August 8, 2015 Sexual predators are more prevalent among rabbis, pastors and yogis than among Catholic priests But they are not as widely reported by the secular especially the international media

II. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31

[Lutheran] Woman bishop resigns

http://www.smh.com.au/world/woman-bishop-resigns-20100717-10f74.html

Hamburg, July 18, 2010

The world's first woman Lutheran bishop has resigned after accusations of abuse in her Hamburg diocese. She is the latest casualty of a scandal that has rocked the church.

Maria Jepsen, 65, came under fire for bungling the case of a pastor accused of abusing young boys and girls in nearby Ahrensburg in the 1970s and '80s. She reportedly knew of the case for several years but failed to act.

''My credibility has been called into question,'' she said at a hastily convened press conference to explain her decision. ''Therefore I am no longer in a position to continue the duty I promised to God and to my congregation when I was ordained and when I was elected as a bishop.''

German media had reported that a 46-year-old woman said she had been the victim of repeated sexual abuse by the pastor between 1979 and 1984. The pastor had admitted the abuse when confronted by his superiors.

The victim said she had revealed the abuse to the bishop as far back as 1999.

Bishop Jepsen has said she was told only about ''unworthy behaviour'' by the pastor and learnt of the precise nature of the abuse only this year.

Without reacting directly to the criticism, on Friday she called for the abuse cases, in Ahrensburg and elsewhere, to be cleared up as quickly as possible.

In 1992 she became the first woman to be appointed a Lutheran bishop and was elected to a second term in 2002.

I. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20 (NUMBERING OF YOGIS/GODMEN CONTINUES FROM THERE)

How Radhe Maa wore a mini skirt and took the pants off India's godmen

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/asaram-bapu-nirmal-baba-radhe-maa-godmen-golden-baba-kumbh-mela-talli-baba-bittu-bhagat/story/1/5509.html (All photographs have been omitted –Michael)

August 6, 2015

How do babas, who renounce all family and worldly possessions, end up with empires full of worldly possessions?

When an akhada or assembly of Hindu monks appoints someone mahamandaleshwar or the great godman, the aam aadmi does not take notice. When it happens ahead of a Kumbh fair, held every 12 years, other monks raise a hue and cry. It’s part jealousy, part wonder at how people with dubious distinctions dominate divinity, while the ascetics are made to carry their palanquins. When Swami Sachidananda Giri was appointed the mahamandaleshwar ahead of the Nashik Kumbh, questions were raised about his days in the saffron robe. Barely two years into monkhood, Sachidananada is accused of buying the throne for himself. This Land Rover-riding pub owner and builder from Noida was till then known as Sachin Dutta. He says he used to drink like a fish. Now his ascent to the chief ascetic rank has the akhadas astounded. Last time, it was Radhe Maa, who has been banned from Nashik this time.

What makes a baba more attractive and babadom more lucrative than real estate and dance bars? And how do babas, who renounce all family and worldly possessions, end up with empires full of worldly possessions? The answer is marketing and not everyone has the skills to nail that. First of all, a baba must have a USP, the unique selling proposition. A look at the USPs of four popular babas and that one maa.
13. SAINT GURMEET RAM RAHIM SINGH JI INSAN

USP: Main Tera Hero.

He is quite the filmi hero to his followers. He sings, dances, and does these in costumes. In fact, one costume resembling the attire of a Sikh Guru got him in big trouble. His teachings are simple, mostly because he is not that well-read. When he found some time from body-building, the Chhora Babbar Sher ka (lion cub) read up on religions. His girth stands witness to the fact that he has given up on body-building. He mixes well-meaning verses from different faiths and creates a cocktail that works likes magic on his disciples. He despises casteism. To rid people of casteism, he rids followers of their surname. He gives them a unique surname: Insan. That’s a noble thought. He acted in a movie, MSG: Messenger of God, which his followers ensured was a runaway hit at the box office. He makes regular appearances on TV and in a CBI court in Ambala, where he is tried in criminal cases ranging from rape to murder.
17. NIRMAL BABA

USP: Snacks!

