[2] He further claimed to have gained degree-level qualifications from an Indian school of homeopathic medicine, the University of Hamburg, Utrecht University, and finally the University of Oxford. His American followers hear the spiritual teachings from his mouth, with his interpretation, and they rarely have the exposure to a variety of gurus, which would teach them to be skeptical of their own guru. Most of the Institute's programs are open to the general public. Trained to meditate and educated in the scriptures from early childhood, he was able to translate and interpret any of the 20,000 verses from the Vedas by the age of 13, according to a biographical pamphlet put out by the Meditation Center. Analysis. Yet she is vulnerable to feeling re-victimized every time her experience is denied or distorted. Swami Rama has shattered the myth of western science about restrictions of human Physiology. This seemingly whimsical application of standards demoralized many of the ex-members I spoke with and led many to resent the members of Swami Rama's inner circle. He told her he was writing a book of poetry for her, and he offered to find her a husband. Broad described him as "the star of autonomic control". [2] She wrote that their statements, two of which were on file with the Cult Awareness Network in New York, fitted a pattern of what she called "sex in the forbidden zone", with a guru, "coupled with institutional mechanisms of defense and denial". Once when Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa was suffering from throat cancer, Swami Vivekananda could not bear His sufferings and planned to apply his yogic powers to cure him. Later, many of the women broke out in head-to-toe swelling and rashes from what had in fact been poison ivy roots. I mean, he's giving you the teachings and you're going to use the teachings to evaluate him? They introduced her to the guru, and she remembers he made a fuss over her, slapping her cheek lightly and calling her a good girl. Branch centers have also been established throughout the United States. Since our interview, Dr. Ballentine has been sent at least two letters by women who say they were sexually abused by Swami Rama: one from Carolyn and one from Susan. At the meeting, Brian says, Dr. Ballentine presented letters from another woman, Karen,* who also claimed to have been sexually exploited by Swami Rama. [1] He moved to America in 1969, initially teaching yoga at the YMCA, and founding the Himalayan Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy in Illinois in 1971; its headquarters moved to its current location in Honesdale, Pennsylvania in 1977. Most of the women who say they were abused by Swami Rama express feelings of fear, frustration, and betrayal. Born in northern India, he was raised from early childhood by the Himalayan sage, Bengali Baba. He explains that Nuernberger was just a graduate student, inexperienced and lacking in professional judgment, when the incident with Marston occurred: "At a time when he was learning to be a therapist and thought that someone is asking for you to reach out, you reach out and you touch them and you let them see your feelings, and I think that was very bad." Or, in the words of Rudolph Ballentine, M.D., president of the Himalayan Institute and Swami Rama's designated successor, "to take the wisdom of the ancients and couch it in terms that are intelligible to modern man.". Omissions? [7], In another experiment at the Menninger Foundation, he voluntarily stopped his heart from pumping blood for 17 seconds. Swami Rama has a reputation among his followers as an incredible psychologist who uses his insights to help others. Meanwhile Janet,* a Honesdale woman who worked as the couple's babysitter and housekeeper at the time, says she received threatening phone calls at Brian and Terry's house, asking if she was alone with the children. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Similarly, gurus in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions are supposed to be examples of self-mastery and right living. To view the video Swami Rama: Hansda Ashram, Nepal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHwDV9UeyfE, Why Did He Not Heal Himself? Box 400, Honesdale, PA 18431: (717) 253-5551. In the presence of others, we spoke only of positive or spiritual matters, in the deliberately modulated tones all the residents used. They know, usually without being told, that if they break the taboo of silence they will be blamed for destroying their spiritual families and the "higher" good those families purportedly do in the world. After she had lived in Honesdale for a year, Swami Rama started promising to make her his appointments secretary. And that did not undermine Mahatma Gandhi's work! He bragged about his sumptuous homes in India and Japan and about his shopping sprees for designer clothes, she says. From her childhood Carolyn had been steeped in Catholic faith and educated in scientific skepticism; now it seemed the Institute could help her harmonize these two seemingly contradictory ways of perceiving the world. Turning East in the Twin Cities: Converts and Movements in the 1970s. Swami Rama, she says, would extol his own sexual abilities but tell her she was bad at making love. He is also supposed to have graduated from a homeopathic medical school in India, and studied at Hamburg University, the University of Utrecht, and Oxford University. The couple had been meditating together for several years. Glenview, Ill.: Himalayan Institute, 1976. I have witnessed two similar cases. Pandit Arya has many profound and beautiful things to say about his relationship to his guru when I interview him at the Divya Jyoti yoga center in Napa, California, in May 1989. Those who build boundaries around themselves because of their ego problems create suffering for themselves." Two other women left the Institute shortly afterwards. When she did not, the young priest sank into despair. I was counting years. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. He reportedly sat down on a chair next to her bed and proceeded to make sexual advances. But not all of us know the real reason (s) behind his demise. And he abruptly dismissed her. Boyd, Doug. Rather than being a saint, according to Green, Swami Rama is an advanced yogi and "a mortal with some ego problems.". Carolyn says the "goofy" letters never got answered. The capacity to leave the body consciously at the time of death is not restricted only to accomplished yogis. People say that Mahatma Gandhi slept with women. Every time he saw her, she says, he told her she was "perfect," as if she had passed some important test. A system that encourages such vulnerable individuals to give up their own "egotistical" judgment to the arbitrary whims of one person is one of the key features of a totalist organization, or "cult.". The accumulated testimony of their personal experiences through the years exhibits a pattern typical of "sex in the forbidden zone," coupled with institutional mechanisms of defense and denial. Now no power can hold me back. Carolyn says she told him no, it "just didn't feel right." In private sessions, ex-disciples say, Swami Rama has arranged marriages and instructed disciples to break off relationships. During that time, neither of them would see any other, and she should never tell anyone. Living with the Himalayan Masters: Spiritual Experiences of Swami Rama. In his enlightened state, they believe, he could never commit any selfish acts, which would create new karmic burdens. Most rapists threaten women with physical violence. He became famous for his ability to control his body in yoga nidra, writing many books including the autobiographical Living with Himalayan Masters. Friends of the two couples set up a "truth booth" outside the entrance of the Institute's first annual congress in 1976. In 1856, however, Ramkumar died. Both women and men say they blamed themselves and their own spiritual obtuseness when they repeatedly failed to discern and follow the shifting rules. Brian says he felt betrayed, but the knowledge that Swami Rama had financially exploited him made it easier for the couple to cut their ties to the Institute. He performs ritual prayers, dresses in his armor, and when he's dressed, he looks very heroic. At bottom, however, she believed her feelings didn't matter. Had anyone spoken to her? With great concern I asked him how he was. '"My dear,"' she says her counselor told her, "You sound just like a sexually abused child, a little girl whose Daddy told you never to tell anyone.". He demonstrated this feat in my presence five times. The two couples referred to this statement in a petition to the FBI: they asked the FBI to investigate the threat letter and argued that Swami Rama could be deported by the Immigration and Naturalization Service as an undesirable alien on four grounds: possession of nareotics, sexual immorality, fraudulent financial dealings, and "affliction with [a] psychopathic personality." Residents staff the Institute's administration, bookstores, and other small businesses, including Himalayan Publishers and Distributors and an elementary school. They are crazy. I spoke to him excitedly; Maharaj-ji, where are you calling from? He was calling from Hong Kong. Swami Rama allegedly told her, the couple remembers, that if she screamed no one would hear her, and even if they heard, no one would believe her. He was ready to embark on his project to build the hospital, but first he chose to establish an ashram in Nepal. The annual congress, held each June, offers a smorgasbord of lectures and "new age" workshops. Born into a poor Brahman (the highest-ranking social class) family, Ramakrishna had little formal schooling. "I only needed one person to corroborate my experience," Megan says now. He was just 50 years old. Finally, on 13th November 1996 he left his body. Dr. Ballentine sent copies of his letter to the same Institute members who had received Hughes's letter. Its mission, according to the Articles of Incorporation, was "to make known to the members and people in general the real, synthetic, and harmonious view of world religions and philosophy in terms of modern scientific achievements and undertake researches for all around ethical, social, economical, and spiritual development of humanity to attain world peace, international integration, understanding, and spiritual awakening of the human race." She was afraid to stay in her room, which had no lock on the door, or to use the hall telephone, because all calls had to be routed through the main switchboard. But the publicity surrounding the Menninger Foundation experiments gained Swami Rama an enviable "scientific" credibility