge the historical fact that from Bethlehem to Madras, most of their sacred sites are booty won in campaigns of fraud and destruction. — Koenraad Elst
Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal justice if it is to ask for universal assent. — M. K. Gandhi
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. — M. K. Gandhi
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. — Cicero
BHARATA BHARATI
By the way, the legal system of our own country is also heavily biased against Hindus. The so called ‘secular’ politics has systematically damaged everything and distorted everything that is truely Indian and truely Hindu. The Hindu faith is facing multi-pronged attack from several quarters.
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Well, I have serious doubts about the legal process of any western country when it comes to have anything to do with any Hindu religious leader. So, the so called convictions can very well be based on prejudice and intolerance of non-Christian faiths, especially, the Hindu faith. But, as I have mentioned in my earlier comment, if the allegations are true and the legal process has been fair, then it is really disgraceful. The guilty should be punished.
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Whatever Prakashanan’s state of mind, there is a basic code of conduct sannyasis are to follow when interacting with women and householders. They get into trouble because they do not follow this code of conduct (which is explicitly laid down in the Vasudevasrama Yatidharmaprakasa and Yatidharmasamuccaya texts). The Kanchi Acharya Jayendra Saraswati also got into trouble because the established rules for math heads were not being followed in the Kanchi Math. And in the on-going court case against the head of the Madurai Aadheenam, it has been argued by the State of Tamil Nadu that he should be removed from his position as math head because he has not followed the established rules and traditions of the math when he appointed Nithyananda as his successor.
State of mind is not an excuse for abusing the trust of the devotee!
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The things happening to Hindus in their own country and resultant having no clouts like Muslims, Buddhists, Chinese, Arabs, Sikhs etc. The rougue and fake Hindu sadhus should be carefully idetified. I think some governor in USA released many inmates of jail in his prison when he found out that about 60% of the convicted felons were in fact innocented and framed.
Wikipedia:
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati was born in a respectable brahmin family in 1929[8] in Ayodhya,[6][8] India. His early life was fraught with intense religious feelings, and as a youth he became a reclusive mystic so that he might find God.[7] He completed his studies and at age of 21, renounced the world and took the order of sanyas.[7][8] In 1952, he was offered to become the Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath but he declined,[9] because, according to Swami Prakshanand Saraswati, he “was drawn towards the love of Radha Krishna”.[10][11]
He spent the next 20 years[6][7] as a wandering ascetic in the Himalayas and in the forests of central India, ending in Braj.[7] Following the strict discipline of sannyas, he first lived in the Himalayas (Joshimath, Badrinath, Rishikesh, Haridwar, etc.), forests of Amarkantak, near the Narbada River, Allahabad and Kashi for about four years. Later, he went to Vrindaban and then to Barsana where he spent over 18 years in the deep woodlands of Braj.[8] In 1975, he emerged from his solitary life, and on the instructions of his Spiritual Master, Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj, he began his mission of teaching the path of raganuga bhakti.[12] He founded the International Society of Divine Love in India in 1975. The society was established in New Zealand in 1978. Later on he traveled to America and founded an ashram for his devotees and disciples. By 1981 Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, who had begun to be thought of as a distinguished sage and a saint,[7] conceived of creating a global mission.[7] He established religious centers in India, England, Ireland, Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia[7] and has written 10 books on Hinduism.[13
Research with Maxwell Cade
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s state of “conscious ecstasy” was studied by Dr. Maxwell Cade in 1970s.[8]
Dr. Cade, a leading physicist of London,[8] and Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine,[18] had been doing psycho-biological research during the 1970s on meditation and the altered states of the consciousness of the mind.[19][20][21][22]