He recommends yummy street food as the cure for perplexingly complex life issues. His congregations (samagam) are like wedding receptions, except there is no bride in sight. He sits on the stage, groom-like. In a hall generally packed with devotees who have paid for tickets, people stand up one by one in three different sessions. The first session is where devotees rise and shower him with praise. Everybody is given two microphones tied together with transparent adhesive tape, and four bouncers hold them from leaping towards the resident deity. In the second session, people just talk about their divine experiences in Nirmal Darbar, and Nirmal Baba shakes his hand as if he’s patting an imaginary horse. The third is where they put up their problems, ranging from daughter’s unfulfilled desire for marriage to son’s unemployment to serious heart and brain problems. His advice generally begins with food items or objects one may have seen. He rounds it off with an imperative visit to a shrine closest to the seeker’s place of residence. That’s the moment the devotee is supposed to shed tears and bouncers are supposed to stay unmoved. This Patiala businessman tried his hands at selling cloth, owning a brick-kiln and mine-contracting in Jharkhand because his brother-in-law, a prominent Jharkhand politician, wanted him to succeed. After failing at everything, he tried his hands at blessing people with pakodas, and today he owns a lot of property, including a bunch of boutique hotels.
3. ASARAM BAPU

USP: Flower shower.

This horse-cart-driver began his spiritual journey as a storyteller and is one of the biggest stories of crime and intrigue today. In jail for raping a minor, his ashrams are notorious for land grabbing and mysterious deaths. His style of delivering mythological discourses involves a lot of singing and dancing. And he would shower petals with a mechanised device on his followers, who would go home believing they are bathed in divinity. He counted many politicians among his followers, but politicians, being politicians, abandoned him when he went to jail. Subramanian Swamy still stands by him and for him, but he ain’t no follower. The followers who became witnesses against him are dying one by one.
2. RADHE MAA

USP: Closed red lips.

It is better to stay silent and look like a fool than speak and remove all doubt. Radhe Maa doesn’t speak a word even as the 50-year-old fools around in garish make-up and gaudy dresses. She carries a trident and often sports a crescent on her bouffant. She sits like a dumb doll on the stage one moment, and frolics with her fans the next. She jumps into the arms of unsuspecting devotees as if she is a baby. Chhoti Maa, who is much older than her, speaks on her behalf and says very little. To meet her, one needs to meet Talli Baba first. Born in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district, she was married off early to a sweetmeat seller. His business floundered and she began stitching clothes for a living, and found solace in a dera in Mukerian. Her guru Mahant Ramdeen of Paramhans Bagh Dera declared her divine at the age of 23. But it was Mumbai businessman Manmohan Gupta, who owns an outdoor advertising agency, who introduced her to the world as Radhe Maa. His company’s hoardings, when not occupied by advertising, advertises Radhe Maa. She lives on the first floor of his Borivali home. Her congregations or chowkis are like festivals, where people shower her presence with flower petals and she showers people with love in a world devoid of it. She is now charged with a dowry case. Manmohan Gupta’s daughter-in-law has filed a case against the Guptas and Radhe Maa, accusing them of harassing her for dowry.
18. GOLDEN BABA

USP: Gold. What else?

Born in a Punjabi Kakkar family in East Delhi’s Gandhinagar, Bittu Bhagat went to Haridwar and aimed to be a sadhu. He came back and erected a temple in his locality and began blessing people in exchange of affection, and, of course, donation for his ashram. He realised gold is rare and beautiful, apart from being valuable. He wanted his followers to become like gold, and also give him their gold. He wears about 10kg of that. Greedy income tax sleuths have apparently tried to find the source of all that glitter, but then, devotee donations are tax-free. “This is god’s gold, not mine. I know what the tax officials are trying to do, but I hope that by being close to me they will eventually be brought into god’s way and give up their greed.”

And gold, yeah! He came to fame when he visited the Kumbh Mela covered in gold and flanked by white women disciples. He, himself, goes to other senior babas for blessings and loves being photographed. Above all, he is a glittering, fun-loving chap in a Bentley.


How Radhe Maa's mini skirt exposes our blind bhakti

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/radhe-maa-religion-mini-skirt-satsang-sex-bhakti-godwoman-godman-asaram-hindu-gajendra-chauhan-dolly-bindra/story/1/5538.html EXTRACT

By Angshukanta Chakraborty, August 7, 2015 (All photographs have been omitted –Michael)

So what if a little sex is being mingled with a lot of satsang? So what if Radhe Maa and her disciples' religion is soft porn in the backdrop of Bollywood numbers? So what if she jazzes up jagrata banality with a dash of red of the sleazier variety, with quasi-orgies masquerading as religious congregations? Asaram is allegedly a paedophile sitting atop a Rs10, 000-crore empire of conmanship. Ramdev, with his yogic moves and disgustingly misogynist, homophobic rants, is also an entrepreneur of (some version of) Ayurveda. Why wouldn't conning be an equal-opportunity profession?
19. SARATHI BABA

CB Probe Blows Lid off Sarathi Empire

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/CB-Probe-Blows-Lid-Off-Sarathi-Empire/2015/08/10/article2966511.ece

August 10, 2015

Bhubaneswar: More and more skeletons are tumbling out of the coffers of Sarathi Baba as the Crime Branch has dug into the financial transactions and wealth accumulated by the self-styled godman. He not only amassed property for himself, benami assets were also believed to have been created in the name of members of the Satyam Charitable Trust.

