Yoga is a 27 billion dollar industry. To put it in perspective, it is it is as big as Tata steel’s assets; and larger than the assets of Infosys, Wipro and TCS put together. And these figures are for the yoga that goes around legally. A lot of what goes in the background never comes out unless someone gets murdered or raped; or skeletons fall off their closets.
For many centuries, Indian spirituality was confined to itself. Swami Vivekananda was among the first to genuinely attempt debunking the western belief of Hinduism as a bunch of snake charmers and weed addicts; and bring into light something more meaningful and spiritual. This was soon followed by Paramahansa Yogananda’s spread of Kriya Yoga to the west followed by his highly celebrated book ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’. The contributions of Sri Aurobindo in both spirituality and the freedom struggle garnered greater respect for Indian spirituality. The spiritual leaders who followed, however, had their priorities all misplaced.
When Karl Marx said, ‘Religion is the opium of the people’ little did he know that a few celebrity minded Indians will take his statement as a career advise. Unlike Vivekananda or Yogananda, most spiritual gurus who followed rode over a mob of naive, idealistic spiritual seekers, and heavily lacked the traits of an enlightened teacher. During the 60’s and 70’s, most Indian spiritual organizations started trading and copyrighting age old yoga practices and knowledge. No wonder Osho owned 96 Rolls Royces while he told his sannyasins to renounce attachment to possession. Not only were his therapies questioned, there were serious allegations of drug use among his disciples. Osho’s disciples, in order to win some petty elections in 1984, waged a bio-terror attack and food poisoned 751 people. The incident was the first and single largest bio-terrorist attack in US history.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the guru of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar built and owned a billion dollar empire, whose financial aspects were subject to huge controversy. Even The Beatles, who made Maharishi their spiritual guru, turned away from him Maharishi made sexual advances towards Mia Farrow. They even composed a song on him titled ‘Sexy Sadie’, which was initially intended to be titled ‘Maharishi’. The sexual legacy of these god men only grew, and the recent controversies surrounding Nithyananda and Asaram Bapu raping women came as no big surprises.
Not only raping a minor, Asaram and his son were also investigated in the mysterious deaths of two boys whose decomposed bodies were found from the banks of Sabarmati River near his ashram in 2008. He was also involved in a 150 million Dollars land grab case. And speaking of homicides, how can one forget the Purulia Arms Drop incident when a Latvian aircraft dropped a large consignment of arms including several hundred AK-47 rifles and more than a million rounds of ammunition on the night of 17 December 1995. BBC, after it’s investigation into it, alleged that arms were intended for the spiritual organization Ananda Marga, which wanted to overthrow the communist government in West Bengal.
Jayendra Saraswati, the sixty-ninth Shankaracharya of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham and his junior Vijayendra were the prime accused in the murder of Sankararaman, the manager of the Varadarajaperumal temple at Kanchipuram. Another attempt-to-murder case was filed by an auditor, Radhakrishnan, in Chennai, who alleged that Saraswathi sent goons to his house to kill him because he had questioned the missing 83 kg of gold meant for the Kamakshi temple at Kanchipuram. Anuradha Ramanan, a Tamil writer and novelist, filed a suit against Saraswathi for allegedly asking her for sexual favors. The case was closed on the account of her death in 2010.
Baba Ramdev was accused of using human and animal bones in his medicines. This was later confirmed, although most of the newspapers carried reports to the contrary. Ramdev also went on to claim that his medicines can help against cancer and AIDS. Ministry of Health stepped in to rebuke the claim, and Ramdev replied that his idea was misrepresented, and that Yoga and Ayurveda together can alleviate the suffering from aids, not cure it. He soon distanced himself from such debates and joined Anna Hazare’s anti corruption squad. But his super-drug-propaganda continues to work in Indian households, which has helped him set up the largest business chain of Ayurvedic medicines in the country. Tehelka magazine reported financial irregularities and tax evasion by Ramdev’s trusts. Irregularities included sales tax evasion, forceful land grab from farmers and stealing of electricity by using agricultural connection for commercial use. The net value of his assets is close to 250 million Dollars.
The famous spiritual guru Chandraswami, who has given spiritual advice to the likes of Sultan of Brunei, Sheikh of Bahrain, Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret Thatcher and PV Narsimha Rao has also been accused of financial irregularities and was ordered by the Supreme Court to pay a penalty in several FEMA violation cases registered by the enforcement directorate. In 1996, he was arrested on charges of defrauding a London-based businessman of a hundred thousand Dollars.
And not to forget the Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi, who was alleged of faking miracles, sexual abuse and even pedophilia, all of which were vociferously refuted by his followers. In 1993, four persons were shot dead by the police after they had allegedly stabbed four devotees in Baba’s bedroom, killing two and serious injuring the other two. There also have been allegations of misappropriation of funds in the name of donations in running the Sathya Sai Baba trust worth somewhere between 9 to 33 billion Dollars. After his death, when his otherwise ‘out-of-bounds’ private quarter was accessed, his disciples found Nike and Adidas sneakers, cupboards of perfume and hairspray, 98 kg of gold, 307 kg of silver, apart from Rs. 11.56 crore in cash.
Probably the cleanest celebrity among gurus today is (Sri Sri) Ravi Shankar, deemed by Forbes magazine as one of the 5 most powerful people in India. Although there are several personal allegations and criticisms against him, there is little doubt that the Art of Living foundation is involved in women empowerment, rural development, prisoner rehabilitation, youth education, trauma relief for Kashmiris or Tsunami victims. However, in most of these problems they simply bring the same solution – Sudarshan Kriya. Ravi Shankar, in almost every case comes to teach them his meditation practices so that they can be relieved from their stress and fears. This oversimplification of solution is more dangerous than the problem itself.
The Art of Living website claims that Ravi Shankar wants to bring non-violence like Mahatma Gandhi and spread joy and happiness. Well, the Mahatma did not try to win independence with flowers and smiles, but with leadership and action. Non-violent, but with action nonetheless. Gandhi understood the stress of the Indians not to be simply a spiritual problem but a material, social and political problem as well. If ‘His Holiness Sri Sri’ therefore is lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize, a prize which the Mahatma never received, then he is certainly way across the line. Also, one cannot help but notice the copyright symbol on his Sudarshan Kriya. Copyright is a business tool, and protecting something which is centered around extremely old breathing exercises practiced freely in the past, seems strange for somebody who does not care for worldly matters.
I am not against spirituality or religion. There are many genuine spiritual gurus and yogis who work for larger causes than themselves, and really don’t care for wealth or publicity. A lot has been written and proven on the benefits of Yoga and I can always vouch for it. But I have always believed in a theory – if something is being overly advertised, probably it is not good enough. When it comes to spirituality – something very personal to every individual – seeing giant gurus – some of them even goons, rapists and murderers – ramming their idea of spirituality down the throats of people and picking their pockets is extremely disturbing. For a long time, Indian spirituality has been a small scale phenomenon where enlightened gurus have taught real seekers, unlike the business it has become today.
Tradition, values, age old techniques and a way of life are at sale. And since it is a religious phenomena, no one dares to question it.
सौरभ राय | Sourav Roy 
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