Effrontery and Arrogance Personified.
On his sexual prowess, note what he says !
The question marks that hung over Swami Nityananda, 34, head of the Bangalore-based meditation centre Dhyanapeetham, after a sleazy sex video surfaced two years ago, momentarily disappeared when he was named the 293rd pontiff of south India’s oldest Shaivite math, the Madurai Adheenam, in April. But old allegations are back to haunt the controversial godman again, following a spill-all TV interview by a former lady devotee, Arati Rao. Jailed for assaulting a journalist and released on bail, he spoke to Deepak Thimaya in Madurai.
You can read a shorter version of this interview here.
This is the full, unexpurgated transcript.
Don’t you think you have let you devotees down and also put some of them in a defensive position?
I don’t think I have let down my devotees or put them in a defensive position. It is an attack on us. So the people who are attacking, are only trying to put me down and my devotees. I feel the devotees who have experienced the spiritual transformational benefits from me are very clear that it is an attack on us. It is persecution. So neither they feel I let them down nor I feel I feel I let them down. It is persecution of me and my devotees.
Some of your devotees who still continue to be your devotees feel that they have been put in an uncomfortable position, because they don’t know what the truth is.
If I know who exactly is the person who is saying this, I may be able to explain. It looks more hypothetical and generalized. I am unable to answer this question.
Some of your devotees may want to know it, because all may not want to accept you without questioning. Do you think you have caused discomfort to such devotees at least?
I don’t feel I caused any discomfort to them, anywhere. Because, all spiritual movements have been persecuted sometime and all such spiritual leaders have gone through such problems some time or the other. I taught my devotees to live in a complete personal spiritual experience instead of being bothered, tortured, being tarnished and being disturbed by some opinion which comes from here and there or from vague quarters without much understanding and without looking into the depths.
Don’t you think by saying this you are actually negating the kind of deluge that your organization is facing of public opinion? You as the guru, the all-knowing, may feel that it is a small and insignificant thing, to an ordinary person it may be a very overwhelming thing.
You called it a deluge — it means it is something that will settle down. So, you yourself said it. For me it may be happening in a corner, but for a person on the street, it is happening all over. But, don’t you understand and can’t you look at this angle that the person on the street does not care about this issue? The 2G scam was huge for some people while it was not so huge for some other
Are you referring to the huge reception A. Raja received in TN?
No, I am not getting into the details of that, but am only giving a general example of any deluge is personal experience.
What you say is, what is deluge for someone may not be a deluge for someone else.
Neither I feel it is a deluge nor the disciples who experienced me feel that it is a deluge.
You very specifically said that different spiritual movements have gone through persecution at different times. Agreed, but never persecution based on the spiritual leader’s personal conduct, personal character or personality itself. In most cases the persecution was related to the ideological differences.
No. I can give thousands of examples where the personality was attacked. See, if it is only ideology, it is very easy. Attack on ideology is always the beginning. But in course it is always the personality that is attacked. Ideology is nothing but the expansion and the extension of the personality. Whether the Buddha, means the master, or the Dhamma, his message, or the Sangha his organization — all these three are ultimately the expansion or the extension of the same source. So, I feel all attack was always on all three for all masters
Most devotees feel that as a Master you know more than your devotes or at least you are supposed to know more. Did you not that this was coming?
I can say in a way I know when the usual course of persecution comes.
Did you know when you were conducting all your programs in full steam, that something like this would actually come and cause distress?
I expected this kind of some persecution in some form. I had predicted it too.
When?
May be 2009.
To whom?
To a group of devotees in a public class.
But that was when things were already going wrong in your ashram and you have been getting the hint.
No, there was nothing wrong going on within or outside the ashram. Whether something was going wrong or right, that there some anti-spiritual elements that were waiting to attack.
From the statements of Ms. Arati Rao, one can specifically and clearly know that in 2009 she had heard other people talking about the things thing not being right in the ashram. If you predicted in 2009 that things could wrong, would that mean that by then you had got the wind of it, and knew that something had gone beyond your control?
Two things. First thing whatever (Arati Rao) says is a lie. I am not accepting even one word of what she said. That second thing is that what I said in 2009 was in a spiritual angle with a spiritual intuition. I was not said on the basis of what people were talking or some activity. It was based on intuition, understanding the energy flow and astrological calculations
Why would a woman like Arati Rao come up with these allegations?
You should ask her.
You know that Arati Rao and Nityananda Swamy are not the same and cannot be put on the same balance. Your statements will be weighed and analysed quite differently from hers. You will be treated differently because of your position in the society. Now, what would make her to openly say that she was abused?