The cyber experts of the Crime Branch have laid their hands on a whopping 5 gigabyte (GB) information on his accounts from his laptop which could unravel the financial empire of Sarathi, alias Santosh Raula and help the agency pin down the self-styled godman.

Raula —who was brought on remand by the CB on Sunday — operated six bank accounts. While four of them were in his own name, two were operated by the Trust. The investigating agency is looking into the transactions in these accounts, Additional DG BK Sharma said.

Though donations were the only source of income of the godman, Raula channelised them to invest in property both in Kendrapara and Bhubaneswar. He owns a house in the Capital and so does Satyam, who is stated to be his son though Raula claims that he adopted the 20-year old. The two property are valued at several crores of rupees.

While interrogating him since 1 pm on Sunday, the CB officials also brought in the chartered accountant who was engaged by Raula to conduct the financial audit of the Trust. The CA has made significant revelations about the transactions, sources said.

The CB, which has a specialised Economic Offences Wing (EOW), has found out that Raula filed Income Tax (IT) returns and so did the Trust. The investigators have also stumbled upon a notice served by the IT department on Raula which the CB plans to trail and seek details from the Income Tax officials.

Besides real estates, investments were apparently made in an Odia film Bachelor. The agency is trying to ascertain if the investment was made directly by Raula or through any firm. “If it was made through a firm, we can go through the Registrar of Companies and seek the details of the company,” sources said.

Since Raula is also accused of encroaching “gochar” land, the CB will send a team to Kendrapara on Monday which will carry out demarcation and valuation of the ashram land and other property. A local tahsildar and executive engineer of (Roads and Buildings) will escort the CB sleuths in the exercise. During interrogation, Raula confessed that he frequently travelled by air and stayed in star hotels across the country. All this was done by using the donation money.

Rotten sex lives of gurus and token saints

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/rotten-sex-lives-of-gurus-and-babas/story/1/718.html

By Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, November 19, 2014

Till how long must the God-fearing Indian continue to suffer?

It was an early winter afternoon in 2013. We sat in a sun-tinged café, somewhere in Defence Colony. All around us were happy couples, along with a bunch of firangs sipping masala chai. Their eyes restive, the chatter loud. One of them wore a T-shirt with the famous Osho quote, "Brahmacharya is not against sex".

I stared at his teal eyes. As if it were a sign. Across the table, sat a woman in her mid ‘20s. "You can call me Neeti, it's not my real name, I cannot tell you my real name… I knew you'd understand… I am not a liar," she chose her words with caution, ordering a vegetarian sandwich for herself. A thick, bandhni dupatta guarded most of her face.

"How did you know my story? How could you?" she paused, finishing the last bite, her lower lip quivering.

I had been waiting for this moment. When a woman who regularly inboxed me on Facebook, and regularly "liked" my status updates (short extracts) about the book I was working on, even expressing a strong desire to meet me in person, on her next trip to Delhi, sharing her cell number and calling me promptly upon arrival, the way she had promised, would cross over, becoming an actual person.

Flesh. Blood. Cuts…

"It's all your will, Maharaj. If you so desire, my Badi Bahu will conceive without any complications... who doesn't know of your miraculous powers. Oh holy One, I beg you to bless her womb" she went on, lowering her head devotedly.

"What is her name?" Guruji thundered, his wooden sandals scraping the ground.

"Meera... I had her janam kundli sent to you as soon as the alliance was fixed," Ba reminded him.

For a while no one spoke, then I heard the kutir door creaking to a close. Ba had departed. It was only Guruji and I.

"Look at me, Meera," he commanded. The sound of his voice sent a sharp shiver down my spine.

"Step forward and look into my eyes. I'm not going to hurt you, I promise..." I heard the words up-close as a pair of brawny hands tugged at my wrists, pushing my ghunghat off my head.