in the eyes of the general public. . Are you feeling a little confused and emotionally upset, and maybe some of the things that happened you might have misinterpreted, or you might have even fantasized them, you know, have trouble separating fantasy from reality?" Carolyn and others say Megan caused a scandal in the Honesdale ashram by breaking the silence surrounding Swami Rama's sexual behavior. He says he once had a patient falsely accuse him of getting her pregnant, and that any psychologist knows that this happens frequently with emotionally disturbed women patients. Swami Vivekananda Death Anniversary: 4th July is the 116th death anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. After each of these sadhanas, Ramakrishna claimed to have had the same experience of brahman, the supreme power, or ultimate reality, of the universe. Swami died on 14 November 1977 at the age of 81, in Vrindavan, India. In the spring of 1983, Swami Rama began to court her again, she says: He told her that she would help him prepare a book of sacred poetry he was writing, and he assured her repeatedly that he would take her to India the following autumn. They then informed Sarkar who arrived late next morning. Rose, they explain, was not a disciple of Swami Rama, but had been invited by family members in the Institute's administration to come to Honesdale for medical treatment. Born: February 18, 1833 He says that Swami Rama has been his guru since he was a child in India, and that he came to the U.S. at Swami Rama's request to head up the Honesdale ashram. "By their fruits you shall know them," he says, paraphrasing the Bible. Because that's my whole life My relationship with [Swami Rama] is purely divine and spiritual-there cannot be impurity in it, and there is no room for such thoughts. My father certainly had sex, and that's why I was born, so will I lose faith in my father? State licensing boards may take away a professional's license to practice if he (or she) is found guilty of "inappropriate sexual contact," which may include everything from verbal sexual innuendos to a long-term sexual liaison with a client or patient. The liver specialist said it was liver disease. The Meditation Center became affiliated with the Himalayan Institute, and eventually Pandit Arya achieved his dream of having his own ashram in India, when Swami Rama made him president of his Rishikesh ashram. Dale Colton, director of public relations at the Himalayan Institute, never returned my repeated phone calls requesting an interview with Swami Rama. Terry, who is now a practicing psychotherapist, says she believes Swami Rama's behavior is compulsive-he can't help it." Meanwhile, Carolyn says, Swami Rama began singling her out for special attention. He says he was only directly confronted once-the rest has been hearsay. After he had, as she describes it, "had sex on my body," she took a blanket into the other room and slept on the floor. She remembers that Swami Rama received love letters from several women; one of two of them even mentioned "your child." A small band of disciples, most of them Western-educated, gathered around Ramakrishna in the early 1880s, drawn by the appeal of his message and by his charisma as a guru and ecstatic mystic. When the couple confided their resulting marital troubles to Karen and George, Karen confirmed her friend's experience by revealing that she, too, had had a supposedly exclusive and spiritual sexual relationship with Swami Rama before her marriage. Yes! But the University of Scranton didn't offer a degree program in Carolyn's area of study, so she saw a way to rationalize leaving the Institute while still saving face; she could still be considered a good disciple if she cold get the guru's blessing to go away to college. A saint is a person who does what he says." Initially, Brian says, most of the other directors responded with concern. Unfortunately, his health kept deteriorating and he died in 1920 at the age of 32. I asked him why these specialists cannot agree on a diagnosis. She became outraged at the residents and the professional staff who enable and legitimized the Swami's behavior. Well-known Indian teacher of yoga, meditation, and holistic health. After leaving the post of Shankaracharya 1952, Swami Rama had first gone back to his master. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). At the same time, she felt anxious, because she'd seen how severe Swami Rama could be with those closest to him. "Unpurified ego is an evil which obstructs one's own progress. He was further seen to create a temperature differential of 5 degrees Celsius between two areas on the palm of his right hand. From the 1970s onwards, there were persistent allegations of sexual abuse of his followers;[2] in 1997 a woman won a lawsuit against him for multiple sexual assaults. At 7:00 p.m. Vivekananda went to his room, asking not to be disturbed; he died at 9:20 p.m. while meditating. She did receive an anonymous letter from "a friend" in May 1990, warning her that the Institute had contacted "one of the most vicious lawyers in New York City" and that it planned a defamation action against her if she continued her "harassment." Two months after Swami Rama left for India, Carolyn went to Chicago to visit her family for Christmas. //
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