Maxwell Cade co-developed the “Mind Mirror”, a portable EEG machine that could monitor the alpha, beta, delta and theta rhythms from each brain hemisphere simultaneously.[19] In the 1970s, a number of eastern religious teachers expressed an interest in participating in Cade’s research, and agreed to have their brain rhythms measured.[19] In 1976 when he was touring England, Swami Prakashanand Saraswati requested to participate in Dr. Cade’s research.[8] Dr. Cade and his team found patterns they had not seen before.[19] Cade concluded that the Swamis’ spiritual training conferred unusual powers of healing and perception.[19]
Dr. Cade spent two weeks with Saraswati to measure Saraswati’s brainwaves, and he always seemed to be in this “Awakened Mind” pattern.[23] Furthermore, he measured brainwave patterns, only previously measured in a few rare individuals, that Cade characterizes as the “State beyond the Awakened Mind”.[22] Cade commented: “. . . he has attained to that level of consciousness at which he is in the higher reaches of meditation and in everyday waking consciousness at the same time”.[24] On one occasion, Cade says that Saraswati “produced the most beautiful fifth-state pattern on the Mind Mirror for more than an hour while engaging in an intense debate with Professor John Hasted, a noted physicist”.[22] Saraswati wanted to test out the effects of his new form of meditation called the “Divine Love Meditation.” He had Cade test subjects while listening to a tape consisting of chanting and they measured the effects. According to Cade, both experienced and non-meditators were able to produce a form of “Awakened Mind” pattern while listening to these tapes.[23]
He writes, “Those who have close contact with His Divinity know that he remains continually in his Divine-Love transcendence. This corresponds to what Carl Jung termed ‘the Transcendent Function.'” Further, Cade writes that he “had not seen anyone who could equal Swamiji’s feat of touching a number of subjects on the head and immediately raising their pattern of consciousness by two levels, from the ordinary waking state into the advanced fifth state. In at least one of these subjects, the higher state persisted for three days and was an unforgettable experience.”[8] Cade’s wife reportedly had an “unforgettable experience” from meeting Swami Prakashanand Saraswati and participating in the study.[25] Maxwell Cade characterized it as “an experience of great impact”.[24] It was, he wrote later: “. . . a perfect opportunity to study his remarkable EEG patterns under varying circumstances, to discuss the application of scientific methods to the study of meditation, and to learn about Divine Love Meditation at the feet of this great Master”.[24]
Cade published his research in his “landmark book”,[26] The Awakened Mind.[23] Cade’s research with Swami Prakashanand Saraswati has also been discussed in several other publications including by Hill (1979),[20] Inglis & West (1983)[21] and Treece (1989).[25]
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Read the article again. These are not allegations but a conviction on 20 counts of child molestation. There would have been an appeal process and his very wealthy devotees will have hired the best lawyers. So it is not as if he was set up.
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If true, it is really disgraceful. But care should be taken to ascertain if the allegations are eally true. Many a time, false allegations and fabricated cases are made up to frame Hindu religious leaders or ‘Gurus’, so as to show Hindus and Hinduismn in poor light. Such attempts have been made in the past and the allegations have been proved as false later on. This is what had happened in case of Swami Rama, for example. At the same time, there is no dearth of fake swamis and charlatans posing as ‘Gurus’ in order to advance their own selfish interests that have nothing to do with Hinduism.
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These degenerate renegade gurus bring Hindu Dharma into disrepute at home and abroad. They are a disgrace to the Sadhu Samaj and cause embarrassment to the tens of thousands simple, disciplined sadhus who move among the villages and whose main concern is the well-being and uplifting of Hindus in the towns and farming communities.
A hundred years ago the Naga sadhus would have dealt summarily with a child molester like Prakashanand (and Nithyananda). They would have taken away his mala and saffron clothes and given him jal samadhi in the Ganga. But today we are modern, progressive and secular and do not have an effective way to discipline gurus and godmen who demand absolute fidelity from their devotees but abuse their power with impunity–the guru is god after all; who can challenge him?.
And this is not only a NRI problem in UK and US. These sadhus are imported into the US from India on trust, and they then return to India when they get into trouble in the States or Australia as it is less likely action will be taken against them here. So they are also an Indian problem especially when they are given refuge in prestigious Hindu institutions like the Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat in New Delhi.
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