As if in a hypnotic trance, I looked up at his looming silhouette.

"You have been thinking about me, haven't you?" Guruji scoured my face, stepping forward from the surrounding shadows, a sense of assuredness soaking his last words.

He had a handsome, bearded face. I confronted his intense, dark rimmed eyes, which brimmed over with the turbulence of the river back home.

My throat was parched.

"Do you think I will harm such an attractive woman as you?" he continued unperturbed, securing his muscular arms around my shoulders and drawing me to him.

"It's... I mean it's not so simple... you are a holy man... revered by one and all..." I don't know why I suddenly blurted.
There was an awkward silence.

"I was 16, ours is a business family from Jaipur, and my husband is almost twelve years my senior. When I hadn't conceived after my second year of marriage, my in-laws said they were taking me to see their family Guruji, claiming he had miraculous powers. I was probably too naïve, and also, worried about being labeled a "baanjh". And, so I relented. Initially, my mother-in-law accompanied me to his ashram. I was usually administered a lot of jaributis that I had to consume daily, along with observing rigorous fasts. Every evening almost, there was a satsang. Then one day, my husband came along. I was led to Guruji's kutir alone. There was no one. Since I knew him by then, I wasn't scared of being in his presence, but kept asking him what was the purpose of this sudden visit, if I had not observed his strict diet etc.

Guruji, almost in his 60s then placed my left hand over his organ. It's how things started… the first time… after he explained how the body is simply a medium, and how it is my dharma and karma as a woman to procreate - that sex is like a sadhana. I broke down, telling Guruji the darkest secret of my life. My husband's problem - the fact that I suspected he was impotent, his sexual prowess unsatisfactory, and how it wasn't my fault. I was still weeping, when I felt him behind me. His loin pressed into my buttocks. I was shocked and tried fighting him. Guruji placed his hands over my neck. Then. We did it from the rear. Technically, I was still a virgin. I walked with a limp for days…"

Neeti choked.

"Is that your son?" I interrupted, turning her cell phone around, peering into the honey-glazed eyes of a little child. Maybe three or four.

Neeti asked for another glass of water. Chilled, she clarified.

"You say you are writing a story of an ordinary, Indian, middle class housewife… but, will you have the strength to tell the story as it happened… will they believe you? The people reading… after all, this is India. Here, politicians and religious leaders can get away with murder… rape… anything. And women, like Sita maiyya must always go through a strict agnipariksha. Besides, I am not here today to create some sensation. What happened to me is my fate. I must fight it, somehow. Tell my son, the truth if I can. I also want to write… one day… about why mother-in-laws parade their bahus to all these dhongi Babas… and why we all prefer silence… like a coward… the hawas… behind those havans… and how easy it is for sex and spirituality to be confused under the guise of women unable to have children… impotent men who never really own up to their physical limitations… gay men marrying for family pressure… or men… who decides what is punya and what is paap? A man? Or a God?" she grit her teeth.

The woman in me, more, much more than the writer felt defeated at this point.

"Did you ever think of telling your husband, Neeti? At least him? Ever?" was all I could manage. Placing my hands over hers.

For a while, we remained like that.

"Woh…" she drank a sip of water.

I cleared the bill, as a strange restlessness gathered inside.

"Woh hamesha bahar baithe hote rehte hain…," her dupatta slid off, finally.

Neeti's neck was burnt.

My book Sita's Curse came and went. For some, it will be called "India's first feminist erotica" that rocked the literary charts. But to me, Sita's Curse stands as a colossal failure - our collective shortcoming as a society to shield our women. To educate them, insulate them from the damaging effects of religious superstitions, that are mostly man-made, and a whole lot of mumbo jumbo, aimed to tighten the patriarchal noose around her frail neck. To save them the sheer disgrace and humiliation of being prostrated before men, sometimes old enough to be their fathers, in saffron or white, flowing robes. For something as banal and regressive as being a Manglik or a Baanjh. For being single too long, failing to conceive, being in an unhappy marriage, or producing a healthy, male heir.

For defining a woman's purpose with the same orthodox rigidity, as her penance. For our impotent rage every time a news headline breaks out about self-proclaimed Godmen and sagas of their gory sexual exploitation, where along with images of the molested victim whose face is often blurred, we witness a sea of blind followers, vociferously arguing his innocence, their eyes ablaze, citing all the miracles he may have performed, grey ash smeared all over their foreheads, as they point to the charities he runs, hospitals, free beds, Yoga camps, Ayurvedic medicines, before observing austere fasts, waiting with their hands, folded, outside countless courtrooms, and ashrams. As if both must have the same purpose - to read out a verdict on a man.

Mahapurush? Mafia head? Molestor? Messiah?

Even as I sit writing this, the country's top headlines scream of one such Baba Rampal who holds Hisar to ransom. Charged for conspiracy to murder, inciting mobs and contempt of court, Baba Rampal has missed his High Court hearing thrice - November 5, November 10 and the latest, being November 17. Around 30,000 supporters (Baba's commandoes who wear black and operate under the name, Rashtriya Samaj Sewa Samiti) are allegedly inside his ashram controlled from a "war room," guarding the fortified 12-acre ashram with 20 firing trenches, some of them even carrying .315 caliber rifles. Around 200 people, including 40 policemen, are being treated in various hospitals for injuries. What's however startling is the statistics that his followers allegedly hold people, including women and children as a human shield to prevent his arrest.

There is no dearth of paapi posterboys in a country that looks to religion for everything. No wonder then that joining rapists and child sex offenders and netas with criminal records are an odd bunch of self-styled Godmen.
Like Asaram Bapu for instance, who openly delivers sex sermons, that even a customary search on YouTube throws up - videos where the tainted sanyasi is seen dispensing sex gyaan to his shishyas. "Avoid sex during amavasya, purnima, Shivaratri or Holi. A child conceived on these days will be born handicapped," one of his pathshalas declares, with dire celestial consequences, "even if a child is not conceived, intercourse on this day will lead to impotence and the man could face several other problems. Similarly, if a child is conceived between 12.30 and 2.30 during the day, he or she will go on to become a highly intelligent person."

Asaram, who is currently embroiled in a highly publicised sex case was arrested by the Jodhpur police for allegedly raping a 15-year-old girl in his ashram. Earlier in 2008, the Guru who declared that masturbation or homosexuality in men is a waste of energy, sapping them of physical and mental stamina, was charged in a criminal case when two young boys died in his Motera ashram in Gujarat.

"There has been a conspiracy to malign him for many years," Asaram Bapu's most trusted media manager Sunil Wankhede has gone on record to claim, further adding that his mentor lacks sexual desires as he is not a "common man." "He is a sant (saint). And saints don't have sexual desires," Wankhede asserts.
Like Asaram, Swami Nithyananda of the Dhyanapeeta Charitable Trust in Bidadi, near Bangalore was also caught on local TV channels in 2010 in a compromising position with a Tamil actress. The same year, Aarthi Rao, a former follower of Swami Nithyananda, filed a complaint with the criminal investigation department, Bangalore, alleging sexual harassment by him. Nithyananda was arrested subsequently, but freed in 53 days.

"Doctors at the state-run Victoria Hospital in Bangalore, who are yet to submit the medical report to the police, said that the potency test conducted on Nithyananda is incomplete, as he had reportedly ducked a part of the test. Maintaining that he was a "Sanyasi" and had not indulged in any sexual activity, Nithyananda initially did not cooperate with some of the tests, but underwent them later, sources said," the Daily Mail shamefully highlighted, as recently as September 11.this year.

Religion in India is risky business. Hinduism sadly reduced to its lowest common denominator, relying greatly on puja path, vraths, daan, dakshina and suraksha kawach's to help espouse its moral fiber, while being conveniently tight-lipped about its deep-rooted sexual delineations - parading sex as a magical healing tool for the unsuspecting victim, mostly women. Take for instance, the esoteric tradition of tantra where spiritual salvation is sought through sexual union, commonly misused to trap foreigners who often travel to India, in search of nirvana, be it in the copiously crowded ghats of Benaras or in the misty foothills of Rishikesh.

Though we prefer not to own up to the eroticism that is latent in our cultural consciousness, sacredness and sex go back a long way. The ancient temples of Khajuraho and Konark revel in broad hipped and plump-breasted nymphs (apsaras)with intricately carved bodies indulging in shringaar, washing their tresses, playing games, dancing, and knotting and unknotting their girdles. Besides, the celestial nymphs exist griffins, guardian deities and passionately interlocked maithunas, or lovemaking couples. Noted American art historian, Stella Kramrisch, describes this state, which is, "like a man and woman in close embrace," as a symbol of moksha, the final release or reunion of two principles, the essence (Purusha) and the nature (Prakriti.)